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Google

Submission + - Google begins 'Gmail 2.0' rollout

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: Google on Tuesday confirmed it is giving Gmail a new look. Two prominent blogs that cover Google — Google Blogscoped and Google Operating System — have posted screenshots of a new Gmail interface that has been made available to a limited number of users. They're calling it "Gmail 2.0," even if Google isn't.

Google confirmed the update is underway at its new San Francisco office, just prior to a briefing on an unrelated upcoming Google announcement. A Google spokesperson said that the new look has been made available to about one percent of all Gmail users and is being rolled out the rest on an ongoing basis.
Linux Business

Michael Meeks On ODF and OOXML 184

Posted by kdawson from the down-with-clippy dept.
biscuitfever11 writes "ZDNet has up a great interview with Michael Meeks, the distinguished Novell engineer, who's currently deeply involved in open document format and OpenOffice.org. In the interview, Meeks takes Microsoft to task on its alternative format OOXML and argues that Microsoft should adopt ODF — but says that realistically they never will. He also mentions his favorite example to explain the benefits of open source software to a nontechnical person: the flexibility of open source would have allowed us to free ourselves from Clippy, the world's most despised paperclip, by changing a single line of code."
Portables

Submission + - Not a Thinkpad 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As a very happy Thinkpad T20 user (still working after 7 years) I always planned on replacing it with another Thinkpad T-series. However, Thinkpads are now produced by Lenovo, a Chinese company, and I can't quite bear to buy Chinese while the Burmese military are shooting at monks with the Chinese Government as their biggest backer. Maybe this is silly, as whatever I buy is likely to be made (at least in part) in China... but still, what are my options for something as well built as the Thinkpad T-series?
Privacy

Submission + - Skype-Linux reads /etc/passwd and firefox profile! (skype.com)

Submitted by
mrcgran
mrcgran writes: "Users of Skype for Linux have just found out that it reads the files /etc/passwd, firefox profile, plugins, addons, etc, and many other unnecessary files in /etc. This fact was originally discovered by using AppArmor, but others have confirmed this fact using strace on versions 1.4.0.94 and 1.4.0.99. What is going on? This probably shows how important it is to use AppArmor in any closed-source application in Linux to restrict any undue access to your files."
Programming

The Completely Fair Scheduler's Impact On Games 315

Posted by Zonk from the penguins-without-joysticks-part-deux dept.
eldavojohn writes "We've heard a bit about the completely fair scheduler previously, but now Kernel Trap looks at the implications this new scheduler has for 3D games in Linux. Linus Torvalds noted, 'I don't think any scheduler is perfect, and almost all of the time, the RightAnswer(tm) ends up being not one or the other, but somewhere in between. But at the same time, no technical decision is ever written in stone. It's all a balancing act. I've replaced the scheduler before, I'm 100% sure we'll replace it again. Schedulers are actually not at all that important in the end: they are a very very small detail in the kernel.' The posts that follow the brief article, reveal that Linus seems quite confident that he made the right choice in his decision to merge CFS with the Linux kernel. One thing's for certain, gaming on Linux can't suffer any more setbacks or it may be many years before we see FOSS games rival the commercial world."
Microsoft

Submission + - OOXML Denied INCITS V1 Approval (robweir.com)

Submitted by
Xenographic
Xenographic writes: "INCITS V1, the US group responsible for the US vote over whether or not ANSI will grant fast-track approval to Microsoft's OOXML format, failed to reach the 2/3 consensus required to recommend OOXML to ANSI. What makes this vote interesting is the graph in the article, showing all the new Microsoft business partners who joined INCITS just this year to vote for OOXML. They will now deliberate further, until they can come to some agreement on what to recommend to ANSI, but it's pretty clear that Microsoft is pushing OOXML as hard as it can."
Linux Business

Submission + - Tech writers spreading FUD about GPLv3 1

Submitted by Tookis
Tookis writes: Tech writers are spreading FUD about GPLv3 because they fear its take up will slow the adoption of Linux, according to this open source writer. "A large number of tech writers — I wouldn't call them journalists and sully my own profession — are fearful that the licence will slow adoption of Linux in the workplace. And that would lead to a lessening of their own importance and influence." http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/13525/1090/

Feed Vista – End of the Dream? (theregister.com)

From feed by registerfeed
Mr Jewell simply can't take it any more...

Column You’ve probably heard of – if not actually read – that modern-day classic, “Dreaming in Code”. The book is subtitled “Two dozen programmers, three years, 4,732 bugs and one quest for transcendent software”.
Censorship

Submission + - Fair use in scientific blogging?

Submitted by
GrumpySimon
GrumpySimon writes: "Recently, a well-read science blog, Retrospectacle posted an article on a scientific paper. This blog post reproduced a chart and a table from the original article and everything was fully attributed. When the publishers, the mega-science publishing house Wiley found out, they subsequently threatened legal action unless the chart and table were removed. Understandably, this whole mess has stirred up quite a storm of protest, with many people seeing this as falling under fair use, and calling for a boycott of Wiley & Wiley's journals."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft offers Vista upgrade pricing to all

Submitted by
SlinkySausage
SlinkySausage writes: "With a vague whif of desperation, Microsoft is offering anyone who downloaded one of the betas or release candidates of Vista upgrade pricing for the full version. The 'special' deal is a sweetener for the fact that the betas will start expiring and becoming non-functional from May 31st. APC Magazine in Australia writes: "Windows Vista is starting to look like those Persian rug stores which are always having a 'closing down' sale. 'Full' prices are set laughably high only to make you think you're getting an amazing discount, because no-one pays the marked price. All stock has been slashed, save $$$, why pay more?"

Feed Review: SimplyMEPIS Linux 6.5 (slashdot.org)

From feed by lcfeed
A few weeks ago, MEPIS released SimplyMEPIS 6.5. The latest version of the Ubuntu-based desktop distribution offers a number of interesting new features, including a 64-bit release and Beryl for 3-D desktop effects. After spending a fair amount of...
Microsoft

Submission + - Is Windows Vista in trouble?

Submitted by Ken Erfourth
Ken Erfourth writes: I'm a small computer shop owner, and I have noticed how little interest my customers have in Windows Vista. Now, the Inquirer.net is running a story about what they consider two powerful indications that Vista is failing in the marketplace.

One, Dell has reintroduced PCs running Windows XP on its website due to customer demand. Two, Microsoft is conducting a worldwide firesale on a bundle of Microsoft Office 2007/WindowsXP Starter Edition. According to Inquirer.net, at least, these are signs of serious problems selling Vista.

Are we seeing the stumbling of the Microsoft Juggernaught with the slow adoption of Windows Vista?

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