From the press release: "Sleepycat Software, Inc. today announced the release of version 4.0 of the award-winning data management system, Berkeley DB. Version 4.0 delivers new services and significant performance enhancements for high-end mission critical applications. Berkeley DB 4.0 provides a new feature required by developers building mission-critical applications: High Availability. Designed for applications that must run around the clock, High Availability uses a technique called "replication" to keep multiple copies of a database, stored in different places, up to date. In the event of a hardware or application crash that causes one of the copies to fail, applications can use the remaining copies to continue operating without interruption. Application developers can also use the copies to answer queries during normal operation. As a result, applications can support more users more reliably than ever before."

Ramesh writes: "I came upon this kernel Benchmark article at Byte, via Slashdot. Very good data on different kernels. The author has done testing on different kernels with input from Alan Cox and Andrea Arcangeli."

"As David Nagel ponders the future of Palm, he is ever mindful of what happened to Apple Computer. Both companies have a legion of loyal fans and both are considered leaders in making technology that is easy to use. Both walk a treacherous line by building hardware and operating system software. And a growing number of Apple refugees now work at Palm." Read the rest of the story at ZDNews. Update: Here is an interview at C|Net with PalmSource's CEO, David Nagel.

Today, most Amiga users and developers own PCs next to their Amiga platform(s). The PC platform is currently the only "cheap" solution available to give access to modern day hardware. This is why many Amiga fans use it as a development platform or use PCs for applications which aren't available for the currently dated Amiga hardware platform . Of course, this is soon to change with advent of new PPC based AmigaOS 4.x compatible computers on the horizon, as well as a huge variety of AmigaDE enabled devices. But there is also another way: run AmigaOS on your PC. This article will review a new product, AmigaOS XL, which allows you to run the AmigaOS under any modern PC. Screen shots included.

Seen this on WinInformat.com: "For at least the first 8 months of 2001, open-source poster child Linux was far less secure than Windows, according to the reputable NTBugTraq, which is hosted by SecurityFocus, the leading provider of security information about the Internet."

Klint Finley writes: "I have a question for the OS news community: There's been a lot of talk about "BeOS refugees" and analysis of various alternatives but one that I haven't read much discussion of is Nemesis. There was some brief commentary when OSAlert ran a story on it, but that's about it. Nemesis already has Java and GTK support , which means it should be capable of running a lot of programs. Seems like the GIMP and Kino should run on it. And it has an Amiga/BeOS-ish UI and a slim microkernal. So why isn't anyone developing this? It needs more hardware support and stuff, but it's already much further along than BlueOS and OpenBeOS."

This PDF tutorial will teach you how to optimized i686 binaries that should run on Athlon, Duron, Pentium IV, PIII PII, Pentium or Celeron based PC. The tutorial also teaches how to specifically optimize QT and KDE and includes some interesting links to some more Linux optimization sites.

There is an interesting editorial in the Inquirer that paints a picture of what an Apple/AMD platform might mean for the ailing PC industry and what a MacOSX/Hammer combination could do to chip-away at the Microsoft/Intel "Wintel" hegemony. The article is pure speculation, the conclusions highly unlikely, but interesting nonetheless.

"When it was first introduced, it seemed that Java native compilation would surely topple the JVM, taking with it the Java platform's hard-fought platform independence. But even with its growing popularity and the increasing number of native compilers on the market, native compilation has a way to go before it poses a real threat to Java code's portability. Unfortunately, it also may be a while before the technology is mature enough to resolve the Java performance issues so many of us struggle with today." The article discusses the pros and cons of generating native code from Java source. Update: Steve Klingsporn says "TowerJ compiles java byte code into native code, and works quite well."

"Linux users' and developers' lives have just gotten a little easier. The Free Standards Group released two tools on Thursday intended to ensure that all Linux applications can run on any Linux Standard Base-compliant version of the open source operating system: LSB 1.1 and Li18nux 1.0. Some commercial application developers, including Microsoft, have slammed open source development, saying that it lacks the necessary controls to define the common programming standards that need to be used across different projects to ensure compatibility." Read the rest of the story at Wired.

"In a showdown with Microsoft Windows CE, the QNX RTOS once again defended its position as the most powerful and reliable realtime operating systems for embedded developers. According to a study by Dedicated Systems Experts, the QNX RTOS v6.1 significantly outperformed Windows CE 3.0 in several tests." Read the rest of the press release at QNX.

"You've heard of killer apps? How about an app killer? This is what voice recognition has become over the years, because for the most part, it doesn't work. I see no evidence that it ever will, at least not in the sense that we can achieve true voice dictation capability. What annoys everyone most about voice recognition is that it almost works. This is the problem. When something almost works, developers continue with the same thinking that got them to "almost," rather than starting over with new ideas. We are now stuck in a blind alley." Who else? Dvorak is hitting the nail in the head again.

"Some people can use Linux, and some can't. No matter how many Linux zealots talk nasty about Windows or Mac users or say that Linux is wonderful, not everyone can do their work in Linux." A thoughtful editorial at NewsForge.

By now, anyone who is even remotely related to an IT-type position has heard about Linux, and has most likely used it, if only to see what all the hype is about. However, GNU/Linux is not the only "free" Unix type OS available. FreeBSD and its cousins, NetBSD and OpenBSD are all offshoots of BSD UNIX, a commercial UNIX also known as Berkeley Software Distribution. This article will help you learn more about FreeBSD, its differences from Linux, and it will ease a potential migration process.