Mainsoft and IBM will one day unveil their long-anticipated port of .NET Applications to Linux and J2EE. Finally, this important milestone which enables Windows-centric applications to be ‘opened’, becomes a reality.

Mainsoft Corp. and IBM Wednesday announced an effort to work together to extend the Linux ecosystem by helping Microsoft customers move to Linux.

Meanwhile, the word through the grapevine is that another pact will deliver many low-cost Linux workstations.

Computer maker Mirus Innovations LLC and software vendor Linspire Inc. have teamed to offer a line of Linux-based desktop PCs starting at $299.

The pace at which good news for Linux get delivered is encouraging. Later today, an official announcement will be made with regards to Hewlett Packard’s top executive departing from her duty to join Penguin Computing. Keep an eye on the business/technology news.

Google software gets heavily bundled to Windows

ANY of us were wondering if a Linux distribution would ever come from Google. Google are of course using Linux in house and are dependent on Open Source projects. Unsurprisingly, having accumulated many programs that run on Windows only, they have just assembled a distribution that includes Acrobat Reader, Mozilla Firefox, security software and a large variety of Google software.

So we created the Google Pack — a one-stop software package that helps you discover, install, and maintain a wide range of essential PC programs. It’s yours today – and it’s something we hope you find to be painless, easy, and even fun (if computer setup can ever be called that). And it’s free.

This will by all means have an impact on many workstations. It can give a boost to a variety of Google application and their close ally Firefox is included. The bundling of Firefox is indirectly related to Dell’s distribution in the United Kingdom.

Notice the hypocrisy in this item however:

 
This was the experience (Windows installation) both Sergey and Larry had a year ago…
 

Both Larry and Sergei are Open Source advocates and most likely Linux users too. I guess this did not fit contextually and it conflicts completely with previous rumours about a Google PC that runs the Linux kernel.

Editorial: Editor’s Note: Google May Hold Big Key to Desktop Linux or “Why Google should port their applications to Linux”.

HREE figures which I tend to quote quite often are John Dvorak, Joel Spolsky, and Jeffrey Veen. There is a lot of discussion these days about the impact of the Internet on mainstream media and all of them address the issue regularly. Veen’s latest item is certainly worthy of special attention.

What we couldn’t have seen back then, and what is so obvious today, is that you can very effectively cut out the middleman. What happens when the entire audience is on the network and has access to the databases? And what happens when they have the tools to publish what they uncover? Some call it chaos, others call it the blogosphere. But you can’t deny that it is transforming media faster than we ever thought it would.

Previous items on the same topic:

• Grim Outlook for the Media
• Newspapers and Spying
• Evolve or Die
• Journalism Scare

This article speaks for itself.

Google will unveil its own low-price personal computer or other device that connects to the Internet.

It was only a matter of time.

Related item:

• Google OS – What if?/
• Google and Linux
• Sun-Google Pact

Update (05/01/2006): Google renounce low-margin PC speculations

WordPress 2.0: the new dashboard

ORDPRESS is a free PHP/MySQL blogging software, which has changed people’s perspective on self-hosted sites. With nearly a million downloads of its previous version, it accommodates a large number of sites where it is also used as a professional CMS. The alMatty (sic) WordPress 2.0 was out yesterday (that’s right! Boxing Day) and it offers many enhancements over its predecessor. In particular, it incorporates a WYSIWYG editor and makes state-of-the-art use of Javascript and CSS. You can finally get it while it’s hot. 5,000 downloads so far, in a matter of just hours.

Diversity for the benefits of science

Just when you thought it was by no means possible, Google, Microsoft and Sun Microsystem join forces.

Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are setting aside their bitter animosity to back a new Internet research laboratory aimed at helping entrepreneurs introduce more groundbreaking ideas to a mass audience.

Google and Sun have formed an pact 2 months ago, by the way. What wonders if they will use Java, Open Source (notably LAMP), or commercial software in the lab. Perhaps a mixture of all?

A computer-generated face, which the BBC uses in a promotional trailer, has been dropped despite initial arguments in defence of it.

A promotional trailer for digital TV – which some viewers complained was “horrific” and “disturbingly psychotic” – has been dropped by the BBC.

The Faces campaign, which featured a giant animated head made up of smaller heads, generated 1,300 complaints.

Follow the links at the top and judge for yourself. I think the imagery might only be unnerving to children, unless one considers scenes from Silence of the Lambs.