The Duke of URL reports: “First formed in 1997, Conectiva was known as Conectiva Linux Parolin. In 1999 they released the first distribution focused on server technology, which included a
whopping 1900 pages of documentation, which is pretty much unheard of in today’s world of 100 page manuals. 1999 also marked the year that Conectiva released version
4.0, the distribution that brought them to the attention of the rest of the planet.”

BBC reports: “An internet debate between participants of the World Economic
Forum in Davos and anti-free trade activists attending the World
Social Forum in Brazil has rapidly turned into a slanging match.”

MSNBC tells us: “In Microsoft Word 2000, running a spell check may cause the
Spelling and Grammar tool to check the same word over and
over again given these circumstances: The Change All in the
Spelling and Grammar dialog box is selected; More than one
instance of a misspelled word is detected, and/or; The
misspelled word can’t be found in the main or custom
dictionary.”

Fairfax IT reports that modern warfare could come in the form of cyber attacks on big business – a la the recent Microsoft DoS?

Computer News Daily has published this opinion column: “If you can get broadband Internet access in your neighborhood, and if it will fit
into your budget, you should get it. Period. Even though it costs, on average, twice
as much as dial-up service, high-speed access is worth it. It’s up to 50 times
faster and infinitely more convenient than dial-up. That’s a bargain no matter
how you look at it.”

Network World Fusion says that IT executives attending the LinuxWorld
Conference & Expo this week will find a bounty of
management software and server appliances that ease the
monitoring and control of mixed Linux, Windows NT and
Unix server-based networks.

Microsoft, along with the U.S. government, is the most frequent target for
hackers, reports Computer News Daily. “Microsoft is obviously going to be a target because of its size and
position in the market,” said Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst with IDC of Framingham,
Mass.

Yahoo tech news reports that MS has enlisted the support of Akamai to operate four backup directories. VA Linux has called Akamai one of its biggest customers for quite some time. (ed. note: VA Linux owns Newsforge.)

IDG.net reports: “The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the charitable foundation established by Microsoft Corp.
Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates and his wife, have announced a six-year $100
million donation to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).

IAVI is an international non-profit organization that is working toward the development and
distribution of preventative vaccines against AIDS, and the money will serve two purposes, said the
group in a statement. It will go toward IAVI’s vaccine development work plan, which is expected to
cost $550 million through 2007, and the group hopes publicity surrounding the donation will also help
attract support from others.”

Anonymous Reader writes “Geeknews.org has an opinion piece up that asks the question: Is Microsoft a big basketcase? The opinion piece is inspired by the recent DNS problems faced by MS.”