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GUI

10 Dos and Don'ts To Make Sysadmins' Lives Easier 246

Posted by timothy from the sorry-dave-can't-let-you-do-that dept.
CowboyRobot writes "Tom Limoncelli has a piece in 'Queue' summarizing the Computer-Human Interaction for Management of Information Technology's list of how to make software that is easy to install, maintain, and upgrade. FTA: '#2. DON'T make the administrative interface a GUI. System administrators need a command-line tool for constructing repeatable processes. Procedures are best documented by providing commands that we can copy and paste from the procedure document to the command line.'"
Hardware Hacking

Calculator Networking With CALCnet and Doors CS 60

Posted by timothy from the site-for-sore-thumbs dept.
KermMartian writes "In an effort to make your trusty graphing calculator more like a computer, a shell called Doors CS has been developed, with an integrated networking stack, CALCnet2.2. The protocol is demonstrated in a nine-calculator pong-type demo, and the many file management, GUI, and other features of Doors CS can be seen at here. All the associated software is available for download."
GUI

What 2D GUI Foundation Do You Use? 331

Posted by Soulskill from the maybe-it's-maybelline dept.
Zmee writes "I am looking to build a 2D application for personal use and I will need to use a canvas to paint custom objects. I am trying to determine what foundation to use and have not located a good side-by-side comparison of the various flavors. For reference, I need the final application to work in Windows; Linux is preferred, but not required. I have looked at WPF, Qt, OpenGL, Tcl/Tk, Java's AWT, and others. I have little preference as to the language itself, but each of the tutorials appear to require significant time investment. As such, I am looking to see what the community uses and what seems to work for people prior to making that investment."
KDE

KDE 4.6 Beta 1 – a First Look 224

Posted by timothy from the looking-sharp dept.
dmbkiwi writes "The first beta release of KDE SC 4.6 was released yesterday. OpenSUSE had packages up almost immediately, so being curious as to what's new, I've downloaded and upgraded to the new release. These are my impressions thus far."
Enlightenment

GNU/Linux and Enlightenment Running On a Fridge 222

Posted by timothy from the prince-albert-in-a-can dept.
k-s writes "Linux, the GNU userland and Enlightenment and its foundation libraries (EFL) are known for their resource efficiency and flexibility, key components for embedded products. Today it was announced that such features led them to be used in a fridge that runs Linux and X11 with EFL. The Freescale i.MX25 based fridge by Electrolux (Frigidaire) provides the expected bits such as temperature controls and pre-set modes (vacation, party) as well as a special purpose drawer that cools your drinks and food with a beautiful UI. It also ships with handful applications for contacts, calendar, reminder, digital picture frame and even an illustrated recipe book from a famous Brazilian magazine."
AMD

AMD Joins Intel's MeeGo OS Effort 117

Posted by Soulskill from the welcome-me-a-meego dept.
angry tapir writes "In an effort to expand software compatibility for its upcoming Fusion chips, AMD has joined rival Intel's efforts to develop the open-source MeeGo OS. AMD 'will provide engineering expertise intended to help establish the technical foundations for next-generation mobile platforms and embedded devices,' the company said in a blog post on its website."
GUI

Google Give Searchers 'Instant Previews' of Result Pages 252

Posted by CmdrTaco from the no-time-to-waste dept.
First pressing 'Enter' was to much work... now actually clicking on the links and visiting the sites is to much, too... Google is testing instant previews, where you can see a miniature rendered view of the landing page without requiring you to click through and back-arrow.
The Internet

Andreesen Offers New Browser 'Rockmelt' 185

Posted by CmdrTaco from the that-poor-horse dept.
DrHeasley writes "Rockmelt, available for the first time Monday, is built on the premise that most online activity today revolves around socializing on Facebook, searching on Google, tweeting on Twitter and monitoring a handful of favorite websites. It tries to minimize the need to roam from one website to the next by corralling all vital information and favorite services in panes and drop-down windows. 'This is a chance for us to build a browser all over again,' Andreessen said. 'These are all things we would have done (at Netscape) if we had known how people were going to use the Web.'"
Microsoft

Recalling Windows 1.0 At 25 Years 384

Posted by CmdrTaco from the if-you-knew-then dept.
alphadogg writes "When Microsoft released the very first version of Windows nearly 25 years ago, on Nov. 20, 1985, it was late to the game and little used. Apple had already brought graphical user interfaces to computers with Macintosh more than a year earlier, while DOS systems dominated the market for IBM and IBM-compatible PCs. No one who used this first version was likely to have predicted that Windows would completely dominate the PC market 25 years later..."
X

Ubuntu Dumps X For Unity On Wayland 640

Posted by Soulskill from the no-longer-marks-the-spot dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Canonical and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has announced that Ubuntu will move away from the traditional X.org display environment to Wayland — a more modern alternative. The move means there is now little reason for GNOME developers to recommend Ubuntu as an operating system. Shuttleworth said, 'We're confident we’ll be able to retain the ability to run X applications in a compatibility mode, so this is not a transition that needs to reset the world of desktop free software. Nor is it a transition everyone needs to make at the same time: for the same reason we'll keep investing in the 2D experience on Ubuntu despite also believing that Unity, with all its GL dependencies, is the best interface for the desktop. We'll help GNOME and KDE with the transition, there's no reason for them not to be there on day one either.'"
Displays

Pioneer Preps Laser Heads-Up Display For Cars 116

Posted by Soulskill from the somebody-hack-it-to-play-space-invaders dept.
itwbennett writes "On display at Japan's Ceatec show this week is a heads-up display from Pioneer that links with a smartphone's navigation system. The prototype uses a laser to display bright, high-contrast, full-color images on a screen that would be mounted above the dashboard so drivers don't have to take their eyes fully off the road in order to receive driving instructions from their robot overlords. The demonstration model was hooked up to an Android-based phone and displayed a navigation map on the left-hand side and an animated Android robot on the right-hand side that passed on information to drivers. 'We are currently aiming for an after-market product, but we are talking with car manufacturers,' said Masaya Hashida, tech manager at Pioneer's smart vision business development department." An anonymous reader points out another gadget shown at Ceatec: a pair of augmented reality glasses that projects information to a user's peripheral vision and weighs only 20 grams.
XBox (Games)

The Inside Story of Microsoft's 'Project Natal' 130

Posted by CmdrTaco from the dance-for-your-joy dept.
Lanxon writes "Wired has published a lengthy behind-the-scenes feature documenting the inception, development and technological struggles of Microsoft's Project Natal, now known as Kinect. The feature is the result of conversations the magazine had with a number of key developers and researchers behind the project, and unprecedented access to Microsoft Research in a number of countries, over the course of three years."
GUI

Take This GUI and Shove It 617

Posted by Soulskill from the i-ain't-clickin'-here-no-more dept.
snydeq writes "Deep End's Paul Venezia speaks out against the overemphasis on GUIs in today's admin tools, saying that GUIs are fine and necessary in many cases, but only after a complete CLI is in place, and that they cannot interfere with the use of the CLI, only complement it. Otherwise, the GUI simply makes easy things easy and hard things much harder. He writes, 'If you have to make significant, identical changes to a bunch of Linux servers, is it easier to log into them one-by-one and run through a GUI or text-menu tool, or write a quick shell script that hits each box and either makes the changes or simply pulls down a few new config files and restarts some services? And it's not just about conservation of effort — it's also about accuracy. If you write a script, you're certain that the changes made will be identical on each box. If you're doing them all by hand, you aren't.'"
GUI

Canonical Designer Demos Ubuntu Context-Aware UI 237

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-sense-something-interesting dept.
Blacklaw writes "Canonical's Christian Giordano has posted details of what he believes could be the future of user interface design in Ubuntu — a system that detects physical context. Designed to be paired with a webcam or other sensor system, the concept is that the computer is able to detect where a user is in proximity to the display along with an idea of roughly what he or she might be doing. Using this information, the operating system — in this case, Ubuntu Linux — can automatically make changes to the screen layout. For example, when the system detects that the user has leaned back in his or her chair, the system automatically makes the currently playing video full-screen. Lean forward again, and the video returns to its previous windowed mode."
GUI

Looking Back At OS X's Origins 312

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-fail-at-history dept.
DJRumpy writes "Macworld Weekly has an interesting look at the history of OS X from its early origins in 1985 under NeXT and the Mach Kernel to Rhapsody, to its current iteration as OS X. An interesting, quick read if anyone is curious about the timeline from Apple's shaky '90s to their current position in the market. There's also an interesting link at the bottom talking about the difference between the original beta and the release product that we see today."
The Internet

Twitter Gets a Tweak 57

Posted by samzenpus from the now-141-characters dept.
crimeandpunishment writes "Twitter is going multimedia. The text-messaging site has a new look with a new push. There's a new pane, making it easier for users to check out photos and videos (and in doing so, come back to the site more frequently and stay there longer, which of course means more advertising revenue). Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says, 'We are still figuring out all the new possibilities.' The new look is expected to roll out around the world over the next few days."
GUI

Left-Handed Gamers Getting Left Behind? 426

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sorry-'bout-that-dad dept.
An anonymous reader writes "As the stylus becomes a contemporary equal with the controller and joystick, it is a bit surprising to notice a game developer overlooking the simple fact that there are a lot of southpaw gamers out there. But the creators of Base 10, a mini-game on the DSi, did just that, making it impossible for the game to be played by anyone who isn't right-handed. Seems pretty silly for a game developer to just cut out a slice of their potential audience right from the start."
GUI

Flawed iTunes Stands Out Among Apple's Products 390

Posted by Soulskill from the maybe-if-it-only-had-one-button dept.
waderoush writes "On top of all the other features that it has crammed into iTunes, Apple this week added Ping, a Facebook-like social network for music discovery. It's all part of the company's plan to dominate the world of consumer media, but Xconomy argues that this time, Apple may have gone a bridge too far. iTunes, nearing its tenth birthday, started out merely as a program for ripping CDs, and has grown increasingly creaky and impenetrable as Apple has added more and more cruft, the article argues. The company won't have a stable base for its new media empire until it rebuilds iTunes from scratch — perhaps along the lines suggested by its other new product this week, the revamped Apple TV."

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