April 22, 2008
by sjvn01
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Who would have believed it in 2004? KDE and GNOME, the two major Linux desktop interfaces, buddying up and having their annual meetings together? It would have been easier to believe in cats and dogs signing a permanent peace treaty. Believe it.
The two once bitter rivals for the Linux desktop have agreed to co-host Akademy and GUADEC, KDE and GNOME’s main conferences in the summer of 2009.
April 22, 2008
by sjvn01
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You’d think the Web designers and masters of a major presidential campaign site would get it right wouldn’t you? I mean, they’re running these sites to convince voters to get their person into the White House right? Isn’t that worth a little time and trouble to make sure that the site isn’t easily crackable?
Well, as anyone who tried to visit Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign site’s community area over the weekend only to find themselves visiting Sen. Clinton’s site knows the answer is “no.”
It’s not just Obama’s techies though. It seems that’s Hillary’s site is also ripe for the picking, but so far, to the best of my knowledge, no one’s done it. Yet.
April 22, 2008
by sjvn01
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Thanks to the European Union’s courts, Microsoft was forced to open up its APIs and protocols for its MCPP (Microsoft Communications Protocol Program) and WSPP (Workgroup Server Protocol Program). According to Keith Hageman, an MSDN moderator, “The MCPP package content details Windows Clients to Windows Server protocols for all features. The WSPP package content details Windows Client to Windows Server and Windows Server to Windows Server protocols for ‘File and Print.’ ‘User and Group Administration,’ and ‘Networking Transport’ features only.” In English, these are the keys to getting non-Microsoft programs, such as the open-source file/print server Samba, to work with Microsoft clients and servers.
Sounds great doesn’t it? The poison pill in all this is that while Microsoft has to let you develop programs that use these protocols and APIs, it can, according to Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, charge you a patent license per copy if you create commercial software with this information. It would be helpful, of course, if you could tell when you might be in danger of violating a Microsoft patent. Aye, there’s the rub.
April 22, 2008
by sjvn01
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You can never have enough money or a fast-enough wireless connection. We can’t help with the money part, but for Wi-Fi users, IEEE 802.11n—with its up to 300Mbps (megabits per second) burst speeds—is the answer.
Well, it should be the answer. Deploying 802.11 is really not as simple as picking a networking vendor and pushing through a purchase order.
That’s because 802.11n has been stuck in standards mud-wrestling for years. As is so often the case in standards, two major vendor sides squared off over which group’s approach would become the one true—and thus money making—standard.
April 21, 2008
by sjvn01
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Well, it took Microsoft long enough, but Windows XP SP3 has finally been RTMed (released to manufacturing).
Users, however, can’t update yet. According to a Microsoft TechNet forum posting by Chris Keroack, the release manager, for Windows XP Service Pack 3, XP SP3 for XP Pro users will be made available “on April 29th, via Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center.” XP Home users will need to wait even longer. “Windows XP SP3 Automatic Update distribution for users at home will begin in early summer,” wrote Keroack.
In a note to his original message, Keroack also wrote that XP SP3 isn’t available yet to MSDN or TechNet members. While many had hoped that it would be available today, they’ll need to wait, it seems, until it becomes publicly available. Keroack wrote, “This will be available within the next month.”
April 21, 2008
by sjvn01
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Psystar claims it can make Mac clones for cheap. There’s reason to doubt however that anyone will ever actually own a Psystar $399 Open Computer running Mac OS X. Funny, though, as Jason Perlow points out in his ZDNet blog, it’s really not that much trouble to build a Hackintosh.
Perlow explains that “Well, along with legal copies of Mac OS X and a special EFI firmware emulator for PC BIOS-based equipment and instructions how to put it all together it doesn’t really require any more effort than what it would have typically taken a PC homebrewer to assemble their own DOS or Windows-based white box 10 or 15 years ago.”