LibreOffice debugs and buffs up to v.3.5
The Document Foundation (TDF) has announced the release of LibreOffice 3.5, which it modestly describes as “the best free office suite ever.”
This latest 201MB build strips out a lot of redundant code from the OpenOffice base around which LibreOffice is built, a move which initially caused the software some stability problems. These have now been fixed – according to TDF – but in a blog post the open source group suggested that more-conservative users might want to stick with version 3.4, and recommended any companies rolling it out across the enterprise to enlist professional support.
“We inherited a 15 years old code base, where features were not implemented and bugs were not solved in order to avoid creating problems, and this - with time - was the origin of a large technical debt,” says Caolán McNamara, a senior Red Hat developer who is one of TDF's founders and directors. Read more...
Canonical takes the Ubuntu Server pulse
Commercial Linux distributor Canonical has released its third annual survey of the Ubuntu Server installed base to show what is going on out there among the Shuttleworth faithful. The survey comes just as Canonical is getting ready to put its next big server release into the field in April.
Depending on how you slice up the Linux server racket, Ubuntu is number one, number two, or number three. On the Amazon EC2 compute cloud, it was the most popular Linux distro for quite a while. After Canonical got out in front of Red Hat and SUSE Linux a few years back by embedding the Eucalyptus cloud controller into its server distro, you could argue that it was the dominant Linux-based private cloud foundation, too.
In terms of raw adoption among corporations, though, Red Hat's Enterprise Linux has a commanding lead over SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Canonical Ubuntu Server, though it is hard to say at this point who is number two and who is number three. It is likely – but by no means certain given that the SUSE Linux division of Attachmate and Canonical are both private companies and don't report revenues from their respective Linuxes – that SUSE Linux generates more revenues than Ubuntu Server because it has a wider base of corporate software certifications. But it is entirely possible that the Ubuntu Server base by machine count – be it virtual or physical machine – is larger. No one really knows. Read more...
HP gives Vertica a fresh face
Hewlett-Packard's Vertica subsidiary has updated its real-time analytics software, giving it a graphical user interface and connectivity to big-data-styled analysis systems.
The Vertica Analytics Platform is a column oriented analytic database, one designed for rapidly ingesting and structuring large amounts of data for quick analysis. "Our use case is focused primarily on real-time analytics," said Scott Howser, Vertica's vice president of product marketing. Internet companies such as Zynga and GroupOn both use Vertica for quick analysis of user behaviors, he said; he expects that an increasing number of organizations will require this type of immediate analysis to better serve their customers.
HP purchased Vertica last year. It has since integrated Vertica with its Autonomy IDOL software, another 2011 HP acquisition, for a single solution, called the HP Next Generation Information Platform, that analyzes both structured and unstructured data. Read more...
Oracle preps MySQL Cluster for Web use
Oracle has updated its MySQL Cluster software to make it more appealing to large Web service providers, among other users of large-volume distributed databases.
MySQL Cluster 7.2, released for general availability Wednesday, "is a huge step forward for MySQL Cluster, taking it further into the Web market," said Tomas Ulin, vice president of MySQL engineering for Oracle.
Two features in particular will help with such duties. The software now offers a Memcached API (application programming interface) that allows applications to access data directly rather than go through the SQL engine. The software also implements a speedier way of executing complex queries, or queries that involve joining data from multiple tables.
With these two new features, MySQL Cluster can offer the best attributes of both SQL and NoSQL databases, Ulin explained. It can rival the fast key value operations of NoSQL, while still offering the ability to do complex SQL queries of a regular SQL database. Read more...
Prioritizing tech projects: How managers make a short list of long demands
As top technology dog at Aspen Skiing Co. for the last 16 years, Paul Major has honed the art of keeping multiple balls in the air.
With responsibility for all IT initiatives that support the Colorado resort's four mountains and extensive portfolio of hotels, retail and rental shops, Major has gotten pretty good at helping his staff of 20 field and prioritize requests to keep the company's 3,400 employees happy from a tech standpoint.
Lately, however, the juggling act has gotten far more intense, says Major, managing director of IT.
Thanks to the mania surrounding mobile and social technologies, Major's group is constantly being peppered with requests for new projects. A business-side executive reads about a cool mobile app in an in-flight magazine or Joe in operations overhears casual conversation about technology while on the slopes, and Major's email box starts to fill up. Read more...
Rackspace enlists Redapt for private cloud installs
Rackspace hopes to make it easier to use its OpenStack private cloud offering by partnering with Redapt, a company that procures, configures and ships servers to customers.
"One challenge we have is how to handle the physical setup in [the customer's] environment," said Jim Curry, general manager for Rackspace Cloud Builders. "This is what Redapt is an expert at."
Rackspace said earlier this year that it would offer its support services for private OpenStack cloud environments that businesses build in-house or in a collocation environment. To take advantage of the support offering, businesses must use Dell C series servers and a reference architecture released by Rackspace. Rackspace plans to support other server hardware in the future. Read more...
Microsoft’s not so happy Valentine’s Day
If you work for Microsoft, yesterday was a very good day to go home sick.
It started out with a persistent report of problems with the MS12-016/KB 2668562 Silverlight security patch, part of this month's Black Tuesday crop. Both Windows 7 and Windows XP systems appeared to be installing the update, but then crashed on Error code 80070643 -- one of the most common (and most frustrating!) installer error codes in the Microsoft collection.
After a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth from all over the globe, Doug Neal, on the Microsoft Update team, posted this message late Tuesday night:
Thanks to responses on this listserver, we've looked into the Silverlight update, have identified a metadata (logic) error and will be releasing a revision to correct this very soon. Read more...
Microsoft quashes 21 bugs, blocks drive-by attacks
Microsoft today issued nine security updates that patched 21 vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Office, .Net, Silverlight and SharePoint Server, including several critical bugs that can be exploited with drive-by attacks.
Four of the nine updates were labeled "critical," Microsoft's highest threat ranking; the others were marked "important." Of the 21 total vulnerabilities, Microsoft classified six as critical, 14 as important and one as "moderate," a step below important on the company's four-step rating system.
MS12-010, which included fixes for four vulnerabilities in Ie, and MS12-013, a one-patch update to Windows Vista, Windows 7, Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2, were unanimously selected by both Microsoft and independent security researchers as the two to deploy immediately. Read more...
FCC plans to nix wireless network that may jam GPS
Federal officials plan to kill a private company's plans to start a national high-speed wireless broadband network after concluding it would in some cases jam personal-navigation and other GPS devices.
The Federal Communications Commission said it will seek public comment as early as Tuesday on revoking LightSquared's permit after a federal agency that coordinates wireless signals, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, concluded that there's no way to mitigate potential interference. Read more...