Posted 31 Mar 2008 — by Arun
Category General
I bought a Gateway GT5628 Quad Core Desktop (refurbished) for a good deal from buy.com. The desktop’s configuration is
- Intel® Core 2 Q6600 2.4GHz Quad Core
- 3072MB RAM
- 500GB 7200 SATA II HD
- DVD ±RW 18X multi dual
- 256MB NVIDIA GeForce® 8500GT DVI VGA
- 15-in-1 card reader
- Fax/Modem
- Vista Home Premium
I had 3 desktops and a dual core laptop. I wanted to donate 2 of my old desktops (with Ubuntu derivatives installed) and I was planning to buy a laptop for a good deal, but when I saw the deal for this configuration, I jumped up and ordered it even thought desktop was not what I wanted. I may have to wait few more months to get the quad core in the laptop and few more months to get good deals on it. The only part that I had to think was, since it was factory refurbished, Gateway offered only 90 days warranty. Dell generally offers 1 year warranty on refurbished desktops. I still went ahead and bought it because if it works, it would be a decent investment for next 3-4-5 years. I selected the standard free 7-10 days shipping and as usual, I got the product in 3 days.
Due to a good configuration, the system is not terribly slow due to Windows Vista. Vista makes the system slower, but I might soon install Ubuntu. I expect Ubuntu to run noticeably faster compared to my previous desktop. I’m waiting for Ubuntu 8.04 to be released before I install it in my new machine. I moved my old desktop to my living room and connected it to my 46″ Samsung LCD HDTV. I installed Kubuntu 8.04 beta with KDE 4.2 in it. I will be using it to watch Youtube and other shows from Internet. I have to say that applications in Kubuntu (KDE for that matter) crashed quite a few times in the 2-3 days since I installed it compared to Ubuntu 8.04 beta/alpha, which I’m using for the past few weeks.
(Photo: buy.com)
Technorati Tags: Gateway GT5628, Intel, Core2 Quad, NVidia, GeForce 8500GT, Windows Vista
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Posted 31 Mar 2008 — by Arun
Category General
According to the CoreBrand Power 100 2007 study,
which polled about 12,000 U.S. business decision-makers, Microsoft
dropped from number 12 in the ranking of the most powerful U.S. company
brands in 2004 to number 59 last year. In 1996, the company ranked
number 1 in brand power among 1,200 top companies in about 50 industries.
The decline in and of itself is not indicative that a company is losing its
mindshare or reputation among customers. However, what’s significant in
Microsoft’s case is that the decline has been consistent over a number
of years, and has plunged dramatically in a brief time.
Source: PC World.
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, CoreBrand, PC World
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WordPress team has released WordPress 2.5 2 days ago, after 6 months of development. Here are some of the new or changed features in WordPress 2.5.
- Dashboard was redesigned for WordPress 2.5. The dashboard home page is now a series of widgets that shows the number of posts, the theme used, recent comments, incoming links, WordPress development blog, plugins used, WordPress news etc.
- You can now upload multiple files at once instead of uploading one file at a time. WordPress also shows a progress bar indicating the status of the upload process.
- WordPress can now extract EXIF information from your photo file.
- Search now covers pages also.
- Password strength meter in your profile will tell you the strength of your password whenever you change it.
- WordPress now locks a post if someone is editing it and multiple people have access to edit it.
- You can upgrade your plugins with few clicks.
- Built in galleries. WordPress now allows you to create galleries when you load multiple photos and allows you to embed the gallery in your post. The gallery will then display the thumbnails of the photos which will link to a page where users can post comments.
The above changes are the front end changes. There are lots of changes made for developers. For a detailed list of changes, go here.
Though I like the new features, I’m not quite impressed with the light blue color that replaced the bright blue. This makes the webpage slightly dull.
Update: I’m having trouble with the new gallery feature. I uploaded 2 images for this post (above) and when I click each image, It takes me to a new page with a small blank square box. Clicking the square box shows the image. I’m not sure if it’s a bug or due to my theme or my browser settings or my McAfee suite which disables the images sometimes taking it for advertisement. I have to check this from home.
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OpenOffice.org team has released OpenOffice 2.4 today. OpenOffice 2.4 includes lots of new features and bug fixes. Here are some of the new features added to OpenOffice 2.4.
General:
- Connect to WebDAV servers via HTTPS
- Custom icons for toolbars are imported
- Control password-storing with a master password
- Warning if document is from a newer ODF
- PDF documents supported, and cross-document link behavior options
- Mac OS X: Quicktime support for movies and sound / use the built in spell checker
- Print dialog improvements in usability
- Edit boxes: warning at limit of characters
- DejaVu font is now default instead of BitStream Vera
Here are some of the new features added to the Writer module:
- Selecting rectangular region of text
- Find and Replace: backward references in regular expressions
- Spell checking: easier selecting of the language
- Insert & Insert Object toolbar redesign
- Printing of hidden text can be turned on
- Printing text place holders can be turned off
- Shortcuts added for paragraph style Heading 4, Heading 5 and Textbody
- Ctrl-click behaviour for hyperlinks can be changed
- Custom document properties: Text fields and UI support
For more information on the new features added to spreadsheet and other modules, click here. You can download the latest version from here.
OpenOffice team has redesigned their webpage also. It looks more polished and easier to navigate than before.
Technorati Tags: OpenOffice 2.4, Writer, Spreadsheet, PDF, WebDAV, Mac OS X, DejaVu
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Mozilla has updated Firefox web browser with few security fixes. Firefox 2.0.0.13 contains the following security fixes.
- XUL popup spoofing variant (cross-tab popups)
- Java socket connection to any local port via LiveConnect
- Privacy issue with SSL Client Authentication
- HTTP Referrer spoofing with malformed URLs
- Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.8.1.13)
- JavaScript privilege escalation and arbitrary code execution
You can update your Firefox from Help -> Check for updates or you can download it from Mozilla’s website.
Technorati Tags: Mozilla, Firefox 2.0.0.13, XUL, HTTP, Javascript
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Posted 25 Mar 2008 — by Arun
Category General
I had a Magellan Roadmate 760 GPS unit. It was good, but it was pretty bulky and the mounting cradle was unstable. I ordered the new maps ($80) for the Roadmate 760 unit. Once I received the map DVD, I started the update process. The map update process didn’t complete and I was left with a non functional unit. Restarting the unit didn’t work and there’s no way to reset the unit back to factory setting. I found by Googling that lot of people had the same issue (map update) with that unit. I then called Magellan support. The call went to their support center in India. The support person asked me the series of questions they were told to ask and then transferred me to a tech specialist. He asked me the same set of questions and then told me that their system to generate the return authorization was down and told me to call back the next day. I read in the forums that most of the people got the same statement from the Magellan tech. I then called the support again the next day and the call again went to India. The support guy asked me the same set of questions again and then transferred me again to the tech supervisor. She then generated a RA# and gave me the address to where I was told to send the unit. I had to pay for the shipping.
I read in the forums that lots of people had to wait for a long time to get a support guy on line, but I didn’t face that issue. The 2 days I called, I got someone on line with in 5 minutes. They were polite. I sent my unit and waited for 2 weeks. I was about to call at the end of the second week when I noticed the package that the Fedex guy left near my garage door. I was surprised to see a new Magellan Maestro 4210 unit. Though my older GPS unit was out of warranty, Magellan told me that they would replaced the unit free of charge since the problem was due to the map update software. I’m pretty much satisfied with the Magellan support (including wait times and replacing the unit).
The new Maestro 4210 is very much sleek and thin compared to Roadmate 760 which was quite bulky. The new unit has 3D map feature which the old one lacked. The new unit also has a battery, which when fully charged might come for 4 hours. This might help if you are on a trek. The only issue I have with this new unit is, it’s little slow to refresh your vehicle’s position. If you have to make a turn, the voice prompts you to turn at the right moment, but the map shows you little away from the road you are supposed to turn. It doesn’t show the exact position of your car (little behind). The new unit also shows your speed and if you have enabled the driving direction, the estimated arrival time. I like the new unit’s glossy touch screen, AAA map information and points of interest (which the old unit didn’t have), more stable mounting cradle etc. The only frustrating thing is the vehicle position. Overall, I like the new unit and satisfied with the Magellan support.
Technorati Tags: Magellan, GPS, Fedex, Roadmate 760, Maestro 4210
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Posted 21 Mar 2008 — by Arun
Category News
India will vote against Microsoft’s OOXML being adopted as a standard by the Geneva-based international standards body, ISO, where representatives of member countries are slated to decide on the matter by March 29. The decision was taken at a standards committee of the Bureau of Indian Standards.
As expected, all the Indian IT companies sucked up to Microsoft’s OOXML format, but they couldn’t win the votes due to more rationally thinking academia, government bodies, Red Hat, Sun and IBM. Middle finger to Infosys, Wipro & TCS for going behind OOXML.
Source: The Economics Times.
Technorati Tags: OOXML, ODF, Microsoft, India, ISO
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Posted 19 Mar 2008 — by Arun
Category News
SUN Microsystems has started offering Ubuntu Linux in their small and medium business server lines.
Source: thevarguy.
Technorati Tags: SUN Microsystems, Ubuntu, Linux
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Posted 19 Mar 2008 — by Arun
Category General
Google spreadsheets has got some cool new features. Here is the list:
- Revisions highlights – You can now highlight the changes of revisions for easier references.
- Notifications – You can set notification rules like automatically setting it to send you an alert whenever someone changes your spreadsheet or change a cell inside the spreadsheet.
- Gadgets – You can now add gadgets to the spreadsheet by picking a cell range and then clicking Insert -> Gadget at the top.
The following gadgets are currently available. You can create your own gadgets if you want.
- Motion chart: A Flash-based gadget animates certain numbers over time
- Gauges: Adds gauges with dials visually indicating the cell values
- Table: Adds grouping and filtering features
- Heatmap: A world map is connected to your cells containing an ISO country code, and then add color of different intensities to the countries
- Web search and image search: Displays a result from Google by searching for your cell value
- Organization chart: Draws a hierarchy based on cells containing names
Source: Google Blogoscoped.
Technorati Tags: Google Spreadsheets, Gadgets, Gauges, Google Docs
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Ubuntu team has released Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron beta. This beta includes lots of bug fixes. A couple of old caveats carry over from alpha into beta with a new addition. The newer bug is related to resizing partitions using Live CD.
Installation from the Live CD using the “auto-resize” partitioning option prompts for a password to mount partitions and triggers an error message.
Ubuntu team is working on the problem to fix it. Here are 3 issues carried over from alpha stage.
- The kernel in this beta is unable to access CD-ROM devices in some configurations, which may prevent users who were previously able to install Ubuntu from installing this beta from CD media.
- Video problems have been reported with the 64-bit (amd64) version of Edubuntu desktop.
- Hibernation does not work in a Wubi installation.
The beta includes Firefox 3 beta 4. To download the Ubuntu 8.04 beta, click here.
Update: The caevats changed by the time beta was finally released. The Live CD auto resize problem I had listed earlier is no more in the list, but the list has 2 more new additions.
1. When installing from the Live CD, selecting a point on the timezone map is difficult as the map moves too quickly.
2. If you have a Broadcom Wireless card, you will get a Jockey crash at startup. Please upgrade to a newer version after installation. https://launchpad.net/bugs/203958
Technorati Tags: Ubuntu 8.04 beta, Hardy Heron, Firefox 3 beta 4, Edubuntu
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