Years have been spent trying to crack life's genetic code with high-powered computers. Now scientists are looking at things from the opposite angle, and are harnessing life itself to generate a new strain of computer devices. Read the full story at CNN.

"Red Hat and Fedora Linux are pleased to announce an alignment of their mutually complementary core proficiencies leveraging them synergistically in the creation of the Fedora Project, a paradigm shift for Linux technology development and rolling early deployment models." Read more at Fedora Linux's site.

gijsbert points us to this comprehensive guide to setting up and configuring PF, the BSD packet filter. PF is one of the more robust enterprise firewall applications available today.

Rafeeq Rehman and Christopher Paul explain how to use compilers and assemblers productively in a development environment.

The LittleWhiteDog web site posted an article showing how to configure and secure a BSD system.

Skinning does not really receive the appreciation it deserves. After posting my comparison article about LiteStep and Talisman, I was astonished to (still) hear people say that skinning and theming is useless. They literally said:

Call it a back-to-basics movement or simply professionals seeking the best tools to get the job done well and on time. With enterprises putting a premium on productivity, a quiet revolution among programmers is eschewing the heavy, feature-filled IDE and turning instead to the venerable standby: the code editor. Developers seek more control over productivity with an old programming tool standby.

Anyone interested in squeezing maximum performance out of their GNU/Linux operating system and willing to compile a new kernel will be interested in this KernelTrap article about Andrew Morton's -mm patchset. The patchset currently offers better stability and performance than the mainline 2.6.0-test kernel, as well as containing numerous functionality enhancements. Much of the additional functionality is described, as well as providing simple step by step installation instructions. Reading this, one can understand why Linux creator Linus Torvalds has chosen Andrew to soon become the 2.6 maintainer.

Microsoft, which is trying to drive growth by investing in everything from small business software to video games, has quietly set its sights on a new industry -- searching the Web.

"Apple would like more market share, but making the 'best personal computer' is top goal", Apple CEO Steve Jobs said recently. Additionally, the Mac OS X 10.2.8 update was released internally late last week, sources confirmed to ThinkSecret. Sources also speculated that the update will be provided to users Monday or next week. Separately, Apple seeded build 7B72 of Panther Server to developers on Thursday, posting two installation discs as well as a Server Admin CD.

At the morphos.net site there is an overview about the new features introduced in MorphOS 1.4.

This weekend at the Italien Pianeta Amiga 2003 fair AmigaOS4 is being publicly demoed running on AmigaOne hardware for the first time. You can view an actual AmigaOS4 screenshot here at the AmigaWorld.net portal. Hyperion will also attend the upcoming Benelux Amiga Show planned for the 4th and 5th of October in Rotterdam. Some videos of AmigaOS4 running on the AmigaOne from the show have now been uploaded here and here.

Also, let me really clear about our Linux strategy. We don't have one. We don't at all. We do not believe that Linux plays a role on the server. Period. If you want to buy it, we will sell it to you, but we believe that Solaris is a better alternative, that is safer, more robust, higher quality and dramatically less expensive in purchase price. Read more on eweek's interview with Sun's Schwartz here.

This article records experiences with packaging an application for many distributions and shows areas in which packagers, Linux distributions, and developers can improve coordination for better and easier distribution. The author looks at communication problems, packaging errors, package dependencies, menu entries, and bug tracking systems.