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appelza contributed a link to Tuesday’s announcement of the next step toward KDE 4.1: “The KDE Project is proud to announce the first beta release of KDE 4.1. Beta 1 is aimed at testers, community members and enthusiasts in order to identify bugs and regressions, so that 4.1 can fully replace KDE 3 for end users. KDE 4.1 beta 1 is available as binary packages for a wide range of platforms, and as source packages. KDE 4.1 is due for final release in July 2008.” I haven’t used KDE much for the past few years, but the screenshots of a “grown-up” plasma are enough to make me correct that.

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jaymus of dawning writes with word that, as promised, “Apple has just released the latest major revision of OS X. The update yields improvements to tons of system components and applications including the Software Update system, Address Book, AirPort, Automater, iCal, iChat, Mail, Parental Controls, Spaces, Time Machine and VoiceOver. This release contains 200 bug fixes from 10.5.2. See Apple’s release page for all the delicious details.”

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JRHelgeson writes “In a story strangely reminiscent of Superman 3, a ‘hacker’ allegedly stole over $50,000 from PayPal, Google Checkout as well as several unnamed online brokerage firms. When opening an online brokering account it is common practice for companies such as E-trade and Schwab to send a tiny payment — ranging from only a few cents to a couple of dollars — to verify that the user has access to the bank account listed. According to the story, the attacker wrote a script that opened thousands of accounts at dozens of these providers. He was arrested not for taking the money, but for using false names in order to get it.”

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ruphus13 writes “So, hosting and managing a ton of Ajax calls, even when working with mootools, dojo or scriptaculous, can be quite cumbersome, especially as they get updated, along with your code. In addition, several sites now use these libraries, and the end-user has to download the library each time. Google now will provide hosted versions of these libraries, so users can simply reference Google’s hosted version. From the article, ‘The thing is, what if multiple sites are using Prototype 1.6? Because browsers cache files according to their URL, there is no way for your browser to realize that it is downloading the same file multiple times. And thus, if you visit 30 sites that use Prototype, then your browser will download prototype.js 30 times. Today, Google announced a partial solution to this problem that seems obvious in retrospect: Google is now offering the “Google Ajax Libraries API,” which allows sites to download five well-known Ajax libraries (Dojo, Prototype, Scriptaculous, Mootools, and jQuery) from Google. This will only work if many sites decide to use Google’s copies of the JavaScript libraries; if only one site does so, then there will be no real speed improvement. There is, of course, something of a privacy violation here, in that Google will now be able to keep track of which users are entering various non-Google Web pages.’ Will users adopt this, or is it easy enough to simply host an additional file?”

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(Source: Computerworld) Whether it’s in the front office or the server room, green thinking can save energy, trees and money. From the Editorial Staff at Computerworld, here’s the latest thinking on greening your operations.

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The lifespan of the average tech gadget is about a year, usually less. But yesterday’s must-have device will live on long after you’re gone as landfill fodder unless you learn to recycle it properly. Got an ancient CRT in the closet? A shoebox full of batteries? Follow our guide to proper disposal.

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Crawling out of the primordial goo and gathering DNA points — that’s evolution, Will Wright-style.

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BigDownload.com has a great interview with Jeff Hickman, Senior Producer for Warhammer online, that offers a great preview of many of the game’s features. The interview spends quite a bit of time discussing the “RvR” (Realm vs. Realm) style of gameplay and what that will mean for players. “We generally start everything in our game with a thought toward PvP. PvP isn’t the first thing we think of, but it’s one of the first things. We think of Warhammer Online as a PvP game that also has monster and PvE content. So, when we balance our careers, we balance the content around player verses player, not fighting monsters. We balance the classes against each other. Then, instead of balancing those classes against the monsters, we balance the monsters against the classes. Our philosophy is to make the best PvP game in the world and build the PvE content around it. We know how much damage each class can do and take, plus all the utility each class can provide. So, instead of balancing each ability, we just need to modify the overall damage output and absorption of each career.”

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Gamespot is one of many to report that Ubisoft has announced a sequel to their action adventure game “Beyond Good & Evil”. “The teaser gave no details as to platforms or release date. However, as part of the company’s earnings report last week, Ubisoft did say that it had a pair of unannounced sequels in existing franchises set for release by the end of March. Released in November of 2003, Beyond Good & Evil won critical acclaim for its mix of traditional action adventure elements with stealth segments, a picture-taking gameplay mechanic, and an engaging story of a young woman pulled into a rebel faction to blow the lid off of an interstellar government conspiracy. “

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A Pennsylvania hospital decides not to upgrade to a newer version of Microsoft Exchange and instead chooses a Linux-based Exchange clone that it believes could meet the needs of its 700 users.

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