Open Source Pixels

Super Micro, are you familiar with them? Chances are that unless your focus is on the workstation and server markets, you probably haven’t heard of them. However, this company has been around since 1993 and they have been producing a variety of different motherboards, servers, computer enclosures, and other products to fit the needs of their customers. Super Micro manufacturers a variety of different Intel server motherboards — and they are one of the few that offers quad-socket Xeon motherboards — but they also have a growing selection of Core 2 desktop motherboards. The C2SBX+ is one of their newest motherboards and with our first Super Micro review at Phoronix we are looking at this product. This Intel X48 motherboard is designed for digital entertainment, gaming enthusiasts, and other high-end applications.

In what seems like a battle of ants in a case full of lions, Practical Technology has learned that Xandros has bought Linspire. “In an announcement that was sent out today, June 30, to Linspire stockholders, CEO Larry Kettler wrote that the stockholders had decided to sell all of Linspire’s assets. This deal specifically includes Linspire, Freespire, and the company’s distribution agnostic CNR (Click ‘N Run) desktop installation platform.” Not everyone is very happy with this one, though.

In a classic case of “two more weeks”, the MorphOS team has actually finally really I’m-not-kidding-you released MorphOS 2.0. This release was long-awaited, and comes packed with so many new features they might as well have called it MorphOS 3.0. “The MorphOS development is proud to announce the public release of the much anticipated version 2.0 of MorphOS. For an overview of the included new features and updates, please read our release notes. A description of the hardware requirements and installation procedures can be found here.”

The new, record breaking, Firefox 3 web browser is the fastest version of Firefox yet. But are you really getting the biggest bang for your buck (metaphorically speaking, because, of course, Firefox is free?) You can eke out a better disk and memory footprint and higher speeds by building it yourself from the original source code. I’ll show you how, with genuine metrics to prove it.

We’ve already said quite a few words on this one already, so we are going to leave it at a short announcement today. Today, Monday 30 June 2008, marks the last day of sales for Windows XP, the seven year old operating system a lot of people really don’t want to let go. Windows Vista is Microsoft’s sole desktop operating system now, whether people like it or not. Windows XP will still be available via backdoors and on netbooks, but it won’t be available at retailers anymore (some might still have some stock left, though). Feel free to place your obituary in the comments. To me, Windows XP was like cheese: it got better with age.

StorYBook is a summary-based program for creative writers, novelists, and authors that helps to keep the overview over the strands while writing a book, a novel, or a story. It assists you in structuring your book.

OpenVISP Stats is a merge of mailgraph and
couriergraph. It contains some enhancements that
mailgraph doesn’t have, and aims to be more
generic than mailgraph and avoid duplicate code
between two separate projects.

Apple keeps on improving is Leopard operating system at a serious pace. The company released Mac OS X 10.5.4 today, with the standard blurb attached to it: “The Mac OS X 10.5.4 Update is recommended for Mac OS X 10.5, 10.5.1, 10.5.2, and 10.5.3 Leopard. It includes general operating system improvements that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac. ” The update includes fixes concerning AirPort, iCal, Safari, Spaces, and Expose. Software Update will bug you with the new release, or you can just start the updater yourself.

Certmaster is a set of command line tools and a
Python library for easily distributing SSL
certificates to applications that need them via
XML-RPC.

Func is a system for securely controlling of a
large number of machines, either individually or
in arbitrary batches. It provides several
advantages over SSH including improved
scriptability, extensible modules (in Python), and
automatic certificate distribution and signing.