CEO Steve Jobs says among other practices, it's "saying no to 1,000 things" so as to concentrate on the "really important" creations. Elsewhere, a forthcoming update to Apple's Mac OS X 10.3 Panther operating system nears release as the company provides documentation of its feature set.

Bill Gates unveils plans to make Media Center software the centerpiece of the digital home. Brand-name PC makers debut a host of new PCs that feature Microsoft's Media Center 2005 software.

Microsoft on Tuesday published 10 software security advisories, warning Windows users and corporate administrators of 22 new flaws that affect the company's products.

Mandrake Community Edition is the bleeding edge of the Mandrake development cycle. This is the release where the good folks over at Mandrake put the final test on new features and squash all the bugs they can before the final release. The ISOs are available through MandrakeClub for download before anyone else gets to see it. So is it worth your hard-earned cash to join the club? Is 10.1 going to be worth the upgrade? Find out in this review, fresh off the presses at LinuxForumsDOTorg. OSDir is also featuring a slideshow of Mandrake 10.1 screenshots.

"My conclusion is this, for a SOHO Business system that wants to get more useable life out of their computer systems I cannot think of a better Linux system out there." Read the review at DesktopOS.

Urban legends are kind of like mind viruses; even though we know they are probably not true, we often can't resist the urge to retell them (and thus infect other gullible "hosts") because they make for such good storytelling. Most urban legends have some basis in fact, which only makes them harder to stamp out. Unfortunately, many pointers and tips about Java performance tuning are a lot like urban legends -- someone, somewhere, passes on a "tip" that has (or had) some basis in fact, but through its continued retelling, has lost what truth it once contained.

This Perforce release adds new mid-submit and post-submit triggers to supplement the existing pre-submit triggers. Three types of "spec" trigger are executed when users create, read, or modify Perforce "specs" (clients, branches, labels, etc.). Indirect integration is now the default, and "p4 integrate" may now select a common-ancestor for the merge that is not a revision of the source- or target-file. Filepaths containing "@#%" can be added to the repository. Smarter merge logic reduces the number of conflicts in merges.

Rubyx is an advanced, source based distro that stands out from the crowd thanks to some unusual and innovative features. It is also exceptionally lean and mean, and it goes like a rocket! I am a big fan of Rubyx and in this article I will attempt to show you why.

The great adaptability of C# is one of its assets, but coding for a wide variety of platforms can be overwhelming. This chapter by Steven John Metsker will help you adapt your code to different situations with ease. Also, Jim Mischel talks about the System.IO.Path class, which makes working with path names very easy. Also, learn how to use Visual Studio's tools to throw and catch, elegantly and easily.

Rick Ruhl shows how easy it is to create and use threads with C++.

Nearly three years have passed since Microsoft Corp. released the last full version of Windows, the Redmond company's most important and profitable product. But when Bill Gates takes the stage tomorrow morning at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, he won't be launching a new generation of the flagship operating system. He'll be looking to stir up some new interest in the existing one.

Linus Torvalds started a revolution of sorts in the computer industry when he created the Linux operating system and decided to share it with fellow programmers on the Internet. He discussed via e-mail his move to Portland, the state of Linux and Microsoft.

WindowSizer, the tiling window manager for Microsoft Windows, now allows you to create multiple tiled layouts and switch among them. Think of it as "Alt-Tabbing" through groups of windows at a time. The just released 1.4 version also has a command to quickly tile the last two, three, or four windows you were working with. Use WindowSizer through its right-click menu or keyboard shortcuts.

Red Hat's Fedora Core 3 Test 3 is now available. Release notes can be found here, torrents can be found here.