JAR files are ubiquitous to Java users and programmers. But just how much do you know about them? Learn the ins-and-outs of Java archive files, including their innate support for indexing, programmatic creation and manipulation, security, and data integrity.

This technical overview by veteran real-time instructor David Kalinsky examines a number of design patterns used to architect high-availability embedded systems that utilize a real-time operating system. The design of high availability systems is based on a combination of redundant hardware components and software to manage fault detection and correction, to achieve "five-nines" (99.999%) or greater availability, equivalent to less than 1 second of downtime per day.

This is the second beta release of Mandrakelinux 10.0 for AMD64, DistroWatch reports along with more info on the release and direct links for the 3 CDs.

Would you invest your hard-earned dollars in a company like this? Its revenues soared an average of 36% through the 1990s, but now it's heading into miserly single-digit growth. It has long been a powerful engine fueled by major updates of its products, yet the next major one, an unprecedented five years in the making, isn't expected until 2006. The company hasn't made much headway in newer, promising markets. And its share price is stuck exactly where it was in mid-1998. Not buying, huh? Well, tough luck: You probably already own a piece of this rock, says Yahoo! Finanace.

FreeBSD kernel hacker Poul-Henning Kamp lost recently his biggsest contracting job and so he has plenty of free time to work on getting rid of the giant lock on the FreeBSD kernel (found on disk and device I/O path) which would benefit the system performance and scalability.

Cringely editorializes: "When I wrote last week about my conclusion that the legal system -- any legal system -- is unequipped to change Microsoft's monopolistic behavior, I had no idea that within 24 hours, Sun would be throwing in the towel, trading its so-called principles for $1.95 billion in cash. So I guess I was right. Only now, a few thousand readers out there expect me to blithely produce an answer to the problem of what to do to bring Microsoft into the civilized world. Well, I say it can't be done".

"One of the first things I started doing almost immediately after installing Mac OS X when it first came out in March 2001, was to begin downloading and building Unix-based open source applications. I was able to build quite a few applications by performing the usual configure/make/make install sequence." Read the rest of the article at MacDevCenter.

From ActiveWin: Adam Kinney, a known blogger in the Avalon community, tells us of his experiences getting started with Longhorn, and what's working and what's not. Elsewhere, Joe Beda, development lead on the Avalon/Longhorn team, talks about the 3D capabilities that will be delivered in Longhorn.

The Ark Linux team has announced the immediate availability of Ark Linux 1.0 alpha 11, a new version of its easy to use, easy to learn desktop operating system.

Sun Microsystems has discontinued development of two planned chips as it retrenches in a difficult era for the company. More at News.com.

W. Kendrick gives a visual overview of lesser known KDE features in KDE 3.2 - A User's Perspective (mirror). He covers everything from SuperKaramba to the new Kiosk tool.

Red Hat, Ximian and Debian developers are discussing the future of Gnome and its place in the desktop marketplace at Planet Gnome (scroll to read all discussions taking place). In the meantime Dropline GNOME 2.6 became available for Slackware, while the Gnome bindings have reached RC status.

From OpenBeOS.org "We have reached a milestone toward self-hosting. The prolific Waldemar Kornewald checked in a file using our netstack and PPP code."

Jim Farnsworth takes a look at the ICEwm under MEPIS. On other X11 news, with Release, X.Org seals the fate of XFree86 says InternetNews.