After an 18-page in-depth review of Intel's new processor line, The Tech Report concludes: "After years of wandering in the wilderness, Intel has recaptured the desktop CPU performance title in dramatic fashion. Both the Core 2 Extreme X6800 and the Core 2 Duo E6700 easily outperform the Athlon 64 FX-62 across a range of applications - and the E6600 is right in the hunt, as well. Not only that, but the Core 2 processors showed no real weaknesses in our performance tests."

In a Q&A, Neelie Kroes, who fined MS for not complying with the EC's antitrust ruling, said: "I regret that the Commission has had to take such a step today, but given Microsoft's continued non-compliance to date, I have been left with no alternative. Today's decision reflects my determination to ensure that Microsoft complies with its obligations.Microsoft has claimed that its obligations in the decision are not clear, or that the obligations have changed. I cannot accept this characterisation - Microsoft's obligations are clearly outlined in the 2004 decision and have remained constant since then."

eWeek reviews IIS 7 Beta. "Versions of IIS prior to 6 were the main points of attack for major worms and viruses such as Nimda. With IIS 6, Microsoft moved the Web server to a default profile that was much more secure. This and other security improvements have paid off, as IIS is nowhere near the major security problem it once was. To a certain degree, IIS 7 carries on this move to greater security with a default install that is even more secure than Version 6's and improvements in security management."

GNOME/GTK+ hacker Federico Mena Quintero blogs about the responses to the Questions for GNOME Deployments. "It's an informal study of the requirements that those deployments have, based on feedback which they provided about their particular needs. By fixing the most common problems which the deployments are experiencing, we will make GNOME more attractive for future deployments, and we'll get more users faster."

OCAU reviews the new Core 2 Duo line from Intel, and concludes: "Thanks to its new micro-architecture, Core 2 Duo is performing far better than the previous generation dual core Pentium D. An X6800, for example, is between 30% ~ to 40% faster than a Pentium D 955XE. Core 2 Duo is achieving performance in applications and games that has not been seen before with a dual core desktop CPU. In addition Core 2 Duo consumes 40% less power and runs much cooler than Pentium D."

"In our last test, we tested the four major browsers on Mac OS X (Safari, FireFox, Camino, and OmniWeb). It has since become the most popular article on our site. Since then, there have been several improvements on almost all of the browsers, so we decided to test again." More here. Elsewhere, check a preview of Firefox 2.0 too.

PC-BSD 1.2 has been released. "PC-BSD software is pleased to announce the immediate availability of PC-BSD 1.2 for x86 based processors. PC-BSD 1.2 now utilizes the FreeBSD advanced ULE scheduler and is compiled with optimizations for 686 processors (all support for 386, 486 and 586 microcode is disabled in kernel). This release of PC-BSD ushers in a new era of stability and simplicity for desktop operating systems based on UNIX, making it a solid release for home and business usage."

Apple has decided to not appeal a recent Court of Appeals decision that barred the company from issuing a subpoena to online journalists, bloggers, and their ISPs. Apple had nearly 40 days to file an appeal, but recently filed a case management statement officially saying that it did not appeal. The statement noted that the Appeals Court overturned the trial court on the protective order issue and "Apple did not appeal that decision".

eWEEK Labs' tests show that Beta 1 of the open-source Firefox 2.0 includes some welcome new features, catches up a bit with capabilities found in other Web browsers and adds some nice security enhancements. However, while Firefox 2.0 is shaping up to be a good upgrade to Version 1.5 of the popular Web browser, it doesn't look like it will be the slam-dunk over the forthcoming Internet Explorer 7 that Firefox 1.5 has been to the current IE 6.x. For that matter, unless Firefox 2.0 and IE 7 improve greatly before their respective releases later in 2006, neither will come close to topping the quality of the already shipping Opera 9.

Dell, which has scheduled a news announcement for July 13, is expected to reveal a revised PC pricing strategy that will present SMBs and consumers with a more straightforward menu of price options. The move, which doesn't appear to affect large business accounts, comes as Dell attempts to recover from a series of missteps that curbed its growth during the first quarter of 2006. More on this at Ars.

DROPS is the educational operating system of the Dresden University of Technology, Germany (TU-Dresden). Its name is an acronym for Dresden Real-Time Operating System, which reveals its strongest feature, it is real-time capable and it is designed with security in mind. Its homepage can be found here. Note: This is the 4th entry to our Alternative OS Contest which runs through 14th July!

NeoSmart has reviewed ReactOS. "ReactOS is a brilliant idea at heart, and it has come a long way in the past couple of years. It is integral for there to be more than one choice for alternate operating systems, since Windows isn’t the best and Linux isn’t for everyone." And yes, there are screenshots to blindely stare at too.

From the beginning, Eclipse included tight integration with the Concurrent Versions System in order to provide access to change-management capabilities. Now, many projects - notably those run by the Apache Software Foundation - are using a different change-management system: Subversion. This article demonstrates how to add Subversion support to Eclipse and how to perform basic version-control activities from the IDE.

Microsoft revealed a software known as Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs, designed as a stopgap measure that turns older PCs that aren't ready to replace into more modern and secure systems, but in the process also makes them less than full-fledged computers. Formerly known by its Eiger code name, Windows Fundamentals gives those PCs some of the security benefits of XP but essentially turns the machines into thin clients, able to run only a few programs locally, with most software needing to run remotely from a server.