Hobbyist’s Review: Visual Basic 2005 Express

  Submitted by Jimmy M .NET 65 Comments
"Microsoft is pushing Visual Basic 2005 Express as the best language for hobbyists and novices, and are offering it free of charge from the Microsoft Visual Basic Express website. Since the price is right, and I fall into the hobbyist category, I decided to give it a try. This review is intended for amateur programmers, students and hobbyists who are interested in programming their computers."
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Cross Platform Development with Qt

  Submitted by elsewhere Qt 26 Comments
"This article focuses primarily on some technical aspects of Qt, Trolltech’s cross-platform C++ toolkit which, as you may know, is the architectural core behind the KDE desktop on Linux. At the end, I show how easy it is to create a simple application without writing a line of code." More here.
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Introducing Game Development with Microsoft XNA

3D 101 Comments
C'mon, haven't you ever thought that it would be cool to write a game for the Xbox 360 or Windows, if only you had the time? Microsoft's new XNA Game Architecture is designed to make game development modular and easy. Throw in developer tools, such as XNA Express, and you have no excuses to create the next DOOM. Matthew David shows why game development is only a few key strokes away.
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ZFS Patches for FreeBSD

  Submitted by Tanked FreeBSD 26 Comments
The first set of patches are available to compile the ZFS file system module on FreeBSD. "This is a first set of patches, which allows to use ZFS file system from OpenSolaris on FreeBSD. To apply the patch you need to have recent FreeBSD source (be sure you have rev. 1.284 of src/sys/kern/kern_synch.c). To try it out you need i386 machine (this is what I tested) and kernel without WITNESS compiled in (there are probably some warnings still). Currently it can only be compiled as a kernel module."
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SkyOS Build 6669 Released

  Submitted by Tomasz SkyOS 53 Comments
After nearly three months of work, the SkyOS team has released a new build of their operating system. Changes include, but are not limited to: desktop compositing working with every graphics card, USB 2.0 stack (with keyboard, mouse, mass storage, printer, card reader, hub, USB-CDROM, and other drivers), SATA drives support, printing stack (about a 1000 USB and network printers supported), and CD/DVD recording support.
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Interview: Mark Shuttleworth

  Submitted by editingwhiz Ubuntu 144 Comments
South Africa native and current London resident Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical Ltd. and the Ubuntu Linux distribution, told DesktopLinux.com Friday in an interview that widespread adoption of Linux on the desktop - so long-awaited by many people. "Yes - I think Linux will be the dominant platform. It already defines the landscape in the server space (from supercomputers to YouTube). The desktop is just a matter of time."
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Spad Filesystem for Linux

  Submitted by bnolsen Linux 36 Comments
"SpadFS is a new filesystem that I design and develop as my PhD thesis. It is an attempt to bring features of advanced filesystems (crash recovery, fast directories) and good performance without increasing code complexity too much. Uses crash counts instead of journaling (because journaling is too complex and bug-prone) and uses hash instead of btrees for directory organization."
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Microsoft’s Muglia Talks Longhorn, Novell, Java

Microsoft 41 Comments
Now that Windows Vista and Office 2007 have been released to manufacturing, the spotlight is on Windows Server 'Longhorn'. Bob Muglia, Microsoft's senior vice president for server and tools sat down with eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli at TechEd: IT Forum to give an update on Longhorn's road map, discuss the company's controversial deal with Novell, and give his thoughts on Sun Microsystems' decision to license Java under the GNU GPL. Meanwhile, CNet interviews Bill Gates.
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FreeBSD 6.2-RC1 Released

  Submitted by James Hopton FreeBSD 29 Comments
"We have now reached the Release Candidate stage of the FreeBSD 6.2 release cycle. A few significant problems had been discovered during the initial BETA testing and those issues should now be fixed. RC1 is the first of two planned Release Candidate builds. If no more significant problems are reported 6.2-RELEASE builds will be done after RC2."
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Steve Ballmer: ‘Linux Uses Our Intellectual Property’

  Submitted by Tanked Linux 167 Comments
In comments confirming the open-source community's suspicions, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer Thursday declared his belief that the Linux operating system infringes on Microsoft's intellectual property. In a question-and-answer session after his keynote speech at the Professional Association for SQL Server conference in Seattle, Ballmer said Microsoft was motivated to sign a deal with SUSE Linux distributor Novell earlier this month because Linux "uses our intellectual property" and Microsoft wanted to "get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation."
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Free Vista Keys for Beta Testers

  Submitted by anonymous Windows 25 Comments
"Windows Vista RTM'd a week ago, and now, the beta testers have gotten their swag. If you (actively) participated in the Longhorn Beta program, this is your chance to get a free Windows Vista Business or Ultimate Edition product key. The only requirement to receiving this free product key is that throughout the duration of the beta program you submitted at least one bug - nothing more, nothing less."
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Review: Microsoft Office 2007

  Submitted by Bob Stein Microsoft 18 Comments
ActiveWin reviews Office 2007, and concludes: "It's an innovative interface yes, but will the benefits outweigh the changes? That's for users to decide. My personal say is getting used to the interface should not be a problem for many since the familiar tools are organized in ways that makes it convenient for the user to access both new and previously hidden features. This makes the interface more intelligent and more aware of what the user is doing, presenting the right tools for the task at hand. I am proud to say: this is an Office release I definitely look forward to using everyday."
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