The Syllable team has released Syllabe 0.6.3. This release includes a 'cleaner, fresher looking desktop', USB cd-rom drivers, gigabit ethernet drivers, improved media support, initial printing support via CUPS, automatic GRUB installation, as well as many other new drivers and bug fixes.

"Freedom of choice is one of the great benefits of Open Source Software in general and Linux in particular. This freedom gives consumers the ability to select, without fear of litigation, what software they will use and how they will use or modify it. As a principal, this freedom is extremely valuable. However, a couple of announcements this week seem to indicate that market value of freedom of choice has dipped considerably. The biggest hurdle Linux adoption faced this week wasn't Microsoft, it was an enemy from within: Linux fragmentation."

"Java 5 added a number of powerful language features: generics, enumerations, annotations, autoboxing, and the enhanced for loop. However, many shops are still tied to JDK 1.4 or earlier and may be for some time to come. But it's still be possible for those developers to take advantage of these powerful language features while continuing to deploy on earlier JVMs. Brian Goetz returns from his hiatus in this installment of Java theory and practice to demonstrate how."

California has introduced a bill to make open document format a mandatory requirement for agencies when acquiring software, turning up the heat on Microsoft. The bill follows similar legislation in Texas and Minnesota and adds further to the pressure on Microsoft which is pushing its own proprietary Office Open XML document format in the recently released Office 2007.

"The performance of desktop computers increases year by year. This gives the programmers great opportunities to further improve the desktop experience of the users. However, what should you do when you have an old computer that is not capable of running the latest and hottest software? How can you benefit from the great software that is X.org when you can't run a desktop that takes advantage of its best features? No need for upgrading your PC, when you can have a usable alternative with the current one. Let me introduce you to Enlightenment E17 - the window manager with minimal hardware requirements that may amaze you."

"A genuine crack for Windows Vista has just been released by pirate group Pantheon, which allows a pirated, non-activated installation of Vista (Home Basic/Premium and Ultimate) to be properly activated and made fully-operational. Unlike cracks which have been floating around since Vista RTM was released in late November, this crack doesn’t simply get around product activation with beta activation files or timestop cracks - it actually makes use of the activation process."

Though Red Hat is poised to roll out its much-anticipated Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 release shortly, work still continues on previous versions of RHEL. This week Red Hat rolled out a beta release of its fifth update to RHEL 4 officially tagged Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5, providing users with a small taste of the virtualization that is to come in RHEL 5.

A new version of WinAROS has been released. "WinAROS is a preinstalled AROS Environment that runs under Windows, using QEMU. WinAROS is a way to use AROS under Windows and try your programs, made with AmiDevCpp. The new Version comes with Themes and GhostScript installed."

"Almost a year ago the Linux WLAN developers announced the switch to a new WLAN subsystem. Today the new system finally found its way into the mm kernel tree of Andrew Morton. In May and April 2006 it became clear that the devicescape WLAN stack will be the future base for the Linux WLAN drivers. The aim was to overcome the current situation of having several different subsystems for different drivers and to create a common, well documented subsystem. The new stack will feature a reworked driver for Broadcom bcm43xx drivers as well as a Ralink rt2x00 driver. And, as already mentioned, Intel's ipw3945 driver will be implemented without the need for a proprietary deamon."

"One of the areas where Linux has rapidly progressed is in the field of virtualization. Among the virtualization options are Xen, QEMU, QEMU with KVM, and VMWare. With Fedora 7 it's so easy to use KVM virtualization that you can start virtualizing your favorite operating system and barely even touch the keyboard! In this guide we will tell you how as we work on virtualizing a battery of operating systems from Microsoft Windows Vista to Mandrake 9.2."

Herd 5 of Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn has been released (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu). Improvements include VPN plugins for Network Manager, easier access to desktop effects (Compiz), and much more. Read about Herd 5, and download it.

Apple seeded developers with a new build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard late Thursday night. The new build, 9A377a, arrived roughly six weeks after the last Leopard seed, 9A343, was delivered. According to accompanying release notes, 9A377a delivers performance improvements over 9A343, features a new iSync plug-in maker, offers more powerful searching, and features Safari compatibility for rich text editing. In addition, the build features a new Sharing preferences pane and enhancements to the Address Book for taking photos.

A sedate Dell posted fourth quarter results that didn't horrify investors even though its PC and notebook sales fell in dramatic fashion. Dell reported USD 14.4bn in revenue – down from USD 15.2bn in the same period last year. The company's net income came in at USD 673m, which marks quite the fall from last year's haul of USD 1bn. Officials declined to face off against financial analysts and discuss the results in a conference call as is customary, primarily because Dell counts its fourth quarter results as 'preliminary' due to a pair of investigations into its past accounting.

World wide web father Tim Berners-Lee told politicians on Thursday that it's critical to shield his seminal innovation from control by a single company or country. A top priority for policymakers going forward must be "making sure the web itself is the blank sheet, the blank canvas, something that does not constrain the innovation that's around the corner," the knighted engineer told a US House of Representatives panel that writes internet and telecommunications laws.