Firefox 1.5 is OUT

The wait is over. Grab it while it's hot..


Download here.
Release notes here.

Update: Mozilla.com - New home of Firefox and Thunderbird. The primary end user site for Firefox, Thunderbird and the Mozilla Corporation.

KDE 3.5 Released

Fyi, this is my 100 post since I started this blog..

The KDE Project is happy to announce a new major release of the award-winning K Desktop Environment. Many features have been added or refined, making KDE 3.5 the most complete, stable and integrated free desktop environment available. For a quick look at some of the new features see the visual guide to KDE 3.5. Packages are available now for ArchLinux, Kubuntu, Slackware and SuSE or try Konstruct to build it yourself.

Free60 Project - Linux on your Xbox360

Xbox 360 hacking has started...

The Free60 Project aims to port open source operating systems like

* GNU/Linux and
* Darwin

to the Microsoft Xbox 360 gaming console.

DesktopBSD 1.0-RC3 released

A step toward BSD on the Desktop. DesktopBSD aims at being a stable and powerful operating system for desktop users.

DesktopBSD combines the stability of FreeBSD, the usability and functionality of KDE and the simplicity of specially developed software to provide a system that's easy to use and install.

DesktopBSD 1.0-RC3 is now available from our download mirrors.

Changes include:
- Many new translations
- Switch from 5.4 to FreeBSD 5-STABLE that contains many improvements from 6.0
- Upgrade to KDE 3.4.3
- Availability of an AMD64 version

Release notes:
Changelog:

I think, I have to make another partition when DesktopBSD 1.0 is released.

PHP 5.1.0 Released

The PHP development team is proud to announce the release of PHP 5.1.0. Some of the key features of PHP 5.1.0 include:

* A complete rewrite of date handling code, with improved timezone support.
* Significant performance improvements compared to PHP 5.0.X.
* PDO extension is now enabled by default.
* Over 30 new functions in various extensions and built-in functionality.
* Bundled libraries, PCRE and SQLite upgraded to latest versions.
* Over 400 various bug fixes.
* PEAR upgraded to version 1.4.5

Announcement here.
Changelog here.
Upgrading guide here.

I'm .exe

Fyi

Which File Extension are You?

Coconets(RP) tops BBC World Challenge 2005

It's a bit late but this is a great honor for the Philippines. Coconet, made from waste coconut husk is abundant in my hometown because copra is the primary source of income of the people there.

Agricultural engineer Justino Arboleda of the Philippines won the first prize in the First World Challenge contest sponsored by BBC World television in London on Nov. 17 for his soil erosion control net or coconet.

Coconet, made from waste coconut husk, was adjudged the best environmental grassroots project in the world. It was among 456 entries from 90 countries.

Malta, which introduced a biodiesel product, took the second prize, while Vanuatu was in third place for its rechargeable battery.[INQ7]

The World Challenge, brought to you by BBC World & Newsweek, in association with Shell, is a competition aimed at finding individuals or groups from around the world who have shown enterprise and innovation at a grass roots level. This competition is all about finding entrepreneurs whose projects are making a difference to communities.

Spirit Marks One Year on Mars

Spirit, the untiring robotic "wonder child" sent by NASA to explore the eerily earthlike fourth planet from the sun, has completed one martian year--that's almost two Earth years--on Mars. Designed to last only 90 martian days (sols), the six-wheeled marvel the size of a golf cart has pursued a steady course of solar-driven geologic fieldwork, bringing back some 70,000 images and a new understanding of Mars as a potential habitat.

Full story.

SETI@home Switching Off

Via SETI@home:

The old SETI@home Classic project will stop issuing work on December 15, 2005. Anyone still running SETI@home Classic should deactivate it and install SETI@home/BOINC(Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing).

About SETI@home:
SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.

GARNOME 2.13.2 Released

Via Gnomedesktop.org:

We are pleased to announce the release of GARNOME 2.13.2 Desktop and Developer Platform. A lot has changed since the last unstable release. This release includes all of GNOME 2.13.2 plus a few updates that were released after the freeze date for GNOME 2.13.2.

Tarball here.
Website.

GARNOME - A build utility for the GNOME Desktop.

Fedora Core 5 Test1 Now Available

The Fedora Project announces the first release of the Fedora Core 5 development cycle, available for the i386, x86_64, and PPC/PPC64 architectures. Notable Features of FC5 Test1 are modular Xorg, GNOME 2.12, KDE 3.4.92, a Xen 3.0 snapshot for i386, better open source Java support, GCC 4.0.2 and major installer changes to use yum for package handling.
Download torrent here.
Download iso's here.

Announcement here.

PCLinuxOS 0.92 Release (Labor of Love)

If you want bleeding edge linux distro, PCLinuxOS is the answer..

On behalf of the PCLinuxOS engineering team, I'm happy to announce that PCLinuxOS 0.92 is now available for download here:

PCLinuxOS 0.92 features an updated 2.6.12 kernel, hotplug has been moved to udev to provide faster boot times. The fabulous kde has been updated to version 3.4.3. Koffice replaces Openoffice on the livecd. Openoffice 2.0 can be installed after a hard drive install. xorg has been updated to xorg.cvs Approx 400 package update brings PCLinuxOS 0.92 up to date with the latest open source applications. PCLinuxOS is an rpm based distro utilizing apt-get with a Synaptic frontend to provide users with an easy to use update tool.

Announcement here.
Website.

Opera 8.51 Released

Download the latest maintenance, stability, and security release.

Opera's latest release addresses the security issue in the Flash Player (Secunia Advisory 17437). Opera 8.51 for Windows ships with Macromedia Flash version 7r61.

The release is a recommended security upgrade for Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris users, because it updates Opera's wrapper script to not run commands included with URLs passed from other applications (as suggested in Secunia Advisory 16907).

Users of Mac OS X with Japanese systems will experience improved stability on pages with Java.

Annoucement here.
Download here.

E=mc² - marks 100 years

No equation is anywhere near as recognisable as E=mc². It's my favorite equation.

Physicists are celebrating the centenary of Albert Einstein's best known equation: E=mc².

Published in the fourth of a series of papers that shook the foundations of physics in 1905, E=mc² is now linked with the power of the atom bomb.

Full story.

GIMP 10th Anniversary Splash Contest

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.

Barely in time for GIMP's tenth birthday is the 10th Anniversary GIMP Splash Contest. This new contest requires a tutorial with the submissions, so get out your favorite text editor and show us all of the beautiful things you can make your GIMP do. Submit those entries to the contest area of this web site and wait to see if there is a gimp-2.2.10 with your entry as the very special release splash.

Happy Birthday GIMP! (If I remember correctly, 10 was a great age to be....)

Annoucement here.

Mirrors to Banish Town's Winter Darkness

This is making night into day...

The sun has stopped shining in Rattenberg. But with the aid of a few mirrors, the winter darkness that grips this small town could soon be brightened up with pockets of sunshine.

That's because sun is plentiful less than 10 minutes' walk from the town and from Rat Mountain, the 3,000-foot hill that blocks its sunlight between November and February each year.

The solution: 30 heliostats, essentially rotating mirrors, mounted on a hillside to grab sunshine off reflectors from the neighboring village of Kramsach.

Bartenbach Lichtlabor GmbH, the Austrian company behind the idea, has already used mirrors for lighting projects around the world _ sunshine into European basements and railroad stations or nighttime illumination of a mosque in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.

Read the rest here:

EFF Files Class Action Lawsuit Against Sony BMG

Another, another suit, this time from EFF(Electronic Frontier Foundation)..

Via EFF:

Company Should Repair Damage to Customers Caused by CD software

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with two leading national class action law firms, today filed a lawsuit against Sony BMG, demanding that the company repair the damage done by the First4Internet XCP and SunnComm MediaMax software it included on over 24 million music CDs.

Texas Sues Sony BMG for Spyware Violations

The Sony BMG malicious trojan-horse rootkit(DRM) fiasco never ends...

Via Yahoo news:

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a civil lawsuit on Monday against Sony BMG Music Entertainment for including "spyware" software on its media player designed to thwart music copying.

According to the lawsuit filed in Travis County, several of the company's music compact discs require customers to download Sony's media players if they want to listen to the CDs on a computer.

Software included with that media player "remains hidden and active" after installation, the Attorney General's office said in a statement, and makes users vulnerable to security risks and possible identity theft.

Texas is seeking civil penalties of $100,000 per violation of the state's Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act, which was enacted earlier this year.

I feel Sory for Sony..

Piece of tape defeats any CD DRM:Gartner

Via Vnunet.com

The highly controversial XCP digital rights management (DRM) technology bundled by Sony BMG on 52 of its audio CD albums can be defeated by applying a small piece of tape to the discs, according to analyst firm Gartner.

Applying a piece of opaque tape to the outer edge of the disk renders the data track of the CD unreadable. A computer trying to play the CD will then skip to the music without accessing the bundled DRM technology.

The use of a piece of tape will defeat any future DRM system on audio CDs designed to be played on a stand-alone CD player, the analyst said.

Read the Gartnet research note here:

Gentoo Linux 2005.1-r1

The Gentoo Release Engineering team is proud to announce Gentoo Linux 2005.1-r1! The 2005.1-r1 release is simply a media refresh over the 2005.1 release. What this means is that it used the same base snapshot, and has very few changes. This is a bug-fix update to the current stable release.

Announcement here:

Birthday

It's my birthday today!

According to the Birthday calculator, my date of conception was on or about 29 February 1960 which was a Monday. I was born on a Monday under the astrological sign Scorpio.

Sony Pictures Completes First Full-Length Blu-ray Disc

[Via PRNewswire]

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) president Benjamin S. Feingold today announced that authoring has been completed on the first Blu-ray Disc (BD) to contain a full-length, high-definition feature filSom. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle was compressed and authored in MPEG 2 full high-definition (1920 x 1080) by Sony Pictures' Digital Authoring Center (DAC) and is now being shipped to BD hardware companies for player testing.

Utilizing Blu-ray's unprecedented storage capacity, the Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle disc features dynamic menus with full resolution graphics and animation, superior audio and unparalleled picture quality. "We are confident this achievement will help everyone understand that Blu-ray is real and poised to enter the marketplace," said Mr. Feingold. "Blu-ray will bring the highest quality HD experience possible to the home."

Freerock GNOME 2.12.1 released

Freerock GNOME is another version of the GNOME Desktop that has been tweaked for Slackware Linux systems, the other one is dropline GNOME.

Freerock GNOME is a complete GNOME Desktop distribution designed and packaged specifically for Slackware Linux. Freerock GNOME installs cleanly and non-intrusively by utilizing the standard Slackware software package format (".tgz"). Freerock GNOME integrates seamlessly and easily into Slackware Linux version 10.2.

We've released Freerock GNOME 2.12.1 for Slackware Linux 10.2. The ChangeLog can be perused here. ISOs for x86 platforms can be found here. Packages for x86 platforms can be retrieved from any one of our mirrors. Additionally, the x86_64 (64-bit) port of FRG can be found on our ports page.

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 RC 3 Available

[Via MozillaZine]

The third release candidate of Mozilla Firefox 1.5 is now available for download. Like the earlier release candidates, Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 3 is intended to allow testers to ensure that there are no last-minute problems with the Firefox 1.5 code.

You can download here or here. As usual, users of Firefox 1.5 RC2 will be offered RC3 through the software update system.

$100-laptop unveiled

A hand-cranked laptop that will cost roughly $100 has been unveiled at a UN summit. The $100 laptop – nicknamed the "Green Machine" for its vivid green casing – was developed by One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), a Delaware-based, non-profit organization created by faculty members from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture, and distribute laptops that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. It was demonstrated on Wednesday at the UN's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia, by chairman of MIT's media laboratory, Nicholas Negroponte.

The $100 Laptop will be a Linux-based, will run on 500 MHz CPU (Processor) by AMD, 1 GB of flash memory (no hard drive), 8" diagonal display (dual LCD Colour/Black & White mode for power conservation and outdoor reading), 128 MB of DRAM, WIFI support and 4 USB ports.

GNOME 2.13.2 Development Release!

Via Gnome-announce-list:
Grab it while it's hot: the latest GNOME release is out! Go download it. Go compile it. Go test it. And go hack on it, document it, translate it, fix it. This is our second development release on our road towards GNOME 2.14.0, which will be released in March 2006.

To compile it, you can use the jhbuild modulesets available here:

Warning:
This release is a snapshot of development code. Although it is buildable
and usable, it is primarily intended for testing and hacking purposes.
GNOME uses odd minor version numbers to indicate development status.

Oxygen Icons Website Launched

Before there is Tango Desktop Project by Gnome people, now its KDE turn, its Oxygen - a breath of fresh air, not just an icon theme.

David Vignoni, Kenneth Wimer and Nuno Pinheiro, 3 of KDE's finest artists, are very proud to present the Oxygen website, explaining what Oxygen is and the direction it is going in. Oxygen is the new icon theme being created for KDE4.
Oxygen aims to bring a modern, cool and very usable and consistent icon theme, in SVG format. In addition to high quality design, Oxygen also promotes technological innovation and increased usability by proposing new file interaction methods, animated effects and the intelligent use of SVGs.[Link]

There is still a long way before Linux desktop icons and themes will be unified and standardize..

CSSVista - Live CSS editing in IE and Firefox simultaneously!

Attention Web Developers and Designers introducing CSS Vista. It's a free Windows application for web developers which lets you edit your CSS code live in both Internet Explorer and Firefox simultaneously.

Features
* Live CSS editing
* Live rendering in Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox
* Split pane view to see both browsers simultaneously
* Completely free!
Works in Windows XP only.

Boeing Launches New 747-8 Family

The battle between Boeing and Airbus is heating up. The Boeing 747, commonly nicknamed as the Jumbo Jet, is the most recognized of all modern airliners, with a total of 1382 aircraft built or ordered in various 747 configurations, comes another derivative, referred to as the 747-8 (referred to as the 747 Advanced prior to launch).

The Boeing Company today officially launched the new Boeing 747-8 program, which includes the 747-8 Intercontinental passenger airplane and the 747-8 Freighter airplane.

The 747-8 Intercontinental passenger airplane will be stretched 3.6 m (11.7 ft) compared to the 747-400 to accommodate 34 additional seats in a typical three-class configuration. The only jetliner in the 400- to 500-seat category, it will have a range of 14,815 km (8,000 nmi) and will feature the new Boeing Signature Interior.

The 747-8 Freighter will be 5.6 m (18.3 ft) longer than the 747-400 freighter. With a total payload capacity of 140 metric tonnes (154 tons), including tare weight, the 747-8F provides 16 percent more cargo revenue volume than the -400.
[Link]

TOP500 List of World's Fastest Supercomputers Released

There is a flurry of press releases about microprocessor today, here's another one, In what has become a closely watched event in the world of high-performance computing.

The 26th edition of the TOP500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers was released today (November 14, 2005) at the Supercomputing Conference (SC05) in Seattle, WA.
The No. 1 position was again claimed by the BlueGene/L System, a joint development of IBM and DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and installed at DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. BlueGene/L also occupied the No. 1 position on the last two TOP500 lists. However, the system was doubled in size during the last six months and reached a new record Linpack benchmark performance of 280.6 TFlop/s (�teraflops� or trillions of calculations per second). No other system has yet exceeded the level of 100 TFlop/s and this system is expected to remain the No. 1 Supercomputer in the world for the next few editions of the TOP500 list.

Other trends of interest:

A total of 333 systems are now using Intel processors, with 81 one these are already using the new EM64T processors. The second most-commonly used processors are the IBM Power processors (73 systems), ahead of AMD Opteron processors (55).

There are 360 systems now labeled as clusters, making this the most common architecture in the TOP500. Of these, 249 cluster systems are connected using Gigabit Ethernet and 70 system using Myricom�s Myrinet.

IBM remains the clear leader in the TOP500 list with 43.8 percent of systems and 52.8 percent of installed performance. HP is second with 33.8 percent of systems and 18.8 percent of performance.

The U.S. is clearly the leading consumer of HPC systems with 305 of the 500 systems installed there (up from 267 one year ago). The European (100 systems) and Asian share (66 systems) is slowly decreasing.

Press release here.
Website

Cray To Base Next-Generation Supercomputers On AMD Opteron™ Processor Platform

Another processor related news.

AMD and Cray Inc., today announced that they have signed an agreement that extends their successful relationship through the end of the decade. Cray will continue to use AMD Opteron(TM) processors for the microprocessor-based supercomputer products Cray develops during this period. In addition, the two firms will actively collaborate on Cray's mid-2006 proposal for Phase 3 of the federal government's DARPA HPCS (High Productivity Computing Systems) program.

AMD press release here.
Cray press release here.

Sun Microsystems unveils UltraSPARC T1 Processor

World's First Eco-Responsible Processor Uses Less than 70 Watts, Designed to Deliver Millions of Dollars in Energy Savings for Customers. Sun's UltraSparc T1 has eight processing 'cores' on a single piece of silicon.

Sun Microsystems (SUNW) today announced the introduction of the UltraSPARC(R) T1 - formerly known as "Niagara". The world's first high-performance, energy efficient processor will debut in a new line of breakthrough Sun Fire servers before the end of 2005. Using patented CoolThreads chip multi-threading technology that leverages the threaded nature of Solaris 10, the world's most advanced operating system, the breakthrough chip is the world's first Eco-responsible processor: research shows that UltraSPARC T1 processor performance could eliminate the number of Web servers in the world by half, slashing power requirements and having the same effect in reducing carbon dioxide emissions as planting one million acres of trees. (1) [Read the rest here].

It's coo says, that the chip gives the firm a five-year leap on IBM's Power and Intel's Xeon processors. Attention IBM and Intel..

KDE 3.5 RC1 Available

The KDE Project is pleased to announce the immediate availability of KDE 3.5 release candidate 1. You can download the sources here. To compile them you can use the Konstruct build script .

Buoh - online comics reader for GNOME.

A GNOME application aims to help the comic lovers by providing an easy way of browsing and reading their favorites comic stripes.

Buoh has a number of features, including:

• Select your favorites comic through a list of more than 130 comics
• Easy, simple an eye-candy view of an online comic
• Browsing over the comic strip archives
• Saving a comic to disk
• Integration with GNOME (respecting the lockdowns and HIG compliance)

Home : Screenshot

I'm a komiks (Pilipino comics) addict during my college days..

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 2 Available

Firefox 1.5 RC2 has been released. You can download here or here.
Users of Firefox 1.5 RC1 will be offered RC2 through the software update system.

IBM, Sony, Philips form Linux alliance

Via CNN:

Three of the world's biggest electronics companies -- IBM, Sony and Philips -- have joined forces with the two largest Linux software distributors to create a company for sharing Linux patents, royalty-free.

The Open Invention Network (OIN), as the new firm unveiled Thursday is known, could mark a breakthrough in resolving how to protect vendors and customers from patent royalty disputes resulting from freely shared Linux code.

OIN is funded by the world's largest computer company, IBM, two consumer electronics giants -- Sony Corp. of Japan and Philips of the Netherlands -- and Linux distributors Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc.

Boeing 777-200LR Sets New World Record for Distance

A new Boeing plane has broken the record for the longest non-stop passenger airline flight, a 22-hour 42-minute, 12,500-mile trip from Hong Kong to London.

Boeing established a new world record for distance traveled nonstop by a commercial airplane when a Boeing 777-200LR Worldliner landed at London Heathrow Airport today. The 777-200LR (Longer Range) flew 11,664 nautical miles (21,601 km) during its 22-hour 42-minute flight that left Hong Kong flying eastbound the evening of Nov. 9. The distance set by the 777-200LR is farther than any previous commercial jetliner has flown and exceeds a distance of more than halfway around the world.

[Link]

Matrox DualHead2Go

Innovative Matrox product divides 1 monitor output into 2.

Matrox Graphics, Inc., the leading manufacturer of graphics solutions for professionals, today unveiled the revolutionary new Matrox DualHead2Go, the world's first external upgrade capable of adding multiple monitor support to compatible laptop and integrated graphics-based desktop PCs that were previously limited to single screen output. DualHead2Go is a palm-sized box that connects to the existing single monitor output (i.e. external VGA output) of a computer and appears to the system as a single ultra-widescreen monitor with native support for resolutions up to 2560 x 1024*, which are twice as wide as standard resolutions. Using Matrox patent-pending technology, DualHead2Go splits the 2560 x 1024 Microsoft® Windows® desktop into a right and left half, each of which is then sent to two separate analog monitors allowing users to easily upgrade their workspace setups to experience the productivity benefits of a DualHead® desktop.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 is one year old

The Firefox Web browser is one year old today. Notable achievement during its year of existance are celebrating its 100 millionth download last October, achieving 10 percent market share and accumulating awards. Happy birthday Firefox..

MGM to support Blu-ray disc format

The battle for next generation DVD format is heating up.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. announced today its support of the new high definition Blu-ray Disc format. In cooperation with the Blu-ray Disc Association, MGM plans to begin releasing film and television titles from its world-renowned library when the new Blu- ray hardware launches in North America, Japan and Europe.

[Link]

Ubuntu certified for IBM's DB2

Ubuntu has successfully gone through the stringent process whereby IBM ensures that DB2 Universal Database for Linux operates in the Ubuntu environment.

Ubuntu is moving into Enterprise computing with IBM's certification of Ubuntu as “Ready for IBM DB2 Software for Linux”.

In addition to the core Ubuntu system, the certification includes the KDE-based Kubuntu and the education focused Edubuntu.

[Link]

amBX - ambient gaming experience

Philips has announced the development of a new technology that's designed to enhance the gaming experience with the use of light, colour, sound, heat and even blasts of air "into the real world".

The technology, amBX, incorporates a scripting language, software engine and architecture and provides a support framework for peripheral manufacturers to develop amBX-enabled products.

Due for release in May 2006.

[amBx]

Movies on Memory Cards

Beginning today, some of Hollywood's biggest names will be strutting their stuff on the small screen thanks to the "Movies on Memory Cards" initiative from Sony Pictures Digital. Several films, including Hitch, Ghostbusters, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and Stuart Little are now available on memory cards to view on mobile phones.
The memory cards will work with a range of the latest Nokia handsets, including the N90, N70 and 6680.

[Link]

SCO Group asked IBM on Linux 2.7 kernel info

The supremely funny SCO Group has now topped even itself. They have asked IBM to turn over "all documents concerning IBM's contributions to the Linux 2.7 kernel," including "development work."

There is no Linux 2.7 kernel.

Linux 2.7 not only doesn't exist, there are no current plans to have one.

Groklaw

GNOME Foundation board size referendum preliminary results

The GNOME Foundation Membership & Elections Committee is pleased to
announce the preliminary results for the Reducing Board Size Referendum.
"Should the board size be reduced from its current 11 directors to 7 directors?"

With 354 registered voters, 188 members voted for this referendum. The repartition of the votes is:
yes (117 votes)
no (70 votes)
blank votes: 1

The automatic result of this referendum is thus:
yes

Note: Any challenges to these results must be received by November 13th. The results should not be considered final until any such challenges have been resolved.

[Link]

The Volvo Ocean Race 2005-2006 Begins

The Volvo Ocean Race (formerly the Whitbread Round the World Race)begins in Galicia, Spain with British skipper Neal McDonald and his Ericsson crew winning the shortened first in-port race in the 2005-6 Volvo Ocean round-the-world race.

The premier round-the-world race for crewed monohulls features seven boats racing eastabout over nine legs.

The legs cover 10,000 miles of 40-knots-plus winds, 30-ft. waves and temperatures that rarely venture above 40°--enough to earn the Volvo Ocean Race the nickname "the Mount Everest of Sailing." The teams will race the fastest open-ocean single-hull class of sailboats ever built: the brand-new Volvo Open 70 (VO70). The new VO70s have sophisticated technologies such as canting keels, trim ballast tanks and greatly reduced weight.

[PM]

Mozilla Kicks Off "Extend Firefox" Competition

Calling all aspiring and current Firefox Extension Developers, Mozilla Corporation today announced the Extend Firefox Contest to encourage development of extensions to the award-winning Firefox Web browser.

Extensions are small add-ons that add new functionality to Firefox. They can be anything from a toolbar button to a completely new feature. The contest is expected to generate hundreds of new extensions for Firefox, allowing people to further personalize their Web browsing experience and to make surfing the Web even more fun and convenient.

The contest also coincides with the launch of Firefox 1.5 – expected later this year – and developers are encouraged to take advantage of Firefox 1.5's new features.
For complete details on the Extend Firefox contest and official rules, see extendfirefox.com

FreeBSD 6.0 Released

After a new logo was chosen The FreeBSD project has released FreeBSD 6.0.

Some of the many changes since 5.4 include:

• Significant performance improvements to the filesystem and direct disk access layers of the OS. The filesystem is now multithreaded and can take full advantage of multiple CPU systems.
• Expanded support for wireless networking adapters and new support for the WPA wireless security protocol.
• Experimental support for the PowerPC platform.

Release notes.
Errata.

Linux Standard Base Achieves ISO Approval as International Standard

The Free Standards Group, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting open source software standards, and the Linux Standard Base (LSB) workgroup announced that the LSB has achieved unanimous official approval as an ISO standard – an important milestone signifying the maturity and scope of both the LSB and the Linux operating system.
The LSB was approved as a Publicly Available Specification (PAS) by ISO/IEC (the International Standardization Organization and the International Electrotechnical Commission), pre-eminent international standard-setting organizations whose standards are frequently referenced by many governments and transnational organizations such as the WTO. The ISO standard will be published as International Standard 23360.

[Link]

OpenSource.nokia.com is launched

Nokia launched OpenSource.nokia.com today.

OpenSource.nokia.com is the first place to look for information concerning Nokia involvement in the Open Source community. The Projects link will take you to project descriptions and give you access to any Nokia developed downloadable code with an Open Source license.

Nokia supports a range of Open Source activities in research centers and development groups around the world.

International Space Station (ISS) is Five Years old

NASA is celebrating five years of human space flight on the International Space Station(ISS). Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev will mark five years of continuous human presence on the international space station Nov. 2. They are the 12th station crew. The first station crew, Commander Bill Shepherd, Flight Engineers Sergei Krikalev and Soyuz Commander Yuri Gidzenko, arrived at the complex on Nov. 2, 2000.

The first station crew arrived on the complex on Nov. 2, 2000. The station is the largest and most complex spacecraft ever built. The result of a 16-nation partnership led by the United States, it is the largest international space project in history. Twelve crews have lived on the station, conducting assembly and research work. Station crews have logged more time in space than all other U.S. spacecraft combined.

[Link]

Mozilla Firefox 1.5 RC1 Available

Firefox 1.5 RC1 has been released. You can download here or here.

Firefox 1.5 introduces several new features, including an improved software update system, faster Back and Forward navigation, a feature for clearing private browsing data, drag-and-drop reordering of browser tabs, a redesigned Options/Preferences window and better popup blocking. Web standards support is also improved, with support for Scalable Vector Graphics, JavaScript 1.6 and more CSS. Accessibility is also better (including new DHTML accessibility features), security has been enhanced and there's now greater support for Mac OS X.

New FreeBSD Logo

The new FreeBSD logo has finally been chosen, and the winner of the logo competition is Anton K. Gural. The result can be seen here.

FreeBSD is an advanced operating system for x86 compatible (including Pentium® and Athlon ™), amd64 compatible (including Opteron ™, Athlon 64, and EM64T), Alpha/AXP, IA-64, PC-98 and UltraSPARC® architectures. It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley.

CSS Reboot Fall 2005 is now live

Go over at CSS Reboot Fall 2005 and check the many designs submitted by rebooters around the world. Don't forget to cast your vote also.

Mozilla's Firefox global usage share is still growing

OneStat.com, the number one provider of real-time web analytics, today reported that Mozilla's browsers have a total global usage share of 11,51 percent, an increase of 2.82 percent since April 2005. In the USA 14.07%, and in Canada 16.98%. Only in the UK 4.94%, you know why? I know, but I keep it to myself..

Rebooted (CSS Reboot Fall 2005)

I have just rebooted my personal website OnyOZinE for the CSS Reboot Fall 2005. You can check it out.
So far, as of this time there are 966 reboooters more than double as the first Reboot.

CSS Reboot is a community event for web professionals. November 1st, 2005 at 12:00 GMT Rebooters from all over the world will launch their web standards-based redesigns (or designs) simultaneously, bringing traffic, interest and a little respect to their sites. There are no prizes or arbitrary winners, just great exposure and the knowledge that we all participated in something great.