IceWM is a lightweight window manager for UNIX-like systems. Although widely used, it is often underrated - there is hardly any IceWM-related content on the Internet. This article is my attempt to share my experiences as a longtime IceWM user. It contains tips and tricks, usage scenarios, and makes use of examples whenever possible to better demonstrate IceWM's features and capabilities. Finally, the article is meant for those with some familiarity with UNIX, but who are new to IceWM.

The KDE Project announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.3 Beta 2. The focus of this release, code-named Kollege, is to fix bugs in the run-up to aKademy in late August. More here and here.

In its first preview at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference last year, Windows XP successor Longhorn was shown running a 20-year-old copy of Visicalc. Ancient DOS software won't be the lone occupant of the Longhorn compatibility box. Win32, the Web, and even WinForms -- the .Net era's first GUI framework -- are all legacy APIs from Longhorn's perspective. Their replacements, Microsoft says, will jointly deliver "the best of Windows and the best of the Web."

Linux can learn valuable lessons from its elder cousins in the enterprise, the proprietary Unixes from the likes of IBM, Sun, and HP. Those operating systems, in turn, can learn some lessons from Linux. Comparing the features of the more enterprise-ready Linux distros with AIX, one of the leading proprietary Unixes, helps identify some.

This article is the 2nd in a 2-part series of articles on getting up and running with GCJ on Mac OS X 10.3.4 ("Panther"). The first article addressed getting a recent GCJ release built and installed on OS X (with no Swing/AWT support), along with some rationale on why you'd want to do such a thing. This article deals with building and installing a Swing/AWT-enabled GCC straight from cvs.

Several new security-promoting technologies are to be built into Longhorn. These include an ability to periodically check user's systems against new security fixes in a centralized patch database, and to institute far more stringent access controls and permission levels. Read the article here.

"Learning Python, Second Edition" was published only a few months ago by O'Reilly. We take a quick look at this promising book.

Since the release of PHP5 a lot of interest has reverberated down through the whole PHP community. In particular, there's a call for a PHP-GTK 2.0 which will utilize GTK2 and will have an entire rewrite of it from the ground up to make use of new features.

TerraSoft share with us where they stand with Yellow Dog Linux v4.0 development and an overview of the development process so you may understand the complexity of this effort and perhaps further appreciate the pending v4.0 release.

Producing digital music with RISC OS is still possible, says artist Antius, who this month told drobe.co.uk that he's finished recording his latest album, in which RISC OS played a considerable part. Conceived under the hEgelian diAlectics project, the album is due to be mastered at Eevolute, although no specific release date can be given.

IT departments charged with integrating Linux clients among the Windows desktops they're running can make life easier by administering Linux user accounts with Microsoft Corp.'s Active Directory. Samba, the open-source project for providing Windows-compatible file and print services, makes this possible, but it doesn't make it easy.

In these days there has been much fuzzing about the new browsing with files organizing themselves with the help of meta data. Maybe you ask yourself "What have this to do with the spatial browsing in gnome and how can it improve the browsing?". That's what I did. As I see it, the gnome people have introduced the spatial browsing so we are used to it when this new browsing is coming to town. This is very intelligent move of the gnome people and will help us adopt faster to this. This is when the spatial browsing is really making sense. I hope you see this when you've read this article.

This is the third installment of our "Inside Tiger" series, covering Mac OS X Version 10.4. Check back frequently for more Tiger coverage. Click here to jump right to the images.

While virtually all computer graphics professionals use Adobe Photoshop to do their artistic work, Photoshop is a pricey and proprietary application. If you're looking to do graphics design on a budget, or perhaps want a software package that is less resource-intensive than Photoshop, check out open source alternatives -- the GIMP, SodiPodi, and Inkscape. Our Take: While these apps are extremely valuable for Unix users, they can't compete in the professional marketplace with Photoshop or Illustrator. They just don't do as much or they don't always do it in an expected way. More here and here.