Sun Microsystems' quarterly online conference is this week, February 10th and 11th. It's a series of live videocasts and live chats to discuss Sun's latest technology initiatives. If you "attend," you'll get a Sun Java Desktop System evaluation CD, downloadable Sun BluePrints book and articles, and free Ringtones for your phone. The topic this quarter is 20 new innovations designed to cut cost and complexity. Sign up here.

This article presents a fictional case study that illustrates the methodology, tools, and best practices used to migrate a Tru64 environment to a Solaris environment.

This article provides recommendations for tuning ORACLE on SPARC processor-based systems running the Solaris Operating System to minimize recovery in the event of a system or database failure. This article is relevant for any audience level.

A new version of the HyperTransport specification comes out Monday that will, ideally, boost performance in PCs and communications equipment over the next year.

Gtk# is a .Net/Mono language binding for the Gtk+ toolkit and several GNOME platform and desktop libraries. The GNOME 2.2 platform is currently targeted. Recently, 0.16 of Gtk# was released, codenamed "Groundhog Stew." GtkSharpRSS was updated to take advantage of its new features.

Steven Garrity writes about his experiences with Linux and Gnome: "I've noticed a few little user interface niceties worth sharing", he says.

KernelTrap reports that David Weinehall has released the 2.0.40 stable Linux kernel, calling it the "Moss-covered Tortoise". It earned this name by being released over 3 years after its predecessor, 2.0.39. Those still using the 2.0 kernel are recommended to upgrade for numerous reasons, including fixes to local exploits and remote information leaks. View the changelog and download the new kernel from a kernel.org mirror.

NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) is a tool that allows programmers to create such installers for Windows. It is released under an open source license and is completely free for any use. After almost two years of development the NSIS 2 Team is happy to announce the release of NSIS 2.0.

As of February 4, 2004 IRIX 6.5.23 is releasing with all new systems shipping from SGI worldwide manufacturing centers. The IRIX 6.5.23 release continues the focus on stability, reliability, security and compatibility required in the IRIX 6.5.xx quarterly release process.

Red Hat will ship an enhanced security model in the next version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CRN has learned. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0, due out in 2005, will include support for Security-Enhanced Linux (SE Linux), according to a spokeswoman from the Raleigh, N.C.-based commercial Linux vendor.

After 13 years with Borland, Hejlsberg joined Microsoft in 1996, where he initially worked as an architect of Visual J++ and the Windows Foundation Classes (WFC). Then, Hejlsberg was chief designer of C# and a key participant in the creation of the Microsoft .NET Framework. Today, he leads the ongoing development of the C# programming language. On July 30, 2003, Bruce Eckel, author of Thinking in C++ and Thinking in Java, and Bill Venners, editor-in-chief of Artima.com, met with Anders Hejlsberg in his office at Microsoft. Check out the entire eight-part interview here.

"This whole article was written as a result of my own as well as my family and friends experiences with Linux, given that, I don't think Linux is a good choice is for everybody. Just like I would also say Windows is not for everybody either! The truth is you need to evaluate your needs first, do some homework, and then decide if you want to spend too much money on software and hardware." Read the shootout review at JiniComputer.com.

"Software innovation is dead. All that's left is compatibility fixes, security patches, and minor-version-number incremental improvements. The problem isn't a lack of ideas; it's a lack of motivated developers. The next generation of software engineers, who will be producing software in the next twenty-odd years, are simply not able to produce innovative software. Thirty years ago, programming was a niche area, an art, under constant evolution and requiring intellect and ability. New software was really just that -- completely new." Read the editorial at NewsForge.

Apple's best-of-breed OpenGL tools help developers locate, analyze and debug graphics bottlenecks, making the Mac a uniquely powerful platform for OpenGL development. Read the article at the ADC site.