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Android 3.0 is readying for an October launch. What you can expect. Most Android users are only now upgrading to version 2.2 of Google's mobile phone operating system but with version 3.0 expected in October, it's worth taking a look at what to expect.

Windows may still be the dominant operating system but in South Africa Linux has a good showing. We all know that Windows is the dominant operating system, around the world. But how popular is Linux?

Want to learn more about open source? Download some books for free. It doesn't matter if you're new to open source or a long-time user, there is always more to learn about. We scoured the Web for the best open source books. All of these are free books that can be downloaded and shared.

Linux will dominate mobile by 2015. That's according to a new report from technology analyst ABI Research.

Six releases in 18 months. Is it too much? With six releases in just a year and a half is Android risking extreme fragmentation? Or is this just the way Google does business?

Ubuntu is the Linux head-of-state but Fedora offers an exciting alternative. There was a time when Ubuntu was the upstart: a new Linux distribution that was more promise than substance. When it was launched in late 2004 it was up against a number of distributions that had been in development for years: Red Hat, Fedora, Suse Linux and Mandriva (then still called Mandrake). These were well-developed distributions with their own fans and unique features. Ubuntu, based on Debian, had a solid base but had a long way to go to be as user-friendly as it planned.

A beta version of Firefox 4.0 has been released with a new look and new features It's been a while in the coming but a beta version of Firefox 4.0 is now out. The most noticeable changes to the browser are the interface ones. Although the interface changes are not available in all beta versions yet they are included in the Windows-specific release.

Microsoft's mobile strategy goes from bad to non-existent. Everyone knows mobile is the next-big-thing. Everyone except Microsoft, that is. The company which has dominated technology for decades has systematically moved over the course of the year from having a deeply flawed mobile strategy to having no strategy at all. Meantime Apple, which has a very aggressive mobile strategy, is snapping up customers left, right and centre. An example of Microsoft's so-called strategy is the Kin debacle. Earlier this week Microsoft confirmed that it was killing development of its Kin phones. That's just six weeks after it first launched the phone.

Although Adobe's Flash technology is still incredibly popular among website designers it is facing a bleak future as developers move to newer HTML5-based media formats. On top of that Apple's Steve Jobs has declared Flash a complete no-go on any future iPhone and iPad products.

It's a remarkable success story. Less than two years ago Nokia's Symbian and Windows Mobile ruled the smartphone market and Google was just a search engine, albeit a very popular one. Today Google's Android operating system is one of the most popular smartphone operating systems and has already taken a significant chunk out of Symbian's market share.

Microsoft, the company least-likely to be associated with open source software, has made good on earlier promises to contribute to open source projects. The company first started its slow move to acceptance of open source in March and April of 2008 when the company announced a series of interoperability plans. Among these were document interoperability commitments which were largely overshadowed by a vicious document format fight over OOXML and the OpenDocument Format.

Everyone uses Microsoft at some point or other. Even if you're not a fan of Microsoft it's hard to ignore the unique position of Office as the world's most popular office suite. The latest version of Office 2010 is out now and there are a few good reasons to give it a try.

It's not just Apple that is out to kill off Adobe's Flash. Apple has been fairly vocal over the past month in its opposition to Adobe's Flash player. The company, or at least Steve Jobs, has unequivocally said that it will not be supporting Flash on its iPhone and iPad devices. Not now and not ever.

N8 will be the last Nokia N-series phone running Symbian operating system. Nokia's Symbian operating system has been dealt a further blow with the cellphone maker announcing it will be dropping it in favour of the Linux MeeGo operating system for its high-end smartphones.

Linux is regularly accused of being too fragmented but Microsoft has its own minefield to navigate. One of the regular criticisms levelled against Linux is that with so many versions available the platform is "fragmented". The idea is that because there are so many "distributions" of Linux, users will be confused and unsure of which to pick.

Clearly Ubuntu is among the most popular Linux distributions, but which other versions of this operating system are proving popular with users? Looking at a number of online lists, including the popular Distrowatch site, a general idea of which Linux versions are most popular emerges.

I'm not an Apple fan. But there are a couple of things Apple does right. Apple's success is the ability to focus on just a few features and make them work well. So well that everyone else wants to copy them. Compare this with Microsoft or Linux.

Every six months Ubuntu releases a new version. October's proposed release includes a few key changes. Ubuntu Lucid was released in April and the next release of the popular Linux operating system is now looming large. Planned for final release in October this year, Ubuntu 10.10, otherwise known as Maverick Meerkat, is already available as an alpha release.

Microsoft has announced its online Office web applications but are they really going to give Google a run for its money?

The long delay in releasing mobile phones running Windows Phone 7 is damaging Microsoft's mobile opportunity. It's been six months since Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer officially announced Windows Mobile 7, now called Windows Phone 7. And now, well and truly into the second-half of the year, Microsoft's answer to the iPhone and Google's Android OS is still nowhere to be seen.