JLP's Blog

Google Talk connects to other Jabber users

2006-01-20T03:30:00.000+01:00

When Google introduced their instant messaging client, Google Talk, it was great to know that they chose an open and free standard called Jabber (or XMPP) as the basis of their service. What was not so great about it was that users who were connected to Google's server were not able to talk to users on other Jabber servers (and vice versa). This has finally changed a couple of days ago. Google enabled federation with other Jabber servers and now all Jabber and Google Talk users are able to talk with each other. I just tried it with Psi on jabber.org on one side and Kopete on Google Talk server on the other side and so far it works great. Let's Jabber on!

Tags: google talk, jabber, xmpp, im, instant messaging

OpenWengo for Firefox

2006-01-19T22:48:00.000+01:00

Firefox is an amazing web browser on its own. But there are also a lot of cool extensions that make it even better. Daniel Glazman (you should know him as the author of the excellent and free website authoring application Nvu) is just about to release another awesome Firefox extension. It will bring VoIP internet telephony service OpenWengo right into your favourite web browser. For a visual preview check out this screenshot. To actually start using it you will have to wait for a little bit more. So be sure to regularly check Glazblog (or this article/my blog). Oh and I'm glad to report that I have already translated it into Slovenian language.

What is OpenWengo?
OpenWengo is an open source project, initiated by the French company Wengo, itself backed by neuf telecom. Their goal is to provide a standards-based VoIP platform - they are committed to providing unlimited free telephony and enhanced features to their users, while promoting innovative usage-driven services.

Tags: mozilla, firefox, voip, internet telephony, openwengo

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5

2006-01-14T00:15:00.000+01:00

A few days ago version 1.5 of Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail client and RSS/Atom feed reader was released. The new version brings a lot of new features and improvements. I especially like the new phishing detection which makes Thunderbird even safer than it was, this time fighting scams. An option to delete attachments has also found its way into Thunderbird. With message ageing you are now able to automatically delete mails older than specified amount of days. In short: The best email client just got better.

This is also the first version of Thunderbird that is available in Slovenian language. I know that some existing users will be very happy to hear about this. And it will also help a lot of other users of old and insecure Outlook Express to finally make a switch to safe, modern and full-featured Thunderbird.

Don't wait! Start downloading Thunderbird! Links for aMule, eMule, eDonkey and similar file sharing clients are available at eMule Content Database.

Tags: mozilla, thunderbird, email, e-mail, software

Google Pack released

2006-01-07T01:17:00.000+01:00

Google has just released Google Pack, which is a collection of must have software for your computer. It also includes Google Updater, which you can then use to update all software from the pack that you have installed. It is very similar to software managers that Linux users know so well and help us keep their software up to date.

The collection includes applications like the best browser Mozilla Firefox, instant messengers Google Talk and Trillian, Ad-Aware SE Personal to protect you from everyday spyware problems in Windows, Norton AntiVirus 2005 Special Edition to fight against viruses, Picasa to work with photos, Adobe Reader 7 to read PDF documents and many other, mostly Google Something apps like Google Video Player. All for free.

I think the package is quite nice but Google could do better. I still remember how bloated and slow Norton Antivirus was when I still used it. I switched to NOD32 which catches more viruses and uses a lot less system resources. Same with RealPlayer and Adobe Reader they offer. Just a couple of more bloated apps. They could have used BSPlayer/Zoom Player and Foxit Reader instead.

Tags: google, software

Novell releases latest Xgl code

2006-01-02T17:25:00.000+01:00

At the end of the last year a lot of open source developers got very mad at Novell, because they took the source code of Xgl and started working on it behind the closed doors. Critics argued that this is not the right way to do it and that they should just do everything in public.

It looks like people at Novell listened and I'm glad to see that David Reveman released the latest Xgl code to public. There are a lot of changes in this code. It is restructured to support drivers other than nVidia propriatery ones, there is some support for Xvideo extension and many bug fixes and enhancements. David is also working on an OpenGL compositing manager named compiz. He is planing to release it at XDevConf in February. More information is available in this announcement.

I hope that this incident brought more attention to Xgl and that now developers focus on nothing else but open and active development. Can't wait to see how future Linux desktops like KDE 4 will use all the power of hardware accelerated OpenGL drawing that Xgl will bring.

Tags: linux, x.org, xgl, opengl, graphics

Holidays

2005-12-26T18:13:00.000+01:00

First I wish you all a merry Christmas. I hope you are all well and maybe got some nice presents with an even nicer thought behind them. It's been snowing for almost the whole day here in Bohinj and this is just great for the Christmas spirit. During these holidays I'll be playing an adventure game called Voyage (inspired by Jules Verne) together with my sister. We also watch a lot of movies during this time and this year will be no different. I hope to get Chronicles of Narnia, which we liked a lot when we were younger and watched the cartoon series. Oh, it brings back the memories. Before I forget, here is the photo of our Christmas Tree for year 2005.

Tags: personal, holidays, christmas, adventure games, movies

LibJingle - interface to Google Talk opens up

2005-12-18T01:47:00.000+01:00

When Google released their own instant messaging and internet telephony client, Google Talk, they promised that it will be open for all to connect with. The first step in this direction was using an open and free protocol for instant messaging, that is Jabber, or XMPP as the standard is called.

Now they finally released other parts of Google Talk, most importantly the telephony part of it. All components are collected in a library called libjingle and the code is released under a BSD-like licence. This means that open source and commercial software can use it freely.

What can I say. I can't wait until the telephony part gets its way into clients like Kopete and GAIM. It will also be interesting to see how Skype reacts on this. Oh, and thanks to TechCrunch for the news.

Tags: google, instant messaging, im, jabber, xmpp internet telephony

Back from the dead

2005-12-09T17:42:00.000+01:00

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted anything to my blog ever since August. This is over 3 months without any post! Some of regular readers of my blog have sent me an e-mail asking what is going on. A lot of people also wanted to know where is the next, third, part of my KDE 3.5 Previews. So I hope this entry will answer all your questions. I'll also try to tell you about important things that happened in my life during the long absence.

KDE 3.5 Previews: After publishing the second part I was ill for a couple of weeks and I was unable to work on the third part. After getting well again I had to study for my final maths exams a lot and I also wasn't in the mood for writing anything. In addition, KDE 3.5 release was approaching very fast and I had (and still have) a lot of translation work to do. Even more then for version of 3.4 as other Slovenian translators didn't have time and I was basically left alone to do the work. So I have to apologise to everyone waiting for more KDE 3.5 previews. If there is enough interest I can still try my best to write the third part. But no promises.

Laptop: Thanks to the people at Linux Users Group of Slovenia (LUGOS) I now have a new (and my first) notebook. It's a very nice HP Compaq nx6125 with AMD Turion 64 processor, 512 MiB of memory, 60 GiB hard drive and 15 inch 1024x768 LCD panel. It is already running Gentoo Linux and I have dedicated one partition for testing purposes. Currently this partition is occupied by a beta version of Pingo Linux 4.2 (a Slovenian Linux distribution). It's great to have a laptop like this. Now I will be able to translate more and it also proves extremely useful for university work and learning C++/Qt/KDE programming. I plan to write an article about running Linux on this laptop. When I have more time off course.

Blog comments: Some time ago I had to disable comments on this blog because of blog spam. It looks like that people here at Blogger.com have finally come to their senses and added an image test verification before anyone can post a comment. So I have enabled this test and re-enabled the comments. Now you can start commenting again and let's hope that spam doesn't come back any more.

Apartment: If you remember I was looking for a new apartment in Ljubljana back in July. I was lucky to find a very cheap place that is only about 5 minutes away from my faculty (if you walk). So I can sleep longer in the morning and I can go back to the apartment when we have free hours during lectures. Another bonus is that I don't have to buy monthly tickets for the city bus. The only thing I really miss here is the internet connection.

Health: During the time since my last post to the blog I also got one of my wisdom teeth pulled out. The operation itself was quite long but painless. But after anaesthetics stopped working it was very painful for a couple of days.

That's about it. I hope I don't die on you again like this and that I will be able to post to the blog at least once a week. In the meantime be sure to get Firefox 1.5 and KDE 3.5 that were released about a week ago. Take care and thanks to all of you for reading my blog.

Tags: personal, blog, blogging, notebook, laptop

Telemach - Cheaper and much faster cable internet

2005-08-27T14:26:00.000+02:00

I've been with my current cable internet service provider UPC Telemach for a long time and it has had its share of ups and downs. As of late the upload speed (256 kb/s) was getting too slow for me and I was seriously considering switching to ADSL which, in addition to faster packages, also had quite a bit lower prices.

But yesterday evening my friend Davorin told me a really great news. Starting with 1st September Telemach is going to lower their prices and speed up their new packages considerably. For example, we were paying about 37,56 per month for 1024 kb/s download and 256 kb/s upload speed. The new, much faster, 5120/768 package costs only a bit more, about 41,96 , and you also get 20 MiB of free web hosting space. This space doesn't matter so much to me as I have my own Linux powered server here. But much higher transfer rates, especiallyly upload, will sure come in handy. I only hope they properly set up reverse DNS lookup. They don't have it now and this prevents me to connect to some servers.

What can I say. We're staying with Telemach and upgrading our package to the fastest one. I wonder how ADSL competition will answer as now they have lower speeds and higher prices. But in any case this can be only good for development of broadband internet in Slovenia and good for the people.

Tags: personal, internet, cable, adsl, broadband, connection, slovenia

Google Talk based on Jabber

2005-08-24T13:19:00.000+02:00

There were speculations for a long time that Google will release free instant messaging (IM) client of their own. It appears that rumors have become reality. They have just released a beta version of Google Talk. And what I find the best about it is that they smartly decided to use a free and open IM standard called XMPP, which is known to most of you as Jabber. This means that you will be free to use any Jabber client you like the most (for example Kopete, GAIM, Psi, Miranda IM and many more) with their service. And if you have GMail (or some other Google account) you can already do so. Check out these instructions. Moreover, you are also free to use any existing public Jabber server with Google Talk or even set up one yourself. The new client is also conveniently integrated with your GMail e-mail account. You can also actually talk with your buddies like you can do using the popular Skype. Google also promised to provide fully documented support for video conferencing in the future.

Tags: google, instant messaging, im, jabber, xmpp

JLP's KDE 3.5 Previews - Part 2

2005-08-12T00:13:00.000+02:00

< Part 1

Introduction to part 2

It looks like the first part of my KDE 3.5 previews was extremely popular. Much more than I could ever anticipated. I even got Slashdotted. Anyway, here is the second part of the look into the KDE's near future. Enjoy the tour!

More about Konqueror

Let me continue with Konqueror. Search bar (comes with kdeaddons package) now has the possibility to select the desired search engine from a dropdown menu similar to the one in Firefox. To select which engines are available in the menu you simply put a check mark before its name in the Web Shortcuts settings dialog.

During the past two weeks a new del.icio.us bookmarks panel made into KDE 3.5. del.icio.us is a special online social bookmarks managing system and now you can do many of the tasks directly from within Konqueror. If you would like to use it, first make sure you have Navigation Panel open (enable it under Window menu or press F9). Then right click on an empty spot under existing tabs and select the new panel from Add New submenu.

File properties dialog got a new Preview tab, which I don't find as handy as the preview in the tooltip you get when you hold the mouse over some file.

KSysGuard

KSysGuard is a very nice and quite powerfull system monitoring utility. Process table used to take quite a long time to start up but now loads a lot faster (almost instantly). It also has a new search bar at the top so you can quickly filter out the desired processes. The Kill Process dialog now shows you the PIDs and names of the processes you are about to terminate.

Smooth Blend

While Plastik remains the default a new window decoration theme has been added to kdeartwork package. It's called Smooth Blend and what I like about it is that you can set the titlebar hight, frame width and button size. This is how it looks by default:

SuperKaramba

Another piece of software that got included into the official KDE package (kdeutils) is SuperKaramba. Those of you who like eyecandy probably know it already. It puts some really nice looking widgets (themes) on the desktop. Widgets can show various information like your local weather, system information and music you are currently playing.

I've discovered some problems while using it. It happens frequently that when you download a theme using the integrated Get New Stuff system the theme doesn't even get installed and doesn't show in the configuration window. Sometimes you also get several entries. One is named correctly and others are just names of the different languages in which the same theme you just downloaded is available in. This is mostly the problem of theme packaging. But normal users probably don't know this and will get confused and they will just think SuperKaramba is buggy and not polished enough. So it would be great if developers and theme authors could work together to solve this problem.

KCalc

KDE calculator has improved display showing current angle mode and base. I guess the statusbar where the same information is duplicated can now be removed or used for some other info. A few new constants were added and some corrected. Arbitrary precision using GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library is under development.

End of part 2

This concludes the second part of KDE 3.5 previews. More words and pictures will come again in about two weeks. Until then you can also take a look at Artwork for KDE 3.5 forum at KDE-Artists.org where people from all around the world contribute to the looks of the next KDE version. The main theme is going to be a wave. And don't forget about aKademy 2005 in Málaga, Spain.

Translations and derivative works

Hebrew by Uri Sharf
Slovenian by Jure Repinc

< Part 1

Tags: kde, desktop, konqueror, superkaramba, linux

[SLO] 1. Linux info dan v Sevnici

2005-08-02T18:34:00.000+02:00

Ste naveličani Windowsov, virusov, črvov in dragih licenc? Potem je mogoče že srajni čas, da poskusite nekaj varnejšega, novega, drugačnega in povrhu vsega še brezplačnega. Pridružite se nam 12. avgusta 2005 na osnovni šoli Sava Kladnika v Sevnici, kjer boste lahko preizkusili operacijski sistem Linux in o njem izvedeli vse, kar vas bo zanimalo. Na vas bo čakalo 15 računalnikov in dva mentorja. Vstop je prost, za domov pa boste prejeli tudi brezplačno zgoščenko s prostim operacijskim sistemom Linux. Za dodatne informacije se obrnite na Martina Herwega.

TUX Magazine - Issue 5 - August 2005

2005-08-01T22:17:00.000+02:00

Issue 5 of TUX Magazine is out. In August 2005 edition you can read these topics:

Drawing Upon the Community
An Evolution of Linux Distributions
Letters
Q&A with Mango Parfait

Suited Up

How to Use the OpenOffice.org Calc Spreadsheet, Part II

TUX Explains

Guarddog Firewall Configuration
Introduction to Quanta
Dancing with Windows
A Matter of Choice (or Selections, That Is)

Reviews

Linspire Is Filled with Linspiration
Gadget Guy: Snap Snap!
digiKam
Impress
Planner
XChat

The download is available from magazine's home page, using ED2K links or BitTorrent.

Tags: tux, magazine, linux, free software, open source

64-bit 7-Zip 2.25 beta for Windows XP x64

2005-08-01T11:05:00.000+02:00

7-Zip is a very nice free and open source utility for working with compressed files (archives). I just got an e-mail from its authors that version 3.25 beta is now available and that it is also available as a 64-bit binary for Windows XP x64. So, if you have AMD Athlon 64 (or some other AMD64 compatible processor) and 64-bit Windows, you can download 64-bit 7-Zip from its home page.

Tags: 64-bit, 7-zip, compression, archiver, windows xp x64, x64, software, free software, open source

Photos from nature

2005-07-31T11:13:00.000+02:00

I have finally convinced my sister to write on her blog. It has been almost a year now since her last post. And since my friend Boris started to publish his photos, I suggested the same to my sister. Under all the pressure she bulged and uploaded some of her photos of nature to Flickr. Check out her blog entry for links to the photos. I hope she continues to post on her blog and upload photos.

Tags: blogging, photos, photographs, photography, nature

2nd Red Hat Summer Camp in Bohinj

2005-07-29T16:10:00.000+02:00

Let me remind you there is less then a month until the beginning of the 2nd international Linux training camp, which starts on 20th and ends on 27th August here in Bohinj, Slovenia. Last year's Red Hat Summer Camp was a huge success. For this year Red Hat and Housing prepared a program with 4 different tracks to choose from: Pingo Linux (for beginners and people new to Linux), RH300 with RH302 (get certified for RHCE), RH133 (Enterprise Linux System Administration) and Lab track (MySQL, PHP, firewall). In addition to learning about Linux, each track includes sport activities (adrenalin park, canyoning, rafting...). I hope you come and visit us here in beautiful Triglav National Park.

Tags: linux, training, red hat, summer, camp, bohinj, slovenia

Slashdotted and spammed

2005-07-27T22:12:00.000+02:00

A few hours ago a news entry linking to my KDE 3.5 Previews article was published on Slashdot.org. And immediately my blog started to receive A LOT of visitors form all over the world. If I had my blog hosted on my own server on a poor cable link the Slashdot effect would bring it down in no time. I've never imagined that one of my articles would cause this.

But with good there also come some bad and irritating things. Some stupid spammer started to fill comments here, and some of the text was even racist. If he has something intelligent to say (which I highly doubt) he should set up his own blog. I think this coward is very sick and should get himself some professional help. Thanks to this ill person I had to disable all the commenting on this blog. Sorry for this! And after this incident I finally see how poorly Blogger.com service is prepared to fight against spam. I hope they improve this very soon or else they will loose their users to competition.

Tags: blog, blogging, spam, slashdot

JLP's KDE 3.5 Previews - Part 1

2005-07-26T10:10:00.000+02:00

Part 2 >

Introduction

Every year, during the summer holidays, I regularly download the source code of the new version of KDE desktop that is in the works and compile and test it. If any bugs are found I report them and from time to time I also make some feature suggestions. When the feature and message freeze comes into effect I also start helping with translation into Slovenian language. This year is no exception, in most parts. One of the differences is that now I'm testing on two computers: 32-bit Athlon 1200 MHz (with Mandriva Linux 2006 beta installed and GCC 4.0.1) and a much faster 64-bit Athlon 64 3000+ (Gentoo Linux and GCC 3.4.4). It is always good to have things tested on as many platforms as possible. Another change is that this year I've decided to post previews of and experiences with development version of KDE on this blog. I'll try to put up as many screenshots as possible so that everyone can see what is coming in the future.

General

Stability of this prebeta version is very good. I rarely encountered crashes or freezes. Speed is also about the same as with current stable version 3.4.1. The default font sizes have been reduced to 10 points, which makes a little bit more room on the screen. This is how the default desktop looks like:

As you can see there is not much change since the previous versions. Even the version on the wallpaper is still the old one. You can expect to see more innovations in KDE 4. But there are some more or less hidden differences and some of them I'll show you next.

Kicker

The first thing I noticed was that the new tooltips, first introduced in KDE 3.4 (only for buttons), are now also used for minipager, taskbar buttons and clock. I think it would be a good idea to also use them for system tray icons.

There are now three different appearances for Kicker that you can choose from: Elegant (the default), Classic and For Transparency.

Minipager has received many improvements. It can show icons of applications, background can now show desktop wallpaper or it can be transparent. You can even drag and drop windows from one desktop to another.

Another improvement for kicker is Add Applet dialog. The inspiration probably came from GNOME desktop and it replaces the current context menu based method. It makes it quite a bit easier to find the right applet.

Storage Media Notification

Next new feature in 3.5 is storage media notification. This is something users of the current Windows desktop already have and some Linux distributions, like Mandriva, implemented their own version, mostly just as simple autorun. KDE will now also show a special dialog of possible actions when some media is inserted. I hope authors of KDE applications will soon start to add actions for their program. On the other hand it is simple to add, edit or remove actions yourself.

home:/

KIOSlaves are a special feature of KDE that make it simple to work with files and folders over different protocols. You probably know some of them very well, like file, http or ftp. A new one has recently been added: home. When you open location home:/ in Konqueror you can now see all home folders of the users belonging to the same group as you do.

Konqueror

One of the main complaints about Konqueror was that there were some menu options that just don't make sense in file managing mode and should only be shown in web browsing mode (and vice versa). The work is being done to correct this.

Konqueror now supports AdBlock content filtering. You can add simple filters by, for example, right clicking on an image and selecting to block it.

There are a lot of other behind the scenes improvements to various parts of Konqueror. And now that Apple provided access to their improvements to KHTML and KJS, KDE developers can and did backport them into Konqueror.

End of Part 1

Well, this is it for the first part. I hope you like it. I'll take a look at other applications and new developments in following articles. Expect the next one in an about two weeks. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Translations and derivative works

Hebrew by Uri Sharf
Slovenian by Jure Repinc

Part 2 >

Tags: kde, desktop, konqueror, kicker, linux

Blog now under Creative Commons License

2005-07-21T19:02:00.000+02:00

As of now all the articles on this blog are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license. This license is similar to the GPL license for free software and lets you remix, tweak, and build upon my work even for commercial reasons, as long as you credit me and license your new creations under the identical terms. If you are also an author there are a lot of different Creative Commons licenses to choose from. Pick one and let other people clearly know (by marking your work by the famous CC mark) how they can use your work and share it on.

Tags: creative commons, licensing, copyright, copyleft

James Montgomery Doohan died

2005-07-20T18:47:00.000+02:00

While reading Wil Wheaton's blog I found out that today, on the anniversary of the first Moon landing, James Montgomery Doohan died at the age of 85. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease. If you are a Star Trek fan you sure know him as the funny chief engineer Scotty from the starship Enterprise from The Original Series. As he would say: "Scotty to Heaven... One to beam up.". May he rest in peace!

Tags: james doohan, scotty, star trek, the original series

My first patch for KDE

2005-07-20T15:44:00.000+02:00

A few hours ago my first patch for KDE has been committed to KDE SVN. It is nothing big, just a fix for a compilation problem for Juk (a very nice music player and tag editor) when Akode is not installed on the system. But it is a start and I hope to learn enough C++ and Qt soon to be more helpful. Until then I'll continue to do my best with translation into Slovenian, testing and bug reporting. Oh and by the way, I was following these instructions on how to send patches to KDE.

Tags: personal, programming, patch, kde, linux

Firefox 1.0.6 and Thunderbird 1.0.6

2005-07-20T08:34:00.000+02:00

Only a few days after releasing versions 1.0.5 of the extremely popular web browser Firefox and e-mail client Thunderbird there are allready new releases available. The previous releases had some changes in API (application programming interface) which broke some extensions. So all should be fixed in versions 1.0.6. You can get them here:
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.6 | ED2K
Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.6 | ED2K

Tags: mozilla, firefox, thunderbird, web browsers, e-mail, email, internet

Looking for a new room in Ljubljana again

2005-07-18T14:36:00.000+02:00

Yesterday evening my roommate Vito informed me that in the next semester his girlfriend is finally moving in to live with him. This unfortunately means that there is no free bed for me left in the apartment and I will have to join my sister in a search for a new room in Ljubljana. I hope we find something that is close to our faculties and that is reasonably priced. The task is not easy and good luck plays quite an important role in this. Anyways, I had a great time in this apartment. The best place I've had in Ljubljana so far. Thanks to all roommates for this and sorry for any inconveniences I've cased. I must also say goodbye to our neighbor students on the upper floor. Take care and have a great time! All of you in the house. Oh and if anyone reading this knows of any cool place for two or three students, be sure to drop me a note.

Tags: personal, room, apartment, ljubljana

Free Software Magazine - Issue 5 - June 2005

2005-07-17T11:56:00.000+02:00

Issue 5 of Free Software Magazine is finally here. Articles for June 2005 are:

Editorial

The internet's plague: spam

Starters

Linux in a Windows World by Roderick Smith
From Bash to Z Shell by Oliver Kiddle, Jerry Peek and Peter Stephenson

Focus

The leap from virtual host to virtual machine
Xen, the virtual machine monitor
Linux-VServer

Tech World

Haskell
Newsflash!
Web site blocking techniques
Who's behind that web site?

Word World

The future of computing: is free software ready?
Free software 2.0
On the "Creative Commons": a critique of the commons without commonalty

Download from home page, using ED2K links or using BitTorrent.

Tags: free software magazine, fsm, magazine, free software, open source

MyOSS Magazine

2005-07-16T23:14:00.000+02:00

While we are all waiting for the next issue of Free Software Magazine I would like to tell you about another free magazine I have come across a few days ago. It is called MyOSS Magazine, where MyOSS stands for Malaysian Open Source Software. And no, it is not written in Malaysian, it is in English so everyone can read it. To find out more about the magazine be sure to check out its mission and social contract. If you already have some FOSS article ready or are thinking about writing one you are more then welcome to contribute to the magazine and community. Besides downloading MyOSS from its home page you can also use ED2K links. Oh and a big thanks to people behind MyOSS for a link to my blog in one of their articles on the home page.

Tags: myoss, malaysianoss, magazine, free software, open source

Goodbye OS/2 Warp, welcome Linux

2005-07-15T23:46:00.000+02:00

Just a few minutes ago I found out that after about 20 years of existence IBM is going to stop marketing (now) and selling (on December 23, 2005) their OS/2 operating system. OS/2 Warp 4 was the first operating system we had on our very first computer. I still remember all the countless hours I spent playing the excellent game Galactic Civilizations. As far as I remember OS/2 was a great operating system. Completely 32 bit, very stable and powerful. Much better than Windows 95 we had to buy later. Well OS/2 is gone now and IBM are recommending that their customers migrate to Linux now. They have even prepared a special OS/2 to Linux Client Transition guide.

Tags: ibm, os/2, os2, linux, operating systems, galactic civilizations

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.5

2005-07-14T15:58:00.000+02:00

Right after updating the best web browser Mozilla foundation has also released a new version of my favorite e-mail client (additionally it is also a very nice client for news groups (usenet) and a great RSS/Atom feed reader) Thunderbird. Version 1.0.5 has improved stability and a couple of fixed potential security problems. Download here. You can also get the new Thunderbird using ED2K links or any BitTorrent client using these torrents: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X

Tags: mozilla, thunderbird, e-mail, email, internet

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.5

2005-07-13T00:07:00.000+02:00

A new version of one of the best web browsers, Firefox, is out. Version 1.0.5 is bringing you some stability fixes and plugs a couple of potential security holes. So update as soon as possible. Download here. You can also get the new Firefox using ED2K links or any BitTorrent client using these torrents: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X.

Oh and by the way. Firefox has recently just passed the 70 000 000 downloads mark and is also on the 4th place of the most frequently downloaded apps on Download.com during the past 10 years. Extremely impressive for such a young application.

Tags: mozilla, firefox, web browsers, internet

New Google extensions for Firefox

2005-07-08T10:14:00.000+02:00

The extremely popular web browser Firefox already has many easy to use modern features by default. And there are a lot of additional extensions that make Firefox even better. Google released three extensions of their own yesterday:

Google Toolbar: among other things it brings spellchecking, automatic fill out for forms and translation
Google Send to Phone: enables you to send short text messages of web page content to your mobile phone (unfortunately limited to US numbers only)
Google Suggest: completes your search terms as you type them into the search box located to the right of the address bar

If you are still using some old and insecure browser like Internet Explorer be sure to check out Firefox and extensions for it.

Tags: firefox, extensions, google, browsers, web browsers, internet

BitTorrent support coming into browsers

2005-07-07T00:01:00.000+02:00

BitTorrent has become a very popular technology for downloading files. Almost all GNU/Linux distributions can be downloaded this way and more authors are deciding to release their creations using BitTorrent every day. If you want to download using BitTorrent now you need a special client, like the original one or one of the more advanced ones like Azureus. Wouldn't it be convenient if you could use BitTorrent directly from your browser? This would make it as easy to use as it is downloading files over HTTP or FTP.

Good news everyone! It's happening as I write this. They just released first beta version of Opera 8.02 (download from FTP) which already includes simple support for BitTorrent downloads. There is also BitTorrent support in the works for Firefox browser (as part of the Google Summer of Code project). Unfortunately it will not be ready for integration into version 1.1. Until version 2.0 comes out we will have to use an extension to get the support. It is not going to be as powerful as Azureus, but it will bring BitTorrent closer to the average user and make it much easier to use.

Tags: bittorrent, browsers, opera, firefox, internet

Software patents rejected

2005-07-06T14:11:00.000+02:00

In the morning members of the European parliament voted on a very important issue for every computer user. They were deciding on the future of the software patent directive. As all of you should know by now, it would legalize almost unlimited patentability of software, if accepted. This would only be good for big multinational companies and extremely damaging for everyone else (medium and small size companies, free and opensource software community and all the people who use computer software).

Fortunately the fight for our rights was successful. Members of European parliament clearly rejected the software patents directive in its current form by a large margin (648 votes against 14). This means that the directive must be rewritten from scratch. And this time we have to make sure it will be written properly and benefit all the people.

Sources:

Tags: software patents, european union, software, free software, open source

Trying Ubuntu Linux (not yet)

2005-07-04T09:24:00.000+02:00

Ubuntu Linux is getting very popular among users of the free operating system. I've read some very positive reviews and heard only good things about it. After visiting DistroWatch.com I could see that second beta (or Colony 2 as they call it) of version 5.10 is out and I decided to download it and try it out.

First I tried to download it using BitTorrent but the download was extremely slow. So I just decided to use the normal download and the ISO image of LiveCD for AMD64 was down in less than an hour. Before burning it I have let it share over BitTorrent for about one day.

I finally rebooted my computer yesterday evening to boot into Ubuntu and check it out. But unfortunately I didn't get far. After some booting activity I was "welcomed" by a blank black screen with a blinking character _ in the lower left corner of the screen. As it is expected from a good open source community member I have immediately reported a bug about this. During the night another person with the same problem reported his computer configuration and I guess it is some problem with nVidia graphics driver failing to load.

First exploration of Ubuntu didn't even start. It looks like I'll have to wait for Colony 3 (or maybe even final version). Unless there is some workaround.

Tags: ubuntu, linux, operating systems, free software, open source

Mozilla Application Suite continues as SeaMonkey

2005-07-03T13:12:00.000+02:00

In March I have reported that the development will stop on Mozilla Application Suite and shift to individual applications (Firefox, Thunderbird, Nvu and so on). But a lot of people and some developers like the suite so much that they have decided to continue working on it. And so the SeaMonkey Project was born. This wouldn't be possible if Mozilla was not free software and open source. When some company decides to stop working on some proprietary and closed source application, well there is nothing you can do and application is dead.

You can read the official announcement here:
SeaMonkey Project Continues Internet Suite

Tags: mozilla, seamonkey, internet, browsers, free software, open source

How software patents endanger free and open source software

2005-07-01T23:42:00.000+02:00

There is a nice article at Groklaw that has a couple of quotes from Richard M. Stallman, Linus Torvalds and other well known people from the free software and open source world. They tell how software patents are dangerous to them and other small and medium sized companies. And some people, with substantial help from mega-corporations, try very hard to hide this danger from us.

Let me remind you that voting on software patents directive is on 6^th of July when European Parliament will have the last chance to prevent disaster from happening. And we, the people, have the last chance to tell them why software patents are so damaging to all of us. We have to convince members of European parliament to vote for Buzek-Rocard-Duff amendments!

Tags: software patents, european union, free software, open source

TUX Magazine - Issue 4 - July 2005

2005-07-01T16:36:00.000+02:00

Issue 4 (July 2005) of TUX Magazine is out. If you are new to Linux or are still considering switching to it, this is the perfect free magazine to read. Topics in this issue are:

Easy Does It
How to Make Linux Perfect for the Desktop
Letters
Q&A with Mango Parfait

Home Plate

Let a Tomboy Manage Your Notes

Suited Up

Getting Started with OpenOffice.org Calc

TUX Explains

Introduction to Linux Security, Part I
Scrapbooks and Albums
Windows-to-Linux Migration with Qt

Reviews

Libranet 3.0
Gadget Guy: Products with Drive
Guarddog
Liferea
tsclient
streamtuner

The Last Word

Why Piracy Hurts Open Source

Free download is available from official page, using ED2K links or BitTorrent.

Tags: tux, magazine, linux, open source, free software

Norway goes open source

2005-07-01T14:37:00.000+02:00

While reading blogs around the internet I've stumbled upon an entry titled Norway to Kick Microsoft Out? on UMMO Letters. There is a link to an article Norway goes open source in which you can read that...

The Norwegian Minister of Modernisation, Morten Andreas Meyer, has promised that his government will stop using proprietary software and transfer to open source.

If you read the news article you can also see that he understands how important are open and free document formats (like OASIS OpenDocument) and that closed proprietary formats have no place in communication between citizens and government. Too bad our Slovenian government doesn't understand all of this.

Tags: norway, government, open source, free software

Nvu 1.0 - free web design tool

2005-06-30T08:23:00.000+02:00

Final version of Nvu 1.0 has been released. Nvu is a free and open source web design tool that works in Linux, Windows and Mac OS. It is simple to use and is perfect for people who are creating their home or web page for the first time. One of the great things about it is that it creates standards compliant code. Included in Nvu is also a very nice cascading style sheet (CSS) editor.

You can download Nvu from the official page or you can use ED2K links.

Tags: nvu, web design, free software, open source, html, css

Trolltech Qt 4.0

2005-06-29T01:59:00.000+02:00

Programmers from Trolltech have finally released Qt 4.0, a very popular cross-platform development toolkit and framework. Qt is used to quickly develop applications and KDE Linux desktop is probably the best known Qt based product. This is the first time Qt for Windows is also available under GPL license. In Qt 4 there are five new technologies:

Tulip, a new set of template container classes.
Interview, a model/view architecture for item views.
Arthur, the Qt 4 painting framework.
Scribe, the Unicode text renderer with a public API for performing low-level text layout.
Mainwindow, a modern action-based mainwindow, toolbar, menu, and docking architecture.

Existing modules were greatly improved and Qt Designer user interface design tool has been rewritten.

For more information about Qt 4.0 check out public announcement and introduction to Qt 4. Official release song and video are also available for download.

To download the open source edition visit this page: Qt 4.0 Open Source Downloads

Tags: programming, toolkit, qt, free software, open source, kde

More then 10000 visits

2005-06-28T23:16:00.000+02:00

A little more then a month ago 5000th visitor came here to read this blog. And today we passed the 10000 visits milestone. Since the last report the number of visitors per day has risen from about 90 to about 140.

Web browser Firefox is still the dominant browser with 67%, and Internet Explorer has dropped to only 20%. Just keep on switching to Firefox, people! There was almost no change in the operating system statistics, except that now a lot of additional people using 64-bit Windows XP x64 for AMD64 compatible processors have visited my blog. Most are looking for 64-bit Firefox.

The largest change was in the visitor originating country stats. Slovenians now have the first place with 69%, USA is second with 15% and United Kingdom is third with 4%.

The most popular articles are:

Thanks to all off you who come here to read this blog. And don't be afraid to add your comments to stories you read.

Tags: blog, statistics

OpenOffice.org Writer versus Microsoft Word

2005-06-23T12:01:00.000+02:00

If you are still spending all these huge amounts of money on Microsoft Office you should read this comparison of OpenOffice.org 2.0 Writer and Word 2003. Because both are adequate for most users' purposes the review focuses on features for power users. After you finish reading it may turn out that you could get something better for free. This is what Bruce Byfield says in conclusion:

OOo Writer scores most of its victories in features that make the creation and maintenance of highly formatted or long documents easier.

I hope we see a similar comparison for other parts of office suits, like spreadsheet and presentation applications. It would also be very nice if other office suits like KOffice were included in comparison.

Tags: openoffice.org, writer, office, microsoft office, word

Patent absurdity

2005-06-22T16:42:00.000+02:00

Richard M. Stallman wrote an article about the difference between patents and copyright for software users and developers in which he starts with:

If patent law had been applied to novels in the 1880s, great books would not have been written. If the EU applies it to software, every computer user will be restricted...

I highly recommend you read this and after that do whatever you can to stop software patents. If we don't act now, huge and greedy companies will have even more power to stifle innovation and stop competition from smaller and medium companies and free and opensource software. I'm sure you don't want this to happen. So write/phone your MEPs, put banners against software patents on your web pages and blogs and let other people know that they are in great danger. I hope together we will manage to stop software patents like they did in India.

Tags: software patents, free software, open source, european union

KOffice 1.4

2005-06-21T21:07:00.000+02:00

People from KDE have released a new version of free and opensource office suite KOffice. Two new applications have been added in version 1.4. Krita is a pixel based image manipulation application and Kexi is an integrated data management application. This version also brings support for the open standard for office documents - OASIS OpenDocument, which will also be the default format in OpenOffice.org 2.0. What this means is that you can now finally use the same format for your documents in any office application that supports OpenDocument. No more imports/exports and the loss of information or formatting that is associated with it. For details about KOffice 1.4 you should read the announcement and the complete changelog from version 1.3.

Tags: koffice, office, opendocument, open source, linux, kde

Cosmos 1 Solar Sail launch

2005-06-21T13:25:00.000+02:00

In about eight hours (at 19:46:09 GMT) the first solar sail spacecraft, Cosmos 1, is going to be launched. It is a joint project of The Planetary Society and Cosmos Studios. Cosmos 1 doesn't have any engine. It can move because lots of fast light particles (photons) from Sun reflect off giant mirror-like sails. The spacecraft then keeps accelerating over very long distances. Hopefully propulsion technology like this will enable us to visit other stars. The Russian built (by NPO Lavochkin) spacecraft will be launched from a submerged Russian Delta III nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea. We should be able to easily see it on the night sky. Check out Heavens Above website to see where to look for. If you would like to follow the developments around Cosmos 1 be sure to check out their weblog.

Tags: space, astronautics

Free Software Magazine - Issue 4 - May 2005

2005-06-20T16:12:00.000+02:00

Issue 4 of Free Software Magazine is out. In May 2005 edition you can read these articles:

Editorial

What is the next (r)evolution?

Starters

Unix Power Tools 3rd edition by Shelley Powers, Jerry Peek, Tim O’Reilly and Mike Loukides

Focus

The risks of writing proprietary software
The risk of using proprietary software
Finding alternatives in developing software

Tech world

A server for education
Worst case scenario - protecting your computer
Make it right using Tcl

Word world

net.labels
Graphic icons
Free software: working together
The social implications of free software

Free download of the magazine in PDF format is available from official page. You can also download it with eMule, xMule, aMule or any similar client supporting ED2K links.

Tags: free software, open source, magazine

Status of 64-bit OpenOffice.org for AMD64

2005-06-19T14:54:00.000+02:00

OpenOffice.org is the only missing 64-bit application on my computer. OpenOffice.org 2.0 is about to be released in a month or two and they are finally working on porting it for AMD64 and compatible 64-bit systems. Currently it builds (without Java or Python). Some things that work are: first time installation, splashscreen, about window, opening new documents. I hope they make everything work for the final release.

You can find more info in this blog entry from Pavel Janik:
OpenOffice.org@AMD64: Current Status

Tags: openoffice.org, amd64

Linux Kernel 2.6.12

2005-06-18T22:00:00.000+02:00

After more than three months in development the new version, 2.6.12, of Linux kernel is out. This is the first stable release after the source code management has switched from BitKeeper to Git sometime in April. Read the announcement and changelog (not complete) for details.

You can download the source code from here: Linux Kernel 2.6.12 | Patch

UPDATE: I have also updated the Linux kernel release on eMule Content Database so you can download the new kernel with aMule, eMule, eDonkey2000 or any other compatible client.

Tags: linux, kernel

StumbleUpon - a great Firefox extension

2005-06-17T18:10:00.000+02:00

StumbleUpon is an extension for Firefox web browser that I've been using for quite some time now. Since everyone, who hears about it from me, seams to like it, I decided to tell more about StumbleUpon here. Who knows, maybe it is exactly what you needed.

Here is what it does: You click on Stumble! button and Firefox opens some web page that someone else with StumbleUpon has positively rated before. Because everyone can rate and comment on pages, you can do it too. The nice thing is that there are topic groups (like physics, astronomy, Linux, open source, ...) and you can select the ones you are interested in. So you only get pages that belong to these groups.

There is also an option to build social networks. You can invite friends to install StumbleUpon and then you can have instant access to web pages they mark as interesting. You can even explicitly send some page together with a short description to your friends through StumbleUpon. By searching for people that like to visit similar pages you can also get some new friends with similar interests.

So this is a quick introduction to StumbleUpon. By using it I have stumbled upon some very interesting new sites. The best way to see how it works is to get it right now and install it. By the way, I have a nickname JRepin on StumbleUpon and you can find my profile page here.

[SLO] Iniciativa programski patenti

2005-06-16T01:53:00.000+02:00

Danes (četrtek, 16. junij) je bila uradno obelodanjena ustanovitev Iniciative programski patenti.

Gre za neformalno skupino organizacij, ki se zavzemajo za spremembo besedila direktive o računalniško izvedenih izumih in podpirajo amandmaje, ki so jih predlagali poslanci evropskega parlamenta.

Prvi projekt iniciative je spletna stran www.patenti.si, ki je namenjena informiranju o posledicah direktive, aktualen pa je tudi E-Referendum, kjer lahko vsak glasuje za trenutno besedilo ali za amandmaje, glasovi pa bodo posredovani evroposlancem.

Uradni PR je dostopen tu, k promociji spletne strani pa so vabljeni vsi zainteresirani. Na voljo so reklamne pasice. Če imate svoj forum, blog, brlog ali stran svojega podjetja ste vabljeni, da na njih objavite povezavo na patenti.si!

Fedora Core 4 (Stentz)

2005-06-14T14:20:00.000+02:00

A new version of popular GNU/Linux distribution Fedora is out. In Fedora Core 4, codenamed Stentz, you will get KDE 3.4, GNOME 2.10, OpenOffice.org 2.0 and Linux kernel 2.6.11. There is a new document viewer Evince, which support multiple formats (like PDF and PostScript) from the same application. For developers they have included a popular integrated development environment (or IDE) Eclipse 3.1. Another interesting feature is the integration of the virtualization technology Xen. Everything in Fedora Core 4 has been built using the new GCC 4.0 compiler collection. For more information check out the Release Notes.

Fedora Core 4 is available for computers with x86, AMD64 and PowerPC processors. You can also download it using any BitTorrent client (I highly recommend Azureus).

artsd and 100% CPU usage - solved

2005-06-08T00:54:00.000+02:00

There are a lot of problems with aRTS, which is basically unmaintained code and doesn't evolve like other parts of KDE do. And one problem was bothering me for quite some time. It happened quite frequently that artsd started to use 100% of CPU. Today I finally found a patch that fixes my problem. The patch was made by Michal Schmidt and this is what he says about the problem:

I have discovered that the problem is caused by an XRUN, which is not handled correctly in arts. arts uses snd_pcm_avail_update to ask ALSA how many frames it can write. However, when an XRUN occurs, snd_pcm_avail_update will return -EPIPE. This condition is not handled in arts.

The patch has already been committed to KDE SVN, so this bug will be fixed in next version of KDE.

Update: The patch will also get applied if you emerge arts-3.4.1-r2 ebuild for Gentoo Linux.

Playboy spreads open source software

2005-06-07T19:04:00.000+02:00

You probably didn't know yet that Playboy doesn't only help spreading legs but they are also helping to spread open source software. They have a mirror set up where you can download apps like Firefox web browser, Thunderbird e-mail client, Apache web server and Fedora Linux distribution. This is their way of saying thank you to the open source community which helped them save a lot of money by using open source products.

Source:
Playboy is official mirror site for Firefox and Thunderbird

[SLO] Autopackage preveden v slovenščino

2005-06-04T11:33:00.000+02:00

Včeraj sem končno zaključil prevod programa Autopackage, katerega cilj je poenotiti in poenostaviti nameščanje in odstranjevanje programov na operacijskem sistemu GNU/Linux in njemu podobnih. V slovenščini ga boste lahko uporabljali od naslednje različice dalje. Pripombe in pohvale glede prevoda so vedno dobrodošle.

TUX Magazine - Issue 3 - June 2005

2005-06-03T11:35:00.000+02:00

The third issue of TUX Magazine is out. For those who don't know it yet: it is a free PDF magazine about Linux, written for new users of the free operating system. Topics in June 2005 are:

P2P
- From the Publisher: Does Linux Play well with Others
- From the Editor: Linux Does Windows
- Letters to the Editor
- Q&A with Mango Parfait
Home Plate
- Tux Paint for Kids
- iPod and Linux
TUX Explains
- How to Install MEPIS 3.3 Simply
- K3b, and Feel the Burn
- GIMP Chrome and Metal Effects
Reviews
- Quasar Accounting
- Gadget Guy - CES 2005 Edition
- In Praise of MEPIS Linux
- Autopackage to the Software Installation Rescue

After you subscribe you can download it from official page. You can also download it with eMule/aMule or any BitTorrent client.

emule free download

2005-06-02T04:10:00.000+02:00

Visitors, who come to my blog from results of web search engines (like Google), are most frequently searching for the phrase emule free download. If you've come here this way, them be sure to check out eMule Content Database, where people post links to many free and open source downloads. In case you know about some cool application, music or other free file, that is not listed, be sure to add it. I'm also one of the moderators of the page, so if you have any question or you find some illegal content be sure to contact me.

Another thing I noticed in the blog statistics is that almost all people, who are searching for free eMule downloads, are still using old and insecure browser Internet Explorer. If you belong to this group of visitors, the first thing you should download with eMule is some modern and secure browser like Mozilla Firefox. Don't wait until you get a nasty virus or spyware through IE and it is too late. Get Firefox now!

[SLO] Mozilla Firefox je na voljo tudi v slovenskem jeziku.

Dust Puppy inside Enterprise D

2005-05-28T22:20:00.000+02:00

Captain's Log - Stardate 20050528.8: While on an important scientific mission the computer core on the starship Enterprise D suddenly experienced an emergency shutdown. After conducting a thorough investigation it became clear that the well known life-form called Dust Puppy caused overheating of the central processing unit. The shutdown temperature threshold of 75°C was reached while running the intensive computing algorithms for Einstein@Home project. Using the standard Starfleet issue vacuum cleaner the intruder has been removed and NCC-1701-D is again operating within normal parameters (45°C - 50°C under full load). Let us hope that the next encounter with Dust Puppy is far away in the future.

Stay away from Intel Pentium D and i945 chipset

2005-05-27T13:29:00.000+02:00

Yesterday Intel have officially launched the new i945 chipset and new dual-core Pentium D CPUs. But they have a little dirty secret that Intel would like to hide from us. The new chipset and processors come with Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology enabled. What this means is that greedy people like RIAA, MPAA and Microsoft now have the ability to control what music we can listen, what movies we can watch and, in the extreme case, what software can we use. I don't know about you, but I most certainly wouldn't buy hardware or software that takes away my right and freedom to use my computer in the way I want to use it. So all I can say is: "Stay as far away as possible from Intel Pentium D processors and Intel i945 chipsets!"

News source:
Digit Online News - Intel quietly adds DRM to new chips
More on DRM:
Why DRM is bad for all

[SLO] Hevreka! - Okrogla miza o programskih patentih

2005-05-22T01:04:00.000+02:00

Na tem blogu sem že večkrat pisal o programskih patentih. To pa zato, ker je to izredno pomembna tema za vse nas. Verjetno si ne želite manjše izbire pri programski opremi, trga brez konkurence in posledično višjih cen (pogosto že sedaj astronomsko dragih) programov. Evropski parlament bo 5. in 6. julija glasoval o zloglasni direktivi o programskih patentih. Če bo direktiva sprejeta, potem lahko pričakujemo, da bo izginil marsikateri projekt proste programske opreme. Mogoče tudi pisanje blogov ne bo več brezplačno in ne bo več take izbire ponudnikov prostora in programja za bloge. Ne pustimo jim, da nam vzamejo besedo in svobodo izbire!

Preden pa stopite v akcijo, bi morda o nevarnosti programskih patentov radi izvedeli več. Odlična priložnost za to se vam ponuja 25. maja ob 15:00 na prireditvi Hevreka! (Gospodarsko razstavišče). Tam bo potekala mednarodna okrogla miza z naslovom Patenti za programsko opremo - da ali ne? Zanimivo je, da za okroglo mizo iščejo tudi slovensko podjetje, ki bi direktivo zagovarjalo, a ga nikakor ne uspejo najti. Nič čudnega, kdo pa bi bil toliko neumen, da bi podpiral tako nevarno in škodljivo direktivo.

Več o tem si preberite na tej strani:
Patenti.si

More than 5000 visits

2005-05-19T09:05:00.000+02:00

About four months ago I have put up a counter on my blog (thanks to a free service at StatCounter.com). Sometime in the middle of the night the counter has passed the 5000 mark. In the last couple of days there are around 90 visits per day. I have never expected to see so many visitors.

Most visitors use Firefox browser (66%). Internet Explorer follows with 21% and its share is falling steadily every month. The top three operating systems used are: Windows XP (79%), Linux (13%) and Mac OS X (4%). Most of you come from USA (38%), Germany (10%) and Slovenia (7%).

Thanks for visiting my blog. I hope you can find something interesting and useful here. If you have any suggestion (or maybe a compliment) about the looks or the content you are more than welcome to write it into a comment.

Free Software Magazine - Issue 3 - April 2005

2005-05-18T21:22:00.000+02:00

It is a couple of days late but the third issue of Free Software Magazine is finally available as a free download (you can also get it with eMule/aMule). Articles in the April 2005 issue are:

EDITORIAL

Thank you!

STARTERS

Book review: Knoppix Hacks by Kyle Rankin

FOCUS

Promoting free software on non-free platforms
The risk of mixing free and non-free
When free meets proprietary

TECH WORLD

A laptop, a coffee, and disaster recovery
The importance of LDAP
Running BSD on PowerPC/PPC

WORD WORLD

Guerrilla marketing part two
Open source is a market force
Free software gets small
Free as in "free speech" or free as in "free labour"?
Richard Stallman's blog

Firefox 1.0.4 and new 64-bit Firefox for Windows XP x64

2005-05-14T11:31:00.000+02:00

During the past week several critical security bugs were found in Firefox web browser. And before you know it they already release a new version 1.0.4 that fixes them all. This is one reason why Firefox is the best browser. It is one of the safest and when they find some problem it is fixed in a couple of days or even hours. In version 1.0.4 they have also fixed a DHTML/DOM related bug. So upgrade to the new version as soon as possible.

There is also a new 64-bit binary build of Firefox available for 64-bit Windows XP x64. It now comes with support for scalable vector graphics (SVG) enabled. You can get more than 3400 SVG images at Open Clip Art Library. They are completely free. Oh and by the way, SVG is also enabled in normal Firefox nightlies. So you can expect to see it when Firefox 1.1 comes out.

TUX Magazine - Issue 2 - May 2005

2005-05-03T21:36:00.000+02:00

Even though it is one month late, the second issue of TUX Magazine is now available for a free download. In May 2005 issue you can read all about playing movies with Xine and Totem, listening to the music with Rhythmbox and instant messaging with Gaim. You will see how to add more PDF power to OpenOffice.org and how to use copy&paste with it. There is also a review of AbiWord and an article about screensavers in Linux. Using file managers is explained and there are some tips and tricks for The GIMP.

A free subscription and download is available on the official web page. You can also get the new issue with eMule/aMule and BitTorrent (only for newer clients with support for magnet links, like Azureus 2.3.0.0). From now on we can expect the new issues to be published monthly.

Firefox - 50,000,000 downloads

2005-04-29T17:59:00.000+02:00

Because of higher security, more modern functions and speed more users are switching from the obsolete internet Explorer to alternative browsers every day. The most popular alternative browser is Mozilla Firefox. Version 1.0 was released on 9th November 2004 and at this moment this free and opensource browser has been downloaded 50 million times. This huge number doesn't even include downloads from non-official web sites, downloads using filesharing apps or installations from CDs that you can get with many magazines.

Here are some Firefox download milestones:

1 million - in first 24 hours
2.5 million - in first two days
10 millions - in first month
25 millions - in less than 100 days

What are you waiting for? Download and install Firefox and rediscover the web!

More:
Firefox: Blazing a Trail to 50,000,000

64-bit Firefox for Windows XP x64

2005-04-28T16:11:00.000+02:00

Linux users are able to run their operating system and almost all of the apps (including Firefox and Thunderbird) in 64-bit mode on AMD64 compatible processors (like AMD Athlon 64) for more then a year now. A couple of days ago Microsoft has also finally released their 64-bit version of their OS and they call it Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. Many of us now wonder when will we be able to get 64-bit Firefox for 64-bit Windows. There are still some bugs that need to be fixed before we will be able to download official release from Mozilla. But if you can't wait you can get third party binaries on this page.

Before using 64-bit Firefox you have to know that you will also need 64-bit plugins. 32-bit ones will not work. Unless Firefox developers come up with some solution similar to the one in Konqueror from KDE, where 32-bit plugins work just fine inside a 64-bit browser (or so I heard). The good thing is that extensions should work without a problem as they don't need to be compiled.

More info:

First 64-bit multi-core AMD processors

2005-04-23T11:05:00.000+02:00

This Thursday, at the second anniversary celebration of Opteron, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) started selling world's first 64-bit multi-core processors. At first they are only available for servers and workstations as dual-core AMD Opteron CPUs. AMD also announced the new brand name for desktop dual-core processors: AMD Athlon 64 X2. We will be able to buy these in June.

Besides improved performance and true multi-tasking another great thing about dual-core AMD processors is that you will not have to replace your motherboard (if it has socket 939 or 940). You only need to upgrade the BIOS and replace single-core CPU with dual-core one and you are ready to rock.

Visit this web page to read more:
AMD Announces World's First 64-Bit, x86 Multi-Core Processors For Servers And Workstations At Second-Anniversary Celebration Of AMD Opteron™ Processor

GCC 4.0.0

2005-04-22T21:51:00.000+02:00

Version 4.0.0 of GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) has just been released. GCC is by far the most widely used compiler (its job is to transform source code into program you can use) for Linux and other open source software. In this major version there are many new features and a new optimization infrastructure. All this means we get faster compiles and quite a bit faster running apps. BTW, Gentoo users, GCC 4.0.0 is already in portage. But I would wait a bit before using it because the new version is also more strict about the code syntax and many apps don't even compile with it.

The argument against software patents

2005-04-20T23:49:00.000+02:00

A very informative article about the danger of software patents has been written by Christian Schaller and posted on OSNews.com. It tells you a lot about why software patents are so bad for all of us and how we should tell this to politicians so they can do something to keep them away from us. Here is the introduction:

We today face the risk of software patents being approved in the EU because not enough parliamentary members will be showing up to vote. Due to this it is important for those of us who oppose software patents to make sure EU parliament members see the damage software patents cause, so they realize it is important to be there to vote providing the needed absolute majority. But sending out a clear message is also important for the process of patent reform in the US and other places who have fallen into the trap of introducing them.

Full article:
The argument against software patents

Always Use Protection - Firefox condom poster

2005-04-19T11:01:00.000+02:00

Check out this very cool poster for Mozilla Firefox:

What do you think? Is it too offensive? For more information and for a larger, high quality image check out this post:
Please release "Always Use Protection" condom Poster

ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori on ISS

2005-04-17T18:39:00.000+02:00

Two days ago Russian spacecraft Soyuz TMA-6 lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On board were European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori and two members of ISS Expedition 11 crew (the Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and NASA astronaut John Phillips). Today they successfully docked with the International Space Station.

For Vittori this is the second visit to the ISS. During his 8-day stay he will carry out an extensive experiment program in the fields of human physiology, biology, technology and education. He will leave the station on 24 April together with the old ISS crew and inside the old spacecraft Soyuz TMA-5 (Soyuz needs to be replaced every six months).

Eneide Mission

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.3

2005-04-17T17:36:00.000+02:00

People from Mozilla have released a new versions of Firefox, the best web browser. In version 1.0.3 they have fixed several security problems and enhanced the upgrading routine. You can download the new version from here. If you would like to get this free download with eMule, aMule or any similar application, then the ED2K links are available here.

Europe goes back to Mars

2005-04-09T18:54:00.000+02:00

European Space Agency's space workshop was held at Aston University, Birmingham, England on the 6th and 7th April 2005. Scientists from all over the world debated robotic mission options up to 2013 in the first phase of the Aurora program. European scientists have strongly recommended a rover equipped mission should be the next one to visit Mars. It would conduct a detailed analysis of the Martian environment and search for traces of past or present life. Three candidate missions are considered: BeagleNet, ExoMars and its variant ExoMars-Lite. The launch is expected for June 2011. Detailed proposal is being prepared for consideration in December 2005.

More here:
Europe goes back to Mars

Firefox/Thunderbird/XULRunner 1.1 release plan

2005-04-09T17:32:00.000+02:00

Firefox is already one of the best web browsers. It is well known for its security, speed and modern features. Despite all this development of the next version is happening at fast rate. Asa Dotzler has posted a plan for the 1.1 releases of Firefox, Thunderbird and XULRunner.

There will be three cycles. In the first one they plan to finalize and stabilize developer features and after that release Deer Park Developer Preview. Deer Park is the project codename for Firefox 1.1. About five weeks after this the second cycle should complete and we should get Firefox General Preview. In the third phase we can expect a couple of release candidates and then finally the highly anticipated 1.1 final releases sometime in June/July.

More in this blog post:
the plan for the 1.1 releases

Tiny Firewall 64 (beta)

2005-04-09T12:23:00.000+02:00

So you have installed 64-bit Windows XP x64 on your AMD64 machine and now you are searching for a good 64-bit firewall to go along. If this is the case, take a look at Tiny Firewall 64. As they say, it is a native 64-bit version of Tiny Firewall 2005. You can download a public beta version from this page. The final version is expected sometime in May 2005.

Press release:
Tiny Software Releases 64-bit Firewall for AMD64, EMT64 and Itanium

Mandrake becomes Mandriva

2005-04-07T20:35:00.000+02:00

From this day forward Mandrake is no more. The French company, famous for their simple to use Linux distribution, has changed the name into Mandriva. There are two primary reasons for this step. Firstly, Mandrakesoft - Conectiva merger needs a new identity. Furthermore, they avoid a long-winding trademark lawsuit with Hearst Corporation. It is time to update your bookmarks to Mandriva Linux, Mandriva Club and other web pages

You can read more in this press release:
Mandrakesoft Announces Name Change!

AMD Athlon 64, AMD Sempron revision E3

2005-04-05T14:34:00.000+02:00

More news from AMD. They have just started shipping the new revision (E3) of their 64-bit processor AMD Athlon 64. It is codenamed Venice and brings an improved memory controller and support for SSE3 instructions. It also uses the new 90nm production process which enables even lower power consumption and has higher frequency and overclocking potential. You can also get these new CPUs with 1 MiB of L2 cache and those are codenamed San Diego. The fastest AMD Sempron also got upgraded to the new technology and is known under the codename Palermo.

People at X-bit Labs have a lot of information about the new revision and they have also made some benchmarks. The new CPUs can be overclocked quite high. Especially Sempron:

Dual-core AMD Opterons coming sooner?

2005-04-03T12:24:00.000+02:00

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) at first intended to launch dual-core AMD Opteron processors in the third quarter of this year. But server makers from Taiwan say that we could see them sooner, sometime in the middle of the second quarter. If true this would mean May 2005.

More here:
AMD may advance dual-core Opteron processor launch

The History of Mozilla Firefox

2005-04-03T00:53:00.000+02:00

Mozilla Firefox is a very well known web browser and extremely popular these days because of the security, speed and modern features. Have you ever wondered how did it look like during development phase? When has some cool feature been added? How many times was its name changed? To read about the history of Mozilla Firefox and see some screenshots from the old days check out this article:
The History of Mozilla Firefox: From Phoenix, to Firebird, to Firefox

GMail with 2 GiB of space

2005-04-02T11:46:00.000+02:00

If you are a GMail user, you could see that your inbox was 1.5 GiB large yesterday. Most of you probably just thought this is an April Fool's Day hoax. Well it was, kind of. If you check your GMail account today, you can see that now you have a whooping 2 gigabytes of space for your e-mail. If you still don't have GMail account, you can contact me over Jabber (JLP@jabber.org) or e-mail as I have 50 GMail invitations to give away again.

Internet Explorer - more high security risks

2005-04-02T01:56:00.000+02:00

By now almost everyone who uses web browser knows that Internet Explorer is full of security holes. Not to mention bad support for web standards and lack of modern features. In addition to all this it now has two more security vulnerabilities, which are both marked as high security risk. The same problems can also be found in Outlook (Express). They allow malicious hackers to remotely execute programs on victims computer. The best way to stay safe is to stop using Internet Explorer and switch to a safer and more modern browser like Mozilla Firefox or Opera.

Read more here:
'High Risk' Flaws Found in IE, Outlook

Just switch! - New features in OpenOffice.org 2.0

2005-04-02T00:13:00.000+02:00

OpenOffice.org 2.0 (free and open source) and StarOffice 8 are soon to be released. To show you in detail some of the new features and enhancements in these new versions of these office suits, Erwin Tenhumberg decided to start a series of blog entries under the name of Just switch!. You can see the list of all articles for March on this page. Keep reading his blog to find out more.

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition RTM

2005-03-31T14:00:00.000+02:00

Microsoft have finally finished their 64-bit Windows XP Professional x64 Edition for 64-bit processors like AMD Athlon 64. This version is now released to manufacturing (RTM) and the final build number is 1830. People who have MSDN subscription can already download it. Others will have to wait until the end of April. If all goes well you will be able to swap 32-bit Windows XP Pro for 64-bit x64 Edition for free. When I get the final version I will try to benchmark it against 32-bit version as soon as possible. I'm sure it will do even better now and I hope it will be easier to get more and higher quality 64-bit optimized software and drivers by then. You can check out the old benchmark of release candidate 2 in this post.

Firefox the most popular on Ars Technica

2005-03-29T16:41:00.000+02:00

About two weeks ago I have repored how Firefox web browser is the most popular on Slovenian computer news site Slo-Comp.net. It looks like Firefox has also become number one browser on a much larger technology oriented page Ars Technica. 40% of all the readers use Firefox now and percentage of those using old and insecure Internet Explorer dropped to only 30%. So, professionals already know which is the best browser to use. How about you? Switch to Firefox now, before it is too late.

Gentoo Linux 2005.0 released!

2005-03-28T02:26:00.000+02:00

The long awaited day is finally here. After some setbacks (including a complete security rebuild) the version 2005.0 of Gentoo Linux distribution is finally out. One of the main changes in this release is the transition to Linux kernel 2.6. The biggest disappointment for most of the people is probably the fact that Graphical Installer is not included in this release. Sorry folks, let's hope we see it in 2005.1. You can download the suitable CD image from any FTP/HTTP mirror or use BitTorrent.

Source: beejays world - Gentoo-Linux 2005.0 is out

KDE Desktop Usability Survey

2005-03-27T14:05:00.000+02:00

If you use KDE desktop for Linux or have used it before, then take some time to complete two part KDE Desktop Usability Survey. Tell them what you like about KDE and what you don't like. The results will be shared with KDE developers and they will help them make KDE even more user friendly.

I hate time shifting

2005-03-27T13:01:00.000+02:00

In the middle of the night time shifted for one hour forward, as it does every year because of daylight saving time. The original idea of so called summer time was to make better use of daylight. I don't mind about this as I like starlight more. They say that we also save energy by daylight saving time. I think this was more true in the past and today savings are next to zero. Because of all this and because time shifting disturbs my natural biorhythm I would very much like to see DST gone. Heck I also think we should use Universal Time (UTC or GMT) all over the world and get rid of time zones. But I guess this would be too much for most of the people.

Greece joins ESA

2005-03-25T18:59:00.000+01:00

On 16 March Greece has become the 16th Member State of European Space Agency (ESA). Cooperation between ESA and the Hellenic National Space Committee goes back to early 1990s. Greece formally applied to join ESA in September 2003. I hope Slovenia also becomes ESA Member State sometime in the future. There sure is something our science could offer to help advance space exploration. Materials science maybe? Sensor electronics? Something else?

Read the press release here:
Greece becomes 16th ESA Member State

Firefox 1.0.2, Thunderbird 1.0.2, Mozilla Suite 1.7.6

2005-03-25T16:11:00.000+01:00

A couple of days ago Mozilla Foundation has released version 1.0.2 of the web browser Firefox and e-mail client Thunderbird. This is a maintenance release that makes both extremely popular internet applications even safer and more stable. They have also released version 1.7.6 of the Mozilla Suite, for those of you who like the Suite more.

You can download them here:
Firefox 1.0.2 - ED2K
Thunderbird 1.0.2 - ED2K
Mozilla Suite 1.7.6 - ED2K

TUX - free magazine for the new Linux user

2005-03-20T19:14:00.000+01:00

I have already been writing about Free Software Magazine and I'll keep you posted about new free issues. Now we got another free magazine in PDF format. This one is called TUX (after the cute Linux penguin mascot) and is dedicated to the new Linux user. In every digital issue they will try to explore one aspect of modern Linux desktop. You can expect informative columns with rich, graphical content and covers everything for home, work, and play. Easy to understand tutorials, insightful hardware and software reviews, enlightened opinion, useful tips and tricks, and in-depth exploration of the tools computer users need every day will all be in this new magazine. To learn more about it read this editorial.

The first issue - March 2005 is already out. Free subscription is required to download the PDF. For a list of topics in this issue visit this page. I will also release this issue and any future ones on eMule Content Database page. The link to the release will follow later.

UPDATE: ED2K links for download with eMule, aMule or similar are available here.

Hourglass craters on Mars

2005-03-20T16:18:00.000+01:00

ESA's Mars Express spacecraft is still orbiting around the red planet Mars and watching it closely using its High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). A couple of days ago the orbiter has sent us some pictures of interesting hourglass-shaped craters. They are filled with flow features most likely formed by glaciers or "block" glaciers. Take a look at this photo:

For more information visit this page:
Hourglass shaped craters filled with traces of glacier

Gentoo Linux 2005.0 is almost here

2005-03-20T15:28:00.000+01:00

The release 2005.0 of my favorite Linux distribution - Gentoo has been delayed because of some last minute major issues. But it looks like the release is almost ready now. Both x86 and AMD64 versions are now prepared and ready to get mirrored on servers around the world. Before it goes public they need to check if everything works as stated in the installation handbook. My friend Boris is also waiting for this release and I think he will finally be able to install Gentoo 2005.0 sometime next week. On the other hand I'll just update the link to the new 2005.0 profile, maybe make some other adjustments and simply update everything using emerge as usual. Portage is so great!

4 new world records in Planica

2005-03-20T12:59:00.000+01:00

A couple of moments ago ski jumping world cup has finished in Planica, Slovenia. Planica is a famous home for world records and this time it has been broken four times in the flying competition. The new world record is 239m now and belongs to Björn Einar Romören from Norway. Rok Benkovič (it is his 19th birthday today) landed at 226m which is a new Slovenian national record. Another great day in Planica. Too bad I couldn't be there. Maybe next year...

KDE Worldwide

2005-03-20T12:22:00.000+01:00

KDE Worldwide is a web page where you can see where do contributors to KDE come from. There is a world map that shows a dot (or a name on the larger version) for every registered KDE developer, artist, documentation writer, translator and so on. The page has a new maintainer now and new submissions are processed again. So, if you are still not on the map make sure to fill in the form. You can find me in Slovenia (between Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia), Bohinjska Bistrica (geographic latitude 46.3° and longitude 14.0°) under the name of Jure Repinc.

KDE 3.4.0 released

2005-03-17T20:14:00.000+01:00

The final version of K Desktop Environment 3.4.0 is here at last. I've been using beta and release candidate versions compiled from CVS for quite some time and I must say it is runinng great.

There are a lot of new features in this version. I especially like the new RSS and Atom feed aggregator and reader Akregator. KPDF is also much nicer now. It is faster and allows you to select and copy text or graphics. The new KDE also supports vector desktop backgrounds or wallpapers in SVG format. You can read more about KDE 3.4.0 in its public announcement.

To download source code or binaries visit this page:
KDE 3.4.0 Info Page

Firefox the most popular on Slo-Comp.net

2005-03-16T00:15:00.000+01:00

In January 2005 Firefox, together with Mozilla, became the most frequently used web browser on one of the most popular Slovenian computer related web pages, Slo-Comp.net. You can see the usage history of Internet Explorer and Gecko based browsers in this recently produced graph. They also monitor the browser type of each post in their forum and they say that Firefox usage in this area is even five times greater then that of IE. And Firefox keeps increasing its share...

Privacy with instant messaging

2005-03-14T18:35:00.000+01:00

It looks like AOL's AIM instant messaging service has joined Microsoft's MSN Messenger when it comes to not respecting privacy of your conversations. AOL has recently changed terms of service for AIM and now they say they have the right to read all your chats and use all your messages as they like. This is intolerable. So now is the time you start using some open and standard instant messaging service like Jabber. I have already switched and now I have no worries about privacy and no more problems with blocking my favorite clients from the network. Also no more viruses that spread easily through MSN. There are many public servers for Jabber and quite a lot of clients for multiple operating systems. Jabber is the future of instant messaging.

Read more here: Diary of CrazyFrench - IM and privacy

KDE 3.4 from CVS and Mandrakelinux 10.2

2005-03-14T13:28:00.000+01:00

About a week ago I upgraded Mandrakelinux on one of my computers from 10.1 to 10.2 Beta 2. All went fine except that KDE 3.4 from CVS stopped working correctly. The menu entries were missing and there were no file type associations. After some investigation and help from KDE-Devel mailing list I found out what the problem is and how to correct it. It looks like that in Mandrakelinux 10.2 the folder for menu configuration is not in the default place and so KDE was using the wrong configuration. To solve this I had to set the XDG_CONFIG_DIRS environment variable to $KDEDIRS/etc/xdg/ and export it. Now all is working as it should. Well, almost. Lost & found menu has way too many entries and Home has no icon set. But this is nothing big. I can at least work normally again in KDE 3.4 from CVS.

First dual core AMD Athlon 64 benchmark

2005-03-13T22:02:00.000+01:00

People at Italian web site Hardware Upgrade are the first to publish benchmarks of the dual core AMD Athlon 64 processor. They used an engineering sample running at 2.4 GHz and with 1 MiB of L2 cache. The system had 512 MiB of memory. Here are the results from the Cinebench (in seconds, lower is better):

What can I say. Very cool for only 2.4 GHz and I can't wait to see the final hardware in action. I wonder what will be the price for these CPUs...

GNOME 2.10.0 released

2005-03-13T21:06:00.000+01:00

Although I'm waiting for soon to be released KDE 3.4.0, some of you might be happy to know that GNOME 2.10.0 has been released a few days ago. They have added two popular apps into the package: Sound Juicer for AudioCD ripping and Totem for playing videos. File manager Nautilus is faster and more stable. Mozilla based web browser Epiphany now has an extensions manager. For a list of new things visit this page. There is also a Ubuntu based LiveCD with the new GNOME available for download. Screenshot tour is available here.

nVidia Linux drivers 1.0-7167

2005-03-13T16:14:00.000+01:00

A couple of days ago nVidia have released a new version of their graphic drivers for Linux. The new version is 1.0-7167 and these are the release highlights:

Support for GeForce 6200 with TurboCache™ GPUs
Improved OpenGL workstation performance
Added support for XRandR rotation
Added ExactModeTimingsDVI X config option to give explicit control over the mode timings used on Flat Panels
Added Xorg dlloader support
Changed driver behavior such that PAT (Page Attribute Table) is used where possible instead of MTRRs
Added a workaround for an X server bug with PCI-E GeForce 6800 and GeForce 6600; a fix has been provided to XFree86 and XOrg
Fixed stability problems on x86_64 PCI-E systems
Fixed 2D rendering corruption on certain older GPUs
Improved compatibility with Linux 2.6 kernels
Fixed compatibility problems with some SWIOTLB em64t systems
Fixed a bug that triggered error messages of the form:
"ioctl32(doom.x86:6747): Unknown cmd fd(16) cmd(c0384642){00} arg(ffffc75c) on /dev/nvidiactl"
Fixed NvAGP incompatibility with recent Linux 2.6 kernels
Improved interaction with the udev filesystem
Improved performance of PCI cards on Linux 2.6 systems
Updated documentation

Download the drivers here:
nVidia Linux drivers 1.0-7167 - 32-bit IA32
nVidia Linux drivers 1.0-7167 - 64-bit AMD64

No more work on Mozilla Suite

2005-03-12T13:31:00.000+01:00

Back in 2003 Mozilla Foundation announced it will be shifting its development focus away from Mozilla Suite and towards a new generation of applications - web browser Firefox and e-mail client Thunderbird. A couple of days ago they decided to complete the shift and stop any major work on Mozilla Suite. So 1.7 will be the final stable branch. There have been a couple of 1.8 alphas and betas but these were only used to test some back-end changes and there will be no release of stable 1.8 version by Mozilla Foundation. Yet a lot of people still prefer Mozilla Suite (here in Slovenia mostly because Thunderbird is still not translated into our mother language) and some developers would still like to continue working on it. Perhaps we will someday see some form of Mozilla from enhanced sourcecode, but it will probably be branded under a different name. Mozilla Foundation will still provide infrastructure support (CVS access, bugzilla, development tools, etc) for this development. For the most of us the future is in Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Nvu and other separate Mozilla based projects.

AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology

2005-03-10T22:27:00.000+01:00

Currently AMD is especially well known because of their fast 64-bit Athlon 64 and Opteron processors. These are meant for desktops, workstations and servers. Today they started to offer special low power 64-bit CPUs under the name of AMD Turion 64, which are competing directly against Intel's Centrino technology. Turion 64 will bring AMD64 performance to thinner and lighter notebook PCs with longer battery life and enhanced security.

With Turion 64 we also get new model numbering, like ML-37 and MT-34. The closer the second letter is to the end of the alphabet the lower is the power consumption and this means longer battery life. The numbers indicate relative performance within the processor class.

Press release is available here: AMD Ushers In A New Era In 64-Bit Mobile Computing With AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile Technology