Monolithic software products (those with a multitude of highly coupled components) are often blamed on the use of procedural languages, but it's just as easy to produce overly interdependent classes in object-oriented languages. Stephen B. Morris shows how using the mediator design pattern can help reduce class interdependencies, aid componentization & ultimately help make classes service-oriented.

Objective-C and Cocoa is the predominate language/framework on the OS X operating system, but it is fairly uncommon otherwise. One way to enable an application written in this language to communicate with applications written for other platforms is via the universal XML. Marcus Zarra walks you through constructing, transmitting, and deconstructing an XML document using Objective-C and Cocoa.

"The developer of the ArcEm port to Amiga OS 4 has sent in a video of RISC OS 3 running on his 800MHz Amiga computer. He described the RISC OS 3 desktop as slightly sluggish, although games fare much better in the Archimedes emulator. The video shows Chris briefly using the desktop, fiddling with the Filer and Task Manager, before loading up the familiar Lander demo - including the inevitable crash landing that shortly follows."

Lately, OSX, or more specifically its kernel, has had a lot of attention. Benchmarks made by AnandTech have shown that OSX' kernel has some serious performance issues. As a result, some have uttered the idea Apple might replace the kernel of the MacOS with another kernel-- Linux seems, to them, the most viable option. Secondly, there have been speculations that Apple is closing the x86 version of its kernel. Note: Sunday Eve Column.

The Syllable team has released Syllable 0.6.1. New in this release: initial ACPI support and better PCI resource management, new application events API, lots of driver updates and additions, new versions of Syllable's browser and mail client, ports of CUPS and Samba3, and support for the REBOL language.

In the Fed-Talk mailing list, Ernest Prabhakar (Apple's product manager for Open Source & Open Standards) denies that Apple is going to close the Darwin kernel for x86: "Just to be clear, Tom Yager was speculating about why we have - so far - not released the source code of the kernel for Intel-based Macintoshes. We continue to release all the Darwin sources for our PowerPC systems, and so far have released all the non-kernel Darwin sources for Intel. Nothing has been announced, so he (and everyone else) certainly has the right to speculate. But please don't confuse 'speculation' with 'fact'."

"In the hubbub over the ODF and competing 'what you see is what you get' word processors, a long-standing alternative model of word processing systems has been mostly overlooked. The author of LyX, Matthias Ettrich, calls this approach 'what you see is what you mean'. However, it's a philosophy that you will find in many 'native' free software text-processing systems everywhere, from online 'content management systems' to book publishing. You write what you mean, then you use some type of formatter to create presentation layouts. LyX, with its integrated graphical environment, may be the friendliest place to learn it."

"In order to broaden Linux hardware support and simplify the process of acquiring, installing, and updating device drivers, Novell has created a new driver system that will enable vendors to supply drivers to users directly. Linux drivers are traditionally maintained in the kernel itself, and third-party drivers that aren't available in the kernel often have to be installed manually, a process that generally involves compilation. In many cases, users have to wait for the next kernel release cycle before they can get software support for the latest hardware. Novell's new Partner Linux Driver Process could potentially resolve some of those problems by providing a simple and consistent process for deploying drivers independently."

"When you're done installing SUSE Linux 10.1 OSS, your desktop system is not complete. You might still need support for Java programs, MP3 audio files, and browser plugins for Macromedia Flash, Adobe Acrobat, RealPlayer, and Windows Media Video. You may also want to add support for playing DVD videos on your computer, and to try out the new XGL graphical toys. Here's how to effectively make SUSE Linux 10.1 into the perfect desktop OS."

The schedule for Xorg 7.2 has been posted to the Xorg announce mailing list; Xorg 7.2 is planned for 17th November 2006. The mail also says xorg 7.1 is planned to be released on 22nd May. "7.1 is basically done at this point. The release won't actually go out until probably Monday, due to press release timing and (hopefully) doc updates, but excluding the server and the badged tarballs, everything else is pretty much in place. So, woo."

Network attached storage allows using TCP/IP network to backup files. This enables multiple servers in an IDC to share the same storage for backup at once, which minimizes overhead by centrally managing hard disks. The protocol used with NAS is a file-based protocol such as NFS or Microsoft's Common Internet File System. Both of them allow storing backups using UNIX and Linux systems. NAS are not just common in IDC or offices anymore, you can use them for file sharing and backup at home. You can purchase 200+GB NAS for less than $200. However, many new Linux or UNIX sys admin or home users find it difficult to use NAS for backup and sharing purpose. This tutorial covers how to access NAS from Linux using various methods.

As the leader of Apache Harmony, Geir Magnusson Jr, said, Intel will donate a Swing/AWT implementation for the Apache Harmony project. "Today during our JavaOne talk (given by Tim and I) I was proud to demonstrate JEdit running on Harmony! That's right, with Swing/AWT code. The formal contribution is on it's way, and I don't wish to steal any more thunder from the contribution when it's made, but we (Intel hat on here...) wasn't able to make the donation in time for the talk today because of internal process loose ends, and I wanted to make a splash for us at JavaOne. I expect it will be here in the next couple of days."

Microsot just released a stand-alone emulator of Windows Mobile 5 (AKU2.0) with both PocketPC and Phone bootable images in it (screenshot). You will need the two files from here, plus this file (overall 59 MB). Elsewhere, Qtopia Phone Edition 4.1.1 is released as a bootable ISO for everyone to try out (only VoIP and video playback support is missing from that image, overall 119 MB).

"Torvalds works full time overseeing the development of Linux which he created back in 1991 while at university in Helsinki. Usually media shy, the 36-year-old Finn invited Kristie Lu Stout and the Global Office team into his home for an insight into life at the helm of the operating system that is giving Microsoft some serious headaches."