The Xfce project has released the first beta in the 4.4 release cycle. "Xfce 4.4 beta1 (4.3.90.1) is now available for download. Xfce 4.4 features new tools such as the much anticipated 'Thunar' file manager as well as several huge improvements of its core components."

"If your laptop computer is a complement to your desktop machine, you're probably well aware of the need to synchronize data between the two. When you're in the middle of a big project and know you're going to be spending the afternoon in a doctor's waiting room or on an airplane, it's nice to be able to quickly transfer your project files - and maybe your email and contacts - to the laptop, then vice-versa when you return to your desk. This article will show you two ways to accomplish this on GNU/Linux-based machines."

"US software maker Oracle is considering launching a version of the Linux operating system and has looked at buying one of the two firms dominating the technology, the Financial Times newspaper reported on Monday. As part of a recent study of the open-source software market, Ellison told the newspaper, Oracle had considered buying Novell, which after Red Hat is the biggest distributor of Linux."

"Find out how to write extensions in code for other plug-ins while not creating a binary dependency on those other plug-ins with the Eclipse V3.2's dynamic-extensions API. Accomplish all of this and more with the Open Services Gateway Initiative services API and the dynamic APIs. This article shows an example of one plug-in taking in XML to register extensions for a defined extension point. We accomplish this complete decoupling of components by having the plug-ins Extension Registry aware and providing an OSGi service."

In a post to the Haiku mailing list, Simon Taylor has provided a screenshot which he has entitled 'interesting', of Firefox running on Haiku. It's displaying the manual for Gobe Productive off his own hard drive, as Simon is unable to access the internet from Haiku - no dialup internet is supported - and he doesn't think that networking is going to work anyway. Only one bug in the tree required fixing for the browser to run, and it now joins NetPositive as a supported browser on the platform.

"Many Windows users are familiar with different modes of execution of their operating system: safe mode, command prompt only, safe mode with network support and other such options that are presented during the boot-up process. Similarly, Linux has different modes of executing as well, which are known as runlevels. But unlike Windows, we can change runlevels on a fly. Runlevels control services started by the initialization process. The number of runlevels and services started on those runlevels varies with Linux distributions. Information about the runlevels of a particular distribution is listed in file /etc/inittab."

This chapter introduces Interface Builder, a tool no less important to Cocoa development than Xcode itself. IB is used as a straightforward tool for laying out windows and views. You'll see how to set the many options for automatic sizing of embedded views and how to use Interface Builder's own simulation mode to verify that your layout and sizing choices work.

Rexx is a simple "power" language. Wait, isn't that a contradiction in terms? Not according to Howard Fosdick. While Rexx is easy to learn and simple to use, it nonetheless provides some strong capabilities that are making it a popular programming language.

Right in between a car crash and Easter, I knew I had to write a Sunday Eve Column. So here I am, digesting vast quantities of chocolate eggs (and I don't even like chocolate), craving for coffee (for me about as special as breathing), with the goal of explaining to you my, well, obsession with microkernels. Why do I like them? Why do I think the microkernel paradigm is superior to the monolithic one? Read on.

Free-Bees (what's in a name) reviews Fedora Core 5, and concludes: "The installer strikes me as the most polished part of Fedora, filled with pleasing touches. However, while the rest of the system is generally solid, there is some small instability that I never got with Fedora Core 4. There is also some post installation configuration required. While not necessarily a bad thing, how far you have to go just to get something such as Samba working is somewhat disconcerting. let's just say that Fedora Core 5, despite the small collection of problems that spoil the party, is truly an excellent distribution. To the absolute beginner, Fedora Core may not be the best solution, but if you have a little Linux experience, or want to try and learn something new, I can heartily endorse it."

The second issue of the quarterly OS2eCS eZine was published on April 1, 2006. Articles include: 'Developing for Fun with OS/2 and OpenWatcom', 'Surfing in the Colorful Chinese World with OS/2 and eComStation', 'USB Thumb Drives and Flash Wristbands with eComStation', and more.

With the pervasiveness of 64-bit architectures, it's more important than ever that your Linux software be 64-bit ready. Learn how to avoid portability pitfalls when making declarations and assignments, bit shifting, typing, formatting strings, and more.

AnandTech has published a very, very in-depth (17 pages) review of Apple's MacBook Pro. "With the MacBook Pro the desire to upgrade is even tougher to resist because Apple switched to a significantly faster processor than what was in the outgoing PowerBook G4. Honestly, as tempting as this new model may be to upgrade to for existing PowerBook owners, I would recommend waiting for a Merom version if you can. By the time Merom is introduced later this year there will be even more Universal Binaries available for the platform and hopefully by then all of the issues with the current MacBook Pros will have been worked out." In the review, Parallels's virtualization tool is compared to Apple's Boot Camp, and AnandTech concludes that it is already amazingly close to running Windows 'natively'.

"A number of you have emailed us with one question on your minds: Will there be a Summer of Code this year? The answer, as you might have guessed, is yes! The SoC is our program to introduce students to the world of Open Source software development. Last year of the 8744 applicants, 419 students were accepted into the program and more than 80% of them succeeded, which means they received the full stipend of $4500. As of today, we're taking in applications from mentoring organizations, so watch that list of mentoring organizations grow!"