Do you live inside Visual Studio all day? Ever wished you could keep track of all those RSS feeds in a side
pane so you wouldn't need to exit to read the lastest cool news on Blogs.MSDN.com? Well, your wait is over…and
it's Open Source! Get it
here.
This open source plugin ships as part of SharpTools 2.0 and is a full-featured RSS / Blog aggregator which
integrates into the familiar dockable panes of the Visual Studio.NET IDE. You're gonna love it when you start
blogging from within the development environment! Features include:
In an effort to keep up the momentum and demonstrate that their
Shared Source Initiatives
(SSI) are providing transparency, Microsoft has announced the expansion of the program into seven additional
countries.
The move allows Windows 2000, XP, CE and Server 2003 shared source programmes to be made available to eligible
enterprises, OEMs, systems integrators, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals, and academic institutions in Cyprus,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia.
....
Microsoft began sharing Windows source code with academic institutions in 1991, and established the SSI in 2001 to
formalise a programme that allows access to key Microsoft technologies.
The SSI currently covers source code components from Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, CE 3.0, CE .Net, CE 5.0,
components of Visual Studio .Net, ASP.Net Starter Kits, Windows Installer XML, Windows Template Library and
FlexWiki.
Reuters UK has a
story this
morning which indicates that over one third of Internet traffic is now acounted for by legal…and illegal uses of
BitTorrent. What the article doesn't discuss is what the other 65% is being used for. My money is on spam.
Novell calling Balmer…Novell calling Balmer…What planet are you on Balmer? Novell posts a
response to Steve
Balmer's assertion that the Microsoft's Windows platform provides opportunities for a lower TCO than that of
"Linux".
What interests me most about this particular white paper is that it contains some benchmark results comparing
performance of Windows Server 2003 and the .Net development framework versus IBM Websphere running on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux. Which brings me to that one little fact I wanted to add. The license agreement for Windows Server
2003 states:
"Benchmark Testing. The 32-bit version of the Software contains the Microsoft .NET Framework. Disclosure of the
results of any benchmark test of the .NET Framework component of the Software to any third party without
Microsoft's prior written approval is prohibited."
In other words, Microsoft says competitors need their permission to publish results of a study like the one
Microsoft commissioned. If IBM, Red Hat, or some other open source advocate wanted to counter Microsoft's claims with
a study of their own, Microsoft's license would deny them the right to publish their own set of benchmark
results.
Have you ever wondered if there was a connection between the Linux distro you prefer and your
personality? Well, now you can rest easy because there is. Have a look at this comical piece from Joe
Barr. You can find some more of his work here. Hmmm..I
wonder if someone has put together a list of the different flavors of Windows OS's over time and what it says about you
if you're still on Windows 3.1 (I've heard of people like this believe it or not.)
Many Linux newbies — or wanna-be newbies — get hung up over the choice of their initial distribution. We here at
NewsForge have put a lot of thought into this, and have decided to share our best thinking on the subject in order to
help ease you newbies out of the monopoly spread into the Linux world. The most important thing for newbies to
consider is this: what does your choice of distributions say about you? Updated to include Slackware.
To that end, we have created this brief list of observations of the users of specific distributions, highlighting
their most notable traits, in order that you can weigh this important aspect of distribution selection in your final,
initial decision.
Debian This distribution is popular with those who always count in binary, and are politically correct in a free
software kind of way. Many are suspected of having been nursed on a TTY. Debian users take pride in the fact that
their distribution is always several releases behind the latest version of the kernel, but makes up for that by being
more difficult to install and use.
Gentoo If John Wayne had been a Linux user, he would have used Gentoo. Gentoo users are pioneers, people who like
to live close to the metal, and don't mind hurting themselves on sharp objects. Some feel that Gentoo users are
simply lazy louts who always want to have a ready excuse for why they are not doing constructive things with their
computer, other than compiling or recompiling the latest kernel, app, or hapless passerby. The official Gentoo motto
is, "If it moves, compile it."
Balmer is back on the offensive and this time its a no holds barred attack on TCO.
Few companies know what they're really spending," Ballmer said on Wednesday, citing several studies showing that
the cost of hiring software administrators and engineers to maintain Linux-based systems outstrips the benefits of
getting it for free.
Linux is open source software, meaning it can be copied and modified freely, making it popular among businesses
seeking to lower their information technology (IT) costs.
According to a study by the Garnter Group has indicated that
over 40% of US PC's and over 80% of PC's in "emerging markets" that are sold with Linux will find themselves wiped
clean in lieu of an illicit copy of a Windows operating systems.
In the endless war of words and numbers between Windows and The Rest, Gartner has chipped in with a paradoxical
observation. Forty percent of PCs sold with Linux installed are subsequently hosed clean and receive an illicit copy
of Windows, the analysts say – and that's just in the US and Western Europe. In emerging markets, that fate awaits a
full eighty percent of Linux pre-installs.
Following on from the launch of two very successful projects
(WIX and
WTL) on SourceForge.Net, Microsoft has now launched its third open
source project, FlexWiki. I'm not even going to get into the potential for
hidden agendas and other ramifications of this most recent OSS venture, other then to say…interesting…VEERRRYYY
INTERESTING.
Microsoft's three projects allow developers to build collaborative online content, build installation packages for
Windows products and create graphic interfaces for Windows programs. The Windows Installer XML software, posted on
SourceForge.net in April, has received over 100,000 downloads while the Windows Template Library, in its fifth month
on the site, has received over 23,000 downloads — placing both projects in the top 10% of active projects on the
site.
