Performance enthusiasts Jack Shirazi & Kirk Pepperdine, Director & CTO of JavaPerformanceTuning, follow performance discussions all over the Internet to see what's troubling Java developers. While surfing the Usenet newsgroup comp.lang.java, they came across some interesting low-level performance tuning questions. In this installment of Eye on performance, they dive into some bytecode analysis to try and answer some of these questions.

Lindows.com, in an effort to combat Microsoft's sway in the internation PC market, has organized a new initiative, ChoicePC. ChoicePC will fund efforts to diversify the OS market (more info on this available in the latest Michael's Minutes). For $100, a user can get a lifetime membership to Lindows.com, including a free download of all future releases of LindowsOS, a lifetime membership to the Click N Run Warehouse, and more. Certainly a good deal with the price of commercial Linux rising. Update: Justification.

Trolltech today announced the release of Qt, version 3.3.0 beta 1.Trolltech also iIntroduces the Qt Solutions: they provide platform and industry specific tools and components, as well as cutting-edge components that are too new to include directly in the Qt framework releases.

KDE developers George Staikos and Aaron J. Seigo joined in "The Linux Show". The archived version of the show is now available for download.

The purpose of this paper is to provide analysis on the Linux operating system along with Open Source software in general. Discussion will include benefits of the operating system, some of its downfalls, and the direction where Linux and the Open Source movement is headed. It is targeted specifically for IT managers and CIO's who are considering Linux Distribution rollouts to replace their existing IT systems. Lastly conclusions and recommendations will be made. This paper was created primarily as a research paper however it includes some personal experiences, and experiences derived from other Linux users.

Denso and Toshiba jointly develop world's first multi OS environment for car navigation systems, which supports µITRON and Microsoft Windows Automotive. Check our NMC site for more embedded news.

Apple this week continued seeding new pre-release builds of Mac OS X 10.3.2 to developers, sources said. The company also detailed the update’s bug fixes to the High Level Toolbox frameworks. Also, Apple is to launch next-generation ‘New iMac’ desktops with magnesium-alloy cases early next year.

MadPenguin published two reviews of Mandrake 9.2: a peer review and one of the download edition.

A handful of recent online attacks on free and open-source software servers has open-source developers looking over their shoulders.

A few weeks ago we published an article titled "The Great Mac OS X 10.4 Wish List", detailing a few personal wishes for the next version of OSX. Later I learned that quite a few Apple engineers read the article and so it felt good that the time spent writing the article was not just a voice in the void. A reader emailed me a few days ago asking me to do the same for other OSes and DEs. So here is my personal wish-list for a future version of Gnome. Please tell us about your own Gnome wish list in the comment section provided.

At Genesi we do more than just alternative computers, we also have interests in the field of Digital Media and Digital Television, you'll see products targeted to these segments arriving in the future. Most people appear to think that the future of Digital Media is convergence, that it is inevitable that TVs and Computers are going to converge and become a single device. Some people however think that this will not happen, they may have good reason for thinking so.

These papers were written against FreeBSD 4.x systems but should be equally applicable to 5.x systems on almost all counts: "Compiling and tuning the FreeBSD kernel" and "Performance tuning FreeBSD for different applications".

TrollTech recently Qt 3.3 introduces many new features as well as many improvements over the 3.2.x series. The Qt version 3.3 series is binary compatible with the 3.2.x series. Qt 3.3 is .NET enabled, it supports IPv6 in addition to IPv4 and it now includes a new tool class called QLocale among other new goodies. Its Qt/Embedded version has added support for SNAP graphics drivers from SciTech Software. This gives access to accelerated drivers for more than 150 graphics chipsets (new SciTech DDK here).

A debate has started in the Linux kernel mailing list about the ide-scsi module. The cdrecord guys want it up while Linus points out that the module is "bad" and it imposes a number of problems to users. Our take: I've been hit by most of Linus' points: from the 'silly CD numbering' confusion, to the need to have two LILO entries to load ide-scsi or not in order to either burn a CD or be able to watch DVD.