XPde 0.3.5 has been released, which according to the site is a major upgrade to the XPde desktop environment and window manager. We reported on the (Pascal-written) XPde before (shots). On other X11 news, InterfaceWM 0.2.4 was recently released, XFCE 4 is getting closer to release (screenshots and one more), while the XWin.org team had another conference call last week.

Sun is attacking the low end x86-based server market with force, as it has announcements around both AMD's Opteron processor and Intel's Xeon processor on the way, executives told TheRegister.

Unfortunately, these days people seem to not be able to keep... any 'secret'. Longhorn 4015 has leaked and Neowin has aquired some tailor-made screenshots showing off a few of the new features taking shape in what is becoming known as Milestone 5. Also, Apple-X.net claims to have the first leaked screenshots of of MacOSX Panther 10.3, clearly showing the "piles". UPDATE: Gsurface writes: "A quick look at what's new in the new 4015 build. To my surprise, it was actually an upgrade rather than the full version. Luckily, I still had my Longhorn 4008 installed on my D:\ drive. Continue to read with tons of screenshots here."

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday released a massive set of documents and guidelines meant to help administrators lock down servers running the company's new Windows Server 2003 operating system.

Microsoft's .NET strategy and framework have done more to raise the industry's awareness of Web services and XML (extensible markup language) than any product or public relations campaign. They also saved Microsoft's keister just as enterprises were beginning to realize the company's previous Web platforms were not going to work as advertised, and the mood was turning sour. Read the article at NewsFactor.

Lack of hardware and application support eclipses OS' potential benefits. When it comes to Unix, Sun Microsystems' Solaris operating system shines on the company's 64-bit SPARC processors. Unfortunately, the picture is less bright for the version of Solaris written for Intel's 32-bit Pentium family.

Billboard is the latest to report on Apple's digital music service, today posting an article that further describes the service. According to Billboard, the service is an "a la carte" download store that is built into iTunes. No subscription will be required for the service, and tracks will retail for an average of 99 cents. Once purchased, songs are automatically transferred to your iTunes library and synched to an iPod (if available). The content can also be burned to CD. Read more here, here and here.

Someone has created a Flash preview of what he thinks Apple's new "Piles" features could be like. My Take: It is worth checking out, but it seems lacking- as implemented in the preview, it doesn't seem very useful; the author also mistakenly claims that such a feature couldn't be done on Windows.

Week 7 of the 'Weekly Questions and Answers' sessions with Amiga's Chief Technology Officer Fleecy Moss is now live at AmigaWorld.net. A few days earlier than originally planned.

AROS, the AmigaOS re-implementation posted a status update dicussing their latest advancements. Two new screenshots also posted. The team is looking for active developers to join them.

João Paredes is an almost-21-year-old student of Electrotecnical and Computers Engeneering at Oporto's State University for Engeneering (Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto), in Portugal. He is well known and respected in his community, known to be a visonary and a good leader. Also known to be an excelent programmer, as he's been programming computers for 16 years now (yes, since he was 5).

Steve Ballmer had the stage to himself Thursday in San Francisco as he introduced Windows Server 2003, a new version of the company's server operating system that Microsoft's CEO described as "the right product" to help companies stretch their IT budgets. Read the interview at News.com. In the meantime, Windows core technology guru Rob Short explains how hackers were involved in Windows Server 2003 development, and why not all NT4 applications will run on it.

Microsoft will announce the first release candidate for its small business edition of Windows Server 2003 in June, officials said at a meeting here with CRN. Microsoft's Small Business Server 2003, which will incorporate Windows Server 2003, Exchange 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services, is going to be promoted heavily for its ease-of-deployment capabilities and enhanced remote user features, officials said at the Windows Server 2003 launch in San Francisco on Thursday.

Zinzala is an SDK by Jean-Louis Villecroze (BeOS users will remember JLV from his Squirrel interpreter while QNX users probably are already using his apps) designed to take full advantage of modern computers and operating systems, such as QNX. It offers: Object oriented framework (in C++) , multi-threaded, network-ready application, easy inter-application messaging, multi-threaded, message passing, Photon based GUI kit (fully scriptable).