A few weeks ago, I wrote an article for OSNews entitled "Update on Red Hat's Limbo Progress." It was to be a short article on how much Red Hat's beta releases have impressed me - to share with everyone some of the changes a desktop user sees and maybe generate some additional interest in my choice, Linux. Little did I know, one of my comments nearly incited a riot- it would flood my Inbox, leave me feeling silly about something that I still think is true...it was just poorly stated.
So, let's try a little experiment.

It seems that it is not just Apple, via Quartz Extreme, using the 3D capabilities of a graphics card to render a 2D desktop. Stardock has already released WindowFX 2, as part of their ObjectDesktop product, which is very equivelant to QE. As you can see from the screenshots, their preference panel for WindowFX contains a number of adjustments that you can do to the system and allows for very special effects to your modified Windows desktop with ease and speed.

The company plans to reset its tools to work with new products expected to ship in the coming months, including Windows.Net Server and an update to the SQL Server database. Stories at C|Net and eWeek.

Tim O'Reilly made an informal survey of some members of the Geek Elite and confirmed that Mac OS X has generated significant enthusiasm. He also found that Linux and Unix users are even more likely than sold school Mac users to make the switch to OS X. Read more at O'Reilly's Mac Dev Center.

The KDE Project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.1 beta1, the second development release of KDE 3.1, which follows 6 weeks after the release of KDE 3.1 alpha1, a significant feature upgrade for KDE 3. KDE 3.1, scheduled for final release in October 2002, will provide substantial improvements to the KDE desktop experience.

The latest beta of Red Hat 8, named "null", released a couple of days ago, includes some UI changes, mostly new icons, showing the clear wish of Red Hat to enter the corporate desktop market. Texstar from PCLinuxOnline posted some screenshots of his Null beta, so you can see the UI changes for yourself. I took the time this afternoon to try and suggest ways to clean up the new Red Hat UI even more (particularly, the menu). See the original shot, and the modified one. Our previous article, based on a random shot of Red Hat's older UI can be found here.

"Almost a year after it donated some $40 million worth of code and tools, IBM is on the warpath once again, drumming up support for the open-source Eclipse project. Eclipse may not be as well known as some other open-source projects, such as Linux, Mozilla, or Apache. It's certainly not as sexy. At its core, Eclipse provides a common platform, user interface, and plug-in framework for integrating development tools." Read the rest of the story at InternetWeek. We should add that if the Eclipse web site add some easy to find screenshots and become a bit more straightforward of what it is and what it does, instead of corporate blah-blah, surely more people would get interested in. Expect a review of the QNX version of Eclipse, dubbed 'Momentics', in the near future.

DesktopLinux.com reader John Murray contributes this call to action to support Linux companies and open source projects. Murray offers a simple user plan to help contribute to the efforts of developers - put your money where your mouth is...

The GNOME Usability Project is proud to announce the release of the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines (v1.0), the product of usability engineers, designers, hackers, and Irish wine. The guidelines deliver both specific advice on making effective use of interface elements, as well as the philosophy and general principles behind the guidelines. Read the release announcement (including a plea for interface unity between free software projects), or jump straight to the meat.

We reported on this a few days ago, but now the article is updated 8/17/02 with 'streamlined' graphs, tweaked verbiage, and addition of a very interesting Memory Speed Graph. Page Two added on 8/20/02 with additional tests. Updated 8/21/02 with another bottleneck theory and Memory Speed Graph interpretation. Read the updated benchmarks here and here. What will it take to fix the bottleneck, the conclusion asks? The author replies: A CPU than can handle the full speed of DDR memory (like the fabled PPC 7470) and a redesigned motherboard with separate bus for each CPU.

VectorLinux, a lightweight distribution of GNU/Linux was just released. The new version is called SOHO 1.0, and while it is based on the previous version, VectorLinux v2.5, it still has many enhancements. Features the KDE 3.x desktop including Koffice and the KDE development suite. OpenOffice, AbiWord, the Gimp, Realplayer, Xmms, Mozilla-1.0, Opera 6.x, Cups printing system, scanner support, java runtime, kernel 2.4.18 and several entertaining games are all included. The founder, Robert Lange, is looking for more developers to join him, a new web master and people to try the free download of SOHO or to buy the CD in order to fund the project.

AMD tried to re-claim the performance leadership with the release of the 2600+ and 2400+ versions of its AthlonXP CPU. While AMD officials claimed that the new chips outperform other PC processors, ExtremeTech testing doesn't give the AthlonXP a definitive edge. AMD also reworked its "model number" performance ratings to better represent performance, executives said. In other hardware news, Sun released a new, budget-minded Unix workstation on Tuesday, mamed Sun Blade 150. But as its influence grows in the Unix market, the market itself is dwindling, C|Net says.

The first editorial is an interesting take from ExtremeTech about Red Hat's "dual play" in the Linux business, called "RedHat's Astroturfing". The second one, called "Creativity, reliability to drive telematics" is written by Paul Leroux, from QNX Software. Last by not least, David Berlind analyzes the pros and cons of binary compatibility between versions: Is it the holy grail or the red herring?

From ActiveWin: "Microsoft Corp. has released the second service pack for Office XP, which will combine previously released and new updates into a single, integrated package that will be available as a Web download or on CD. Office XP Service Pack 2 (SP-2) provides the latest updates to Microsoft Office XP. SP-2 contains significant security enhancements as well as stability and performance improvements. SP-2 updates the following Office applications: Word 2002, Excel 2002, Outlook 2002, PowerPoint 2002, Access 2002, FrontPage 2002, Publisher 2002, and Office XP Web Components."