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Up until a few years ago I was getting fed up trying to show Japanese friends that linux was a viable option to Windows XP SP2, because the input method that Linux used at the time quite truthfully stank. The conclusion was that with an English keyboard, Windows was the way to go because of the (then) fancy Japanese input method applet.

Later on, I found out about Berry Linux, a Japanese LiveCD distro based on RedHat/Fedora that can easily show off Linux and allow users to do things like compose email that Japanese people can actually read (common problem on Windows), and surf the web in Japanese by default, instead of having to manually choose codepages and the like, which frustrates must computer users (if they haven’t already given up).

Berry Linux got an update today (to version 0.75), and now supports fancy-pants XGL - which I’m sure you’ll agree kicks Aero’s behind quite handily (footily?). If you’re trying to run Berry Linux Mini as a virtual machine you’ll get a console instead of X and you’ll lose the XGL capabilities, so I’d recommend testing it on a physical machine instead of a virtual machine - it’s a LiveCD so it’s quite safe to do so.

Here’s a feature rundown taken from the Berry Linux site’s English page (corrected a few typos):

Common Features:
• Support for Kernel-2.6. ALSA, ACPI, selinux.
• Overlay Filesystem Support.
• XGL, 3D Desktop, support.
• Berry Linux is not necessary to install. (Root partition is in the RAMdisk using initrd, all commands are operated by being transfered from CD-ROM)
• It can install on Windows without parting partitions to use Setup.exe or install.bat. (Using squashfs/cloop/loopback device)
• It can install to your hard disk on Linux. (Use Berry Linux Installer or Copy under /BERRY/, and set up LILO or grub)
• Berry Linux can boot from USB-HDD/memory.
• Berry Linux uses WHIZ, a very sharp Kana-Kanji conversion system. (WHIZ Project)
• If you push the windows key, and show the K-Menu.
• Automatically recognizes USB storage, and show icons.
• Berry Linux uses free Japanese True Type Fonts.
• Berry Linux uses bootsplash when booting.
• Berry Linux uses DHCP to connect the Network. (If you’d like to use PPPoE, you should setting up it on the Terminal)
• It’s possible to save personal setting.
• Red Hat Fedora compatible.
• Using new technologies.

Berry Linux’s Features:
• You can listen to mp3 using BMP/XMMS, and play DVD/DivX using MPlayer, XINE and Kaffeine.
• You can edit files of Microsoft Word, Excel by OpenOffice^(TM).

Berry Linux Mini’s Features:
• Minimum Linux environment is available by using Berry Linux Mini.
• Its file size is very small. (148.0MB)
• It’s light. Because of the Window Manager is Fluxbox.
• You can enjoy comfortable Linux environment.

Berry Linux Server’s Features: (Published Berry Linux Mini as alpha version)
• Build the Linux Server easily.
• Minimum Server Linux enviroment is available by using Berry Linux Server.
• Its file size is very small. (161.3MB)
• It’s light. Because of the Window Manager is WindowMaker.
• You can enjoy comfortable Linux enviroment.

To do:
• Support Software Suspend.
• Support Captive NTFS.

Known Bugs: (Please help me!)
• Kernel panic on boot after realtek RTL-8139 ethernet intialization. (Kernel Bugs)
• Using cloop with kernel-2.4.22-pre7 to 2.4.23-pre2 sometimes stops in boot. (pre5 is OK)
• Sometimes gcc 3.3 is not good ! (Berry Linux 0.19 only)
• krb5.h isn’t in krb5-devel-1.2.8-4. (Berry Linux 0.19, 0.20 only)

You can grab Berry Linux from the SourceForge page or the Berry Linux main page - but I’d recomend using SourceForge if you are in North America as it is much faster.

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In the coming weeks I will be working more on Microsoft’s Windows Vista as it ramps up to release to manufacture (RTM) status.

Although you can currently run Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 in 32 bit mode on a Windows Vista physical machine, I’ve learned that I was recently accepted into the Virtual PC 2007 beta tester program, and that Virtual PC 2007 can run on 64bit Vista.

If you are interested in joining the Virtual PC 2007 beta program, I highly suggest you sign up, then play some fantastic Rod Stewart albums until you are accepted.

By the way, this does in fact mean you can run Vista on Vista reliably now. VMWare Workstation and Server still don’t work at this point, but it’s on the way, just stay tuned.

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OK, so everyone is very excited about Firefox 2. I’m excited, your excited, all the social networks are ablaze.

But development does not stop at whole numbers, and the testing must go on - which is how we got here.

So I’m testing Firefox 3 (Minefield). That’s right, I won’t be outdone. I must run the most unstable software. Well at least on the test boxes. So currently the Vista, Leopard, and Edgy boxes are running “firefox-3.0a1″.

The first things you will notice are the graphics - everything has a nice sheen to it (in fact, looks just like Firefox 2!), while remaining true to the normal Firefox UI. Also of note is the fact that favorites are now run using a SQLite3 database. For the full list of features, head on over to the Burning Edge page.

As far as I can tell this is just as stable as Bon Echo was (that’s right - was stable for me), with inline spell-checking and some other fancy goodies.That’s all for now, some more screenshots from other platforms (other than Windows XP of course) and crash reports as they happen

Note: of course this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I’m sorry for the Mozilla devs. We all need to stop worrying about the cutting edge and appreciate what we have - fantastic browsers! Opera, Safari, IE7 and Firefox are all great, really.

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What it is:

• An Open Source Digg RSS feed reader for the Windows Jabber instant messaging client Pandion.

How it was written:

• Digg for Pandion was based on the Slashdot plugin for Pandion, with added Base64 Digg icons, and a bit of CSS.

Todo:

• Add Digg buttons so you can Digg up articles of interest, or comment on them.

• Allow users to select different Digg feeds that the plugin could display.

Click here to download the blandname Digg plugin for Pandion (0.1-alpha)

How to install the plugin:

• Unzip the file and simply copy the plugin to the Pandion plugins folder. The plugin will create all the necessary files needed at runtime automatically.

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SSH is one powerful tool. You can do just about everything under the sun using an SSH login to a remote computer. SSH works very well in low-bandwidth situations like dialup, or satlinks.

But wakeup, we’re no longer in the 80s - people want GUIs, let’s give them fancy-pants graphics, bouncing cursors and silly linux wizards. Remotely.

Enter Xming, what I would name as top of my favorite applications. Xming is just like X over SSH, for dummies (or people who would rather spend more time working).

Xming allows you to connect to remote or local Linux workstations and servers and run full graphical applications on those remote machines on your local Windows computer.

Here’s how it works: all of the applications are run remotely, but when it comes to the graphics, the information that would invoke the graphics is sent to your local computer, not a bitmap or a sequence of bitmaps like VNC. Xming uses a local X server on your Windows computer in order to display your remote applications. This local X server is 2D accelerated, and it’s sometimes difficult to even notice that you are working remotely.

Since Xming can run in windowed or full-screen modes, you can establish thin client connections in this fashion, or you can publish applications Citrix-style.

Xming is completely free to install and setup. It is a great way to manage virtual machines, and in fact is often faster than Microsoft’s Virtual Server ActiveX control (surprised?), VMWare’s Virtual Machine view (even with VMWare tools!), and even Parallels speedy virtual machine view.

To set the whole thing up, you’ll need a computer running Microsoft Windows, one Linux box, a network connection between the two, but you won’t need much effort.

First install the Windows Xming server on your Windows computer. We’ll use Windows XP SP2 in this example, but it could easily be other varieties. Xming can be found on Sourceforge quite easily, download it, run the install (use defaults), and start XLauncher.

On the Linux computer this are slighlty more complicated, but not by much. For Gnome or KDE on Ubuntu Edgy, go to the System>Administration menu in your menu bar. In Administration, we’ll select login preferences as we’ll be setting up a new logon method (we’re using XDMCP). Select the Remote tab, and enable remote logon (same as local) to your Edgy Eft machine.

Now on your Windows machine, set up XLaunch to logon to your Linux machine using it’s IP address. Save the setting if you want, and connect. You will be presented with a logon screen to your Linux desktop!

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Now that Internet Explorer 7 has been released in its final form, a lot of people are rushing out to install it as soon as possible. However, some web designers will want to keep a working version of Internet Explorer 6 to make sure their designs for IE7 aren’t broken in IE6. Jon Galloway has a great tool to have both versions of Internet Explorer installed and working at the same time, using a launcher comprised of a batch file and some registry hacks.

I tested the hackish launcher, and had no problems whatsoever.

Another mention: very soon IE7 is going to be a forced (pushed) update, so it’s going to be installed without you noticing, and Microsoft is going to reboot your computer, regardless of what you have left open overnight. To prevent having Internet Explorer 7 from being installed in the fashion, you’ll need to download the IE7 blocking tool from Microsoft.

Finally, if you don’t pass the WGA check to download the blocking tool, SnapFiles is providing a mirror of the IntelliAdmin IE7 Blocking Tool.

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Parallels announced today the updated features of the newest iteration of Parallels Workstation.

Big new all around for Windows, Mac and Linux users.

Here’s the breakdown (from the newsletter):

Parallels Desktop for Mac is the first solution for running Windows and OS X at the same time – without rebooting!

The Desktop for Mac Official Update includes a number of powerful new features, such as:

• Works on ANY Intel-Mac with ANY memory configuration with no system modification. This includes Mac Pro towers with up to 16GB of RAM, and the full line of Core 2 Duo iMacs
• Support for Windows Vista as a guest OS
• Support for Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” as a Primary OS
• Better USB support, including support for isochronous devices and Windows Mobile 5 devices

Parallels Workstation 2.2 for Windows & Linux is a powerful, cost effective virtualization solution which boosts productivity and lowers IT costs by letting users run multiple OSes simultaneously - without rebooting - on any Windows or Linux PC.

The new version includes a variety of new features and improvements:

• Full support for AMD Secure Virtual Machine Technology, and stronger support for Intel Virtualization Technology
• Support for Windows Vista as a Guest OS
• A new shared folder utility lets users share files and folders between OSes
• Better networking
• Better USB support, including support for webcams and Windows Mobile 5 devices

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If you’re like me, you have many computers that you connect to remotely when away from work, or home, using RDP.

The easiest way to connect to all of these computers (aside from setting up a VPN) is to change the default port on which Windows will accept RDP connections.

Since things have changed a bit in Microsoft Windows Vista, here is how to change that port:
Click on the Start button, and navigate to accessories. From there, clik on the Run icon. Once the Run applet has started, we’ll enter the good ole regedit command. It still works like a charm!

Within the registry editor, navigate to:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\
Terminal Server\WinStations\EH-Tcp

We want to change the registry key PortNumber in order to modify the default port. The default port is 3390, and I normally use ports in the 338x range, so double click on the key, check the decimal setting, the set the “Value data” to 3389.

Click OK, then close Regedit, and connect from a remote PC.

Note: you may want to create a firewall rule for port 3389 in order to allow connections.

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With computers being as powerful as they are these days, I often find myself distracted by the many applications I have running at the same time, even though I really want to be writing, or at least should be writing.

Enter WriteRoom (now in 1.0), a full-screen text editor that reminds me of WordPerfect 5.0 - what used to be my favorite text editor back in the day.

As you can see from the spartan screenshot - in zoom or full-screen mode WriteRoom completely abolishes taskbars, menus, popups and other things that will get in the way of your writing tasks and the best part is it actually works.

WriteRoom supports cut, copy, paste - you know standard stuff. It also can spell-check as you write, and you can perform manual spell-checking in the case that automated spell-checking gets in your way. Rounding off the list, the minimal editor supports AppleScript, right-to-left writing, and speech-to-text, and of course printing. Pretty full-featured for a free editor, and encompasses most of the features that have Mac users scrambling for a copy of Microsoft Word.

For you Windows people out there, you can always download DarkRoom, the Windows equivalent of WriteRoom that is also totally free.

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Here are screenshots from the upcoming Micorosoft RDP 6 client for Windows (Vista and XP), and explanations for each feature so that you can get started with your testing now and stay ahead of the game.

The options screen to the new RDP 6 client is very similar to that in version 5, but as you can see, it does not have input regions for login name and password. This is now done when you connect, and yes it can still be stored. Also note that just like in previous versions, if you would like to save the settings you will need to return to this tab as Microsoft still seems to think that saving options should not be done from all tabs for some reason. If you would like to make the options that you changed or reconfigured global, you would save the file as default.rdp in your “My Documents” folder. In Vista this is simply called “Documents” to make things easier. Yes, they have gotten rid of the “My” prefix now.

We have all of three options here: Remote Deskt