Month: June 2003

  • EDGE: GPRS on Crack

    Mobiletracker notes some software speedups that could change mobile phone internet access here in the States:

    Cingular has launched the world’s first EDGE network, oddly enough in Indianapolis Indiana. EDGE stands for Enhanced Datarate for Global Evolution and is a software tweak to GPRS . Data speeds peak out at 170 kilobits per second and average at 75-135 Kbps.

    That’s significantly more throughput than I can get on my 3650.  Aparently EDGE phones will also be able to work in a vanilla GPRS environment.  Quick slick, actually.

  • MyHeadlines 4.2.2 Released

    MyHeadlines 4.2.2, a security release, is out.  MyHeadlines allows you to embed content from sites via RSS using PHP and MySQL.

  • New Itanics Set Sail

    Intel officially released six new Itanics today.  SFGate:

    The Santa Clara chipmaker is offering three versions of its new Itanium 2s, each running at 1.5 GHz, 1.4 GHz and 1.3 GHz. Their wholesale prices are $4, 226, $2,247 and $1,338 respectively.

    […]

    In addition, Intel is also releasing three new Xeon MP microprocessors, each running at 2.8 GHz ($3,692), 2.5 GHz ($1,980), and 2 GHz ($1,177).

    Where did I put my Hammer, er, Opteron?

  • Katharine Hepburn

    It’s sad when someone like Katharine Hepburn passes away.

    It’s sad when anyone passes away.

  • PHP 5.0.0 Beta Released

    Via PHP.net:

    The PHP development community is proud to announce the release of PHP 5 Beta 1. Both source packages, and a Windows build are available in the Downloads Section. A list of changes can be found in the ChangeLog file.

    Notable features include a new version of the Zend engine, a new XML library, and other fun stuff.

    It’s a beta.  Put it on a test box and play with it.  Don’t put it on a production server.  Don’t do it, man.

  • Matt Croydon::temp_moblog

    I set up a moblog with textamerica today.  With Yummie RSS too.

    I’d like to set up a moblog on my colo’d server, but for now, I’ve got instant moblogging gratification.

  • Jena 1.3.0 Released

    Jena 1.3.0 has been released.  From the freshmeat page:

    Jena is Java toolkit for developing semantic Web applications. It includes an RDF API, ARP, an RDF parser used for the W3C semantics Web sandbox, RDQL (an RDF query language and processor), and a DAML API.

    The web page at HP Labs is very informative.  Also of note is the next generation Jena2 project.

  • My 3650 Software Wiki

    Erik out-blogged me about this already, but I’ve set up a Wiki page for the software that I have installed on my new Nokia 3650.  It includes everything that I currently have installed on the phone (though I’ve got a lot more installing to go) as well as a wish list of software I’m looking at as well as a place to suggest stuff for me to check out.

  • AMD To Cripple Chips and Not Say Anything?

    CNet reports that AMD is trying to reduce costs of manufacturing in some interesting ways:

    In the Athlon64 line, for instance, the 3700+, 3400+ and 3100+ chips will initially come with 1MB of cache. In the fourth quarter, however, the underlying structure of the 3100+ will change: Its clock speed will substantially increase, but its cache will be reduced to 256KB, or one-quarter the original size.

    Also:

    AMD’s plans for the Thorton chip, an upcoming member of the Athlon XP family, suggest it will be the same size as the Barton chip, but half of the cache on the processor will be disabled. (It will also be paired with a slower bus

    I understand that given the current economic outlook, you’ve got to cut costs by any means neccesary, but I’m not too thrilled by how they appear to be doing so.  I know back in the early Thunderbird days it was easier to make a faster chip in a smaller process and then clock it down.  That’s fine, but reducing the cache so significantly without making note of it to the end consumer is not, IMHO.

    I’d rather have a slightly slower chip with a 1MB cache than a higher speed chip with less cache.  It’s why Celerons (especially older ones) can lag out sometimes.  Granted, the newer Celerons and Durons are much better than in the past, but if you’re going to cripple a chip, put a sticker on it or something.

    Minirant aside, I’m still totally stoked about the Opteron and the Athlon64, and I’d like to have one on my desk as soon as it’s reasonably affordable.  For the record I run a mix of AMD and Intel chips among my computers, some by choice (My oldschool Athlon 750) and others by virtue of extremely good deals that I couldn’t pass up (Dual PIII733’s and a PIII850).  The Celerons, PII’s and K6-II’s that I still run are mostly Linux/BSD machines, and they don’t complain one bit.

  • Java 1.4.2 Released

    Matt Raible:

    Thanks to Karl for tipping me off that JDK 1.4.2 has been released. [Download, Release Notes]

  • J2SE 1.4.2 and 1.5 Roadmap

    Calvin Austin at java.sun.com:

    By the end of 2003, Java developers will be able to get their hands on a beta version of Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition 1.5 (J2SE 1.5). This release and the current 1.4 updates, 1.4.1 and 1.4.2, were covered in the J2SE roadmap session at the 2003 JavaOne Conference. If you were unable to attend the session, or want to refresh your memory, here are the key points from the talk.

    I’m glad to see that they’re still working on bugfixes for the 1.4.x branch while pushing ahead with the 1.5 beta.  Look for the major changes in 1.5 though.

  • (((Echo)))

    Jon Udell has great coverage of Echo.  With Dave Winer’s endorsement, it looks like all of the major blog vendors will be supporting this new format once it stabalizes.  It’ll happen sooner than you think too.

    I’m passively watching the whole thing, confident that it will work out. 

  • Unlimited GPRS?

    This Infosync article notes that T-Mobile also has a $19.95/mo unlimited GPRS plan.  I’m going to stick with my initial 10MB/mo for $9.95/mo until I see exactly how much I use.  I’m pretty sure that each additional meg after that is only an additional dollar, so if I go over a little bit, it’s (hopefully) not a big deal.

    Another question is what is T-Mobile’s definition of Unlimited?  Lets hope it’s not similar to the definition of Unmetered in Ireland.

  • Mono 0.25 Released

    I didn’t notice it yesterday, but Mono 0.25 has been released.  Thanks to OSNews for the link.  The release notes sport tons of additions and improvements all around.

  • Zynot: Gentoo Fork

    Reasons for Forking a Linux Distribution by Zachary Welch is a long but worthwhile read on the squabbles of open source developers.  Here’s a one paragraph mission statement from the Zynot homepage:

    The Zynot Foundation is a 501.c.3 non-profit organization that has been established to hold the source code, trademarks, and any other intellectual property developed by and for its community. Most notably, this entity will be responsible for the management of a fork of the Gentoo Distribution, ensuring that the involved intellectual property cannot be subverted by any single for-profit interest. The fork will be targeted at embedded users, enterprise users and developers. Initially, current Gentoo technology will be utilized, but future technologies will be developed and directed by the community.

    I’ve been a casual Gentoo user.  I’ve installed it a few times, played around with it, managed to totally hose the OS one or twice.  When Moof pointed out the fork this morning, it struck me by suprise.  First, I had no idea that there was an embedded Gentoo project.  That totally rocks.  Second, all of these biz arguments and behind the scenes stuff isn’t reflected on the Gentoo front page.

    How widespread is stuff like this in the Open Source world?  Probably more than you think.

  • Tomcat Tips

    ONJava has ten configuration tips for Tomcat.  I’m definately going to have to look into the part about vhosts.

  • Google Toolbar 2.0

    Straight from Diego, the latest Google Toolbar has the following new features:

    • Popup Blocker: Make surfing the web easier by stopping annoying popups.
    • AutoFill: Automatically fill in a form with the click of a button.
    • BlogThis: Create a weblog post pointing to the page you are visiting.

    Yes, Google gets it, in case anyone was having doubts.

  • Breaking My Aggregator

    Note to Matt Raible: your post on getting back on the road to XHTML compliance keeps breaking my (Radio) aggregator!  🙂

    It’s rather amusing.

  • Jabber Enhancement Proposal New Releases

    Here’s a quick rundown of new releases:

    • JEP-0102: Security Extensions (0.1)
    • JEP-0101: Authentication using Jabber Tickets (0.1)
    • JEP-0100: Gateway Interaction (0.1)
    • JEP-0099: Query Action Protocol (0.1)
    • JEP-0098: Enhanced Private XML Storage (0.1)
    • JEP-0060: Publish Subscribe (0.11)
  • Motorola Ramps Up New Version (And it Doesn’t Really Matter)

    El Reg:

    Motorola appears to have brought forward volume production of the next major G4-class PowerPC processor, the MPC7457, from Q4 to Q3.

    Looks like you won’t be seeing a G5 powerbook anytime soon…