"Mandrake is known from it's ease of use and configuration tools, and is commonly regarded as a "newbie" distribution. I am a long-time Gentoo user and before that I have used Sorcerer and Debian among others, so I regard myself as an "advanced" Linux user. This review tries to find out how good distribution Mandrake is for "advanced" users." Read the article here.

Secret software interfaces hidden in Windows and previously only available to Microsoft's own developers have been exposed to the wider developer community. Using NSELib Namespace Extension Library, created by software engineering firm Whirling Dervishes, developers can create applications that reside in Windows Explorer.

According to a news item at WindowsForEmbedded.com, Microsoft has launched a new program in its 'shared source' initiative. This one enables the sharing of 'platforms', allowing, for example, hobbyists 'to convert an old PC into any number of Windows CE .NET-based devices, such as a digital audio receiver,' using files downloaded from a community repository. Free and time-fused tools are available for download from Microsoft's website to facilitate the process.

Visopsys is a new operating system for PCs. It has been in development since late 1997. The kernel is small and fast, operates exclusively in 32-bit mode, and features real preemptive multi-tasking and virtual memory. The package includes a small suite of UNIX- and DOS-like commands, with which most users will be familiar, although Visopsys is not - and does not try to be - a clone of any existing OS. The binary distribution features an easy-to-use Java installation program, which works on Linux, Windows, and Solaris. You can install and demo the distribution on a floppy disk. Screenshot.

Libranet 2.8 gets helpful tweaks, and now Libranet is Jim Lynch's new best friend. Read the review.

Good news for Mac OS X users or users-to-be today. Apple dropped the price of the 15" Powerbooks $300 and the price of the 12" Powerbook $200. Additionally, Silk 2.0 enables the Quartz text rendering and smoothing introduced in Mac OS X 10.1.5 in all Carbon applications. This means antialiased text in Internet Explorer, Eudora, and many others.

Joe Barr is happy to have a Ximian desktop again, and hopes he doesn't have to go a long time without it in the future. Read his review of Ximian Desktop 2 at LinuxWorld. Expect an interview with Ximian officials this week, here at OSNews. Update: Two more reviews of Ximian Desktop 2, one from LinuxAndMain and one from eWeek. And an additional article about it by eWeek again.

Learn how C++ program structure works, from the perspective of functions and data. This sample chapter covers function definitions, inline functions, recursion, pointers to functions, and functions with default arguments. It also describes structures and unions, member functions, and passing structures and unions as arguments. Additionally, you'll learn about C++ storage classes, exceptions, namespaces, and free store memory. Another dev article, named "Using Java Development Tools in Eclipse" is also available.

If you were to believe some, BeOS is a dead Operating System. If this was the case you would expect numbers at BeGeistert to be dwindling, but the reality is different, the corpse is moving and this was the biggest BeGeistert yet.

Python 2.2.3-final is a bug-fix release of Python. More information can be found here.

The newest version of the Syllable operating system (based on AtheOS) is now available. Changes include: ATA and ATAPI, improved SB Live! and Audigy support, ISO-9660 FS, and a bootable CD (as well as many updates/fixes). Read about it here.

The Iconbar has run a story saying that RISC OS Select 3, the latest version of the RISC OS operating system has been released by RISC OS Ltd. To compliment this news, The IconBar has an article outlining the new features of this new release. RISC OS Select 3 will be sent to subscribers on CD ROM once it is out of beta state.

Upstart JBoss Group will on Monday debut a new release of its popular open-source application server software amid a growing dispute with Sun Microsystems over Java standard compliance.
Update: Preview of Java 1.5, at Slashdot.

TriangleOS runs under the latest Bochs x86 emulator, ReactOS as well, and now you can run Syllable on it. Regarding Syllable, here is its updated tab-based terminal. On Bochs news, the CVS version now supports SSE/SSE2 emulation. Has anyone tried MenuetOS & SkyOS with the Bochs Vesa patch?