This article describes how to find common programming mistakes that may lead to poor startup time and how to correct them. Included is a case study demonstrating how the Runtime Spy was used to improve the startup performance of IBM WebSphere Studio Application Developer. The previous article, Part 1, introduces the Runtime Spy.

Microsoft has released details about a number of problems which could be dogging those who install one of its patches issued on April 13 - the patch that fixes 14 vulnerabilities, among them two which are now being actively exploited.

Coder "t3rmin4t0r" seems to have ported MyXAML to Linux. Here is a screenshot of the default WinForms powered MyXAML calculator demonstration, and here is the same demonstration running under DotGNU's work-in-progress Qt-powered WinForms backend.

OSDL lab manager and open source test-giver Tim Witham is on a mission to push Linux performance testing to higher-level, real-world applications, to produce reliable, retestable, comparable data that will let users compare the operating systems or open source applications in a transparent fashion. Witham said everybody seems to have a different idea of what performance metrics means.

Sun Microsystems has been marketing Solaris, one of the main Unix derivatives, for about twenty years. So why, then, would they market a Linux distribution? Let's take a look at what it is they're offering and what it's uses are to shed some light on the "why". Read the rest of the review at PCBurn.

In yesterday's annual strategy memo to Microsoft employees, CEO Steve Ballmer declared: "Noncommercial software products in general, and Linux in particular, present a competitive challenge for us and for our entire industry, and they require our concentrated focus and attention."

Here is an article asking Red Hat to opensource the GFS cluster file system. Elsewhere, Red Hat's newest version of Linux has been granted a significant security certification, bringing the company a step closer to competitors. Version 3 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been certified to meet Evaluation Assurance Level 2 (EAL2) of the Common Criteria certification.

Linuxbeginner.org spent a week with Linspire 4.5 and they have written down their experiences.

Miguel de Icaza talks to Glyn Moody about Mono's progress, how Ximian was bought by Novell, and why he is so scared of Microsoft's Longhorn. Read the interesting interview here.

Jono Bacon is editorializing on his blog regarding usability on FOSS applications. UPDATE: Acts of Volition looks at how "creeping featuritis" has affected interface design in different open source software projects. The article notes that while some projects have succumbed to the problem, others have managed to tame the beast.

This whitepaper provides an overview of the architecture, benefits, and features of the Platform Innovation Framework for Extensible Firmware Interface, a modular, platform-independent architecture for implementating boot and other BIOS functions recently. The Framework, developed by Intel, is driver-based, enabling binary-linking of modules; and it is C-based, clean, scalable, and modular, allowing it to support diverse CPU architecures - such as Intel's IA-32, Itanium & XScale - within a single source tree.

Even at the enterprise server level, there are wide differences between Linux distributions, not only in price, but in ease of installation, included features and software, and particularly in ease of administration. See how the two most popular Linux enterprise server distributions match up.

This critical update for Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 enhances the stability and performance of Media Center Edition 2004 and resolves these issues.

Apple Computer on Wednesday celebrated the first birthday of its iTunes Music Store by unveiling more than a half-dozen new features for the popular online music service. More info on MacMinute.