Apple decided to disable full dual head video in the new iMac in firmware, but intrepid hackers will not be daunted. The leading German language computer magazine c't has put an OpenFirmware hack into an Applescript for easy use.

A couple of weeks ago, Microsoft unveiled the latest version of its Media Center OS, which turns a PC into a Tivo-like device and digital jukebox. While the last version only came pre-installed on rather expensive hardware, there are already vendors lined up with some less expensive (and pretty cool) hardware this time around. Read more in this Mercury News article.

Techworld just released an updated version of their Report on Windows vs. Linux. This report tries to separate myth from reality... In particular, we have looked at new technological developments since the last survey. We offer no blanket conclusion that Linux is better than Windows, or vice versa, but point out the technological areas where one scores highly and the other less well.

According to Distrowatch an evaluation edition of the Lycoris Desktop/LX 1.4 has been released. The edition only contains GPL components and the license prevents its use after the initial 45-day evaluation period. Get more information via their press release here and their sneak peak page. Update: 100 Lycoris screenshots.

BeOS/Zeta user group JPBE.net recently exhibited at the Kansai Open Source 2004 show held in Osaka, Japan, inviting yellowTAB Senior Development Engineer Bruno G. Albuquerque to host a seminar on OpenBFS, and to demo the latest version of Zeta OS. News site www.iscomputeron.com now carries a report of Kansai Open Source 2004, while videos of the OpenBFS session and an on stage Zeta demo are also available from JPBE.net. Also, C# for BeOS.

Release announcement of the FreeBSD 5.3-RC2 release available here.

The second beta of the upcoming XFce 4.2 is now available for testing.

According this article Solaris 10 beta7 aka. build 69 available for download from Sun Microsystems.

Stan Lippman discusses issues that developers should be aware of when porting applications to Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.

The long anticipated update to Portable.NET has been released. The new version features important patches and fixes for Serial I/O, threading support, sockets and many more - read the full announcement for details or download the source code now (binaries will be available shortly).

OnLAMP features a new article on how to use a simple implementation of DBC with C code. If you ever wanted to know what designing by contract is, and why C's assert is not enough read this.

When on Unix/Linux I mostly use Gnome, and so here are some of the best third party GTK+ applications around I have found.

We've put together a short list of tech books that could keep you company this weekend.

DesktopLinux has published a detailed and lengthy eight page review of SimplyMEPIS 2004. In the review, SimplyMEPIS is declared "the absolute masterpiece of desktop Linux distributions." There are several screen shots to go along with the article. Update: More Mepis screenshots here.