Happy New Year 2010 !

On behalf of All about Linux blog, I wish you all a very prosperous, happy, and fullfilling New Year 2010. :-)

Inkscape - A noteworthy open source vector graphics software

Inkscape is an open source, feature-full vector graphics environment with capabilities similar to Adobe Illustrator. Inkscape uses the W3C standard SVG file format. It supports many advanced SVG features like markers, clones, alpha blending and so on.

What is more, Inkscape is cross platform and is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X platforms.

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iPhone on a Solaris Host

I'm a moderately happy owner of an iPhone and, as I'm usually running Solaris on my systems, I've struggled to find a working solution to connect my handset to an iTunes instance. One of the major drawbacks of the iPhone is that you really need iTunes: whether you want to upgrade it, back it up, or simply transfer the contents you purchased on the Apple stores, you need iTunes to get the job done.

I'm running several virtualized OS on my Solaris guests with Sun xVM VirtualBox, and never managed to make it work because of some limitations of the Solaris USB driver implementation. A couple of days ago, Sun announced the release of xVM VirtualBox 3.1.2 and in the changelog I read the following:

• Solaris hosts: several USB fixes (including support for Apple iPhone)
  

I quickly updated my VirtualBox instance, quickly live-upgraded my Solaris Express Nevada build 116 to Nevada build 129 (during the installation, VirtualBox informed me that it needed recent Nevada builds for the USB kernel module to work properly), plugged the iPhone in an USB slot of a Sun Ultra 24 and it worked!

Start A Website On A Premier Web Host This Coming Year For Peanuts

Christmas and New Year is around the corner. There are celebrations galore. Everybody is in a holiday mood looking forward to spending quality time with friends and family. What better time to provide something special to lift peoples spirits right ?

Well, a few premier web hosting companies are providing space on their servers at a price that can be called a steal.

The web hosting companies are as follows : Read more »

Sun xVM VirtualBox v. 3.1.2 has been released

Sun xVM VirtualBox v. 3.1.2 has been released. This is a minor update and the current changelog is:

• VMM: fixed SMP stability regression
  
• USB: fixed USB related host crashes on 64 bits Windows hosts (#5237)
  
• Main: wrong default HWVirtExExclusive value for new VMs (bug #5664)
  
• Main: DVD passthrough setting was lost (bug #5681)
  
• VBoxManage: iSCSI disks do not support adding a comment (bug #4460)
  
• VBoxManage: added missing --cpus and --memory options to OVF --import
  
• GUI: fixed VBox URL in update dialog for German and Dutch languages
  
• GUI: NLS updates
  
• OVF: fixed export of non standard storage controller names (bug #5643)
  
• Solaris hosts: several USB fixes (including support for Apple iPhone)
  
• Mac OS X hosts: several fixes for the 3D support
  
• Mac OS X hosts: re-enabled CMD+Key combinations, even if the Host-Key isn't CMD (bug #5684)
  
• Mac OS X hosts: fixed to fast scrolling if the mouse wheel is used inside the guest (bug #5672)
  
• Mac OS X hosts: dock & menubar don't disappear in fullscreen when the VM is not running on the primary display (bug #1762)
  
• Mac OS X hosts: added an option for enabling "Auto show Dock & Menubar in fullscreen" (bug #5636)
  
• Windows host installer: fixed starting VBox with wrong privileges right after installation (bug #4162)
  
• Host interface and host-only networking: prevent driver from unloading while a VM is still active (Windows host only)
  
• Host-only networking: fixed host-only interface creation (Windows host only) (bug #5708)
  
• Virtio-net: don't crash without an attached network
  
• Virtio-net: fixed the issue with intermittent network in VM with several virtual CPU cores.
  
• NAT: fixed port-forwarding regressions (bug #5666)
  
• NAT: fixed crash under certain conditions (bug #5427)
  
• NAT: fixed resolving of names containing a slash or underscore when using the host resolver DNS proxy (bug #5698)
  
• ATA: fixed sporadic crash when resuming after a VM was forcefully paused (e.g. due to iSCSI target being unavailable)
  
• SATA: fixed raw vmdk disks (bug #5724)
  
• Linux guests: increased the default memory for Redhat and Fedora guests
  
• Linux Guest Additions: fixed installation on RHEL 3.9 guests and on some 64bit guests
  
• Linux Guest Additions: prevent SELinux warnings concerning text relocations in VBoxOGL.so (bug #5690)
  
• X11 guests: fixed mouse support for some Xorg 1.4 guests (openSUSE 11.0)
  
• X11 guests: fixed xorg.conf modification for some older Xorg releases (openSUSE 11.1)
  
• Windows guests: fixed some VBoxService shutdown issues
  
• Windows guests: fixed VBoxVideo spinlock issues on NT4
  
• Windows Guest Additions: fixed uninstallation issues of NT4
  
• Shared folders: fixed resolving of symlink target (bug #5631)
  
• 2D Video acceleration: delay loading of OpenGL dlls for Windows hosts to avoid GUI crashes on misconfigured systems
  
• 2D Video acceleration: fixed issues with video picture not displayed on playback
  

The changelog claims that support for Apple iPhone has been included for Solaris hosts. If working, that's what I'd been waiting for months!

Java Enterprise Edition 6 has been released

The specification for Java Enterprise Edition v. 6 has been released. This major upgrade introduces many new features to ease Web and Enterprise applications development. The list of the technologies included in this release can be view here. Besides upgrades to veteran specifications such as Servlet, JSP and EJB, the Java EE platform introduces:

• Java API for RESTful Web Services: an annotation-based API to easily convert a POJO and publish its logic as a RESTful web service.
• Managed Beans 1.0: Java EE containers can now manage ordinary Java classes with few (or no) restrictions (POJOs). Managed bean support lifecycle events, injection and interceptors. Other specification are, such as Web Beans), are built upon managed beans.
• Contexts and Dependency Injection for Java (Web Beans 1.0): The CDI specification, built upon managed beans, provides the well-known JBoss Seam's Web Beans functionality to the Java EE platform: a sophisticated context and dependency injection model.
• Bean Validation: An annotation-based API to declare validation constraints on a POJO and a validation API to programmatically validate bean instances.

If you want to start and try this new platform, download the Java EE SDK or download NetBeans, whose version 6.8 integrates Java EE 6 support and Glassfish Enterprise Server 3.0.

Simple Beautiful Wallpapers to Adorn your Linux Desktop

Who doesn't like wallpapers right? Aesthetically done wallpapers are a pleasure to view on the Desktop. I am always on the look out for beautiful wallpapers.

Now here is a collection of very good wallpapers with pleasing colors. The USP of this collection of wallpapers is that they feature simple abstract designs.
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