News (131)

Thousands of AU developers protest US trade pact

Almost 3,000 developers from Australia and abroad have voiced their opposition to the proposed intellectual property clauses in the United States-Australia Free Trade agreement. Read more »

Ethics code written to reprogram tech industry

Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Dell joined a host of electronics makers Thursday in an effort to promote a unified code of socially responsible business practices across the world. Read more »

Microsoft to hand out early code

Looking to drive demand for a wave of forthcoming products, Microsoft will fill the pockets of developers this week with early versions of several programs, including the latest "build" of Windows Vista. Read more »

FOSS code detection tool launched

Black Duck has launched an application designed to spot open-source code in proprietary software - and make sure companies don't get into legal hot water. Read more »

SCO blames Linux, bad publicity for its failure

In a statement published this week, SCO Group blames the success of Linux and "negative publicity", as causes for its decline -- the company may need to wind up its operations after its copyright case against Novell collapsed, prompting it to file for bankruptcy. Read more »

IBM donates code to help Eclipse get organised

IBM said on Wednesday that it has donated code and documentation on how to organise software development projects to the Eclipse open-source foundation. Read more »

Survey: Linux programmers yawn at SCO

A new survey has found that 73 percent of Linux programmers believe the SCO Group's legal attacks on the open-source operating system lack merit. Read more »

Microsoft sues over source code theft

Microsoft has filed a federal lawsuit against an alleged hacker who broke through its copy protection technology, charging that the mystery developer somehow gained access to its copyrighted source code. Read more »

Hackers crack Apple, Microsoft music codes

In the continuation of a long-running arms race, both Apple Computer and Microsoft have seen their music protection technologies come under fire in recent days. Read more »

Open source advocate: Release Java code

A day after Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy said open-source software is his company's friend, a prominent advocate of the collaborative programming philosophy has called upon the server maker to open the code of Java. Read more »

Features (384)

What if SCO wins?

Open source companies are growing up and becoming the profit-oriented entities that companies at their core truly are. But this can be like watching Dr. Jeckyl turn into Mr. Hyde. Read more »

Less painful getters and setters using properties in Python

It's a popular design guideline to require class attributes to be managed by methods, usually referred to as getter and setter methods. These methods increase the safety of your attributes, but come at a cost of simplicity and verbosity. With Python properties, you can have it both ways. Read more »

Who's liable for Linux?

It's the next big Linux controversy: Who should be liable if customers wind up using software that was created from misappropriated intellectual property? Read more »

Internationalise content with XML and XSL

XML and XSL provide an effective mechanism for internationalising content. By tweaking property files on the server, you can dynamically switch XSL files. Read more »

Protect your site against Web scrapes

Web developers have to provide users with easy-to-use solutions, as well as protect the company's intellectual property. You can do this by using images and sound bytes to create a passcode for entry. Read more »

Analyse your managed .NET code with FxCop

Check your .NET code for bugs and compare it against Microsoft's design guidelines via the freely available FxCop. Learn more about this code analysis tool. Read more »

Employ refactoring via Visual Studio to write better code

Refactoring is the practice of making your code cleaner and clearer without affecting the functionality. Find out what's included in Visual Studio's Refactor menu, and discover a couple of Visual Studio add-ins that bring refactoring to the Visual Basic community. Read more »

Take advantage of code snippets in Visual Studio 2005

Visual Studio 2005 brings auto-complete for code snippets to C#, J#, and XML, as well as additional features for Visual Basic. Read more »

Who owns your application code?

A company can get burned when it comes to deciding who owns the code to an application. Outside developers could cause trouble if the details aren't ironed out in the beginning. Read more »

Create a VB6 grid control your users can modify

You don't have to create special input screens to modify grid data. We'll show you an easier way and toss in the code too. Read more »

Blog (9)

Microsoft's PDC Potpourri

Chris Duckett [blogs:betaliving] -- While not game-breaking in their own right, these little titbits complete the picture from Microsoft's recent PDC conference at Los Angeles. Read more »

What's new in Dreamweaver CS4?

Lana Kovacevic [blogs:webanatomy] -- Let's look at some of the new features we can expect to see in Dreamweaver CS4. Read more »

Design websites with Dreamweaver CS3 layouts

Lana Kovacevic [blogs:webanatomy] -- Dreamweaver CS3 allows you to accelerate your Web design process by providing 32 sample CSS layouts. Read more »

Google data-sharing gets authentication option

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Google now supports the open OAuth standard for sharing data through its Google Data interface, a move that could make it easier to tap into information stored at Google property. Read more »

What to Expect in Java SE 7

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- At the Sun Tech Days Australia Conference last week, I attended Chuk-Munn Lee's presentation "Java SE 6 Top 10 Features and Java SE 7". Here are some features we can expect to see in Java SE 7. Read more »

Is public domain software open-source?

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- When writing earlier this week about Adobe's sponsoring of the SQLite project, I ran into a complicated issue: is software released into the public domain also open-source software? Read more »

Hypervisor price tag: 500 million dollars!

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- In this week's roundup we look at Citrix's purchase of XenSource, whether Sharepoint is Microsoft's new platform for lock-in, as well as a plethora of Google news. Read more »

GPL 3 -- a bridge too far?

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Now it's time to create a new phrase: "free as in free software," meaning the freedom to make adversaries of potential partners -- the kind of freedom one has when one's work must be carefully excluded from other people's projects. Read more »

How Microsoft beat Linux in China and what it means for freedom, justice, and the price of software

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- Thanks to some major concessions on source code and a precipitous price drop, the Chinese government has now thoroughly embraced Windows and Office, what does this mean for the world? Read more »

Others (1)

Gnome 2.16 Preview

With the next major release of the GNOME desktop scheduled for release next month, each passing day sees more of the code frozen. This is the first iteration since version 2.14 was released in April, which saw extensive improvements in performance. Here is our first look at some of the features in Gnome 2.16. Read more »

Log in


Sign up | Forgot your password?

What's on?