Miguel de Icaza has just posted his minute of second mono summit. This provides a lot of interesting information about mono improvements. Among others mentions "stetic" the new Gtk# GUI designer, Gtk# databindings, and a better way to package mono.

Another front in the on-going battle between Microsoft and Google is about to be opened. By the end of 2004 Microsoft aims to launch search software to find any kind of file on a PC hard drive. The move is in answer to Google's release of its own search tool that catalogues data on desktop PCs. The desktop search market is as Google, AOL, Yahoo and many smaller firms tout programs that help people find files.

The software industry is undergoing a gradual transformation, and consumer fatigue is at its root. The licensing model that has formed the basis for the modern software industry is facing challenges on many fronts, and the industry is scrambling to keep its footing. Where this period of change may lead software producers and consumers isn't quite clear, but some trends are emerging. Since the proliferation of the internet, unauthorized redistribution of digital goods has become rampant. But although software sharing probably won't kill the software industry, the reasoning behind it shares some pedigree with the customer revolt that promises to transform the way software is sold.

Create life, or something like it. Based on the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest, genetic programming uses mutation and replication to produce algorithms for creating ever-improving computer programs. This article covers instructions on how to simulate a multi-celled organism.

Companies that are running customized applications may find a migration to Linux too costly or complex notes Pete Morgan, a VisualBasic/Access developer. Morgan offers a few solutions to help overcome the challenge. Without compatibility, Morgan says, a significant number of businesses may not see the benefits in moving to Linux desktops.

Novell tries to push SuSE server to Red Hat customers with the release of their latest PDF write up.

Fedora Core 3 release candidate is available for testing; Interested parties can find it here or here.

A new revision of the stable branch of Debian GNU/Linux ("woody") is now available: This is the third update of Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 (codename 'woody') which mainly adds security updates to the stable release, along with a few corrections to serious problems.

Preston St. Pierre interviews Linus Torvalds for LinuxTimes. Linus talks about a lot of interesting things.

This quick guide is based on true story, and is contributed to the community with the intent to be helpful to the department, office and enterprise Managers, network Administrators and support Staff, and Small Business Owners.

An email purporting to be from Red Hat alerts users to download a patch that actually contains malicious code. Red Hat's Mark Cox notes that security notices from his company "are never sent unsolicited, are always sent from the address [email protected] and are digitally signed by GPG." This kind of ruse has been used many times in the past to try to fool Windows users.

Home internet users are suffering from a variety of worms, viruses, and spyware on their machines, and though they are often aware that their computers are acting funny, they often don't have any idea why. Typical home users are not taking the necessary steps to protect themselves from these online threats. These are the findings of a recent study on internet security.

If you thought that Service Pack 2 for Windows XP was the last of the big updates, think again. Speaking yesterday at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that a number of important security initiatives were underway for Windows, some of which would be part of a pre-Longhorn "Release 2" for Windows XP.

Behind the scenes, painstaking effort and computing power has gone into cleaning up George Lucas's original Star Wars trilogy for its recent DVD release. 600 Mac G5s. And btw, the Star Wars III teaser will be released in less than 15 days.