"The largest flaw with Linux is not in its ease of use or installation. There's no crisis with lack of software. The hardware support is solid. Actually, I feel Linux is very much ready for the masses. The greatest flaw with Linux is that nobody knows what it is." Read the full commentary at NewsForge.

"According to testers for America Online, the company is moving forward with improving its client software for Mac OS X. The upgrade is called "AOL for Mac OS X Plus," and build 200 B is available under the beta section at AOL. This past summer, America Online publicly released AOL for OS X." Read more at ThinkSecret.

There is a new version of the X11 desktop environment which emulates Windows, XPde.

YellowTab has updated its web site, added some screenshots from Zeta's betas, while recent press releases from the group are mentioning YellowTab getting financial support and collaborating with another firm on securing Zeta.

Espen Sand announces the availability of first preview of Opera 7 for Linux. The Linux specific features from 6.1 no longer exist, the new preview release comes with an email and news client. You can pick from a static or shared (dynamically linked) packages. Read the email and get the download links from BSDForums. Additionally, Opera released yesterday a funny version of Opera 7 for Windows, as an answer to the MSN problems. In other browser news, Apple released a third Safari beta (v60) recently.

"Windows XP, which has been marketed by Microsoft as "the most secure version ever," has been found to have a flaw so bone-headed that it renders passwords ineffective as a means of keeping people out of your PC. Reader Tony DeMartino alerted me to the problem, which all administrators of Windows XP machines should immediately take to heart:" Read Brian's article at BrianBuzz.com.

Red Hat and Mandrake are cutting support for older versions of their Linux distributions... The results will be a security nightmare for the Internet, says Jon Lasser.

"Over the past year and change I've worked on porting quite a few projects to OS X. At first, it's a pretty scary ordeal, but most of the issues you'll run into are easily solved if you know how. To save yourself the trouble of figuring this out yourself, read on..." The article is located at Advogato. More porting tips at Fink's site.

"Andrew Zamler-Carhart of KavaSoft, maker of iConquer, was kind enough to answer our questions this week, and here on a Friday morning, we're posting them for our inquisitive readers. He talks about the upcoming version 2 of iConquer, Rendezvous technology in MacOS X and the perils of being a game programmer." Read the full interview at MacSlash.

The Bush administration signed off Friday on the final version of the United States' strategy for protecting the Internet and securing information systems. Additionally, Attorney General John Ashcroft wants even more power to snoop on the Internet, spy on private conversations and install secret microphones, spyware and keystroke loggers.

"When Sun Microsystems got started in 1982, companies such as Wang and Data General dominated the hardware business. In less than a decade, this upstart Unix outfit was a billion-dollar-plus phenom while the once-mighty minicomputer makers had been consigned to irrelevance." Read the commentary on ZDNews and a comment a few days ago, explaining Sun's Linux strategy, which is different of what IBM, DELL or HP does with Linux. Also, another Sun article says that Java servers feel the open source heat.

Until now, the internet has largely been used as a tool for communication - but new applications are starting to use the internet to coordinate work between machines. This could lay the basis for a whole new level of automation across society, leading to great gains in productivity. The first step in this process is 'grid computing'.

Lindows has aimed to become the GNU/Linux distribution for anyone coming from Windows to Linux (hence the name). They have, without a doubt, pushed the envelope for marketing and pushed the Linux operating system into the mainstream media and retailers. Still, does LindowsOS have what it takes to be the victor of the Penguin Shootout? Find out at OfB.biz.

"For the last few weeks I have been reporting on the development cycle of Mandrake 9.1. Then, the presence of an ISO image for Mandrake PPC 9.1 Beta 1 piqued my curiosity, and some days later two ISO images for Mandrake PPC 9.1 Beta 2 were made available on the various mandrake mirrors. Among my obsol... err, I mean, my old computers, I have a 350 MHz iMac which hasn't seen much use for the last 8 months. So without any extraordinary expectations, I decided to attempt the installation of this different flavour of Mandrake Linux. I was in for a few good surprises..." Read the article at DistroWatch.