Addressing a more buttoned-down crowd than in past years, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates attempted Sunday to usher in a new era of computing he dubbed "seamless computing." Check here for more Comdex reporting throughout the week.

The Darwin team is pleased to announce the availability of the Darwin 7.0.1 Installer CD. This is a single Installer CD that will boot and install Darwin on Macintosh computers supported by Mac OS X 10.3, as well as certain x86-based personal computers.

There's been a bunch of news recently about Microsoft's continuing anti-trust problems. There were arguments in Massachusetts' appeal of the consent decree between MS and the Department of Justice. Also, three days of hearings occurred this week in the European Union's investigation of MS conduct in Europe. Nothing definitive happened, but there are some intriguing bits and pieces that surfaced.

It has been years since Microsoft had any real competition for its Office productivity suite -- the software package that includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Once-popular competitors like WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 have been reduced to tiny niche players. This article evaluates Star Office in comparison to MS Office.

To persuade the Middle Kingdom to pick its software over Linux, Microsoft plays nice. Can there be such a thing as a kinder, gentler Microsoft? The answer may well soon emerge in China, where the software Ninja and Red Dragon are locked in a strategic duel over Windows and its free competitor, Linux. Elsewhere, Brazil moves to shun Microsoft software.

Novell's management has changed from the early days when it flubbed its Unix System Labs and Word Perfect acquisitions, notes Meta Group analyst Earl Perkins. "The team in place now knows that there is too much at stake not to do this one correctly."

To encourage users to switch from Microsoft Windows products to the new Desktop/LX Operating System, Lycoris is now offering the "Moving On" competitive upgrade for all users of Windows 95/98/NT/ME/2k/XP. Users simply send in their original CD or restore disk along with their Certificate of Authenticity, sticker, or original product key papers from Microsoft , and Lycoris will give them 50% OFF the retail price of Desktop/LX Update 3. This offer will only last two weeks, until November 30th.

It is not a secret that Novell/Ximian will be pushing C# and Mono on Gnome in the coming years when it will be more full-featured and ready for adoption. Programming-wise, there are several advantages of using Mono over the plain GTK+ (oh, and by the way, GTK# 0.13 was released today). So, what's your opinion on a .NET/Mono-aware Gnome?

Miguel thinks of the future of OS-development under Windows and GNOME/Mono. Have a look here.

Trolltech today announced the release of Qt, bugfix version 3.2.3.

Competitors say the software giant need not cripple its popular Windows operating system to comply with European regulators' demands.

There is now a video available showing the AmigaOS4 beta as demonstrated last weekend in London: MPEG / WMV. Q&A session 23 with Amiga's CTO is also available.

Remember Turbolinux? Less than 5 years ago, it was a fixture in the forefront of the Linux landscape along with Red Hat, SuSE, Mandrake, Debian, and the now defunct Storm Linux. Later this week, Turbolinux will release their new desktop distribution, dubbed "10D." The following is a first look at Turbolinux's return to the fray.

Sun is giving an early liftoff to an advanced detection technology designed for the next version of Solaris that speedily diagnoses and repairs system problems.