The IE team at Microsoft has released the 2nd beta Internet Explorer 8. Contrary to the first beta, which was aimed at developers, this one one is aimed at normal people like you and me. The list of new features and changes is decent, all focused around three themes (marketing alert): "We focused our work around three themes: everyday browsing (the things that real people do all the time), safety (the term most people use for what we've called 'trustworthy' in previous posts), and the platform (the focus of Beta 1, how developers around the world will build the next billion web pages and the next waves of great services)." Go get it.

Dropping profits and stock prices have analysts speculating that Sun could be a target for either acquisition or a restructuring in which the company would sell off parts of the business and focus on a smaller set of technologies. In a July 31 report, the 451 Group analyst firm raised the possibility of Sun being acquired: 'Sun's sunken stock price creates a relative bargain considering its roughly $4 billion cash on hand, sizeable intellectual property and patent portfolio, and of course, its respected technology and products'.

"Poor Microsoft. This week, the Redmond, Wash., giant is gearing up for the next big release of its Web browser, a leap from Internet Explorer 7 to IE 8. When open-source competitor Mozilla released its last update of Firefox in June, the Web went wild: People downloaded more than 8 million copies in 24 hours. Microsoft's release might not have such a frat party feel. Even as it gears up to release IE 8, the developers behind the Firefox Web browser are experimenting with a new technology that sharpens the threat their browser software poses to Microsoft's most valuable businesses. The new technology, dubbed TraceMonkey, promises to speed up Firefox's ability to deliver complex applications." While many have abandoned Microsoft's browser offerings, Microsoft will be introducing an innovative new type of selective privacy mode called InPrivate with IE8.

Dynamically linked shared libraries are an important aspect of GNU/Linux. They allow executables to dynamically access external functionality at run time and thereby reduce their overall memory footprint. This article investigates the process of creating and using dynamic libraries, provides details on the various tools for exploring them, and explores how these libraries work under the hood.

Google has dropped the Bluetooth and GTalkService instant messaging APIs (application program interfaces) from the set of tools for the first version of the mobile phone OS, Android 1.0, according to the Android Developers Blog. The company opted to drop the Bluetooth API because "we plain ran out of time," said Nick Pelly, one of the Android engineers responsible for the Bluetooth API, on the blog posting. But the company made clear that handsets using the Android OS will work with other Bluetooth devices such as headsets, for example. Ed note: To be clear, only the APIs are delayed, not the features. This suggests third party apps will not be able to access these frameworks.

What makes this Vista article any different? The title provides a clue: it's as much about providing practical working solutions to resolve some of the commonly-quoted Vista annoyances as anything else. That in itself should give all Vista users a reason to read it. However it doesn't matter whether you use Vista or not, because this article does something that most of the others don't: it takes an objective and up-to-date look at the current state of Vista, with a range of facts, clear examples and informed opinions aimed squarely at debunking a lot of the myths and FUD we've been gagging on for the past year. So for those of you still considering whether to make the switch from XP, for those of you who want to abandon Vista and go back to XP, for those of you who used Vista a while ago and who are wondering whether it's worth using again now - this article puts things in perspective with the latest facts.

Think you know the truth about Mac OS X Server? Find out as Ryan Faas counts down the top ten commonly held myths about Apple's server platform. Warning: while it's a decent article, it will make you click through 10 pages to get the 10 reasons.

Linux distributor Red Hat has issued a statement (Ed: via their errata) revealing that its servers were illegally infiltrated by unknown intruders. According to the company, internal audits have confirmed that the integrity of the Red Hat Network software deployment system was not compromised. The community-driven Fedora project, which is sponsored by Red Hat, also fell victim to a similar attack. More news is available around the web.

The winners of Mozilla's Extend Firefox competition have been announced. The top trio were Pencil, a diagramming and graphics interface tool; Tagmarks, which adds additional tagging icons to Firefox 3.0's location bar; and HandyTag, an extension that provides relevant keywords for associating with bookmarked sites. More info is available in this Mozilla blog entry.

The Book of IMAP: Building a Mail Server with Courier and Cyrus, by Peer Heinlein and Peer Hartleben, is a quality resource for any serious mail administrator. The approach taken is direct, but at the same time it's very expansive, setting this book apart from most others I have read. It's packed full of rich examples which are used to solidify the topic being covered. At several places the authors reach out to explain when the subject is addressing ambiguous or otherwise undocumented information which is to great advantage to the reader and worthy of recognition.

Ottawa Canada Linux Users Group recently hosted another of its Kernel Walkthrough tutorials given by Bart Trojanowski. The screencast starts with a one-hour presentation on the components involved, and then dives into the code which bootstraps the kernel on the 32bit x86 platform. The first Kernel Walkthrough by the Ottawa Canada Linux Users Group covered Linux development background, file layout and data types.

Earlier this week, we ran a story on GoboLinux, and the distribution's effort to replace the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard with a more pleasant, human-readable, and logical design. A lot of people liked the idea of modernising/replacing the FHS, but just as many people were against doing so. Valid arguments were presented both ways, but in this article, I would like to focus on a common sentiment that came forward in that discussion: normal users shouldn't see the FHS, and advanced users are smart enough to figure out how the FHS works.

"Atari was founded in 1972, but its crowning accomplishments in console gaming and computers were the Atari Video Computer System (or 2600) and the Atari 400/800 line of personal computers. This four-year period - from 1977 to 1981 - contains some of the most exciting developments the company ever saw in its history: the rise of the 2600, the development of some of the company's most enduringly popular games (Centipede, Asteroids) and the development and release of its first home computing platforms. This comprehensive look back, filled with quotes from the original creators and other primary sources, offers a detailed peek into the company that popularized video gaming as the '70s turned into the '80s, and created the first viable market for home consoles. For more detail, be sure to read Gamasutra's first Atari history article, which covers the period of 1971 to 1977 - the latter date being the year that the Atari VCS was first released." That's a grand total of 40 pages of detailed Atari history. Nice weekend reading for the fans.

"Where is Linux the most popular, and where are the different Linux distributions the most popular?". Pingdom has taken a stab at answering this question using the Google Insights for Search. Read on for our observations on the results.