In interesting releases of web browsers lately, Mozilla 1.4.1 is out, Opera 7.21b for Unix, Firebird 0.6.1, iCab 2.9.6 and Epiphany 1.0.1.

With the one year anniversary of Microsoft's Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system approaching in November, several PC makers have released or will soon release new tablet PC models designed around the OS.

The rush to endorse open source alternatives to Microsoft's dominant Windows software has been criticised by senior technology executives who warned that companies risked falling victim to growing hype around software such as the Linux operating system.

Roderick W. Smith discusses how to resize and defrag the Linux filesystems.

"Seems the new version of Samba ups the ante in file/printer sharing options for Windows network, with a 2.5x performance gain over Windows Server 2003, according to tests by IT Week." Read it here.

Richard Seibt, boss of the largest European offerer of Linux operating systems, the Suse Linux AG, expects: "I believe that Apple computers in the future, will run the Linux operating system". He said so (Google translation) in the "citizens of Berlin newspaper" (Monday issue). Seibt also said that Linux will make it "really big" by the year 2013.

YellowTAB made a number of announcements regarding additional features to be found on Zeta 1.0 and the future: Java 1.4.2 support, C# support via Mono and support for thousands of scanner models via SANE. Additionally, Bernd Korz, CVO of yellowTAB, sheds his view and knowledge on recent developments involving BeOS and Zeta, and discusses the past and future of computers in general.

Apple is developing a distributed/parallel computing solution called Xgrid, according to ThinkSecret. Apple recently put up a mailing list, "xgrid-users". According to the page, the mailing list is for discussion regarding use and deployment of Xgrid. No archived messages exist. The page describes Xgrid as "Apple's solution for parallel and distributed high performance computing."

Macdevcenter has an overview of the features and benefits of Mac OS X 10.3. The essential question is asks is "Should I upgrade?" and it answers "yes."

In a recent conference presentation, Google's Craig Nevill-Manning notes that cheap and fast hardware is the key to Google's success. The software, he says, is written to assume that the hardware will fail, and work around that. That way, the company can use commodity PC hardware and not worry when it fails--just replace it.

Darma today announced its network attached storage (NAS) operating system for OEMs who manufacturer NAS servers, NAS-SAN gateways, and disk-based backup appliances.

ReactOS 0.1.4 has been released. This release was created using a week-long branch for fixes only - followed up by several days of a code feeze for testing. The release itself features Plug n Play improvements, better GUI controls (especially scrollbars and static controls), better mouse button handling, the beginning of OpenGL support, extensive work on a PC Net driver as well as an improved NDIS driver, the serial mouse driver was almost rewritten and there is now partial support for the intellimouse along with better SCSI support (SCSI devices initialized using 3rd party drivers).

The Xerox Alto, the computer that introduced us to the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and forever aliented Command-Line Interface (CLI) programmers everywhere, has reached the ripe old age of 30. So, Vintage and the Computer History Museum is celebrating this weekend it in grand style by having a panel of past and present Xerox PARC luminaries speak about the development of the Alto. They are also featuring a line-up of classic (and working) Xerox machines. Jef Raskin will speak on the second day of the event, so if you live in the Bay Area, don't miss it this weekend! OSNews featured a related retro article with many cool pictures a few months ago.

Three interesting Mac-related articles on the net today: "Macs vs PCs", "From Linux to OS X" and "A Disappointing Look At Apple’s Dual G5 Tower. Not The Machine I thought It Was" (article updated).