Microsoft Vista will be discounted

Microsoft Vista will be discounted

Microsoft Corp., the world's biggest software developer, is in talks with personal-computer makers and retailers to offer discounted upgrades to its Windows Vista operating system to help bolster holiday sales.

Discussions are "ongoing", said Windows director Kevin Kutz, who declined to comment further. Microsoft is considering the concession because it delayed the release of the program set to succeed Windows XP until January, raising concerns among retailers that shoppers would hold off buying PCs during the holiday season.

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Microsoft offers to help Firefox into Vista

Microsoft offers to help Firefox into Vista

The head of Microsoft's open source business has offered help to get Firefox to work with the upcoming Vista operating system, but it remains to be seen if Mozilla and the open source community will respond positively to the gesture.

Sam Ramji, director of Microsoft's open source software lab, posted an open invitation to work with Microsoft on a Mozilla development discussion group on Monday....

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Microsoft kills SUS update software

Microsoft kills SUS update software

Microsoft is killing off its SUS update software, released more than three years ago to aid sysadmins.
From December, the software giant will not offer patches and other updates to the free Software Update Services (SUS). Instead, people will be expected to move to the newer Windows Software Update Services (WSUS), currently at version 2.0.

The SUS server is installed locally on company networks to collect new patches for testing and subsequent deployment. It has not been available for download since last year but continues to be used in many small and mid-sized organisations that don’t want to, or can’t afford to run Systems Management Server.

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Windows Vista Inherits the Sins of the Father

Windows Vista Inherits the Sins of the Father

In all fairness, Windows Vista has no Father Program, but it does have predecessors. A short heritage line; feeble, weak lived variations, with the exception of XP and a genealogy plagued by vulnerabilities make up Vista’s background. But the big question here is what will happen to Vista once it is thrown out of Microsoft’s Garden of Eden. The operating system will be the most prized item of prey on the world wide web. And in this regard, Microsoft’s Security Scripture proved to be a picaresque prophylaxis at best, an aspect of Vista’s strategy taken in vain.

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Vista joins MS patch treadmill

Vista joins MS patch treadmill

Microsoft has released a couple of patches for Windows Vista after realising that the pre-release OS is vulnerable to some of the security bugs addressed in its last (mammoth) Patch Tuesday update cycle.

Of the seven critical Windows updates released in August, two (MS06-042 and MS06-051) also affect Windows Vista Beta 2 or later, prompting the release of additional patches.

The most threatening of the Windows flaws addressed on 8 August (MS06-040) - the subject of active malware exploitation over recent days - leaves Vista untouched.

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Anyone for Vista?

LPI adds open-source job placement service

LPI adds open-source job placement service

For years, the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) has offered the most important basic Linux worker certification, the LPIC. On August 16 at LinuxWorld in San Francisco, the organization launched a new employment and contract matching service for open-source workers who are registered on LPI's internal exam candidate database. The new program will match qualified open-source workers with employers and contract opportunities. Although the program will focus on LPI-certified Linux professionals it also welcomes other system and network administrators to register, obtain an LPI ID number, and provide their skills profile for this matching service. The program will be piloted in North America, Latin America, China, India, and Germany.

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Where's Red Hat? Peek Under Fedora

Where's Red Hat? Peek Under Fedora

Red Hat may be the world's leading enterprise Linux distribution vendor, but the company is a no-show as an exhibitor at the LinuxWorld conference here.

But Fedora, Red Hat's community-based distribution, is front and center at the .org pavilion and enjoying the extra room in the spotlight among the open source attendees.
This is giving members of the Fedora community some room to talk about what is likely to end up in Red Hat's next Enterprise versions of Linux.

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Sounds like Fedora 6 could be a very good distro in the coming months

Microsoft patch causes IE headache

Microsoft patch causes IE headache

SOFTWARE GIANT Microsoft’s August 8 security patch has a nasty habit of causing Internet Explorer to crash.
You can understand why people installed the MS06-042 update, after all it was rated as "critical" by Volish security experts.
But, according to the Vole’s customer support site, the problem affects Internet Exploder 6 with Service Pack 1 on Windows XP and Windows 2000 systems. If a user looks at a version 1.1 of HTTP alongside compression, the browser will crash.
PeopleSoft applications that have Web-based interfaces have also had a few problems. Vole’s CRM tools don’t like the patch much either.
Microsoft plans to have a go at releasing another patch on August 22 for all affected users.

[Source]
MS Support

First Open-Source Java Code Coming

First Open-Source Java Code Coming

Sun Microsystems plans to publish the first open-source Java code by October this year, the company has revealed.Laurie Tolson, vice president of developer programs and products at Sun, said at a company event that the first components include Java C and the Hotspot VM.The remainder of the code will be open-sourced by the end of 2007.Sun first announced that it would release the Java source code under an open-source license at JavaOne in May.The company is still considering the license under which it will release the technology, and has launched a special Web site, Open Sourcing the JDK, soliciting feedback from developers.

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Microsoft Still Plans October 2006 Vista Release

Microsoft Still Plans October 2006 Vista Release

According to sources at Microsoft, the company plans to ship Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 (RC1) in early September. More important, perhaps, is that Microsoft still plans to release Vista to manufacturing by the end of October as previously planned, defying rumors that the company would delay Vista yet again.

Although I'm not at liberty to divulge the full contents of the message, Microsoft has placed build 5520 into escrow as the RC1 of Vista. This build will be released to testers and the public after the Labor Day holiday in the United States, which falls this year on September 4. Currently, Microsoft expects to ship RC1 on or after September 7.

Meanwhile, the release to manufacturing (RTM), or final, version of Vista is set for a September 2006 escrow and final release on or before October 25. We can expect a Longhorn Server Beta 3 release in first quarter 2007, an RC2 release in...