Jono Bacon believes that all DEs should include a utility that reminds the user of taking a break every so often, in order to escape RSI. Workrave (with the cute sheep mascot) is a good example.

After a year of tackling the Windows security nightmare, Microsoft has killed its Next-Generation Secure Computing Base (NGSCB) project and later this year plans to detail a revised security plan for Longhorn, the next major version of Windows, company executives said. On Tuesday, Microsoft executives confirmed that NGSCB will be canned. The project, dreamed up with Intel in 2002, was once code-named Palladium.

Novell Inc. is banking its re-entry into the consciousness of IT shops on Linux. Through its acquisitions of Ximian and SuSE Linux AG last year, Novell is working hard to regain its stature as a major technology player. In this interview, SuSE chief technology officer Juergen Geck touches on Novell's Linux strategy, starting with its recent release of the YaST (Yet another Setup Tool) management tool to open source, his thoughts on back-porting features from the 2.6 kernel and SuSE's product road map for the rest of 2004.

R. Kirk McPike wrote a comparison between Microsoft's Word and OpenOffice.org Writer based on his experience writing a term paper. It's an attempt to consider the end usability of both products, and how OpenOffice.org's challenge should be responded to by Microsoft.

Mono Beta 1 has been unleashed onto the public. This is the first of two planned public betas before Mono 1.0 rolls out the door. The public betas are approaching an offical "production quality" state, and by 1.0 should be stable enough for corporate and coder consumption everywhere. This version includes a GAC (global assembly cache) implementation.

Microsoft has recommitted to releasing Longhorn, its next-generation Windows client and server, into beta testing in 2005 even though its chairman acknowledged that security concerns threaten his dream of enabling seamless connectivity and Web services. Here is the transcript of Gates' speech yesterday and here is Jim Allchin's. Also, Microsoft combined the Windows CE, Windows Mobile departments.

This article discusses a "Minority Report"-alike user interface developed at Microsoft (video here). In the meantime, Windows Forms 2.0 and Visual Studio 2005 (both codenamed "Whidbey") are the next release of Microsoft’s smart client platform and tools.

This interview with MontaVista CEO and embedded pioneer Jim Ready explains why Ready is preparing his small, privately held company for the "battle of the century."

This article aims to provide an insight into some aspects of KDE usability as seen by a long term Gnome user making the switch, as well as provide a mini-review of SUSE LIVE CD 9.1 - including the obligatory screenshot of course!

From Slashdot: Sun is putting out Java Desktop System Release 2. Some overview information is in this article while more technical information about the new management solutions are in this one.

In their keynotes at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, Jim Allchin and Bill Gates plan to stress the value of melding hardware and software innovation, as well as demonstrating what some of Microsoft's new technologies can do. In the meantime, Bill Gates confirms that there will be no AMD Windows 64 until Q4, but he calls for 64-bit software support.

"At one time, NetWare was the network operating system for the PC world. In particular, there are still companies that depend upon its bread and butter networking on lovingly maintained NetWare 3.1x and 4.x set-ups. And why shouldn't they? It's been long acknowledged that for fundamental print and file services along with rock-solid stability, you couldn't beat NetWare." Read the rest of the article here.

Concerns about open source use can fuel internal naysayers at the acquiror who favor an internal solution over acquisition, says LinuxInsider. Embedded open source software may raise questions about maintaining segregation of the acquired code after the acquisition or potential costs to replace portions of the acquired code base.

LinuxDevCenter takes a peek at the coLinux runtime engine, running under Windows.