Ural Electronics in DVD deal with Indian firm

Ural Electronic Factory based in Ekaterinburg (Russia) is negotiating terms of DVD-R disc distribution with India's Moser Bayer.
Currently Ural Electronic Factory is equipped with three disc production lines from Germany's Steag Hamatech AG and three lines using Holland's VDL. Production output is 4.5 million units a month.

Getting to grips with Linux

Gary Parkinson had a torrid time when he converted to Linux. Here he shares his experiences with one of the alternatives to Microsoft's ubiquitous operating system.

It's Saturday afternoon and I should be lying on the sofa sipping sweet tea and watching Football Focus.

Instead, I'm stamping loudly round the living room swearing like a sailor, looking for a cat to kick and cursing a Finnish computer programmer whose name meant nothing to me only days before.

The source of all this disquiet sits on the coffee table looking defiant yet lovely.

It's £370 worth of brand spanking new laptop, sleek glossy black, 10 inches wide, give or take, and weighs about the same as a chunky hardback novel.

Hippy ideals

It's not the machine itself that's driving me to violence, but the operating system that controls its programs and hardware: Linux.

Linux is an alternative to operating systems such as Microsoft Windows or Mac's OS X and has been around since the early 1990s.

It's creator Linus Torvalds - then a 21-year-old University of Helsinki student - made the heart of his operating system absolutely free and open source, which means anyone can still download the code and tweak it as they see fit.

This kind of hippy philosophy behind Linux - that free access to software inspires development driven by need, not the need for cash - was the main attraction to me of choosing a Linux-fuelled machine over the Windows or Mac OS.

It's a muscular system too. The likes of Amazon and Google, and plenty of other household-name companies, are increasingly turning to Linux to run important parts of their businesses.

Look and feel

My requirements are more modest. It needs to let me surf the web, word process and manage the music that I listen to on an iPod.

First impressions of Linux were positive. The new machine, an Asus Eee, came pre-installed with a distribution, or flavour, of Linux called Xandros.

Because Linux is open source, different programmers have taken its kernel, or core, and written variations on the theme. They may use the same base code, but the desktops look and feel very different.

Some will seem much more familiar to those used to Windows or OS X than others.

There's half a dozen or so popular "distros", including the likes of Fedora, Mandriva and the one I prefer, Ubuntu.

Xandros worked right out of the box. Like most distros it includes Open Office, an open source copycat of Microsoft Office. Word processing, spreadsheets and presentations are no problem.

Linux-based computers won't run the software that you may be used to on Windows or a Mac - but there are free, Linux-compatible versions of pretty much any program you may want that can be downloaded from the internet.

Xandros connected to the net through my home wireless network at the first time of asking. And surfing was fast and easy.

Freedom to fiddle

There were a couple of things about Xandros which I didn't like.

The music management program - its "iTunes", if you like - let me listen to music and podcasts on my new laptop but wouldn't sync anything I loaded on to my iPod. Big problem for a music and podcast junkie.

Plus the desktop - the way the screen looks, the icons it uses to open programs - looks like it's been designed by a four-year-old with a fat crayon. It's may be down to personal taste, but I just don't like the way Xandros looks.

One of the (many) great things about Linux is that if you don't like a particular distro you can just change it for one you do by downloading it from the internet and installing it on the machine.

If you don't like that one either, just keep trying distros until you find one to your taste.

A quick trip to the local newsagent yielded a Linux magazine that included instructions on how to change distros and free CD with Mandriva and Ubuntu on it.

CD into disk drive, hit the escape key right after power up, boot up from the disk not the hard drive as usual, follow the simple instructions to install and 10 minutes later my computer screen looks completely different and much more like what I'm used to. A doddle.

Except now the internet wireless connection doesn't work and the music management software still won't let me sync with my iPod. Mmmmmm......

Like most journalists, I've the attention span and patience of a gnat. The air turns blue and I inform my wife loudly that Linus Torvalds has much to answer for (I paraphrase slightly).

Another great thing about Linux is the plethora of internet forums that you can sign up to where users can share tips and experience. My new machine may not be connected but luckily my wife's computer is. Couple of quick registrations later and I'm picking through the discussion boards for answers.

Text-based

Trouble is, the people populating these forums seem much cleverer than I am. On another planet, in fact. I may not be a good bet to be one to discover the cure for cancer, but I pride myself that not a (complete) fool either.

But I'm completely stumped by the instructions posted on these sites. The level of assumed knowledge is way above my head. I follow a couple of suggestions, try to connect to my router using an ethernet cable, download code that promises to set things right. And fail.

Ubuntu's own website isn't much help either. It suggests that with this particular machine it can sometimes help to whip out the battery, give it a couple of minutes, whack it back in, plug in an ethernet cable and get on line first that way. Nada.

Perhaps I am a complete fool after all.

It's probably worth mentioning one other important point about Linux here. It's a text-based operating system, which means that a fair few of the things you may want to tell your computer to do - installing certain new software, for example - requires you to open up a "terminal window" and actually type text into the little window.

It's a bit like the way all hackers in Hollywood movies furiously crash out lines of incomprehensible text on their laptops when they're trying to bust into the Pentagon's defence network.

As someone used solely to double-clicking on pretty pictures to do most anything on a computer this is pretty hairy stuff.

Tech support

True to form when I'm too stupid to figure out how to do something in five minutes, I phone an expert.

Geek Squad, a tech support service partnered with the Carphone Warehouse, is more used to dealing with problems with broadband and e-mail but later that night, Agent Jamie Pedder walks me through it over the phone.

Download a couple of bits of code from one of the Linux help sites on to a memory stick. Whack the memory stick into the offending laptop.

Bang a couple of lines of code into the terminal window to tell the machine to install what we've downloaded. Bingo, we're cooking on gas.

Ubuntu's running my wireless network and I'm back on-line. Easy when you know how.

The fly in the ointment remains the music management software. I still can't sync an iPod and Agent Pedder reckons that I probably won't be able to - for now at least.

While Linux is founded on the philosophy of free and easy access to its code for anyone who's interested, Apple is not. That means no iTunes for Linux, and nor is Apple likely to release such a version.

The iPod out of action is a major irritation, but I've not given up hope. There's software out there - free for Linux users as always - that promises to do what I want. I just haven't got round to downloading and playing with it yet.

For the time being, it's back to the trusty CD player. All this talk of hippy ideals has put me right in the mood for a bit of Sgt Pepper's.
from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7594249.stm

Large Hadron Collider

Scientists have hailed a successful switch-on for an enormous experiment which will recreate the conditions a few moments after the Big Bang.

The most powerful physics experiment ever built, the Large Hadron Collider will re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang in an attempt to answer fundamental questions of science and the universe itself.

Find out more about the LHC with this BBC News guide, starting at the top of the page with an introduction from Science Correspondent David Shukman. You can then explore key elements of the experiment using the links above.

They have now fired two beams of particles called protons around the 27km-long tunnel which houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The £5bn machine on the Swiss-French border is designed to smash protons together with cataclysmic force.

Scientists hope it will shed light on fundamental questions in physics.

The first - clockwise - beam completed its first circuit of the underground tunnel at just before 0930 BST. The second - anti-clockwise - beam successfully circled the ring after 1400 BST.

So far, all the beams have been stopped, or "dumped", after just a few circuits.

On Thursday, engineers hoped to inject clockwise and anti-clockwise protons again, but this time they plan to "close the orbit", letting the beams run continuously for a few seconds each.

The BBC understands that low-energy collisions could happen in the next few days. This will allow engineers to calibrate instruments, but will not produce data of scientific interest.

"There it is," project leader Lyn Evans said when the beam completed its lap. There were cheers in the control room when engineers heard of the successful test.

from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7604293.stm

Embarcadero Goes Global with Next-Generation Delphi® and C++Builder Development Tools for Windows®

New tools enable ISVs and business developers to build high-performance client/server and packaged software applications that support rich user experiences worldwide

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – August 25, 2008 – Embarcadero Technologies today unveiled the next generation of the popular CodeGear™ rapid application development (RAD) tools for Windows: Delphi 2009 and C++Builder® 2009, geared specifically for both Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and workgroup client/server development.

Developers can now easily expand the global reach of their applications with built-in support for Unicode™ throughout Delphi 2009 and C++Builder 2009. Built-in support for Unicode means that applications will look and operate properly on all language versions of Windows and seamlessly support both Unicode and ANSI data. In addition, new and enhanced localization tools make it easier to translate applications to take advantage of specific local opportunities.

“For us as a database vendor, Delphi 2009 is the most important new release since Delphi 3,” said Thorsten Engler, Principal Software Architect at Nexus Database Systems. “The full Unicode support and the numerous changes to the data access layers put Delphi 2009 at the top in terms of rapid application development. For anyone serious about internationally deployed database applications, Delphi 2009 is an absolute must.”

Delphi and C++Builder 2009 are the only tools tailor-made for organizations building packaged software for resale/redistribution, high-performance graphical workstation applications, and client/server workgroup database applications. Top industries using Delphi and C++Builder today to build next-generation solutions include ISVs, MicroISVs, Banking/Finance, Manufacturing, Government, Healthcare, Science/Engineering and Telecommunications.

This new release takes the Delphi and C++ languages forward with a host of powerful new programming language features such as Delphi generics and upcoming C++0x standard language features. A new multi-tier DataSnap™ architecture enables developers to use RAD to build high-performance, highly scalable database middleware applications. The middleware applications can be connected to via a lightweight, open communications protocol with thin, full-featured clients that can reside on virtually any native or Web client platform

In addition, Delphi 2009 and C++Builder 2009 represent the first Embarcadero solutions to bring together advanced CodeGear and DatabaseGear™ functionality in a single offering. The Delphi and C++Builder Architect editions include ER/Studio® Developer Edition to provide a complete solution for designing and building database applications. This integration results in enhanced productivity and time-to-market for developers.

Other new and enhanced features of the two products include:

• New Visual Component Library (VCL) components including Microsoft Office style ribbon controls, Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image support, dozens of new capabilities for existing controls, and the ability to seamlessly build powerful UIs for Windows XP and Vista desktop applications simultaneously.
• Major new language features including Delphi generics and anonymous methods, and the first commercial IDE support for C++0x and Technical Report 1 (TR1) in the C++ language.
• VCL for the Web for creating AJAX and Silverlight-enabled rich intranet and line of business web applications.
• Updated built-in dbExpress support for CodeGear InterBase® and Blackfish™ SQL, Oracle®, Microsoft SQL Server™ , Informix®, IBM® DB2®, SQL Anywhere®, Sybase® and MySQL® databases.

“Our goal with 2009 is to deliver the best Delphi and C++Builder ever, to enable ISVs and client/server developers to simultaneously and seamlessly expand their business footprint globally with more client platforms and databases, and richer UIs,” said Michael Swindell, Vice President of Products for Embarcadero Technologies.

“Our goal as a combined company is to eliminate the development barriers between applications and databases. This release combines award-winning database architecture and design features from ER/Studio with Delphi and C++Builder to create the ultimate database application design and development solution – the all new Delphi and C++Builder Architect Editions,” said Swindell.

Delphi and C++Builder 2009 support development and deployment on Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008.

Pricing and Availability

Delphi 2009 and C++Builder 2009 are immediately available worldwide for pre-orders. North American upgrade pricing begins at $399 per license for Professional editions, $1,299 for Enterprise editions and $2,299 for Architect editions. They can be purchased directly through Embarcadero or through one of its global partners. For more information, visit: www.codegear.com/products/delphi/win32 and www.codegear.com/products/cppbuilder.

Community Resources

• See Delphi and C++Builder 2009 in action at http://www.codegear.com/cg-videos/
• Learn more with these webinars: http://dn.codegear.com/article/38478
• For the latest on Delphi and C++Builder, visit: http://dn.codegear.com/delphi and

http://dn.codegear.com/cpp

• See the many popular Delphi-built applications and components being used by millions today: http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Delphi_Wiki
• To subscribe to Embarcadero’s CodeGear RSS newsfeed, visit http://dn.codegear.com/atom

About Embarcadero Technologies

Embarcadero Technologies Inc. empowers application developers and database professionals with tools to design, build and run software applications in the environment they choose. A community of more than three million worldwide and 90 of the Fortune 100 rely on Embarcadero’s CodeGear™ and DatabaseGear™ product lines to increase productivity, openly collaborate and be free to innovate. Founded in 1993, Embarcadero is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices located around the globe. Embarcadero is online at www.embarcadero.com.

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