See ya around the ‘net.

Source: PCWorld

Update: It seems that XP SP3 will be delayed for a while longer. Not a Microsoft product being delayed, that’s unheard of. It seems that at the last minute a issue was found with Point of Sale software that Microsoft makes that runs on XP.

Source: The Register

This is an excerpt from their EULA:

You also agree that any domain name directory, sub-directory, file name or path (e.g.) that does not resolve to an active web page on your Web site being hosted by Network Solutions, may be used by Network Solutions to place a “parking” page, “under construction” page, or other temporary page that may include promotions and advertisements for, and links to, Network Solutions’ Web site, Network Solutions product and service offerings, third-party Web sites, third-party product and service offerings, and/or Internet search engines. You agree that Network Solutions may change the content and/or appearance of, or disable any of these temporary pages at any time, in its sole discretion, and without prior notice.

Edit: I came across this personally when looking at my position in the Google ranks. This site comes up before me and has an under construction page. You wouldn’t really know it was under construction except for a tiny little text box in the top right corner.

Source: The Register

The devil is in the details though, even though the documentation is public if Microsoft feels that the protocol is patented any commercial product wanting to implement the protocol will have to pay royalties. The bright side is that noncommercial open source software may implement the protocols without royalties. Many say this effort is from pressure from the EU but this is still a step in the right direction.

Source: Information Week

Safari feels very fast opening pages. It’s got all the standard web browser features, tabbed browsing, rss feed reader, form auto-fill. I really like the built-in rss reader, it puts Firefox reader to shame. Screen shots will follow. Another big feature is the private browsing right out of the box in Firefox you need a plugin for that but Safari has this as a standard feature.

Update: It seems that Apple violates it’s on EULA with the new Safari for Windows. According to The Register Safari can only be installed on Apple hardware running Windows.

Screen shots of the Feed reader that I really like. The feature that I really like is the article length slider which adjusts the article length on the fly.

• Linux kernel 2.6.24
• GNOME 2.22
• PolicyKit
• Firefox 3 Beta 4
• Virtualization
• ActiveDirectory integration
• Memory Protection
• Wubi

I think one of my favorites has to be Wubi, what this is an installer for Windows. What it does is allows a user to install/uninstall Ubuntu just like any other application, with no need to have another boot loader or separate partition. For those that prefer KDE to Gnome the Kubuntu beta is also out and can be found here. Kubuntu has is available with either KDE 3.5 or the shiny new KDE 4.

Some of the new features are very nice as well. My favorite being the adaptive autocomplete address bar. What this does is based on your usage patterns of the sites you visit the most and sites you visited recently and of course by letters your typing, it shows you the most relevant sites in the autocomplete menu. Also another nice thing is the ability to save your current tab layout when you quit. So when you come back to browsing everything is just how you left it.

Firefox 3 Beta 4 can be found here.
PC Magazine also has an article about the new beta: PC Magazine

To disable shared folders in the Global settings:

1. From the VMware product’s menu, choose Edit > Preferences.
2. In the Workspace tab, under Virtual Machines, deselect the checkbox for Enable all shared folders by default.

To disable shared folders for the individual virtual machine settings:

1. From the VMware product’s menu, choose VM > Settings.
2. In the Options tab, select Shared Folders and Disable.

Source: Vnunet.com

Princeton computer science professor Edward W. Felten, states that by using an inverted can of compressed air, a common item in most offices, you can effectively freeze the data on the chip for 10 minutes. In contrast using liquid nitrogen, not so common item in the office unless it’s a cryogenics office, the time can be increased to hours. Then the ram can be used cold boot the machine and the encryption key is still on the memory and can be used to access the encrypted disc contents.

Source: Information Week

The Advanced Computing Group claims to be able to improve the throughput by as much as 1000% just by increasing the buffer size. The group also made available patches to the popular OpenSSH software. I have yet to try this patches but as far as I can tell this looks to be very promising.

Source: HPN-SSH
Patches: OpenSSH with HPN-SSH patches

Source: Cnet

While I’m all for Linux and Open Source software, XP is still a good product that doesn’t deserve to die just yet. I can’t believe I just said that. Compared to the bloat of Vista XP feels downright good. It’s like that friend that really goofy and awkward yet you still hang around with them anyway.