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One Week with Firefox, its Extensions and Opera

I have to admit that I am an Opera fan; I started using it when a friend of mine came with version 6.0 and installed it to me. My first impression was not very good because the screen was crowded with toolbars, icons and things. But I spent a few minutes examining each one and removing all; I like the screen clean, not filled with toolbars and things that waste screen space, after all, 1024 x 768 is not enough.

Debian GNU/kFreeBSD

Millan has released a LiveCD of GNU/kFreeBSD. You can try it out directly booting the CD. The software can also be very easily installed to harddisk. You can find more about the GNU C Library with FreeBSD kernel here. Please read the 00README and INSTALL for additional notes. If you have questions, suggestions or any feedback, please direct it to the glibc-bsd-devel@lists.alioth.d.o mailing list or through IRC (#gnu-kbsd).

Tiger, Longhorn Search for Desktop Answers

Microsoft and Apple Computer are searching for the same thing with their next operating systems: a better way to find stuff on an increasingly cluttered hard drive. The article fails to mention the similar Beagle & Storage projects for GNOME (albeit not as integrated to the filesystem) and the original effort (that Apple's Spotlight is inspired from as it is developed by the same engineers), Be's BFS & Tracker.

Shell: Write Shell Extensions with C#; Java & .NET Interoperability

In this article, Dino Esposito demonstrates how to create a Windows shell extension using C# code and the .NET Framework. He discusses the COM Interop layer and using a practical example, shows you techniques and tricks you need to know to build managed shell extensions. On the same site: Java and .NET are both great platforms on their own, but together, they are a practical necessity in today's enterprise. This article looks at various interoperability issues between the Java & .NET platforms.

How to Deal with the Spatial Paradigm

Gnome 2.6's recent switch from navigational to spatial mode within Nautilus was highly controversial. As probably most of you know, "navigational" means browsing through folders in the same window, just like it works in Windows 2000/XP or in Konqueror. "Spatial", on the other hand, is a very different concept of managing your files. Not only does each folder open in its own window, but the windows also memorize their exact position and size on the desktop.

Mono Project Releases Version 1.0

Novell and the Mono project developer community announced the release of Mono version 1.0, an open source implementation of the .NET framework for use on Linux, Unix, Mac OS X and Windows system. See their Release Notes, or go directly to the download page. MonoDevelop 0.5 was also released. Elsewhere, Edd Dumbill is talking about the metadata on the desktop using the Mono-based Beagle system (similar to Seth Nickell's Storage, Apple's Spotlight and originally, Be's BFS & Tracker).

Book Review: Understanding the Linux Virtual Memory Manager

Virtual memory is one of the most important subsystems of any modern operating system. Virtual memory is deeply intertwined with user processes, protection between processes and protection of the kernel from user processes, efficient shared memory, communication with IO (DMA, etc.), paging, swapping, and countless other systems. Understanding the VM subsystem greatly helps understanding how all other parts of the kernel work and interact. Because of this "Understanding the Linux Virtual Memory Manager" is a great guide in better understanding and working with the entire kernel.