mpcosta@boroniavet.com.au
20 great Windows open source projects you should get to know | NetworkWorld.com Community
Fun stuff: Juice (p. 1); RSSOWL (p. 7 )
Security tools Eraser (p. 1); TrueCrypt (p. 6 )
System or
Net mgt tools FOG (p. 2 ); MRemote (p. 2 ); Paglo (p. 3 ); GroundWork Monitor (p. 4 ). Cobian Backup (p. 5 ); H-Inventory (p. 7 ); NetStumbler (p. 7); jNetStream (p. 9 ); Keyfinder (p. 10); Angry IP Scanner (p. 10 )
Personal or enterprise productivity tools GIMP 2 (p. 3 ); LifeRay (p. 4 ); Joomla! (p. 6); ReactOS (p. 8 ); Thunderbird (p. 8 ); Filezilla Server (p. 9 )
Reader's Choice for Best OSS Projects | NetworkWorld.com Community
This list is based on the number of comments received and the passion of the post. (Please note: this is not a ranking).
Happy 30th Birthday, Compact Disc! - Gizmodo Australia
Happy birthday! 1979-2009.Thirty years. Pretty amazing that it's been that long since those crazy Dutchmen at Philips spun the technology off of laser discs as part of an optical digital audio disc demo in Eindhoven.
Of course, the CD didn't immediately take off right then and there. It needed a little help from Sony, which worked with Philips to get the format standardised. The standard they named Red Book, which included everything from playing time (initially 60 minutes), to the disc diameter to sampling frequency. Put simply, the collaboration worked out, and Red Book was a success.
Who gives good broadband? - Core Frequency - Blogs - PC Authority
The results from Whirlpool’s annual Australian Broadband Survey are in, and as always they make interesting reading.
Of course, the demographics of the survey very likely don’t represent the public at large. But it is a good sampling of the opinions of those who are best informed about broadband issues – readers of Whirlpool.
As you might expect, the proposed censorship regime isn’t popular, with nearly 90% of respondents saying they will turn off their opt-out filters if they are ever introduced.
And thanks to his handling of the censorship regime and National Broadband Network, Stephen Conroy is rated roughly twice as badly as Communication’s Minister than either Helen Coonan or Richard Alston, which is really saying something (and that’s in spite of roughly 59% of respondents saying they voted Labor).
Politics aside, perhaps the most significant part of the survey covers the respondents’ feelings about their own ISPs. As in previous years, Westnet and Internode rated very well for customer support and responsiveness, and Adam, Amnet and iiNet also scored well. Westnet, Internode and iiNet also rated well for connection reliability.
Australian Broadband Survey 2008 Report
Only 2% of Labor voters supported the filtering policy. Almost two thirds of Labor voters did not even realise the filtering policy was being proposed.
I voted Labor and supported filtering policy 1.2%
I voted Labor despite filtering policy 20.4%
I voted Labor without awareness of filtering policy 37.3%
Didn't vote Labor because of filtering policy 11.3%
Didn't vote Labor 29.8%
Dell Adamo gets its own teaser video - News - PC Authority
Dell unleashes more tasty teasers for its ultralight Adamo notebook, their answer to the MacBook Air
First mentioned way back in 2008, the Dell Adamo is clearly the PC giant’s answer to the MacBook Air, but aside from the fact that it was going to be super-thin, we’ve never really known much about it - until now.
Dell has updated its “Adamo by Dell” website with a teaser video that shows off the luxury laptop’s exterior for the first time as a pair of CGI robot arms put one together.
Apple's rumoured netbook "will have 10-inch screen" - News - PC Authority
The new murmurs have appeared on no less a credible news source than CNN: a source who didn't want to be named told the US news network that the mini laptop will feature a screen size of between 9.7 and 10 inches. That would put Apple's netbook in opposition to the likes of the Asus Eee PC 1000.
Of course, none of this has been confirmed (or denied)by Apple, so we'd suggest you take it all with a large portion of salt. And in any case, another source informed CNN that, while the Apple netbook is happening, all specifications are still under review
Upcoming Firefox release changed from 3.1 to 3.5 - News - PC Authority
Mozilla has announced that the latest version of its Firefox browser will be changed from 3.1 to 3.5, and that the fourth beta will be published on 14 April.
"The version number of the Shiretoko project will be changed to Firefox 3.5 before the upcoming fourth beta release," wrote Mike Beltzner, Mozilla's director of Firefox, on the Mozilla developer blog.
"Add-on developers should stay tuned for announcements about what this means for their extensions and themes hosted on addons.mozilla.org. We expect to be able to do this with a minimum of inconvenience to our community."
The change in name from 3.1 to 3.5 was first proposed last week to recognise "the sheer volume of work which makes Shiretoko feel like much more than a small, incremental improvement over Firefox 3", according to Beltzner.
Enhancements include better user control over data privacy, improved web layout and rendering, and the TraceMonkey JavaScript compiler.
Mozilla posted the 3.0.7 update of its Firefox 3 browser only last week, promising multiple security patches and stability fixes. The five security fixes included three which addressed flaws rated as 'critical' by Mozilla.
Telstra cable Internet is going to get bleeding fast - News - PC Authority
Is Telstra trying to make a point? First they received the cold shoulder in the Government's National Broadband Network (NBN). Next, suddenly it's raining super fast broadband everywhere.
With the 21Mbps wireless announcement out of the way, Telstra has now moved onto bumping up cable speeds again.
Telstra's cable, for those city slickers lucky enough to have access, was already up to 30Mbps for some users on the Extreme version. Now, thanks to the fabled DOCSIS 3.0 technology, speeds in Melbourne will jump to 100Mbps by Christmas.
Incidentally, it also seems this means fibre is suddenly no longer the fastest thing in the land for now.
There's also room to move to 200Mbps in the future, Telstra says. While no other cities are mentioned in the announcement, it does say Melbourne will be the "first city" to benefit from these speeds, which does sound to us like other cities are in the queue
TV coming to your netbook - News - PC Authority
ASUS obviously thinks TV is a great thing to have in a netbook, because it's doing just that - building TV into its mini laptops.
ASUS tells us TV is being slated as an option for the 1-inch thick T91 tablet, which wowed us at CES with its touchscreen, sub-1Kg weight and LED screen.
While you can log onto various network TV sites for "catchup TV", or download your ...cough....illegal episodes via the Web, having a TV built into the notebook itself seems like a great next step for people who aren't prepared to go hunting, or if you'd rather the over the air version.
It's been possible to plug a PC card TV tuner into a laptop, it will be interesting to see how well the concept works built into the notebook itself, and whether issues with antennas and signal reception put a dampener on the whole notebook TV concept.
ASUS isn't the only one thinking about notebook TV. Intel has even announced the "world's first embedded balanced antenna for digital TV", designed so you don't need an external antenna.
Review: Amazon's Kindle App For iPhone -- amazon -- InformationWeek
Eager to try Amazon's e-books, but not willing to shell out $359 for a Kindle? Now there's an alternative: An e-book reader from Amazon that's completely free -- if you already own an iPhone or iPod Touch.
OpenVPMS | Open Source Veterinary Practice Management Software - Your practice, your software!
Did you know that OpenVPMS is a not for profit company that has written software specifically for the use of veterinary practitioners worldwide? OpenVPMS relies on financial support from veterinary industry members to fund ongoing development and refinement of our software.
iPhone now has more commercial apps than Windows Mobile - Ars Technica
Apple's App Store has reached the 25,000 application mark after adding another 5,000 applications in less than a month. The new tally also means that the App Store now has the most applications of any mobile platform, beating out the collection Windows Mobile has built up over nine years.
More Mac mini details: soldered processor, drive upgrades - Ars Technica
First is the shiny new Core 2 Duo processor, which happens to be soldered to the logic board. This, of course, means you won't be able to do processor upgrades down the road—we're not sure how much of a selling point this was in previous incarnations, but it is totally out of the picture now. Second is the fact that, if you put 2GB of RAM in a new mini, the video memory will bump up to 256MB. While still shared memory, it is better than the rather paltry 128MB alternative. Last, but certainly not least, is the fact that if you remove the optical drive, the mini can now fit a second hard drive. This is surely a point of interest for those of you using the mini for a server or HTPC; the potential for extra hard drive space may be the reason you will want to upgrade.
iFixit offers a kit to make your mini into a machine with a terabyte of storage for $249.95, but the company is quick to mention the hack requires some soldering. It just involves soldering some molex connectors together and not the logic board, but it still may be enough to sway some of you away from the idea. If you would rather do it without the kit, you can order all the parts from the retailer of your choice and follow iFixit's step by step instructions, but keep in mind that you aren't going to get any more than 1TB of storage in the mini because of current 2.5" SATA drive capacities
BBC NEWS | Technology | Scrutiny of Microsoft scaled back
The European Commission is scaling back its scrutiny of Microsoft.
Regulators have ended full-time monitoring of Microsoft that was started to ensure the firm was complying with an anti-trust ruling.
The 2004 ruling forced Microsoft to share information about the internal workings of its software with rivals.
Brussels said the shift was driven by Microsoft's improved behaviour and legal changes that meant market abuse could be tackled at national level.
Hitachi admits to price-fixing LCD screens - Hardware - iTnews Australia
Hitachi has become the latest electronics manufacturer to be fined in a price fixing conspiracy that dates back as far as 2001.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) said that the Japanese firm has agreed to plead guilty to felony price-fixing charges and pay a US$31 million fine.
According to the DOJ, Hitachi was one of four manufacturers who conspired to charge system vendors such as Dell and Apple at artificially high market rates for the components in TFT-LCD displays.
Hitachi's dealings are said to be limited to Dell for a roughly 3 year period between 2001 and 2004.
Google Docs leaks private data online - Security - iTnews Australia
Google has admitted that some users of its Google Docs online word processing service may have had their documents shared with unauthorised users.
A flaw in the system meant that the documents of some users of the service were marked down as collaborative items, allowing third parties who are also signed up to the system to access and amend them.
The flaw has now been fixed said the company.
French anti-P2P law toughest in the world - Ars Technica
France's long talked-out law to kick repeat copyright infringers off the Internet has finally come up for debate in Parliament. If passed, it would be illegal not to secure one's Internet connection, and even public WiFi hotspots will have to offer only a "white list" of approved sites.
New job for the man who exposed Comcast's P2P throttling - Ars Technica
Robb Topolski, the man who helped to bring to light Comcast's throttling of P2P uploads, has a new job: Chief Technologist of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation. OTI is the New America unit headed by Sascha Meinrath, and it was instrumental in partnering with Google to create the Measurement Lab project.
The move is significant because Topolski now serves in an official capacity with three of the main DC groups fighting for network openness and white spaces, New America, Free Press, and Public Knowledge. (He was already advising the latter two groups.) That combination of jobs should make Topolski an even more influential voice on network management issues in DC.
Eminem producers lose bid for massive iTunes royalties - Ars Technica
Music labels can breathe a sigh of relief after a jury concluded that sales through digital download stores like iTunes should be treated like CDs for the purposes of paying royalties.
Eminem's former production team, F.B.T. Productions, sued Universal over the issue in 2007. The brothers behind F.B.T. claimed that, when Universal provided music to stores like iTunes, it was actually "licensing" the tunes to another distributor rather than distributing them itself.
The distinction makes a huge difference in the royalty rate: Eminem received a 12 percent royalty on CDs, which Universal distributed, but a 50 percent royalty whenever the music was "licensed."
After a brief trial last week, a jury decided that digital downloads were to be treated like a distribution and not a license, even though it's the digital download stores that actually make the copies offered for sale
Norway's public broadcaster launches BitTorrent tracker - Ars Technica
Norway's public broadcaster NRK receives 94 percent of its revenue from a license fee paid by TV-owning households in the country, and it's charged not with making money, but with getting its content in front of as many people as possible. To do that, NRK has just launched its own BitTorrent tracker to distribute its TV shows—DRM-free, of course. NRK takes its distribution mission so seriously that it's even providing subtitle files so that non-Norwegians can translate the shows easily.
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