The company is doing wonderful things for programmer productivity. Now Apple is wooing developers in compelling ways as if it were trying to make up for the lost time. If only the IDE supported more languages, SDTimes says.

Storage is an exciting project to replace the traditional filesystem with a new document store, database-based. It is part of a larger design for a new desktop environment, more details on that to come in the future by GNOME's Seth Nickell. The current implementation, built under Gnome for now, offers natural language access, network transparency, and a number of other features. Some additional info is here. Update: Seth is replying at Slashdot about Storage.

The beauty of pyGTK and Glade is they have opened up cross-platform, professional-quality GUI development to those of us who'd rather be doing other things but who still need a GUI on top of it all. Not only does pyGTK allow neophytes to create great GUIs, it also allows professionals to create flexible, dynamic and powerful user interfaces faster than ever before. Read the article at LinuxJournal.

Stepping up its campaign against the Linux operating system, Microsoft has released file and Web serving benchmark results that, it claims, show that Linux on the mainframe lags behind Windows 2003 on Intel systems in terms of performance for the money. Read the report at ARNnet.

This article describes how to use GnomeVFS -- a C library for accessing various file systems -- to extend GNOME and develop your own extensions to the virtual file system. The article is centered around an imaginary example file system that lets you access an in-memory directory tree.

A common security breach involves exploiting one application to gain access to another. Keeping separate applications separate can limit the potential damage. Mike DeGraw-Bertsch explains how FreeBSD's jails can help secure necessary applications. On other FreeBSD news, a specific schedule for the release of FreeBSD 4.9 is now available.

Apple CFO Fred Anderson yesterday led a corporate update at the Smith Barney Citigroup Tech Conference. Anderson said that Apple was in an incredibly strong financial position with over $4.5 billion in cash and only $300 million in long-term debt, which is due in February of next year. Apple has managed to survive the downturn by using innovation, he said.

GTK+ 2.2.4 is now available for download here. This is a bug fix release and is source and binary compatible with previous releases in the 2.0 and 2.2 series. This is an emergency release to fix a critical GtkTreeView problem which broke context menus in several applications.

"With each new release of Microsoft’s server operating system, pundits are moved to declare that this one is the first Windows truly suited to the enterprise. And it is especially tempting to hang that tag on Windows Server 2003. Of course the cost, bizarre licensing terms, forced migration, and confusing packaging will turn many companies away. But if a decision could be made on purely technical grounds, Windows Server 2003 would be an unquestionably worthwhile investment." Read the overview at ARNnet.

A Singapore-based company claims to have created in operating system for mobile devices that can run software created for Windows, Linux, and Palm platforms. Called MXI, the OS "performs a sophisticated form of emulation that enables the non-native program to perform as smoothly and quickly as it would on its native OS." It also includes a server-based component for connected devices that allows the heavy lifting to be performed on the server side. I'll file this in the "I'll belive it when I see it" folder.

The Power Mac G5 computer is not supported for use with any version of Mac OS X Server 10.2, or any earlier version of Mac OS X Server. Mac OS X Server 10.3 will be supported on Power Mac G5 computers, Apple reported. Elsewhere, Unix users will be major beneficiaries of the upcoming 'Panther' version of OS X, Apple Computer told the AUUG conference.

An identified security issue in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications could allow an attacker to compromise a Microsoft Windows-based system and then take a variety of actions. Windows and Office users should update their system.

The Desktop Linux Consortium (DLC) announced their first conference today, hosted at Boston University's Corporate Training Center (BUTrain) located just outside of Boston, Massachusetts in Tyngsboro on November 10, 2003. The conference marks the group's first event that brings together industry leaders to share their insights and discuss the trends, technologies, and solutions that are driving the next generation of desktops based on Linux.

Tinyminds.org sits down with Linux International Director, Jon "Maddog" Hall. Jon has been in the computer industry since 1969, using Unix since 1977, and Linux since 1994. He has been a software engineer, systems administrator, product manager, marketing manager and professional educator. Jon has been the Executive Director of Linux International since 1995, the first four years as a volunteer. Jon has been employed by VA Linux systems, Compaq Computer Corporation in the Digital UNIX Marketing group and Bell Laboratories among other companies. Read the full interview at Tinyminds.org.