Focus On: Operating Systems

As Microsoft servers shuddered under the onslaught from anxious users downloading Windows Vista Beta 2, reviewers report that the corpulent code gobbles laptop batteries, hogs memory, and waddles through its chores. A Windows development team manager explains why this outcome for the "largest software project in history" was entirely predictable.

Despite Apple's adoption of BSD through OS-X, support for Intel processors, and dual-boot capability between OS-X and Windows, Apple still gets no respect from many in the Windows community. That may all change, as soon as Apple makes a few final and relatively inexpensive adjustments to its software engineering and marketing programs. Just don't expect any real O/S sales gains to come from jaunty commercials.

Proponents of Windows Small Business Server sell it as Microsoft's cheap answer to Linux and other free open source operating systems. The customer gets a Swiss Army knife of Windows software, as long as it's all loaded on a single server. That's where the problem starts. Every loaded program brings its own vulnerabilities which, in the aggregrate, can bring down the whole computer. On the other hand, Linux suffers from fewer critical vulnerabilities, and none of the restrictions. UPDATE: Vladfire rains down on Email Battles!

If you can stay awake during a Bill Gates monologue, you'll discover that he morphs into the bigger-than-life star of The Apprentice, Donald Trump, who famously said, "As long as you're going to be thinking anyway, think big." On the other hand, listening to the Donald, you find yourself wondering if Trump's doing a knock off of Saturday Night Live's Darrell Hammond, or vice versa. But that conundrum's for another day...

To hear some banks and other financial outfits tell it, digital certificates are the answer for all your email security worries. But at the 15th European Institute for Computer Anti-Virus Research Conference, one researcher discussed how digital signatures could be perverted on virtually any operating system, including BSD, Linux, OSX and Windows. Conclusion: A digital signature is only as valid as the combined security of the sending and receiving computers allow.