IBM has been winning the TPC-C benchmark war against HP for some time and has now really put some pressure on its rival to keep up. Not only did IBM obliterate HP's Itanium-based server record of 1m transactions per minute, but it also did so with a better price/performance system.

I've been using Linux since the Redhat days. Since then, it has grown from a curious look to a hobby, and more recently to my main operating system. Due to starting out with Redhat, I admit to being partial to the Redhat/Fedora series. Don't let that concern you though, as I've tried all of the mainstream distributions, even Lycoris and Linspire.

The first issue of Zeta's Magazine (in German), Zemag, is now online. ZetaNews has more details.

IBM's programming and scripting language, REXX, may have achieved a unique range of supported platforms, with success on everything from the Commodore Amiga to OS/2 to IBM mainframes. Over the years, REXX gained object-oriented features, and turned into Object Rexx, with programming interfaces to DB2, C, and C++ applications. A few weeks ago, IBM quietly released Object Rexx to the open source community. RexxLA — the REXX Language Association — targeting the first release of Open Object REXX for early 2005.

Memory management is one of the most fundamental areas of computer programming. In many scripting languages, you don't have to worry about how memory is managed, but that doesn't make memory management any less important. Knowing the abilities and limitations of your memory manager is critical for effective programming. Get an overview of the memory management techniques that are available to Linux programmers, focusing on the C language but applicable to other languages as well.

Free and open source software is often criticised for being less usable than its commercial equivalent. Good user interface design isn't some magical thing that FOSS developers can't do for themselves, however. I've written a short article describing five key points of good interface design that any developer can use in their projects. (Note: hosted on a slow connection, please use the Coral Cache if possible).

Java Studio Creator on Mac OS X is an easy-to-use tool for building Web applications with Java. Read this article to learn how to get started developing with it on the Mac platform. Also, Apple has released Xserve RAID Admin Tools 1.3.2, an update to its remote management software that simplifies setup and monitoring of storage volumes.

ActiveWin.com recently had the opportunity to interview Wes Miller, Program Manager in the Windows Setup & Deployment team. They discussed various Setup/Deployment issues including WinPE, etc.

We are very happy to announce that our little side project, GnomeFiles.org has reached as of this moment 535 application entries, 100,000 downloads and an average of ~19,000 pageviews per day, all in about 5 months since its first publication. We would like to thank our readers and the GTK+/GTK-binding developers who supported the project so far. Update: Search Plugin for Firefox/Mozilla now available (get it from the bottom of the GnomeFiles page).

Codeweavers has released v4 of its Wine implementation with the addition of support for iTunes.

Just because Firefox is free and open source doesn't mean developers aren't cashing in on the popularity of the Mozilla Foundation's new browser.

The OpenBSD team earlier this month released version 3.6 of the free operating system, with support for more hardware, updated application software, and bug fixes included. This time around OpenBSD has added support for multi-CPU systems, a number of drivers for new peripheral hardware, and about 200 more apps to the Ports tree. NewsForge took the new version for a spin, and liked what they found.

Linuxlookup.com is reporting Connectiva, Mandrakesoft, Progeny and Turbolinux today announce the creation of a common implementation of the LSB 2.0 which will serve as the base for future products. The project, called "Linux Core Consortium" (LCC), is backed by Linux supporters such as Computer Associates, HP, Novell, Red Hat, Sun, OSDL, and the Free Standards Group. All details are in the press-release.

An extended version of the CRUX PPC 2.0 GNU/Linux distribution for the Apple and Pegasos II systems...more.