Microsoft spent a lot of effort tuning Active Directory in Windows Server 2003, to improve scalability and speed and to correct key deficiencies. In this sample chapter, you'll learn what's new, and how to take advantage of Active Directory's new features.

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."

"The folks at Libranet were kind enough to provide me with a copy of their 2.8.1 release for a review. After downloading the latest and greatest from their ftp site a few nights ago, burning the cd's this morning, making an emergency trip to the vet during the second cd burn and eating a late breakfast, I was finally ready for the install." Read the review by Frank Merenda.

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

Zebra is open source TCP/IP routing software that is similar to Cisco's Internetworking Operating System (IOS). Flexible and powerful, it can handle routing protocols such as Routing Information Protocol (RIP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), and all of their various flavors. This article shows you how to set up Zebra and used it to manage routes dynamically in conjunction with real Cisco hardware.

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.

"For high-end and server applications, probably the most significant is in scalability," says Andrew Morton, who -- along with Linus Torvalds -- maintains the Linux kernel. "2.6 scales to more CPUs, more memory, more disks and larger disks," he told NewsFactor. Here is also a discussion about Linux kernel 2.7.

Microsoft's Poole said there were tremendous opportunities for driving future innovation through Longhorn and the integration it would bring, including giving Microsoft the ability to more easily and effectively deliver smart applications.

"Sun Microsystems' Solaris will become the third operating system to take advantage of Advanced Micro Devices' 64-bit Opteron processor. Solaris, Sun's version of Unix, already runs on 32-bit "x86" processors including AMD's Athlon and Intel's Xeon. But Sun also will release a version in 2004 that will take advantage of the 64-bit extensions that make Opteron different from those other chips, Sun software chief Jonathan Schwartz told reporters in a meeting here Thursday." Read more at ZDNet.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said it is working through ECMA International, the Geneva-based standards organization, to push the development of a standard set of language extensions that will create a binding between the International Standards Organization (ISO) standard C++ programming language and Microsoft's Common Language Infrastructure (CLI).

Most people know what GNU/Linux is, but fewer know about BSD and fewer still have actually used one of the major free BSD variants. Ed Hurst, a writer and a long time GNU/Linux user, decided to give FreeBSD a try. Will Ed join the ranks of happy FreeBSD users? Find out at OfB.biz.

It arrived in the mail today: the Java Desktop System beta, in the form of a live CD, based on SuSE's 8.2 live evaluation CD. I was eager to try Sun's attempt at creating a user-friendly Linux distribution, so I signed up for beta-testing, and this live-CD is the result.

On the heels of its landmark Sun Java Enterprise System announcements, Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced more than 300,000 registered licenses of the Solaris 9 Operating System (x86 Platform Edition). This volume attests to a surge in customer demand for the secure, reliable and highly performant Solaris OS on a variety of x86 systems, setting the foundation for continued growth and interest in Sun's Java Enterprise System. Read more for the rest of the press release.

Scott Long released the March-Sepetember 2003 Status report, reviewing the past seven months of FreeBSD development. The paper is loaded with updates covering Bluetooth, ACPI, dynamically linked /bin, icc support, cryptographic support, java, KSE, porting OpenBSD's pf, and much more. Elsewhere, this paper describes an automated system for building and distributing binary security updates for FreeBSD, and describes the challenges encountered.