Posts filed under 'Operating Systems'
If you’ve been waiting to try out Linux, but the price of the more ‘user-friendly’ distributions is putting you off, then you might like to take a look at Linspire Five-0.
Linspire Five-0, formally known as Lindows until big Bill’s lawyers called, is an easy-to-install version of Linux containing a full Internet suite; a complete office suite; digital photo and music managers; advanced notebook and wireless capabilities; and much more. Linspire includes a lot of legal and paid-for 3rd-party licenses for things like mp3, Java, Flash, Quick Time, Windows Media, Bitstream fonts, Real media, music, etc., and this is all pre-loaded, tested and ready to use.
However, the recent release of ‘Freespire’, a private project being worked on by Andrew Betts which used much of the freely available source repository for Linspire got submitted to distrowatch.com as a bona-fide Linux distribution. Andrew found himself confronted with a great deal of confusion surrounding the project, so he quickly changed the name to avoid further misunderstandings. Freespire didn’t have the third party licenses mentioned above and so was in no way a ‘free’ version of Linspire.
Out of the goodness of their hearts, Linspire are offering a truly free version until September 6. “We thought it would be fun”, says the download page which suggests that they need to experience more things that really are fun, but the thought is appreciated nonetheless.
You’d better get a move on though as the offer ends tomorrow and their server is struggling under the weight of all those downloads.
September 5th, 2005
Within days of the new Microsoft OS, Windows Vista, getting a release to a select group of developers there were concerns that one of the new features, a command line shell reminiscent of Unix, could be exploited by virus writers.
The evidence for this was largely circumstantial, but it gave Microsoft a bit of negative press just when they didn’t want it, so at the same time that they were rubbishing the claims, they also confirmed that the new shell (codenamed Monad) would not be in the first release of Vista in 2006.
It is likely to be seen first in the next version of Exchange and then the server product based on the Longhorn/Vista codebase. It will only make an appearance in the main version of Vista after the OS has been available for some time.
August 8th, 2005
When Apple announced that they were to ditch IBM and start to use Intel processors for their Mac computers, the first question on the lips of the tech-savvy was “I wonder if that means OSX will run on my PC?”
It seems that the answer is NO.
The Inquirer reports that Intel-powered Macs that have been delivered to developers contain a digital signature that allows the installation of a specific copy of OSX. Take the OSX DVDs to another Intel PC and they won’t install. In fact, take them to another Intel Mac and they won’t install.
It seems that Apple is keen to make sure that if you want to use OSX (TechSmec.com isn’t sure why anyone would actually want to do this) then you also have to fork out the dosh to buy a shiny, silver Mac. Of course, the PC community isn’t so mean-spirited and it seems possible to install Windows or Linux onto the Apple hardware, so if you’ve always coveted a Mac Mini, but don’t want to forsake Bill Gates you can now do so. It will cost you mind you.
August 5th, 2005
Most users have no idea that a Word document contains more than just the text and formatting that you see on the screen. It also contains a complete history of the creation of the document, so that comment you typed about the boss in the heat of the moment is still there, waiting to be uncovered by a savvy user.
An even more obvious problem is that of blacking out text to obscure it.
The problem came into the public consciousness when the US military in Iraq used the black highlighter to obscure some classified text in a document. Fine in print as the document came out in the traditional ‘censored’ style. However, the document was converted to a PDF and anyone with any experience in the format was able to select the classfied text from under the black highlight.
Now, Microsoft have quietly released a tool that aids in the cleaning up (or ‘redaction’) of Word documents.
The new Microsoft tool, which runs with Office 2003 will remove unwanted text from a document before you distribute it, so you can rest assured that your private thoughts are safe.
August 5th, 2005
Goodbye Longhorn. Just as we were all starting to think that Microsoft would keep the codename for the new version of Windows, they’ve announced that it will be known as Windows Vista.
The replacement for XP will be released towards the end of 2006, with developers getting a beta version on August 3rd 2005. Even if Microsoft meet the planned launch date it will still be five years since the birth of Windows XP, marking the longest ever period without a new version of the world’s most-used operating system.
There are three main planks to Vista (according to the Microsoft marketing blurb).
1) It will be safer and more robust than any other OS.
2) It will enable easier organisation and retrieval of files and media.
3) It will seamlessly interconnect with other devices.
Vista’s development has been one of the most documented in software history with Microsoft having to abandon many of thier ambitious plans for the OS because of time constraints. The new WinFS file system is one such casualty. It is expected to still be in beta by the time that Vista launches.
STOP PRESS: The name Vista has apparently been registered for several years by an American company, ironically based in Redmond, the home town of Microsoft. What this means for the name is unclear as Vista are still considering their options.
July 25th, 2005
A vulnerability has been reported in Microsoft Windows in the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) implementation, allowing a remote user to cause denial of service conditions.
This is of particular interest to users of XPMCE as RDP is turned on by default in that version of Windows (but not in XP Professional or Home).
No fix is available at the moment although Microsoft plan to issue a fix, presumably in August’s round of fixes and patches unless the vulnerability proves to be critical.
This vulnerability could not be used to take control of a computer or network.
For the full Microsoft report click here.
July 19th, 2005
IBM has announced a roadmap that will see it kill off its cult OS/2 operating system. Support will officially end with the removal of fixes and patches from the IBM website in December 2006, seeing an end to the software that, for a while, threatened to challenge Windows as the predominant operating system on the PC platform.
OS/2 was jointly developed by IBM and Microsoft, but fell out of favour when Microsoft withdrew from the partnership to focus on Windows and, in the process, took its now evident marketing skills with it.
The market for OS/2 dwindled rapidly, but remained popular in several key areas, among them ATMs. However, even niches like this turned to Windows and, more recently, Linux. IBM has now recommended Linux as a replacement for OS/2, although die-hard OS/2 customers (and there are apparently less than 80) can purchase a maintenance contract to see them past 2006 if they like.
“We’re making official what has been going on for quite some time,” said Steve Eisenstadt, an IBM spokesman. “We haven’t released a new version of OS/2 in nine years.”
IBM had been petitioned to make OS/2 open source, but has ruled out the move because of potential legal hurdles.
July 17th, 2005
HD-DVD and Toshiba seem to have become increasingly desperate in recent weeks and it’s become clear that Sony simply aren’t interested in making a deal on a unification of the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray formats. This desperation is partly founded in the knowledge that Sony possesses a killer USP - the Playstation 3, whereas Toshiba has none. Now Toshiba are moving to redress the balance by forming a partnership with Microsoft that will see sharing of ideas and technologies, as well as the joint production of an HD-DVD player.
The proposed player will combine Microsoft’s experience in software development with Toshiba knowledge of the consumer electronics market. It is likely to run using the Microsoft CE operating system. Whether or not HD-DVD will find its way into the Xbox 360 is unclear, but if it did then Toshiba would finally have a USP to compete with Sony and battle would start to look a little more balanced.
“We feel we have gained a powerful supporter on our side,” Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters at a Tokyo hotel, where he appeared with Bill Gates.
“Microsoft values our strong relationship with Toshiba, a company we admire for its long-standing commitment to innovation,” said Gates. “This agreement demonstrates our desire to share our innovations with other companies in ways that promote the spread of new ideas - and benefit customers by accelerating the development of exciting new products.”
June 27th, 2005
Microsoft is to fully embrace RSS with its forthcoming Longhorn operating system.
RSS support in previous operating systems has been sketchy to non-existent and users have relied on third party software or plug-ins. Now RSS functionality is to be built right into the OS itself (sounds like another job for European business regulators if you ask us) as well as being one of the key features of Internet Explorer 7.
Microsoft also announced that it is releasing its Simple List Extensions to RSS under a Creative Commons license, mirroring the license under which the RSS 2.0 spec was issued. Simple List Extensions are an attempt to increase the flexibility of the RSS specification so that it can be used as a data delivery vehicle and list-handling platform. This smacks a little of a return to the days when Microsoft took it upon themselves to extend HTML in a non-standards compliant way, but in this case, the applications look useful.
“RSS is key to how people will use the Internet in the future by automatically delivering the information that is important to them,” said Dean Hachamovitch, general manager for “Longhorn” browsing and RSS at Microsoft. “We are investing heavily in RSS for Windows ‘Longhorn’ to make it easy for users to discover, read and subscribe to RSS feeds as well as enable developers to deliver powerful, smart applications that act on the information on behalf of the user.”
June 24th, 2005
AOL were left red-faced after their new Netscape web browser caused problems with the rendering of XML in Internet Explorer, but they have now released a patch to correct the issue.
The original flaw was first reported by Dave Massy, senior programme manager for IE, on the Microsoft IE blog. “We have just confirmed an issue that has started to be reported on newsgroups and forums that, after installing Netscape 8, the XML rendering capabilities of Internet Explorer no longer work.”
The Microsoft fix was simply to uninstall Netscape.
AOL have responded by claiming that the problem was caused by faulty IE documentation, a claim that Microsoft have yet to respond to.
Initial reports are that the IE bug has been fixed by the patch, but that other instabilities may have been introduced.
June 18th, 2005
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