Universe’s Tech Blog

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Many readers wrote in to make sure we all knew that Firefox 2.0 has officially been released on Mozilla.com, unlike yesterday’s early preview. Here are builds for all languages and Win/Linux/Mac, and the release notes.

“Microsoft will operate 64-bit versions of Windows Vista as a tabernacle, with the kernel as the holy of holies, where only its own high priests of security may venture.” While Microsoft has seemed to be making some concessions to the likes of Symantec and McAfee, considerable doubt remains as to their ultimate future.

Long time PowerPC software vendor Terrasoft has announced the latest version of its popular Yellow Dog Linux distribution will be built specifically for the PS3. Terrasoft hopes its distribution will legitimise the PS3 as a home ‘computer’ as much as a console and bundles with it applications such as Firefox, Thunderbird, and Open Office to prove it.

Interestingly, Terrasoft isn’t the only one doing this — Sony itself started the trend. Despite its bad reputation in other areas that tickle a geek’s heart — music, DRM, planting rootkits with its software and so on — the gigantanourmous company has none the less courted with Linux for a while now. It had the foresight to provide a Linux DIY kit for the PS2 to try and drum up a homebrew community that included a hard drive, specialised Linux distribution, and a sleek, black, utterly cool ‘programmers keyboard’ for hackers to hack on.

Exactly the keyboard I’m using now, in fact. I don’t know much about the design of exploding laptop batteries or the profitability scale of a multi-million dollar CD protection system bypassed by a felt-tip pen, but I do know Sony make very nice keyboards.

Anyway, Sony is no stranger to putting Linux on its console, and the PS3 is no different. Rumour has it the PS3 will ship with a form of Linux pre-installed, though it’s not clear whether it forms the base of the PS3’s operating system or is provded as a dual-boot alternative to give extra functionality to the console.

Terrasoft certainly hopes this is the case and in its press release for Yellow Dog Linux 5.0 promoted the distribution’s potential for the new console not only as a complete Linux system to include the 2.6.16 kernel, Firefox and Thunderbird, and Open Office but also developmental tools that include a Cell SDK. Unfortunately, as noted in Terrasoft’s FAQ, this doesn’t mean you can develop games for the platform — that still requires a license and support from Sony.

Still, it’s an interesting step forward to promote a Linux desktop alternative for what is essentially a hardcore gaming console. According to Terrasoft, “Sony has designed the PS3 to run Linux”, so Yellow Dog is a natural fit.

Perhaps the most curious inclusion however is the use of Enlightenment 17 for the interface — started by Australia’s own Carsten Haitzler (aka ‘Rasterman’) almost ten years ago now Enlightenment was, to be sure, years ahead of its time both in user interface paradigms and in offering a sleek, sexy visual experience long before Vista and Mac OS X. In fact, Enlightenment was probably the first desktop interface to truly deserve the ’sexy’ moniker, because it actually was, and was frequently used it impress those poor Windows users at what they were missing from Linux.

That said, its development has been slow and in recent years not only have KDE and Gnome overtaken its functionality, but XGL and AIGLX now supersede its sexiness. Terrasoft’s inclusion of E17 into Yellow Dog however may be driven more by resources than the choice of an admittedly sleek desktop for an admittedly sleek console. Enlightenment manages to provide visuals and functionality without tying into 3D hardware and using excessive system resources.

Terrasoft will be releasing Yellow Dog 5.0 in mid-November with DVDs purchasable from its online store and free downloads on mirrors to follow soon after.

I’m beginning to know what the end of the world would feel like… an apocalyptic wasteland strewn with poorly named files and icons lying stacked on top of each other. I’m foraging through folders like a feral pig, desperately seeking out the latest version of that Excel spreadsheet, no, not that version, the latest version!

Ever since I installed Vista, Windows desktop search hasn’t worked very well. My normal laser-guided ability to hone in on any information on my computer at the drop of my boss’s hat has been mamed. I’m hobbling round like a war veteran who still has a stump of a mouse-clicking hand but prefers to type with his nose.

OK, enough of the histrionics.

Microsoft had desktop search running pretty well in XP with the optional add-on Windows Desktop Search. You could type in a few characters and search results were displayed and refined nearly instantly.

In Vista, there’s something badly wrong with the desktop search.

For a start, it’s slow. When I type a search into the Start Menu search field, it can take five seconds or more to start displaying more than a couple of results, even on my grunty Pentium D PC with 2GB RAM. And yes, the PC is permanently switched on, and I’ve thoroughly checked indexing settings to be sure all the locations that need to be are being indexed.

There’s also no meaningful sorting of results that I can see. The top of the list will often be documents from several years ago — it’s not even backward chronologically ordered as far as I can tell. I thought Apple’s Spotlight desktop search in Mac OS X 10.4 was pretty rudimentary. Now I’ve seen an attempt that’s even worse. And it’s destined to be what 95% of the world’s PC users experience.

The promise of Vista is that desktop search is beautifully simple and integrated into the OS. After all, it’s what we got after Microsoft skittled the over-ambitious WinFS plan. It should have been so easy… one tap of the Windows key, start typing, get results.

It’s not. It sucks.

Sure, Vista isn’t a final product yet, but it is up to release candidate 2. That’s gotta stand for something. Surely RC2 is pretty darn close to bug-free, feature-complete.

Based on search performance alone, Vista is nowhere near ready for release.

I knew I was taking a leap of faith by upgrading my primary work machine to an unfinished Microsoft OS, but this is seriously affecting my work productivity. I’m seriously contemplating going back to XP, which annoys me in other ways (featureless, time-consuming file navigation dialogues; a desktop explorer that doesn’t treat a JPEG much differently from an MP3) but is less annoying than having next to no desktop search.

I’m a desktop search addict… I’m like the street kid that is given his first few hits free of charge and then the supply is cut off unless he pays up. I’ve come to rely on desktop search; I’ve stopped filing things neatly and started relying on search to find anything at a moment’s notice.

Sure, sure, you can say it’s all my fault, and I should have kept on filing things neatly. But tell me: do you still take the time to cut and paste people’s contact details into your address book application meticulously? I stopped filing into Outlook contacts months ago… it’s so much more efficient to search on their name and find their most recent contact details in their email signature.

XP… I didn’t know how much I loved thee until I lost thee.

With the apparent lack of decent desktop searching abilities built into Vista, there are others out there that may actually serve you better.
However, it would seem that third party development is going about as well as the Desktop Search built into Vista. That is to say, some options exist but they may not work at all.
We tested both Google’s and Yahoo!’s desktop search variants.

Despite offering no official support for Vista, Google Desktop, actually seems to work right off the bat, with indexing and search functioning like a pair of lucky charms.

Give it a whirl, but there probably is a reason for the lack of support. We twice contacted Google’s media spokesperson regarding this, but never received a single response.

Yahoo!’s attempt, on the other hand, didn’t impress us at all. In fact, it killed itself prior to the actual setup. We only managed to initiate an error message before it flat-lined.

We contacted Yahoo! to ask about this nasty finding. Yahoo!’s PR people did respond, unlike Google’s, but our questions remain unanswered.

Stephen Rodi from Yahoo!’s Australian headquarters said he was unable to comment on the status of Yahoo! Desktop Search because it isn’t a supported package in Australia. In fact, you basically shouldn’t use it if you’re an Australian, saying “From the Australian perspective, we don’t have that product here.”Well, how about that? Just in case he wasn’t being clear, Rodi added “We don’t do desktop search, here, in Australia.”

Naturally we requested the reasoning behind this, however, we haven’t heard back from Rodi.

We await an informative response from both Google and Yahoo.

Another option, of course, is to quit rummaging around your own personal wasteland like the feral pig you are and learn my personal favourite form of pedantism: organised chaos.

Like some vague form of encryption, it’s essentially the same degree of tragic mess, however, you and only you can find things.

Oink, basically.

Apple launched an updated range of MacBook Pros overnight, all of which are powered by Intel Core 2 Duo chips. Apple claims a 39% speed boost over the previous model, making the latest MacBook Pros up to seven times faster than a PPC G4 1.67 GHz PowerBook.High-end users will also welcome the return of the FW800 port, which was stripped from the first Intel Mac models.

Apple puts more space between its “consumer” MacBooks and “professional” MacBook Pros by increasing the RAM in the new MacBook Pros to a possible 3GB and offering a 200GB 4200RPM harddrive as a CTO option (especially interesting because we’re not aware of any 200GB 2.5″ hard drives shipping individually to retail yet.)

Double-layer SuperDrives are also now standard across the range.

The three model MacBook Pro range now looks like this:

Australian RRP prices (with US prices for comparison) are $3,199 (US$ 1,999) for the 2.16GHz model, $3,999 (US$2,499) for the 2.33 GHz one and $4,399 (US$ 2,799) for the 17″ top of the range model.

The Australian Apple Store is selling them now, although delivery will take just over a week.

Mac OS X Tiger has been enhanced for the Intel Core 2 Duo processors as stated by Apple in today’s MacBook Pro Press Release

Its not been officially announced but Its out of beta and has been released. Windows Defender is a free program that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software. It features Real-Time Protection, a monitoring system that recommends actions against spyware..

The world’s largest retailer, Wal-mart, just posted that they’re selling PS3 for $299. It obviously has to be a mess up on their part, but it’s pretty funny to see a huge corporation screw up something that big. I think every one would become a Sony fan if that were true.

Six-month sales top $218.4 million in gross revenue; GRAW singled out as prime revenue driver.

Today, Ubisoft reported its earnings for the six months ended September 30, 2006, the first half of its fiscal year. Like many publishers, the company beat expectations, reporting 172 million euros ($218.4 million) in gross sales–a 13 percent year-on-year increase from the same period last year.

“Ubisoft achieved a strong first semester, exceeding our first expectations by 25 percent,” said CEO Yves Guillemot, referring to the company’s initial projections. “This performance results from the quality and diversity of our catalogue [and] the strength of our distribution network, which allows for efficient promotion of our games and brings us an increasing number of publishing and distribution deals.”

Of all Ubisoft’s titles, Guillemot singled out the Xbox 360 version of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for particular praise. Developed at the publisher’s Montreal studio, the critically acclaimed third-person shooter’s premium map pack was downloaded 150,000 times on Microsoft’s online service. Ubi’s announcement did not break down sales of the map pack by territory, but it did say the publisher received 3 million euros ($3.8 million) of income from sales on Xbox Live Marketplace, most of which came from GRAW.

Looking forward, Ubisoft now forecasts sales of around 270 million euros ($342.9 million) in its third financial quarter, which will end on December 31, 2006. If the prediction proves accurate, the publisher will enjoy an 8-12 percent year-on-year increase in quarterly income over the previous year–up from the previous estimate of a 5-10 percent increase.

Advanced graphics company sues game-centric GPU-maker for patent infringement.

Silicon Graphics has sued ATI Technologies, alleging the graphics chipmaker infringed a computer-graphics patent that ATI’s competitors have licensed.

SGI argues that ATI’s Radeon graphics chips use technology in patent No. 6,650,327, and seeks unspecified damages. The move comes just days after SGI exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with new financing, a trimmed-down product line, and new executives and board members.

“SGI has licensed this technology to ATI’s major competitors and, as I have previously been stating publicly, SGI intends to aggressively protect and enforce its intellectual property,” said Dennis McKenna, SGI’s CEO since January, in a statement.

SGI filed its complaint Monday in U.S. District Court for the western district of Wisconsin. The complaint requests a trial by jury.

ATI spokesman Chris Evenden said the company is looking into the lawsuit details. “We’re not commenting until we’ve analyzed every aspect of it,” he said.