"It's been nearly 20 months since the last major release of the Python programming language, and version 2.5 is probably the most significant new release of Python since 2.2. The latest release includes a variety of additions to the standard library, language extensions, and performance optimizations." More links here.

Just when you thought fancy effects on Linux desktops started to get remotely understandable, focussing on Aiglx/Xgl with Compiz, a fork of Compiz is announced: Beryl. This is the logical continuation of the popular compiz-quinnstorm branch, used by many Ubuntu users. "During this summer, and during the last few weeks, some major additions were done in compiz-quinnstorm, bringing a whole new decorator, cgwd, which was designed to be fully themable, and a new settings backend, csm, which intended to drop most of the gnome deps - there were other reasons for this, but this is not our current subject. Consequently, we reached a situation where it's quite impossible to come back." The main reason is general unwillingness to work with and unresponsiveness to the developers of the -quinnstorm branch from the official Compiz guys.

"This article gives you an overview of the architectural changes introduced in the latest Geronimo release, focusing on the new and innovative plug-in architecture. You'll also examine enhancements to the Web Console, including the memory utilization graph, thread pool statistics, the Java Message Service (JMS) resource wizard, and keystores. Finally, you'll explore changes to the Eclipse plug-in and get a look at Little-G."

A short review of Mandriva 2007 RC2, outlining the new Xgl/Aiglx and Compiz 3D desktop. "This has to be the best live CD I've used, let alone the best Linux desktop. The new features like the 3D desktop are stunning and hopefully will increase productivity (once I've gotten over the excitement of it all), and the new Ia-Ora theme will keep me happy for a long time to come." Update: Mandriva has announced the immediate availability of Mandriva Corporate Server 4.0 with virtualization features.

This is an overview of the main desktop features in Java 6 that should make it more appealing to desktop users. As with the Windows LAF, the GTK LAF in Java 5 struggled to match fidelity with the GTK toolkit. For Java 6, the GTK LAF will also utilise proper native GTK widgets rather than emulating them.

After Dell and Apple, Toshiba is now too issueing a massive recall of Sony-made laptop batteries. The batteries, used in Dynabook and Dynabook Satellite laptops manufactured between March and May this year, could fail on the road because of problems with storing and transmitting power, Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori said. The total of recalled Sony batteries is now about 6.5 million. Even airlines have prohibited the use of Dell and Apple laptops in-flight.

Jim Allchin, co-president of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division, has sent an open letter to developers citing the 'tremendous opportunity' that Windows Vista gives them, adding that the time is now to get ready for the operating system. "If you want to ride the wave we're creating with Windows Vista, the best way is to have your application ready by the time we ship," Allchin said in the open letter, which appeared Sept. 15 on the Windows Vista Developer Center site. "And that is very soon." Meanwhile, Microsoft and the EU keep tiptoeing around each other when it comes to Vista and possible antitrust consequences. And if that wasn't enough, a Cisco exec says Vista is scary.

"A friend of mine phoned to ask if I thought he should install Ubuntu Linux on his Macs - a 1.33 GHz G4 iBook currently running OS X 10.4 Tiger and a 1.25 GHz Power Mac G4 tower with OS X 10.3 Panther installed. My friend had read a feature in the local newspaper extolling the virtues of Ubuntu Linux and thought it sounded interesting. Does Ubuntu Linux make any sense for Macintosh users? In my friend's case, I would say no, and I did." My take: I wrote about this subject earlier.

Microsoft's next-gen Office suite for the Mac is being given a top-to-toe refit in readiness for its debut in the third quarter of 2007. On the surface is a revised interface which borrows ideas from the Office 2007 for Windows 'ribbon' and has already been radically changed due to user feedback. The new versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint will all adopt the native XML file formats of their Windows siblings. And, the program is of course being rebuilt as an Intel-friendly Universal Binary application.

This is a collection of methods and strategies to make income from an Open Source project while keeping it thriving and freely available. The methods take into account project brand strength, and the real opportunities available while owning your project's web space, building up its community, and exploring non-restrictive means of monetizing your efforts.

"It has hardly been a few weeks since the release of KDE v3.5.4, one of the most popular desktop environments for Unix/Linux/FreeBSD operating systems, and the KDE development team is already hard at work. They have a dream of revolutionizing the concept of desktop by providing an array of innovative features aimed at improving both the looks of the desktop environment as well as the productivity of end users. In this article, we will look at one such component called Plasma that promises to change the look and feel of a conventional desktop."

The unexpected fifth release candidate of Slackware Linux 11.0 has been announced in the current changelog: "This is the last one, scout's honor." Last week has brought a number of updates, including Subversion 1.4.0, an svn release of espgs 8.15.3, security updates to Firefox, Thunderbird, and SeaMonkey, as well as many rebuilds of existing package versions to fix bugs or add new functionality. As usual, there are no official ISO images released for download, but a good list of Slackware mirrors can be found here, while a recent unofficial CD image set built from the current tree is available here.

"The current generation of operating systems is much more powerful than they were in the days of DOS. We demand more from them now than ever before, and they've had to keep up with all of our needs and wants. As you know, an OS isn't just another standard piece of software. Instead, an operating system has to manage a complex set of system-level processes all at one time, and it's quite literally responsible for running the show. Therefore, it's easy to see why these systems take so long to develop and successfully release."

This article gives a visual walkthrough of some of the new features included in the latest version of Vim. "These are not the only new features. There are scores of others like Remote file explorer which allows one to directly edit a file residing in a remote location, better POSIX compatibility, Vim's own internal grep and so on which I have not covered here because this article is after all a visual walk through of the new features in Vim 7.0. It takes real genius and stellar coding skills to create and maintain such a versatile editor and Bram Moolenaar has proved yet again that he has the necessary ingredients to qualify him for the post."