Month: November 2003

  • Linuxant Offers WLAN Drivers for $19.95!

    Newsforge:

    DriverLoader licenses for end-users have been affordably priced at USD $19.95 and can now be purchased online from Linuxant’s web store (https://www.linuxant.com/store). Upgrades to future versions will be provided at no extra charge for at least one year or longer. Free 30-day trial licenses also remain available. Due to significant development/support costs, and inconclusive discussions with hardware vendors, it is not possible to make DriverLoader completely free for end-users at this time.

    This is ka-huge.  I’ve been using the trial version of the Linuxant drivers on my Laptop.  It allows me to use my otherwise unusable Broadcom 802.11g chip under Linux.  I hope that eventually the wlan-ng project will support the chipset, but the Linuxant drivers are worth every penny of that $19.95.

    So far the Linuxant drivers have been working just fine under SuSE 9 and I will definitely be picking up the $19.95 full version of the drivers.  Sure, I could stick in my Linksys 802.11b card, but that totally kills the all-in-one nature of my laptop.  I was worried that Linuxant would price the drivers out of the range of normal users, but they managed to keep prices below what I am willing to pay.

  • The Future of J2EE

    Tod Nielsen at CNet:

    J2EE is as powerful as any developer could ever dream. But with power comes complexity. All the J2EE specifications put side by side easily take a yard of shelf space. While I have a hard time visualizing enterprise technology becoming “easy” in my lifetime, it can–and should–be easier. If J2EE is to achieve mass adoption while maintaining what makes J2EE powerful, it must become easier.

    Overall Nielsen seems pretty sure that J2EE will rock if issues of complexity and changing standards.

  • CyberGuard Nabs SnapGear

    ZDNet:

    CyberGuard, a manufacturer of security and networking hardware, announced a plan to acquire a competitor called SnapGear, which builds Linux-based products, the companies said Thursday. Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based CyberGuard will pay $16 million, $1.6 million of which is cash and the rest of which is stock, in a deal expected to close by the end of the current quarter.

    And two Linux-based VPN/firewall companies become one.

  • Commodity Web Hosting

    Netcraft has posted an interesting analysis of ultra cheap “commodity” web hosting.  Go Daddy is introducing hosting for as little as $3.95.  More info can be found on the Go Daddy hosting page.  $3.95 gets you 25 megs of space and a gig of transfer a month.  Of course there are many places that you can get a whole lot more for an extra couple of bucks a month, but for some people $3.95 will be a quite attractive price point.

  • LOAF Wiki Launched!

    My self-proclaimed Official LOAF Wiki launched this evening.  It needs a bit of refactoring, but it is positioned to serve as a LOAF clearinghouse.  Also check out the LOAFful badge to the right (generated by the Kalsey button maker)

  • White Box Enterprise Linux

    Via PCLinuxOnline, White Box Enterprise Linux is derived from the open source SRPMs from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.

    What would motivate someone to undertake a project such as this?

    White Box Linux’s initial creation has been sponsored by the Beauregard Parish Public Library in DeRidder, LA USA out of self interest. We have several servers and over fifty workstations running Red Hat Linux and were left high and dry by their recent shift in business plan. Our choices were a difficult migration to another distribution or paying RedHat an annual fee greater than the amortized value of our hardware. So we chose a third path, made possible by the power of Open Source…. White Box Linux.

    Check out the notes section of the site for some interesting quirks between the SRPMs and RHEL.  Be considerate, download over BitTorrent, and keep it to yourself, mmkay?  At the very least don’t tell Slashdot! 🙂

  • LOAF Roundup

    I’m quite amused to find LOAF become a mini-meme this morning.  Here is a list of implementations that I have seen so far:

    There are also two graphics for you to choose from for your LOAF branding.  Where is that perfect LOAF implementation in Haskell?

  • Designing XHTML/HTML For Series 90

    There is a new download at Forum Nokia today: Developer Platform 2.0 for Series 90: Designing XHTML/HTML Content v1.0.  It supercedes a previous pdf file entitled Developer Platform 2.0 for Series 90: Designing Web Services.  The 7700 ships with a customized version of Opera 6.  The browser itself is designed to reasonably handle HTML 4.1, XHTML 1.0 and 1.1, WML, XHTML Mobile Profile and others.

    The phone will render a normal web page as best as it can in 640×320 or less pixels, but markup written in XHTML-MP and designed for a mobile phone would probably be ideal.  Of course, not all HTML-MP phones are created equal.  In order to deliver the best user experience, it might be best to sniff user agents and send 3650/6600/Series 60 users to one page and Series 90 users to another.

    This could get complex and out of hand quickly, but in many cases it could be worthwhile.  Of course you could also target a Series 90 specific site and write the XHTML-MP code optimized for the screen layout.  A mobile site tailored to 7700 users for instance, could easily go for a 7700 specific layout.  Keep in mind that your users might be coming in at 640×320 in fullscreen mode, or they might have as little as 480×217 free if they are browsing with both the command bar and toolbar shown.  I have a feeling that many users will spend a good bit of their time surfing in 480×217 mode or similar, as long as the site permits.  This way they have easy access to navigation buttons and it will also keep them in familiar gound with the surrounding UI.  Also note that you loose another 20 pixels if there is a scrollbar involved.

    So far XHTML-MP has not been covered very thoroughly in the blogosphere, technosphere, or the book world.  In the near future I hope to address some of that with some musings on XHTML-MP.

  • The 7700 Gets Noticed by Newsforge

    Newsforge covers the Nokia 7700:

    Nokia, the world’s largest mobile telephone maker, is getting awfully close to bringing a handheld, Internet-connected television to the consumer market. The Finland-based megacorporation has launched a new category of handheld product — called mobile media devices — which feature Nokia’s largest, most colorful display: a 640×320 touch-sensitive screen that renders as many as 65,536 colors. Nokia says these new devices, to hit the market in Q2 of 2004, offer plenty of new opportunity for Symbian, Java, and C++ developers and is now making SDKs available for free download.

    I’m really exited about the platform, so of course any good press is A Good Thing.  Since the story is on NewsForge, there is an open source/free beer spin to the story.  They mention the free (beer) SDKs that are available and note that Nokia is looking for more developers for the platform.

    I’m so there, but the more the merrier.

  • Buffer Overflow in Windows Workstation Service

    CERT CA-2003-28 points out a “Buffer Overflow in Windows Workstation Service.”

    Windows Update popped up in my taskbar earlier this evening.

    Time to reboot.

  • Where Did I Park my Plane?

    From the Sarasota Herald-Tribune:

    A lot of neighborhoods don’t allow the owners to park Boeing 707s outside their homes, which is why actor John Travolta moved to Jumbolair, near Ocala.

    Nice digs.  I’ve been to Ocala before, which is probably the only reason that I am posting this.  The house/airport has some nice specs.

  • SmartFrog

    Steve pointed to SmartFrog this evening.  Here’s an example of what you might be able to do with it:

    For example, a JBoss plugin would let you declare all the system requirements -memory options, system requirements, and the plugin would get the hypervisor to alloc the appropriate system, then we’d generate jboss boot scripts that would set up the JVM right, run the system, etc, etc. The cool thing is its dynamicity -you can deploy to new machines in a snap.

    Sounds whacky cool.

  • Call In The Bomb Squad

    According to our local NBC affiliate, two packages that were “built to look like a bomb” were discovered in Aspen Hill, Maryland this afternoon.  That’s all of about 3-4 miles from where I’m typing right now.

    Hoorah!

  • User Linux Announced at the Desktop Linux Consortium Conference

    Wired News:

    The new version of Linux, called UserLinux, is being proposed by open-source sage Bruce Perens, who claims to have the backing of some of the world’s largest companies, across a number of business sectors. UserLinux, which will be paid for with multimillion-dollar donations from Perens’ corporate backers, will be free for unlimited use, and will be certified by large computer makers.

    More coverage can be found at NewsForge and Slashdot.  General coverage of the Desktop Linux Consortium Conference can be found at El Reg, ONLamp, NYTimes, CRN and others.

  • My $55 Bet on Symbian, Series 90, and the Nokia 7700

    If you had asked me six months ago what mobile OS would rule the world, I would have told you Symbian hands down, no questions.  Today the picture is a bit murkier.

    There are a ton of tiny and cheap CMDA phones that are coming on the market.  Sure, they can’t do what a 3650 or a P900 can do, but their feature lists are getting better and better.  On even the more modest phones you can usually expect downloadable ringers, wallpaper, and possibly even BREW/J2ME.  It may not be enough for me, but it’s sure enough for a lot of people.

    Another contender out there are the Smartphones of the Windows Mobile variety.  They rarely support Bluetooth and other things that I think of as essential, but the interface is slick!  I have a PocketPC 2002 device and having played around with the Motorola Smartphone, I can honestly say that the Windows Mobile interface is cleaner and easier to use than PocketPC.  It behaves as expected, and you’ve got your little pocket version of your favorite Windows apps.  Everything is there.  It feels familiar, yet it’s a phone.

    Do you remember Alice?  This is a song about Alice.

    So here’s the dirt on my bet on the Symbian horse.

    I bought myself a book this evening: Symbian OS C++ for Mobile Phones.  I stopped by my local Borders on the way to class and thumbed through the Hello World chapter.  It seemed to fill in a lot of the “huh?” gaps that the Series 90 Hello World.  It leans a bit toward developing for UIQ, but points out the differences and how you could change the code to develop for non-UIQ devices.  Instead of “this is how it is” the book tries to go in to “this is how it is, and why.”  There is definitely some funky embedded highly optimized C++ going on there, but too easy is no fun.

    I will definitely post the things that I am learning as I am learning them.

    With MIDP 2.0 in the wild, as well as extensions that allow access to the Bluetooth stack and multimedia/messaging components of the hardware, we are going to see some richer J2ME apps down the line.  We’re going to see them for Symbian and non-Symbian devices.  I still believe that the killer apps for Symbian platforms are going to come in native C++ form.  I believe that Series 90 is going to kick some butt and give the other Smartphones a run for their money.  The screen size is right, the user interface is slick, the possibilities are endless.

    So hopefully with kick butt J2ME apps, a revival of OPL, and some of the best native apps that you can sort of stick in your pocket, my money is on Symbian and Series 90.

  • Best. Craiglslist Post. Evar!

    This is awesome:

    toshiba 2805 computer laptop for sale:

    The keys have all been torn out. The monitor has been shattered after experiencing my fists and a several foot stomps; The laptop upon impact, after being thrown to the ground, permanently ejected the dvd/cd player . The dvd/cd player also disassmbled after the ejection. Several other unidentified pieces of the laptop parted during this incident. The harddrive crashed prior to this incident–However, I am keeping that in case I can retrieve the data.

    I am also offering a white trash bag as a free carrying case.

    (to the tune of Real Men of Genius)…We salute you, Mr. anon-19090957@craigslist.org, for saying what others dared not say…

  • CodeCon 2004 CFP

    Bram has released a call for paper for CodeCon 2004.

  • Blog-it

    Anil might be on to something.

  • Leona Naess/Badly Drawn Boy

    Leona Naess was awesome at the 9:30 club last night.  She played 4-5 songs from her new new cd and also played a few of the more popular songs from her other two albums (that I know of).  Badly Drawn Boy rocked too.

    I took the picture above with a Fuji disposable camera and scanned it on a Nikon Super Coolscan 8000ED for Edd.

  • How Much for that 7700 in the Window?

    I had not seen a price mentioned on the 7700 before, but in a piece by Reuters, I saw this:

    Nokia unveiled the 7700 model last week, a space-age looking device with a large touch-screen display that gives users the possibility to watch TV. The $572 device is due to hit the shops in the second quarter of next year.

    The piece is actually worth reading, as it deals with the neccesity of having a right to view television license in some countries.  $572 is actually less than I was expecting to see the 7700 debut at.  I’ve been looking into Series 90/7700 development and might be picking one of these up as soon as they are available.  It could be so much more painful.

    Has anyone seen confirmation of this general price range?