Mosaic turns 20: Let's fire up the old girl, show her the web today
Grandmother to IE and Firefox, the web's first popular browser
NCSA Mosaic - marking its 20th anniversary this week - was not the first web browser, but it was the first to be widely used.
Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the web, describes its early days in his book Weaving the Web. Berners-Lee states that the first browser - WorldWideWeb - was text-based, and he had an early version working …
Shaky liftoff for Sputnik: Dell's Linux lappie runs its own cloud, ish
Review In 8GB of RAM and 256GB flash. And don't mention the Bluetooth
Want a laptop running Linux? You could do worse than Dell's XPS 13.
This svelte model began life a year or so ago as a Windows Ultrabook. More recently it was updated with Intel Ivy Bridge processors and a 13.3" 1080p screen. The XPS 13 Developer Edition - because only software developers use Linux, right? - uses a high-end Core …
Steve Jobs' death clears way for Adobe CTO defection
WTF: Why The Flash did Macromedia bloke join Apple
Long-standing chief technology officer Kevin Lynch has left Adobe, but why?
Adobe has just announced first quarter 2013 results that were a little ahead of its target and show strong take-up of Creative Cloud - by which it offers up its cloudy software services for subscription rather than one-off purchase - roughly akin to an …
You've made an app for Android, iOS, Windows - what about the user interface?
Where to find a sane design for all platforms
Cross-platform development is a big deal, and will continue to be so until a day comes when everyone uses the same platform. Android? HTML? WebKit? iOS? Windows?
Maybe one day, but for now the world is multi-platform, and unless you can afford to ignore all platforms but one, or to develop independent projects for each platform …
World's 'most green' supercomputer in red-hot battle between Intel, Nvidia
Analysis Uni boffins demand more bang for their watt
Non-profit consortium CINECA has deployed what may be the greenest supercomputer in the world at its Bologna centre in Italy. Called Eurora, the new machine claims it can perform 3,150 megaflops per watt, compared to the 2,499.44 achieved by Green-500 king the Beacon supercomputer at the National Institute for Computational …
Help us out here: What's the POINT of Microsoft Office 2013?
Analysis From Clippy to touch, Reg man Tim drills into Redmond's crown jewels
It was Verity Stob who identified the key challenge for Microsoft Office upgrades: "Name just ONE feature introduced into Word in the 21st century that the weak-willed upgrader regularly uses," asked the antiquarian.
Fourteen revisions since the first Office that it may not be easy, because spell checking, grammar checking, …
Lotus 1-2-3 rebooted: My trip back to the old (named) range
Analysis Not too 'hard to understand or inconvenient to use'
Lotus 1-2-3, released on 26 January 1983, was not the first spreadsheet. That achievement belongs to VisiCalc, invented by Dan Bricklin at Harvard, programmed mainly by Bob Frankston, and released for - surprise - the Apple II in 1979.
But as I fired up 1-2-3 on its 30th anniversary, I was reminded that while it wasn't an …
Stroustrup on next-gen C++: I didn't want to let go of my baby
Badly taught, over-used... better than ever
C++ 11 is “far better than previous versions”, says the inventor of the language Bjarne Stroustrup. He was speaking at an online event marking the launch of Embarcadero's C++ Builder XE3, a rapid application tool targeting Windows and Mac OS X.
C++ Builder XE3 is a promising but curious product. Delphi and C++ Builder were …
Coders grill Herb Sutter on future of C++ at Microsoft
Sorry about the .NET thing, chaps
"The world is built on C++ and so is Microsoft," proclaimed Herb Sutter at Microsoft's Build conference last week in Seattle, Washington.
Sutter is chair of the ISO C++ standards committee and Microsoft's Visual C++ language architect. Native code is currently ascendant inside his company, with C++ prominent in SDKs for Windows …
Windows Phone 8: Exceptional tools, but where are the devs?
Analysis Microsoft's vast scary world of versions and APIs
The Windows Phone 8 SDK emerged at the Microsoft’s BUILD conference in Seattle last month. After so much hope, hype and promise, what’s new for developers?
A lot, as you would expect given that this version of Windows Phone is built on the same core as Windows 8, whereas the 7.x line is built on Windows CE. At the same time, …
Surface RT: Freedom luvin' app-huggers beware
Review A hybrid with potential for productivity types
“It’s the ultimate expression of a Windows PC,” says Windows chief Steven Sinofsky... or “a compromised, confusing product”, according to Apple’s Tim Cook, who has not used one. This is Surface RT, Microsoft’s first own-brand tablet, which went on sale today.
Along with the fact that it runs Windows 8, there are two notable …
Windows 8: Is Microsoft's new OS too odd to handle?
Not ready installing on drive C: abort, retry or fail?
The big question. You are happily trundling along with Windows 7 and everything is fine. Should you upgrade to Windows 8, at Microsoft's tempting price of £24.99, or $39.99, for a downloadable copy?
There is always the safe option of leaving well alone, but tell that to anyone who regretted installing Windows Vista and had to …
Windows 8: An awful lot of change for a single release
Windows 1.0, Windows 95, Windows NT - the road to Windows 8
Microsoft released Windows 1.0 on 20 November, 1985, a year later than first promised. Now, nearly 27 years on, Windows 8 is on the shelves. The operating system was chugging away full-steam ahead as Windows XP established itself - then it jumped the tracks at Vista.
Where is Microsoft's OS going now and where did it come from …
'Your app will work on Windows 8 - but please rewrite it anyway'
Microsoft bigwig adds: 'We’re not afraid to make hard calls'
Is Windows so much weighed down by legacy and the need to support existing applications that Microsoft cannot advance its platform? I put this question to Satya Nadella, president of the server and tools business at Microsoft, at the recent Visual Studio 2012 launch in Seattle, Washington.
“We’re not afraid to make hard calls,” …
'Programming on Windows 8 just like playing bingo' - Microsoft VP
Avast, ye Redmond buckos, where's me variadic template?
Windows developers have suffered multiple changes of direction in recent years. There is Win32, WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), Silverlight, and now WinRT (Windows Runtime), the platform formerly known as Metro.
Can they be confident in the longevity of the new thing, or might it be swept away in favour of some other new …
There is life after the death of Microsoft’s Windows 8 Start button
Comment Keep calm and download these handy tools
The disappearance of the Start button in Microsoft’s new Windows has proved unsettling for users. “I want Start. Start I say,” said an early tester in a post entitled "Worst 60 minutes in my entire life".
One year on, and the Start screen is still a contentious issue. “The advantage of the overlaid menu is that it preserves …
Windows Server 2012: Smarter, stronger, frustrating
Review Perfect upgrade for punters with a passion for the obscure
Microsoft has released Windows Server 2012, based on the same core code as Windows 8. Yes, it has the same Start screen in place of the Start menu, but that is of little importance, particularly since Microsoft is pushing the idea of installing the Server Core edition – which has no Graphical User Interface. If you do install a …
Windows 8 Storage Spaces: Can you trust it with your delicates?
'Horrible write speeds', 'vanishing storage'... but it IS early in the RC
I have been watching a few Storage Spaces discussion threads on Microsoft’s support forums with interest. Storage Spaces is a new way to manage disk storage in Windows 8 and Server 2012. It allows you to create a pool from two or more drives, create virtual drives on them with an option for RAID-like resilience, and add or …
Visual Studio 2012: 50 Shades of Grey by Microsoft
Review It's a good thing looks aren't that important, right?
Microsoft offended thousands in April with a preview of its next Visual Studio, a John-Major-inspired, grey affair intended to take Microsoft’s all-encompassing IDE closer to the look of Windows 8.
Thousands gave the new look a thumbs-down on the Microsoft UserVoice poll, with people demanding a return to colour.
The day of …
Windows 8: Microsoft's tablet-desktop still painful to swallow
Review Hey, it could be worse - it's not Windows ME, OK?
Microsoft's Windows 8 is now in the hands of developers and IT administrators subscribed to MSDN or TechNet. They are the first people other than close partners and fearless torrenters to try the final code.
Anyone expecting major changes from June's Release Preview, or concessions for those missing the old Start menu, will be …
Microsoft concocts cloudy mixture with System Center 2012
False dawn or genuine breakthrough?
Is it possible to have cloud and on-premise computing intermingled in a hybrid called the private cloud?
Such arrangements are mocked by Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff, who has said “beware the false cloud” on several occasions.
But the concept appeals to enterprises that want the benefits of on-demand computing …
Microsoft: We tried to use Azure ourselves last year, and couldn't
But now we're fully ready to cannibalise our own server biz
In the first half of 2011, Microsoft made a series of changes at the top of the team running Windows Azure, its cloud.
“A large group of new people came into the Azure team,” general manager Bill Hilf said at a Microsoft cloud event in London last week. “Satya Nadella came over, Scott [Guthrie] came over, I came over at the same …
Windows 8: We kick the tyres on Redmond's new tablet wheels
Review Tastes like chicken
The surprising thing about the Windows 8 Release Preview just delivered is not how much has changed from February's Consumer Preview, or even the Developer Preview from September 2011, but rather how little.
Microsoft is set on delivering this hybrid tablet-and-desktop operating system pretty much as-is, despite widespread …
Core Wars: Inside Intel's power struggle with NVIDIA
GPU Technology Conference Kepler takes Knights Corner?
Intel and NVIDIA are battling for the hearts and minds of developers in massively parallel computing.
Intel has been saying for years that concurrency rather than clock speed is the future of high performance computing, yet it has been slow to provide the mass of low-power, high-efficiency CPU cores needed to take full advantage …
Windows 3.1 rebooted: Microsoft's DOS destroyer turns 20
Memory errors, files flung - how did Redmond win?
Yes it crashed a lot. It crashed less than its predecessor though, and kept Microsoft on the path to desktop domination. This was Windows 3.1, released on 6 April 1992, nearly two years after Windows 3.0 was pushed out in May 1990.
Minimum system requirements are MS-DOS 3.1 or later, 2MB RAM, and a hard drive with 6MB free. This …
Windows 8: Sugar coating on Microsoft's hard-to-swallow tablet
Preview review Refreshing, delightful, puzzling, awkward, annoying
How do you bring legacy-encrusted Windows into the mobile era? Microsoft's solution is to take all that baggage and place it into a compartment labeled desktop, while reinventing the Windows user interface in a second compartment called Metro.
Metro is primary, and conceptually the old desktop is now an app in the Metro Start …
Microsoft drops 'risky' Windows 8 preview on World
Metro-lovers to rub themselves into 'fast, fluid' frenzy?
Microsoft has released to the World near-final code for Windows 8 - its riskiest bet yet.
Officially called a Consumer Preview, but actually a beta, the next Windows 8 milestone will be the release candidate followed by release to manufacturing, Windows Division president Steven Sinofsky said Wednesday.
Microsoft chose the …
RIM's apps revolution swings on Blackberry 10
BlackBerry Devcon Europe Software choice alone won't beat Android and iOS
"I'm a Java developer. What can I do to bring my apps over to BlackBerry 10?" asks an attendee at BlackBerry Devcon Europe in Amsterdam this week. The answer comes back: "Rewrite your code."
The exchange illustrates how deeply RIM is changing its mobile platform: from the Java-based BlackBerry OS used in current smartphones to …
Petaflops beater: Nvidia chief talks exascale
Programming for parallel processes
"Power is now the limiter of every computing platform, from cellphones to PCs and even data centres," said NVIDIA chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang, speaking at the company's GPU Technology Conference in Beijing last week. There was much talk there about the path to exascale, a form of supercomputing that can execute 1018 flop/s ( …
Gone in a Flash: Adobe's long march to HTML5
Analysis Rise and fall of the Player
Surf the web and it's ubiquitous. Ask most web developers building media content what runtime stack tools set they should – or do – target. The answer is simple: Flash.
Or it has been until recently. For the better part of a decade, Adobe's media player plug-in has dominated everything from modest web animations to films and …
Fear and slow loading: Eclipse celebrates 10 unsettling years
IBM's open-source project that could
In November 2001, IBM made its Java tools IDE and platform, developed for WebSphere Application Studio, available under an open source licence. It was the beginning of Eclipse, which now claims 65 per cent of the Java IDE market. But why was Eclipse founded and what has been its impact over a decade?
The Reg spoke to Mike …
Making sense of SharePoint 2010
Customising, extending and sharing
Adoption of Microsoft SharePoint is growing rapidly, with Microsoft reporting “double-digit growth” in its latest financials, yet it remains widely misunderstood. What can you do with SharePoint, what is the difference between the free SharePoint Foundation and the full product, and what are the pros and cons?
Microsoft calls …
Adobe Flex SDK bombshell STUNS developers
Open source group takes control
Adobe is to hand over its Flex SDK, which lets you develop applications for the Flash runtime using XML and ActionScript code, to an open source foundation. The company is committing to HTML 5 as the “best technology for enterprise application development”, according to a statement issued on Friday, November 11 by two Adobe …
Down but not out: Flash in an HTML5 world
Adobe hedges bets with Nitobi
Anyone hoping to pronounce Flash dead as Adobe transitions to the brave new HTML 5 world will have been disappointed, based on the company's MAX Conference last week.
That said, there is evidence of a partial transition towards HTML. The big story in this respect is Adobe's acquisition of Nitobi, creators of the PhoneGap tool …
Adobe announces Creative Cloud, acquires PhoneGap
MAX 2011 HTML 5, but little Flash at Adobe's creative confab
Adobe is aquiring Nitobi, creators and sponsors of the open source PhoneGap project that lets you build cross-platform mobile apps using HTML technologies, and has announced a suite of cloud services named, unsurprisingly, Creative Cloud.
The announcements were made during a Monday keynote presentation at the company's Adobe MAX …
Microsoft's Roslyn invites VB to Windows 8 party
C# in disguise?
At Microsoft's recent BUILD conference, technical fellow and C# creator Anders Hejlsberg presented a session on the future of C# and Visual Basic. Visual Basic? There were few VB developers evident at BUILD and it seems to be in decline among professionals. Nevertheless, Microsoft is keeping the two in parity: read on for why …
Surviving the Facebook app 'swamp' with Azure
Cloud platform, cloud client. Is Facebook and Microsoft Azure the perfect fit?
“Developing with Facebook is like building a house on a swamp,” says Microsoft’s Nathan Totten. He should know. He used to work at social media company Thuzi, and when the company needed to write a C# Facebook application, he and his colleague Jim Zimmerman were so disappointed by the existing C# SDKs that they built their own …
Microsoft's high-risk Windows 8 .NET switch
Revenge of COM, or something like it
Microsoft spooked .NET developers earlier this year by emphasising HTML and JavaScript as the programming platform for Windows 8. Any questions were met with the answer: "Wait until BUILD." Well, BUILD took place last week, so what is happening with .NET and Windows?
You can frame the beginning of this story in various different …
Windows Server 8 plays catch-up with VMware and Unix
Preview Microsoft rolls 'cloud-based operating system'
"The cloud is a tectonic shift," said Microsoft's corporate vice president of server and cloud Bill Laing, introducing an in-depth press preview of Windows Server 8 and mixing metaphors with abandon.
In response to this cloudy earthquake, the company is declaring Server 8 to be a cloud-based operating system, though note that …
Windows 8: First contact with Microsoft Touch
Preview Strong enough to ARMwrestle Android and iOS?
Microsoft is facing up to the million-dollar question: how does it compete with Apple's iPad and Google's Android when Windows was designed for keyboard and mouse rather than touch control?
Microsoft's answer has been to create a platform based on Metro, the design style in Windows Phone 7. Metro apps run full-screen without any …
Microsoft previews 'Juneau' SQL Server tools
Tasty Visual Studio upgrade or 'One step forward, two steps back'?
Microsoft has released a third preview of SQL Server 2011, codenamed "Denali" and including the "Juneau" toolset.
In the Denali database engine there are new features that supporting high availability, and improve query performance of data warehousing queries. Then there's FileTable, a special table type that is also published …
Azure: it's Windows but not as we know it
Moving an application to the cloud
If Microsoft Azure is just Windows in the cloud, is it easy to move a Windows application from your servers to Azure?
The answer is a definite “maybe”. An Azure instance is just a Windows virtual server, and you can even use a remote desktop to log in and have a look. Your ASP.NET code should run just as well on Azure as it does …
Google Apps v Microsoft Office 365: Rumble in the enterprise
Review To web or kinda sorta to web
Microsoft's Office 365 has come out of beta. But does it have what it takes to counter Google Apps?
Office 365 has four cloud-hosted components: Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, and Office Web Apps, which you can use to access the other three from a browser. The addition of Dynamics CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is planned. …
Making sense of Adobe's enterprise pitch
More REST, less wordage. Please
Adobe has announced its Digital Enterprise Platform for Customer Experience Management. My tip to Adobe: that is too many words with too many syllables for busy IT people who are trying to get their work done. What on earth is it? The same old stuff repackaged, or something genuinely new?
The answer is a bit of each. Adobe has …
Microsoft Visual Studio to end dev and ops 'ping pong'
The code clone war
New Windows, new Visual Studio. But what will we find in Microsoft's popular development environment?
While Microsoft recently previewed many of the new features in the next planned Visual Studio, these have, unfortunately, excluded the HTML and Windows 8 tools that are likely to appear in the final version. Even so, there is …
Is Microsoft's Javascript chief killing his .NET creation?
Comment From PC to internet runtime
A recent discussion with a friend about the origins of Microsoft's .NET runtime prompted a little research. How did it come about?
A quick search doesn't throw up any detailed accounts. Part of the problem is that much of it is internal Microsoft history, confidential at the time.
One strand, mentioned here, is Colusa's OmniVM …
Windows 8: Microsoft’s high-stakes .NET tablet gamble
No room in the HTML/Javascript lifeboat
There is a long discussion over on the official Silverlight forum about Microsoft's Windows 8 demo at D9 and what was said, and not said; and another over on Channel 9, Microsoft's video-centric community site for developers.
At D9 Microsoft showed that Windows 8 has a dual personality. In one mode it has a touch-centric user …
Virtual desktops mean virtual applications
Desktop Virtualisation You can’t have one without the other
Virtualising the client is not just about the desktop. It is also about application virtualisation.
“Half of large organisations with more than 5,000 PCs have already adopted application virtualisation,” says Gartner analyst Terry Cosgrove.
That compares with perhaps one per cent worldwide that have adopted a virtual hosted …
Desktop virt: Licence to bamboozle?
Desktop Virtualisation Technology sorted? Now for the hard part
Desktop virtualisation presents many technical choices but they could turn out to be the easy bit. Licensing the software is where it all gets difficult, especially when the software is Microsoft Windows.
The problem is that Windows licensing is based on the assumption that you install software on hardware, but virtualisation …
Think carefully before you chuck out your desktops
Desktop Virtualisation Planning for desktop virtualisation
Desktop virtualisation has its benefits but it is also an important structural shift. This is compounded by other changes likely to take place at the same time, such as a move to Windows 7 or an office move.
When the Co-operative Group decided to migrate some of its 18,000 desktops to virtual desktops and thin clients, it also …
