Month of May, 2007
Announcing Fedora 7 (Moonshine)
Fedora 7 (Moonshine) is now out to the general public.
This release includes significant new versions of many key components and technologies:
- This release features GNOME 2.18 and KDE 3.5.6.
- Fast user switching is well integrated in this release. Developers have enabled this feature through extensive development work on ConsoleKit and full integration throughout the distribution.
- Display devices can be hot plugged and work automatically, thanks to the inclusion of Xorg Server 1.3.
- This release provides a number of firmware packages for enhanced wireless networking. NetworkManager presents a graphical interface that allows user to quickly switch between wireless and wired networks for increased mobility. NetworkManager is installed by default in both GNOME and KDE Live CDs.
- Fedora 7 includes a refreshing new "Flying High" theme, which is part of a continuous team effort from the community and the Fedora Artwork Project:
- This release features integration of a new FireWire stack in the kernel for more robust device handling.
- Fedora now includes improved power management through implementation of dynamic ticks in the kernel.
- This release integrates Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) technology with Fedora's graphical virt-manager and command-line virsh tools. KVM provides a hardware accelerated virtualization solution, and users have a choice between KVM and Xen, along with Qemu, in this release.
Engagement Party
Some friends of both Nicole and I threw us an engagement party on Saturday night. Here is a photo of the two of us from the party.
DiMaggio Cup
Every year at the Presidio Golf Club there's a match play tournament called the DiMaggio Cup named after Joltin' Joe DiMaggio who was a member of the Presidio Golf Club for a number of years up until his death on March 8, 1999.
I didn't get to play in the DiMaggio Cup last year but this year after a number of difficult matches I was able to win my flight and receive the champions trophy.
Silverlight vs Flash
There has been quite a bit of discussion in regards to whether or not Silverlight is a Flash killer etc.
I believe PiperJaffray Analysts said it best with this:
Microsoft's Silverlight: Loud Bark, Soft Bite?
KEY POINTS:
• Microsoft recently unveiled Silverlight, a supposed Flash rival.
• We expect Silverlight's impact on Adobe's business to be immaterial.
• Flash is the web's fastest growing video distribution platform on the web,
and the developer community is committed to Flash as a standard for RIAs.
• Adobe is pushing ahead in online video with Apollo and Adobe Media Player.
What Is Silverlight? Microsoft recently demonstrated its new Silverlight
technology, a web development tool for rich Internet applications (RIAs) and a
supposed rival to Adobe's Flash and Flex. The Silverlight runtime is available as a
cross-platform beta plug-in available for web browsers including Internet Explorer,
Firefox, and Safari; Microsoft expects to have a final release by mid-2007.
Silverlight's Impact Will Be Immaterial. We believe Silverlight's impact on Flash
and Flex will be minimal for three reasons: 1) Flash video technology is the fastest
growing video distribution platform on the Internet; Adobe has a growing lead in
the RIA space. YouTube, for example, which uses Flash technology, garnered an
audience of ~45m unique users in March (up from ~13m a year ago); 2) Microsoft
plays catch-up with Adobe, Adobe continues to innovate. On 4/15 we attended the
NAB tradeshow where Adobe focused on its plans for online Video. Specifically,
the company introduced Adobe Media Player, the next leg in Adobe's video
strategy, which builds on the success of Flash and implements the new Apollo
technology; and 3) Web developers are loyal to Adobe (and ex-Macromedia)
products, and now that CS3 integrates Adobe's design products with the
Macromedia tools, we expect the Flash developer base will become even more
deeply entrenched in Flash and Flex as standards for RIAs. In early 2006, Adobe
had announced that there were more than 2 million Flash developers.
