Last week, Apple again repeated its claim that the iPhone and iPod Touch are capable of filling the netbook niche. They also claimed that netbooks can barely be called personal computers. Both of these statements are complete and utter nonsense, but instead of writing down some high-level definition of what a netbook is, I decided to simply write down all the things I do with my netbook that the iPhone/iPod Touch cannot do to make the difference between the two that much more tangible.

The ReactOS team has pushed out version 0.3.9 of their Windows NT-compatible operating system. In case you're new to OSNews, the ReactOS project aims to create an operating system that's compatible with the Windows Server 2003 kernel and Vista's Win32. This new release brings a whole slew of improvements.

The second release candidate of FreeBSD 7.2 has been released. "The second of the two planed Release Candidates for the 7.2-RELEASE cycle is now available. We believe with the exception of the new bce(4) driver not working with lagg(4) all the major issues that have come up from the testing have been addressed. We will work with the vendor to get that issue addressed post-release."

Linux ordinarily uses Cron to automatically perform routine system maintenance on desktop or laptop computers, however not running Cron routinely can result in monstrously large log files and other problems. You can offload most or all of your usual daily and longer-interval Cron jobs onto Anacron enabling your computer to run regular maintenance jobs whenever the computer is powered on, even if those times are unpredictable.

It's something lots of people here on OSNews have been waiting for. It's something we've talked about, something we've theorised about, and something we've declared as the future for Windows' backwards compatibility - and now it's here, and official. Over a month ago, Microsoft bloggers Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott have been briefed by Microsoft on a technology for Windows 7 called Windows XP Mode. Available as a free download for Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate users, it's a fully integrated and licensed copy of Windows XP SP3 in a VirtualPC-based environment, with full "coherence" support. In other words, it's Microsoft's variant of Apple's Classic environment, and it's coming to Windows 7, for free. Near-instant update: The Windows 7 RC will indeed be available publicly on May 5. TechNet/MSDN will get it April 30.

Microsoft's Surface computer is a revolutionary table-top multitouch computer that can do all sorts of fancy tricks. It makes use of a projector and five cameras to track hand movements, as well as read "Surface tags", which are a sort of barcodes underneath objects. It's a software+hardware package, and for 17000 USD, you'd think it'd be a treat to unbox and install one. Well, no. Near-instant update: Microsoft has replied to the blog post, and as it turns out, the unit delivered to Miller for one of his clients was scheduled to be setup by Microsoft - a service that comes standard with the device. More details inside.

As if per clockwork, the release candidate builds for Windows 7 (both 32bit and 64bit) have been leaked onto the web. "The highly anticipated release candidate build of Windows 7 has been leaked and its authenticity is entirely undisputed. First looks reveal nothing significantly new or different, but if you've been wanting to get a vibe of how far Windows 7 has come since the public beta, especially performance, this is the build to get."

"In a recent report, AdMob said growth in requests from devices running the Android and iPhone operating systems continued to outpace other platforms in March, despite the relatively limited number of devices in the market. The HTC Dream (Google G1) generated 72 million requests, giving it a 2 percent share of the overall U.S. market in March."

We finally have something to be excited about during these dark days of the current economy. Back in the dark ages of the internet, when most people still had to "dial in" while listening to some strange device making weird sounds in order to go on the net, there were services that allowed people with absolutely no knowledge on web design to create and host webpages. One of those services was GeoCities.

During the conference call yesterday about Apple's financial results, COO Tim Cook reiterated Apple's negative stance towards the netbook market. While many of us might want to see a relatively cheap Apple netbook with Mac OS X, all the recent figures do seem to confirm that it simply isn't a good idea for Apple.

"Microsoft has forged a deal with a University of Michigan research unit to create an open-source version of the NFS version 4 protocol that will work with Windows. Microsoft already offers NFS support in Windows client and server, but for Version 3 only."

"As analysts predicted it might, Microsoft on Thursday reported the company's first ever year-over-year sales decline for the quarter ended March 31. The software maker said fiscal third-quarter sales totaled $13.65 billion, down 6 percent compared with $14.45 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Its per-share earnings were 33 cents per share, although that included severance and investment impairment charges that reduced earnings by 6 cents per share. Analysts had been projecting sales of $14.15 billion and per-share earnings of 39 cents, down from 47 cents a year ago, according to Reuters Estimates. Microsoft had said in January that the crystal ball for the company was cloudy and at the time announced its first companywide layoffs, with plans to chop 5,000 jobs over an 18-month period."

Canonical has announced the final release of Ubuntu 9.04; also announced were the releases of Ubuntu 9.04 Server Edition and Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix, but of course also Kubuntu 9.04, and Xubuntu 9.04.

The verdict in the Pirate Bay trial surprised many people, seeing as how many errors the entertainment industry's lawyers had made, and how little understanding they seemed to have of how BitTorrent works. The height of the sentence also surprised many; for aiding in sharing just 33 copyrighted items, the four founders were sentenced to one year in jail, and a massive fine of 3.6 million USD. Well, as it turns out, we now know why we were all relatively surprised: the judge in the case, Thomas Norstrom, is member of the same pro-copyright groups as many of the people representing the entertainment industry in the case.