Apsalus, powered by DirectX!!

How did they port DirectX to BSD?

An Inconsistent UI

I've felt like ranting a bit about Windows inconsistent UI, which seems to me as if it wasn't designed but just happened, different teams working on different UI elements for different products without following a consistent model, unlike Mac OS X, for example.

Both Office 2007 and Windows Media Player 11 do away with traditional menu bars.

Interestingly Outlook 2007 keeps them around, but not in the compose dialog.

Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player 11, give you the option to enable the menu bar if you really want it, Office 2007 on the other hand doesn't, even though it needs it the most.



Another interesting aspect about menu bars in Windows is their alt behavior, some will only show you the underlined letters if you click and hold alt, others will show it to you by default.

So who is in charge?
It's not like GNU/Linux where thousands of people work on different portions of it, inconsistencies are bound to happen! All of programs here are from one provider, you'd think they'd have some standard UI guidelines!

Playstation 4 details leaked!!

In an attempt to make up for the PS3 mess and keep up with Nintendo, Sony intentionally leaked some details about the PS4, to ramp up demand and slow the influx of gamers to the Wii.

I wonder what's in the box?
hint: click on the box to find out!

Read more..

I'm not a genius like a computer!

I don't know how accurate the subtitles are, but funny nontheless.

GoboLinux file system hirerachy done right!

In a previous rant I complained about the nonsense that is the file system hierarchy in most Unix and Unix-like OSes. NeXTSTEP and its successor Mac OS X done away with it in favor of a more logical file system hierarchy. Recently I learned about GoboLinux, and its breakthrough feature is its file system hierarchy. GoboLinux did away with the nonsense of the File System Hierarchy Standard in favor of a simpler NeXTSTEP/Mac OS X like hierarchy. All your apps are placed in /Programs/ and thus the hierarchy becomes the package manager.

There are other interesting aspects about GoboLinux, more about them here and here.

Bernie Mac passed away today..

You will be missed..

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008103346_macobit10.html

Firefox 3 running on ReactOS 0.3.6

How 2010 can be the year of the Linux desktop?

Just a note before I start, these suggestings are only for the distros that want to succeed in the desktop world, community based distros that aren't interested and cater to a different user base obviously are not the target for this!

Another note, by year of the Linux desktop, I don't mean 20% or some crazy nonrealistic marketshare not even 5%, I mean the beginning of being considered by the avergae joe as a desktop alternative to other more popular OSes. For GNU/Linux to gain any significant market share it first needs to win the hearts and minds, and my suggestions should help GNU/Linux win the hearts and minds.

01. Don't call nor associate it with Linux, for technical as well as marketting reasons. First of all Linux is not an OS, it is but a kernel, and more importantly after the failed attempts of Linux on the desktop people now associate the name Linux with 'not ready', 'hard to use' and 'free because no one is willing to pay for it'

02. Charge for it! Not ovecharge! Something around $30 - $60 should do. There are people wondering why it is free and whether there is a catch to it?! People expect all good things to cost a pretty penny and all things cheap.. well cheap!

03. Marketing! Let people know about your OS. Show off what it can do in short smart ads. Run the ads during primetime, to reach as large of an audiance as possible.

04. Strike a deal with as many OEMs as possible to have them preload the OS in as many computers as possible. The more people see it preloaded, the more they see it running, the more they consider it as a viable option.

05. Unlimited Support for the lifetime of the product. Just like how extended warranties can sell products, extended support can sell software. If you truely trust your product this should be a no-issue.

06. Support as much hardware as possible! and let people know what hardware is currently supported and what isn't! So what if the drivers are propreitary? Most people don't care! I personally don't! I want things to work and so does everyone! Cooperate with manufacturers and have them write drivers for Linux.

07. Reduce regressions! Things should not stop functioning after updating your system or upgrading to a newer release!

08. Less choice! Less configuration options! Too many choices is confusing, especially to new users, and too many configurations means either more time spent testing them, or they don't get enough testing!

09. Put away the terminal! Make everything easily customizable from the standard GUI. Of course I'm not suggesting complete removal of the terminal, as users get accustomed to the system they might opt to use it, just like in Mac OS X.

10. Last but not least! A single binary for all desktop distros! I don't care whether it is deb, rpm or a whole new package manager! Just make it happen! This means less headache for developers and users.

Should Apple come up with its own netbook?

Netbooks, these substandard, cumbersome, underpowered err- I mean these small, trendy, inexpensive and efficient laptops took off and are becoming the next major thing, or whatever. Apparently, not all people need a lot of Hz, and are pretty satisfied with anything that is decent enough for them to get on the Interwebs, watch movies and listen to music. Some of them netbooks are well below 1 GHz, have no dedicated GPU, some of them has well below 80 GB of storage, and very small and cumbersome displays; yet this didn't put off the people who buy them.
I personally have no interest in revisiting the late 90s, that's why I've never considered nor will I ever consider one, but their success got me thinking, maybe Apple should bring something below $1099, it'll generate a lot of interest for Apple and help it grow a bit more, I'm not suggesting EeePC specs or EeePC prices, but something around $949 should do the job, maybe even start at as low as $899, be very well equipped and still a bit exclusive as all Macs should be.

Where are all my apps?!

One of the things I hate about GNU/Linux is the confusing directory structure. There isn't one specific loaction for your apps as in Mac OS X, and to some extent in Windows, everything is all over the place.

You'll find some apps, or at least that what I found in my setup, in:

/opt
/usr/bin
/usr/lib
/urs/sbin
/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/lib
/usr/local/share

and in some times they are mixed with system programs and libraries! It is a mess! Finding stuff is pretty confusing already with all the directories and their subdirectories.

This is a relic from Unix, and should be abandoned, the directory structure should be cleaned. All user apps should be in one place such as /home/username/bin for apps or /usr/bin and all system apps should in /sys/bin, but this makes too much sense and thus will never happen!

Things Apple can do to kill off the clones without the need to go to court!

It wasn't long after Apple switched to x86 processors before people figured out a way to run Mac OS X on non-Mac hardware, and this gave way to unlicensed Mac-clones like the Psystar OpenComputer.

Instead of battling the clones legally, I suggest things Apple can put into action and kill off the clones without any legal battle and bad media coverage.

1. Custom chipsets. Before the switch to Intel processors, Apple used custom chipsets and PowerPC processors, those two stood as barriers against cloning. Now though Apple uses processors and chipsets that are readily available off the shelf.
2. Sell OS X as an upgrade, don't sell a full version of OS X. Any upgrade will require a full version of OS X to be preinstalled. All Macs come with OS X preinstalled and a full version of OS X software.
   

This way, Apple can limit and possibly kill off the clones, without having to battle it legally or having to punish Mac owners with things like Windows Genuine disAdvantage and Windows Activation.

No! I loved the fat iPod nano!

Rumors has it that Apple will bring back the narrow form-factor back to the iPod nano. I personally loved the fat form-factor of the 3rd gen nano, it made it look a lot like the iPod Classic, and made the older nano and all its ripoffs (Zune 4 and Zune 8) look old. A narrower form-factor with a long screen will make the new nano look like it is imitating the ugly Zune; that's something Apple doesn't want to do.
I hope it is just a rumor, and I want the nano to retain its current form-factor.

20% desktop share by 2008! Really?

Global IT firm predicts Linux will have 20% desktop market share by 2008

Never happened!
In fact, it is still below 1%, though some statistics put it a little above 1%


Desktop Linux Share Overtaking Macintosh

Never happened!
Mac OS X has 6x the market share of GNU/Linux and continues to grow. Mac sales in the US are increasing despise the slowing economy.


2008: Year of the Linux Desktop

Where did I read this before?


Linus Says 2004 is the Year for Desktop Linux

Yes! the same slogan that has been since the turn of the century.

American cars can't handle? take II

Chevrolet Camaro SS laps the 'Ring in... 8:20

In this automotive day and age, any vehicle that has even a trace amount of performance in its DNA has to make the rounds around the Nurburgring. The new Chevy Camaro SS isn't exempt. So after GM revealed the Camaro on Monday, one of the scribes at InsideLine ran up to an engineer to find out what kind of time the Camaro put down at the Nordschleife. According to Doug Houlihan, GM's chief engineer for global rear-wheel-drive vehicles, the Camaro SS ran the 'Ring in 8:20.

To put that into perspective, the recently released 2008 Cobalt SS did the deed in 8:22, along with the BMW E46 M3 and the last generation BMW M Coupe, followed by the Lotus Exige S and Porsche Cayman S at 8:25.


http://www.autoblog.com/2008/07/22/c...-ring-in-8-20/

Ubuntu unAmerican?!

This article has to be the best example of satire and extreme sarcasm I've ever ran into on the WWW, and even funnier was the responses! some people took the article seriously!

http://www.shelleytherepublican.com/2007/08/18/ubuntu-%E2%80%93-why-it-is-wrong-for-america.aspx

Setting up a GNU/Linux cluster

At where I'm training this summer, the whole servers and clusters run Windows, and some are mulling the idea of migrating some of the servers to GNU/Linux. So today I have been assigned the task of setting up a Linux cluster.
Ultimately, I've done my research and decided on setting up a master/slave cluster following the steps outlined here, versus a load-balancer or a round-robin. Mainly, due to being limited to two test machines, and it seems as an easier set up. If it works, we can extend it eventually by adding more slave nodes.
This is probably the most interesting thing to happen at work, since I started my summer training, and as I am writing this, I'm downloading CentOS. Never used it before, but thought it would be a good (best?) candidate for setting a server cluster. Here's to hoping everything works, without too much hassle.

I'll post later with the results, but that probably wont be until Monday.

Final Fantasy XIII goes X360

Tesla Shipping Cars

You know of course the saying “Good things are worth waiting for” … undoubtedly we were trying the truism of this adage longer than warranted, but we have broken the logjam. We are delivering the Roadster to our customers. Already 9 production Roadsters have arrived in California, another 3 arrive this weekend, and they will keep arriving at the rate of 4 per week (except for the scheduled factory shut down in the last two weeks of August). In fact, currently there are 27 Roadsters in various stages of assembly. In large measure we deliberately limit the production until we install our own born and bred final transmission by mid-September, at which time production will start to ramp up leading toward a monthly rate of over 100 cars in December.

More at link: Update on Production.

American cars can't handle?

Corvette ZR1 7:26 Nürburgring Nordschleife video

Macs are more expensive than PCs?

MacBook vs. Dell XPS M1330

I configured online a MacBook and Dell XPS M1330 with specs as closely matched as possible. Both had 2GB of memory, a 160GB hard drive running at 5400 rpm, a 2.4-GHz Intel Core Duo 2 processor, Intel integrated graphics media accelerator (X3100), and Bluetooth 2.0. I chose the Dell 56Whr battery option (an extra US$79), which is comparable to the MacBook’s standard 55Whr battery. I also added the $99 optional bundle of Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements to the Dell laptop. The MacBook ships with Apple’s iPhoto and iMovie applications, part of its iLife suite, at no extra cost.
The bottom line: The Dell laptop that I configured cost $1,308. The MacBook was $1,299.

Price advantage: Apple, by a hair.


MacBook Pro vs. HP’s Compaq 8710w Mobile Workstation

My configurations had this in common: 17-inch displays with 1,680-by-1,050 pixel resolution, dedicated graphics cards, 250GB hard drives at 5,400 rpm, 2GB of memory, and 2.6-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors.
There were some differences, of course. For example, the HP computer features a biometric fingerprint scanner, which the MacBook Pro lacks.
The bottom line: The MacBook Pro that I configured was $3,049. The HP Compaq 8710w was $3,561. Adding the Adobe image and video editing software brings it to $3,661. The HP Compaq 8710w came standard with a three-year HP extended warranty. A similar warranty from Apple costs an extra $349. If you factor that in, the price difference makes the MacBook Pro just $263 less than the HP notebook.

Price advantage: The MacBook Pro.

Full story:
http://www.macworld.com/article/134373/2008/07/laptop_price.html?lsrc=rss_main

Square Enix Ships iPod Game

From Square-Enix North America:


Los Angeles (July 7, 2008)

Square Enix, Inc., the publisher of Square Enix™ interactive entertainment products in North America, announced the release of SONG SUMMONER™: The Unsung Heroes, on sale at the iTunes® Store worldwide (www.itunes.com) and available for play in English and Japanese on the iPod nano with video, iPod classic and fifth generation iPod.

SONG SUMMONER: The Unsung Heroes is a Role-Playing Game that transforms your iPod® songs into powerful "Tune Troopers" that you can control in battle! As the protagonist Ziggy, you will embark on an epic journey to rescue your brother from the clutches of the Mechanical Militia! Intriguing characters, an epic story and a tactics-based battle system combine for a rich RPG experience previously only available on home and handheld game consoles.

STORY From the days of old, Melodica was a land of music, a land of freedom. The people sang, played and danced to the music they so cherished. Until one day, they came — the Mechanoids, who enhanced their bodies with machinery. Those who were tempted by greed and power willingly gave away their souls for bodies of steel, forsaking their humanity to become cold, emotionless automatons. Now, they seek to destroy all that do not embrace their way of life. But there is hope on the horizon. There are those who are fated to stand against the tyranny of the machines — the Superstars, who can turn sound into lethal weapons, and the Conductor, also known as the Song Summoner, who can summon powerful warriors born of music. In their most desperate hour, Melodica awaits the arrival of their new Song Summoner...

FEATURES Transform your iPod songs into "Tune Troopers" to combat the evil Mechanical Militia Tune Trooper types and abilities are determined by the songs used to create them Your Tune Troopers can be powered up even outside of the game--just by listening to the songs you used to create them! Control Ziggy, a "Conductor" that creates warriors out of music, and guide him through his journey to save his brother Zero from the Mechanical Militia Experience a turn-based tactics battle system, divided into player and enemy phases where each side takes turns maneuvering their forces Deploy the right troopers at the right time, and use contraptions found on the map effectively to achieve victory in battle! iPod Click Wheelallows players to play the game as easily as selecting music

Screenshots:





http://www.square-enix.com/na/company/press/2008/0707/

Firefox 3 set Guinness world record

From Mozilla:

Thanks to the support of the always amazing Mozilla community, we now hold a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. From 18:16 UTC on June 17, 2008 to 18:16 UTC on June 18, 2008, 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3 and are now enjoying a safer, smarter and better Web.

Ever since Firefox was launched in 2004 we've relied on our community to help us spread the word, and thanks to projects including crop circles, newspaper ads, giant stickers, videos, blogs and more we now have over 180 million users in more than 230 countries.

So what's next? We'll just have to wait and see what YOU come up with!

ReactOS 0.3.5 Short Review

KEEP IN MIND THIS IS ALPHA STAGE SOFTWARE!
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR NORMAL USE!


I'll start by admitting that I've installed it on a virtual machine, I've used VirtualBox and created a new Windows NT 4 machine, I've found that this is the only emulation that works, at least for me. Installation was QUICK! in 30 or so seconds I have the OS installed and ready to use. Take that Vista!

First thing obviously is to try and install a browser, so using the Download utility, I've downloaded Firefox 2, I noticed that downloading is SLOW, it must have something to do with the incomplete network stack, eventually though Firefox 2 was downloaded and installed.
Firefox 2 started normally, unlike my previous experience with 0.3.4, it actually ran after the install, and didn't crash on me during the 5 minutes trial.

There wasn't much for me to try out in this alpha release, and frankly everything felt familiar, as if I were still using Windows 98, but this time the horrid Internet Explorer isn't integrated into everything. ReactOS has a proper spatial browser, and the whole GUI shell looks a lot better, as in terms of functionality and layout, not a real looker, this is no Mac OS X.

I've noticed some inconsistencies in the ReactOS Explorer, some times it feels like Windows 95 (Windows Explorer) and sometimes it feels like Windows 3 (File Manager). The good thing is, it never feels like Windows 98 (Internet Explorer).


One of the things I didn't have the chance to try was search, it is yet to be implemented, My Network Places, relaunches the desktop for some reason (SMB is not yet supported) and Folder Options in the Control Panel, doesn't launch. Another thing I've noticed is the Trash keeps thinking it is full, no matter how many times you empty it and given the fact it is empty!

Of the weirdest bugs I've noticed is whenever I create a new folder and then create a new text file, the folder is deleted, I did this repeatedly in My Documents, I've even tried creating multiple folders and renaming them, the moment I close My Documents and reopen it, or create a text file, all the folders are gone, they must have went to the big bit bucket in the sky. The even more weird part is, after a while this stopped happening, only untitled folders disappear.

A lot of the tools and bundled programs look as if they came straight from Windows, and functions just as you would expect them. Basically if you have used Windows, you need zero training to use this, everything is properly laid out, and there is multiple (4) desktops, though you can never configure it, as in you can't increase or decrease their number.

I got to admit that I'm not the best of reviewers, nor do I have any idea how to review alpha software, I'm sure I've missed a lot of things. The whole purpose of this review is to show how far ReactOS has came, and they've done a whole lot of progress, now you can install the OS without glitches, install a browser (Firefox) and a word processor (AbiWord), and they all seem to work pretty well, but there is still more left to be implemented. Overall what I've seen is really promising, I'm a fan and I wish them the best of luck.


Maybe I should get of my lazy ass, and put what I've learned as a CS major (read: null) to use!

ReactOS 0.3.5 released

I've been waiting for this, and now it is finally here. I'm off to downloading and trying it out, and judging by how much progress there were between 0.3.3 and 0.3.4 I'm expecting noticeable improvements, keeping in mind though this is still Alpha.

A full list of the changes can be found here.

One thing I've noticed is Explorer and Explorer_new, this must be what Haos was talking about in his comment here.

I'll post a short review of 0.3.5, later today or tomorrow.

Shrinking OS X

RoughlyDrafted /AppleInsider:

In response to a report earlier this week pointing out that many of the applications in early builds of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard are dramatically smaller in size, a number of developers have weighed in to explain where all those missing megabytes went.

One reader noted that the extra heft in Leopard’s apps does indeed come from localization files, which are used to distill all of the text strings and other variables that differ between languages. Depending on the language preference set by the user, the operating system accesses the desired language files and uses them in conjunction with the common application code to simplify developers’ work to deploy their apps to worldwide markets.

Continues: Solving the mystery of Snow Leopard’s shrinking apps

The Toyota You Don't Know

The National Labor Committee : The Toyota You Don't Know

The American and Japanese people have a lot in common. In both countries, excessive corporate power and greed are destroying the middle class as income disparity soars, enriching the few while the vast majority of us are left behind. As the two largest economies in the world, the people of the U.S. and Japan should, and could, have a very powerful voice in helping to shape a global economy that fosters respect for human and worker rights, protects our environment and promotes social and economic equality. There needs to be more dialogue among labor, environmental, human and women’s rights organizations and students in the U.S. and Japan. If corporations are the only ones talking to one another, we will just get more of the same.

In the U.S., we produce too many gas guzzlers. But they are made by well-paid, middle class union workers who have a democratic voice on the shop floor. In Japan, companies like Toyota make some of the best hybrids. But their unions are weak and lack independence—allowing the widespread exploitation of cheap temporary workers in their plants, along with a parts supply chain that is riddled with sweatshop abuses, including human trafficking. We have a lot to learn from each other.

Right now, Toyota and the U.S. auto companies are locked in a race to the bottom, which will inevitably lead them to adopt each others worst practices.

If the middle class is going to survive, it is time for working people in the U.S. and Japan to begin speaking to one another.

http://www.nlcnet.org/article.php?id=562

Mega Man 9 confirmed!

While there is no confirmation yet of its existence as a game for Xbox Live Arcade or the PlayStation Network, at least we do now know that it will be a downloadable game in a place where it most makes sense: WiiWare.

Further, the rumors of an 8-bit artstyle were not only true, but quite literal: So far, this looks just like one of the NES games, rather than the later fare of Mega Man 7 and Mega Man 8, each of which has its fans and detractors.

Yay! Finally! Something to redeem the series after the Mega Man X (post 4) bungle.

http://wii.kombo.com/article.php?artid=12136

You are about to leave Microsoft. Cancel or Allow?

End of an era, today is Gates' last day as Chairman of Microsoft, he'll be leaving a whole lot of challenges behind as the company failed and continues to fail to dominate the web and acquire Yahoo!

Hopefully, his role will be filled with someone with an open-source mentality.

SONY = loser .. heh heh

Playstation 3: Sony Lost Over $3 Billion To PS3 Cost, Pricing Imbalance

Pricing the PlayStation 3 below its production cost caused Sony to lose $2.16 billion in 2007 and $1.16 billion in 2008, the company revealed today.

Sony's fiscal 2008 annual report delineated potential risk factors to its investors, outlining that "the large-scale investment required during the development and introductory period of a new gaming platform may not be fully recovered." The loss figures were provided as an example of the "significant negative impact" introducing a new platform can cause at first.

Good! this ought keep SONY from introducing another overpriced console.

NASA global warming scientist: put doubters on trial for heresy

Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist

· Testimony to US Congress will also criticise lobbyists

· 'Revolutionary' policies needed to tackle crisis

James Hansen, one of the world's leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

In an interview with the Guardian he said: "When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."

Yes, tobacco company executives were put on trial. So were anti-revolutionary subversives in the Soviet Union and China. Spreading doubt about accepted doctrine in Saudi Arabia also will get you a ticket to a trial.

George Carlin.. You will be missed

George Carlin died today in Santa Monica, CA.

Can we have a moment of screaming, please?

New Cell-powered laptops from Toshiba

The new (and still ugly) Qosmio G50 and Qosmio F40 which will go on sale in July in Japan, will make use of the SpursEngine SE1000, a co-processor made of 4 Cell SPEs and no PPE.

The SPEs will be controlled by the off-die Intel Core 2 processor. Compare this with the PS3's Cell processor which has 8 SPEs and a PPE on-die to control them. This ought to be worth a performance hit in the SpursEngine. The bottleneck will be CPU-to-SpursEngine communication.

Another difference is that the SPEs in the Cell run at 3.2 GHz peaking at 25.6 GFLOPs per SPE while in the SpursEngine they run at 1.5GHz peaking at 12 GFLOPs per SPE.

The OS will run on the Intel Core 2 processor, and the SpursEngine will handle tasks such as HD processing. Toshiba claims the SpursEngine will be capable of upscaling SD content to HD.

Additional details about the laptops:
The Qosmio G50 is a multimedia laptop and has an 18.4-inch high-definition screen, 500G bytes of hard-disk space, NVidia GeForce 9600M graphics processor, dual digital TV tuners and wireless LAN including 802.11n. It weighs 4.9 kilograms and measures 45 centimeters by 31cms by 4.8cms. Battery life is about 4 hours.

The Qosmio G50 will be cost from ¥290,000 (US$2,700) and the F50, which has a 15-inch screen and 250G byte hard-disk drive, from ¥250,000. Toshiba plans to put the machines on sale overseas but has yet to announce launch details.


So what does this mean to you?
Another ugly Toshiba laptop, with too little too late technology. I wonder how the battery life will be on this thing? Maybe all of this is a futile attempt from Toshiba to make use of its Cell investment..

If you are clueless to terms like PPE and SPE, check this Wikipedia article.

Toyota is Evil

From the Auto Channel:

* Toyota linked to human trafficking and sweatshop abuse: Toyota's much admired "Just in Time" auto parts supply chain is riddled with sweatshop abuse, including the trafficking of foreign guest workers, mostly from China and Vietnam to Japan, who are stripped of their passports and often forced to work--including at subcontract plants supplying Toyota--16 hours a day, seven days a week, while being paid less than half the legal minimum wage. Guest workers who complain about abusive conditions are deported.

* Prius made by low-wage temps: Fully one-third--10,000--of all Toyota assembly line workers in Japan are low-wage temps who have few rights and earn less than 60% of what full time workers do.

* Unpaid overtime and "overworked" to death: Mr. Kenichi Uchino was just 30 years old when he died of overwork on an assembly line at Toyota's Prius plant, leaving behind his young wife and two children. Mr. Uchino routinely worked 13 to 14 hours a day, putting in 106 1/2 to 155 hours of overtime--depending on whether work taken home was counted--in the 30 days leading up to his death. Toyota claimed that he had only worked 45 hours of overtime and that the other 61 1/2 to 110 hours were "voluntary" and unpaid. His wife had to go to court -- which ruled that Mr. Uchino was overworked to death -- to win a pension for their children.

* Ties to Burmese dictators: Toyota, through the Toyota Tsusho Corporation, which is part of the Toyota Group of Companies, is involved in several joint business ventures with the ruthless military regime in Burma. The dictators use these revenues to repress and torture the people of Burma.

* Toyota and the race to the bottom: Toyota is imposing its two-tier, low wage model at its non-union plants in the south of the United States, which will result in wages and benefits being slashed across the entire auto industry.

http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2008/06/18/090268.html

Download day results from Mozilla

Awesome work - we’re almost there!

Thanks to the support of the always amazing Mozilla community, we got more than 8 million Firefox 3 downloads in 24 hours. That’s more Firefox downloads than we’ve ever had in a single day -- an impressive feat indeed!

Please be patient while the good people of Guinness review our World Record attempt. This might take a few days so please check back here. And, a huge thanks for all of your support!

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord

Toyota Tundra woes

Toyota's ugly gas guzzler isn't scoring well with the Americans, first it was hit with reliability issues, and now with the rising oil prices, Toyota has cut the Tundra production, and to add insult to the injury, Toyota is now laying off workers at its San Antonio plant.

People sure hate Vista

Proof? People are willing to pay $50 extra to downgrade from Vista to XP.

InfoWorld: Windows XP on a new Dell will cost up to $50 extra

Firefox 3 world record: +2.5M and counting

The link has been up since 10am PST, which was a major fuck up on Mozilla's behalf! Still ~15 hours and 30 minutes to go.
I've done my part, and you should too.

Keeping track of the record:
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord
as of now it is 2,533,040 downloads..
err now it is 2,555,217..

An excerpt from the Mozilla developer blog:

Quick note on Firefox 3 downloads

Thanks to overwhelming demand we’ve passed through 14,000 downloads a minute! This will put us well into the tens of millions of downloads in a 24 hour period if we can sustain it. Each download is about 7MB so that’s around 13 Gigabits/s of just download traffic. Not too shabby!

Wine 1.0 Released!

The Wine team is proud to announce that Wine 1.0 is now available. This is the first stable release of Wine after 15 years of development and beta testing. Many thanks to everybody who helped us along that long road!

While compatibility is not perfect yet, thousands of applications have been reported to work very well. Check http://appdb.winehq.org to see the details for your favorite applications.

The source is available now. Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

Camaro Convertible revealed

GM FastLane Blog: Camaro Convertible Revealed

If this is the next Cobalt..

http://www.leftlanenews.com/chevrolet-cobalt-2010.html

I'm not impressed!
For starters it looks like it was designed by Daewoo, it looks too generic, it might as well be a Hyundai or a Kia.

What will you be doing on June 17?

Downloading Firefox 3, that's what!
Mozilla announced that June 17 will be the launch day for Firefox 3 and an opportunity for setting a world record.

Set a Guinness World Record
Enjoy a Better Web

Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours - it’s that easy. We're not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008. Join our community and this effort by pledging today.

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

New GM concept? Mid-engine Corvette?

Transformers Live Action Movie Blog : New Concept Car at Fairmount Park Base Camp?

Fifth Gear: Prius vs Patriot

The diesel Jeep is as fuel efficient as the hybrid Toyota?!

Had we relied on the onboard computers, the Prius would have won by a landslide, as by the end of the trip they read 57mpg and 42mpg for the Prius and Jeep respectively.

However, to get the real figure, we calculated consumption based on how much fuel each car had used over the 160 miles. The result was astonishing: both cars had used nearly identical amounts of fuel. The Jeep had averaged 38.9 mpg - only 3.1 mpg less than its computer had recorded. However, the computer of the Prius appeared to be telling whoppers: it actually achieved just 39.9 mpg - a massive 17.1 mpg less than it had claimed.

http://fifthgear.five.tv/jsp/5gmain.jsp?lnk=601&featureid=1196&pageid=-1

iPhone 3G iWant!

3G, Microsoft Exchange, GPS, App Store, much more and the 8GB model starts at just $199!

Apple has really outdone itself! This is divinity!
I'm buying one!!

Wine 1-rc3: Visual Studio 2005 installs and runs!

Last time I played with Wine, it managed to get VS2005 to install but not run, as Wine is in continuous development, I was glad to find out that Wine's support for VS2005 has improved since March. I installed it using default settings, no overrides and no extra dlls.






The sad part is, I couldn't get past this point, the program generates a lot of error messages before crashing. Trying to create a new project, I got an empty dialog with no icons loaded, same for opening an existing project.

Mac OS X 10.6 wishlist

• Multi touch support (Cocoa Touch)
• An Uninstaller, for the few programs that need it
  
• Translucent icons, with much more vibrant colors, something like the Unified icon theme
• The option of a 2D and 3D dock, Leopard currently has a 3D dock by default that can only be changed to 2D using 3rd party applications, like Onyx
• Bring back Aqua to iTunes 8
• Office file viewer, that supports the popular document, presentation and spreadsheet formats
• The ability to configure Unix settings through the GUI instead of relying on the terminal only
• The ability to show the directory path in Finder
• HTML editing and web programming using JSP, PHP and others in iWeb
• The ability to cut in Finder enabled, or easily enabled through GUI
• The ability to hide/show desktop icons
• The ability to place Trash icon on desktop
• Full ZFS support

Rumor: Mac OS X 10.6 in WWDC?

According to The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Apple may provide early copies of Mac OS X 10.6 at next week's WWDC.

Mac OS X 10.6 will run on Intel Macs only, and so will mark the death of PowerPC Macs :-(

Mac OS X 10.5, which Apple originally said would release at the end of 2006 or early 2007, was delayed until October 2007, debuting 30 months after its predecessor, Mac OS X 10.4. That version, however, launched just 18 months after the previous OS. The average time between Mac OS X upgrades has been close to 16 months, which means we can expect OS X 10.6 to be launched no earlier than Q1 2009.

Out with Linux in with Solaris while keeping GNU!

Recently I've downloaded OpenSolaris 2008.5 LiveCD and decided to give it a try, so I've created a new virtual machine using VirtualBox and mounted the iso.

In a little while, the LiveCD Gnome desktop was ready and everything seemed to work just fine, so I clicked install. It was a fairly simple progress, no different than the many GNU LiveCD distros.

Now the question some might ask why OpenSolaris when GNU/Linux exists, I myself not expecting much difference in the overall experience from the more popular Gnome based GNU distros. Though I am interested in Solaris technologies and experience how much of a breakthrough it is, admittedly trying out an OS on a virtual machine is never the true way, any performance and stability advantages OpenSolaris is supposed to have over GNU/Linux will go by unnoticeable.

So I've finally decided that by the end of next week, I'll switch to OpenSolaris, after all a lot (all?) of the familiar GNU tools and programs are available for OpenSolaris, in addition to all the added technology, so why not?

Rumor: Apple to introduce game console in WWDC?

Gamer Gal's Insider: Elephant in the room.

I'd love to see Apple enter the video game console wars, as long as they manage to come up with something ground breaking and profitable, Apple can't afford a losing product.

The reality though, seems a little bit different, I don't think they'll go beyond the iPhone in gaming. There still remains a possibility of Apple TV games as an added functionality, after all Apple TV has Mac OS X, and runs on Intel processors just like any other Mac, so any Mac game can be easily run on Apple TV. Apple TV is a stripped down Mac, so they might need to up the specs a little (a lot).

Admittedly Mac OS X doesn't have a lot of games but some of the more popular PC games are also available on the Mac.
Apple - Games
Amazon.com: Mac Games

With the slowing down US economy, it might not be in Apple's best interest to get into a cut throat market that (other than Nintendo) no one is making considerable profits on. Sony and Microsoft have the deep wallets and are diversified to handle a lose in their gaming division, Apple isn't.

So, I don't think Apple will have anything about gaming (unless it is iPhone) in WWDC this year, what I'm really waiting for is a new MacBook Pro, because I'm planning on getting myself one.

Wine 2.0 wishlist

Wine 1.0 is scheduled for this month, after 15 years of continuous development, I'm grateful to all those who worked day and night to bring to us this amazing piece of software, yet this release leaves a lot to be desired, chief among them is full .Net support, so here is my wishlist for 2.0, assuming it will be out within 5 years from now:

• Full .Net 2.0 (and later) support
• Full DX 9 (and later) support
• Full compatibility with Windows 5 and 6 apps, or at least a significant subset of them
  

More specifically here are the programs I want to see running on Wine 2.0:

• Visual Studio 8 (and later)
• Windows Journal Viewer

Basically those two are the only Windows apps I need (at least now), I know that I wont be needing Visual Studio anymore once DotGNU 1.0 is out.

TForce PreRunner powered by GM

From Autoblog:

Power for the PreRunner comes from none other than GM's LS2 small-block. TForce crew member Matt Riggle told Levine that the team chose the 375-hp, 400 lb-ft powerplant because of its reliability, as well as its ability to run on regular Pemex gas that's much cheaper than facing fuel.

For the record, Toyota does not sponsor team TForce or its hopped-up PreRunner, but you can imagine that choosing a GM engine over one by Toyota because of reliability isn't exactly what the folks in Aichi, Japan like hearing.

Golden! Heh heh ^_^
Maybe it has something to do with the Tundra's engine camshaft failure? I wonder if the tailgate is also lifted from a GM pickup, oh right they don't have tailgates on them.

America gone mad!

"Dunkin Donuts has pulled a commercial featuring pitchwoman Rachael Ray wearing a scarf because Michelle Malkin and other conservative observers thought the scarf looked too much like a keffiyeh, what Malkin describes as "the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/28/dunkin-donuts-pulls-ad-fe_n_103859.html

Is this what America have become? A bunch of xenophobic assholes? Damn you Michelle! You scumbag! You are embarrassing us and portraying us as a bunch of unenlightened rednecks! This is certainly not what conservatism is about!
For starters it doesn't even look like a keffiyeh, but then again that b**** Michelle probably never seen one, and more than that it is so trivial, there are more things that we should worry about.. LIKE THE F***ING BUDGET! and the failing education system.

This youtube video is pure awesomeness!

Waiting for 0.3.5 ...

I've been waiting for this release for quite some time, it was supposed to be out in April, then was delayed to May but ... yeah I guess it wont be out for May either..
The last release of ReactOS I played with was 0.3.3, and it installed properly and everything, but couldn't get it to connect, for some reason it didn't recognize the network hardware or something, so it basically was useless beyond the initial install and playing around with the OS for a while.

0.3.3 screenshots:




Any way, I've finally decided to download 0.3.4, instead of waiting for 0.3.5, not expecting much I installed it, I noticed some differences during the setup process, well actually one, and that is a language option as soon as the setup process starts, plus it seemed to take longer than 0.3.3 did. I was wrong on the not expecting much part, 0.3.4 actually works, networking works, Download! connects to the server and downloads the program you've selected, and the program installs, though sometimes the OS crashes after an install.

0.3.4 screenshots:



One of the things I love about ReactOS is how fast it installs and boots, it installs and boots faster than Win98 and WinXP on the same specs, if you check the system requirement you'll find it to be very lightweight. 64MB of RAM is more than enough for basic usage of ReactOS, and the system installs with a very minimal footprint, just the basic essentials, no web browser or any additional clutter. The Downloader offers optional downloads among them are web browsers, mail clients, office suites, games and utilities. Another thing I've noticed is the very fast search, something Microsoft hasn't thought of until Vista, and virutal desktops something Vista doesn't have.

There are though various stability issues, the OS tends to crash after installing a program, sometimes stop responding during an install, and launching the Task Manager crashes the OS, and some features are missing all together, though all of this is expected in an Alpha, and I just can't wait for the stable release to officially replace Windows.

For your own good!

Don't you just hate this phrase? I do! I hate totalitarian regimes (whether it is a government, a school administration or parents at home) who decide for you what is good and what's not! Thank you but no thanks, I can make my own decisions, I don't need people deciding on my behalf, I can figure things on my own. Nothing makes any of you more capable than me in making decisions that affects me, I know me more than any of you do!
Tyranny can take many forms, from banning access to some specific commodities, to dictating how and by what amount they can be used.

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
—C. S. Lewis

Microsoft starting to play nice?

Microsoft finally decided to add support to ODF natively, due in an Office SP early next year, not only that, but also allows users to choose ODF as their default format for saving office files. This I didn't see coming, nor Microsoft recent decision to help develop the next version of the ODF standard. Are we seeing a change in heart? A more open and inter-operable Microsoft that embraces standards but doesn't extinguish them? I sure hope so.

Microsoft using money to lure people to its search engine?

This is a new attempt by the software Goliath to rival Google and Yahoo, offer cash rebates on purchases done through Windows Live Search. And the idea for this? Not from Microsoft of course! The idea actually came from Jellyfish.com which Microsoft bought last year.
If you can't innovate I guess you'll have to buy those who can. And while I'm at it, Microsoft is still trying to buy Yahoo!, well not all of it, now they want to buy stakes in it. I guess if you can't beat them, buy them!
This is extremely dangerous, Microsoft has deep pockets, and with the slowing economy a lot of people can use a little cash saving on their purchases. If this works out for MS, innovations in search engines will come to a halt, as it is with any area MS dominates.

Another issue.. Forking!

This blog entry is quite old, but exemplifies one of the core issues with GNU/Linux and that is binary compatibility between distros.

Ubuntu is a Debian based distro, yet is NOT fully binary compatible with Debian. It uses a lot of the same package management tools yet it diverged too far from Debian for it to be compatible.

The average user, or say the average programmer might not be aware of this, he might develop a deb package assuming it will work with Debian, Linspire, Xandros, Ubuntu, and other Debian based distros, the average desktop user is expecting just as much, and before you know it you'll have someone writing why this package doesn't install on this distro.

Now take this small example and apply it on all of the GNU/Linux distros, there is no simple binary package that will install on all, it is a pain for the developer and users. Some people and distros avoid this by compiling everything from source, but that is not a viable solution to a lot of users.

There is no silver bullet for this problem, especially when ego is involved, every distro want to hold on to its package manager, and replacing one package manager with another is a costly and lengthy process.

Why GNU/Linux isn't ready.

In a previous blog entry, I talked about the current state of the computer market, which was more of stating the obvious but for me serves as a start before discussing GNU and ReactOS.

Now onto GNU. So what's the deal with it? GNU started out as a UNIX clone, GNU is Not UNIX. A lot of the userland tools were devloped by the GNU project, but they weren't capable of developing a working kernel. Enter Linux, this kernel became the official kernel for the GNU system, and this kernel was developed to duplicate UNIX behavoir. The combo of GNU and Linux became known as GNU/Linux, a viable UNIX alternative for the desktop and server market, but UNIX was never designed to be user-friendly or for desktop use, and GNU/Linux suffers from the same problem. A great server OS, outstanding availability and robustness, but user hostile, unfriendly and dramatically short on software.

That didn't stop a lot of companies of trying to make UNIX and/or GNU based OSes for desktop use, though the major focus was servers and supercomputers. Community led development focused more on the desktop side, and various windowing environments were developed, most popular of them are KDE, GNOME and Xfce.

There is nothing wrong with GNU/Linux, everything technologically speaking is near perfect. The problem is support and ease of use. That would of been solved 10 years ago if the Free Software/Open Source community cooperated together and tackled the task as professionals! The problem is, they are poorly coordinated, there is too much internal compettion, and there is a lot of lost effort! You'd be stunned by the number of redundant projects that aim for the same goal and fall just short of it. There is no coherence, no consistency and no cooperation between them! It gets so bad, that even on the same desktop environment you'll find inconsistencies from one distro to another! This is my own real life experience! Then add to that the dozen or so different desktop environments, the four dozen or so different apps that try to achieve the same goal using a different approach, the incompatible binary packages and their package managers and you'll start to see why they aren't successful in the desktop world! TOO MUCH WASTED EFFORT ON REDUNDANT REDUNDANCY! What they should do is obvious, get around a round table, get your priorities straight and work to achieve maximum interoperability and consistency!

Of highest priority to me, is having a single unified package manager between all GNU/Linux distro. There should be a single unified standard that governs everything, so every program no matter how large or small should be capable of running on any distro.

Another, though a lot might not agree with me on, is develop a unified consistent desktop environment. I believe in choice, I'm not saying to abolish all other desktop environment, but there is a need for a consistent feel to the OS.

For a more diverse OS world

The current state of the OS world is hopeless, there is basically no competition and no one can just jump in and hope of acquiring any major market share. The choices are limited, and all what you get is more of the same (I'm referring to Windows being the only choice on most hardware), one OS is dominating and has been for nearly 20 years.

We've got:
Windows @ 91.46%
Mac OS @ 7.57%
GNU/Linux @ 0.67%
Solaris @ 0.01%
Other @ 0.29%

This is the problem or the symptom, depending on how you look at it. This all can be attributed to Windows dominance, now instead of pointing fingers and accusing Microsoft of being evil, I want to point it the problem and how this mess came to be, never in history, a single vendor controlled so much.

A brief history:
Blame it on IBM, IBM is responsible for the mess we are in. When the IBM PC came to be, the alternatives were few, everyone sold you their software with their hardware (as Apple continues to do today) and UNIX wasn't a player in the desktop world, it was huge and only ran on minicomputers or expensive workstations (compared to the average personal computer) from companies like Sun.
So what did IBM do exactly?
1) Built its PC from off the shelf components (making cloning them feasible).
2) Opened up the platform, allowing clone vendors to appear.
3) Had Microsoft design the OS for the IBM PC and allowed them to sell it to competitors.

The IBM PC and clones dominated, so did MS-DOS and so did Windows. The IBM PC business model eventually lead to:
1) IBM exiting the PC market it created, the business model that lead to the dominance of the PC clones also lead to IBM losing against the cheaper clones and custom built PCs.
2) The closed business model basically failed and all companies using this business model either exited the market or opened up their platform, except for Apple.

So, you might be asking, is there a solution to this problem?
Some suggest that Apple open up its hardware and allow installing OS X on PCs. That's a ridiculous suggestion, half of the Mac experience is in the precision engineered hardware, like the iMac and MacBook Air.
Apple is a hardware company after all.

What about the FLOSS alternatives like GNU/Linux and *BSD?
Varies by distribution. Some of them are almost ready for desktop use, others aren't. Discussing them alone, and why they aren't ready yet, will be left for a future blog entry.

So, what is the solution?
Wine and ReactOS.
Most people aren't willing to make the switch due to software compatibility, a lot of people need their Windows software, others aren't due to familiarity with the Windows OS. Wine and ReactOS tackle these problems.
Wine now runs a lot of Windows programs out of the box, more with various degrees of tweaking and others don't run at all, but considering Wine's fast progress, the list of supported apps increases with every release.

What about ReactOS?
From ReactOS website:

ReactOS® is an advanced free open source operating system providing a ground-up implementation of a Microsoft Windows® XP compatible operating system. ReactOS aims to achieve complete binary compatibility with both applications and device drivers meant for NT and XP operating systems, by using a similar architecture and providing a complete and equivalent public interface.

ReactOS is the most complete working model of a Windows® like operating system available. Consequently, working programmers will learn a great deal by studying ReactOS source code and even participating in ReactOS development.

ReactOS has and will continue to incorporating features from newer versions and sometimes even define the state of the art in operating system technology.

In short, ReactOS is aiming to run your applications and use your hardware, a free operating system for everyone!

Please bear in mind that ReactOS 0.3.4 is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature complete and is not recommended for everyday use.

It will be a long wait for us who are looking for a viable Windows alternative and a long wait before every seeing a more diverse OS market.

Flaws in the iPod

I'm a big fan of the iPod, they keep getting smaller and smaller, and better and better, with new features, technologies and more aesthetic designs.

My first pet peeve though, is no quick access to shuffle, repeat all and repeat one controls. In my iPod at least, I have to go all the way back to the Settings menu and then enable/disable shuffle and choose whether I want repeat all/one/off. How I would do it, is simply add access to them by clicking the middle button while playing a song. I wonder why no one thought of this at Apple?!

My other pet peeve, is NO EFFING OGG SUPPORT! I can never understand why they don't want to add OGG support? There are no licensing fees on OGG since it is released under the BSD license, and the format offers great quality and efficient compression. Apple has no excuse in not supporting OGG! I EFFING HATE MP3, not as much as RM but I still do!

Are they enough for me to not get an iPod, HELL NO! So Apple, you don't really have to fix anything, I'll continue buying your hardware..

Visual Studio 2005 running on Wine

Adam Strzelecki managed to get Visual Studio 2005 to run on Wine, there still seems to be some issues that affects usability, as stated in the wine-devel mailing list, but at least now I know that it can run. I've been trying with Visual Studio 2005 for a while now without luck, I'll try to follow Adam's steps and see if it'll work, Visual Studio 2005 (and Windows Mobile 6 SDK) are pretty much the only Windows programs I use.

Hi,
I just want to mention that I've managed to install Visual Studio 2005
completely with WINE.
1) installed "vcrun6" (with winetricks)
2) applied 1 patch from http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8439#c3
(Required for overall installation)
3) applied patched from http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=3754
(Required for .NET 2.0 installation)
4) applied "msi: ACTION_RegisterProduct store all InstallProperties"
match from patches list I just sent
(Without this patch Visual Studio 2005 will think that MS XML 6.0 and
some others is still uninstalled!)
Installation goes without problem, however running "devenv.exe" causes
several problems with .NET 2.0 packages and crashes a lot :( too bad.
Most crashes and errors are because of few missing WINE API functions,
and incomplete .NET 2.0 support.
Still I think WINE's close to run Visual Studio! which will be great
news for multi-platform developers.
See attached screenshots from my MacBook Pro running OSX 10.5.2.
Cheers, --  Adam Strzelecki |: nanoant.com :|

XP SP3 delayed!

Microsoft confirmed that it delayed the launch of XP SP3 and have stopped the automatic update of Vista to SP1 and XP to SP3. This all resulted from a problem with the update that will lead to data corruption due to incompatibilities with *drum roll* Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System, as reported here.

It seems Microsoft is unable of getting its own software from different divisions to play nice together, everything seems to be poorly designed and documented, which symbolize an even bigger problem, Microsoft seems to be spread too thin and can't get anything right from the first time, even when it is something they should of got it right!

It seems Microsoft is incapable of properly engineering its software, everything seems to be just mashed together and poorly documented. If there were better coordination between Microsoft's own divisions, this wouldn't of happened!
Microsoft needs to get its act together, before it is too late, its dominance might not last forever.

iMac: Penryn inside

Apple updated the 24" iMac with the option of a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, an nVidia 8800 GS with 512MB of DDR2 memory. massive storage up to 1TB and more standard memory (2GB).

More details at from Apple here.

Is XP worth saving?

If you believe XP is worth saving then sign the petition now!
Microsoft is aware of the petition but believes +170000 votes aren't enough.

Infoworld suggests that you make a video of your plea:

And just to show we're not a bunch of drudges -- and to prove there are actual living and breathing human beings involved in the Save XP campaign -- how about uploading your own Save XP video plea to the InfoWorld "Save XP" section of FaceBook? We'll show off the funniest, most creative appeals to save XP on our home page.

Let your opinion be seen and heard, show Microsoft how serious you are.