"Remember Steve Jobs' "sand" concept for the creation of personal computers? About the time he lent his star power to the creation of the original Macintosh back in the early '80s, Apple's founder famously described his dream factory: an oceanfront site that would haul raw beach sand in one end, cook up its own silicon and deliver fully configured PCs out the other end. This vision of vertical integration and rugged self-sufficiency is a cornerstone of Apple's culture that has informed the company's every move during Jobs' two tenures there. (It's telling that the only time Apple ever seriously toyed with opening up its hardware and software specs - porting the Mac OS to Intel processors and allowing a short list of third-party vendors to create a tightly controlled roster of hardware "clones" - was during Jobs' exile in the late '80s and early '90s.)" Read the rest of the editorial at ExtremeTech.

"Miguel de Icaza is a nice guy in a multitude of senses: He's warm, friendly, and open -- sometimes that openness has cost him, as recently when it was reported that he had said the GNOME desktop would be moved to Mono, an effort by Ximian to create an open source version of Microsoft's .NET platform." Read the interesting interview with Miguel de Icaza at LinuxAndMain.com

The Microsoft Windows CE .NET Device Emulator is a tool that allows you to view an Emulation Project Kit. An Emulation Project Kit contains an operating system image for a Windows CE-based platform. The platform is designed to run in the Device Emulator. The Device Emulator provides a viewer that allows you to run the Windows CE .NET OS on your desktop computer without specialized hardware. The Device Emulator makes it possible to download and view a Windows CE .NET-based device without acquiring additional hardware. They are sample platforms, each with a custom skin to showcase some of the capabilities of Windows CE .NET. The Microsoft Windows CE .NET Emulation Kit Creator is a tool that allows you to create an Emulation Project Kit for your Windows CE .NET-based platform. The Windows CE .NET Driver Development Program (WCEDDP) enables independent hardware and driver developers to get to market faster with free grants of Windows CE .NET.

Many are the developers who prefer Perforce in favor of CVS. There is a new player in the field now though. It is called Vesta and it is a replacement for both CVS and 'make'. It handles source revision control and automated construction. It is the result of over 10 years of research and development at the Compaq/Digital Research Center. Just last August Compaq gave the 'ok' to LGPL Vesta and since then the 4-member team worked hard to finish up the port to x86 Linux (prior to that, Vesta only worked on Alpha and Tru64 systems). Now, the first Free version is available for download. For a summary of some of the features that make Vesta interesting, see this page.

"Remember when people fought over getting Linux company stock options? Today, it's the Linux companies fighting to keep their stock prices above water. Caldera, in danger of being delisted by Nasdaq thanks to a stock price lurking around 50 cents a share for months, is taking the radical step today of a reverse stock split. For every four shares of Caldera International, stock owners will now receive one pumped-up share." Read the rest of the story at NewsForge.

"Last July in New York, Kevin Browne, General Manager of Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit, provided an early glimpse at how the company's overall .NET strategy would affect the Mac. At that time, Browne told eWEEK that he expects the company to continue selling an "unconnected" version of Mac Office, as opposed to fully adopting .NET's strategy of remote software services. He also said that the company's plan -- which could change, he noted -- was to offer two versions of Office for Mac: One non-.NET version, similar to the one sold in stores today, and another less-expensive version that takes advantage of .NET services to enhance its feature set." Read the rest of the report at Think Secret.