"Once upon a time, when DOS walked the earth, the command line was the primary user interface for most of our computers. Then, Windows came along, and Microsoft seemed set on leaving the command prompt to dry up and wither into obscurity. Fortunately, Microsoft has again turned its attention to the command line and, in so doing, has produced one of the most compelling new Windows features eWEEK Labs has ever had the pleasure to test: Windows PowerShell."

Remember the Contiki operating system? A few years back it was used to run web servers and web browsers on really old home computers such as the Commodore 64 and the Apple II. Today Contiki has grown up and moved from being a hobby project to a serious embedded OS used in research into networked embedded systems and wireless sensor networks. It has matured so much that Adam Dunkels, its creator, today announced his PhD thesis on Contiki and its components; protothreads and the uIP embedded TCP/IP stack. It is an interesting direction for a niche hobby OS to take and probably quite different from what people expected Contiki to become when it first was released.

"Using the experimental Mozilla XForms extension, you can process XForms in your browser today. While not yet deployed widely enough for use on the public Internet, XForms may be suitable for some intranet applications. This article demonstrates basic XForms processing as currently supported by Firefox and the Mozilla XForms plug-in."

"Before Vim 7.0 was released last May, I usually had six or seven xterms or Konsole windows open, each with a single Vim session in which I was editing a single file. This takes up a lot of screen space, and isn't very efficient. With Vim 7.0, users now have the option of using tabs within Vim. With Vim's tab features you can consolidate all your sessions into one window and move between files more easily."

When porting Windows CE to a unique embedded device, developers are occasionally faced with the need to modify the default behavior of the OS. In this extensive, richly illustrated article, Windows CE development team lead Kurt Kennett explains how to replace so-called Core DLLs with customized, application-specific versions.

Here is an article that reviews the new features found in Xfce 4.4. Provides in details new features found in Thunar, new applets like Orage, and new abliities like built in compositing and ability to add desktop icons. Screenshots galore as well.

Have you ever had your taskbar filled with 10 applications all doing something that involved waiting for a task to finish? Document Printing Progress, a K3b CD burning dialogue, Audio Encoding via KAudioCreator, File Transfers in Konqueror, Kopete, KTorrent, checking email in KMail... The new Jobs support in KDE 4 will unify the display of progress for these tasks, making it easy to see and manage what is happening on your system. Read on for details.

If you've ever asked for advice on how to set up dual-booting, you've doubtlessly come across online tutorials that only tell part of the story. You probably ended up spending all weekend researching the intricacies of adjusting partition sizes, boot loaders, installing operating systems in the right order, and other fun topics. Well, we have good news: APCMag has put together the definitive dual-booting guide between Vista and Ubuntu.

In Part 1 of this series you saw how programs on the POWER5 processor work using the 64-bit PowerPC instruction set, then in Part 2 you learned how the PowerPC instruction set addresses memory, and how to do position-independent code. In this article, you learn how to use the very powerful condition and branch instructions available in the PowerPC instruction set.

Open source was behind Intel's decision to add Solaris to its list of supported operating systems, according to a top official from Intel during a teleconference with reporters. In other news, Sun returned to profitability.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs was questioned by US investigators about stock options backdating at the company, according to several reports citing unidentified lawyers. Apple and Jobs' attorney did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment on Tuesday. The US Attorney's Office in San Francisco was also not immediately available.

"The most visible part of Windows Vista is the Aero interface, and while we can't deny that it looks very swish we find it very hard to get excited by a shiny new GUI. Instead, we're looking forward to new Vista hardware, which includes a new use for the humble USB memory key and much, much more. So what will the ultimate Windows Vista notebook offer?"

"Linspire announced plans to standardize software installation across Linux distributions by expanding its popular CNR digital download and software management service to support several of the most popular desktop Linux distributions in 2007. Previously available only for Linspire and Freespire desktop Linux users, the CNR Service will begin providing users of other desktop Linux distributions a free and easy way to access over 20000 desktop Linux products, packages and libraries."

"With the Vista launch imminent, you may be wondering what version you should be buying. Thanks to the four primary versions available, this is no easy task. Many will be swaying towards the Ultimate Edition, but should you save your cash?"