NEC confirmed that it was exiting the European PC market, announcing it had reached a deal to sell its Netherlands-based Packard Bell subsidiary to Chinese entrepreneur Lap Shun 'John' Hui. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Although a popular brand of computers in for a short period of time in the mid 1990s worldwide, Packard Bell quickly was eclipsed by competitors, mainly for a reputation of lackluster quality and poor customer support.

LinxForums reviews Mandriva 2007, and concludes: "If Mandriva could have improved their packages, their artwork and fix a few little things here and there they could have made this release the best on the market. They got really close though, and although I can find things to criticize I am still very impressed by some of the innovations and the overall quality."

"Microsoft has compromised with security vendors who've been demanding access to the kernel of the upcoming Vista operating system so that they can update their security offerings, two analysts confirmed Friday. Following conversations with the European Union, Microsoft will make two security-related changes to Vista. First, it will create a new set of APIs, which will let third-party security vendors access information from the kernel. Microsoft will also build additional APIs to make sure Vista's security status dashboard - Windows Security Center - doesn't send duplicate alerts to users who have installed a rival dashboard."

The new issue of the OS2eCS 'ezine' (a fancy web 2.0-like word for a magazine on the internet) has been published. "The WorkPlace Shell, A Powerful Jewel of OS/2 and eComStation" and "Setting up a TCPIP Network Printer on eComStation" are just two of the articles in this issue.

"Arno Klenke has completed the first version of a new audio framework for Syllable. The new system is inspired by ALSA, which makes it more Object Oriented, streams oriented and more flexible. Parts of the stream handling have been 'pushed up' into user-space as part of the media server. The first version supports Intel ICH and Via VT82xx AC'97 chipsets and the new HD-Audio standard."

"The results of the latest round of Debian Project general resolutions are in. The resolution to recall the project leader failed, while the counter-resolution reaffirming support for the leader (and the Dunc-Tank initiative) passed. The attempt to make section 2 of the Debian Free Software Guidelines apply to all programmatic work (and firmware in particular) failed, with the project voting (narrowly) for 'further discussion'. While this discussion takes place, however, the project has voted to release etch when it is ready without requiring a complete and final solution to the firmware problem first."

"Throughout the 1990's, Microsoft established families of integrated products that all contributed toward a successful platform, with many parallels to what Apple is doing today. Despite the two companies' very different motivations, products, and markets, both shared many common threads. Here's a look at how the two cautiously and enviously watched each other with the intent to learn from each other's actions, hoping to copy successes and avoid failures."

"Linux had always lacked a Open Source virtualisation technology in the same league as Solaris containers or commercial product like Vmware. That was until Xen came into the picture. Xen is an opensource virtual machine monitor for x86 that supports execution of multiple guest operating systems. Recently, I downloaded the Xen Live CD ISO image from their website and burned it on to a CD in order to give it a trial run. What follows below are my experiences in trying out this very promising virtualisation technology."

"Additional real-time technology will be incorporated into the mainline Linux kernel starting with version 2.6.18, TimeSys reports. The real-time support, which previously had to be installed as kernel patches, was developed in part by TimeSys senior open source developer Thomas Gleixner, the company says. Gleixner was the main author of Linux's hrtimer (high-resolution timer) subsystem, and has been a major contributor to Ingo Molnar's real-time preemption patch. The changelog for the 2.6.18 kernel reflects the addition of 136 patches authored by Gleixner, along with 143 from Molnar, who works for Red Hat."

"Zenwalk 3 is an operating system based on Patrick Volkerding's Slackware GNU/Linux distribution, version 10.2. The entire operating system fits on a single CD, and stays true to what the author calls the 'Zen philosophy'. This philosophy, as it has been coined, refers to Zenwalk's policy of including one application per task. I've had a few problems with Slackware and Slackware-related systems in the past, but Zenwalk has alleviated all of my stress regarding those issues. Here's why."

The proposed design for Voyager, which aims to become an OS/2 replacement, is now available. "Voyager is the codename for the idea of having a replacement OS/2 on top of modern technology. This idea is the result of around 1.5 years of thinking a lot about what we can do in the future as current OS/2 and eComStation users. Note that it's absolutely impossible to convey what we plan to do in a few sentences. I made a speech on it at Warpstock Europe 2005 that, by itself, took 1.5 hours so you get the point." Read the Voyager FAQ to understand what it actually is and aims to become.

Yesterday at 10:00 AM the president of the KDE e.V. Eva Brucherseifer welcomed the audience of the presentation track at the KDE anniversary event at the Technische Akademie Esslingen in Ostfildern near Stuttgart, Germany. Keynote speakers were Matthias Ettrich, founder of the KDE project, as well as Klaus Knopper of Knoppix fame. During their presentations they looked back at KDE's successful past 10 years and they offered their thoughts about the future of KDE and Free Software. Note: I'd like to congratulate KDE with their 10 year anniversary. Here's to another 10 years!

"Sooner or later, people will do most of their reading on portable digital devices. If this horrifies you, then worry not: You have some time. But if you're impatient for the paperless future, you can embrace it now. Sony has introduced the USD 350,- Reader e-book and the 10000-title, big-publishing house backed Connect e-book store. The one-time consumer-electronics superpower clearly hopes the pair will become something of an iPod + iTunes for books."

This chapter covers the features of Java and .NET security that make interoperability easier. It also discusses different technologies (such as authentication in the Presentation tier) and the open standards (such as Web services security) where Java and .NET applications can interact. Finally, two interoperability strategies are discussed.