Microsoft is to begin field tests of Windows XP working on the so-called $100 laptop, or XO, early in 2008.

"Following on the third beta release two weeks ago, we are ready to present Drupal 6.0 beta 4. Since the previous beta release, we have committed over 80 fixes to the Drupal 6.x code. This beta version includes some usability improvements and lots of bug fixes for issues which the testers and contributed module upgraders encountered."

SourceForge the world’s largest web site for open source development and distribution, today launched an online marketplace for technology professionals to buy and sell service and support for open source software.

Breach Security announced today that the Breach Security WebDefend web application firewall has earned certification by ICSA Labs, an independent division of Verizon. WebDefend is one of the first web application firewall products to achieve this distinction.

Novell continues to make inroads into providing identity management solutions for federal agencies looking to comply with HSPD-12 mandates. HSPD-12 or Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12, establishes a government-wide standard for identification credentials (or smart cards) that deliver a common, two-factor authentication method for accessing physical and logical assets.

"I teach a high school multimedia course. We were scheduled to get new software this year but due to several pointy haired bosses, no software was ordered. The software I have to teach is Flash 5, Dreamweaver 2000, Photoshop 7 and (god help me) Movie Maker. The question is: is it better to teach old commercial software or their open source counterparts (Komposer, Gimp, etc.)? Is the steep learning curve and slightly less uniform design worth a little student frustration to teach them software written in the past 5 years?"

Zenoss announced that Pando Networks, a top provider of managed peer-to-peer (P2P) media distribution services, has deployed Zenoss Enterprise to manage the configuration, health and performance of its rapidly growing IT infrastructure. Pando chose Zenoss over proprietary and open source alternatives to gain access to a powerful yet affordable network, server and application management solution.

DB2 9 is the result of a five-year development project that transformed traditional (static) database technology into an interactive data server that merges the high performance and ease of use of DB2 with the self-describing benefits of XML. Download a free trial version of IBM DB2 9.5 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows.