This and subsequent chapters in this book introduce you to Web services available on Mac OS X. The toolkits and frameworks, including Apple’s WebServicesCore.framework, a client-side framework for accessing Web services from Mac OS X which is new in Mac OS X version 10.2, are discussed in Chapter “Tasks”. Some of the tools and techniques for writing Web services glue and adding it to Cocoa, Carbon and AppleScript applications are also discussed.

This document details the configuration, hardening, monitoring and vulnerability assessment of the Solaris OE. It can also be used as a configuration standard, providing a baseline to audit against.

Build 63 of Lycoris is released. Printing and automounting is mostly, but not completely, fixed in this beta. Joseph Cheek's changelog: "removed ghostscript-doc; added Fontmap to ghostscript-fonts; upgraded gimp-print to 4.2.3; updated espgs to 7.05.5; added automake-compat rpm ; fixed courier only font printing issues; made kicker clock 14 pt; removed lucent wavelan from prism2 probe list; fixed non-root vfat mounting issue; fixed printing." Download here, report bugs here.

"For this preview, I had originally written a long-winded backgrounder about the history of Longhorn, and the ways in which this project has changed over time. I'll save the lengthy exposition for a future review, however, and get right to the point: Longhorn is now considered a major Windows release by Microsoft, and early alpha builds are now testing at the company's Redmond campus. Last month, some of those builds leaked to the Internet, causing a stir in the Windows enthusiast community. I take a look at one of those builds here." Read the preview and view screenshots at WinSuperSite.

James Gosling, the father of Java and a fellow at Sun Microsystems Inc., graced the Software Development Conference and Expo East 2002 with his presence this week, addressing a wide range of issues from Sun's software strategy to Web services to embedded Java to open-source software.

miray Software introduces the new version 0.95 of the operating system µnOS with numerous new features today: µnOS is now based on a completely new realtime microkernel, has a graphics server with a software graphic engine and full true color support (VESA) and a window server with a complete GUI component framework and support for arbitrary freeform windows. You can easily try the OS as it fits on a floppy disk (didn't run on my VMWare 3.x though).

The company announced version 3 of Lindows this week at Comdex, and Robertson took the opportunity to talk with PC World about his operating system, its business model of powering extremely low-cost PCs, running an online software mall, and what it's like to go head-to-head with one of the most firmly entrenched products in the world. Read the article at PCWorld.

"Microsoft is playing wait-and-see with AMD's 64-bit Opteron processor. The company has no definite commitment to ship a version of its .Net Server operating system for the new processor, though both will be available at the same time, around April of 2003. The stance was laid out at Microsoft's IT Forum event in Copenhagen on Thursday by Microsoft's Windows supremo." Read the report at ZDNet.UK. AMD does have samples of Windows 64bit for their new processors though.

In this article, B.J. Fesq provides a clear understanding of the enterprise Java platform's direction and introduces J2EE (Java 2, Enterprise Edition) 1.4's support for emerging Web services standards.

Seen the interesting article linked from Deadly.org: "Why would one install his own personal gateway to the Internet? Because it is quite easy to do. And also because it simply is the most reliable, safest way to connect machines to a dedicated xDSL modem. Moreover, we can stash a whole bunch of useful features in such a little box."

IDC analyst Al Gillen questioned the effectiveness of Lindows' Wal-Mart distribution strategy: "I don't understand why the Linux buyer is going to be ... at Wal-Mart," he said. Hmm, maybe because Lindows does not market itself as a Linux distribution, but simply as a cheap home computer solution (which fits perfectly to Wal-Mart)? Anyways, you can read the article at NewsFactor.

Robert Szeleney will never cease to amaze us. After developing a software OpenGL stack and porting Quake 1&2 on top, this time around he has a preliminary JavaVM core running simple Java programs for his OS, SkyOS. Indeed, SkyOS has gone where no other hobby OS has ever gone before with these new features (not even AtheOS ever had such goodies).

Just like Blender did a few months ago, Hekkelman Programmatuur are now following the same approach to open their product's sources (development has stopped in the meantime). Pepper 4.x is a programmer's editor, running on Unix/Linux, Mac/X, Windows and it has already a lot of BeOS-specific code to kickstart a BeOS version too (I personally have a BeOS beta of Pepper 3.5 on my hard drive from the times I was beta testing it, a version that was never released). A small team of developers and users are trying to open its source so they have made an offer to Maarten Hekkelman for $11,000 USD and they would appreciate your donations (screenshot of Pepper running under Gentoo Linux).

"A few weeks ago, I got my hands on the latest release from SuSE. After using it steadily since then, I can say that I'm pleased with 8.1, though it could use some refinements. Read on to find out what's in store for you with SuSE 8.1 Professional." Read the review at UnixReview. Update: "SuSE goes for the desktop" at Geek.com.