After six months of bug-fixing and development of new features, SkyOS 3.9.7 is now available to download. There is a new installer, automatic device mounting, VMWare 3/4 support, a media player, SkyKruzer the web browser and more. The OS can be installed on the hard drive or can be used with the ISO "live" CD (29 MB).

US & Canada residents can now order for free (fee only applies if an express delivery method is requested) Windows Server 2003. The evaluation copy can be used for 180 days.

"C# and Java are both nice languages. They reach similar goals through similar means, although C# adds some syntactical touches to Java, such as the foreach keyword and a more pleasant extends/implements construct. Unfortunately, the improvements are outweighed by the instances of regression. In this article, I'll compare the languages, while trying to avoid dipping to the JVM and CLR level." Read the article at Builder.com. Update: A similar comparison article, about security.

A red flag for Jobs & Co: Apple's sales are falling as the overall PC market worldwide showed growth last quarter. IDC's figures of 34.6 million PCs sold last quarter, which would indicate that Apple accounted for 2.05 percent of PC shipments worldwide. Read the article at MacDailyNews.

The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce that release 1.6.1 of the NetBSD operating system is now available. NetBSD 1.6.1 is a maintenance release for users of NetBSD 1.6 which provides the following updates relative to 1.6:

It seems that the SMP 1.25 & 1.42 GHz Apple PowerMacs came by default with a NEC USB 2.0 controller and no one knew about it. A Korean site broke the news that while these Macs are currently sold as "USB 1.1", in reality they are USB 2.0-capable, missing only the drivers needed to function as such. Some users claim that these drivers work fine with that NEC chipset, as USB 2.0. Caution: Installation on other Mac models could render the system inoperable.

Novell is to investigate whether it can give customers the option of a Windows kernel for its Netware operating system. Earlier this week the company said it will offer customers the choice between a Netware and Linux kernel for Netware 7, which is due next autumn, but the company also plans to research whether it can offer a Windows kernel option.

The final BlueEyedOS demo CD that we reported recently, is out and about and ready to get downloaded. The CD weighs 106 MB and it requires an XFree86 supported graphics card at 1024x768.

Simple Message Queue Protocol (SMQP) is a publish/subscribe specification that is currently being reviewed by the IETF since September of 2001. Several revisions of the protocol have also been submitted based on people's comments, and recommendations. This article is to further introduce readers/developers to the protocol and encourage additional input to the specification.

ZDNet's David Coursey talks with Microsoft Research about a new technology that uses simple hand gestures to control a personal computer. The video requires Real or Windows Media.

MacNN reports that the Darwin team today posted the Darwin 6.5 source code, corresponding to Mac OS X 10.2.5. "Darwin 6.5 is what we call an 'on-cycle' source-code release, where the corresponding Darwin source is made available soon after a new release of Mac OS X to customers." Several projects (e.g., gcc, gdb, CUPS, Rendezvous) will continue to do 'off-cycle' releases, according to the developer, whereby the source code is updated more frequently than our commercial releases.

The open-source project's leader says the unused portion of a $2.3 million grant has been withdrawn due to concerns that it was mainly funding foreign researchers. OpenBSD would have 60 developers flying in from around the world (they bought their own tickets, non-refundable) for a Hackathon May 8 - 20, which is a major part of OpenBSD's development cycle. Follow the discussion here.

There is a Linux distro for any possible need and CollegeLinux is geared towards students and schools! Today, we interview Prof. David Costa of the Robert Kennedy College in Delémont, Switzerland regarding their initiative behind CollegeLinux.

What will Apple Computer Inc. look like by the end of 2003? The picture should come a lot clearer in the next couple of months, as Apple moves simultaneously on several fronts that encompass its home turf as well as new swathes of territory. Read the editorial at eWeek. Update: OSNews reader Charles Finch points us to another Apple-related article, a benchmark showing the fastest SMP Apple machines against a single Pentium4 3 GHz (two pages).