Showing all newswire headlines

A federal judge late Friday refused to restore class-action status to the Vista Capable lawsuit, handing Microsoft Corp. its second major victory in the case in the last two months. U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman denied a motion by the plaintiffs to recertify a smaller group of consumers in the suit that has accused Microsoft of misleading PC buyers in 2006 and 2007 by letting computer makers slap the "Vista Capable" sticker on machines that could run only Home Basic.

The final draft of the revised version of ECMAScript - better known by the Sun Microsystems-trademarked name of its most popular dialect, JavaScript - has been published by the ECMA and is now available as ECMA-262 for final interoperability and compatibility testing. This version, developed under the working name of ECMAScript 3.1, will be known as ECMAScript, Fifth Edition, and will supercede the current formally established standard, ECMAScript, Third Edition. ECMAScript, Fourth Edition was never completed, but - according to the ECMA - much of the work done on it has been carried into the Fifth Edition.

Web Cache will launch at MySQL Conference in Santa Clara.

About two years ago I published an article about Firewall Builder. Now that the version 3.0 is out I had a catch-up interview with its creator, Vadim Kurland, and I discovered a number of new interesting features. Read the full interview and the accompanying install howto go to Freesoftware Magazine.

ABI Research predicts that Linux and "alternative operating systems" (OSes) will overtake Windows XP in netbook sales by 2012. Reasons cited by ABI include the arrival of low-end ARM-based netbooks, as well as mobile stacks such as the Linux-based Android that are suited for these platforms.

I wanted to keep a low key on that, but the news hit the press and the avalanche started mounting. I have submitted for approval to OSI a license on behalf of my good friend and client Mr. Leonardo Chiariglione, convenor of the ISO/IEC JTC1 WG11 (also known as MPEG).

You've been hearing about Linux and you're curious. Did you know you can try it out for free? That you can install it inside of Windows just like any Windows program, or that you can try it without installing it? Carla Schroder shows how in this new series for absolute Linux beginners.

LXer Feature: 12-Apr-2009

I got an email from Jeremiah Gray announcing a new issue (#2) of Hackett and Bankwell, the educational comicbook about Linux and Free and Open Source Software from Intarcorp Ltd. Issue #2 is currently only available in electronic format (PDF) and they have decided to release it under a Creative Commons license.

There has been something of a storm in a teacup brewing over news that Microsoft will be pushing out automatic upgrades of IE8 to IE6 and IE7 users, but just how hard will it be pushing?

All the buzz is focused on Netbooks, but there is a new kid on the block that just might change things.

There is a silly myth that Linux hardware support is poor and requires a lot of manual tweaking. In reality it is excellent, and for the majority of devices is easier and better than any other operating system. It still pays to shop carefully; Matt Hartley guides us past the rough spots.

IDC is projecting that spending on Linux-related software will grow 21 percent this year, and 23.6 percent through 2013, compared to two- and five-percent growth, respectively, for the general software market. Sponsored by the Linux Foundation, the study sees the recession, virtualization, and cloud computing as key drivers behind Linux.

I have always wanted a good quality audio player that works well with Linux and plays Ogg Vorbis files. Even though the Sansa Clip was originally released in 2007, I somehow missed it. The gang on The Linux Link Tech Show mentioned the Sandisk Sansa Clip as being an affordable, quality portable audio player that worked well with Linux so I decided to give it a shot. I did a little bargain hunting online and found a refurbished 1GB unit for $18.95 plus shipping so I thought it was hard to go wrong for that price. The unit arrived three days ago and I spent all weekend using it.

[I got this very model for free when I got my phone and it works with my Linux machines. - Scott]

President Barack Obama is tapping another RIAA attorney into the Justice Department. Monday's naming of Ian Gershengorn, to become the department's deputy assistant attorney of the Civil Division, comes more than a week after nearly two dozen public interest groups, trade pacts and library coalitions urged the new president to quit filling his administration with lawyers plucked from the Recording Industry Association of America.

As I had mentioned in my last post, I was planning to upgrade from Sun’s VirtualBox 2.1.4 to 2.2.0. You can read my full review of 2.1.4 here. Well, I installed it over the weekend but I have not had much time to play around with it.

I would like to announce that ULTILEX - "Ultimate Linux Experience" version 3.0.0 is available for download at http://ultilex.linux-bg.org.

All hell breaks loose when GNOME and KDE face-off in the ring.

It all started when someone from the rarefied air of management asked Stu if he could make them a map of their campus. They had no idea of what to expect. Take equal parts of OCD, Knowledge of free software and the pure love of creating something and this is what you get.

In part 1 of the series we looked at the early X window managers that ran on X display protocol based systems. The scale and range of them was from the very beginning where a user was presented with a menu and windows and little else (perhaps a clock or loadmeter) up to what could be considered the first window manager that went beyond providing the basics to providing more of an environment and extensibility through modules that allowed other hackers to "join in the fun". In this part 2 of the series two more distinct groups of window managers will be peeked at; first a look at the evolution of that first "more of an environment than just window managing" software; many of which cropped up right around the same time (within a few years of eachother). Second the kickback against large scale environments with an examination of a breed of window managers designed to be ultra light/fast while still preserving good looks.