EasyBCD Bug-Bash Countdown!

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Stop the emails already! EasyBCD 1.6 is nearly finished, and the EasyBCD 1.6 bug-bash count-down has begun!

At NeoSmart Technologies, we operate a tight ship. EasyBCD will come soon, but not before it’s 100% clean, bug-free, tested all over the place, and on-par with the quality releases you’ve come to expect from NeoSmart Technologies!

To quell these increasingly impatient emails, instant messages, private messages, and what-not, we’ve decided to try something new: you can now check how many bugs are left for EasyBCD 1.6! Don’t let the numbers fool you though, they go up and down depending on what new features we choose to add, what new bugs are discovered, and other unexpected things along the way. But here’s a little secret: EasyBCD 1.6 is very close. That number “11” there right now will probably go down and stay down! :)

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Windows Longhorn Server Beta 3 Public Downloads!

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Microsoft has just released the public downloads for Windows Longhorn Server Beta 3, not even a month after the April CTP!

Even more exciting, it’s a public download! Now anyone who wants to test out Longhorn can do so, with LHS Beta 3. It’s basically a beta-quality version of the April CTP, not too many more features; but supposedly faster (due to compilation optimizations), and more reliable. But we haven’t tested it yet, so don’t take this to the bank for fear of an overdraft.

In our opinion, Windows Longhorn Server and Windows Vista are entire opposites. If you’ve been holding out on the LHS-love because of lack-luster Vista performance, bugs, and instability: don’t worry, LHS isn’t like that – even now in the Beta stage. 

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WYSIWYG Linux Blogging Clients?

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It’s amazing: Linux, with all its millions of tiny freebie programs, FOSS applications, and even SourceForge and all its glory doesn’t have a single decent WYSIWYG blogging client. Not one!?

That’s what Google says anyway. There’s “xfy Blog Editor” for Mac OS X and Linux – except it’s a 32MB download of a trial version for a paid program that’s bloated, slow, and unintuitive. There’s Bleezer, a free Java-based blogging client (so it’s supposed to work everywhere), but it’s even worse. It’s ugly, refuses to connect to WordPress, out of date, and very buggy. Plus, it’s Java. And of course, everyone’s favorite: ScribeFire (aka Performancing). Except we’re talking Linux, not JavaScript; and we’re looking for more than a pretty face and a couple of options.

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Please Microsoft, Stop Holding .NET Back!

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As dedicated developers, end-users, and champions of Microsoft’s .NET Framework, we’re making a final plea to Microsoft and the .NET Framework team to save .NET and make it a real multi-platform framework. Please!

Sun could (and did) do it with Java, so why can’t Microsoft just swallow the pill already and provide real support for the .NET Framework on all operating systems? Yes, that includes Linux and Mac too. It’s ironic, because the .NET Framework has so much potential as a platform with its unique multi-language structure, nifty features, excellent libraries, (relatively) well-performing output, and darn-good innovative technologies like LINQ coming-up and XAML already here. Yet Microsoft just doesn’t realize that if they truly want .NET to succeed, they’ll have to bite the bullet and stop pretending that only officially supporting Windows won’t make users leave Linux/Mac/BSD/Whatever and buy licenses for Windows instead.

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Wanna Blog for NST?

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NeoSmart Technologies is hiring once again! This time, we’re looking for bloggers/posters – nothing mind boggling nor anything too difficult: we have another (non-profit) project for the community we’d like to get kicked off, and with our current resources and staff tied-up beyond belief with their current workload (working hard to get you the software, support, and research at the quality levels you’ve come to expect from us!), we’re happy to announce our first open blogging position in years!

We’re not really able to say too much right now, but here’s the (partial) low-down:

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Why Apple Delayed Leopard for the iPhone

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Yesterday’s news: Apple [[AAPL]] takes developers off of OS X 10.5 “Leopard” to hurry up and meet iPhone deadlines.

Today’s news: Why they did it.

This decision was not about (not) missing deadlines for contracts with Cingular, not allocating enough resources to iPhone in the first place, or otherwise neglecting to do the right stuff at the managerial level – iPhone was delayed, yet Apple chose to trade in an iPhone delay for a 4-month postponement of OS X Leopard. Why would they do that? Is iPhone really a bigger deal than OS X 10.5? Does Apple care more about the iPhone than Leopard?

Apple is notoriously quiet about the future of their products – especially their operating system, OS X. While Leopard is but a bump to the minor version of Mac OS 10, it’s supposed to be a big deal. It’s certainly hyped-up for a lot longer than the actual iPhone – both in and out of Apple. So why this “sudden” shift in priorities? The answer is rather clear, and even self-explanatory.

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How To: Open Source + Windows + IIS… with Stability

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As we mentioned back in March, we switched NeoSmart Technologies over from PHP‘s ISAPI extension for Windows/IIS to Microsoft’s “FastCGI for IIS” implementation instead in hopes of achieving better reliability and uptime during times of heavy load.

Whether you like Windows or not, at some point or the other, you may find yourself using IIS 6 or even 7, and then you’ll be wondering why the open source technologies you’re using aren’t as stable as ASP or MSSQL on Windows. However, ever since the release of IIS 6, Microsoft has truly remade Internet Information Services as a real contender in the server market, providing a highly secure, stable, fast, and flexible web server for the masses. IIS 7 (due to ship with Longhorn Server sometime in 2007) is currently showing all the signs of being even better, with complete modularization of all components and a highly extensible, XML-based framework.

We’re really happy to be able to finally say with all conviction that it really works! This week, NeoSmart Technologies was featured on the homepages of many link aggregation sites (including Slashdot) for our Desktop vs. Web RIAs article. And we’re glad to say that even with the extreme load, for the entire past week we’ve had 100.00% uptime with respect to network, IIS, MySQL, and everything else!

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Who Killed DZone?!

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While heading off to DZone to check out the latest programming headlines, we were shocked to see the new interface. What happened to DZone!?

The new interface is cluttered and unintuitive. It stinks like Digg, and is a hundred times more bloated than the previous edition. The DZone that used to be there was a organizend and professional place for programmers to submit links. It required a reason before you “dugg down” entries, and it loaded a hundred times faster.

But the new DZone is just scary. It’s as if Kevin Rose bought DZone and handed it over to the teenagers to play. It has the same blue shades, the same cliche rounded tabs, the same “Web 2.0” look, and the same exact concept…

How long will it take for DZone to add a general news section next?

“People Hate Making Desktop Apps…” Since When!?

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What a crazy day for technology. It all started with Paul Graham’s ridiculous link-bait article “Microsoft is Dead,” earlier today. Since then, the web has been in an uproar – just how do you define success, innovation, power, creativity, and can companies just “die” anyway? Never mind that conversation – Paul Graham surprised us there though. He’s normally a sane and very much down-to-earth person with a lot of insight on Web 2.0 and what it takes to be a startup. But that’s not what we’ve taken up a problem with – what’s really gotten to us is how some people are using his article as grounds for an argument that Desktop apps are old, dead, and a pain-in-the-ass to make.

The particular post being referred to is Ryan Stewart’s “Why Do People Hate to Build Desktop Apps?” It comes in response to the article by Don Dodge and a conversation with Simon Bateman. Now that the background’s succinctly (hopefully) out of the way: While Ryan’s article makes a valid a point about the ease-of-use of Microsoft’s .NET Framework and Adobe’s Apollo and just how powerful-yet-easy these two technologies make desktop software development – his entire article is based on an invalid premise! People don’t hate making desktop apps!

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Windows Longhorn Server April CTP

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Windows Longhorn Server April CTP has just been made available for download to official tech beta testers over at Microsoft Connect. The last build available was 6001-16497-070330-1510 for the February CTP, released two months ago.

The LHS April ’07 CTP is build 6001-16497-070330-1720 and adds quite a few new features, and brings LHS down to the real playing field. With the April CTP, it seems we can finally say that Microsoft has a real beta product on their hands – unlike previous LHS builds that had a general incomplete feel to them.

Pay close attention to the services, application server, and MMC – quite a few changes to keep up with. With 1720, Microsoft has made available 9 binary downloads, including the general x86/x64 installation media, the LHS WDK, the April CTP for the Itanic, in addition to the usual symbol packages for each build as well as the Checked Builds for developers.

x64: wsl_6001-16497-070330-1720_x86fre_server-KB3SFRE_EN_DVD.iso crc: 0x238801E6 x86: wsl_6001-16497-070330-1720_x64fre_server-KB3SxFRE_EN_DVD.iso crc: 0xB27FF9A0 Continue reading →