This Technology Preview is based on the Beta 2 build of Windows CE 5.0 and is subject to change prior to the final release of the product. This preview is intended for evaluation purposes only.

The Fall distribution release period of 2003 was not the most interesting, nor the least interesting in recent memory. For the most part all of the distributions got better, but not so much that those running distributions now going on a year in age are really missing anything terribly substantial. OfB.biz did find a few interesting points worth revisiting, however, and those deal with Mandrake Linux 9.2 and Fedora Core 1. Read the whole look back at the last distribution release cycle at OfB.biz.

What happens when a user moves full time to Xandros? How the technical and third party software support works out of the Canadian Linux distro?

Sun Microsystems announced Friday that it has moved to a new phase of legal and technical cooperation with longtime foe Microsoft that will involve a payment of $1.95 billion to Sun, reports News.com. The timing of the Microsoft-Sun agreement could be seen as a smokescreen to mitigate the continued bad financial and layoff news for Sun, says NewsForge.

Matthew Newton takes a look at new releases of Mandrake and the Gnome 2.6 desktop, with an eye toward bringing one more Linux user online.

This paper written by Andreas Tille is intended to people who are interested in the philosophy of Custom Debian Distributions and the technique which is used to manage those projects. It is explained in detail why these are no forks from Debian but reside completely inside the Debian GNU/Linux distribution and which advantages can be gathered by this approach. The concept of meta-packages and user role based menus is explained. In short: This document describes why Custom Debian Distributions are important to the vitality and quality of Debian.

John Gruber replies to Eric Raymond's usability rants on Free Software, and we extend John's view to a more broad analysis.

In this episode of the .NET Show Quentin Clark and Anil Nori share some of the architectural concepts of WinFS, and how it changes the way programmers and users will interact with the information they store on their systems. Later Mike Deem walks through some code that shows how to code against this new file system in order to make information easier to work with. Elsewhere, Mike Harsh shows how to use the RegionMaster Controls sample from WindowsForms.net to create non-rectangular applications, like Windows Media Player, using Windows Forms.

Microsoft's efforts to bolster security in Windows XP will likely delay the release of a widespread test version of its forthcoming OS, Longhorn, until next year, Microsoft's executives told CNET News.com.

Today I stumbled upon a little live distro called PCLinuxOS . I've seen it before mentioned online, but I never really looked at it in depth. When I found it under "alternatives" for Mandrake, I decided to take a look. I was surprized to what I found.

The EU antitrust case against Microsoft is a battle over the future technical standards for Hollywood films, online music and other forms of digital entertainment, analysts say.

The SphereXP is a 3D desktop replacement for Microsoft Windows XP (still beta). It offers a new way to organize objects on the desktop. Check the videos and screenshots to get the idea.

Flexbeta.net claims that it has learned the release dates for Windows XP 64 Bit, Tablet PC 2004 and Windows XP SP2.

JSR 133, which has been active for nearly three years, has recently issued its public recommendation on what to do about the Java Memory Model (JMM).