Functions are the wonderful and powerful building blocks of computer programs. Functions allow you to break code down into simpler, more manageable steps. They also allow you to break programs into reusable parts -- parts that are both reusable within the program and in other programs as well. In this article, learn how to create new functions at runtime based on templates, how to create functions that are configurable at runtime using function parameters, and how the Scheme language can be a valuable tool with functions.

New version of Kaffe has been released. Kaffe is a clean room implementation of the Java virtual machine, plus the associated class libraries needed to provide a Java runtime environment. 1.1.5 release sports improved AWT implementation, new garbage collector, internationalization support, new ports to FreeBSD on x86-64, Darwin on x86 and HP-UX on ia64 and much more.

The first release candidate of FreeBSD 5.4 is now available for general testing.

Jonathan Schwartz proclaimed ardent support for the open-source software realm but criticized the GPL.

A 64-bit environment and the ability to address more than 4 GB of memory can greatly enhance the scalability and performance of databases. With IDS v10, IBM has optimized native 64-bit editions for all major Linux platforms. This article contains information on all the new features of Informix Dynamic Server Version 10.0 that are unique on Linux platforms.

Casper Dik, Roy Fielding, Al Hopper, Simon Phipps, and Rich Teer were chosen to be the charter members of the OpenSolaris Community Advisory Board. They will be responsible for the direction of the project and coordinating the efforts of volunteer contributors.

Visual Basic developers who are being left behind with Microsoft's discontinuing of "classic" VB have a short time to take advantage of an interesting offer. The makers of REALBasic will give registered VB6 users a free license to their software.

The UK security research company, Secunia said that it has found a critical security flaw in Firefox web-browser that could put users at risk of information disclosure attacks. In other security news, a variant of the Cabir mobile virus, which was developed at first to prove it is possible, called Mabir, has been targeting mobile phones using Symbian Series 60 operating systems.

Today, there is no shortage of reviews on Linux on the Desktop, but I think we can benefit from more "Laptopized-Linux" experiences. As laptops keep dropping in price and increasing in terms of computing power, they really make a nice platform even for cpu intensive applications such as sofware development, desktop publishing, web design, etc. And as you will see in this article, installing Linux on a laptop is not as hairy as you may think.

Microsoft has offered the European Commission about 20 concessions over the EU executive's order that it share data with rival makers of servers, the software firm said Monday.

The operating system is based on the kernel WindowsCE version 5.1. It differs from its predecessor in Direct3D Mobile (initially optimized for Wireless MMX), Windows Error Reporting, the possibility to work as a USB storage without drivers, improved support of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and so on.

Point-counterpoint at DaringFireball's interesting editorials.

For the first time that we know of, Federal Computer Week magazine is reporting on open source software. This weekly, which gets onto the desks of all Federal IT managers, has hardly acknowledged in the past that alternative solutions exist.

In this program from Oct 2004, Jeff Dean of Google describes some of these challenges, discusses applications Google has developed, and highlights systems they've built, including GFS, a large-scale distributed file system, and MapReduce, a library for automatic parallelization and distribution of large-scale computation. He also shares some interesting observations derived from Google's web data.