So, with WinHEC coming to a close, the biggest talk was of course the newest release of Microsoft (R) Windows (R) Codename Longhorn, now at build 5048. With nearly one year since the previous release (build 4074) build 5048 sports some new features and lacks some others. Recently, the talk was centered around the lack of WinFS, the new futuristic Windows File system. However, we'll get to all that a little later.

MadPenguin offers a first look at Mandriva LE along some screenshots.

The topic of polymorphism is given mystical status in some programming texts and is ignored in others, but it's a simple, useful concept that the C++ language supports. Find out all about it in this sample chapter by Stephen Dewhurst.

Depending on how you apply them, roaming profiles can do anything from making your life easier to saving your bacon. If a user needs access from all over the building, roaming profiles are a convenience. If you have 50 users and only 10 computers, roaming profiles are an easy solution. If an entire department's computers die in the middle of a critical project, roaming profiles are a lifesaver.

Review of Tiger from an end user's perspective: likes and dislikes discussed.

This release specifically introduces the database management application Kexi, the image editor Krita and upgrades the major KOffice components to use the OASIS Open Document format, an industry standard allowing better interoperability across applications and platforms.

A new major version of Nemerle is out there. Nemerle is a high-level statically-typed programming language for the .NET platform. It offers functional, object-oriented and imperative features. It has a simple C#-like syntax and a powerful compiler extensibility capabilities by means of hygienic macros. New release brings custom implicit conversions, interactive shell and many bugfixes.

Bernd Korz, yellowTAB's CEO, was over here tonight and we had a little talk about the progress of the yellowTAB business and the upcoming Zeta 1.0 (screenshots included).

Now that Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger has been released into the wild, many users are looking for things to do with their new operating system. Apple has you covered.

Last month's release of KDE 3.4 was the first to feature Zeroconf's service discovery. Relevant applications can advertise their services, such as shared folders or networked games, which can then be browsed with the zeroconf:/ ioslave. KDE Dot News spoke to the man behind KDE's Zeroconf support Jakub Stachowski to find out more on this exciting technology.

While most of the attention Friday is on the client version of Apple's latest release of its Mac OS X operating system, Tiger Server is a major event in itself. It bridges the worlds of open source, Unix and Windows, and may be the key to finally gaining Apple a foothold in the corporate data center.

It is possible but inconvenient to manually clone a hard disk drive remotely, using dd and netcat. der Mouse, a Montreal-based NetBSD developer, has developed tools that allow for automated, remote partition-level cloning to occur automatically on an opportunistic basis.

Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy is disparaging a report that suggests an investment firm is planning a leveraged buyout of the server and software company.

According to Apple, "...unmodified applications that use the system math functions will get an automatic performance boost on the G5..." when switching from Panther to Tiger. BearFeats decided to run some tests to see if they got a speed gain right out of the box with applications that we suspect use system math functions.