In this final installment of the series on Twisted, the author looks at specialized protocols and servers contained in the Twisted package, with a focus on secure connections. One thing the servers and clients in Parts 1,2 & 3 had in common is that they operated completely "in the clear". Sometimes, however, you want to keep your connection free from prying eyes (or from tampering/spoofing).

Novell last week said it plans to use newly acquired systems management tools instead of including its own ZENworks technology in a Linux software package that's due to open beta testing next month.

Session 19 of the Fortnightly Questions and Answers sessions with Amiga's Chief Technology Officer Fleecy Moss are now online. On other Amiga news, AmigaWorld reviews the download edition of the first Amiga Anywhere Entertainment Pack for Pocket PC powered devices.

The BeOSJournal caught up with Vassilis Perantzakis recently in BeShare, who spoke about his work on BeOS Max Edition, his outlook on Be Inc.'s decision to "focus shift", and what he thinks is in store for future distributions of OpenBeOS, including YellowTab's Zeta. Additionally, the new french news site BeOptimistic.net features an interview of Guillaume Maillard, leader of the BlueEyedOS project. This interview is in french, but an english translation is also available. Other new BeOS-related news sites involve ZetaNews and IsComputerOn.

This is the fourth tutorial in series of learning Cocoa for MacOSX. Read the article at MacDevCenter.

DOpE - a windowing system for the realtime OS DROPS, which is based on the microkernel Fiasco (an implementation of the L4 API) provides the realtime facilities of DROPS at the user interface level and is now available for download via CVS. The system is now offered under the GPL, via the project's CVS.

The ability to enhance security in information systems and networks is limited by the operating systems that underpin them. Recognizing this, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has begun work on a standard to formulate consistent baseline security requirements for general-purpose (GP), commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) operating systems.

Microsoft has suffered another legal setback in the patent dispute with software developer Eolas and is now advising developers on workarounds, as new details emerge of its plans to tweak Internet Explorer.

Yesterday IBM published a story on their Intranet promoting their Technology Group and their relationship to Apple with regard to the PowerPC 970. This article has been made available to MacRumors. The item offers some unique insight into Apple, and their relationship with IBM as well as Apple's thoughts on the alternative, Intel.

This is a critical review of the installation, setup and actual performance of the Mandrake distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system, version 9.1, and comes as a second part of OfB.biz's Mandrake review. (You can see part I here.) The review will cover these areas: (1) Installation and install-related setup; (2) Post-installation system administration; and (3) System performance. The review will end with a general evaluation and will assign grades on relevant areas.

The computing giant releases an early version of source code for version 1.4 of the Java flavor, with support for a new WS-I Web services standard.

"Macworld Lab's first test results are in on all of Apple's new Power Mac G5 towers. We've tested all three models, and found them be clearly faster than the previous generation of Power Macs. The two single-processor models are generally as fast or faster than the top-of-the-line dual-processor 1.42GHz Power Mac G4, and the dual-processor 2GHz Power Mac G5 is clearly the reigning Mac speed king by a wide margin." Read it at MacWorld.

In a weblog sponsored by the Apple Computer History website, a former Apple marketing director admits that he, assisted by everyone who worked at Apple with him, "killed" the company. He cites a culture of "individual brilliance and group stupidity." A Wired News article has more details and responses from some of his Apple contemporaries.

Web sites continue to be switched from Linux to Windows Server 2003 at about the same rate as in July, according to statistics compiled by Netcraft. The company said the number of active sites running on Windows Server 2003 had grown to about 185,000, an increase of 109 percent since July.