Geekbench 2006 Updated (Build 319)
The latest build of Geekbench 2006 (build 319) is now available for download. This build fixes a number of issues that are encountered under 64-bit versions of Windows Vista (for those of you out there brave enough to run a 64-bit version of Windows Vista).
Apple Envy
Given NetGear’s affinity for producing networking gear out of shiny white plastic, people have started wondering if NetGear has Apple Envy:
[W]hat is most important to note is that NetGear is taking its design cues from Apple and its product offerings. The abundance of white, the smooth and rounded edges, and even an Apple-like grille. Check out their new storage device … looks like old Apple Cube.
It is not necessarily a bad thing, for the world does need more aesthetically pleasing electronics gear. The iPod has been a positive influence on the mobile handset business, something we have noted in the past. The commodity consumer electronics business could use a similar makeover.
Right now I’ve got two NetGear gigabit switches, and while they don’t look like Apple designed them, they certainly are attractive, and look right at home next to an iMac or a Power Mac. They work really well, too, unlike some Linksys gigabit switches, which tend to be both slow and noisy.
Goodbye, Fedora
Earlier this week Eric Raymond wrote a long letter to fedora-devel-list explaining what he thought was wrong with Fedora and how working with another distribution (in this case Ubuntu) was going to be so much better.
What’s interesting is some of the responses the letter generated, in particular a response from David Cantrell; David pointed out that this sort of message from Eric Raymond to the Fedora team are becoming a yearly occurrence:
We got this email last year, Eric, but it had slightly different content. I think. Maybe. It’s hard to read your messages. They are SO BORING. They read like anything in the USA Today.
Oh, how I love the internet and the drama it generates.
Red Sweater Acquires MarsEdit
Brent Simmons (well, NewsGator) is no longer developing MarsEdit; Red Sweater Software has acquired MarsEdit:
Red Sweater Software announced today that it has acquired MarsEdit, the popular weblog publishing software, from NewsGator Technologies, Inc. The acquisition promises an exciting future for the application, which provides an intuitive, email-like interface to the web’s most popular publishing systems.
MarsEdit’s simplicity and power make it the tool of choice for many of the platform’s leading writers.
Display Eater Eats More Than Just Displays
Well, this is interesting. It turns out that Display Eater, a screen-capture application for Mac OS X will delete your home folder if it thinks you’re running it with a pirated serial number. How’s that for a draconian anti-piracy policy? [Karsten Kusche over at briksoftware] also thinks it’ll generate some of the worst PR possible:
Removing the home folder of some users will probably do way more advertisement. But that kind of advertisement is not good. This blog post is such a kind of negative advertisement. I definitely do not support such software and I suggest you should not use Display Eater. If you need a tool to create screen-casts go for iShowU. It’s just 3$ more expensive than Display Eater but seems to have a much better user experience.
Of course, Display Eater’s developer thinks his approach is perfectly reasonable, and has threatened to take his toys and go home if people don’t stop pirating his application:
I don’t know if this is going to become Display Eater policy. If this level of piracy continues, development will stop.
I can only hope he follows through on his threat. Piracy is a problem, especially for small software developers. However, there are far better ways of dealing with it than destroying someone’s data (and your reputation along with it).
Rails on Fedora Core 6
There’s a useful (and concise!) guide to installing Ruby on Rails on Fedora Core 6 over on not404.com. If you’re trying to install Ruby on Rails on a 64-bit version of Fedora Core 6, you’ll want to take a look at this bug report; it includes a patch you’ll need to apply to get RubyGems working.
Hooray for living on the bleeding edge, I suppose.
Linux Memory Footprint
There’s an excellent article over on IBM’s developerWorks on how to reduce your Linux memory footprint:
The truth of the matter, however, is that while the Linux kernel can still be configured to be reasonably small and efficient, as new computers have increased in power, many Linux desktop environments (such as KDE and GNOME) have added lots of features. Consequently, the default install of most distributions offer a less than stellar level of performance when installed on older hardware. The same is true of many modern applications also — Web browsers such as Firefox and office suites such as OpenOffice are fully featured, but trying to run them on a machine with 128MB of RAM can be a painful experience!
While the article’s targeted at users who are running Linux on older hardware, it’s also great for people who want to get the most out of the memory they have installed.
Intel inside Sun Servers
I meant to post about this last month, but never got around to it; Sun is going to use Intel processors in its servers. OMGWTFBBQ?
Sun will deliver a comprehensive set of Intel® technology-based systems, with plans for single, dual, and multi-processor based enterprise servers, telecommunication servers and workstations supporting Solaris, Windows and Linux. Sun intends to announce the first Intel Xeon processor-based systems in the first half of 2007.
A big win for Intel, since AMD and Sun have been such close partners for a while now. I wonder if Intel processors will eventually find their way into Sun workstations?
Programming Perl on Vista…
…using voice recognition.
Something tells me that of all the computer languages out there, AppleScript would work the best with voice recognition.
Entries