October 30 - 11:50am EDT   The work of a current Microsoft executive is behind the existence of Mac OS X and the iPhone firmware, a report suggests. The head of Microsoft's Research division, Rick Rashid, claims that code of his remains within the Mac OS, and by extension the iPhone OS, even after decades of design and evolution. "If you use a Macintosh or an iPhone, which honestly I would not recommend," says Rashid, "you would be using code that I wrote more than 25 years ago." [full story]

October 21 - 11:35am EDT   Tension Software is shipping the first version of Cronette, a utility for Macs and Mac servers. The software executes a variety of tasks automatically, without any user input; tasks are organized into a master list, where users select a task to edit details. Actions can be assigned to launch daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, and as frequently as up to 10 times per day. [full story]

October 21 - 9:50am EDT   Maintain has released v4.2 of Cocktail, its general maintenance and tweaking utility for Mac OS X. In particular, the software is said to ease access to some of the more complicated functions available within the Unix shell. The update adds several new features, mainly the ability to search for corrupt preference files and delete them. Users can also run through a database of Mac OS error codes, eliminating the need to look them up online. [full story]

August 5 - 1:40pm EDT   Code by Kevin has announced PortAuthority 2.6, an update to its graphical user-interface software for the MacPorts command-line tool for UNIX. MacPorts is an open-source community project that uses the Mac OS X command line, X-11 and Aqua software to bring UNIX to everyday users -- by providing a GUI for users seeking a simple interface over the command line complexity of MacPorts. Utilizing an approach featuring windows, menus and icons, PortAuthority works inside the MacPorts infrastructure, allowing users to update, install and search for specific MacPorts programs. [full story]

July 4 - 12:50am EDT   Objective Development on Thursday unveiled Sharity 3.4, an update to its UNIX platform SMB file system that adds several bug fixes and improved compatibility with NAS devices. Sharity allows users to mount shared volumes from Windows, Samba, and other SMB/CIFS servers onto UNIX-based systems such as Mac OS X, Sun Solaris, and Linux, among others. Sharity 3 is available for evaluation for free, with personal licenses starting at $30, and commercial licenses at $200. [full story]

May 19 - 10:00am EDT   Utility maker Code by Kevin has released a new tool for Mac owners running a Unix shell, Manpower. The program assists with the "man" command, which describes the purpose and usage of various built-in Unix tools; this however is limited to a fixed font size, and a single pane of text at a time. Manpower claims to improve on this by expanding to a three-pane interface, similar to an e-mail client. [full story]

February 14 - 3:45pm EST   Having almost disappeared completely late last year, SCO says it has been resuscitated by a new financing plan. Under the terms of the deal, Stephen Norris Capital Partners and "its partners from the Middle East" will supply up to $100 million, enabling SCO to reorganize and launch a new series of products. SNCP will gain a controlling interest in the company, and take it private, allowing it to slip out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. [full story]