OOVM produces a virtual machine that allows programmers to hook in remotely and modify code on the fly without needing to reboot the environment: which is very useful indeed. It makes software updates transparent to the user.

The new version of IntelliJ IDEA supports J2SE 5, the new refactoring system and other enhancements.

How many Opteron or Nocona processors can a computer system support? Good question, and one that only AMD and Intel can answer. Since they're not saying, here are some system scalability facts you can draw upon when generating scalability guesstimates.

Interoperability Tool for Eclipse and .NET WinForms is a Java tool that allows hosting of third-party WinForm controls in Eclipse, handling of .NET events, accessing of .NET properties, invoking of .NET methods, and instantiating of .NET objects. This tool can aid in moving to the Eclipse platform while making use of investments in .NET WinForms controls.

While the just-released first service pack for Microsoft's Office 2003 primarily rounds up security and bug fixes, it also enhances features in the 2003 versions of OneNote and InfoPath.

Linux boasts the widest array of filesystem support among mainstream operating systems. However, Microsoft (with Longhorn) and Apple (with Tiger) have made it clear that they consider the filesystem of the future to be a database of information to be mined, and that client PCs will be a major part of the next chapter in the "search wars."

Computer bugs, or errors in software, can mess up just about anything: They've been blamed for missing homework, blackouts, prison breaks and even the loss of multimillion-dollar space probes. Andrew Ko, a computer researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, talks about a new debugging program, Whyline.

The package installation problem is one of the primary barriers to desktop Linux adoption. Most if not all solutions so far have addressed the wrong problem (at least for desktop users) -- resolving dependencies at package installation time. A much better approach is to ensure that as few dependencies exist as possible. While this might seem a lofty goal, given the open source development emphasis on reusing as much code as possible, this goal is indeed achievable through a process of desktop component standardization.

Version 2.1 of the VG.net vector graphics system was released today. With this version, you can build animated vector graphics displays in Visual Studio .NET and deploy them to web pages in Internet Explorer. Read more at the VG.net 2.1 release announcement. See a sample animated vector graphics web page on the VG.net development blog.

First of all, we should agree on what the definition of "ready for the desktop" stands for. For some of us it refers to a graphical user interface in which applications have icons and can be launched in an intuitive manner without the need of complex commands. Even a Commodore 64 running Geos could be "ready for the desktop" by this definition, but the fact is that when we read "ready for the desktop" we understand "ready to replace Microsoft Windows".

Dan Fernandez, here, demonstrates how to build a cool little application in Visual C# Express Edition (you can download that from the Channel 9 Express site). Follow along as Dan takes you through the demo's source code and gives you a visual tour of C# Express. Elsewhere, the .NET Framework version 2.0 beta redistributable package is the most recent update to the Microsoft .NET Framework and includes everything you need to run applications developed using the .NET Framework.

At the AmiWest 2004 show in Sacramento KMOS CEO Garry Hare announced that KMOS has acquired Amiga Inc. A few months ago we reported that KMOS acquired AmigaOS4 assets, but now it seems that the whole Amiga, Inc. belongs to this not-so-public company.

Open source appears challenged by patents but that fear is often exaggerated. Lawrence Rosen, technology attorney and author of "Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law" (Prentice Hall, 2004), offers a calming view of the patent situation. He describes reasonable steps we can take to prevent patents from interfering with software freedom.

Sun COO Jonathan Schwartz aired the idea of porting Solaris to two additional architectures during his 20 July earnings concall. "We’ve begun looking at Solaris on Power as well as Solaris on Itanium as a way of delivering incremental volume," said Schwartz, who apparently believes that POWER and Itanium support is just the Solaris volume exopansion solution Sun needs.