Microsoft is developing versions of Windows with only a subset of its code base, designed for specific server tasks. The intention is to reduce maintenance costs and create products that are less vulnerable to attack, and so tackle head-on the threat posed by Linux.

PatchBurn is a tool to patch existing CD/DVD-drivers (under Mac-OS X 10.2.x) or to generate and install new device profiles (under Mac-OS 10.3.x and later). It allows many, otherwise unsupported burners to be used directly with Mac OS X, iTunes and DiscBurner. It has given life to my (otherwise unsupported) external SONY DVD-/+RW drive and so it comes recommended. PatchBurn is harmless, as all it does is create a new description profile for the drive so OSX knows how to deal with it.

GNU/Linux, and all other operating systems, are based around a kernel which controls hardware access and maximizes CPU and RAM efficiency by controlling when and how much programs get to use. The difference between Linux and most other operating systems (closed source ones at least BSD and other open source OS's you can do this with) is that you can compile the kernel to meet your needs.

Brushed aluminum swept aside as Apple's Mail 2.0 will reportedly sport an updated theme.

Here you can find a show report of last weekend's multi-platform 'Fun of Computing 2004' event which was held in Ilmenau, Germany. The highlight was a demonstration of AmigaOS4. These presentation sheets from a French Amiga event which was held one week prior to this event, shows the current development status of AmigaOS4.

The SuSE linux distribution has been on people's radar in the past year since it became an acquired property of Novell. One of the flagship features of SuSE has always been YaST, SuSE's installation and system management tool. Interesting to see what YaST was like now that it has been open source'd by Novell & share the results here with the screenshots.

Linare Corp sent us in the Pro version of their Linare Linux flavor. We are taking a quick look at the product, at it's advantages and occasional... missteps.

Hewlett-Packard has formally demanded that Sun Microsystems and its president, Jonathan Schwartz, stop publishing what it calls "misleading and factually incorrect statements" about HP's commitment to its version of Unix--but Sun is standing firm.

GP Software have released the latest edition of Directory Opus, aka DOpus. In skipping revision numbers from v6 to v8, DOpus has gained a vast amount of flexibility for viewing and managing different document types. Some of the highlights include:

Security Update 2004-09-30 delivers a number of security enhancements and is recommended for all Macintosh users. This update includes the following components: AFP Server, CUPS, NetInfoManager, postfix and QuickTime.

Fixes and enhancements made since BETA6 on FreeBSD 5.3: fix timekeeping on sparc64 and alpha that would result in the day of the week being stored incorrectly in NVRAM; add support to the fxp driver for the ICH6 chipset; fix the panic on detach problem with USB hubs; import BIND 9.3.0, this completely replaces the old BIND 8.x nameserver in the base system; fix panic when allocating swap on a busy system; fix loader crash when using the 'lsdev' command".

Microsoft is developing versions of its Windows operating system with only a subset of the Windows code base, designed for specific server tasks, in a move that could reduce maintenance costs for customers and create products that are less vulnerable to attack. Elsewhere, Ballmer gave an interview about the new digital style of life.

Learn the basics of Windows graphics programming as you build a lightweight game. Between the use of software patterns and the graphics techniques, you'll polish your fundamental programming skills while having a bit of fun.

Linux handles the machine independent/dependent layer in a unique way, making page table management a bit tricky. Mel Gorman gives you the skinny on the process in this sample chapter.