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.

"Prejudices and misconceptions about Microsoft make it hard to evalute the company's merits. The biggest myths about Microsoft are that its desktop products are overpriced, it doesn't respect its customers, and reliability and security are poor. And some think the company is downright evil. In nearly two decades of studying Microsoft, I've been able to dig through the hype that the company generates, as well as the misconceptions its detractors create, to see more of the real company than most of you can ever experience." Read the opinion-piece at InternetWeek, written by Rob Enderle.

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.

The GNOME Desktop 2.4 Release Candidate 1: "Kublai", is available for immediate download on ftp.gnome.org and mirrors.

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.

SciTech Software, Inc. today announced that it is has released SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux 2.0 – The Simple Driver Solution. This release is based on SciTech’s SNAP (System Neutral Access Protocol) architecture and targets the Linux enterprise markets with a host of features designed to reduce the total cost of ownership associated with maintaining Linux on corporate enterprises. Read more for the rest of the press release.

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.

Built on grid computing and due to debut at Oracle World, Oracle 10G marks the company's biggest technology release in a decade. Can Oracle tackle the grid & PeopleSoft, too? Read it at eWEEK.

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.

"Back in the 1980s, the folks at Digital Equipment had a problem. While their VAX systems were selling like hotcakes, the systems still couldn't deliver the kind of scale found on mainframes. Digital, which had no plans to build big iron, set out to find a way to use existing equipment to increase capacity--a search that led to the development of the VAX cluster and the concept of horizontal scaling." Read the editorial at ZDNews.

SkyEye is a simulator for typical embedded computer systems. It can simulate Atmel AT91 based on the ARM7TDMI, EP7312 based on ARM720T, StrongARM SA1100/SA1110, and 8019as NIC, etc. Some operating systems, such as ARM Linux, uClinux, and uc/OS-II(ucos-ii), can run and be debugged and analyzed at the source level. This Skyeye snapshot version it can simulate the Xscale PXA 250 Lubbock developboard.

Session 18 of the Fortnightly Q&A's with Fleecy Moss is available here. This one has some important Q&A's (rootless X server, self-hosted IDE, 32 or 64-bit platform, OpenGL support) and even a clue about the biggest question of all concerning Amiga OS 4: when will it be released.

I wrote an article a while ago on Linux packaging and Autopackage. There seemed to be quite a lot of interest in it so we got version 0.3 released today.

Lots of talk in the past month about the viruses unleashed to the open. Read more to vote!