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Desktop Linux maker Xandros is recruiting beta testers for its desktop software. In preparation for the release of Xandros Desktop 3.0, the company is seeking volunteers to help test the software. In exchange, reviewers gain early access to the software.

The Defense Ministry of Singapore has decided to switch from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org, a move which could involve 20,000 PCs, according to reports. With the ministry operating around 20,000 PCs, the decision to move to open-source software on the desktop is among the biggest by any government agency.

IE has come out the clear leader in an ad-hoc test of browser security. What does Microsoft know that others don't?

Building a home recording studio isn't hard, nor does it require a great deal of technical knowledge. The biggest problems musicians face in building a home recording studio stem from all the myths and pseudo-truths that have developed around the art of recording. But with a little bit of elbow grease and a great selection of open source software, you can build an adequate recording studio. Making it perfect? Well, let's worry about that another day.

Using open source code in proprietary products without a well-defined technical and legal strategy imperils a company's intellectual property rights and increases the risk of lawsuits, Edmund J. Walsh an IP lawyer with Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, P.C., told the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston.

Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer is reviving profit and sales growth by preventing customer defections to Linux, a computer operating system available for free on the Internet. The effort may help Microsoft post a 9 percent rise in sales to $8.99 billion in the first quarter, according to the average estimate of 25 analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, will probably report later today that net income rose 23 percent to $3.20 billion.

Open source advocates will get an official boost next week with State Government support for the Australian Open Source Symposium in Perth. The State Government will be directly involved for the first time in the symposium's six-year history.

"Kurumin Linux is a Brazilian run-from-CD Linux distribution based on Knoppix. Its main features are excellent hardware auto-detection, support for Brazilian Portuguese and small size - the size of the ISO image is under 200MB." At OSDir we've done a handful of great screenshots of this Brazilian distro that's easy on the eyes.

"The new Mandrakelinux Move is now publicly available for download. Mandrakelinux Move is the perfect way to introduce your friends to Linux" At OSDir we've put together over 100 screenshots of this cutting edge live CD by the big boys at Mandrake.

OpenOffice.org's extensive use of floating windows puts some of the most-used editing tools at your fingertips.

Red Hat, MySQL AB, and three German Web hosting companies have announced a partnership with software developer Florian Muller to support NoSoftwarePatents.com, an organization that hopes to stop the European Union from granting patents to what Muller calls a "cartel of patent superpowers" whose aim is to stifle competition.

Many of the popular Linux distributions today include Postfix (written by Wietse Venema) as their choice for default mail transport agent. I've come to really appreciate the benefits of Postfix as a sendmail replacement. The advantages of Postfix include enhanced security, relatively simple configuration, and excellent performance.

South Africa's Mark Shuttleworth today announced the first release of Ubuntu Linux on behalf of the Ubuntu Linux team. In an email to the various Ubuntu mailing lists, Shuttleworth wrote: "The warm-hearted Warthogs of the Warty Team are proud to present the very first release of Ubuntu!" The earlier beta version of the Ubuntu OS was released in mid-September.

For every browser, a security bug. That seemed to be Wednesday's lesson from security information provider Secunia for the developers of the major Internet browsers. The company released information on two common security issues with the tabbed browsing feature found in several flavors of the Mozilla Foundation's browsers, the Opera browser, the Konqueror browser for Linux and two third-party plug-ins that add the feature to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

A current issue of Sun Microsystems' custom news service, SunFlash, highlights an important new book, Exploring the JDS Linux Desktop, for potential converts to the Java Desktop System. Potential converts in this context would be all Windows users--particularly in the enterprise.

Novell is offering free training for its new Novell Certified Linux Professional certification to as many as 500 of its Platinum-level VAR partners.

Trusted Computer Solutions, which supplies secure applications to organisations such as the FBI, has built a secure version of Linux due for release in Spring 2005. It is currently beta testing the product, Trusted Linux, which will provide its customers with an alternative to Trusted Solaris to run its product line.

After one too many reboots due to Microsoft Office glitches, I downloaded OpenOffice.org. Then, my theme song became "Happy days are here again." That happened in 2001, which makes me a relatively early adopter of the OpenOffice.org office suite. But, I'm a relative latecomer when it comes to getting "hooked" on open source software (OSS), as the following three stories from fellow OSS converts shows.

Users of virtually all of today's Web-based applications are constrained to interacting with their a keyboard and screen. To break this paradigm, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the regent body for Web-based standards, working with industry, developed VoiceXML, a standard for interacting with Web-based systems through audio dialogs.

Analysts at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo are finally acknowledging that Linux and open source should be part of a company's plans in every IT area.