The head of research for Microsoft's Windows Mobile software for handheld computers, Ya-Qin Zhang, was in Taipei last week talking up the company's latest major operating system release, Windows Mobile 5.0.

HSQLDB is the leading SQL relational database engine written in Java. It has a JDBC driver and supports a rich subset of ANSI-92 SQL (BNF tree format) plus SQL 99 and 2003 enhancements. It offers a small (less than 100k in one version for applets), fast database engine which offers both in-memory and disk-based tables and supports embedded and server modes.

The FreeBSD 6-CURRENT snapshot releases in July 2005 are now available. The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team has released snapshot releases of 5-STABLE and 6-CURRENT to encourage people to test new features and improve the reliability.

Version 2.0 of MBSA includes a graphical and command line interface that can perform local or remote scans of Windows systems. MBSA runs on Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, and Windows XP systems and will scan for common security misconfigurations.

Debian is facing difficulties getting timely security updates to users of its Linux distribution due to lack of manpower and hardware problems.

Random numbers are utilized in many different areas, ranging from cryptography (in general) to source port and process ID randomization in some operating systems. So what is exactly a random number generator?

There are many 'really alternative' operating systems currently in existence. Most of them are purely for research, personal enjoyment or as a coding sandbox. Some of them, however, want to achieve wider acceptance. Is that goal obtainable, in the current OS climate?

The Firefox browser has been ported to the new Intel-based Mac OS X platform with the assistance of Apple. Firefox developer and Mozilla Foundation employee Josh Aas said the Mozilla team built on Apple's preliminary development work in bringing the browser across to the platform, which is scheduled for rollout to consumers by mid-next year.

The variety of open source offerings - from application servers and databases to security and content management - illustrate the community's commitment to meet business needs. We're ready to take the next step. But, first, there are a few things we'd like to see from you, the open source community, before free software takes on a higher profile in big IT departments.

NeoWin reports that Longhorn Beta 1, after missing the internal date of June 30th, now is scheduled to be released late July. Most Longhorn product groups have already delivered their beta 1 code.

While none of this appears to be revolutionary now, the fact remains that Lycoris was the first to perfect the "desktop Linux" formula. Mandrakesoft, SUSE, Caldera and even please-use-windows Red Hat helped Linux greatly on its journey toward the consumer desktop, but it was Lycoris who perfected the formula for the first time."

Web services standards and the emergence of service-oriented architectures are showing us the direction the Internet needs to move in, according to the Microsoft chairman.

Protecting against laptop and data theft would appear to be relatively easy, but, in a business sense, is rarely so. This article provides some basic steps for employees to follow in order to protect laptops.

AJAX or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML seems to be all the rage at the moment. Builder has published a handy primer to get started using AJAX today.