Software tweak boots Linux in under 200 ms

According to the article "Software tweak boots Linux in under 200 ms" on LinuxDevices.com the vendor FSMLabs has tweaked a version of Linux so that it can boot in less than 200ms (time measured from power on to startup of first application).
Now compare that to the time your Windows PC takes after power on ;-)

The Design Of The Google File System

I found an interesting paper on Slashdot which explains the design of the Google file system.

A new life begins ...

Now, that most people I meet all day IRL already know it, I think it's time to announce a very happy event in my wife's and my life:
We are expecting a baby!
The calculated due date is March 21st 2004.

There's also a weblog (in german) telling stories around this happy event.
You can already see many photos and some videos of presents and ultrasonic examination (also in 3D!).
Perhaps nobody noticed that I already added the link to the blogs I'm reading a long time ago ;-)

Stay tuned there for brand new stories there!

Maven 1.0 RC1 released

Maven (a Java project management and project comprehension tool) released the release candidate 1 of version 1.0. It seems like it's not far until the final one.
If you don't know Maven, take a look at the Maven features page.

SuSE Linux 9.0 on October 24th

This article on NewsForge writes about the announcement of the new SuSE Linux 9.0 which will be available on October 24th.
Of course I'll update my Linux PCs ;-)

NetOffice - Online Project Management

NetOffice - Online Project Management is written in PHP using a MySQL database and looks really interesting.

ApacheTop: a resource utilization display tool for Apache

ApacheTop is a resource utilization display tool for Apache - similar to the 'top' command.
Really handy, if you want to know, what's going on with your apache.

DVD: Revolution OS

On Friday I got the long awaited DVD Revolution OS which is a very good documentation about Linux, Free Software and Open Source. There are interviews with many important people (e.g. Linus Torvalds, Richard Martin Stallman, Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, and many more).
The second DVD contains additional interviews, "The Free Software Song" music video, a still image gallery, biagraphies, documents about free software and open source, ...
It's really worth the $22,49 I paid at Amazon and I'd encourage everybody to buy it too!
There's one drawback: I only can playback it in black/white on my DVD player, although it works on my notebook :-(

xCHM - the UNIX .chm viewer

xCHM is a useful viewer for .chm help files which are quite common in Windows systems.

Perl 5.8.1 released

Perl 5.8.1 has been released on September 26th.
Although I've never really wrote programs in Perl, it's something which is hidden in so many programs, that it's very likely that you've used it without knowing it ;-)

IBM releases WebSphere SDK for Web Services 5.1

IBM released WebSphere SDK for Web Services 5.1 on September 22nd with the following news (taken from TheServerSide):
* Conformance to the final version of the Web Services Interoperability Organization's Basic Profile 1.0.
* A supply chain sample, which conforms to the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0.
* A greater level of compatibility with IBM's WebSphere Studio line of products.
* Support for split Web Services Description Language (WSDL) documents.
* A new WSDL2Client Tool, to create client-side only components for a Web service.
* Improved installation using InstallShield Multiplatform version 5.0

UNO protects Open Source Software

The World Summit on the Information Society on September 15th in Geneva has decided to incorporate the protection of Open Source Software into the UNO declaration of the Information Society. There have been hard discussions mainly by countries trying to protect their commercial from competition.
It's a great success for the Open Source movement. Credit to the Free Software Foundation and other parties who have been involved to make this happen!

KDE 3.2 Alpha 2 and KOffice 1.3 Beta 4 Released

On September 25th the KDE team has been very busy in getting out two pre-releases of their greatest products:
* Second KDE 3.2 Alpha Codename "Tereza" and
* KOffice 1.3 Beta 4
I can't await the final release of KDE 3.2 since it has so many new features, which make your Linux desktop the most productive ever. Most noteworthy are the new PIM features, like the Konsolekalender, Kolab and Kontact, as well as the fabulous Konqueror.

SAMBA 3.0 released

SAMBA 3.0 has been finally released with a huge number of new features which are too many to be mentionend here. Most noteworthy seems to be the support of Active Directory.

Catching up with the latest news on the net

Maybe you've noticed that there were no entries for 10 days because I've been very busy. But this week end I've finally got some time to relax and I try to catch up with the latest news on the net ...

OXF - The XML Platform (and Cocoon alternative?)

Today Ricardo Rocha found an interesting comparison of the comercial product OXF with Cocoon.
It seems to provide some more features like Cocoon.
Stefano already commented on it in November 2002 and said, that their architecture would not scale. Game over.
Perhaps at least it might push Cocoon a bit forward. A little competition never hurts.

The Cocoon Wiki has a page with similar servers to Cocoon.

Banner against Software Patents

I just added a banner on top of the sidebar to remind you of the dangers of software patents in europe.
Thanks to Antonio Gallardo, who pointed to the anti-software-patents-banner-page on the Cocoon developers mailing list.

Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide

Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide is a great resource for writing bash scripts. You can find many examples there for nearly every aspect of the bash you can imagine.
Very valuable!

New Bon Jovi Album: "This Left Feels Right"

Quoting the announcement of the new album album "This Left Feels Right" from Bon Jovi:

BON JOVI are set to release THIS LEFT FEELS RIGHT on NOVEMBER 4, 2003. Co-produced by PAT LEONARD, JON BON JOVI and RICHIE SAMBORA, THIS LEFT FEELS RIGHT is a showcase of the band's greatest hits, each completely reworked from an acoustic base with new arrangements and various styles. (In addition to the Bon Jovi hits, which include "Born To Be My Baby," "Keep The Faith," "It's My Life" and "Wanted Dead or Alive," the band has included two new songs, "Last Man Standing" and "Thief of Hearts".) THIS LEFT FEELS RIGHT is not the band performing their most popular songs with two acoustic guitars. Each song has been broken down to its core elements, re-discovered and re-crafted, constructing an album that takes the songs you thought you knew in a whole new direction.

"We went into the studio thinking we were making an acoustic record," says Jon Bon Jovi. "We had a definite idea of the record we were going to make. But once we began experimenting with the songs and trying out new ideas we created a very different, unique album. We made a complete left turn and took the project down a different road. "

The band joined forces with veteran producer PAT LEONARD (Madonna, Rod Stewart, Elton John) and began the process of choosing which of the many hits the team would rework. Large rock anthems became jazzy riffs. Songs sung aloud to crowds of 80,000 morphed into intimate serenades. Tempos and instrumentations, phrasings and arrangements have been revamped and each track is as if it were a brand new song. The long hours in the studio have been some of the most creative and productive the band have ever experienced.

"I am having the most fun I've ever had working on this album," elates Richie Sambora. "I'm so excited - I literally cannot wait to get into the studio everyday and get to work."

I'm very enthusiastic about this new album, since Bon Jovi is the only band I grow up with and still "Keep the Faith" ;-).
The accoustic version of "Livin' on a Prayer" has always been a milestone of music performance history and I'm looking forward to hear the new versions of great old songs.

Definitely a must-have, if you ask me!

GNOME Storage

GNOME Storage: "Storage is an exciting project to replace the traditional filesystem with a new document store. Storage is part of a larger design for a new desktop environment, more details on that to come. The current implementation offers natural language access, network transparency, and a number of other features."

I already read about such new kinds of filemanagement some time ago.
I'd wish that KDE and Gnome join forces in that area like they did with the Free Desktop Project!

XMLUnit

XMLUnit is a JUnit extension which allows to compare XML documents which can sometimes vary in their representation though they are semantically identical.

JSR-000173 Streaming API for XML - Proposed Final Draft

It seems that there's a new parsing model for XML data coming along. It's called Streaming API for XML (short StAX) and can be viewed at
"JSR-000173 Streaming API for XML - Proposed Final Draft".
Here is an interesting article comparing DOM, SAX and StAX:
* Parsing XML Evviciently

I wonder if this will have some positive effects on Cocoon?