Practical Technology

for practical people.

June 1, 2009
by sjvn01
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Microsoft may shoot itself in the foot with Win 7 pricing

Believe it or not, I rather like Windows 7. I still think XP SP3 is what you want if performance matters most to you, but 7 does OK on the racetrack, and most of Vista’s biggest annoyances have either been fixed or dumped. Technically speaking, Windows 7 is exactly what Microsoft needs in order to recover from its Vista fiasco. Too bad the company seems to want to shoot itself in the foot.

Although Windows 7 pricing hasn’t been officially announced, the word is out — the “word” actually being two words: higher prices. Whether you buy a single Windows 7 license or a few thousand, the expectation is that you’ll be paying more.

Will this go over well? Let me check. Is the economy still a mess? Does anyone have much cash lying around? I don’t think so, and neither do any of the companies that track such things. There’s a reason why cheap-as-dirt netbooks have been the one hardware sector that has been showing some life: People can afford them.

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June 1, 2009
by sjvn01
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Ubuntu and Moblin Linux to work together

I knew there was going to be big Linux netbook news coming out of the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan, but I didn’t know it was going to be this big. Sources at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, tell me that Canonical will be announcing new partnerships with Intel, SanDisk, and RealNetworks. To me, the biggest news is that Canonical will be demonstrating the Moblin version of the UNR (Ubuntu Netbook Remix).

This demo is based on the current beta code from Intel. As far as I know, this version won’t immediately be available to the public. However, Canonical will also be announcing that they’ll develop a UNR based on the full release of Moblin 2. Canonical and Intel sources both say that the full version of Moblin 2 will be out by year’s end.

UNR is a slimmed down version of Ubuntu 8.04, that’s meant to get the most out of a netbook’s limited hardware. Unlike most versions of Ubuntu, this one is meant only for OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), rather than users. It’s meant to make it easy for them to ship Ubuntu-powered, Intel Atom-based netbooks. Specifically, UNR is designed to work with and Intel Atom processor, 512MBs of RAM and at a 4GB SSD (Solid State Drive) or hard disk.

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May 31, 2009
by sjvn01
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When SCO is dead and buried

There was a time when SCO was a great company. No. Seriously. SCO Unix was a great Unix for x86 systems, and, for a brief shining moment it looked like SCO would bring together the best things of both Unix and Linux. Then, SCO’s ownership got it into their heads that trying to take IBM, Red Hat, Novell, and anyone who else who used Linux was a great plan. Ha!

As Pamela Jones, editor of Groklaw, points out, SCO appears to be heading towards Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. For those of you who don’t know, Chapter 7 can be thought of as the Go to Jail card in the game Monopoly. “Go directly to Jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.” Or, go out of business; do not come back; please leave the plumbing in the restrooms on your way out the door.

But now what? Novell owns Unix. There’s still some good stuff left in there that isn’t duplicated in Linux.

We’ll never see an open-source SVRx (System V Release X) Unix though. Ransom Love, the former CEO of Caldera/SCO, had intended on combing Linux and Unix, but SCO quickly found that Unix was filled with other companies’ copyrighted code. As Love said in 2003, “Indeed, at first we wanted to open-source all of Unix’s code, but we quickly found that even though we owned it, it was, and still is, full of other companies copyrights.”

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May 28, 2009
by sjvn01
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Novell fattens net in bad financial times

Novell announced good financial results for its second fiscal quarter on May 28th, which ended April 30, 2009. While the net revenue of $216 million was down compared to the net revenue of $236 million for the second fiscal quarter of 2008, Novell squeezed out an increase in its net revenue by cutting costs. Net income was up to $16 million, or a nickel per share form $6 million, or two-cents per share, for the second fiscal quarter of 2008.

The company saw its biggest growth in its Open Platform Solutions area, which, for all intents and purposes, is Novell’s Linux business. Open Platform showed $39 million revenue, and $37 million of that was from its Linux Platform Products. Novell also saw a bit of growth in its Identity and Security Management division. Workgroup product revenue, which was the single biggest profit center, with $79 million of revenue, saw a decrease of 14% year over year. This area, the old NetWare business under a different name, will continue to decline as more and more businesses move away from NetWare.

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May 28, 2009
by sjvn01
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Fedora 11’s best five features

Fedora, Red Hat’s community Linux’s arrival has been delayed until early next week, June 2, but the release candidate is already looking mighty darn good.

I’ve been using Fedora 11 since the late beta showed up in mid-April, and I’ve been very impressed. It’s fast, it’s stable, and it’s got a snazzy new look. That said, there’s one change that I’m not crazy about, audio control, so let’s get that out of the way first.

In Fedora 11, or more properly its main desktop interface, GNOME 2.26, uses a new and mindlessly simple audio control: the PulseAudio volume control widget. Instead of multiple sliders that give you direct control over the low-level ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) system, you get one slider for volume. That’s it.

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May 27, 2009
by sjvn01
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Here comes summer’s first Linux netbook

Reports of the Linux netbook’s death at the hands of Microsoft have been greatly exaggerated. A flood of Linux netbook news will be made next week at the Computex trade show in Taiwan, but, after Intel announced the beta of Moblin 2, HP have decided not to wait until then and made an important Linux netbook announcement this week.

HP announced that it was releasing a new netbook, the HP Mini 110, that runs Ubuntu Linux 8.04 with HP’s easy to use Mi (Mobile internet) desktop interface. It will also be available with XP Home, but, for once, the Linux powered model looks to be the more compelling buy even if you don’t care for Linux.

The new Mini will give you a choice between the N270 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU you find in almost every netbook on the market today, and the newer N270 Intel Atom processor N280 that runs at 1.66-GHz. It also boasts a 10.1? LED anti-glare display. This screen may have the option of a Broadcom Crystal HD decoder, which HP says will optimize HD video in H.264, MPEG-4 and other formats. I say may because HP has confirmed that this will be an option on the XP model, but they’re mum on whether this will be available for the Linux Mini.

Interestingly enough, otherwise, the Linux model has more and better options than the XP netbook. On the XP, your storage choices will be a 160GB hard drive or a 32GB SSD (solid state drive). For Linux, though, you also have the option of a 250GB hard drive. In addition, and this is important, on the XP system your only choice in memory is 1GB of RAM. If you go with Linux, though, you can have up to 2GBs.

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