"From a strictly technical standpoint, Red Hat ES isn't particularly noteworthy: It's a collection of software compiled and packaged up, given a few management tools of varying quality, and pushed out the door. We did not notice any functionality unique to this Linux distribution, and there are certainly others out there that could fill the role of "departmental server" with equal facility for a lower price." Read the review at ITManagement.

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). Several serious flaws were found in the original JMM, resulting in some surprisingly difficult semantics for concepts that were supposed to be simple, like volatile, final, and synchronized. In this installment of Java theory and practice, the author shows how the semantics of volatile and final will be strengthened in order to fix the JMM. Some of these changes have already been integrated in JDK 1.4; others are slated for inclusion in JDK 1.5. On other Java news, IBM urges Sun to make Java open source.

The new maintainer of the Linux Kernel 2.2, Marc-Christian Petersen announced the release of 2.2.26. The release includes several security fixes, including a fix for the mremap() bug. Alan Cox released the previous 2.2 kernel, 2.2.25 almost a year ago, in March 2003. In August of the same year he began a one year sabbatical to study for an MBA, handing over the maintainership to Marc-Christian.

Mepis Linux is a liveCD, debian based distro, with some additional features, which makes it an excellent introduction to debian. A recent review provided a good overview of the background and basis of Mepis, my review aims to focus more on the day to day use for a desktop user.

Genesi announced today that the Pegasos II G4 using the recently announced 7447A will be shipping as soon as the CPU is commercially released by Motorola. Until then the 7447 will be shipped with the Pegasos II G4. Also, the Crux Linux PPC distro arrives on the PegasosII through the new 1.3.1 version. CRUX is a lightweight, optimized Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users.

REALbasic 5.5 is shipping from REAL Software, and the new version of development environment adds the ability to build Linux applications from Mac and Windows systems, as well as other features of particular interest to Mac OS X users. "Even if Mac users have never had any experience with programming before, they can learn REALbasic and create useful applications to improve their productivity," Geoff Perlman, president and CEO of REAL Software, told MacMinute.

RSA Security Inc. joined Microsoft to deliver stronger security for Microsoft environments by replacing static passwords with strong, two-factor authentication.

This article assist developers of .NET, Windows client/server, and ASP applications make the jump to the Java platform. It provides a high-level guide for .NET developers who want to migrate their e-business applications to J2EE or build J2EE applications from the ground up.

Sun Microsystems Inc. will continue to offer the Trusted Solaris version of its operating system as a separate product, a company official said Tuesday, trying to clear up any confusion that Sun may have caused in the marketplace. Sun executives have said several times recently that security features from Trusted Solaris, a hardened version of Sun's OS used by the military, governments and some enterprises, will be added to its standard Solaris distribution. But the two product lines will continue to exist separately, said Ravi Iyer, Sun's group manager of systems security marketing.

Owen Taylor released GTK+ 2.3.4, Glib 2.3.3 and Pango 1.3.3. These versions are intended for testing.

These videos show how Longhorn can be used in different industries while more Concept Videos will be coming soon. The videos require Windows Media Player.

"At the time of this writing, Lycoris Desktop/LX is my primary operating system. As you’ll immediately discover, I’m quite fond of Desktop/LX and the manner in which Lycoris operates as well as continually proving their commitment to their users. After being a Linux user since 1994 and a Unix Administrator from 1993 to 1998, I’ve found a complete platform that anyone can use with ease and freedom." Read the review at DesktopOS.

An application model is analogous to a construction project blueprint, and is an important ingredient in application development. This article shows the steps for developing a Java application based on a Rational Rose class diagram using the Eclipse Modeling Framework, and also shows how to develop the same Java application using the Universal Modeling Language visualization tool.

This white paper explains how to upgrade an existing desktop system to the 2.6 kernel. It covers software requirements imposed by the new kernel, and administrative changes that you must make when migrating an existing system to the 2.6 kernel. It supplements previous whitepapers in the same series about Customizing the 2.6 kernel and porting drivers to the 2.6 kernel.