Windows developers can now port Visual Basic applications to Linux without modifying their code, using an open source project backed by Novell. The Mono project has built a compiler that lets developers code using Visual Basic inside Visual Studio or other preferred tools environments and run the Visual Basic code on non-Windows platforms without the time and cost of modification.

"Samsung knows a thing or two about designing notebooks. The Q35 Red that I recently reviewed created quite a stir every time I pulled it out of my bag at CES last month, and the ultra-slim Q30 won over many users who were looking for a machine that was ultra-thin and light. But now the Samsung design team has pushed the boat out and created the new Aura series of notebooks, which look set to go head to head with Apple's ultra-stylish MacBooks."

"Say, you've got an SVN for your OpenSource project and would like to mirror it to some remote location that hosts opensource projects (such as SourceForge.net or dev.java.net). I'll skip the phase of an account and project registration and assume you've already got your credentials and SVN repo url. I also assume you are on Debian or Ubuntu and your SVN is up and running under Apache httpd."

The release focuses on bug fixes, better connectivity and support for additional devices. Changelog is here. You can dowload the client here. Please note that the server-side was upgraded too and has introduced a small rendering bug with the mobile OSNews menu; hopefully it will be resolved soon.

"Are you confused by the plethora of testing and comparison options in the Bash shell? This tip helps you demystify the various types of file, arithmetic, and string tests so you will always know when to use test, , ], (( )), or if-then-else constructs."

Artificial Intelligence has been at the center of any geek's dream for years. One of the projects that's closer to true AI is Cyc. The open source version of the commercial Cyc product is called OpenCyc and it reached v1.0 status last year. Their mission is to grow both the Cyc & OpenCyc ontology and knowledge base -- even if they are not directly affiliated with Cycorp (the original creators of the Cyc technology). The answers to our mini-interview are provided by project members Mark Baltzegarm, John De Oliveira and Brad Bouldin.

Microsoft has apologised for serving malware via its websites and Windows Live Messenger software. APC reader Jackie Murphy reported the problem: "With Microsoft launching Vista along with their Defender software to protect users from viruses and spyware, it seems therefore to be an oxymoron that they have started to putting paid changing banner advertisements for malware, on the popular MSN groups servers." A Microsoft Australia spokesperson confirmed the malware vendor had slipped through its ad booking processes.

"As Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems, UK-based Simon Phipps' job could become ever more tiring, it seems. The biggest step the company has taken so far is definitely the announcement of the Java Development Kit (and Runtime Environment) becoming free software. We invited Simon to keynote at FOSDEM and, due to his busy schedule, interviewed him about Sun's position in the free software universe over the phone."

The Book of JavaScript (2nd edition) by "thau!" (Dave Thau, according to the book's companion website) is a new and comprehensive introduction to the JavaScript language presented in an entertaining, practical format. I was provided a review copy by the publisher, No Starch Press. I have significant practical experience with JavaScript, so I do not consider myself in the target audience for this book; however, I still found much of it useful so it will remain as a valuable reference on my bookshelf.

"Microsoft has gone out on a limb to promote Vista not merely as 'the most secure version of Windows ever' (every recent version is marketed with that tired slogan), but for the first time as an adequately secure version of Windows. 'We've got the message and we've done our homework', the company says. So let's see if the reality lives up to the marketing hype."

"We are excited to announce that Haiku developer Ingo Weinhold has recently committed UserlandFS to the repository. UserlandFS is designed to provide, for the first time in Haiku (and the BeOS platform), a stable and flexible environment for file system add-on development. Along with UserlandFS, Ingo has also committed several file system modules, including a Reiser FS 3.6 read-only implementation, a RAM FS (which is still work in progress), and NetFS, a Haiku-specific networking file system. NetFS is a native Haiku network file system that provides peer-to-peer networking capabilities for computers running Haiku on a LAN and includes full support for BFS attributes and live queries."

"For years, the lightweight Xfce has been a popular desktop environment for Linux distributions running on older hardware, thanks to its lower demand on resources as compared to KDE and GNOME; it's an ideal desktop for machines with less than 256MB of memory. Until recently, however, using Xfce was a little laborious, but with its latest release last month, Xfce is a much more usable desktop environment."

Enlightenment 0.16.8.6 has been released. "Fix window move through desk switch. Fix crash on opening certain dialogs when sound is enabled. Various minor bug fixes and enhancements." Get it from the Sourceforge project page.

The long-awaited update to Microsoft's virtualization software was released Monday. Virtual PC 2007 brings support for Windows Vista - as both a guest and host operating system - and takes advantage of new hardware virtualization technology from both Intel and AMD. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Virtual PC 2007 are available free of charge; Microsoft made Virtual PC 2004 SP1 freeware last July and promised to release 2007 for no cost. The move to freeware ups the ante with rival virtualization companies such as VMware and new market entrant Parallels.