While the Opera Web browser has yet to conquer our readers' PCs, the browser maker appears to have had more success on mobile devices. Case in point is Opera Mobile, now in version 10, the cross-platform UI framework for Android, BREW, Windows Mobile and Symbian/S60 smartphones. Opera says that Mobile 10's raison d'être is to open up the Opera browser experience to more people, on more devices, allowing “operators and OEMs to implement the same user experience quickly and cost effectively across their entire range of handsets”. Other features include a rich Web 2.0 experience optimized for mobile phones, Opera Turbo data compression technology and the Opera Widgets standalone mini-Web apps.
Following on the success of DeviceVM's Splashtop application, Mandriva has introduced InstantOn, a Linux-based application that brings up a usable interface on virtually any PC in a matter of seconds. Designed to complement a base operating system (Linux or Windows), InstantOn offers a choice of applications for near instant display—that is, less than ten seconds and even less than that for hard drives with Flash memory. Applications include Firefox, Rhythmbox, Pidgin, Skype and Thunderbird. An OEM version will offer a customizable interface and 20,000 applications from which to choose.
Although we failed miserably on getting you this info by Christmas, let us hook you up for Valentine's Day gift-giving (and receiving!). The chicboom Keychain Speaker is designed for the stylish woman who wants a big, mobile sound in a small package. The amplified speaker, which one can attach to any device with a standard 3.5mm stereo jack (MP3s, iPods, laptops and so on), needs only 2 Watts and runs a full four hours on a single charge.
Editor Kevlin Henney has distilled essential wisdom from the programming craft into one concise O'Reilly volume, titled 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts. The book contains 97 “short and extremely useful programming tips” from some of the most experienced and respected practitioners in the industry, including Uncle Bob Martin, Scott Meyers, Dan North, Linda Rising, Udi Dahan, Neal Ford and many others. These veterans encourage programmers to push their craft forward by learning new languages, looking at problems in new ways, following specific practices, taking responsibility for their work and becoming as good as possible at the entire art and science of programming. The focus is on practical principles that apply to projects of all types. One can read the book end to end or browse it to find topics of particular interest.
Now in its second edition, Randall Hyde's The Art of Assembly Language from No Starch Press has been updated thoroughly to reflect recent changes to the High Level Assembler (HLA) language, the book's primary teaching tool. The comprehensive, 800-page guide teaches programmers how to understand assembly language and how to use it to write powerful, efficient code. It further demonstrates how to leverage one's knowledge of high-level programming languages to make it easier to grasp basic assembly concepts quickly. All code from the book is portable to the Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD and Windows operating systems.
If you read our interview several months ago with the Google Chrome team (Linux Journal, October 2009), you know that the Linux and Mac editions of Google Chrome were on their way. Well, now they've arrived, are in beta (quite stable by Google's standards) and even offer a range of more than 300 extensions (more advanced on Linux and Windows than Mac). Chrome is built for speed and simplicity and is intended to leapfrog other browsers that were built before the age of rich and complex Web apps. The key innovation on all platforms is the V8 JavaScript engine. Critical elements of the Linux variant are tight integration with native GTK themes and updates that are managed via the standard system package manager. It is reported that the Linux version came along faster than expected due to the yammering of Google's engineers, most of whom run—of course—Linux.
Continuing on its mission to improve open-source-based software development, Black Duck Software recently released several new elements in its Enterprise Code Search Initiative. The code search initiative involves three phases: expansion of open-source code available at Koders.com, release of Black Duck Code Sight Enterprise Edition and Free Edition for enterprise code search and an open integration framework initiative for community expansion of integrations with source code management systems. Koders.com is Black Duck's free code search Web site that has been expanded to access more than 2.5 billion lines of open-source code. Black Duck Code Sight is a tool offering enterprise-level code search capability that can index and make software searchable across multiple source code repositories for local or geographically distributed development teams. Finally, the open integration framework offers built-in integration for IBM Rational ClearCase, Subversion, Git, Microsoft Team Foundation Server and other code management systems.
The new Gluster Storage Platform combines the GlusterFS filesystem with a new user interface and operating system layer for massively increased performance and improved ease of use. Gluster says that its product allows one to “deploy petabyte-scale storage on industry-standard hardware in just 15 minutes with centralized management and automated maintenance”. It works by clustering together storage building blocks, aggregating disk and memory resources and managing data in a single unified namespace. Advantages include low storage cost, high scalability, no bottlenecks (thanks to the lack of a metadata server) and virtual storage for virtual servers.
