If you're a programmer who's become fed up with software bloat, then may you find herein the perfect antidote. This document explores methods for squeezing excess bytes out of simple programs.

While spyware protection on single home machines is quite easy using today's removal tools like AdAware or Spybot Search & Destroy, deploying and managing such tools in corporate networks is still a problem. AdAxis promises to ease both deployment and managability of AdAware in such environments. It provides a facility for pushing reference file updates to corporate network workstations, executing AdAware on workstations remotely without user interaction and monitor the spyware contamination degree of machines.

Much of the attention commanded by computer security issues focuses on threats from external sources. Firewalls and perimeter defense tools are deployed to deny unauthorised entry to the network. Experts look for vulnerabilities and ways to ensure that the perimeter cannot be breached. Administrators monitor network traffic for unusual activities and anomalies, and it is common for users to be warned against suspicious email attachments. Read more.

When AT&T balkanized its Unix holdings in 1993, two different companies ended up walking away with pieces of the original Unix. Novell originally bought it all, then decided to keep the Unix source code and sell the Unix trademark -- the name, in other words -- and the Single Unix Specification standards to the X/Open Company. The Open Group, as it is now called, has since learned to use these assets profitably by offering qualification testing and certification for operating systems. If your OS meets certain requirements, passes the qualification tests, and you pay the fees, you get to call it Unix. Should GNU/Linux get certified?

When it finally ships, the Longhorn release of Windows will include a number of interesting new technologies. But it is the technology currently code-named “Indigo” that stands out as the most important product for anyone who cares about how diverse systems are glued together. To understand Indigo, however, there are four points you need to get your mind around. Elsewhere, .NET luminaries discuss themselves, their technology expertise, and whatever else comes to mind, released twice a month. Elsewhere, the Longhorn Driver Kit is a fully integrated driver development system for Windows.

A joined effort between Sun, Red Hat and others resulted to the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines 2.0 which has just been released. Look at the changes here.