Dell is adding Ubuntu OS to it’s XPS M1330 lineup. It’s currently being offered in Europe and will be in U.S. in a week or two. It looks like Dell is doing a decent sale with it’s Ubuntu offering else they won’t be offering it in more configurations. The XPS M1330 starts at £599. The monitor is only 13.3″. You get the option of choosing integrated video card or NVidia’s GeForce 8400m.
Source: Direct2Dell.
I’m finally feeling a little better after being sick for a week. I could finally manage to spend couple of hours in office today. I’ll be taking leave for 3 weeks starting Monday in anticipation of the arrival of our second daughter. I’ll try to blog as and when possible.
Sears is selling Mirus PC for $284.99 with a $100 rebate. Mirus desktop computer comes with Intel Celeron D 420-1.6Ghz processor, 1024MB RAM of memory, 80GB of hard drive, CD-RW optical drive, Speakers, Keyboard, Mouse, 56K Modem, Ethernet, 15-in-1 Memory Card Reader. The system has Freespire as the operating system. Freespire is the free version of the Linspire OS which is based on Ubuntu. It’s a welcome sign that big retailers are finally selling cheaper Linux PCs. I hope more manufacturers and retailers will join this with more choices.
Technorati Tags: SEARS, Linux, Linspire, Freespire, Ubuntu, Mirus PC
Security experts have warned that thousands of small web shops, especially set up by mom and pop web shops are infected with malicious code that infects PC users who visit those sites. Once installed on a Windows machine the malicious code steals passwords, browser data as well as login names for bank accounts and online games.
They said they have identified around 230 websites that were infected, but they fear it could be as high as 10,000. Sites enrolled by the ongoing attack include trade papers, travel firms, ad brokers, estate agents, butchers, hotel booking sites and car spare specialists. The code injected on the websites scanned the machine of any visiting Windows user to see if any one of 13 separate vulnerabilities were present. The code installs a small trojan through any one of these loopholes then lies dormant until a user types in data that it is interested in – such as login names for online banks or games such as World of Warcraft.
All the websites that have become poisoned hosts use the same server and remote administration software based on Windows OSes and affects visitors using Windows OSes. It’s high time technologically illiterate people wake up and realize what to use and what not to use. User friendly softwares are not always user friendly!!!
Source: BBC.
Bloglines has added 2 new services to it’s Bloglines beta in the last 2 days. One of the two is the Photo widget. If you are subscribed to Flickr feed, Bloglines’s photo widget will display the corresponding photos inside the photo widget. This currently works only for Flickr, but Bloglines is planning to add more services in the near future.
Without photo widget:
Using Photo Widget:
(Image source: Bloglines)
The second feature is Blog View. You can access this feature if you are using the 3 pane view instead of full view. If you are in the 3 pane view, when you are reading a feed, you’ll see 2 tabs in the lower pane namely Preview and RSS. Select the preview will get you the exact website/blog look whereas selecting the RSS will give you just the feed as you can see in the picture below. If you don’t want to see the advertisements and colorful layouts and you care only the news, then it’s better to use the RSS option, but for others, Preview option will help.
(Preview mode)
(RSS Mode)
Source: Bloglines News.
Technorati Tags: Bloglines, Photo Widget, Flickr, Blog View, RSS, Preview
Sun Microsystems announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire MySQL, a popular open source database. Sun will pay about $800 million in cash for MySQL’s privately held stock and will assume about $200 million worth of options. MySQL CEO Marten Mickos will join Sun’s senior executive team after the transaction closes. Following completion of the proposed transaction, MySQL will be integrated into Sun’s Software, Sales and Service organizations. The transaction is expected to close in late Q3 or early Q4 of Sun’s fiscal 2008.
Will MySQL remain as popular as it is today, after the acquisition? I prefer MySQL to stay as it is now, but SUN is a supporter of open source, so it might not be bad.
Technorati Tags: SUN Microsystems, MySQL, Open Source, Database
Lenovo follows Dell in releasing Linux based laptops/desktops. Starting January 14th, Lenovo will pre-install SUSE SLED 10 in Thinkpad T61 and R61 notebooks.
The ThinkPad T61 with SLED 10 Service Pack 1 will come with the Intel Core 2 Duo T7250. The T61 laptop is powered by a 2.0GHz processor with an 800MHz FSB (front-side bus) and a 2MB Level 2 internal cache. For memory it comes with 1GB of DDR2 SDRAM.
For graphics, the T61 will use an Intel GMA X3100 GM965 on the motherboard. The 14.1-inch WXGA widescreen has a maximum resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels. On the storage side, the T61 uses an 80GB hard drive that speeds along at 5400 rpm. The PC also includes a combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. For network connectivity, the system will use a built-in ThinkPad 11a/b/g Wi-Fi wireless minicard.
The starting price for this system will be $949, $20 less than the same laptop with Vista Home Premium. Only $20 less? I’m not sure how many users, especially non-techies, would be interested in buying this laptop instead of Vista Home Premium. To start with and to attract more users to buy Linux based laptops and notebooks, I prefer to see a slightly more difference in the pricing between Vista and Linux. People will obviously go for Microsoft’s OS if it’s only $20 more, but will support more peripherals, softwares etc. People won’t mind it’s bloated or security nightmare. I also feel Lenovo should offer bigger hard drive and DVD writer for that price. I think Lenovo needs to rethink about the pricing if it really wants consumers to buy the Linux line of laptops.
Source: DesktopLinux.com
Technorati Tags: SUSE, SLED 10, Lenovo, Thinkpad, T61, R61, Dell, Linux, Intel, Core2Duo
The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) which is responsible for advising British schools and colleges on their IT use told the schools not to upgrade to Microsoft’s Vista OS or Office 2007. The agency said they do not have any evidence to support the argument that the costs of upgrading to Vista in educational establishments would be offset by appropriate benefit.
The cost of upgrading Britain’s schools to Vista would be £175 million (US$350 million), around a third of which would go to Microsoft, the agency said. The rest would go on deployment costs, testing and hardware upgrades, it said. This doesn’t include the cost to purchase graphics cards capable of displaying Windows Aero Graphics.
The agency did not see any compelling reason to deploy Microsoft Office 2007 either. It advised users of Office 2007 not to save the files in Microsoft’s new OOXML format. They were advised to save in .doc, .xls and.ppt format until Microsoft implements support for ODF (I doubt it).
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, BECTA, British, Vista, Office 2007, PC World, OOXML, ODF
(K)Ubuntu team has released their 3rd alpha of Hardy Heron. Here is the list of changes/new features in Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron:
Here are few bugs that you might run into or impact your system:
Source: Ubuntu.
Kubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Aplha 3 contains KDE 4.0 stable release.
Technorati Tags: Kubuntu 8.04, Ubuntu 8.04, Hardy Heron, XOrg, PulseAudio, Firefox 3, Kernel, PolicyKit, ATI Radeon
KDE team has released their next generation window manager, KDE 4.0 today. Here are some of the features or changes in KDE 4.0 according to the KDE team.
The KDE 4.0 Visual Guide provides a quick overview of various new and improved KDE 4.0 technologies. You can read my reviews of KDE 4.0 (before final release) in Kubuntu here.
To install KDE 4.0 in Kubuntu 7.10 and 8.04, follow the steps below:
Source: Kubuntu.
Technorati Tags: KDE 4.0, Kubuntu 7.10, Kubuntu 8.04, Oxygen, Plasma, Phonon, Okular
