"The pkgsrc developers are very proud to announce the new pkgsrc-2006Q3 branch, which has support for more packages than previous branches. As well as updated versions of many packages, the infrastructure of pkgsrc itself has been improved for better platform and compiler support, and also for enhanced security. At the same time, the pkgsrc-2006Q2 branch has been deprecated, and continuing engineering starts on the pkgsrc-2006Q3 branch."

David Maynor and Jon 'Johnny Cache' Ellch aren't telling the complete Mac Wi-Fi flaw story after all. At the last minute, under pressure from SecureWorks (Maynor's employer) and Apple, a talk at ToorCon here was cancelled and replaced by a 'rant' from Ellch about what he described as an 'unprofessional' approach to the issue by both companies. Ellch, out of respect for his friend Maynor, declined to take questions or talk on-the-record about the brouhaha, but he did release the text of his rant, which was aimed squarely at Apple and SecureWorks.

ATL Server is an extension of ATL that enables you to write ISAPI applications and bring your C++ skills to the World Wide Web. Learn how ATL Server works in this sample chapter.

The open-source Firefox Web browser is critically flawed in the way it handles JavaScript, two hackers said Saturday afternoon. An attacker could commandeer a computer running the browser simply by crafting a Web page that contains some malicious JavaScript code, Mischa Spiegelmock and Andrew Wbeelsoi said in a presentation at the ToorCon hacker conference here. The flaw affects Firefox on Windows, Apple Computer's Mac OS X, and Linux, they said.

Theo wrote a letter at large to the open source community urging us to take a stand. In the letter Theo provides information on how to contact Intel and helpful hints on how to explain benefits of open documentation to any vendor.

"This tutorial shows how to install and configure the Zenoss network monitoring tool on a Ubuntu 6.06 system. Zenoss is a free open-source tool that allows you to monitor servers, applications, networks, power, etc. regarding their configuration, availability, performance, and so on. It can also alert you by email if it finds inappropriate actions."

"All technical reasons (alternative configuration system, alternative decorator, xinerama...) for this fork are incorrect and I know that at least Quinn Storm is aware of this, based on a phone conversation we had last week. With a few notable exceptions, most of the code I've seen going into what is now beryl is not high quality code that would be considered for compiz."

"Virtual Bridges, a provider of enterprise and SMB solutions using virtualization for business, announced today the release of Win4BSD Pro Desktop Win4BSD Pro Desktop runs as a FreeBSD/PC-BSD application and allows users to run Windows applications and desktops with seamless ease on the BSD platform. The company also announced that it will be releasing Win4BSD Virtual Desktop Server, a FreeBSD-based desktop consolidation server, during October."

From the kernel to the shell, Windows Vista is a very different OS than XPSP2. How so? Here, Charles interviews Architect Nar Ganapathy whose team of highly skilled engineers write the Windows IO system, driver frameworks and related technologies. So, what, exactly, is new in Windows Vista with regard to IO? What does it mean, exactly, to users and developers? Tune in. Learn.

Microsoft Windows will not suffer irreparable damage on the server side at the hands of the Linux operating system over the next five years, Gartner analyst George Weiss told attendees at the Gartner Open Source Summit. In fact, in terms of worldwide server operating system revenue, Linux would come in below both Windows and Unix by 2011 in spite of its enormous growth, he told attendees in a session entitled "Enterprise Linux: Has it Arrived?"

Apple has released Mac OS 10.4.8. Improvements were made in printing, the Finder, iTunes, Preview, networking, and much more. There's a delta update to be used to update Mac OS 10.4.7 to 10.4.8, and a combo update to update earlier versions of 10.4 to 10.4.8.

"Castle Technology and RISC OS Open Ltd are pleased to announce plans for the opening-up of RISC OS source code. This step is a further major landmark in the development of the highly respected software platform. A primary objective is to bring RISC OS software to a wider community and to encourage growth in both the RISC OS user base and the developer community. This will be augmented by more rapid development of the software base and removal of critical barriers to use, normally associated with proprietary platforms."

Symantec has previously complained that Vista's PatchGuard kernel-protection technology might limit Symantec's ability to protect the kernel with its own software. But what do other security vendors think? Yesterday Sophos' Ron O'Brien told BetaNews that "Nothing about the way PatchGuard works would hinder Sophos' architecture for an enterprise security suite. In fact, he argued, if Microsoft wants to use its own methods to close off the kernel, that's a good thing."

Sony has finally bitten the bullet and issued a worldwide recall of all Sony-manufactured lithium-ion batteries used in notebook computers. Earlier in the day, Lenovo/IBM joined the ranks of Dell, Apple, and Toshiba in issuing a recall for all Sony batteries that ship with their notebooks.