IBM just announced a new line of z9 mainframes and new version of their operating systems. This time the focus is on security. There is an interesting news article from Reuters: Analyst Bob Djurdjevic of Phoenix-based Annex Research said key selling points of the z9 mainframe are not that it is faster and cheaper -- something it has been becoming for decades -- but rather the mix of hardware and software that give customers control over machines.

After his departure from Apple, Steve Jobs created NeXT Computer, a company which has had a large impact on the design of operating systems today.  NeXT was the creator of the first commercially viable object oriented operating system, the first hybrid microkernel, and numerous other notable innovations.  Read the whole story at Braeburn.

After three months of testing via two beta releases and two release candidates Vector Linux has released version 5.1 of its Slackware-derived operating system. This release is an important milestone as there is now a working dependency package management system inside a Slack-based distro.

The global market for smart mobile devices continued its rise in Q2 2005 according to estimates released by research firm Canalys. Nokia once again saw its smart phone shipments increase at more than twice the average market rate. Palm still leads the handheld segment, with 31% market share, but its handheld shipments declined 32% year on year, resulting in a 1% unit decline overall. Handheld shipments fell in most regions, with North America down by 36%, while Latin America and Asia Pacific fell 12% and 21% respectively.

Mono is an open-source implementation of Microsoft's .NET for Linux and other operating systems. In this article, Tim Anderson interviews project leader Miguel de Icaza. Why is Mono now partnering with Mainsoft to ease migration to J2EE?

The Extensible Firmware Interface, which could speed the boot-up process for PCs, has been handed over to a group that will promote and standardize it.

Sun Microsystems has distributed more than two million registered licenses for the Solaris 10 Operating System since the software became available on January 31st. These numbers, coupled with a record number of visitors to the Sun website during the last six months, highlight the incredible demand for the freely available operating system.

Microsoft is tightening the noose for those people running illegal or pirated copies of its Windows XP/2000 software on their systems. Starting Tuesday, it will be mandatory for users of this Windows software to certify that their software is a genuine and legal copy before they will be able to receive any updates except security patches.

Everyone wants a quick boot time, from the beginner user to the advanced user, this is a issue that bothers us all. As Linux has advanced it has increasingly become slower to boot. So I decided to look into reducing the time it takes to boot my current setup, which is Fedora 4. In doing so I was able to reduce the boot time of my Fedora 4 installation to less than 25 seconds.

This recent article on Epiphany has garnered many comments, both on FootNotes and OSNews. This followup article addresses some concerns that have been raised about Epiphany.

A blog entry by Jure Repinc tells us about some of the new features in KDE 3.5 which according to this schedule isn't quite finished yet. Amongs other things, there will be a Storage Media Notification dialog and some more eye candy in Kicker.

A Microsoft customer was so eager to get a beta of Longhorn that he FedEx'ed two pounds of inscribed chocolate to one of Microsoft's test managers. Yes, he did get the invitation and the chocolate was sent to the Longhorn shiproom for everyone to enjoy.

The iPod, more than any other single product from Apple, has changed the company and the world. Before its introduction MP3 players were the realm of small companies with limited budgets and no content. After the iPod the entire industry has evolved and grown to the point where the largest computer companies in the world have major interests in the digital music industry. Read the history of the iPod at Braeburn.

Konfabulator, the application whose concept was "borrowed" for the Mac OS X Tiger Dashboard system (and yes, we know that Konfabulator itself was inspired by many other apps, including Apple's Desktop Accessories), has been acquired by Yahoo and is now available for free. Download it from their website.