Ars Technica has posted a lengthy article on the new promising Microsoft Command Shell. It looks at MSH from the point of view of both coders and Windows admins.

"This is a true gem for developers. SkyOS got a lot of under-the-hood work, the Integrated Streaming System and the networking stack have been reworked, the API has been standardised, missing libraries and functions have been added and a lot of bugs have been resolved. I think what we're seeing is a quasi-feature freeze. This actually serves its purpose, SkyOS is now much more stable, reliable and responsive than before."

There are more than 50 GUI controls available in the .NET Framework Class Library. This chapter takes a selective look at some of the more important ones. They all derive from the System.Windows.Forms.Control class that provides the inherited properties and methods that all the controls have in common.

Testing time/date-specific functions can be complicated. Unfortunately, because of this, many companies don't bother testing these functions. This chapter will help you understand why testing these functions is critical, and how you can go about getting it done.

Mockup 0.2.0 Alpha 1.1 has been released. Again, this release is solely for developers and not for the faint of heart. A roadmap is available in the release announcement. A guide on installing this latest Mockup snapshot can be found here.

"I have started to port the linux ACPI subsystem because ACPI is becoming more important now and slowly replaces subsystems like the pci routing table, multi-processor table and apm. The Linux ACPI code is based on the os independent intel reference implementation and so the port has been very easy (and fast to do) so far. Currently the ACPI busmanager contains the basic acpi code (about 90% of the code)."

"In the short time that I've spent using Ubuntu 5.10, I've really come to like it. The installation was painless, all my hardware was detected and configured correctly, package management was easy, and the clean-cut GNOME desktop is terrific." In addition, here's a guide on setting up Ubuntu as a server.

Philip Langdale of the Galeon team just announced that some major Galeon developers decided at the GNOME summit that the way forward for Galeon (which hasn't gotten much development in the last few months) was to shift focus to expanding the power of Epiphany's extensions system, and coding Galeon functionality as Epiphany extensions.

In the few short years of its existence, Google has come a long way, simultaneously striking fear in the hearts of major players in the computer industry and also arousing their curiosity. While the company is keeping all competitors on their toes, it poses a special threat to one particular company -- Microsoft. Why? Because Google's existing and potential products -- as well as those of other firms -- raise the specter that Microsoft may witness an erosion of its control over the platform for the next generation of software application development, according to Wharton faculty members who follow the technology sector. Just how serious is this threat and what is Microsoft doing to combat it?

Novell is expected to initiate a major round of layoffs that could cut 1000 or more jobs in an attempt to restore the server software company's financial strength, according to employees familiar with the plan.

Microsoft met with the OSI board this week to discuss their new Shared Source licences. "After their announcement this week, MS did meet with a quorum of the OSI Board and we discussed our commitment to equal application of the license approval process and gave them very preliminary feedback on the licenses as they appear on the MSDN Web site. So far, MS's licenses have not yet been submitted to License-Discuss for public discussion, but OSI is hopeful that they will be," OSI stated. Other OSS prominents, like Tim o'Reilly and, believe it or not, the FSF, have already been positive about the new licenses.

OpenOffice.org's latest update includes a database that matches Microsoft's popular and competing Access database, experts say. The stand-alone database rounds out the offering by bringing long-missing, important database power to users. Users will be able to create stand-alone databases, associated forms, reports and queries, much as with Microsoft's extremely popular and widely used Access database.

In his blog, Aaron Siego reveals that in Q1 2006 Trolltech is going to release a technical preview of officially supported Java bindings for Qt 4, and that Qt 4.1 has built-in SVG support and PDF generation.

Claiming that the iPod Nano has a widespread propensity for scratching easily, lawyers this week filed a class action suit against Apple Computer on behalf of those who have purchased the diminutive music player.