Smart handheld devices or personal digital assistants (PDA) extend our access to the information on our desktops, from addresses to telephone numbers. Unfortunately, when it comes to vendor support for synchronizing this information with a *nix operating system, the options are limited. In this article, NewsForge reviews the various GPL-based suites available for synchronizing PalmOS-based devices with Linux. This one is of great interest too.

Microsoft may have started shipping its cheaper version of Windows in Asia, but getting support for its low-cost computing vision is still very much a work in progress.

Opera 8-beta 3 was released for windows and unix with native SVG support.

Tuxmachines has a KDE 3.4 review and declares it to have "more shine and polish than ever experienced with any desktop environment in existance today."

A PC Magazine story examines the conventional wisdom of Firefox's reputation for security (compared to IE) and finds that it's probably more secure, but that it's not so simple to just say so.

The Mac Mini isn't just competition for Shuttle computers and mini-tower PCs. It's also competition for the much smaller embedded development boards that many users are building custom applications around. Peter Seebach takes a look at the Mac Mini as an embedded development platform.

"The three largest computer makers--Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM--have started selling desktops and notebooks with so-called trusted computing hardware, which allows security-sensitive applications to lock down data to a specific PC."

Periodically we hear someone say that Linux isn't suitable for graphic design work. One common complaint is its lack of an integrated system-wide color management system (CMS). Fortunately today's Linux systems have free cross-platform open source color management alternatives. Happy Note: On an unrelated note, this is our 10,000th story! Took us 3.5 years to get here.

The second beta of Mandrakelinux 10.2 for AMD64 and EM64T processors is now available for testing.

Thirteen companies, including Motorola and Acer, have been handed letters claiming they have failed to comply with the GNU General Public License.

Xactium has published a white paper on Language Driven Development (LDD). LDD is a revolutionary approach to designing and implementing software and systems. LDD makes huge productivity gains by bridging the gap between the way developers think about their problem domain, and the languages and tools that implement the solution.

The homegrown Linux operating system has come a long way from its origins as a college kid's pet project and computer hobbyist favorite. Refined in recent years by professional computer programmers at IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Novell and Red Hat, Linux now has become so technically powerful that it lays claim to a prestigious title--it runs more of the world's top supercomputers than any other OS.

Large enterprises should not use Linux because it is not secure enough, has scalability problems and could fork into many different flavours, according to the Agility Alliance, which includes IT heavyweights EDS, Fuji Xerox, Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, Dell and EMC.

Tne new Mono GUI Designer "Stetic" have "reached the milestone of being not 100% useless" according to its developer. Flash video available.