"Linux has made some excellent advances in making itself more consumer friendly, but it cannot directly compete with the Mac OS or Windows yet. Also, while there are plenty of applications available for Linux, few consumer-oriented app makers produce apps for Linux. The Mac's app base is smaller than that of Windows, but it is far more robust than Linux's base, and apps are key." Read the rest of the editorial at MacObserver. Also, "Who's Losing Most Desktops to Linux, Apple or Microsoft?" LinuxWorld discusses on the other side.

With the advent of PearPC a large portion of the computing world was stunned as people watched OS X starting up on their very own x86 PCs. While this 0.3 release is not as ground breaking as the first it follows along the lines of the second with good speed improovements & complete fullscreen support.

The first beta of a Linux distribution that hopes to compete with enterprise server products from SuSE and Red Hat is set for release on 1 September - but few in the industry can see it gaining much support. Backed by open source advocate Bruce Perens, the free UserLinux distribution claims to offer the same functionalities as existing enterprise Linux distributions.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced plans to launch the cheap, easy-to-use version of Windows XP in five emerging markets. In a report published this week, Gartner analysts Dion Wiggins and Martin Gilliland noted that missing features in the Windows XP Starter Edition would frustrate users. Also, Gartner has labeled Microsoft's upcoming version of Windows for developing countries as a product with good intent but poor execution.

This document will introduce OpenVPN as a free, secure and easy to use and configure SSLbased VPN solution. The document will present some simple (and verified) scenario’s that might be useful for preparing security/networking labs with students, for creating a remote access solution or as a new project for the interested home user.

The new print path in Longhorn, called the NextGen print path, addresses many limitations of the current print path, which is based on the Windows GDI. The NextGen print path will also coexist with the GDI print path. This coexistence ensures applications and devices a smooth migration over time by providing critical backward compatibility.

The Mono team has released a Mono and Gtk# installer for Windows that provides all of the prerequisites. Furthermore, you can use Gtk# to develop applications in either Mono on any OS, or Microsoft .NET on Windows. In this article, Niel M. Bornstein shows you how to write your first Gtk# program and deploy it in a Windows environment.

Mad Penguin has posted a three page review of GraphOn's Go-Global for Windows.. software which allows you to run published Win32 applications on Linux.

Apostolos Koutropoulos wrote an informative article on Smartphones technology and status today. Read more about it on our sister site, NewMobileComputing.

With its low cost, growing catalogue of desktop software, and backing from business, Linux could finally pry the PC market from Microsoft's grasp.

In September, 2003, Ecma Technical Committee TC39 created Task Group 5 (TG5) to create a standard for the language C++/CLI, based on a submission from Microsoft. When TG5 has completed this specification, it will be submitted to the Ecma General Assembly (GA) for consideration as an Ecma standard. Once it has been adopted as such, the specification will be submitted to ISO/IEC JTC 1 via the latter's Fast-Track process.

With Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Microsoft is introducing a set of security technologies that will help improve Windows XP-based computers' ability to withstand malicious attacks from viruses and worms. These technologies include: Network protection, Memory protection, improved email security, safer browsing.

Light on theory and long on practical application, "Mono: A Developer's Notebook" book bypasses the talk and theory, and jumps right into Mono 1.0. Here is a PDF sample chapter of the newly released Mono book (we will have a review in a couple of weeks).

Organizations that want to use a public Unix variant have two solutions from which to chose: Linux and BSD. The much talked about Linux camp contains a variety of distributions that include different utilities and tool sets. The same is true of the less frequently covered BSD camp. This article compares and contrasts the four main BSD variants and offers recommendations for both server/desktop solutions.