Slashdot Mirror

Since Intel has unveiled Xeon, the debate has begun over whether this will give the bucket o' flavors known as Unix a good inroad into Intel machines at a more massive level. Whaddya think- will this be the typical Wintel situation, or will this be a bigger change?

I've got a ton of these things building up, so here we go: Daniel Gould wrote in to tell us that Toshiba will be bundling Solaris with PCs. G. sent us a link to a salon article about trendy technology. A leather mouse? Yowsers. Don Rude wrote in to tell us about a Quake 2 Southpark Total Conversion. Kick ass. Many folks wrote in to tell us that Debian.org has recieved an excellent face lift to corrospond with the Debian 2.0 Beta Release. Lastly, Chris Frost wrote in to tell us that this weeks themes.org victim is tigert (possibly the most talented gimper out there).

Ari Haviv sent us this story where you can read that Corel has made a bundling deal on its suite for Alpha/NT systems. Sure, it's NT, but its not x86..

Ari haviv wrote in to send us this story where you can read that Corel and Lotus are both integration Voice Recognition into their office suites. This is one VR that might actually be feasible in the next few years. I can type at about the same rate as I can talk, but this would definately save everyone a lot of repetitive stress if it becomes standard. And reliable (that's a big If though)

DJ Delorie writes " Hey, a MIPS-based robo-puppy! I wonder if we can get Linux to run (pounce?) on it? Definitely one for the wish list." They don't have pictures, but its basically a standard that Sony is trying to get together for a robo-fad. I'm not sure what I'd do with such a device, but programming one to fetch beer would be nice.

Michael Heldebrant writes "New OS upgrades for Palm Pilots: 3.0.1 and 2.0.5 downloadable at PilotGear and officially from Palmpilot.com. changelist is on the html pages, mostly PPP fixes. " Possibly even more interesting is a story that Yoz sent us. He says. "Cool news for people wanting to do serious DB stuff for everyone's favourite PDA... it's only 150k, there's a Java API to it, and it'll be out within the next couple of weeks."

Niall Kavanagh writes "Thing Microsoft and Intel have it bad? Think again. Argentina is asking InterPol to arrest four IBM execs. who they accuse of bribing public officials to get a state contract. Details on TechWeb"

Techweb points out the number of large players that have recently joined the Linux community in its coverage of Corel openning its source code. But it tempers its enthusiasm quoting the nay-sayers who always seem to associate Open Source with dying companies.

Techweb points out the number of large players that have recently joined the Linux community in its coverage of Corel openning its source code. But it tempers its enthusiasm quoting the nay-sayers who always seem to associate Open Source with dying companies.

Chris de la Rosa sent us this link to one of the web site scrambler thingees- this one does Redneck, Jive and Elmer Fudd. I enjoyed the Vally Girl converter, the page reverser, and several other variations on this theme so I figured I share these with ya. Jello sent us a link to the fastest Web Server ever. Nasa has a web server in the shuttle, and at 5 miles per second, it certainly is the fastest web server Dan Upper wrote in with EyeControl.com. They are developing devices to use your eyeball to control your mouse. Currently overpriced and targetted at the handicapped. Mass production hopefully will bring them to the masses in the not so distant future. ever. Despite ISDNish bandwidth *grin*.

Yesterday Techweb had an interview online with Lotus CEO Jeff Papows, who didn't see the value of Open Source development. Today you can read another interview about the same subject, only this time with Eric Raymond. I haven't read the full article yet, but something tells me he feels different. The interview is available in real audio as well.

Yesterday Techweb had an interview online with Lotus CEO Jeff Papows, who didn't see the value of Open Source development. Today you can read another interview about the same subject, only this time with Eric Raymond. I haven't read the full article yet, but something tells me he feels different. The interview is available in real audio as well.

Christian Mogensen writes " TechWeb interviews Jeff Papows who gets to show off his shallow understanding of what open source is all about. He claims you wouldn't want to develop mission-critical stuff (like messaging or web application servers) using the open source model. Sendmail + Apache vs ccMail + Domino Which would crash first? "

Niall Kavanagh writes "WTO ministers agreed to keep the Internet a duty-free zone - at least for a year. The US is pushing for a permanent tariff ban on online transactions. No net-tax on those CD-NOW goodies! Details on at TechWeb"

John Hartnup sent us a Perl Script for tracking stuff that happens at Distributed.net. Speaking of Which, Slashdot has broken into the top 10 overall! Keep it going folks! Next, Matthew Kirkwood sent us a link to link to another linux support site. Third, Jesse Off sent us a link to another one of those silly You know you're a nerd when. Mostly Unix jokes. Pretty good. Next, Jason Poll sent us a link to a collection of online books, the site includes programming and Linux books apparently. Continuing along, David Sinck sent us a link to one of those James Bond super cars with fancy video doo dads. This one has instructions to build your own if you have tons of cash to drop on all sorts of strange hardware. It's really pretty cool. Lastly, Harry McKee sent us a link to an article about a Telepathic Clapper. Hopefully they can come up with an ad campaign less obnoxious than 'Clap On/Clap Off'

reset sent us a link to This Techweb Article where you can read about standardizations of the official Unix specs. Portability is the big key, but while still keeping flexibility. Ought to be interesting to see what happens.

Hall Stevenson sent us This techweb article which is actually pro-unix. I'm as surprised as most of you. The article is mainly about the future of Unix, primarily regarding the usual suspects (merced, IBM, sun etc).

Jason Boyles sent us this link where you can read about action being taken against classic arcade game emulators like Mame. Thourougly depressing.

We also have this place sent in by herbman. From here you can read about SNEmu, a new SNES emulator joining the Linux Emu scene. My SNES is accumulating dust, but as these emulators get better, I get nearer and nearer going back and trying to take on Zelda again.

Steven H. Parker wrote in to give us this link where you can read where Techweb thinks Unix will be in the year 2002. Basically they claim Unix will shrivel to SCO, Solaris, Digital-UX and HP-UX. Personally, I'd add Linux to that list, and drop any one of the others. One of these companies needs to throw their weight behind Linux. Imagine if Sun or Digital supported the Linux OS on their hardware, and made it their primary OS.

Dirt Nap writes "AMD isn't the only one with financial problems, Intel announced this week that earnings, down 7% from the same time last year, would result in the culling of 3,000 jobs over the next 6 months. It seems that Intel is blaming an over estimation of the market, while others are pointing the finger at a late and lack-luster entry into the sub $1000 PC market. More can be found at this location. "

Ryan Richter sent us this link where you can read an interview with Saint Larry Wall, creator of perl, and all around cool guy. He talks about free software, and perl, and the future of both. Very interesting comments and mention of the perl to java byte code compiler and other odds and ends. If you love perl as much as me, you'll enjoy the interview.

Paul Vallée wrote in with a link to this link where TechWeb writers whine about the Alpha status of the Netscape Source. Most of the complaints mentioned strike me as amazingly unfair- what do people expect of newly released source code? 2.1.* kernels often don't compile and that's a code base that is shared amongst thousands, why on earth would anyone expect a code base that basically never left one building would be prime time ready? Sorry if I sound a bit hostile, but I can't fathom how someone could think this way. Many of you have compiled it, it took some work, and of course there are bugs, but that's what Alpha code is. Update Check out this article where techweb sorta puts its foot in its mouth.

Paul Vallée wrote in with a link to this link where TechWeb writers whine about the Alpha status of the Netscape Source. Most of the complaints mentioned strike me as amazingly unfair- what do people expect of newly released source code? 2.1.* kernels often don't compile and that's a code base that is shared amongst thousands, why on earth would anyone expect a code base that basically never left one building would be prime time ready? Sorry if I sound a bit hostile, but I can't fathom how someone could think this way. Many of you have compiled it, it took some work, and of course there are bugs, but that's what Alpha code is. Update Check out this article where techweb sorta puts its foot in its mouth.

MH311 (Mike Hamrick) writes "Yesterday, Marc Andreessen made some pretty bold statements to the Silicon Valley Linux Users Group. He said that the combination of Netscape source code and Linux operating system could eventually unseat Windows. Read more at techweb"

This story covers what exactly is going to happen between intel and compaq and digital with all the hoopla over everyone buying pieces of eachother lately. Thanks to Farrell McGovern for sending this our way.

Royans K Tharakan sent us this techweb story about TCP and satellite communications. Interesting stuff if you're interested in internet plumbing.

Brandon Bidewell wrote in with this link and said "A simple comparision of Richard Stallman and Bill Gates. An article that considers the value of Free Software and the self sacrificing coders. (They don't make billions like Bill does)"

Sun has begun to aggressivly price a developer's suite, which is even cheaper if you buy it along with a workstation. With this move Sun is trying to keep their marktet share, by not only keeping the hardware, but developing products that will keep people around-cheap.

Netinsider will be doing a live audio broadcast of the Tuesday, March 3 Senate hearings, called by Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). The dignitaries will be not only Bill Gates, but also Jim Barksdale, and Scott McNealy, a relatively recent addition to the hearings. This should be very interesting, perhaps a bit dry, but a lot will be said about where the Internet and three of the most important companies in the scene.

Sean Simmons wrote in to tell us that BeOS for x86 should be released at SD98. Check out this TechWeb Story for more details. I would love to get my hands on a copy.

Apple is retargetting Rhapsody to be a server OS, while retaining MacOS as its main OS. The main reason for this move is the apparent lack of interest of software developers to learn yet another API. This seems to me to throw into doubt the viability of the Yellow Box, and begs the question, what did Apple gain with the purchase of NeXT?

Simon Janes sent us this link where you can read one journalists view on Free Software, and giving out the source code for your apps. I agree 100% that free code is an excellent learning tool, but Linux and soon Netscape will prove that the source code will not only teach you, but guide you to the next level.

Dan Marks wrote in to say the following "Clinton's technology consultant Ira Magaziner says that recommendations for privatizing DNS should be out in a few weeks. article

On a similar note, a group that wants to test its new system of top-level domain names, possibly without permission from the existing DNS authorities. article"

In a statement that seems almost painfully obvious to those involved with computers, the FBI has made public that despite the attention of old media to hackers, they do not in fact represent the largest threat to computing. What does in fact represent the greatest threat, is Bi...I mean, insiders. The FBI goes on to talk a little bit about government preperation for electronic inflitration.

Judge Joe Kendall of Dallas, Texas, has responded to a complaint by SBC and US West that the Baby Bells should be allowed to enter the long distance market. The ruling may still be appealed, however. The Bells claimed they were being specially prosecuted unfairly for "the sins of their parent company, AT&T".