Exchange Server 2007 Is a Different Animal

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 is a far cry from Exchange Server 2003, based on eWEEK Labs' tests of the first public beta of the new messaging platform. Administrators thinking of moving to Exchange Server 2007 should take a hard look at this beta to understand the impact of the platform's many new features. Exchange 2007 Beta 2 became widely available on July 24 and is expected to ship in its final form at the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007.

NetBSD 3.0.1 Released

The NetBSD release engineering team has announced that the update 3.0.1 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD 3.0.1 is the first security/critical update of the NetBSD 3.0 release branch. This represents a selected subset of fixes deemed critical in nature for stability or security reasons. More details are available in the NetBSD 3.0.1 Release Announcement.

Server-Side Windows vs. Linux: Considering Today’s Differences

"Not long ago, choosing Linux in the data center meant a tradeoff. You had to give up some capabilities in exchange for freedom from Microsoft lock-in. But that has changed. These days the features of Windows and Linux stack up against each other very competitively. For the most part, administrators can choose Linux or Windows today without losing out. Some differences, however, must be considered. In this article, I look at several of those differences."

AMD Buys ATI

As rumoured about for weeks now, with the strongest rumours appearing a few days ago, AMD has bought ATI. "AMD, the world's second-biggest semiconductor maker, agreed to buy ATI for USD 5.4 billion, adding computer-graphics chips to its product lineup. ATI shares surged. AMD Chief Executive Officer Hector Ruiz is making the biggest purchase in the company's history to help escalate his challenge to Intel, which dominates the market for semiconductors. "

What Is QNX?

In today's entry in our Alternative OS Contest, James Ingraham takes a close look at QNX, the operating system based on the Neutrino microkernel. He concludes that "While you can probably find solutions for just about all of your desktop computing needs using the QNX RTOS, that is not QNX's strong suit. Its focus is real-time, embedded, and mission critical applications." Read on for the whole article.

Inside Windows Vista’s New Image-Based Install Process

Vista's installation process is dramatically different to any previous version of Windows: rather than being an 'installer', the install DVD is actually a preinstalled copy of Windows that simply gets decompressed onto your PC. It is hardware agnostic so it can adjust to different systems, and you can also install your own apps into it so that your Vista install becomes a full system image install. There's an interview with a Microsoft Australia tech specialist as well as a story that looks at some of the pros and cons of image-based installs.

Intel Launching Notebook Processor, Merom

Merom, a notebook processor and the third leg of Intel's Core architecture triumvirate, will also get a thorough airing at a launch party planned at the chipmaker's headquarters this Thursday. Merom will represent additional improvements in performance and power consumption. Like Conroe, it also will use the Core 2 Duo brand, with model numbers in the 5000 and 7000 range that will indicate performance.

Fedora Legacy Project Announces End of Life Times; RHEL 5 Prepped

"With Fedora Core 6 Test 2 set to be released July 26th, it is time we announce the End of Life of our various Legacy supported releases. After much discussion on fedora-legacy-list and the #fedora-legacy IRC channel on the freenode network, we have decided to end of life the following releases when FC6 Test2 is released: Fedora Core 1 & 2, Red Hat Linux 7.3 & 9." In the mean time, Red Hat is prepping its next big release, RHEL 5, supposedly a rival to Novell's SLED 10.

On Politics, GNOME, and Mono

Politicians. They are a certain type of people. I do not like them. Many do not like them. I think if there's one thing all of man has in common, whether he be Christian or Muslim, black or white, young or old, American or European, is a dislike of politicians. But then-- why on earth do we allow politics to complicate software? Note: Sunday Eve Column.