The first release candidate of the next version of FreeBSD's STABLE branch, FreeBSD 4.10-RC1 has been released. It contains many changes including bugfixes and backported features from the development branch such as enhanced USB support. Get it from a mirror before using the master server. Testers should get their hands on this now as the final release is expected in a couple of weeks.

Mike Deem provides a quick look at the basic concepts of the WinFS data access API: objects based on schemas, powerful query support and support for WinFS concepts such as relationships.

Curtis Sasaki, Sun's vice president of desktop solutions, told eWEEK in an interview Wednesday, ahead of the summit, that among the key advances in version 2.0 are management capabilities that allow enterprises to fine-tune and remotely set up the desktop. Also, Sun has exceeded its own expectations by signing 21 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for several products the company offers as alternatives to Microsoft Corp. desktop software, Sun announced Thursday at the Desktop Linux Summit in San Diego. TheRegister has a story about JDS as well. Also, MSNBC has a review of JDS 1.0.

In an email, Microsoft outlines the reason why they think that customers have stuck with Windows despite Microsoft's shortcomings. He attributes their loyalty to the high costs of switching away from their existing heavy investment in the Windows Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). In fact, Microsoft feels that the pressure from Linux will lead the company to innovate more. In the meantime EU published their verdict (in PDF).

AMD is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its 64-bit Opteron processor this week, but executives are looking forward to what may be a more crucial time for the upstart processor.

Euan Kirkhope has achieved a RAM limiting bootloader for BeOS R5, Zeta, Dano, PhOS, allowing BeOS* to operate on machines with more than 1GB RAM by capping it out at 512 MB of RAM.

This article is intended to give you a practical recipe for creating a simple Web Control and extending Visual Studio with support for the control. The control itself is a basic Country Code drop down list such as you would find on many profile entry pages.

"SUSE Linux 9.1 - the first version of the distribution to come out after Novell bought the company late last year - will be available in Australia from May 1. SUSE has the second biggest marketshare among commercial distributions of the open source operating system." Read the review at SMH.com.au.

Aiming to portray itself as the victim of overreaching regulators, Microsoft on Wednesday released a position paper insisting that the European Union's antitrust sanctions amount to "new law" that could hurt others in the technology industry. Elsewhere, the next Microsoft Tablet PC software renamed to Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 from the code-name Lonestar.

Embattled Linux software maker Lindows announced Tuesday that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of common stock. The filing reveals that Lindows is suing Xandros, which sells a competing desktop Linux package based on products developed by Corel, over a $750,000 loan that Lindows alleges Xandros defaulted on (Lindows and Xandros shared code and some business 2-2.5 years ago but their relationship went sour about 1.5 years ago). That case is still in the discovery phase, according to the filing.

This article focus on programming in C# with Mono. It contains a compilation of extremely useful tips and workarounds, especially for people used to lower level programming, like C programmers. Since the Mono documentation is still far from finished, and I found from my experience that it is still very hard to find information and help with C# issues when using Mono, I compiled a series of tips that I gathered from my experience with Mono.

Can you trust the leading open-source database engines, PostgreSQL and MySQL, to deliver the performance and features that the Oracles, SQL Servers, and DB2s of the world do? Not just yet, but they could offer enough to meet your needs. Find out how they stack up against each other, as well as against the commercial alternatives, writes Tim Conrad.

Learn about what is new in Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition software from a developer's point of view. MSMobiles also has more info, links and screenshots of the SE version of Windows Mobile 2003.

Sometimes, algorithms that change the world arise not as research for its own sake, but to answer a pressing need. One example of this type of innovation is encryption, which was created to defend against code-breakers who seek to steal or eavesdrop on vital data, says eCommerceTimes.