Category: Computer

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Highly demanded OS! Red Hat, Ubuntu Win Linux

pc

Alfresco collected data between July and December of last year, with survey participants coming from 260 countries, according to the company. Fifty percent were from Europe, the Middle East and Asia, while 24 percent were in the U.S., and 26 percent from other nations, Alfresco said.

Ubuntu and Red Hat are the most used Linux distributions among the 35,000 members of content-management vendor Alfresco’s community, the company found in its second survey of trends in enterprise open-source software usage.

Among Linux operating systems, usage of Ubuntu and Red Hat stood at 35 percent and 23 percent, respectively, according to the survey. Suse, OpenSuse and Suse Enterprise collectively garnered 13 percent; Debian, 15 percent; and “other” distributions usage of 14 percent.

Users also reported using a variety of proprietary enterprise software.

Among Windows users, Vista adoption was just 2 percent, compared to 63 percent for Windows XP and 28 percent for Windows Server 2003.

The surveys help inform Alfresco’s technology strategy, according to Ian Howells, Alfresco’s chief marketing officer. “It’s important for us to know which platforms to test against first,” he said, adding, “It’s in users’ interest to give us good data.”

Microsoft’s Office suite remained strong, however, with 66 percent usage. Twenty-four percent of the respondents reported they used OpenOffice. However, German and French users were twice as likely to use the latter compared to those in the U.S. or U.K., Alfresco said.

Tomcat held a dominant position in the application server category, logging 72 percent. JBoss’ entry stood at 18 percent. Entries from Sun, BEA and IBM rounded out the field.

MySQL took home the database prize, with a 60 percent tally, followed by Oracle with 14 percent and Microsoft SQL Server with 13 percent.

In the virtualization category, VMware perhaps predictably ranked highest, at 61 percent. Microsoft’s Virtual Server took 16 percent, followed by Xen, Parallels, Virtual Iron and “other” offerings, according to the study.

“It kind of validates that people want to have a mixed stack,” Howells said of the overall results.

source:pcworld 

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Intel, STM Delivers innovative memory technology

Intel-ST

Intel Corporation and STMicroelectronics reached a key industry milestone today as they began shipping prototype samples of a future product using a new, innovative memory technology called Phase Change Memory (PCM). The prototypes are the first functional silicon to be delivered to customers for evaluation, bringing the technology one step closer to adoption.

The memory device, codenamed “Alverstone” uses PCM, a promising new memory technology providing very fast read and write speeds at lower power than conventional flash, and allows for bit alterability normally seen in RAM. PCM has long been a topic of discussion for research and development, and with “Alverstone,” Intel and STMicroelectronics are helping to move the technology into the marketplace.

“This is the most significant non-volatile memory advancement in 40 years,” said Ed Doller, chief technology officer-designate of Numonyx, the new name for the pending STMicroelectronics and Intel flash memory company. “There have been plenty of attempts to find and develop new non-volatile memory technologies, yet of all the concepts, PCM provides the most compelling solution – and Intel and STMicroelectronics are delivering PCM into the hands of customers today. This is an important milestone for the industry and for our companies.”

The technology is still experimental, but the companies marked another step in its evolution, delivering samples of the new chips to device makers. Proponents say that phase-change memory (PCM) is more reliable than flash memory, and that it will offer faster data transfer speeds and be more durable.

source:intel 

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Microsoft,Google, IBM, Yahoo, VeriSign all in OpenID board

openID

At the beginning of 2006, there were less than 500 websites where OpenID could be used. Today there are well over 10,000, according to the Foundation.”OpenID has grown to be implemented by major open source projects such as Drupal, cornerstone Web 2.0 services such as those by 37signals and Six Apart, as well as a mix of large companies including as Apple, Google, and Yahoo!,” it said.

The move follows Yahoo! last month announcing that its accountholders would be able to use any web site supporting OpenID without creating a separate username and password. A year ago, Microsoft pledged to integrate OpenID 2.0 with the CardSpace identity management systems developed in conjunction with Windows Vista.

According to Technology Business Research, these heavies joining the board will accelerate the secure us of the Internet for commerce, communication, and social networking and go well beyond a one-size-fits-all user ID.  “TBR believes the major corporations that joined the OpenID Foundation board today will help OpenID address problems of security, provider trustworthiness, and user education. Eventually, there will develop a somewhat more complex identity environment than the single sign-on that the creators of OpenID first envisioned, one in which uses have several IDs, tailored to their business and social needs.”

While the OpenID Foundation serves a stewardship role around the community’s intellectual property, the Foundation’s board itself does not make any decisions about the specifications the community is collaboratively building. However the Foundation claimed that “By bringing on these companies and their resources, the OpenID Foundation will now be able to better serve the needs of  the entire OpenID community. In 2008, we can expect to see a larger focus on making OpenID even more accessible to a mainstream audience, the development of a World-wide trademark usage policy (much like the Jabber Foundation and Mozilla have done), and a larger international focus on working with the OpenID communities in Asia and Europe.”

TBR said that such a multi-tiered ID scheme would “make it easy for the website provider to screen users without the burden of verification. In addition, an easy way to implement a user identification system makes it easier for providers to monetise their websites by blocking – or removing – content for anonymous users. Many providers have been unable to monetise their content due to the low willingness of users to register for every little website. With an easy-to-use and open system, every website could require a login.”

source:itwire

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Vista SP1: Is It mean Slow Pack 1?

vista sp1

Some in the media have received the final SP1 code too, as evidenced by reviews online, with an article at PC World showing mixed performance results with SP1, with ‘file copy performance notably improved’, yet with some tests showing Vista pre-SP1 actually faster than SP1 itself.

The Vista SP1 debacle continues, with TechNet and MSDN subscribers unable to download the final RTM code of SP1, despite around 15,000 SP1 beta testers having been confirmed by Computerworld as having received the final SP1 code, weeks before the general public.

Another article at Computerworld shows Vista SP1 to be 20% slower at copying files than pre-SP1, while the ‘old’ Windows XP beats both Vista pre-SP1 and SP1 at copying files by a wide margin.

This has forced Microsoft to delay SP1’s release to the general public to give themselves and hardware manufacturers some additional time to iron out the driver bugs, something that, ironically, was Vista’s original problem, something that was meant to be fixed with the release of SP1 itself.

What is clear is that SP1, despite having reached ‘release to manufacturing’ or RTM status, still isn’t 100% finished. What’s holding things up is Microsoft’s discovery, thanks to the beta testers, that some PC manufacturers have loaded drivers onto their machines which SP1 just doesn’t like.

Microsoft will actually delay some users getting Vista SP1 until April, as it uses the Windows Update software built into Vista to determine which machines might be affected by the SP1 driver issues.

Microsoft should never have told the world SP1 was ready when it plainly wasn’t, but as they have, the bad PR onslaught has been massive, with some TechNet and MSDN subscribers wondering if they will be re-subscribing to the services when they next come up for renewal. All in all, it’s a big mess

Read more                                       source: itwire

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VIC’s New Navisurfer II Vehicle PC

 VIC

NAVISURFER II is the first indash 1-DIN computer with a combination of 7″ touch screen monitor. Monitor able to move as vertically as well horizontally. NAVISURFER II allows to run any normal Windows or Linux compatible applications also serves as Audio / Video Player, Vehicle GPS Navigator & Tracker, Rear View Camera, In-Car wireless Internet, In-Car TV, In-Car Game Console and In-Car Mobile Office and real-time OBD-II vehicle diagnostics.

The PC is powered by 1GHz processor and backed up by 512MB RAM, which makes it more than sufficient for processing simple tasks with media playback capability. Additional 80GB storage is spacious enough to store applications and multimedia files. Just imagine you can store few copies of HD DVD movies to be played back without the need to have another DVD optical drive connected to the car PC. Besides, it is equipped with 7-inch touch panel that is able to display 800 X 480 resolutions with scaling capability up to 1024 X 768 pixies. Some of the functions included multimedia playback, rear view camera, gaming, office applications and more importantly the GPS navigator function.

Models

NavisurferII 40GB
Processor: 1.3 Mhz
Hard drive: 40GB
RAM: 256MB

NavisurferII 80GB
Processor: 1.3 Mhz
Hard drive: 80GB
RAM: 256MB

NavisurferII 120GB
Processor: 1,0 Mhz
Hard drive: 120 GB
RAM: 512MB

Priced at around $600, it is a good deal to get one in case you are looking to replace old DIN cassette player in the car.

 Source:VIC

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COSMOS – A New Open Source OS Available

cosmos

Cosmos (C# Open Source Managed Operating System) is an operating system project implemented completely in CIL compliant languages. The team is committed to using C#, however any .NET language is usable.

Cosmos runs in QEMU, VMWare, and VirtualPC. QEMU is best for debugging as it has extra debugging support which we use to integrate with GDB.

Cosmos includes a compiler (IL2CPU, which is part of Cosmos) that reads the input file (usually the shell) and Cosmos libraries and compiles the resulting IL to x86 code. IL2CPU has a layer for cross platform and we plan to support other processors and platforms, including x64. IL2CPU also supports certain extension methods which allow C# code to interact directly with the CPU, registers, and ports in the kernel. IL2CPU contains some inline assembler, but there are no ASM files that need to be linked in.

Currently IL2CPU first outputs raw asm files (with IL comments) and then processes them through nasm (a free assembler). Later they are  planning to emit directly to binary.

If you just want to play with Cosmos:

Other resources:

If you are interested in kernel development:

  • Get source from CodePlex
  • Read the full requirements. They are pretty basic though, and everything you need except for Windows (For development) is free.
  • Read Getting Started

 source:cosmos

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MacBook Air Poor Battery Life

 Macair

The PC World Test Center has seen some problems with respect to battery life. Unfortunately, you’ll still be making major compromises with the Apple MacBook Air. In The PC World Tests, the Air produced respectable system performance, but mediocre battery life.

The Performance Numbers By PC-World

When the PC World Test Center ran its tests using Apple’s Boot Camp utility–which enables a Mac system to run Windows, too–the Air’s WorldBench 6 score was 57. That score is just below the average WorldBench score of 59 for the field of 17 ultraportable notebooks we’ve tested recently for our Top 10 Ultraportables chart.

The MacBook Air’s performance is more impressive, however, when you consider it against the nine ultraportable models we’ve tested with a minimum weight of four pounds or less (I selected this subset of data for comparison as these are the most likely competitive choices of someone considering a MacBook Air against its PC competition): There, the average WorldBench score is just 50.

The Sony VAIO VGN-TZ510N/B, the slimline PC notebook Steve Jobs compared MacBook Air to in his keynote, scored just 38 on WorldBench 6 tests.

Only two models, the Asus W5Fe-2P025E and the Lenovo ThinkPad X61 bested the MacBook Air’s final, post-Boot Camp WorldBench 6 score of 57. And, both the Asus and the Lenovo were running a faster processor than the MacBook Air: a 2-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200. f

The MacBook Air runs a 1.6-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (a 1.8-GHz processor is an option), and includes 2GB of memory, an 80GB 4200rpm hard drive, and a 13.3-inch display.

The only other model in tested with a 1.6-GHz Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of memory is the 4.5-pound Lenovo ThinkPad X61t; this model received a 64 on our WorldBench 6 tests compared with the Air’s 61.

The Lenovo X61t has other specs that may have helped its performance,  the MacBook Air: the X61t’s 100GB hard drive spins at 5400rpm and its comparatively smaller display measures 12.1-inches on the diagonal.

Subpar Battery Life(Pc-World)

The Air’s battery life averaged 2 hours, 31 minutes, which isn’t even enough juice to cover the flight time from San Francisco to Dallas, let alone get a road warrior clear across the continent with a powered laptop.

The battery life performance of the Air also is quite dismal when we compared to the other nine laptops  in the four-pounds-and-under category. The MacBook Air’s battery life was the third worst among those nine models. The average battery life score among these models was 4 hours, 37 minutes, and five models exceeded five hours in battery life.

source:pcworld 

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‘Google Apps Team’ Edition Released

Google-app

Google has done it again! The world’s most popular company has released another free program suit which could directly impact Microsoft’s balance sheet. The Team Edition software is an answer to Microsoft’s money minting Office suit, which includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and calendar programs. One of the major benefit of Google’s program is that it lets people in the same organization to share documents and information over internet.

But Team Edition has very special feature, that it’s easier for groups within established organizations (colleges, offices, universities, business, etc.). It will help to Collaborate without getting their entire organization to buy into Google Apps.

Some main features –

* Work on the same document together, instead of sorting out changes in attachments
* Share documents and calendars securely with your co-workers with a click
* Access it all from any computer, and even from mobile phones
* Invite other team members to join and share with you

Google Docs – Create and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
Google Calendar – Arrange meetings, set schedules, and publish event information.
Google Talk – Instant message with co-workers and make PC-to-PC voice calls for free.
Start Page – Preview your calendar and docs, add gadgets and search the web from one place.

 source:techcrunch

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Microsoft Web Ads Prototypes

Microsoft

Microsoft Corp.’s online advertising researchers will spend this year teaching computers to be smart about sticking ads into video clips, and to be even smarter about targeting ads to specific web surfers.

Microsoft showed off a handful of early-stage advertising projects at its headquarters Tuesday that may or may not turn up as part of Microsoft’s Web advertising platform.

The demonstrations come just days after Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo Inc., which, if successful, will boost the software maker’s Web traffic and online ad revenue.

With its 2006 acquisition of aQuantive, the software maker gained a broader network of Web sites on which to sell ads, and tools to help marketers buy them.

A few of Microsoft’s projects were aimed at helping advertisers get better at reaching their ideal customers online, particularly using search keywords.

The company showed a dashboard advertisers could use to forecast the success of certain keyword advertising campaigns and a system it says will make it easier for advertisers think about key ideas, rather than hundreds of individual keywords.

But most of the adCenter Labs prototypes had little to do with search.

“Search itself gets a lot of attention because of Google,” said Tarek Najm, a technical fellow at Microsoft. “Advertising in search, as a result, gets a lot of attention.”

Najm said spending on search keyword ads will be dwarfed by what marketers spend on other types of online advertising, such as placement based on ‘audience intelligence’ and display ads including video.

Microsoft – along with Google and other competitors – is also hard at work on new ways for companies to advertise their brands to Web surfers watching video clips.

One crunched a clip, looking for the most appropriate stretch of time and spot on the screen for an advertiser’s ‘bug’, or logo. For example, if a car company wanted to show its logo for 10 seconds in the bottom right corner of the screen, the computer program would find the 10 seconds in which the logo interferes least with the action in the video.

Another used speech recognition to make a transcript of a video, then served up ads – in the demonstration, they were text links – alongside the video. As the topics discussed on screen changed, so did the ads.

The third program scanned a video for surfaces where ads or product images could be inserted later. The demo showed how the same frames could display a Coke ad one moment and a Pepsi ad the next, without having to reshoot the video.

Other experiments included an interactive shopping kiosk that used elements of Microsoft Surface, a next-generation touch screen, to show ads and coupons, and a computer program that helped marketers avoid accidentally putting their brand on a web page with distasteful content.

source:tech2 

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Google planning free music downloads in China

google

Web search leader Google is planning to boost its presence in China by tying up with a Chinese online music company to provide free music downloads, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The report, quoting people close to the situation, said Google was in the late planning stages of a venture and will likely offer access to tunes from three global music companies as well as dozens of smaller brands.

The service could start in the next several weeks barring any last-minute problems, it said.

The move would come as Google struggles to wrestle market share from Baidu.com, which dominates the Chinese search market and offers music search.

Google representatives were not immediately available for comment.

China’s search engine market reached 946.6 million yuan ($131 million) in the fourth quarter — almost double from a year earlier, according to a research firm.

Baidu.com led the market in the fourth quarter with a 60.1% share, said Analysys International, while Google came second with a 25.9% share, followed by Yahoo China with 9.6%.

source:usatoday