Kim was the first to submit news of the availability of the Mozilla 1.4 beta, which is now available for download. Recently, Mozilla.org announced a new roadmap which indicates that this will be the last XPFE-based browser release before the main trunk is switched to the Phoenix/Firebird codebase.

Holger Benl writes "Sun's Java site has a very informative article about the most important new language features planned for J2SE 1.5 (expected beta-release: late 2003). Looks like Java may finally replace C++ as my favorite programming language."

Microsoft Corp. said it will act as a neutral arbiter in the ongoing battle between the competing recordable DVD standards, supporting all of them in the upcoming Longhorn release. Microsoft added support for DVD-R and DVD-RW into Longhorn, due in 2005. Longhorn already supports the DVD-RAM, DVD+RW and DVD+R formats. Also, here is a picture, showing the Windows Client roadmap: Windows XP Tablet PC Version 2 due 2003, Windows XP Media Center Edition Version 2 due 2004. Beta 1 and Beta 2 of Longhorn due 2004. In the meantime, here are a few screenshots and videos of Longhorn.

Microsoft faces a possible investigation and significant fines for a security lapse that could have exposed the personal information of millions of consumers.

"It?s been a while since we had a discussion about Windows & Mac users hasn?t it? Ok well I guess it hasn?t as every Mac or Windows news site under the sun seems to be running some sort of ?Mine is better than yours? argument each day. I guess the question still remains, which one is best? Or is there even a ?best OS? out there?" Read Byron Hinson's editorial. Update: Second part, here.

"I have been using SuSE Linux 8.2 Professional for two weeks now, and it is as close to Linux desktop perfection as I have found so far. (I know I'm not the first to say this, but I figure saying it one more time can't hurt.) This doesn't mean it's totally perfect, and my experience is on one particular laptop and may not be duplicated on your hardware, but this is the first SuSE version I have actually liked -- and the first one I've kept on my "production" machine for any length of time." Read the review at NewsForge.

One old Sawfish theme I always admired is "Friday". I liked its concept of having its window manager buttons shaped after the purpose they served (the Min button was a triangle looking down, and the max button a triangle looking up). I modified the theme to my liking (undoubtly it could still be done better by a pro graphics person) and here is its mockup. Update: An alternative design, possibly much better.

Russell Pavlicek writes: "With all the talk about AMD's Opteron processors recently, we cannot forget that Intel, too, has a 64-bit platform that runs Linux. I took SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for Intel Itanium2 Processor Family for a test drive. And I liked what I found."

Longhorn will not ship in beta form until early 2004, and will not be released to manufacturing until 2005. Also, Microsoft revealed that the company's Blackcomb project will not be delivered as a major server upgrade as previously expected, but will instead be phased in over several years, beginning with technology that Microsoft will release this year as "out of band" upgrades to Windows Server 2003.

Drobe have an in-depth article detailing the upcoming new features in RISC OS Ltds latest version of their OS, 'RISC OS Select 3'. One of the big changes (amongst many other improvements) is that it will support alpha channel sprites at OS level. There's lots of screenshots as well.

Welcome back to Part 2 of Cocoa 101: Object-Oriented Programming for the Masses! I received a lot of great feedback on my previous article, and I'm looking forward to sharing with you once again what I've learned about Cocoa and the Objective-C language. If you missed Part 1 of this tutorial, read it here.

The members of X.Org announced the availability for Public Review of the proposed enhancements to the X Window System for the support of IPv6. The proposed code and documentation enhancements for both the X Window X11R6.6 Sample Implementation and the XFree86 V4.3.0. As agreed by the members of X.Org, the review of the proposed IPv6 enhancements will be open until 30th May 2003.

The new Mac OS X 10.2.6 update addresses an issue for Mac OS X 10.2.5 in which a kernel panic message may appear if certain USB hubs or devices are connected. Improves printing compatibility for PostScript OpenType fonts. Improves compatibility for Maya Auto Paint and Paint Effects features.

Mandrake Linux 9.1 packs are currently available for purchase at MandrakeStore. MandrakeStore offers a new tracking system which allows customers to monitor their orders each step of the way. The full press release is here.