News Archive - June 2005
Linux: A Practical Windows Alternative?
Thursday 30th June 2005
Categories: Reviews, GNU/Linux, FLOSS
The competition to Windows, or at least part of it, comes from Linux. There are various different types of Linux, each behaving differently, called distributions, or distros for short. In this article, I will be looking at Debian and seeing if it is a viable alternative to Windows.
Suse 9.3 and LZW Compression
Thursday 30th June 2005
Category: News
A couple of things from Newsforge today. First off, we have a review of Suse 9.3, discussing its practicality and usability. Also connected to Linux is LZW compression - the way in which various graphical formats are compressed, most notably GIFs and TIFFs.
Beginner's Guide to XHTML: Images and Hyperlinks
Wednesday 29th June 2005
Categories: Guides, Internet, Code
We have a working webpage with some text. Not very interesting, is it? In this part, images and hyperlinks will be used to make the page more interesting and interactive.
Windows 2000 Update, China and Pakistan
Wednesday 29th June 2005
Category: News
Microsoft have finally released their final major update for Windows 2000, containing all of the patches that were introduced since Service Pack 4, such as the patch for Blaster. I would have prefered a full service pack, but this will have to do!
If we jump from Redmond to the East, we find China's websurfing population reaching 100 million, while Pakistan's websurfing population will have dropped dramatically thanks to the damaged internet link.
Memtest86+, Open Source and Intel
Tuesday 28th June 2005
Category: News
Memtest86+ has been updated, with support for the various new processors, such as the Pentium D, dual cores, and 90nm AMD cores. If you don't have Memtest yet, you really should - you stick it on a floppy (or a CD), let your computer boot from it, and it will go and check your RAM. It is easily one of the most useful tools for testing and troubleshooting.
Elsewhere, Norway has decided that it prefers Open Source to alternatives that use proprietary formats. To me, this is good news, and not just because it means Open Source is being used more. It means that governments should be able to communicate more cheaply, and more efficiently. There is also some debate in Ukraine about Open Source.
While on the topic of Open Source, Sun are going to be making Java open source - obviously good news for programmers.
Outside of the software world, Intel gets a good telling off from AMD. The claim is that Intel has been exploiting its market position and using illegal business practices. Again.
Today's News
Thursday 23rd June 2005
Category: News
An interesting article has popped up on the BBC's website, discussing the rise of Google and decline of Excite. Joe Kraus, one of the men behind Excite, makes an interesting point:
The 20th Century mass production world was about dozens of markets of millions of people. The 21st Century is all about millions of markets of dozens of people.
Meanwhile, on The Register, the creator of BitTorrent Bram Cohen has had a good shout at Microsoft's early attempts at a peer to peer system.
Addition to the Site
Thursday 23rd June 2005
Category: News
I've added a rant about Internet Explorer in the Website Articles section. Ah, I feel much better now! (Of course, I'd feel even better if people stopped using Internet Explorer!)
Today's News
Wednesday 22nd June 2005
Category: News
A couple of interesting articles about the Debian (the Linux distribution of my choice) from Newsforge. The first looks behind at the legacy of Debian, while the other looks to the future to see how Debian should proceed.
There's also the Debian Newsletter itself, including upgrade paths from Woody to Sarge, and a wish list for the next version of Debian, codenamed Etch (in case you didn't realise, all the releases are named after characters in Toy Story).
There's also another article on The Register saying that 10% of sites still don't work properly with any browsers than Internet Explorer, including, unsurprisingly, the Odeon site. The interesting thing here is that these companies are losing potential customers - some don't want to use Internet Explorer, while others can't use Internet Explorer if they're on Linux or another operating system - despite the fact that the number of people using alternatives, such as Mozilla Firefox or something on Linux, is growing every day.
And... Action!
Wednesday 22nd June 2005
Category: News
Welcome to free-bees.co.uk! There's good news and bad news. The good news is that the site has just launched! The bad news is that there's barely anything on here; but fear not, for over the coming weeks I intend to put a few things up. In the meantime, there's already an XHTML conversion guide and Part One of the Beginner's Guide to XHTML. Admittedly, it's not much, but more is on the way!