PC makers usually use the holiday season to tout the greatest and latest desktops and notebooks, but this year they will be hawking something different: consumer electronics, says C|Net News. Also, OSViews posted an editorial discussing "misconceptions of PC users regarding the Mac prices".

MSFN has posted a few shots of the upcoming Virtual PC 2004 runtime/emulator PC engine.

Barrett sat down with CNET News.com editors to discuss global economic issues, along with how Intel will deliver new technologies and why companies should adopt them. He also mentions that their interest to Apple's OSX is going down each year as Apple continues to lose market share with time.

Steve Ballmer has a hard job. Being the CEO of a company the size of Microsoft is brutal and exhausting. Against his nature, Ballmer has been trying to change his own persona and the company culture. So far, he appears to have made progress. In my mind, Microsoft is a more mature corporate entity that it used to be. The startup mentality is important to hold on to, but isn't functional as the core value of a $30 billion company. What Ballmer needs to do is hold on to the best of the existing culture, while transforming it into something new. Tough job. I couldn't do it.

NYTimes (free reg. required) has a positive review of Mac OS X Panther 10.3, written by David Pogue, popular book author mostly on Mac subjects. Our review is here.

Users are asking for better support for things such as third-party drivers, printer management and graphic interfaces, says NWFusion. Read their top10 requested features. Elsewhere, "Mthe adoption of Linux on the desktop is progressing, but there won't be a "David and Goliath" single blow that suddenly slays the dominance of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, Linux advocates said at an enterprise Linux conference Wednesday.". Read that article at IDG.

Admit it, you do want to own a Mac. But for some specific reasons --mostly higher prices, especially out of US-- most of the people don't take the big decision to try out Macs. Yesterday Apple released brand new iBooks and updated eMacs, which in conjuction to the existing G4 PowerMacs, come in very affordable prices. Dive in to see some simple feature comparisons between Mac models and prices, which can help you make the big step towards Mac OS X. The time is right, prices are right, feature-set is right too and Christmas is coming soon!

"Servers need what free desktop applications needed before KDE came: a common framework. A common way of configuration, a common way of being configured using GUI tools, a unified view to monitor them… there are also options that many server have in common, like a IP to listen to or the allowed IP ranges." Read the editorial here.

BSDmall and Wasabi Systems today announced a collaboration to support the NetBSD user community by publishing regular distributions of the open source NetBSD operating system, beginning with the long-anticipated NetBSD 2.0 due early next year.

My first experience with Linux on a PPC machine was Pegasos PPC and Debian. Last weekend I upgraded my Cube G4 450 Mhz and with a blazingly fast 120 GB 7200 RPM WD drive (for just $58!) to replace the default (and extremely slow) 20 GB Maxtor IDE drive. In this vast drive space, there is enough room for more than one operating system, so I decided to install Yellow Dog Linux 3.0 (and then upgrade to 3.0.1 via APT) as an addition to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. Read more for my impressions of YDL 3.0.1 and check some screenshots too.

It looks like the G3's days are over, as Apple announced today new iBooks and eMacs with a range of enhancements, including G4 processors. The new machines also sport Airport Extreme, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, and slot-loading combo drives. All models ship with Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther). The 12" iBook gets a 800Mhz G4 while the 14" models get a choice of 933Mhz or 1Ghz. The eMac is 1 Ghz.

Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE) 1.4.2_02, containing many bug fixes on all the supported platforms, is released. Check out the release notes and download.

Wired has an interesting story on a PCI card from ClearSpeed technologies which contains "a processor capable of performing 25 billion floating-point operations per second, or 25 gigaflops. ordinary desktop PC outfitted with six PCI cards, each containing four of the chips, would perform at about 600 gigaflops (or more than half a teraflop)." Such a PC would qualify as one of the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world, but only cost about $25,000.

Dominant Linux seller Red Hat will begin offering the newest incarnation of its product for business customers on Wednesday, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, a version that opens several new markets for the company. Read the rest of the report at News.com and "read more" for the full press release.