We barely got time to install the first one, the second one is still in the donwload queue, but the third one is already here. OpenSUSE Linux 10.1 Beta 3 has been released , and it includes a number of bug fixes - however, we can't really tell which since they placed the changelog on the first CD. Here's to hoping this won't set a trend.

Microsoft realized that phishing, pharming, botnets and rootkits show that attacks are becoming more sophisticated. This situation makes traditional defenses to be inadequate and evolution is at hand. The Redmond giant has been mentioned in a positive context many times during the past year for the advances made in the security arena. At the Infosecurity Europe 2006 Press Conference, Detlef Eckert - Microsoft Chieft Security Advisor EMEA - demonstrated what Microsoft did and what more we can expect in the near future.

"The United States-based body responsible for protecting the 'Linux' name appears to be making a renewed push to register it as a trademark in Australia. The nation's intellectual property regulator, IP Australia, turned down an initial bid by local body Linux Australia to register the name on behalf of Linux creator Linux Torvalds in September 2005, saying the name was not distinctive enough to be trademarked. But the US-based Linux Mark Institute, which acts for Torvalds worldwide appears to be in the process of appealing the decision."

One of the most under-used programming techniques -- Metaprogramming -- programming with code generators or writing programs that themselves write code, has many uses in large-scale computer programming. This article shows you some tools needed to do Metaprogramming in Scheme, as well as provide several metaprogramming examples. To determine which problems are best solved with a code-generating programs, take a look at this introduction to Metaprogramming article, which teaches you why metaprogramming is necessary.

This article goes into the motivation and architecture for DTrace -- and describes some of the problems that remain to be solved in system observability. The article also includes a short case-study on using DTrace to find a real problem -- a problem that was ultimately due to some seriously fugly code in a monitoring app.

Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux kernel, has fleshed out his unhappiness with GPLv3 in three recent posts on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. Torvalds previously stated that the kernel will remain under the licensing terms of GPLv2. Yesterday, Torvalds offered his opinion as to where the battle over DRM should take place.

For years computer interfaces have been held back by two dimensions. The power and flexibility of three dimensional interfaces have remained the stuff of science fiction movies, video games and very custom high-end applications. Aoren Software now brings that power to everyday applications and operating systems through a window server and framework technology called Vision. Vision was designed from the ground up to break away from old paradigms and provide the interface needs of the next generation. Application developers can get their hands on the technology with the developer preview release and start creating programs that have previously resided only in the imagination.

"The other day I posted an article to highlight our new benchmark application Geekbench. It received a lot of attention, but there was some concern about the machines used in the testing (mainly, the Athlon 64 and Pentium 4c are kind of old). Despite the fact that the article was meant to be more about the testing than the results, some people refused to let it pass. Luckily, a few people responded to my request for results from more machines, so here is a smaller article comparing just three machines: a PowerMac G5 Quad, an Athlon 64 X2 and a Pentium D."

"The first security and stability update to Mozilla Firefox 1.5 has been released. It is recommended that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest version. Downloads are available from GetFirefox.com. The update is also available for other systems and languages. More details can be found in the Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 release notes."

MadPenguin reviews Versora's Progression Desktop, and concludes: "Overall, this is a really solid product. It does exactly what it's advertised to do, and it's wrapped in a very user friendly package. At just under $30 per desktop, the price is right too... And it's even cheaper when paired with Linspire Linux 5.0. Whether you love it or hate it, Linspire is the best thing going right now in the Windows desktop replacement market, and paired with a tool such as Versora's Progression Desktop... You simply can't go wrong."

After two years of work, since the 3.50 release, Fyodor announced the Nmap Security Scanner version 4.00. Changes since version 3.50 include a rewritten (for speed and memory efficiency) port scanning engine, ARP scanning, a brand new man page and install guide, runtime interaction, massive version detection improvements, MAC address spoofing, increased Windows performance, 500 new OS detection fingerprints, and completion time estimates. Dozens of other important changes - and future plans for Nmap - are listed in the release announcement. Fyodor also gave an interview on 4.00.

"A post on the Register, claiming that Google might be close to rolling out a 'Goobuntu' Linux desktop distro, has been making the usual rounds in the tech news circuit today. Despite today being earnings release day, presumably a very busy time at the Google press relations office, technology spokeswoman Sonya Boralv responded very quickly to my query on the topic. She said that "e use Ubuntu internally but have no plans to distribute it outside of the company." Elsewhere, Google's shares kinda dropped today as their earnings fell short of expectations.

"AMD has been a leader in getting 64-bit technology off the PowerPoint and into servers, desktops, and wherever else they can put it and has a clear-cut technology advantage over most of the current crop of Intel processors. For a company that likes to 'Think Different', Apple chose a conservative path in selecting Intel processors to power its latest generation of computers." In related news, our favourite Windows Apple fanatic Paul Thurrot wonders why there's no PC equivelant of Apple's iLife.

PC firmware, a murky world of interwoven software code that dates back to the original IBM PC and its clones, is about to be modernized. In a move that experts say promises to lead to fewer headaches for IT staff by creating more stable and manageable desktops and notebooks, the PC industry has begun transitioning to the United Extensible Firmware Interface. Dubbed UEFI, the interface offers a standardized way for a PC's firmware, the underlying software that controls its hardware, to interact with the operating system. The new interface offers a standard method for loading an operating system, as well as running pre-boot applications.