"Windows XP is much more than flash and color. Turn it into a stone cold performance machine with these tweaks and tricks." An in-depth ExtremeTech article on how to optimize your WindowsXP. If you are interested in such tweaks for your system, the ultimate web site for this kind of job is of course TweakXP.

"Like dueling superpowers, Sun Microsystems and Microsoft appear to be facing two choices in promoting their respective Web security initiatives: detente or a state of constant conflict. Sun CEO Scott McNealy on Thursday renewed his push for the Liberty Alliance Project, a multi-company attempt to counter Microsoft's Passport identity-authentication system. In a keynote address at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, McNealy trumpeted the recent addition of major partners to the alliance." Read the rest of the story at ZDNews.

"I recently got my test copy of Elx (Everyone's Linux), which made it almost certain to me that Linux is going to be on everybody's desktop much sooner than I ever expected. The complete system is so well crafted for users of Windows that it took my friend, who is a hardcore Windowsian, quite a while to figure out that its not just "another" version of his favorite Windows." Is it some XP or something" came the reply before he could find out that it was Elx." Read the rest of the editorial at DesktopLinux.com. However, NewsForge reviews a 29-pages .pdf file (228 KB) published at DeveloperWorks, written by an IBM Technical Writter. Mr Chapman says that "desktop Linux is good but not for everyone".

A new version, beta 3, of the gobeProductive 3 office suite (6 MB) was released yesterday containing a number of bug fixes. In related news, Ability Office 2002 (13 MB) was recently released and it features table support for Write, PDF creation, MS Access 2000/XP mdb compatible, merge cells for Spreadsheet and more.

"Microsoft on Friday released its retirement schedule for NT Server 4.0 operating system. All sales will end by July 2003, and companies will start having to pay for support. The company stopped selling Windows NT Server 4.0 volume licences for both the Standard and Enterprise editions on 1 October this year. Client versions of NT 4.0 were also discontinued in October." ZDNews reports.

"Many 'gurus' teaching new users about Linux make it look harder than it needs to be, and apparently fail to explain that yes, you can make PowerPoint-style presentations in Linux, you can view Web Pages that use Flash animation and other "glitz" features, and that you can manage all your files though simple "point, click, drag and drop" visual interfaces. Could the biggest problem with Linux usability be that most of the people teaching newbies to use Linux are too smart and know too much?" Robert Miller's excellent editorial found on NewsForge.

Apple has hired Taiwanese contract manufacturer to produce one million iMacs with built-in 15in LCD screens, the United Daily News, a Chinese language newspaper, has reported." Get the rest of the story at TheRegister. Our Take: I just wish Apple could also upgrade the iMacs to a low-end G4, with 512 MB RAM (memory is so cheap these days!), a better 3D graphics card and a CD-RW/DVD combo, all for $999. I would definetely get one of these!

Apple's CEO Steve Jobs said Thursday that Microsoft should give $1 billion in cash to help schools, instead of software and some money, to settle more than 100 consumer lawsuits. Jobs' statement came one day before Apple plans to file a supplemental legal brief further contesting the legitimacy of the proposed settlement of the suits.

"After more than two years, Motorola Inc., late last week revised its road map for the company's PowerPC processors, the chips that lie at the heart of many embedded devices as well as Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh computers. Though the new information is slight, for many it reinforces speculation that Apple will release new desktop computers based on Motorola's "G5" family of processors, perhaps as early as January's Macworld Expo/San Francisco trade show, sources said." Get the rest of the story at ExtremeTech.

Borland released a new Interbase version. New features include VLDB Support (Very Large Database: 64 bit I/O), enables the creation of large files without creating a multi-file database and XML Data-generation, allows InterBase developers to generate XML documents directly from InterBase. In the meantime, Sleepycat Software released version 4.0 of the Berkeley DB just a few days ago. This version adds support for replication, so apps can survive single- or multi-node hardware or software failures without interruption in service.

Trumpet Software, makers of the well known Trumpet Winsock and the PetrOS, to celebrate 10 years of the release of their first product, sent us promotional items: caps for women and men, mousepads etc, items which we will send to ten OSNews readers. There is nothing particular we ask you to do, just email us on this email address with the subject line 'Trumpet Software Give Away' and we will randomly pick ten people to be sent the goods. The offer ends on Thursday 6th of December 2001 at 09:00 AM Pacific Time, so hurry up. Update: The offer is over! Please do not email us anymore. The winners will be announced on this web site very soon.

From the latest Open BeOS Newsletter: "Imagine this. GUIs designed completely outside of the realm of the application. Something like, say, SoundPlayer, coming with a default interface. You can do more than "make a skin", you can redesign the whole UI, so long as you send the right messages. Applications basically become servers. The GUI becomes a client. It shouldn't be too hard to make an add-on to a web browser that could display this hypothetical solution. And, if BMessages could be sent across a network, one could run their apps from anywhere in the world. Imagine that." What are your throughts on the subject? Discuss.

"This report is a real-time performance and robustness evaluation of the QNX v6.1 RTOS from QNX Software Systems Ltd. Aside from the standard performance tests, the test suite has now been expanded with several stress tests. The evaluation report covers the following topics: Theoretical study of the architecture, API, tools, development method, Interrupt Handling, Thread Handling (thread creation, thread switch latency, Synchronization mechanisms (semaphores, mutexes, priority inversion), File system performance, Network stack performance, Advanced Interrupt Handling (two simultaneous interrupts, nested interrupts, maximum sustainable interrupt frequency, ...), Memory leak detection, Real-time performance monitoring with varying system loads." Download the free report at Dedicated-Systems.com.

Apple has announced Final Cut Pro 3, a version of its professional video-editing program designed to run under Apple's Mac OS X operating system. With the latest version of Final Cut Pro, Apple is introducing a new format, OfflineRT, which can store 40 minutes of video per gigabyte of hard drive space. Final Cut Pro 3 will be available later this month for $999, or $299 for registered owners upgrading from an earlier version of the software. The software requires Mac OS X version 10.1.1 or Mac OS 9.2.2, a 300 MHz or faster PowerPC G3 or G4 processor, a built-in FireWire port and at least 256MB of RAM. In related news, rumours want the new QuickTime 6 to be built around Mpeg.