Dell grappled with apparently severe overheating problems in scores of notebooks for at least two years before it announced a recall of 22000 notebooks last year, according to a source close to the company. The source allowed CRN to review documentation of investigations into the notebook problems, and the source said that documentation was supplied to Dell executives. The evidence, which included photographs of damaged notebooks, came to light in the wake of reports of one Dell notebook exploding in front of cameras during a conference in Japan.

The Linux world's very own version of Paul Thurrot, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, lists 5 things Linux can learn from... Microsoft. "Linux does a lot of things right - open-source, security, reliability - but it's far from perfect. In fact, Linux and its vendors could stand to learn a few things from Microsoft. Yes, Microsoft. Like what? Here's my list of the top five things that Linux could learn from Microsoft." Next thing you'll know we'll have Apple switching to Intel and... Oh, wait.

Dell on July 21 issued a de facto earnings warning, citing an aggressive PC pricing environment in a slowing commercial market worldwide. The PC maker said that its second-quarter fiscal year 2007 results would yield about USD 14 billion in revenue and earnings per share in the range of 21 cents to 23 cents, lower than its first-fiscal-quarter results, reported in May.

IBM has just released two value-added Eclipse 3.2 bundles that include key projects in the Callisto release: Web Tools Platform and the Callisto Graphical Modeling Framework. In addition to the new Callisto releases, you can also download the IBM Rational Software Development Platform tools for Linux that are built on the Eclipse 3.0 platform.

IBM and AMD are expected to announce an alliance that will lead to mainstream IBM servers based on the Opteron processor. A deeper partnership between IBM and AMD could take several forms, ranging from joint technology development to work on mainstream dual-processor servers. It might even cover the creation of more-powerful multiprocessor machines that could rival IBM's current Intel-based 32-processor, the System x3950. Update: AMD also posted its quarterly results.

Computerworld obtained a recent interim build of Windows Vista, Build 5472, that shows Microsoft is making progress in the areas of performance and installation time, has refined the User Account Control, updated the main Control Panel that manages networking access and settings, included mild design improvement to the Vista Basic video mode, and improved how Media Center works.

XYZComputing reviews the Alienware Aurora 7500. They find that "Alienware delivered what they promised they would, an all-out gaming computer which would be perfect for computer building novices and experts alike. The system's build quality, component choices, and performance were all up to our expectations. While Alienware was able to build a great computer, it was an expensive acquisition. At over USD 3200 dollars, one would expect a very capable gaming computer with a lot of extras. The Aurora ended up not only being very quiet for a system at its performance level, but also one which was easy to work with and fun to use.