SGI has released a new update to their IRIX operating system, 6.5.15. Several bugfixes as well as new features are contained in this release which can be found here.

"Whether you run a small business or large corporation -- or just have a desktop PC at home -- if you're connected to the Internet for any amount of time, you need a firewall to keep your data safe. People with ill intentions will try everything from stealing your credit card data, to exploiting open mail relays for spam, or even manipulating potential (and unwitting) participants in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks." Read the interesting Linux firewall roundup article at UnixReview.

Be, Inc. announced today it has filed suit against Microsoft for the destruction of Be's business resulting from the anticompetitive business practices of Microsoft. The lawsuit alleges, among other claims, that Microsoft harmed Be through a series of illegal exclusionary and anticompetitive acts designed to maintain its monopoly in the Intel-compatible PC operating system market and created exclusive dealing arrangements with PC OEMs prohibiting the sale of PCs with multiple preinstalled operating systems. Our Take: This suit should have been initiated 3 years ago. Furthermore, notice the black mourning stripe on the Be logo at the Be web site. Dan Johnston, Be's legal counsel, is the only person left working at Be's new tiny office in Mountain View these days. Update: News.com has more info found in the filing itself and a mini-statement from Microsoft's spokesman.

"Version 7.0 of the Symbian OS is here, with improved support for 3G networks, EMS, MMS, IPv6, MIDP Java as well as a slew of improvements related to security and certificates. The successor to version 6.1 of the Symbian OS, v7.0, has been launched at the GSM World Congress in Cannes, France, bringing with it features that the mobile industry needs and wants. The new version builds on v6.1 and includes new communications, messaging, networking and application development technologies to more easily implement 2.5G and 3G technologies in new phones." Read more at the one place for PDA and cell phone news, InfoSync.

According to ZDNet, the final note in Corel's gradual abandonment of its ambitious Linux initiatives seems to have arrived. Corel was involved in several open source projects including its own Linux distro, WINE, Application Printing Services API, Corel Package Utilities, 10n-i18n Internationalization, and Cprof Performance Profiler. The site will only be up through the end of the month.

"Microsoft on Tuesday announced several new efforts to bring wireless capabilities to devices using its operating systems. Among them is its Phone Edition application, which will help handheld owners access data and make voice calls. The software runs on the Pocket PC 2002 operating system and will be used with Hewlett-Packard's Jornada 928 Wireless Digital Assistant, which the PC maker is also expected to announce Tuesday. Microsoft also revealed plans to work with Intel as well as Texas Instruments to develop reference designs for phones that will run its Windows Powered Smartphone 2002 operating system. A reference design is basically a blueprint for a technical system that lets different manufacturers build essentially the same device. This process will help wireless phone manufacturers get products to market faster." Read the rest of the article at C|Net News.com and check some screenshots of the SmartPhone operating system running on a Texas Instrument mobile phone.

OSNews reader Jim Strawberry writes: "The BSDvault guys did an interview with Jordan Hubbard not to long ago -- unfortunately it was done as an IRC conversation and was posted as such -- making it rather hard to read & follow. For this reason it didn't really get much attention. The other day I took it upon myself to transform this IRC log into a real interview." Jim received authorization by the original posters, BSDVault, and asked us to publish his revised and cleaned-up version of the interview with Apple's & FreeBSD's Jordan Hubbard.

Hewlett-Packard has begun selling new Intel-based workstations with Linux, the company said. The x1100, an Intel-based machine first introduced with Windows in January, is available with Red Hat Linux version 7.1, HP said Thursday. HP had Linux versions of the two systems' predecessors, the x1000 and x2000, which have a slower memory subsystem than the new models.

"In this document, you learn about the differences between class inheritance and interface implementation. Inheritance supports the creation of hierarchical frameworks of increasingly specialized classes that share some code and also add their own customizations. Interfaces allow multiple unrelated classes to share predictable sets of methods and properties. Both interfaces and inheritance provide polymorphism, allowing generic procedures to work with many different kinds of objects. You also saw how object composition allows you to reuse and extend implementation code without inheritance, and how it can be combined with interfaces to support polymorphism. All these techniques enable you to create and revise complex software systems by helping you add new functionality, with minimal need to dig back into old working code." Read the rest of the article at MSDN.

Unix is steadily evolving into something much easier to use. The trick is to find tools that make things friendlier, but which fit in well with existing tools and are easier for people to take and use for new projects. Read more at Freshmeat.

Hans-Joerg Frieden, Thomas Frieden and Steffen Haeuser will be attending an #AmigaFun meeting today at 6PM (GMT) and will be answering questions regarding AmigaOS4.x. Also this Saturday at the Alt.WoA Show in the UK, Fleecy Moss (CTO, Amiga Inc) and Alan Redhouse (CEO, Eyetech Group) will hold a presentation regarding Amiga's future plans.

"It happens to everyone eventually. You walk into the office, turn on the desktop PC and you're greeted with ugly beeping and no video. The slightly acrid tang of electrical smoke reaches your nostrils and you know that before you've even begun your day, it's already over. You say a small prayer to the computing gods that it's not the hard drive that's fried and you turn everything off before you begin unplugging peripherals." Read the rest of the article at LinuxOrbit.

"As someone who writes about Open Source, I spend quite a bit of time considering its future in the enterprise. I don't spend much time reflecting on how Open Source can improve on the technology of yesteryear. But there are people who do just that." Read the rest of the story at NewsForge.

"For those who aren't familiar with OS X, it is a full implementation of BSD Unix with a Macintosh front end, which is to say world class inside and out. OS X is faster, smarter, prettier, and easier to use than any version of Windows. In short, it is exactly the competitor Microsoft needs. And the timing couldn't be better." Very interesting and easy-reading article, but I would not say "faster" in the above excerpt. Robert Cringely is at it again, this time discussing how the best thing for Apple, for users, and even for Microsoft, would be an Intel version of OSX.