Progressive Coder
Published on July 29, 2006
ATI Proprietary Linux Release Notes
> Resolution of an XGL startup issue that prevented users from starting XGL on display :0. Further details can be found in topic number 737-22841
Woho. No more fiddling with :1 to get Xgl running. If only they would support bigger than 2048×2048 blits I could actually finally start using it at work.
Published on July 28, 2006
BBC NEWS | Technology | Kazaa site becomes legal service
> File-sharing site Kazaa will become a legal music download service following a series of high profile legal battles.
> The peer-to-peer network has also agreed to pay $100m (ã53m) in damages to the record industry.
I remember trying Kazaa aaaages ago, and found it to be a hugely bloated and horrible piece of software which bundled loads of spyware. I think they’ll have to do a massive PR campaign to change the view people have of them, if they’re going to go legit and actually make money.
Published on July 27, 2006
bit-tech.net | MPAA is at it again…
> Meet Shawn Hogan. He’s your average 30-something computer programmer, probably enjoys walks in the park, candlelit dinners, and whatnot. He also likes the movie Meet the Fockers, and bought it on DVD.
> So imagine his surprise when his phone rang, and a lawyer on the other end said the MPAA were sueing him for downloading the movie on BitTorrent. Not only did he deny the claim, but even offered to show them the DVD he had purchased, which he reasoned would illustrate how little sense it made to download the movie.
He’s a self-made millionaire, and wovs to fight back even if it could well cost him over $100,000 in legal fees. I love people who stand up to RIAA and MPAA, and refuse to be bullied into settling outside of court.
Published on July 26, 2006
Published on July 4, 2006
Ajax for Java developers: Exploring the Google Web Toolkit
> The recently released Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a comprehensive set of APIs and tools that lets you create dynamic Web applications almost entirely in Javaâ⢠code. Philip McCarthy returns to his popular Ajax for Java developers series to show you what GWT can do and help you decide whether it’s right for you.
Still can’t decide if GWT is for you? Read this article for a good overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the framework, and you might be in a better position to make up your mind. Personally, I find it’s a bit too much like developing GUI applications, and I don’t feel too comfortable with the vendor lock-in.
Published on July 4, 2006
NOVELL: Novell Announces Next Generation Desktop: SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop
> SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 enables organization to gain flexibility in their IT infrastructure, have greater control of their environment, improve end-user security and dramatically reduce operational costs.
> It is the only enterprise-quality Linux desktop on the market designed for general-purpose business. Developed and backed by Novell, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop provides market-leading usability, seamless interoperability with existing enterprise computer systems, and dozens of essential office applications.
A preview is available for download from the link above. It’s a hefty 5 CDs though, so I’m not sure if I’ll bother downloading and installing it even though it’s gotten plenty of rave reviews and is being hailed as an Ubuntu replacement. One feature it sports that will prompt quite a few people to install it is that Xgl is included and integrated. They’ve also included the new ’start-menu’ replacement, and good Beagle integration. All in all it looks like a very polished distribution, and it will be very interesting to see how it will work out for Novell when it’s finally released in a stable form.
Published on July 4, 2006
Sun Denies Open Source Java Imminent
> Sun was quick to deny published reports today that it plans to open source Java in the next few months. The company is working on the project, but any transition to open source is closer to a year away.
Bugger, but I guess this will give GNU Classpath more time to play catchup, and possibly become a viable alternative to the sun stack.
Published on July 1, 2006
Slyck News – RIAAââ¬â¢s Grand Total: 10,037 – What are Your Odds?
> The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) began their lawsuit campaign against alleged music pirates in June of 2003. When the first RIAA lawsuits began rolling off the assembly line, an enormous media frenzy accompanied this event. Since that time the lawsuits have become second-rate news, as the chances of becoming another RIAA statistic is relatively low ââ¬â very low.
The article plays a bit with estimated number of users versus the amount of people sued by the RIAA. If you stay away from the FastTrack network, you have a better chance of dying due to traffic than being sued by the RIAA. If you do use the FastTrack network, you have a better chance of dying from any external cause than being sued by the RIAA.
Published on June 30, 2006
ABC News: Online Identity Theft Ring Out of the ‘Shadows’
> June 29, 2006 ââ¬â The man who administered and co-founded what federal law enforcement officials described as one of the largest illegal online centers that trafficked in hundreds of thousands of stolen credit card numbers was sentenced Thursday to 32 months in prison.
The co-founder of shadowcrew (shad0w cr3w?) has been found guilty of trafficing more than 1.5 Million stolen credit/debit cards. And, yes, he did use phishing and spamming to get ahold of them.
Published on June 28, 2006
While reworking my HTML in ClockingIT to support TaskList reordering with Drag and Drop, I ended up with some strange padding around empty LI’s used to make sure a tasklist never ends up empty (to work around a dropOnEmpty problem with Prototype/Scriptaculous). After several hours of trying just about everything, it seems IE decides that and empy LI needs to have some content after all, and that empty content makes IE refuse to set an height on the LI lower than the font-size inherited by the LI. Forcing
style="font-size: 1px; and line-height: 0px;"
on the empty LIs fixed the problem.
