"A feature mimicking Apple's 'widgets' scheduled to appear in Microsoft's Windows Vista will also show in the current Windows XP operating system, a Vista product manager said. According to Sean Alexander, a group product manager with Microsoft, the so-called 'gadgets' in Vista will be produced for Windows XP as well." In related news, here are some new screenshots of the latest Office 12 build.

It seems like all hell has broken loose in the internet services and instant messaging arena. Just yesterday, Microsoft and Yahoo announced that they will make their IM technology work together, and now Google and ComCast have shown interest in AOL. All this just shortly after Google and Sun teamed up.

This tutorial shows how to develop sockets-based networking applications (free reg. req.) using the Ruby language. You learn Ruby basics as well as the most important classes for sockets programming, and then look at a working chat application that illustrates these fundamentals. The tutorial finishes by exploring the higher-level classes that make it easy to build dynamic Web servers, mail servers and clients, and other application-layer protocols.

The Ubuntu team is proud to announce Ubuntu 5.10. This is the official Ubuntu 5.10 release, and includes installation CDs, live CDs, and combination DVDs for three architectures. In addition, Kubuntu 5.10 has also been released. You can download Ubuntu here, and Kubuntu here.

The DragonFly project has been making progress of late adding features desired for their upcoming release. In addition to the ongoing work to prepare the system to run free of the MP lock, a number of smaller, but important subprojects are nearing completion.

At a special press event Apple unveiled several new products today. They updated the entire iMac line, equipping them with 1.9 to 2.1 Ghz G5 processors, iPod-like 6-button remote control, built-in iSight and thinner enclosures. Apple also introduced new iPods, capable of playing 320x240 MPEG4/H.264 video, and it has a video-OUT. iTunes 6 is available now, and already there are 2000 music videos available in the iTMS. You will also be able to buy TV shows from the iTMS. Update: Sad news for the fans of the original CRT iMac: it seems that the eMac has been phased out. It is no longer available on the Apple Store website.

Enterprise Linux software maker Red Hat Tuesday announced that it has appointed Brian Stevens as its new chief technology officer and vice president of engineering.

"SWT is a growing Java GUI toolkit that is making inroads into commercial and corporate development because of its cross-platform interface to the operating system's native GUI toolkits. However, deploying SWT applications across an enterprise environment can be tricky and tedious if not done correctly. Using Java WebStart can bring these great looking applications to the desktop while eliminating manual deployment and updates for the IT department and end users."

Apple reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of $430 million (E358 million), or 50 cents (E0.42) per share, on revenue of $3.68 billion (E3.06 billion). That compares with earnings of $106 million (E88 miillon), or 13 cents (E0.11) per share, on revenue of $2.35 billion (E1.96 billion) for the same period a year earlier. The most recent quarter's earnings included a benefit from tax-related issues. Excluding that benefit, Apple would have had earnings of 38 cents (E0.32) per share. Sales were somewhat less than some analysts were projecting, and investors sent shares down more than 10 percent in after-hours trading. Apple said it sold 1.24 million Macs and 6.45 million iPods during the past quarter.

"Debian is one of the most common Linux distributions in the world. With a possible total of fourteen CDs, it is also one of the biggest. As you may have gathered from the fact that this guide exists, Debian is not the easiest Linux distribution. However, anybody that is relatively competent with computers should be able to use Debian, and this guide is here to help you get started."

"Quartz is the heart and soul of Mac OS X's graphics layer, which directly supports the defining features of the Aqua desktop experience. Quartz is largely based upon Adobe's PDF specification, but it has roots tracing all the way back to PostScript. The two defining components of Quartz are Quartz Compositor and Quartz 2D. Tiger introduced Quartz 2D Extreme and Quartz Composer, an alternative way to explore the power of Quartz through a powerful visual programming environment."

Hot on the heels of yesterdays interview of Sun's Florian Reuter (part one in a series of three), comes a two-page interview with OpenOffice.org's Gary Edwards. In this installment, Gary discusses the importance of open document formats and hints to the release date of OpenOffice.org 2.0: "No one knows for certain when OOo 2.0 stable will be released, but Mad Penguin's bet is that the stable 2.0 release will come before any recently purchased cartons of milk expire in your refrigerator."

Slimline Open Firmware provides a largely machine-independent BIOS, illustrating what is needed to initialize and boot Linux. Three of the original SLOF developers discuss the development and usage of SLOF, initialization/boot source code for the PowerPC based on the Open Firmware standard.

Palm updated its low-end and upper-mid range of its PDA line with the Z22 and the TX respectively. The TX features a 312 Mhz CPU, WiFi, Bluetooth, HiRes+ 65k TFT, 100 MBs of free RAM, SD slot, but no voice recorder. The Z22 sports a 200 Mhz CPU, 24 MBs of free RAM, 160x160 CSTN 4096 color LCD and no voice recorder, SD slot, headphone jack or IrDA. Reviews here, here, here and here.