"In 2005, Apple announced the Mac Mini. It was the answer to what I was looking for in a computer, so I bought one. This is a report about the early months with my new Mac, and how it compares to a Linux computer (I have never owned a Windows computer). In short, I am now both a Mac and a Linux user - Apple gets GUI simplicity, usability, and coherency right, and Linux everything else."

Bernd Korz, CEO of yellowTAB, has released a few screenshots of the alpha version of Zeta 1.5. The shots show the new preferences panel, and the video editor. If you look at the first screenshot, you can catch a glimpse of the new window tab-- a much-criticised aspect of previous versions of Zeta. Update: ZetaNews has added a screenshot showing the multi-user features of Zeta 1.5 alpha.

A Dutch technology company has breathed life into a project to rid the Internet of suffixes such as .com, and instead offer single names which can be countries, company names or fantasy words. Such a system, which enables countries, individuals and firms to have a Web address consisting of a single name, offers flexibility and is language and character independent. "The plan is to offer names in any character set," said Erik Seeboldt, managing director of Amsterdam-based UnifiedRoot.

Devotees waited hours in the cold for the long-awaited, next-generation game console. But reports of system malfunctions indicate that the launch honeymoon may be over. Microsoft was quick to respond, stating that "the call rate is well below what you'd expect for a consumer electronic product of this complexity."

The $100 laptop designed by the Massachusetts Institute for Technology and the One Laptop Per Child association, previewed at the World Summit on the Information Society conference in Tunisia last week, will be using a Redhat Linux variant as its operating system.

"The Linux community was left stunned when Windows Server software outsold Linux in the server market. Gartner, Inc. recently reported that sales of Windows systems accounted for nearly 37 percent of all server revenue in the last quarter while Linux accounted for 31.7 percent. Windows has a 5+ percent lead over Linux, which should be the cause for celebration at Microsoft. Is this the downfall or, as they say, the beginning of the end of Linux? Most definitely not. Before the folks at Redmond rejoice too much, there are some things they need to consider."

IBM's on-demand model is "crazy" and Open Source is "really a developer phenomenon" that does not stand comparison with "customer experience of Windows Live", said Charles Fitzgerald, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy, last week. In an interview, Fitzgerald said that there was no comparison between Microsoft Live, which offers on-demand features, and IBM's on-demand strategy. Elsewhere, references to free software and Linux were removed from a UN document after Microsoft claimed that such software aims to 'make it impossible to make any income on software as a commercial product'.

A batch of BSD news today. Firstly, here are a few impressions on DesktopBSD 1.0 RC3. "DesktopBSD is a breeze to install. Desktop uses a crisp and clean KDE desktop with an attractive theme with a standard selection of applications." Secondly, DragonFly BSD asks its users to test some drivers for wireless networking. And lastly, also concerning DragonFly BSD: "Recently spent some time getting the Mach lite kernel up and running for research on the idea can the system be made to run in production."

Open source behind closed doors: in the first of a two part series (part II) ZDNet looks at why some open source projects remain secret. "Lots of companies are using our products, they just aren't talking about it", is a popular excuse from software companies, particularly those that offer open source software and services. Deployment of open source software, particularly in the private sector, often appears to be a clandestine activity, with few companies prepared to discuss their involvement.

"It's official. Java has taken the top spot away from C++ to become the top language on SourceForge. Mats Henricson points out in his blog that as of yesterday, Java has 16738 projects on SourceForge, compared to the 16731 of C++."

"Windows has seen many changes in its 20-year career. Here, we look at those versions which have evolved directly from the very first version, see how we got here from there - and what thrilled and chilled along the way."

Microsoft argues that revealing its server protocols would violate its intellectual property rights, but the Free Software Foundation Europe believes that the software giant's 'secret' information is just a messy implementation of standard technologies.

This article shows how to build an object-oriented graphics layer in PHP. Using object-oriented systems can make building complex graphics much easier than building the graphics using the primitives in the standard PHP library. Plus, you have the option of rendering to any size or type of image you like and the longer-term ability to use the same code to render to different types of media, such as SVG, PDF, Flash, and others.

Here is an interview with Ron Gula, to get a glimpse of Tenable's free Nessus 3 vulnerability scanner. The interview discusses license changes, community involvement, daemon security, GPL open-source versus free, and more.