If all goes well, this summer I'll be building a new house. I've owned a few houses before, some of them built in the 1920s and 30s, and full of all the charm and quirks of an old house, and a couple that were pretty new, with the lack of craftsmanship and imagination that's typical in most new construction in the USA today. But this time I'm building a custom home, just to my specifications, so I can have whatever features I want, limited only by my imagination (and budget). I'd like to integrate some home automation features into the house, and include wiring for future expansion.

Slashdot's Pudge reviews the Server version of Mac OS X Panther 10.3. Second part tomorrow.

The SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 has recieved EAL3 Certification. This is a step up from their previous accomplishment of EAL2, which they received (in association with IBM) with their product.

As many of you may remember I did a review of Windows Services for UNIX 3.0 (SFU) a few months ago. I remember being frustrated with that release because it seemed to me that all Microsoft did was throw something together just to be able to say "Hey look, we have this". I thought, since Microsoft released version 3.5, I would revisit and see what changes were done with it. I downloaded the beta version a while back and from the beta I was very impressed with the improvements that Microsoft made. Being a beta version it was buggy and some things just didnt quite work. I finally got the final version of the OpenBSD-based SFU 3.5 and this release makes dynamic leaps and bounds over previous releases of this software package. I am glad to see a lot more work was put into this release.

When Stuart Cohen signed on as chief executive of Open Source Development Labs in April, he didn't think so much of his time would be occupied with the actions of a small Utah-based company called the SCO Group. Read his interview at News.com.

LinuxWorld Conference and Expo began this morning at the Javits Center in New York City with a keynote address by Jack Messman, chairman of the board and CEO of Novell. Novell, Messman noted, is a billion-dollar company that's wagering its future on open source, with the acquisitions in the past year of Ximian and SuSE. Linux convert Novell proclaimed its strong support for open-source programming Wednesday, but made the case for a pragmatic approach that blends in its own proprietary applications.

Unix was originally all about not being... Multics. If Mono is to follow a similar nomenclature (just for the kicks), we have to talk about Mono's upcoming 'monopolization' and 'monarchy' in the next generation of the Unix programming land. Your see, if everything goes well, in 2 to 3 years most new Gnome user/desktop applications will be written --hopefully-- in Mono and C#. Update: Miguel deIcaza replies.

Linux's diversity is often regarded as one of its greatest strengths. That diversity -- as great as it is -- also translates to inconsistency, which many regard as one of the operating system's greatest weaknesses. The following osViews editorial contribution is the fourth piece in a multipart series, ( | | ) which outlines the framework for a consistent Linux desktop platform that would help grow the operating system's desktop install-base among new users and Windows converts.

A few weeks ago, I stubbed my toe on my old Sun Ultra 5 as it sat there lifeless and unused in my apartment. Once my primary desktop, the envy of my geek friends, and a way to woo the ladies, its glory days have long since passed. As much as I would like to let it live out its days looking sexy and taking up space, I live on the island of Manhattan, where space is a premium. Since I can't charge it rent, I decided I'd better use it or lose it. But what to use it for? What operating system would I run on it? Solaris? What about Linux? FreeBSD? NetBSD? OpenBSD? They all run on the SPARC platform, so I thought why not do a quick review.

Red Hat is doing its part to truly make 2004 the year of the Linux desktop with plans to bring an enterprise Linux desktop to market before the year ends.

In this month's "The Linux Line" issue: Bill Zeitler, Senior Vice President and Group Executive, IBM Systems Group, tells how Linux is changing the way that governments and companies operate; Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik talks about the continued expansion of Red Hat into the global marketplace;

I've been using laptops for a long time now. Not exclusively, but I've got plenty of experience with them. When it comes to hardware, laptops are nothing like any other systems. They use different motherboards, different graphics cards. Sometimes they use desktop components for things like memory, processors and network cards, but often those are specialized too. Laptops can be broken down into two major catagories: ultra-portable systems, designed for minimal weight and maximum battery life, and "desknotes", often using desktop components, large screens, and powerful graphics systems. I personally prefer desknotes because I like having a lot of power under the hood.

"If we had to define Xandros 2.0 with one word, we'd pick "usable." This time around, the folks at Xandros have refined their product significantly and come up with something that makes Linux quite comfortable and easy to use, even if you're a total newbie to the OS." Read the article at ExtremeTech.

"For us, all of a sudden, music is the No. 1 priority of the company," Rob Schoeben, Apple's vice president of applications marketing, told Reuters. "We're trying to be a part of the music evolution overall" he said. Our Take: I wonder where that leaves Apple's Mac OS X. While Apple always was and remains a hardware company, MacOS was always at the core of the whole deal. Is the Mac OS X and Macs of the future going to serve merely as the platform to do the "music stuff that sell" instead of being the main focus of the product line? This reminds me a whole lot of Be, Inc.'s focus shift to Internet Appliances and the grandual demise of BeOS.