Sometimes a quick throwaway script is all you need to analyze and test a program. Mike Kelly presents examples showing when ad hoc testing can do the trick, and when you really need to go the framework route.

AndandTech, in its usual in-depth fashion (14 pages), reviewed Windows Vista Beta 2. Their conclusions are grouped per competitor-- the MacOS and XP. On Tiger: "However, even with the massive improvements Microsoft has shown with Vista, we still feel they aren't quite ready to beat Tiger in a fight." When comparing to XP: "Feature for feature, Vista is superior to XP, and its only real costs are memory usage, hard drive usage, and price." In the meantime, Microsoft has released a new build of Vista. Update: Screencast of Beta 2.

"This HowTo is about creating a user-session-safe directory which offers security on- and offline. This is done with PAM, a module named pam_script and Encfs ('Encrypted Filesystem'). This safe directory is used to store credentials and other sensitive information during a session. When a usersession is ended, in the worst case an encrypted directory remains on the harddrive. In the best case everything is removed. This construction is only meant to store information during a session, not for documents or any other valid information."

"The inventor of the WWW has a short, to-the-point post that explains exactly why supporting real, bona fide net neutrality is the Right Thing to Do. I absolutely encourage you to read the entire post, but really he sums up the whole argument for net neutrality in his opening sentence: 'When I invented the Web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission.' If you think about it in terms of start-ups having to ask the permission of AT&T to innovate, then the whole net neutrality issue becomes less complicated."

"Could it ever happen? Is there even a possibility that we will see OS X on the PC? To be honest, I believe there is. But unlike others who believe that it will happen on a large scale, what I foresee instead is OS X on a very select number of Apple approved PCs. And as great as this could potentially be, here comes the rub: if we do in fact see OS X on the PC platform, Steve Jobs would only allow it just for the press - nothing more."

"Wondering what the future holds for Apache Geronimo? You've come to the right article in this series. In this installment, the renegade will explore what's in the proverbial cards for Geronimo, including where the developers of Geronimo are taking the project, the important new features, and the improvements. Follow along, and you might be there with them for the unveiling of the next version of Apache Geronimo."

"When one takes the seamless integration, stability, ease of use, quality engineering, the TCO, and the ability to boot Windows, one can easily conclude that a Mac is not necessarily a more expensive proposition. The argument that Mac’s are too expensive no longer applies. Although you can spend between $600 and several thousand for a Mac, stay within your means and purchase a system that meets your computing demands."

"All software has security defects," insists Michael Howard, senior security program manager at Microsoft. "You either do something about it, or you don't." In the past few years, Microsoft has learned to write more secure code. In a session given at last week's TechEd conference, Howard explained some of the lessons that the company has learned in developing its Security Development Lifecycle, and shared advice for developers who want to improve the quality of their own code.

Red Hat announced compatibility certification with Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language definitions for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4 security advisories. Red Hat will now produce and support OVAL patch definitions to provide a structured and machine-readable version of advisories, allowing OVAL-compatible tools to accurately test for the presence of vulnerabilities.

"It is time yet again where the next Fedora Core installment (this time, Core 6) begins to grab the attention of red-hat-wearing penguins and other GNU/Linux enthusiasts. Yesterday was the inaugural test release of Fedora Core 6, which is targeted at die-hard Fedorians, and any other users wishing to get a glimpse at what Fedora Core 6 will hold in store." Read more here.

It was announced back in February that Opera would be coming out for the Nintendo DS. Opera and Nintendo announced a release date of July 24th for Japan (with the US and Europe to follow soon after) and a price of around $30 at a special this last weekend. But just how good is this pint sized web browser on Nintendo's hot new handheld? Check out the first hands-on review for some juicy details.

On Monday of this week, more than 60 Ubuntu developers gathered in a hotel near Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport to plan Ubuntu's next release, codenamed Edgy Eft. The goal of the meeting is to set the goals for the upcoming release and to chart the set of steps that will be necessary to implement it.

"The first development ISO images of Mandriva Linux 2007 have been released for download and testing. At the time of writing only Mandriva One live CD images for the i586 and x86_64 architectures are available, but expect the usual full (4-CD) installation sets to appear on Mandriva mirrors in a day or two. The new release ships with kernel 2.6.16.20 and includes glibc 2.4, X.Org 7.1, KDE 3.5.3, GNOME 2.15, OpenOffice.org 2.0.2, Firefox 1.5.0.4 and many other open source software packages." Screenshots.

Earlier this year, Apple, after a long wait, updated its pro line of laptops by introducing the MacBook Pro, the Intel-powered equivalent of the PowerBook. MacSupport, together with Apple Netherlands, was so kind as to provide OSNews with a MacBook Pro for review purposes. Since Adam bought a MacBook Pro for himself only a few days earlier, we decided to review the machines together. Here are our findings.