DirectX 9.0a is an updated version of the DirectX 9.0 runtime which includes bug fixes and improves performance in the graphics and networking components. There are no new or modified APIs in this release. What's new or fixed:

On its 10th anniversary, IBM Software Group, led by Steve Mills, is taking its winning middleware formula to small business. eWeek also features a long and interesting interview with the Mr Mills.

Sun has ample reason to tout low-cost computing. Its Solaris is the leading Unix OS, running primarily on the company's proprietary servers. But Sun faces the erosion of its server business as lower cost Intel-based servers become the industry standard. Sun will replace its own Sparc processors with Intel and AMD chips to create a 'budget' range of blade servers, running on Solaris x86. Also, Sun is to distribute Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat is to distribute Sun's Java.

This tutorial explains what it is, how you go about cluster-enabling your Linux system, and how you can benefit from setting up a cluster. By the end of this article, you will have set up your own MOSIX cluster.

Hewlett-Packard on Monday plans to ship the latest version of its Unix-based HP-UX operating system for Intel's family of Itanium processors. The company also plans to announce commitments from 40 developers to deliver applications for the platform.

"Mandrake Linux 9.1 is the first significant update to the popular Linux distribution in some time. New features of the distribution include a revised user interface, tighter integration with Windows and improved networking support." Read the article at LinuxWorld.com.au.

Microsoft is licensing the rights to Unix technology from SCO Group, a move that could dramatically impact the battle between Windows and Linux in the market for computer operating systems, News.com says. Update: Please note that Microsoft simply licenses the rights of Unix (the same way as Sun and SGI have done in the past) and does NOT become the owner of Unix IP. SCO remains the owner.

This may not be of much use to those of you who dread text based installs, and those in the know, but a bit of useful information I came across when I installed Red Hat Linux 9 recently.

Amiga OS4 will finally be presented to the general public and the first OS4 events are sheduled for June. Also Fleecy answered 10 more community questions for his 10th weekly Q&A.

"Robert Watson has started the automatic posting of open issues for the upcoming 5.1 and 5.2 releases. The list for 5.1 is automatically posted to -current every other day, with the most up-to-date version found here. The list is divided into the following four sections: "Must Resolve Issues", "Desired Features", "Documentation items that must be resolved", and "Areas requiring immediate testing". Read it at KernelTrap.

The OpenBSD project is having currently its Hackathon event (despite their financial sponsor backing down last month), where all the developers are getting together to code for almost two weeks. Usually, that's the month of the year with the most CVS commits and the biggest advancements that are happening to the OS. Canada's tech media are reporting the event with more info.

"The 'meta-distro' Gentoo makes it possible to compile and configure everything on your system exactly the way you like, providing you with more structure and tools to ease the process and automate updates. Do I still like Debian? I absolutely love it. But until further notice, Gentoo is now my flavor of Linux." Read the review at LinuxWorld.

Gentoo Technologies founded a new company, Gentoo Games, which is set to release numerous gaming titles on self-booting CDs, fully configured to work on i686s+ with the latest Geforce and Radeon (8500+) graphics boards. First title to come out is America's Army. Another similar distro is Morphix.

Mozilla.org has finally released version 0.6 of Firebird, the project formerly known as Phoenix. Version 0.6 includes a new theme as well as a host of new features. It can be downloaded from here.