Visual Studio .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK provide a new set of APIs and tools that let you consume Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) data and events from managed .NET applications. After presenting an overview of what's new for WMI in the .NET Framework and the Visual Studio .NET environment, the author provides an in-depth exploration of the Management Extensions in Visual Studio .NET for Server Explorer. These extensions help you develop management-aware software and come in handy in a variety of distributed application development scenarios.

KernelTrap features three interesting articles - first, second and the newest -, round ups of the Linux kernel mailing list, where some of the developers are fighting against the use of the proprierty BitKeeper, while the rest are evangelizing regarding the "best tool for the job". When emails like "Rot in hell, closed mind" emerged in the list, Linus replied: "Quite frankly, I don't _want_ people using Linux for ideological reasons. I think ideology sucks. This world would be a much better place if people had less ideology, and a whole lot more 'I do this because it's FUN and because others might find it useful, not because I got religion'". Our Take: Personally, I am on Linus' side. He rocks on this particular subject.

"Many people have argued that free software has trouble creating good user interfaces. Recently Matthew Thomas posted a nice example of this argument, which I found on Joel's web site. It was cool to find mpt's article, because it nicely articulates what's gone wrong with many projects - including past versions of all the major Linux/UNIX desktops." Read the rest of the editorial at Havoc Pennington's site.

OSNews reader Rodney, writes: "The Amiga Coldfire project announced a radical move to create a 100% compatible classic Amiga that shall take advantage of modern technologies such as PCI, AGP and of course the Coldfire CPU. It is thought the project will first create a Coldfire accelerator card for the A1200, which will then aid the developers in creating a standalone motherboard which should than be ready for the general community. There has been a non-technical FAQ posted @ Amiga.org and a mailing list created. To avoid confusion, this has nothing to do with the AmigaOne from Eyetech and is not made to run the new operating system AmigaOS4, but as a replacement for OLD Amiga’s and to run the OS3x series of AmigaOS. In other words, a hobbyist’s machine!" Update: Fred Horvat wrote: "There's a similar project under way for the Atari computer platform."

I just should begin by saying that this article is different from the others. While my other articles can be quite useful to aid you in the design or purchase of your next computer system, this article is simply a fun look at things to come.

From DaemonNews: "François Jacques and Jean-Claude Batista have an article on macadamian.com on writing a tiny version of the MSN messenger client on Windows and FreeBSD . The example is available in source code form for free." Our Take: It feels a bit strange to have software compile for the .NET Framework under FreeBSD. It is definately a welcoming addition to FreeBSD, but it still feels a bit strange. We'll get used to it, I guess.

"Jim Allchin, Microsoft group vice president for the platforms group, confirmed at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle this week that the "Longhorn" release will come later than originally planned. Longhorn first emerged as an interim operating system release between Whistler, which later became Windows XP and the Windows .NET Server family, and Blackcomb, a major rev of the operating system that is supposed to revolutionize the user interface and fully embrace XML Web services." Read the report at ENT-News.

"They're here, they're slow, get used to it. At least for now. One of Apple's top goals for its new flat-panel iMacs is to get home consumers to switch from Windows PCs. But some who rushed to order the attractive new computer sight unseen say they have been disappointed: For Web browsing -- still the biggest time use of home computers after e-mail -- the new iMacs are notably slower than a PC. Yep, even an older, cheaper one." Get the story at Wired. Some G4 benchmarks against the PCs and commentary can be found here.

Kurt Wall writes for LinuxPlanet: "I'm a minimalist when it comes to my Linux boxes. They all run Slackware and XFCE, with nary a single bit of KDE or GNOME to be seen. Why? Because I want to save my RAM, CPU, and disk for real computing, not eye candy. So, as I began my review of SuSE 8.0, I was skeptical that it would have much that really wowed me. And, to be clear, I finished my review as firmly entrenched in my minimalism as when I started. Naytheless, SuSE impressed me, especially the painless, perfect installation -- an element difficult to get right during a beta. Those of you who prefer or rely on feature-rich, beautiful desktops won't be disappointed in SuSE 8.0."

Coderus, a UK-based company is now offering MacDX, an OpenGL wrapper API for MacOS based on Microsoft's DirectX gaming API. While the company have not make public any technical details as to which parts of DirectX are actually supported, it might be safe to assume (and this is just a guess), based on the fact that their package only takes 10 MB of hard disk space as opposed to 120+ MB of Microsoft's full DirectX SDK, that only the critical and most used parts of DirectX have been wrapped so far. On a similar note, the open source DirectX OpenGL Wrapper from Real-Tech for Windows, Mac and Unix enjoyed a new released version just a few days ago.

Metrowerks is shipping a new set of tools which enables application and content development for Tao Group's intent, a high performance, portable media platform. These tools don't come cheap. However an intent/AmigaDE Software Development Kit costs only 100 dollars is already enough to get you started. And if you want to use powerful dynamic graphic scaling capabilities, you need to sign a SDA with Amiga. Then your software will be able to scale properly from handheld to STB/Desktop resolutions. On TechTV Amiga already demonstrated the technologies' flexibility and performance.

ZDNews editor David Coursey concludes his series of articles describing his switch to the Mac platform. Read his editorial at ZDNews.

"The Microsoft license specifically excludes software under the General Public License, commonly known as the GPL. The GPL is the software license used by Linux and by SAMBA, a popular open-source program that allows non-Microsoft systems to share files and printers with Windows." Read the rest of the editorial at ZDNews. Our Take: Funny. Everyone is getting worked up with that CIFS license, and it seems that no one has actually read the new Visual Studio.NET license. We did so with my husband 1-2 weeks ago. We are not lawyers, but what we pretty much understood from it, was that you can't develop and/or distribute GPL or LGPL (or compatible licensed) applications created with Visual Studio.NET. I personally believe that this is more important of the CIFS license issue, because it pretty much takes out any possibility of creating Free software for the Windows platforms, when using either the classic Win32/MFCs or .NET APIs. And if you are thinking about using Gcc, bad luck. The license prohibits using a GPL-compatible license for your apps that link against Microsoft's libraries. Quite possibly Microsoft used such restrictions in order to protect themselves from the possibility that someone may ask them to open source their technologies if third party developers link their GPL apps with Microsoft's libs, but on the other hand, it is restrictive to not be able to use a $1000 developer's tool to create applications the way you wish.

"Compared with Mac OS 9, running under OS X feels like someone smeared Vaseline all over my monitor. I have uncorrected vision, and I'd like to keep it that way as long as possible. But prolonged exposure to Mac OS X--particularly its anti-aliased text--really peeves my eyeballs. The abundant anti-aliasing is just one of the many problems I have with the Aqua interface. The gratuitous shadows around windows eat up screen real estate that I would rather keep to myself. I'm greedy with my pixels and don't like it when Aqua absconds with them." The editorial is at ZDNews, while OSNews reader Doug Gruber submitted the news for the second part of the story "Why I don't own a Mac".