Security researchers claimed today that millions of Microsoft customers are at risk from 10 serious security vulnerabilities uncovered in Windows XP patched with Service Pack 2.

This article covers some of the big-picture differences from the perspective of a Linux user being introduced to FreeBSD.

For a few years, I've been working in the real world, I mean the enterprise world, sorry. In every company I've worked for, they offered me the opportunity to learn a lot of new things, or at least that's what they always said in the first meeting before sending me to be just another company programmer. But in fact I've learned some very important things, just not about programming. I had to learn about these things on my own, about the needs of a real company in the real world.

"Apple released Mac OS X 10.3.6 last week on a post-election Friday afternoon, with little fanfare and the typical useful-but-sparse release notes. The company documents 22 changes in Mac OS X 10.3.6, which come from nearly 1,200 changed files in nearly 1,000 different directories or folders, many of them in large bundles or packages. Here’s a closer look at what Apple has told users about what’s inside the OS X update." Read the article here.

"With search technology in the spotlight, Apple Computer is making better ways to find desktop files the cornerstone of its next version of the Mac OS X operating system." Read the Article at C|Net.

Here is a tutorial on how to get Gnome 2.8 on your SuSE.

Expose the power of Bash shell, tutorial here.

As general interest over the PPC platform is growing, it could be of some interest this series of announcements made by Genesi. The Open Desktop Workstation, with all open specs, is a good way to have many operating systems, and so many options too, on good and cheap PowerPC hardware.

Terrasoft solution announced today the port on Linux PPC64 of the InfiniBand technology support. This is an important step that will make happy all those institutes working on Apple Xserve clusters and Linux.

With the recent browser statistics, that show Internet Explorer 6, Mozilla/Firefox, Safari/Konqueror and Opera combined at around 95%, it is finally feasible to write modern, CSS-based websites. For many years, this was not possible due to the vast number of legacy browsers, Internet Explorer 4 and 5 and Netscape 4 deployed on the computers around the planet. But with these browsers vanishing, we can finally start to ignore them.

"When you have to get work done (especially if you're self-employed) it's important to choose the right tools to enhance your productivity. If your work has something to do with a computer, the operating system is especially important. Of all of the OSes that I have used and reviewed over the years -- and I still have all of them available -- I prefer FreeBSD's "new technology release" as my main workstation operating system. Why? Because I can get more work done with it." Read the article at NewsForge.

Borrowing a line from Allstate Insurance, Microsoft says it wants customers to know they are in good hands when they choose its software. Elsewhere, since May this year we've heard dribs and drabs about Microsoft's much hyped next generation Operating System. According to the internal calendar Longhorn is due to hit Beta 1 on February 16th 2005 and hit RTM May 22nd 2006. Don't be surprised if the Beta 1 date slips let alone the RTM date.

Here is the first visual evidence that Java works on BeOS.

OpenBSD creator Theo de Raadt announced that Intel has refused his request to permit that the firmware for their wireless chipsets be made freely distributable. He explains, "I had asked for free terms under which we (and Linux, anyone) can redistribute the firmwares for their wireless chipsets. Without these firmware files included in OpenBSD, users must go do some click-through license at some web site to get at the files. Without those files, these devices are just bits of metal, plastic, and sand."