NeoSmart has published their Windows Vista RC1 Monster Review, which tries a kind of "thorough overview" of everything Vista will ship with this close to RTM. Especially interesting is the brief security run-down. And of course, there are screenshots as always.

"Google is experimenting with the open-source version of Sun's Solaris operating system as a possible long-term prelude to replacing its massive global network of Linux servers, according to sources. With dozens of data centers worldwide estimated to house hundreds of thousands of Intel servers supporting its flagship search engine, a Google move to OpenSolaris would be another of several recent votes of confidence for the platform."

Two US software firms are asking the European Commission to take action against Microsoft's new Vista operating system, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Adobe Systems has told EU regulators that Microsoft should be banned from incorporating free competing software for reading and creating electronic documents with Vista, the paper said, quoting people familiar with the situation. Anti-virus software maker Symantec will send officials to Brussels next week to brief journalists about features of Vista that it has told EU regulators will undercut rival makers of computer security software, the paper said.

"There are hundreds of Linux distributions. This handy reference guide includes the ones we think are especially interesting for desktop Linux users - from Arch Linux to Zenwalk - and we plan to update the list on an ongoing basis. Whether you're looking for an easy Windows-to-Linux migration distro, one for home use or serious enterprise workstation use, a free one, a commercial one, a tiny one to fit alongside Windows 98 on an old underpowered laptop, or one aimed at educational institutions, we think you'll find something suitable."

While some BeOS users have enjoyed USB Mass Storage support on compatible (read: Dano USB stack-equipped) systems since the release of the USB Storage Module back in 2004, it today became possible to use this driver with an entirely legal USB stack on BeOS R5. In addition, USB 2.0 now works on R5, whereas Be's stacks have only ever supported USB 1.1. Michael Lotz's commit allows the driver to operate on R5, and on the SVN mailing list, he has stated that in testing, he has written to and read data from his Playstation Portable at USB2 speeds using this combination.

Based on information discussed at the OOoCON conference in Lyon, OpenOffice starting with version 2.0.4 may include Firefox-like extensions. Also on the board is to incorporate the use of Mozilla Sunbird and Thunderbird into the OOo suite, connectors for Sun Calendaring and Microsoft Exchange support, and even an eventual redesign of OpenOffice 3.0 to run on top of Eclipse, Netbeans or Mozilla's XUL.

Apparantly, it's damn lies statistics time again in the Apple world, boys and girls. A few days ago, Net Applications published OS market share figures which showed that the market share of the Mac OS remained largely flat over the past year. However, today, the Switchtoamac website posted an article which looks at the same set of figures in a different way, only to conclude that when you compare last year's figures to this year's, the Mac OS has risen 25% in marketshare. We all know the saying: there are lies... Damn lies... Funny detail: while the debate rages on about half percentage points for the Mac OS, Windows XP increased its share by 8 percent the past 12 months. According to these figures, of course.

SkyOS has gotten printing support using CUPS. "With the Printer Configuration it is now very easy to add and manage your printers, be it locally connected (USB) or network (Windows, Linux, Samba, IPP) printers. The entire printing system is implemented as a service (like most other SkyOS Subsystems), which can easily be enabled/disabled on demand. With roughly 1000 supported printers the next SkyOS build will enable you to print your favorite documents in various formats."

"Groovy's concise syntax frees developers from typical Java constructs that are required for code compilation but don't facilitate expressing what a program is really trying to accomplish. In this revival of the Practically Groovy series, Groovy developer and guest columnist J. Scott Hickey walks you through a series of comparisons between normal Java code and the same Groovy code to show you how this exciting language frees you to focus on the important aspects of coding."

"Novell today announced that it had received a staff determination notice from the NASDAQ Stock Market stating that the company's common stock is subject to delisting from the NASDAQ Stock Market. The notice was issued in accordance with standard NASDAQ procedures as a result of the delayed filing of Novell's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended July 31, 2006."

The first Beta build for the FreeBSD-6.2 Release Cycle is now available on most of the FTP mirror sites. If the release cycle goes as planned it is the first of two BETAs, which will be followed by two Release Candidates (RCs) and then the final release.

Pre-orders for OpenBSD 4.0 are now available in the online store. Five architectures on three CDs in a soft-shell DVD case. Check out the highlights of OpenBSD 4.0. This new release adds support for many wireless chipsets, as well as support for the UltraSPARC III, and much, much more.

Phoronix has published an article covering a majority of the changes that will be making their way into NVIDIA's next Linux display drivers: the 1.0-9XXX series. Of the changes to come is Quad SLI, improved nvidia-xsettings, GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap, OpenGL 2.1, GLSL 1.2, and other fixes. No release date is reported.

Building on the foundation of Open Watcom debugger cross-platform tools, SciTech Software has extended debugger support for QNX Neutrino x86 targets . In this whitepaper they describe some of the debugger's features and they challenges the team had to make it work.