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What kind of E-mail is landing in Martin Taylor’s in-box right about now? It’s probably not unlike some of the messages I’ve been getting in response to a story I wrote about Steve Ballmer’s Oct. 27 treatise comparing Windows to Linux (and, to a lesser extent, Unix). Microsoft’s CEO ended his note by inviting readers to respond directly to Taylor, the guy in charge of Microsoft’s anti-Linux strategy. Don’t you love it when the boss fires off a salvo, then puts you out in front to absorb the return fire? Then again, Taylor is the same guy who once showed up at a Linux trade show wearing a flak jacket. Maybe it’s time for him to break out the protective gear again.

The Southern California Linux Expo continues to sign distinguished speakers for SCALE 3x, the third annual So Cal Linux Expo.

To build the To-Do List application we will use to explore the myriad Java Web development technologies that are available, we'll begin with the backbone of the application: a set of classes that connect to a MySQL database to retrieve, model, and update a to-do list.

Webmail.us, which provides hosted e-mail service for small and medium-size businesses, will announce next week a raft of improvements to its service, including a major migration of its core e-mail platform from Microsoft Windows to an open-source platform.

A few issues back, in talking about client services for Linux desktops, I mentioned the two major graphical user interfaces for Linux: GNOME and KDE. A few of you wrote in to say that you'd heard Novell was creating a new GUI for its Novell Linux Desktop package which would be a blend, a mélange, a combination of these two. So I looked into it.

A look into the History of X, and thoughts about "What's Next for X?"..

Many Linux newbies -- or wanna-be newbies -- get hung up over the choice of their initial distribution. We here at NewsForge have put a lot of thought into this, and have decided to share our best thinking on the subject in order to help ease you newbies out of the monopoly spread into the Linux world. The most important thing for newbies to consider is this: what does your choice of distributions say about you?

Continuing his quest for the perfect Linux desktop, Michael C. Barnes gives DesktopLinux.com readers an in-depth analysis of the technologies that make open source a great alternative to proprietary operating systems. Examining the various components that constitute a complete system, Barnes provides practical advice and instruction on how to improve your desktop experience and productivity with freely available software. He reviews desktop environments, communications using voice-over-IP, common applications, and more.

In this month's KDE: From the Source, entitled Breaking the Network Barrier George Staikos takes us on a walk-through of KDE's desktop networking protocol handlers in the vein of sftp:// webdav:// and a few really nifty ones I wasn't aware of like info:/ perldoc:/ and tar:/. The entire KDE desktop environment is decked out like this, and as George puts it, "Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X have a long way to go to catch up with the robust, transparent functionality that KDE has provided since version 2.0."

The JDS Community Web Site has provided MySQL 4.17 RPMS to the repository

This years awards go to a number of great projects and sites. Results are a good indication of real choices of Linux community. For me, the most interesting fact is that Frozen Bubble is the most popular game.

The German subsidiaries of Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) and Novell Inc. are teaming to offer Linux-based products to the country's huge public sector.

After launching two of the world's first Linux smart phones, China's E28 Ltd. is now offering handset manufacturers the opportunity to license its software and hardware designs based on the increasingly popular open-source operating system.

People have been debating on the RedHat vs Sun “i-can-accuse-you-better-in-my-blog” clashes. One can find every newsite, every analyst and heck every tom, dick and harry taking one side or the other of the supposedly two-way battle. But is it really two-way….. and are they really fighting or just doing business?

Research: Businesses are going open source, but OS may still be too technical for most users.

MPlayer, a popular movie player application, has been in the 1.0 release candidate stage since September 2003. We caught up with some of the developers of this huge project for an update.

Andrew Morton, maintainer of the 2.6 series Linux kernel, has won the Technology Award presented by the Australian UNIX and Open Systems Users Group as part of its Open Source Awards for 2004.

Many European local governments are thinking about ditching Windows, but Microsoft is fighting back.

Mandrakelinux 10.1 Officiel [sic] comes with extended support for mobile devices, better hardware compatibility and application upgrades.

KDE and its various applications have featured very well in the Linux Journal 2004 Readers' Choice Awards which are published in the November issue of the magazine. Most importantly, in the category of "Favorite Desktop Environment", KDE came in first followed by GNOME. The trend over recent years has shown KDE gaining more and more popularity over GNOME and this year KDE received two votes for every one that GNOME received.