Fox in Microsoft’s Tool-Suite Coop

  Submitted by ajam Windows 71 Comments
Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference is expected to be a coming out party of sorts for the next version of Visual Studio, code-named Orcas. Primary among the new features in and new direction for Orcas will be advances in how the toolset handles data, sources said. Data becomes "cool" in Orcas, said a source familiar with Microsoft's strategy for Orcas.
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Michal Zalewski on The Wire

  Submitted by anonymous Rumors 4 Comments
Recently the eccentric security researcher Michal Zalewski published his first book, entitled Silence on the Wire: A Field Guide to Passive Reconnaissance and Indirect Attacks. Because the book is everything except a security manual, ONLamp's Federico Biancuzzi chose to interview Michal and learn more about his curious approach to information security. Among other things, they discussed the need for randomness, how a hacker mind works, unconventional uses for search engines such as Google, and applying AI to security tools.
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SkyOS Code Ransom Started

  Submitted by Matt Turner SkyOS 171 Comments
After a great deal of interest from the community, we have decided to officially open the "SkyOS Code Ransom". In a nutshell, the SkyOS Code Ransom is a system to encourage developers to port various software packages to SkyOS, as well as a way to reward them for their efforts. Depending on how successful and how much interest there is in the "SkyOS Code Ransom", we may expand this feature of the website a great deal more in the future.
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VLOS 1.2 Review

  Submitted by Valour Gentoo 12 Comments
"Version 1.2 is the third official release of the Gentoo-based VidaLinux OS (VLOS). The changes and enhancements to this edition are significant, but not good enough to save this conceptually astute operating system from failure. VidaLinux 1.2 is nice to play with, but don't expect a comfortable, complete desktop experience a la SUSE or Mandriva." Linux.com has the details. My Take: Tested VLOS the other day, and while it may be not be perfect yet, it's definitely on the way to being an attractive and usable system.
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Nifty Utilities to Hack Mac OS X Tiger

  Submitted by Jeremy macOS 23 Comments
An excerpt fom the book "Nifty Utilities to Hack Mac OS X Tiger" has an overview of OS X apps like TinkerTool, Carbon Copy Cloner, BatChmod, Memory stick, and others, that help you tweak apps like Safari, adjust and monitor memory status, bring the world of Unix file ownership and permissions over to the Mac, and more.
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What Is the X Window System

Wayland 56 Comments
The X Window System (commonly referred to as X or X11) is a network-transparent graphical windowing system based on a client/server model. Primarily used on Unix and Unix-like systems such as Linux, versions of X are also available for many other operating systems. Although it was developed in 1984, X is not only still viable but also is in fact the standard environment for Unix windowing systems. This article thoroughly discusses X.
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Vista to Open Doors for Desktop Linux

  Submitted by Salvatore Cangeloso Windows 216 Comments
It would seem that the upcoming release of Microsoft's Windows Vista does not seem like a good thing for the desktop Linux community. After all, this update to Windows XP is going to focus on two attributes which have pushed users to Linux for years- security and stability. Upon closer inspection though, the move to Vista may be the perfect time for the Linux community to make headway on the desktop and increase its user base dramatically. The number of features which Microsoft has cast aside since Longhorn and the hardware requirements of Vista have set the stage for a large scale move to desktop Linux.
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OSNews++

OS News 90 Comments
I've just incremented the OSNews version number from 3.0 to 3.1. I'm not really sure if now is too early or too late to make this change, but some fairly large backend changes have occured recently that prompted me to revisit whether or not this is really the same site that 3.0 was at rollout. Anyway, there's a nice new feature that comes along with the change to 3.1 -- THREADING. Read on to find out about it.
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