MicroTechXP

I am a Windows XP user and I have tried Windows Vista on my computer and I can’t say I did not like it, but I can’t say I loved it. My experience was not that great because of horrible drivers  from nVidia (you make great cards but not drivers) and because my PC is older than 3 years. Yes I know, Vista was meant for a new computer and not for an old one with a Pentium 4 in it. Well I tried it and it ran smoothly until I wanted to play games or run multi-media applications.

After my experience with Vista I decided to revert back to Windows XP and wait until I get the new Intel Nehalem architecture latter this year and go back to Vista (hopefully Vista drivers from nVidia are much better). The experience showed me something though, it showed me what Vista needed and what it needed to improve upon. So I have made a list 7 things that I think that Windows 7 should have that will make Windows 7 a better operating system.

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Asus is to fit its entire range of motherboards with the company’s Express Gate version of Splashtop Linux. Splashtop boots from a Flash chip on the motherboard in a matter of seconds and is designed to run a small suite of applications including Firefox, Skype and instant messaging.
The Linux-based software will be extended immediately to the new P5Q Deluxe, P5Q-WS, P5Q3 Deluxe and P5Q-E series motherboards, and Asus has pledged to produce a further million Splashtop motherboards per month. Part of Splashtop’s appeal is that it complements rather than replaces Windows, offering users the option to run a choice of operating systems.
View: The full story @ vnunet

Dell knows it won’t happen overnight, but along side wanting to ship audio/video codecs, Intel Wireless 80.211N support for Linux, Broadcom Wireless for Linux, and being able to ship notebooks and desktops with Compiz Fusion enabled, Dell would like to see improved ATI Linux drivers. At Ubuntu Live 2007, Amit Bhutani had a session on Ubuntu Linux for Dell Consumer Systems, where he had shared a slide with Dell’s “area of investigation”,  which Amit had said is essentially their Linux road-map. Amit had also stated that the NVIDIA 2D and 3D video drivers were “challenges in platform enablement”. Dell wants to offer ATI Linux systems, but first the driver must be improved for the Linux platform (not necessarily open-source, but improved). Dell currently ships desktop Linux systems with Intel using their open-source drivers as well as NVIDIA graphics processors under Linux. Amit had went on to add that new Dell product offerings and availability in other countries will come later this summer.

News Source: phoronix.com

Microsoft and Red Hat are no closer to a deal involving intellectual property cooperation, Microsoft has confirmed. “Red Hat and Microsoft have previously had conversations about interoperability, but none of our recent conversations have included discussions about intellectual property cooperation,” Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft’s vice president of intellectual property and licensing, told eWEEK.

This effectively puts to rest—for now—the speculation that the rival operating system vendors might actually be talking about a deal that includes some kind of intellectual property provision and/or patent covenant. Enterprise customers, however, have a great deal of interest in seeing the two companies work together because of their investments in both sets of technologies. Bob Muglia, Microsoft’s senior vice president for server and tools, admitted that interoperability and support for major Linux distributions have come up repeatedly at the company’s Interoperability Executive Customer Council.

View: The full story @ eWeek

The Multi-Pointer X Server (MPX) is a modification of the X Server. A standard X Server only provides one mouse cursor (pointer) and one keyboard focus, regardless of the number of input devices connected. MPX provides the user with multiple mouse cursors and multiple keyboard foci. Multicursor applications have been developed in the past but MPX is the first implementation of a multicursor windowing system (or a multicursor X server).

MPX devices are independent. Each cursor is a true system cursor and different pointers can operate in multiple applications simultaneously. This allows for two-handed interaction and/or collaboration on a single display. MPX is compatible to legacy applications such as the GIMP, the Firefox web browser and numerous other applications. Keyboards provide multiple keyboard foci. So you can actually type into several applications at once. Both mice and keyboards can be hot-plugged.

MPX is significantly different to solutions like cpnmouse, SDGToolkit, MIDDesktop and other toolkits or applications. It is fairly easy under most operating systems to write an application or toolkit to support multiple input devices. It is trickier to support the same for legacy applications. Supporting new and legacy applications at the same time is hard.

MPX changes the windowing system, the environment for all graphical applications. This way, legacy applications are supported and provided with extra features. New applications can use the multi-pointer facilities and thus create novel interaction methods at the same time. That is why we think that the windowing system is the correct place to support multiple input devices.

View: UNISA

OpenMoko is a linux based OS that is being developed for many (potentially) models of phones. It has the potential of making a hackers dream phone a reality!

Today marks the launch of openmoko.com the corporate site for the openmoko project. If you didn’t know already the openmoko is a new cell phone designed from the ground up in an open manner. All the hardware is designed in an open manner and the software on the phone itself is gnu/linux.

Previously only the community oriented openmoko.org site was live but this did not allow actual purchase of the Neo1973 phone. (The first phone openmoko will run on) Today anyone can go to the openmoko.com store and purchase a Neo1973 phone running openmoko. The phone is initially aimed at developers and is not quite ready for mass consumption.

The Neo Base model retails for $300 US, and the Neo Advanced is $450 US. They are not tied to any network and will function on any GSM provider. This hopefully will provide some competition to Apple’s latest creation, the iPhone.

View: OpenMoko.org - Development Site
View: Link

OpenMoko is an Open Source project to create the world’s first free mobile phone operating system.

The OpenMoko project is a community that anyone can join, to help design their ideal phone.

The long term goal is that phone software won’t be tied to a phone. You can install any OpenMoko software over the whole range of phones, and if you upgrade your phone, you don’t lose the software. Bugs fixed on one phone are fixed on all (OpenMoko Wiki).

When Evans Data released its survey on Tuesday showing a sharp shift toward Linux (and away from Windows) among developers in North America, the Linux world went wild. Wistful pengiun heads heralded the coming Open Source Age. But the real measure of OS success is in the number of users, not the number of developers. After all, most of the world’s PCs end up in the hands of ordinary people who have no interest in coding. Fortunately for open-source addicts, there are several signs that the coming year could bring a sea-change among end users, making 2008 the year of the Linux desktop.

There’s nothing bold about pointing out that modern Linux distros have made leaps and bounds in usability in the past couple of years. A monkey could download and install Ubuntu Feisty in the time it takes most people to decide which version of Vista to drop a day’s pay on. And the recent release of Fedora 7 delivered improvements in wireless support that make mobile configurations nearly idiot-proof. (Although, in my experience, nothing can withstand the sheer brute force of a complete idiot.) Now all eyes are on the upcoming releases of openSUSE 10.3 and Ubuntu 7.10, both of which will drop in October.

Meanwhile, Dell has consistently made headlines with its new Ubuntu-powered PC line. Now four models strong and selling for $50 less than their Windows-equipped counterparts, these PCs come preloaded with all necessary drivers, and offer consumers the same assurances of usability and support that they could reasonably expect from a Windows machine. Whether other major hardware vendors will follow suit remains to be seen, but the momentum is certainly gathering.

View: View Full Article @ MaximumPC