"Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said that the software giant would have to withdraw the Windows operating system from the market if a federal court approves sanctions being sought by nine states in its antitrust case, according to depositions released Monday." Read the rest of the report at News.com. Our Take: A non-development or withdraw of Windows and its support can hurt an immense number of companies, which can have a huge impact to the economy in many countries. I still can't get it. They are fighting Microsoft for the browser case, instead for its dirty business practices. It's comically tragic.

ClosedBSD is a firewall and network address translation utility which boots off of a single floppy disk, and requires no hard drive. ClosedBSD is based off of the FreeBSD kernel, and uses ipfw as it's native ruleset management system, and natd as it's network address translation utility. ClosedBSD also features an advanced ncurses based configuration manager (screenshots) which allows you to seamlessly configure your firewall ruleset using protocol filters, port forwarding, and network address translation mechanisms through a simple to use menu interface. DHCP is disabled for this beta release.

Carson Reynolds writes: "One of the more memorable architectures and operating systems of recent history were the Symbolics Lisp Machine and Genera Operating System. The systems featured such interesting novelties as 36-bit wide processors, hardware support for LISP interpreters, and open source (circa 1986). Those still pining might consider trying to get their own Symbolics system."

"When Mary gets home from work and goes to her PC to check e-mail, the PC isn't just sitting there. It's working for a biotech company, matching gene sequences to a library of protein molecules. Its DSL connection is busy downloading a block of radio telescope data to be analyzed later. Its disk contains, in addition to Mary's own files, encrypted fragments of thousands of other files. Occasionally one of these fragments is read and transmitted; it's part of a movie that someone is watching in Helsinki. Then Mary moves the mouse, and this activity abruptly stops. Now the PC and its network connection are all hers." Read more about an operating system spanning the Internet that would bring the power of millions of the world's Internet-connected PCs to everyone's fingertips.

Microsoft Corp. today announced that the BMW 7 Series, the line of cars introduced last month in the United States, features Microsoft’s real-time embedded operating system, Windows CE. This announcement comes shortly after Microsoft’s Automotive Business Unit launched Windows CE for Automotive v3.5, the newest version of its telematics software platform based on Windows CE, and announced an end-to-end solution to enable the auto industry to cost-effectively implement and maintain advanced automotive telematics. Siemens VDO Automotive AG, the preferred navigation supplier of BMW, is using the Microsoft Windows CE operating system in the Control Display, which is part of the innovative BMW iDrive concept.

WinTasks 4 Pro is a Windows adminstation utility developed by LIUtilities in Sweden. It runs on all major flavors of Windows, however, it is mostly recommended for use on NT/2000 and XP systems. WinTasks is able to list the processes (tasks) on your running system and allows you to manipulate them according to your needs.

"The rift between IBM and Microsoft over Web services widened further over the weekend when Web services evangelists from each company clashed over the relative merits of .Net and Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) for building applications that can talk to each other over the Internet." Read the rest of the story at ZDNews.

"Even computer programmers can sometimes let their emotions get the better of them. 'If I made a great product, and Microsoft offered me a lot of money, I would spit in their faces,' says Brett Slatkin, a student at Columbia University in New York. His colleagues roll their eyes and accuse him of being stuck at the 'hippy stage.' But when talk turns to the serious business of programming, they are of one pragmatic mind." Read the rest of the story at MCNBC.

A special release of the intent Application Development Kit for Windows and Linux is included on the cover CD of the current issue of digital magazine. Intent is the core technology used in the AmigaDE and is also the standard programming and the platform independent content environment chosen by the Open Contents Platform Association (OCPA) for digital consumer devices. Consumer Electronic Giants including Hitachi, Sony, Kyocera, PSION, Nokia, NEC, Motorola, Grundig, JVC, Fujitsu, Sharp, Epson, Intel, Pioneer, Metrowerks, Sega, Bandai and Capcom are supporting the platform. A full new release of the AmigaDE Software Development Kit will become available for general developers later this year. Software developed for intent works with the AmigaDE platform as well.

NetBSD/mvmeppc is a new port of NetBSD to the Motorola MVME PowerPC Single Board Computers. This was made possible through a donation by Gan Starling of two (plus one loaner) MVME160x boards so that a porting effort could be made. Due to NetBSD's highly portable architecture, the operating system was up and running multi-user after just two weeks worth of part-time effort.

"In a decision handed down today in Boston, US District Judge Patti B. Saris ruled on the preliminary injunction motion in MySQL AB vs. Progress Software Corp. On the trademark dispute, on which the Free Software Foundation (FSF) takes no position, she has ruled that Progress Software is enjoined from marketing products under the MySQL trademarks until trial." Read the rest of the press release at Gnu.org. The significance of this trial is that this is the first time where the GPL license will have to "stand" in a court.

"Virus writers took another shot at Microsoft's .Net vision. On Friday, antivirus companies received a copy of a worm called Sharpei, which is partially written in Microsoft's newest computer language, C#, and designed to infect computers loaded with the .Net framework. Antivirus company Network Associates gave the infectious program a "low" rating for risk but highlighted it as the second example of a virus writer attempting to infect parts of the .Net framework." Read the rest of the story at C|Net.

"Looking at desktop applications for Linux these days has become a bit of a balancing act; on the one hand, there is the obligation to review all of the features objectively. One the other, it has become clear that it is necessary to examine how desktop applications will fit into the corporate environment. While we cannot ignore the home users, there is growing evidence that this will not be the arena where Linux will grow on the desktop." Read the Linux office package roundup at LinuxPlanet.

"Like almost all things in life, good security costs good money. It has to be that way, because there are simply not enough skilled security specialists to look after all of the networks that need their attention. An unfortunate result of low supply and high demand is the migration of highly skilled personnel to clients who can meet their salary requirements. This leaves a lot of small and underfunded networks in the hands of less experienced administrators, who might not know how to design, configure, and monitor these networks' safety mechanisms, leaving them vulnerable to attacks from unscrupulous people looking for inside information, free warez storage, zombie hosts for DDoS attacks, or systems they can simply destroy for fun of doing it." Read the rest of the article at O'Reilly.