Refenestration Daily.
It looks like OpenOffice.org 1.01 was released while I had my back turned ;). And, yes, the official name of this MS-Office-like product is indeed “OpenOffice.org”.
For those not aware, OpenOffice.org is a great free software package that includes a word processor, spreadsheet app, and presentation app (just like the Office you’re used to). It’s available for Windows, Linux, and Max OSX.
Via this Register article is Thirteen Ways to Loathe VB from Dr Dobb’s Journal. I was never much a fan of Visual Basic (primarily because it’s one of the few languages to run on only one operating system) but this article gives me even more reasons not to like VB ;).
3. Calling functions and accessing arrays. In most languages you can distinguish between a call to function F with parameter 3 and a reference to array F index 3 because one is written F(3) and the other F[3]. In Visual Basic they are both written F(3). Yes. […]
As mentioned on DealNews, Nero 5 is available for $9 (with free shipping) from 3btech. As CD burning software for Windows goes, Nero is one of the best.
Sure, there’s a trialware version available, but this is a easy opportunity to do The Right Thing and pay for it.
As mentioned on Slashdot the Distributed.net effort has found the key in RSA’s RC5-64 challenge!
For those not familiar with the project, the security and encryption company RSA sponsored a contest to find a “key” to one of their cyphers. And, due to the nature of electronic cryptography, the only way to find the correct key was to try all the possible keys in the lock.
This technique would be similar to going to a Make-A-Key kiosk and having all the possible key combinations made for a padlock, then trying each key one-by-one. Eventually, you’ll find the right key to that lock. Because the method was only trial-and-error, even though you would have found the key to that particular padlock, the padlocks of the type would be no less secure.
RSA held this contest to demonstrate the power of a coordinated group of volunteers, and to encourage companies and governments to use the company’s more complicated cyphers. After all, you wouldn’t want your business’ secrets encrypted by an algorithm to which a group of volunteers found the key, eh? ;)
Red Hat is preparing the next version of its distribution, code-named Null. They’re working on unifying the look, to an extent, between KDE and Gnome (and I have no problem with that).
However, the big news for me came in the form of these KDE screenshots from the Null beta: the fonts look amazing. For instance, the fonts in this menu screenshot look almost OSX-good to the naked eye :).
Whether it’s KDE, a Red Hat configuration, or something else, I’m not sure which software is responsible for those fonts looking so good — but I would be very interested in trying a distribution that could do fonts like that.
(See also this Slashdot story on Red Hat’s upcoming release)
