It may not be one of the sexier changes Microsoft has made in Windows 7 beta, but the company has changed the way the operating system handles disk defragmentation. Microsoft developers Rajeev Nagar and Matt Garson have written a lengthy post on the Engineering Windows 7 blog explaining how fragmentation occurs, how modern hardware like high capacity hard drives changes things, and how Windows 7 differs from Windows Vista and Windows XP when it comes to defragging your hard drive.

In addition, the defragmentation window now has more detailed information about the running jobs. Windows 7 also has automatically scheduled disk defragmentation jobs, so users do not need to set it up themselves. The ability to defragment multiple hard disk partitions simultaneously is also added to the new system.

Microsoft has not forgotten the solid state disk users (which may not be so many now, but hey, they do think for the future): because there is no need to defragment flash memory, defragmentation on these volumes are turned off by default. Additionally, they state that continued write access to flash disks could actually shorten its life. Interesting huh?

Via: [DownloadSquad]

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Are you an Android developer looking to test your apps on multiple GSM networks? Are you anyone else, simply looking for an unlocked HTC G1? In either case, Google and T-Mobile will apparently be happy to hook you up. A special “developer version” of the G1 is now available from T-Mobile 100% SIM and hardware-unlocked. The handset can be purchased from T-Mobile’s G1 site and shipping within the US is free. It is also available to be shipped internationally to 18 different regions. There is a catch of course but it’s hardly a big one. Since the unlocked G1 is intended for developers, you will have to register on the Android Market site and pay a one-time registration fee of $25. That brings the grand total of this fully-authorized unlocked G1 to $424 shipped.

[Source: Engadget]

See the devices available for developers.

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According to Wired’s post, you should be aware that you’ll have to uninstall the beta in order to install SP2 final once it’s released. Currently Microsoft is anticipating doing that some time in April 2009.

If you’re looking for more details before grabbing the file, check out PC World’s article Vista SP2: Six Things You Need to Know.

Downloads for both 32 and 64-bit users are available at the Microsoft Download Center. Instructions are also available here for users wanting to install SP2 through Windows Update.

[Source: Wired]

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Built on the Linux core version 2.6.27, Fedora 10 comes with two desktop options to choose from: GNOME 2.24 and KDE 4.1. Also, the latest version of Firefox 3 is downloaded automatically.

The latest version of Fedora includes fixes for PulseAudio. As for the PA Sound Server which appeared first with Fedora 8, has its management capabilities of sound files and their distribution to more than one device improved significantly. Network Manager supports connection sharing (especially 3G). Package management system RPM has been revised, cleaning the code base and improving the maximum file size to 4 GB and supporting it with PackageKit. Additionally, PackageKit has been combined with GStreamer, adding the ability to find codecs for multimedia files which do not have any. The distribution’s boot time has been reduced by 10% and a Plymouth graphical interface which does not need X server has been developed. Surely Plymouth does not run on every hardware, but it has a text-based interface as a backup.

You can download Fedora 10 at Fedora Project site.

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Because the version of the Windows 7 that was presented for the developers became easily downloadable by the BitTorrent users too, now there is nothing disclosed about Windows 7. While the version that was sent to the developers had many stability problems and restricted features, looking at the first reports we can see that improvements in ease of use, performance and battery longevity for portable systems have been made. Knowing that Windows 7 is an operating system based on Vista, Windows 7 is the cleaned up, polished and optimized version of the previous OS.

ASUS had announced that they would be providing Eee PC with Windows 7 in mid-2009. Seemingly, the date that ASUS aimed for seems pretty probable.

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The games giant Electronic Arts(EA) has announced the games being developed for Google’s Android. The “unworn by time” game “Tetris” is the first game to be published for the open source operating system. Today, Monopoly too become available for purchase for Google G1, the first phone to be using Android.

EA vice president Adam Susmann commented that Android would be an exciting game platform with its touch-operated and motion sensing capabilities for users.

You can take a look at the games on www.eamobile.com. Also we might see a lot of games on this page in the near future.

This anticipated move of Electronic Arts is very logical, because like it was with iPhone, Android is not a operating system written for only one phone. Android can be customized by the phone manufacturers and as long as the core stays the same, the applications that are installed do not need to be rewritten for every phone that uses Android. Because of that, as phones that use Android OS become more popular in next years, the targeted audience for the written application will become larger. That will help easen the job of the manufacturers.

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The introduction tour of Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition naturally starts with desktop improvements. E-mail and personal information management tools are developed around Evolution. The instant messaging client is Pidgin, which can connect to various protocols simultaneously. The standard browser is Firefox 3. F-Spot photo-manager presents advanced features. In the multimedia side Rhythmbox and Totem show off. Multimedia features like listening and categorizing Internet radios, access to free music trading services like Magnatune and music broadcasting on local network are standardized in Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition. BBC content comes freely with Ubuntu.

The office package is OpenOffice. Accessibility is provided with conversation synthesis and application events reactions for people with disabilities by Orca Accessory Technologies. The best of all is the third party programs are installed with a single click: there is no need to go on a hunt for third party programs.

Ubuntu Server Edition 8.10 has some improvements too. The gcc compiler comes with security strengthening features and warnings on. The Dell contributed DKMS facilitates the option of having the present kernel drivers rebuilt when there are new cores available. Most of the network services are compiled as Position-Independent Executables(PIE), so that they can take advantage of the ability of randomizing the files’ footprints on the memory. In this way, some possible security leaks are made harder to exploit.

There are two additions to installation profiles: Tomcat Java Server and Virtualization Host. Main software depots have additions like Sun’s OpenJDK 6, Apache Tomcat 6, ClamAV and SpamAssassin. Also, the services that come with ufw (uncomplicated firewall) can report to the firewall about their configurations and the system administrator can make the necessary adjustments to the firewall with a single command like “ufw allow <service name>”.

Simultaneously, Kubuntu and Xubuntu’s new versions are also distributed with the release of Ubuntu. Kubuntu now comes with KDE 4.1.2. You can download Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex here. For Xubuntu click here, and Kubuntu here.

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