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Flash Player 9 Update Release Candidate availableFlash Player 9 Update Release Candidate available
Adobe has released an updated release candidate of their proprietary software flash player. It has some new features such as support for H.264 video, but it really does not matter as the license remains totally unacceptable.
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KDE 4.0 Alpha 2 ReleasedKDE 4.0 Alpha 2 Released
KDE Community are now immensely proud to have put the second Alpha version of what will probably be the worlds most popular desktop environment in a few years.
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Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.12 marks the ned of Firefox v1.5Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.12 marks the ned of Firefox v1.5
Firefox 1.5.0.12 is now rolled out and it is the last security update which will be made for Firefox 1.5.x. Linux distributions will probably update their packages with security patches, but there will be no more official 1.5.x releases. Mozilla Corporation attitude is update to 2.x or switch browser.
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SpamAssassin 3.2.1 and 3.1.9 releasedSpamAssassin 3.2.1 and 3.1.9 released
These new versions fix a local user symlink-attack denial of service vulnerability which is possible under extremely rare configurations.
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News and headlines

Latest Linux / Computer / Technology News and Headlines

LXer Linux News
  • A peek at Phoenix's HyperSpace fast-boot Linux add-on
    PC BIOS giant Phoenix Technologies today launched a fast-booting Linux add-on for Windows PCs. This hands-on review finds "HyperSpace" works to redress slow boot times, WiFi connection hassles, and short battery lives typical of Windows PCs, but sacrifices a lot of flexibility in order to achieve these goals.
  • How to be a Geek Goddess
    The newly-released book "How to be a Geek Goddess" is supposed to be a helpful, not-condescending computing howto for women. Tina Gasperson, who blatantly admits to being of the female persuasion herself, isn't sure it meets these goals, and suffers from severely mixed feelings. Read Tina's review to find out if this is a must-read or a must-fling-against-the-wall.
  • Easy Peasy Linux released for netbooks
    Ubuntu Eee is dead, long live Easy Peasy! This is a custom Linux distribution (Ubuntu 8.10 based), optimized for netbooks, especially the Eee PC series.
  • High-Availability Load Balancer With HAProxy/Wackamole/Spread On Debian Etch
    This article explains how to set up a two-node load balancer in an active/passive configuration with HAProxy, Wackamole, and Spread on Debian Etch. The load balancer sits between the user and two (or more) backend Apache web servers that hold the same content. Not only does the load balancer distribute the requests to the two backend Apache servers, it also checks the health of the backend servers. If one of them is down, all requests will automatically be redirected to the remaining backend server. In addition to that, the two load balancer nodes monitor each other using Wackamole and Spread, and if the master fails, the slave becomes the master, which means the users will not notice any disruption of the service. HAProxy is session-aware, which means you can use it with any web application that makes use of sessions (such as forums, shopping carts, etc.).
  • Phoenix HyperSpace: An Instant-On Linux Environment?
    Fifteen months ago we exclusively showed off SplashTop from DeviceVM, which was an instant-on Linux environment embedded into ASUS motherboards and since then it has worked its way into products from other OEMs. DeviceVM continues to work on further refining SplashTop by adding in virtualization support and other features, along with a promised developer SDK. Phoenix Technologies, the company producing the BIOSes for many of the motherboards on the market, is today introducing their SplashTop competitor. HyperSpace is the Phoenix Technologies product being unveiled this morning with several distinct differences from SplashTop.
  • Appeal for BtrFS Inclusion in Kernel
    Chris Mason, lead developer of the copy-on-write BtrFS filesystem, has appealed for its inclusion in the Linux kernel.
  • Dual-screen laptop madness from Lenovo
    Think of the two most popular laptops trends, namely big screens and small screens. Now put them together and what do you get? Yep, the Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds with one big screen and one small screen. Is this genius or simply the maddest laptop ever?
  • Linuxy New Year's Resolutions
    Bloggers took a moment to contemplate the upcoming year and what it means for open source software and Linux in particular. There were some New Year's resolutions and a few holiday gifts still floating around in the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.
  • Using Wget's User Agent Option Safely On Linux And Unix
    Oh, no. There goes Tokyo... Forget about using Mozilla with Wget ;) Today's post is a follow up to some questions we've received about our previously posted scripts designed to allow you to find your search index rank on Google, Yahoo, MSN/Live and Ask.com.
  • OpenBSD tip: Speed up boot time if you're running CUPS
    When I set up an OpenBSD box, I generally use CUPS — the Common Unix Printing System. But during the boot sequence for OpenBSD 4.4, the machine would take a few long minutes to load the CUPS daemon, cupsd, before displaying the login prompt. Fortunately, the fix couldn't be easier.
OSNews
  • UIQ Files for Bankruptcy
    Amidst the hubbub over MacWorld 2009, El Reg quietly noted that the company UIQ, the joint venture of Sony Ericsson and Motorola and eponymous creator of the UIQ interface layer for the Symbian smartphone OS, has filed for bankruptcy in the Swedish courts.
  • Mac OS X Server Turns 10
    At the MacWorld Expo today in San Fransisco, Apple announced new versions of iWork and iLife, as well as an updated 17" MacBook Pro, which promises a battery life of 7-8 hours. More interesting, however, is the fact that yesterday was Mac OS X Server's 10th birthday.
  • *DTV Transition: Facts and Fallacies*
    If you live in the United States, then it's almost certain you've heard about this big digital switch that public television is making due to a new US law. If you live outside of the US, I bet you've heard of it anyway since we like to let people know what we're up to. The big day that's coming up -- February 17th, 2009 -- that magical date when all television stations will historically abandon the infamous analog broadcasting for greener, digital pastures -- didn't strike fear into the hearts at my household. We rarely utilize the antenna, and then only two to four times a year for a special program. Nonetheless, we got our hands on one of those nifty coupons anyway and went out to purchase a digital converter for the sake of those few intrinsic public broadcats. Read on for the whole story. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
  • Whitix 0.2 Released
    Despite what the project name's suffix might imply, Whitix is in fact not a Linux distribution. Whitix is a new operating system, written from scratch, and aims to combine the stability of UNIX with the user friendliness of other platforms. "It will offer a consistent, clear interface and a new way to navigate the desktop while basing the fundamentals on proven system technology updated for the twenty-first century." The project released version 0.2 today.
  • Microsoft Moves Macs Closer to PC Parity
    Microsoft has announced two products designed to provide users of Office 2008 for Mac with improved access to existing server-based Microsoft services. The first of the two, Microsoft Entourage for Exchange Web Services, will be a free upgrade to Entourage 2008 for Mac that will enable that email, contacts, and calendaring client to more fully benefit from the Exchange Web Services built into Exchange Server 2007. The second, Microsoft Document Collaboration Companion for Mac, will be a free Cocoa-based companion app to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac that's designed to improve document-management control for Mac users of Microsoft's SharePoint Server document-sharing technology. The app will work whether document sharing is provided by enterprise SharePoint Servers, third-party leased or subscription-based SharePoint services, or Microsoft's free (for now, at least) consumer and small-business oriented Office Live Workspace.
  • Debian 5 Release Approaches... Binary Blobs Included
    "The developers behind the Debian Linux distribution are preparing for the upcoming release of Debian 5, which is codenamed Lenny. The decision to move forward with the release follows a contentious vote over whether to permit the inclusion of binary blobs in the new version of the distribution. Consensus coalesced around a controversial proposal to "assume blobs comply with the GPL unless proven otherwise."
  • Freescale To Take on Intel's Atom in Netbook Market
    It seems that after Intel, just about every chip maker wants a piece of the netbook pie. AMD is an obvious competitor, but VIA is also eyeing the little notebooks. However, more exotic options like the Chinese Loongson chips and ARM's Cortex A-8 and A-9 chips are also among the contenders. We can now add a new contender: Freescale.
  • *Google Unleashes Picasa for Mac Beta*
    After far too long a wait, today, Google released the first beta of Picasa for Mac. Picasa is a free, powerful photo management tool that includes many photo editing operations that the Mac native iPhoto lacks. In addition, Picasa is tightly bound to Picasa Web Albums, the first 1GB of which is also free, in contrast with Apple's MobileMe, which runs $99/year. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
  • *A Look at newLISP*
    In the age of dynamic languages and closures, most of you have probably heard of a mighty dragon called Lisp (which stands for LISt Processing), whose fans look almost with despise at other languages rediscovering it. Invented half a century ago, Lisp went on to become a de facto standard in the world of AI research, and has stood behind a handful of very neat inventions in the 1980s. Nevertheless, the long AI winter and the drift of technology towards other paradigms have almost lead to forgetting Lisp alltogether; IT has only recently started to rediscover parts of what made Lisp so cool back then. Read more on this exclusive OSNews article...
  • FreeBSD 7.1 Released
    The FreeBSD 7-STABLE branch saw its first point release today. Don't let the point release moniker fool you, though, as FreeBSD 7.1 comes packed with a number of pretty significant changes, such as support for OpenSolaris' DTrace, as well as a new, more efficient scheduler.
Techworld.com News
  • New QNAP NAS puts Intel inside
    Take eight bays, add a Dual Core.

    Taiwanese outfit QNAP will this week use the CES Show in Las Vegas this week to show off its new Intel-based SAN box, which it claims can solve the performance hang-ups that have dogged many storage systems for smaller enterprises.



  • Recession has killed SOA, says analyst
    IBM and HP tight-lipped about blog 'obituary'.

    SOA is dead but services remain alive, according to a prominent analyst who published an 'obituary' for SOA in a blog post on Monday.



  • HP shows netbook with long-lasting battery
    At last, the all-day laptop...

    Hewlett-Packard today announced a netbook PC that it said will be able to run for up to a full business day on a single battery charge.



  • New Motorola phone made from old bottles
    Get hugging that tree.

    Motorola is set to unveil the world's first mobile handset made from plastics from recycled water bottles.



  • EMC buys into SourceLabs for cloud muscle
    Gets paws on cloud know-how.

    EMC has acquired assets from SourceLabs, a maker of support and management tools for Linux and open source software, in an attempt to bolster its cloud computing strategy.



  • Security will eat IT budgets in 2009, says survey
    And it's all encryption's fault.

    Security budgets are increasing in 2009 to consume 12.6 percent of the entire IT operating budget, up from 11.7 percent in 2008, according to Forrester Research's survey of 942 IT and security managers in North America and Europe.



  • AMD unwraps new ultraportable chip
    But 'Yukon' still bigger than Intel's Atom.

    AMD is set to announce to announce a new new processor platform called Yukon, which it hopes will cut the cost of making ultraportable laptops.



  • Researchers hack Intel vPro security system
    Undermines credibility of vPro TXT.

    Security researchers said they've found a way to circumvent an Intel vPro security feature used to protect PCs and the programs that they run from tampering.



  • Seagate packs 1.5TB into thin drive
    Large but also somehow thin.

    Seagate has begun volume shipments of a new desktop hard-disk drive that offers 1TB of storage space across two disks.



  • FileMaker rejuvenates look with new version
    Database for the masses from Apple stable.

    FileMaker has tweaked the user interface in a "significant" new version of its flagship relational database, FileMaker Pro.



DesktopLinux.com PC World Latest Technology News Linux.com :: Features LWN.net
  • Everyone's free Linux: DeviceVM's Splashtop (ComputerWorld Blog)
    Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols looks at Splashtop. "Splashtop is a mini-desktop Linux distribution that's based on the 2.6.20 Linux kernel. Currently, Splashtop comes pre-installed on pretty much all ASUS motherboards and on netbooks and laptops from ASUS, HP's high-end VoodooPC division and Lenovo. Rumor has it that Splashtop and similar baked-in desktop Linuxes, like Dell's "BlackTop," aka Latitude ON, will soon be appearing from other PC and motherboard vendors. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if DeviceVM makes some new partner announcements at this week's CES (Consumer Electronics Show)."
  • Security advisories for Tuesday
    Debian has updated xterm (arbitrary code execution).

    Slackware has updated samba (privilege escalation).

    Ubuntu has updated samba (privilege escalation), xterm (several vulnerabilities).

  • Linux: this year's silver lining? (The Register)
    Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, thinks 2009 will be a good year for Linux. ""Even though 2008 was in recession, the Linux platform did well, and it is growing faster than other platforms," Zemlin told us during an interview. "Linux definitely has critical mass, and you use Linux ten times a day and you don't even know it. So in 2009, we expect to see a bit of growth. It is not going to be a boom year for anybody, but at the end of the day, Linux is positioned to do well.""
  • AMD Releases Open-Source R600/700 3D Code (Phoronix)
    Phoronix has the details on AMD's release of 3D drivers for ATI R600 and R700 graphics processors. "Since earlier this year we have been waiting for AMD to release documentation and/or code on the ATI R600 series concerning 3D acceleration so that the open-source Linux drivers can begin to support the newer ATI graphics processors. It has taken longer than expected for AMD to complete and release this information, but it's now available. AMD has released the fundamental Linux code needed to begin fostering the development of an open-source R600 3D driver. Furthermore, this code also concerns the latest R700 series of graphics processors! The microcode for the newest GPUs has also been released."
  • Openmoko: looking forward to 2009
    Those who are interested in the Openmoko phone may want to look at this lengthy look forward by founder Sean Moss-Pultz. "Nobody will doubt the value of openness for the mobile industry anymore. This seems like good news at first glance. But what openness are they talking about? Look around and you'll find it's pretty different than what we've been talking about. Yes, the very definition of openness is changing. This troubles me because we cannot influence markets with our words - only our products. And the quality of our products is not world class yet. The bar has been seriously raised. Time is running out. We need to find a way to lead again. I don't believe playing catch up will work. Something fundamental needs to change."
  • Monday's security updates

    Debian has updated xterm (arbitrary code execution), ruby (denial of service).

    Red Hat has updated kernel (multiple vulnerabilities).

  • The GNOME DVCS survey
    Elijah Newren has posted a lengthy analysis of the recently-concluded developer survey on distributed version control systems. "It looks like there's a strong preference in the community toward switching, and that git has a strong lead in preference among the community, followed by svn, then bzr, then mercurial."
  • Palm needs Nova to shine (San Francisco Chronicle)
    The San Francisco Chronicle looks at another entry into the Linux-based mobile phone space. Palm is expected to unveil "Nova" as a replacement for Palm OS on both phones and mobile internet devices. "Palm is poised to make what some analysts are calling its last stand at this week's Consumer Electronics Show, where it is expected to introduce its long-awaited Linux-based operating system. [...] Code-named Nova, it will power a new generation of smart phones and potentially other devices. The move is Palm's best chance to get back into the smart phone market, which it pioneered with its Treo handsets and later ceded to companies such as BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion and Apple with its iPhone."
  • 6 best personal finance apps for Linux (TechRadar)
    TechRadar takes a look at personal finance applications for Linux. The article looks at five free applications (GnuCash, KMyMoney, Buddi, Grisbi, and JGnash) as well as the Moneydance 2008 proprietary solution. "This kind of software is all about the data; getting it in, getting it out and doing useful things with it. In terms of getting data into the package, there are three things we need. We want software that makes it easy to add items to the spending side because you'll be less likely to update your ledger if doing so proves annoyingly difficult. [...] We want filters that will import transaction data downloaded from our bank account and allow easy reconciliation between local and remote records. Finally, we want to be able to set up periodic transactions that can be added to the ledger at certain points each month to deal with things such as mortgage payments."
  • Debian votes to move forward with Lenny release
    The results of the Lenny general resolution vote for Debian are in. The project has chosen to "Assume blobs comply with GPL unless proven otherwise" which will allow the Lenny (5.0) release to proceed. The basic problem is one that recurs each time a release is imminent in that kernel firmware does not meet the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We looked at this contentious vote a few weeks back; since that time project secretary Manoj Srivastava has resigned and Bdale Garbee has stepped in as acting secretary. It would appear that the outcome was decided shortly after the vote ended on December 27, but we somehow missed the announcement until now.

    [ Update: The announcement email is now available: "Since the election concluded, several developers have asked for some statement from the DPL and/or Secretary as to what this result really means. Steve and I have discussed it, and we think it's pretty clear. This result means that the Debian Lenny release can proceed as the release team has intended, with the kernel packages currently in the archive." ]

Linux Journal - The Original Magazine of the Linux Community
  • DRM-free iTunes: A Huge Step Forward?
    * DRM-free music from iTunes is the best news I've heard all week * It's about time. Maybe I'll buy something from them eventually. * Why the hell do I care about iTunes? When they have a Linux version, maybe we'll talk.

  • Convert SpreadSheets to CSV files with Python and pyuno

    Using the OORunner class that we developed last week we'll now create a Python class for converting spreadsheets into CSV files. The converter supports any type of input spreadsheet that is supported by OpenOffice.

    read more

  • What would you exchange Exchange for?

    It's long been clear to me that the biggest lock-in Microsoft has, at the enterprise level, is not with Windows or personal apps, but with Exchange Server. And the biggest problem there is this: it's good. Enterprises like it. And, since Exchange works only or best with Windows machines, the lock-in extends to much else. Linux and Mac boxes get purged and replaced by Windows ones.

    Or so goes the story I hear from folks at big enterprises.

    So I'm wondering about alternatives.

    read more

  • Season's Greetings Mass Mailer

    In my last article for Linux Journal, (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/best-wishes-new-year) I shared some of my New Year's Resolutions. One of those resolutions was to communicate more regularly with my friends and family. In this article, I'm going to describe one of the first steps I took toward making this happen.

    read more

  • Year Without DRM

    It's time for New Year resolutions and what better than to resolve to not purchase media 'protected' by DRM? Many of us already follow this rule but by pledging this publicly we can educate the masses.

    read more

  • Creating KVTML Files

    KWordQuiz, KVocTrain, and other KDE-based programs use the KVTML file format for their data files. The format is just a fairly simple XML format but, unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be anything available to convert a text file to this format. So, once again, AWK to the rescue.

    read more

  • Session Destroyer: Automatic Webapp Session Invalidation

    It is midnight. You are browsing the web. Everything seems fine. Unbeknownst to you, a rogue advertisement composed of malware is displayed on a popular website and is attempting to steal your banking credentials. What can you do?

    read more

  • The November Cornucopia: One Month In Linux Audio

    This week I'm your straight reporter bringing you news of of updates, upgrades, and new releases in the world of Linux audio software. Development in this world is continuously productive, so I'll present only a selection of the Linux sound and music applications and utilities announced in the month of November in the year 2008.

    read more

  • An Udderly Wonderful Christmas Gift

    Remember back in August, when there was all the hoopla regarding me in a "Hot Blogger" calendar? Well, your votes paid off, and indeed I grace the eleventh page of the calendar as Mr. November. Seeing myself as a calendar model immediately made me think of cows. (Well, OK, not really -- but bear with me)

    read more

  • Will 2009 Be Open or Closed?

    As the end of 2008 approaches, people's thoughts naturally turn to 2009, and what it might hold. The dire economic situation means that many will be wondering what the year will bring in terms of employment and their financial situation. This is not the place to ponder such things, nor am I qualified to do so. Instead, I'd like to discuss a matter that is related to these larger questions, but which focusses on issues particularly germane to Linux Journal: will 2009 be a year in which openness thrives, or one in which closed thinking re-asserts itself?

    read more

The Register
  • Super Micro fiscal Q2 sales not so super

    Banking on Nehalem

    Motherboard and server maker Super Micro Computer said today it was not going to make its expected numbers for its fiscal second quarter ended December 31. The economic meltdown is the culprit - of course. But the good news is that Super Micro says that business picked up in December - just not enough to offset a bad November.…

  • Salesforce.com outage exposes cloud's dark linings

    Software as a (dis)service

    Exposing the dark side of cloud computing, Salesforce.com suffered an outage that locked more than 900,000 subscribers out of crucial applications and data needed to transact business with customers.…

  • 'Sonic boom' golf club may 'damage hearing'

    Fore!! - the new sound of fear

    Golf isn't exactly known as a sport of deafening noises, but a provocative (albeit suspiciously anecdotal) study is making the rounds claiming golfers may risk losing their hearing by using newfangled thin-faced titanium drivers.…

  • Apple unveils 17-inch MacBook, iLife tweaks, Tony Bennett

    Jobs-free keynote fails to inspire

    Macworld Expo In one of the least eventful keynote speeches in recent memory, Apple's SVP Phil Schiller, filling in for the ailing Steve Jobs, announced upgrades to iLife and iWork, an upgraded 17-inch MacBook, and iTunes Store pricing-structure changes and DRM-removal plans.…

  • A crack in the madness of clouds

    Sanity check 09?

    Besides providing some of the biggest technical innovation of 2008, the cloud also wins the award for most amorphous product definition. Few people define "the cloud" or "cloud computing" the same way, leading to market noise and a wealth of misinformation.…

  • Best Buy punts resurrected Jesus Phones

    Answers AT&T, Wal-Mart

    Following in the footsteps of AT&T, US electronics retailer Best Buy is now selling resurrected Jesus Phones at a discount.…

  • IBM approves Obama's IT stimulus package

    $30bn will create 900,000 jobs, healthy IBM

    If you were the incoming president of the United States, and you wanted to gauge the effect of an economic stimulus package geared to information technology as a means to create jobs, who would you ask for advice? The economists at the Labor Department? The hot shots at IDC and Gartner? Or maybe the economists at MIT, the University of Chicago, or Stanford University? Nah. Forget that. President-elect Obama's transition team went right to the source: Sam Palmisano, chairman and chief executive officer at IBM.…

  • Apple iTunes Store goes '100% DRM-free' - allegedly

    Schiller keynote makes $1.29 the new black

    Macworld Expo Take your pick - the iTunes Store is going 100 per cent DRM-free, or Apple is whacking 30 cents onto the price of each song and encouraging you to upgrade your whole iTunes library to iTunes Plus, at 30 cents (UK 20p) per song. Apple prefers the 100 per cent DRM-free line, naturally, but there's a price being paid to the record labels, and with "high-quality audio... that’s virtually indistinguishable from the original recording" defined as 256-Kbps AAC, there seems to be headroom for another bite in a year or two.…

  • Curl taps Adobe RIA infrastructure

    The perils of open source

    One of the side effects of Adobe Systems releasing code under open-source, the company said last year, has been to let competitors into its Rich Internet Applications (RIA) back yard.…

  • Pranksters inflitrate live Macworld feed

    Blasphemy on Jobsian high holy day

    As unfounded as they may be, reports of Steve Jobs's demise have spread to a live feed of MacWorld provided by Apple gossip site MacRumors after griefers managed to breach the website's security.…

eWeek - RSS Feeds
  • Mouse-maker Logitech to Lay Off 15 Percent of Staff
    CEO blames a deteriorating retail environment for its sales woes. Company also withdraws its fiscal year 2009 growth targets for sales and operating income and also will lay off about 1,400 of its 9,400 full-time employees.
    - PC peripheral maker Logitech said Jan. 6 that due to quot;a deteriorating retail environment quot; it has withdrawn its fiscal year 2009 growth targets for sales and operating income and will lay off 15 percent of its global salaried workforce of about 9,400. The Switzerland-based company, whic...

  • Apple Harvests Light Crop at Macworld
    Joe Wilcox reports from Macworld.
    - ...

  • Cisco WebEx Now Lets You Collaborate From The Apple iPhone 3G
    Cisco and Apple band together to release a Cisco WebEx Meeting Center application for Apple's iPhone 3G. The move could be a springboard for greater Web conferencing collaboration from the world's most popular smart phone and a boon for corporate road warriors craving mobile enterprise applications. This will be crucial to cementing the iPhone as a reliable alternative to RIM Blackberries and Nokia Symbian devices in the enterprise mobile and wireless space.
    - Apple continues to answer the question of whether its iPhone is enterprise ready. In the midst of Macworld Jan. 6, the computer maker and Cisco Systems said they have enabled Cisco WebEx Meeting Center collaboration application to run on Apple's iPhone 3G smart phone and iPod Touch. Available for...

  • Laptops, Mini-Notebooks to Grab the Spotlight at 2009 CES
    While the U.S. economy remains in a recession and the 2009 CES expo has been scaled back a bit, PC vendors such as Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and others are using the show to highlight a new offering of laptops and mininotebooks that are thinner, lighter and much cheaper for consumers to buy. At the same time, AMD and Freescale Semiconductor are each launching new platforms that look to challenge the market that Intel has created with its Atom processor.
    - At the 2009 CES expo, its all about laptops, ultraportables and mininotebooks. When this years CES officially kicks off Jan. 7 in Las Vegas with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer delivering the opening keynote address, PC makers such as Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard along with Intel, Advanced Micro Devices,...

  • IBM Lotus Notes 8.5 for Apple Mac OS X Supports Google, Yahoo Calendars
    IBM Lotus Notes 8.5 is now available for Mac OS X computers, boasting a user interface that lets users access Notes' full messaging and collaboration features from one screen. The new release also interoperates with Web calendar applications from Google, Yahoo and other public Web calendars, allowing users to display their Lotus Notes work calendar and their personal Internet calendar on the same screen. IBM claims this is its attempt to make Notes more social -- integrating work and play -- as it seeks to compete with Microsoft.
    - IBM's Lotus Notes 8.5 enterprise e-mail application is now available for Apple computers running the Mac OS X Leopard operating system, months after rolling out to Windows and Linux users. Key to Lotus Notes 8.5 for Macs is an integrated user interface that lets users access and manage e-mail...

  • Samsung Unveils New High-Capacity, 'Green' Enterprise SSD
    The new SSD can process IOPS (input/output per second) more than 10 times faster than the fastest 15K-rpm SAS disk drive available for transactional data workloads, Samsung said. It features a random read speed of 25K and a random write speed of 6K.
    - Solid-state semiconductor maker Samsung revealed Jan. 6 that it has developed a new enterprise-level 2.5-inch, 100GB solid-state drive that can handle heavy-duty applications such as video on demand, streaming media content delivery and on-line transaction processing while consuming substantially le...

  • Google Named No. 3 Spam Provider
    New forms of spam and similar abuse find a welcome home at Google, and the company doesn't yet seem up to the security task of fighting them. Perhaps it's a responsiveness issue.
    - Much has been made of the recent revelation that Google had reached No. 4 on Spamhaus' list of quot;The 10 Worst Spam Service ISPs. quot; In fact, as I check now, Google is No. 3. It's no secret why Gmail is such a big spamming source now: Spammers have had success cracking the CAPTCHA tests an...

  • Clearwire Debuts Portland WiMax
    It's the first WiMax rollout since Clearwire and Sprint Nextel combined operations debuts in Portland. The open all-IP network provides mobile and wireless customers with average download speeds initially of 2M to 4M bps and peak rates that are considerably faster. Clearwire plans to provide WiMax service in most of the top 100 markets by no later than 2010, although the current economic conditions could put a crimp in those plans.
    - If not quite coast-to-coast, WiMax is now at least on each coast. Three months after Sprint Nextel carried out the nation's first WiMax rollout in Baltimore, Clearwire the newly combined WiMax operations of Sprint and Clearwire flipped the switch Jan. 6 on a WiMax deployment in Portland, Ore. W...

  • Feds Tapped Out of DTV Coupons
    A December surge in demand for converter box coupons sends lawmakers and public officials scrambling after the National Telecommunications and Information Administration reports funding for the $1.34 billion digital converter box program is exhausted.
    - The Feb. 17 digital television transition took another stumbling turn this week when the NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) announced that funding for the $1.34 billion digital converter box coupon program has been exhausted, at least for now. The NTIA said consume...

  • HP to Launch New Laptops, Mini Notebook, Gaming PC at CES
    Hewlett-Packard is launching a series of new consumer laptops at CES Jan. 8 to 11. The HP Pavilion dv2 is the first notebook computer to use Advanced Micro Devices' new platform for ultraportable, lightweight laptops, code-named Yukon. HP is also launching another AMD-based notebook, the HP Pavilion dv3. In addition to these AMD-based PCs, HP is planning to unveil its Mini 2140 Notebook, which uses the Intel Atom N270 processor, as well as a massive gaming desktop, the Voodoo DNA 802 PC.
    - ...

DailyTech News Feed RootPrompt -- Nothing but Unix
  • Stop VIM Autocommenting (29 May 2008)
    Has anyone else noticed how the newer versions of VIM attempt to be smart? Yeah, they think that just because you typed a comment on one line that you want to comment the next line, and the next, and the next. I don't know about you, but I'll tell the program which lines I want to comment, not the other way around. Link
  • Redundant Array Of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) (29 May 2008)
    The storage capacity and data retrieval speeds of Hard Disks have increased multiple folds in last few years. However for large business organizations, which not only need to store terabytes of invaluable data but access them frequently as well. These organizations cannot afford to let their systems go offline even for a short duration of time. Moreover they cannot even think of losing even small amount of data due to disk failure or for that matter any other reason.
  • Picking the right Eclipse distribution for you (29 May 2008)
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