The Facade pattern puts up a new interface — that is, a facade — in front of the original system. In this sample book chapter, you'll learn when to apply it, and how to do so. Elsewhere, this chapter provides an overview of Unified Modeling Language (UML), a graphical language for modeling businesses, software applications, and system architectures.

The Users & Computers snap-in for Active Directory enables you to create Organizational Units (OUs) to set up an OUT Tree in the domain. This chapter coves setting up and managing OUs.

Linus Torvalds has some interesting comments on Sun's CDDL License which has been submitted to OSI's approval.

This article presents a multiple ways to keep the FreeBSD operating system up-to-date. It takes a FreeBSD 5.2.1 RELEASE system through a subset of security advisories to explain the different sorts of patches an administrator might apply.

Microsoft will end extended support for the 8-year old OS at the end of 2004. Customers wishing support will have to sign up for a custom contract.

A month after the release of Fedora Core 3 (FC3) we have a pretty good idea over its evolution since its first release last year. In fact, we found FC3 to be its best release yet.

A project to create embedded versions of Gentoo Linux has achieved preliminary releases on x86, MIPS, PPC, and ARM. The releases include native core system binaries, cross-platform toolchains, and, for x86, an optional hardened toolchain. The year-old project needs developers to help add cross-compile awareness to source packages.

For tracking down memory leaks and other performance issues, the ease and flexibility of Valgrind may make up for slow runtimes. Memory and performance problems plague most of us, but tools are available that can help. One of the best, most powerful and easiest to use is Valgrind. One thing stands out when you use Valgrind--you do not need to recompile, relink or modify your source code. Also have a look at KCacheGrid and Alleyoop which work with valgrind.

Gambas, designed by Benoît Minisini, is a new graphical development environment for Linux that aims to improve database development times. More here.

Word is that IBM is seeking to sell off its PC business. The company is said to be in talks with Lenovo. IBM could get between $1 and $2 billion for its PC unit. The company wants to focus on the more lucrative enterprise and server solutions.

What are you looking for in a Linux distro? Ease of Installation? Great looking Desktop? Ability to download more apps as needed? Ability to run select Windows apps right on your Linux desktop? Read the review here.

Apple today released Security Update 2004-12-02, which includes a number of security enhancements and updated components for Mac OS X.

A couple of days ago, I read an interesting article by Kevin Kostis about how complex computer systems are and how they have a long way to go. I have to partly agree with his assessment, however a lot of folks don’t take the time to learn about there own investment.

Early Wednesday morning 1 December, our colleagues at The Inquirer ran a story entitled “HP expected to drop Trucluster from HP-UX” on their web site. According to the story, unnamed sources claimed that HP soon will announce that TruCluster technology is unlikely to be incorporated into HP-UX. More here.