In the past two years, Wind River Systems got over its scorn for Linux. Now it's up to Ken Klein, chief executive for 15 months, to do more than embrace the open-source operating system: He's got to find a way to profit from it.

The people at SuntekStore were very kind to send us in a review unit of their latest special product, the Universal Bluetooth Keyboard (BK600) for PDAs & phones. It is dubbed the "Smart Keyboard" and it sells for $109. It is compatible with the most recent PalmOS/PocketPCs PDAs and a large number of Bluetooth phones. We tested it against the Dell Axim x50v. UPDATE: Pictures added.

"SUSE 9.3 has the potential to be a serious contender on the desktop, but sadly I cannot recommend this release to anyone looking for a well-balanced desktop Linux system. While they score points for making use of the latest and greatest desktop environments, new peripheral technology, and usability enhancements, the way they've crippled the multimedia functionality of this one-time world class distro is hard to ignore." Read the review at MadPenguin. UPDATE: Another, quick look at SUSE PRO 9.3.

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.

Microsoft said late Tuesday that it has pushed back the expected launch of a version of Windows designed for high-performance computer clusters.

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

At BeGeistert 14 Daniel "daat" Teixeira from IsComputerOn and Chris Simmons from HaikuNews spent 40 minutes interviewing YellowTab's Bernd Korz and Alan Westbrook, and we covered such topics as the use of GCC, Java, what's new with Zeta, and more. Pictures from the event here.

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.

The Register, which is generally no purveyor of Microsoft fawning, notes the many security improvements in Windows 2003 SP1, among those a perceived attitude change in its documentation that acknowledges security challenges inherent to their platform, and nifty features like the ability to tun off inbound network connections during setup to prevent the latest worms striking before you can run Windows Update.

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.

HP and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have collaborated on a new 11.8-teraflop Supercomputer for the Department of Energy. The $24 Million HP Supercomputer uses the Linux OS and Intel's Itanium2 processors.

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.

Mark Shuttleworth is an astronaut, entrepreneur, activist, and now chief of Debian-and-GNOME based distribution Ubuntu Linux. Read his interview at Slashdot.

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.