News Archive - July 2005
Beginner's Guide to XHTML: Lists
Sunday 31st July 2005
Categories: Guides, Internet, Code
In this reasonably short part, we are going to look at how to create lists, of which there are two main types: ordered and unordered. However, they both follow the same basic rules, and can be nested within each other.
Beginner's Guide to XHTML: Tables
Tuesday 26th July 2005
Categories: Guides, Internet, Code
So far, we can create a web page, format the text a little and add images and hyperlinks. In this part, we will see how to display information in tables, along with a multitude of attributes that change the table's appearance.
Windows Vista, Office 2003 and Smiley Patents
Monday 25th July 2005
Category: News
It's all Microsoft news today. First of all, Longhorn, the next version of Windows, is now known as Windows Vista. It isn't particularly exciting - I personally would have just settled for Windows 2006 or whichever year it turns up in. However, the name Vista does make things more interesting since a company has been called Vista since May 2000 - perhaps Microsoft should have done a little more research beforehand? They even own the domain name Vista.com! Unsurprisingly, Vista is considering legal action.
That other popular Microsoft product known as Office has also got some attention, although not nearly as much as Windows. Microsoft are aiming high with sales before the next release of Office, but is it too high? Right now, only 15% of computers use Office 2003. Read more at the Register.
Finally, Microsoft are trying to patent custom emoticon creation. This seems quite absurd to me - it's like Microsoft trying to patent 0s and 1s because they use them so much (well, maybe not quite the same, but you get the idea!).
Microsoft Suing Google and Fans Want Open Source OS/2
Wednesday 20th July 2005
Category: News
Microsoft has decided to sue Google after Google employed one of Microsoft's vice presidents, claiming it goes against his contract. Elsewhere, since IBM is ceasing support for OS/2, fans want it to become open source. Although some parts can't be released due to private sources, I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to write these parts themselves.
The Internet, The UK and Winzip
Monday 18th July 2005
Category: News
The future of the internet, or rather how it is controlled, is currently in debate in the UN. Right now, the US has control of Icann, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, but there are several proposals as to how to change the current system - the BBC has more on this.
A report has stated that the UK could become a 'hi-tech titan' if it played it's cards right. Also, Winzip has been bought up by Vector Capital. As the article states, Winzip has had problems with getting people to go beyond the evaluation and actually buy it. While making the price lower might entice more people to buy it, any price is still more than some of the free alternatives out there. Perhaps a better idea might be to release a free version with unzipping capabilities, but without zipping capabilities. On the one hand, the customers you lose wouldn't be paying anyway, yet this might reduce awareness and general popularity and have the knock-on effect of lower sales.
European Commission Raids Intel and Fedora Core 4
Thursday 14th July 2005
Category: News
The European Commission has been raiding Intel's offices as part of the anti-trust case AMD have launched against Intel. Regardless of the outcome of this case, it will have an impact on both company's image, as well as those that decide to side with either AMD or Intel. There's also a review of Fedora Core 4.
Beginner's Guide to XHTML: Changing Appearance
Tuesday 12th July 2005
Categories: Guides, Internet, Code
Here is the next part of the XHTML guide. This part looks at a multitude of tags that change the presentation of text on the page. However, they are not as powerful as style sheets, which will be covered shortly. There have also been a few slight changes to the second part of the guide - the target attribute is now discussed.
In XHTML, there are various tags that can be used to changed the appearance of text. Although using style sheets and <span> tags is probably a better idea, these tags are still allowed. <span> tags will be covered in due time, but these tags are still useful if you want to highlight something quickly.
Longhorn Security and Dell Customer Support
Monday 11th July 2005
Category: News
According to Microsoft, Longhorn will not expect you to always to be logged in as Administrator, unlike the previous NT versions. This is a similar vein to Linux, where you should only log in as Root, essentially Administrator, where you really need to. If it helps with security, I'm happy about it, although Microsoft needs to make sure that there are less security holes this time, or at least patch them faster.
On the hardware side, Dell has decided to shut down its Customer Support Forums - The Register covers the story.
Internet Explorer Vulnerabilities, Open Source and Another Debian-Based Distribution
Saturday 9th July 2005
Category: News
Turns out that the Java that comes with Internet Explorer has an exploit, which I'm sure everybody is very surprised about. If you don't use Internet Explorer, there's nothing to worry about. If you do use Internet Explorer (which I don't recommend!), you should fetch Sun's proper version of Java.
Elsewhere on the internet, the two licences for open source are looked at: BSD and GPL. Speaking of free software, Mandriva, Progeny and Turbolinux are apparently going to be releasing a Debian-based distribution.
London Bombs, Software Patents, Vienna and Pakistan
Friday 8th July 2005
Category: News
Condolences to all those that have been affected by the London bombs. During the period, news sites were naturally being hammered - the BBC has more.
It has been a while since the last update - the main piece of news is the rejection of software patents by the EU, obviously a good bit of news - Newsforge covers the story, as do The Register. Meanwhile, Vienna has been moving from Windows to Linux. Across to another part of the world, Pakistan has had its internet link restored.