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Operating Systems

Submission + - Next Windows to Be Redesigned for Multicore CPUs

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "A Microsoft executive announced that the next Windows will be fundamentally redesigned to handle the numerous cores of present and future processors. The article notes that with Vista, the 20 year old GDI/GDI+ model was completely rewritten. Has Microsoft finally learned not to persist limitations and bad features of operating systems through generations? It will be interesting to see how Microsoft tackles the race conditions and deadlocks that come with pervasively multi threaded software and in the past complicated attempts to utilize multiple CPUs (like BeOS). Do you think it's it a smart move to further complicate an operating system to take advantage of these cores or should Microsoft concentrate on utilizing a single core for Windows while the applications take advantage of (possibly) more resources?"
Privacy

Submission + - Google likens Sweden to dictatorship

Submitted by lobStar
lobStar writes: Google criticizes the Swedish government heavily and does even go as far as liken it with dictatorship because of the proposed bill that would allow wiretapping of all data crossing the countries' borders. The proposal stems from a tradition begun by Saudia Arabia and China and simply has no place in a western democracy," says Peter Fleischer, Google spokesman. "Sometimes Google needs to take a clear stance and my impression is that everybody has listened very intently to what we have had to say," Although the bill has been delayed, not even a such strong statement from the search giant seems to make the government change it's mind.
Encryption

Submission + - Court:: breaking copy protection permissible

Submitted by
Erik Norgaard
Erik Norgaard writes: "ArsTechnica reports that the district court of Helsinki, Finland, has ruled that CSS is not an effective copy protection mechanism. The EU copyright directive prohibits the creation and distribution of code that can circumvent effective copyright protection schemes. The court have found that CSS is ineffective. No other court have previously tried to interpret the term "effective technological protection"."
Linux Business

Submission + - Samba Success in the Enterprise?

Submitted by
gunnk
gunnk writes: "We've deployed a Samba server here to replace some aging Novell Netware boxes. It works great: fast, secure, stable. However, we have one VIP that feels that Samba is "amateur" software and that we should be buying Windows servers. I've been searching with little success for large Samba deployments in enterprise environments. Anyone out there care to share stories of places that are happily running large Samba installations for their file servers? Or not so happy, for that matter — better to be informed!"
Nintendo

Submission + - Wii Smashes Aussie Sales Record, Retailers Respond

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Gameworld Network are reporting that the Wii sold through 32,901 consoles in the first four days on sale in Australia, and almost 50,000 games. This represents the most successful console launch ever in the country, beating out the Xbox 360 launch earlier in the year where Microsoft sold an admirable 30,000 consoles.

Nintendo consoles (including Wii and DS) accounted for 67% of all video game hardware sales last week.

"Myer has just experienced a strong spike in total business which can be largely attributed to the introduction of Wii," explains Bernie Brookes, Myer CEO. "We couldn't be happier with the fantastic products Nintendo are releasing. Our Wii launch experience has really shown that consumers have made Myer a destination store for gaming."

Meanwhile, local retailer Harvey Norman missed out on the Wii altogether, with Nintendo citing that the retail chain was demanding the consoles at a cheaper price point than everyone else. Late last year, the retailer also pulled GameCube hardware and software from shelves. Perhaps now, with the success of the Wii, they will have to reconsider how they do business with Nintendo."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Consumer Reports Warns Against Extended Warranties

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: In its first ever public education ad campaign, Consumer Reports is telling consumers to just say "no" to warranties pushed by the nation's retailers. In a full page ad beginning today they are taking direct aim at a very lucrative money-maker for consumer goods retailers, calling extended warranties a 'lousy deal for consumers'. Justin Barber, a spokesman at Best Buy Co., defended warranties, saying in a statement: 'We understand the plans are not for everyone. It is up to the customer to decide if the service plan will meet their individual lifestyle needs.'
Java

Submission + - The future of Java opensource projects

Submitted by
Rogerio Acquadro
Rogerio Acquadro writes: "What will be the future of projects like Blackdown Java, Kaffee and GCJ once that Sun's Java is GPLd? Will these projects die soon? Will these projects be forgotten? Or will these projects continue to develop?"
Software

Submission + - The art of managing an SOA

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "As Service-Oriented Archticturess catch on, companies are finding testing isn't the only IT area that could require a makeover. Designing, deploying and managing services-based applications is a different animal from working with traditional multitier applications. To deal with the changes, management pros are augmenting their tool sets with software that gives a clearer view inside transaction-level details, for example, and network executives are considering appliances that can help tackle XML-processing loads. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/111406-manag ing-soa.html"
Software

Submission + - IOmega Backup software fails to recover files

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If you back up your files using IOmega, you might think your data is safely secured. But if you happen to choose to compress the backup files (i.e. the default) option, your data will be saved into a format which can't be uncompressed without a configuration file that's stored on your primary HD (i.e. the one that just crashed). You can read about this on IOmega's customer support forum:

http://www.iomegasupportforums.com/phpbb2/viewtopi c.php?t=2453&highlight=recover

I've included the first exchange because I think they will probably remove this thread if it gets too much notice. First, the desperate customer:

"I have my entire hard drive backed up to an external hard drive using Iomega Automatic Backup Pro. Just a few days ago my hard drive crashed, had to get a new hard drive. When I go to recover my files it cant find the configuration files. I did some research and very very oddly....the files required to retrieve my backup were on the hard drive that was backed up and now crashed. Defeating the entire purpose of a backup software. What can I do now to recover my files since the configuration files were destride on the origional drive? Please help!"

Now, the not-so-helpful (nor literate) tech-support:

"If you backed up your files using IAB pro with the compress option. If you moved any of the files on the drive or off the drive then there isn't a way to recover the files. Next time you do a backup make sure you are not compressing the files.

Did you move any of the files on the drive where you backed up the files to?"
Space

Submission + - Can India's Red Rain be Extraterrestrial?

Submitted by
[TheBORG]
[TheBORG] writes: "In July 2001, a mysterious red rain started falling over a large area of southern India. Locals believed that it foretold the end of the world, though the official explanation was that it was desert dust that had blown over from Arabia. But one scientist in the area, Dr Godfrey Louis, was convinced there was something much more unusual going on. Not only did Dr Louis discover that there were tiny biological cells present, but because they did not appear to contain DNA, the essential component of all life on Earth, he reasoned they must be alien lifeforms."
Linux Business

Submission + - Open source directions: best practices

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "IBM's Open Source guru Bob Sutor: For a long time we looked at licensing — if you want to use our stuff, then come pay us. That worked for a long time. We make about a billion [dollars] a year from our intellectual property. We realized several years ago that that wasn't going to be enough, that if we wanted to look at growth in the long term in markets we were interested in moving into, we had to loosen up and start building a foundation around open standards for connecting systems over the Internet and driving a service-oriented architecture. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/111306-qna-b ob-sutor-open-source-best-practices.html"

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