The OSNews is accompanied by the by-line "Exploring the Future of Computing". In this series I've decided to do exactly that, to go beyond the daily stream of the latest updates and rumours and cast my eyes at the future. What will happen to Software, Hardware, the Companies and Technologies involved and how these are developed. I for one think there will be big changes to come, some for the better, some for the worse.

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.

Memory management is scary. It should be: A lot can go wrong—often very wrong. But a moderately experienced C or C++ programmer can learn and understand memory hazards completely. Once you have that knowledge, you should feel only confidence, not fear. Read the article here.

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.

Learn the basics of transformation, coordinate systems, the role of coordinate systems in the transformation process, and transformation functionality using GDI+ with C#. Find out how to distinguish among global, local, and composite transformations, how to use the Graphics class transformations in applications, and how to translate, scale, shear, and rotate graphics objects.

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.

Linux antagonist SCO Group is seeking to add $2 billion to its legal claim against computing giant IBM while changing the scope of the suit.

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.

Microsoft Corp. is hard at work to make "Longhorn," the next iteration of its Windows Server product, do more for less by integrating various server software systems. To do it, the company plans to extend .Net's capabilities even further with common execution environments and complete .Net Common Language Runtime support, said Valerie Olague, a Windows Server System director, in an interview.

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.

ACMQueue has four interesting articles on developer's collaboration and distributed development: "Building Collaboration into IDEs", "Culture Surprises in Remote Software Development Teams", "The Sun Never Sets on Distributed Development" and "Distributed Development Lessons Learned".

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.

Reasons why the Firebird database is a viable option for your next project. In the open-source world, much has been made about the need for a full-featured, robust and reliable database that can handle substantial loads and yet be able to play well with such open-source tools as Perl and PHP. The two main contenders are PostgreSQL and MySQL, but a new arrival in this arena is the Firebird RDBMS.

"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.