Sometimes as an ex-demo coder, one sees something these days that knocks one off one's feet. So 4-bit scrolling Overscan and 16Khz Soundtracker on the 8Mhz Atari ST was cool, but it's hard to be impressed in the same way these days, given the 300Mhz monsters that run C++ faster than hand-crafted 68000.... until... Who in their right mind would code a Spectrum Emulator in Java that actually runs old games??? Not only that, but source code is provided which compiles with jikes. Interestingly the resulting class files are slower than those on the website -- some optimization cases must be being missed (hint David ;-)). Apparently, this is the beginning of a trend with an ATARI ST emulator also being written. Anyone know how to get Kaffe to run an applet? (under Netscape it runs at 10% of a real Spectrum's speed)

Josh Baugher writes " Gecko Changes Everything Excellent article on Netscape's new browser. " That about sums it up.

sspitzer wrote in to tell us that my.netscape has added a few cool new portals. If you have a membership to the thing, you can now add Slashdot, FreshMeat or MozillaZine. Spiffy.

Robotech_Master writes "A friend of mine, who I trust implicitly, has received a postcard that says "After carefully considering our product line, [CMP Media has] decided Byte will not re-launch as a print publication. [...] CMP will fulfil your remaining subscription to Byte with an equal number of issues of WINDOWS Magazine." Make of that whatever you want to. " Anyone else heard anything about this? update: S: Byte is apparently going to be published by CMP on the web. Thanks to cykix for that.

Once again I have some award things that I feal obligated to mention. If you're not interested, skip down, click the link below to read some mussings on Slashdot CDs and a Slashdot Magazine. I really want feedback on this stuff. The main one is Cool Site of the Year which has a Guitar that I want as First Prize, so go vote. You're allowed to vote every day. Nathan Machula wrote in to tell us that we're once again in ZDNet's Top 100 websites. You'll enjoy the new review of the site. Ngeran wrote in to tell us that Slashdot was on NetCenter's What's New page. We're almost a year and a half old, but they gave us a '9' for content. DPI is doing some award thing for the end of the year. Apparently you can vote for Slashdot, I don't think I win a guitar from this one *grin*. Please click the link below and read the rest of this story. It is quite important to the future of Slashdot sorta stuff

Doug asks this interesting question: "I have a web server that allows my users access to their email, and I want to protect it using SSL. I'm using Netscape FastTrack server. It refuses to recognize a generated key unless I have a certificate from The Man (VeriSign, Thawte, whatever) verifying that key. I don't want to pay anybody for a key certificate. Switching to another webserver is not really an option. Does anybody know if FastTrack can be forced to use a non-'certificated' key?" Does anyone know if Apache w/ mod-SSL suffers from this problem as well?

Dengue writes "So, I was just checking my mail and this was in... "Corel is pleased to announce that the Corel WordPerfect 8 for Linux free download will be available [today] exclusively from CNET. When we started this project, we anticipated that there was a strong demand by the Linux community for powerful applications like Corel WordPerfect; the overwhelming response-over 60,000 Linux users preregistered for the free download-reaffirms that belief." " I'm itching to hammer on this thing- it's just in time. My last exam is today, I'll never need to write a paper again. That's alright- I've been using vim, writing HTML and printing from Netscape most of the time anyway *grin*.

Neal Richter sent us this story and says "Netscape may be cutting off Mozilla.org to insulate them from legal accountability for a rouge open source programmer using patented code. "

mwarps writes "It appears our favorite software giant is being sued for stealing someone else's product, again... Check it out here. " The company didn't have MS sign an NDA and claims that our favorite monopoly stole their ideas after a meeting. All I know is a billion dollars for mice? Dang.

steve wallach wrote in to send us something a tad on the strange side. It's the Church of Mentos and its exactly what it sounds like. They learn from the teachings found within those terrible commercials.

getafix sent us a link to a decent little article on CBS's Marketwatch page about Netscape's Open Source Adventures. Its another "Look, Open Source is Swell" kind of article from the mainstream. Some Slashdot references too.

technophile writes "John C. Dvorak has written an opinion piece on PC Magazine's site about why the AOL/Netscape merger is a Bad Thing. Most of his reasons are business concerns, but it's worth a read."

kenzoid writes "CNN describes a very positive reception for Gecko, the new version of Netscape's rendering engine. Apparently, it's speed is VERY impressive, and the engine's size is only 900K; including support for HTML 4.0, CSS1, and XML. The article goes on to describe Netscape's praise for how fast Gecko progressed at Mozilla.org. Another score for OSS! "

A new book and some Slashdot e-mail makes it clear why people like me have to learn how to use Linux and help spread its message beyond the Rarefied Geek Enclave. And also just what a nightmare that's going to be.

Monty Worm wrote in with this article which claims that NGLayout will be released this week by Netscape. MozillaZine has more details, the Netscape Dev site, and a claim that it's basically the standard NGLayout you can download today from Mozilla.

Adam Radulovic wrote in to send us a link to a story where Marc Andreesen is interviewed about his role within the new AOL/Netscape combo. It says he's not leaving but that his role is still somewhat murky.

general_re writes "Found an article on abcnews about Diamond countersuing the RIAA over the release of Rio. I wonder if this is just legal maneuvering or if they really think they have a case? Anyway, I say more power to 'em...why wait for the net and the free market to kill record companies if you can get it over with quicker..."

An anonymous reader wrote in to send us a link to a article about netscapesucks.com, which is owned by the same guy who owns whitehouse.com. The page is being used for (shock) anti netscape stuff. In this case, ranting against Smart Browsing. Netscape is less than pleased, and you can read a bit about their response.

segfault writes "Sun has posted their take on the deal, and guess what? The next version of AOL will be 100% Java. So linux could see a bit of marketshare if they make the dialer idiot proof. The story can be found at this page. "

Jon Abbott writes "From Robert X. Cringely's pulpit comes a story about Sun/Linux/Netscape. The probable broker for this Netscape-AOL deal is Sun, which gets to flesh-out its business application offerings with those of Netscape in return for a royalty to AOL. Sun puts no money up front for this software written by the very Netscape people who would have been otherwise laid-off. This product acquisition makes Sun the equal of Microsoft for Internet server software on all platforms, and serves the secondary purpose of ending Netscape's recent flirtation with Linux, an operating system that's scarier to Sun than Microsoft because Linux is FREE. "