Computerworld: “The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said Dell Computer Corp. is voluntarily recalling
284,000 batteries used in its Inspiron line of laptop computers because they can overcharge, become very hot, release
smoke and possibly catch fire.”

“EBIZ Enterprises Incorporated (OTCBB:EBIZ), a manufacturer of specialized
servers and the leading vendor-neutral provider of Open Source products and solutions, today announced that it has reached two
agreements with Linux NetworX whereby EBIZ will manufacture and sell High Performance Computing (HPC) systems designed
and developed by Linux NetworX. Because of the new agreements, EBIZ will no longer seek an acquisition or merger involving
Linux NetworX as previously announced.” Read the press release at Wide Open News.

Guido writes “The LinuxFocus.org May 2001 issue is now available at:
http://www.linuxfocus.org/English/This time we have the following articles:

• Building a Linux-controlled walking robot
• Through the tunnel
• Avoiding security holes when developing an application – Part 3 : buffer overflows
• Do your job with make!
• Introduction to BORG
• Real-time mp3 recording, part 2
• Game Review – GLTron

“

BSD Today has an update on the status of ftp.freebsd.org. The capacity problems are due to an ongoing network outage, and not, as rumored, caused by Wind River’s purchase of BSDi’s BSD properties.

It’s the speech the Open Source world has been buzzing about, and now you can read the full text at Microsoft’s site. Titled “The Commercial Software Model,” the speech was delivered today by Microsoft’ Craig Mundie at the New York University Stern School of Business . Excerpt: “The OSS development model leads to a strong possibility of unhealthy “forking” of a code base,
resulting in the development of multiple incompatible versions of programs, weakened interoperability,
product instability, and hindering businesses’ ability to strategically plan for the future. Furthermore, it
has inherent security risks and can force intellectual property into the public domain.”

Gamelan examines “the elements that should be part of a secure Java
code policy, including such safeguards as compartmentilization and cryptography.” The first installment of this series is also available.

LinuxNews.com: “Most corporations allow users to access the outside world for HTTP, FTP & Telnet. However,
access via “Secure Shell” is often blocked (as was my situation in Corporate America). There is a
work-around that is pretty easy.” Author Dave Van Able describes the steps he used via SuSE 7.1 (2.4 kernel) to use an SSH client via the telnet port.

ZDNet’s David Coursey comments on Apple’s new iBook: “This is probably the single best move you can make to keep a real alternative to Microsoft alive–and you’ll be getting a great computer as part of the deal. The new iBook beats a carry-around Linux machine in any number of ways, and you’ll be the envy of your friends without losing your connection to UNIX, since the new iBook runs Mac OS X.

Tech industry analyst Philip Russom asks: “Does IBM know what it’s gotten itself into?

On the upside, IBM’s acquisition of Informix Software promises to bring
approximately 120,000 new customers to the Data Management Group, the home of
the rising star DB2, as well as a few thousand talented database professionals and a
number of useful pieces of technology. On the downside, however, the acquisition
also brings a plague of problems, such as a history of business blunders by Informix
management, thousands of ticked-off Informix investors, and–worst of all–several
legacy database management systems (DBMSs) that entered Informix Software
through its acquisition of Ardent Software.” Read the column at ZDNet.

Slashdot has Craig Pfeifer’s review of Server-Based Java Programming, by Ted Neward: ”

If you are looking for a Java2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) overview (Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), Servlets,
Java Server Pages (JSP)…) or an intro to Java fundamentals, this book is not for you. This book covers some
fundamentals of threads, classloaders and sockets, but the bulk of the text is the application of these
concepts. If you aren’t already familliar with how these features are commonly used, you might find yourself
doing a little prerequisite work to get the full value out of the material in these chapters.”