November 17 - 2:40pm EST   A new ASUS Eee PC 901 model has been spotted for sale in France that offers a high-speed 16GB solid state drive (SSD) along with a new, six-cell 8700mAh battery that is good for 7.2V and should provide users with as much as eight hours of battery life. An Italian Eee PC 901 GO offers the new SSD as well. The 8.9-inch netbook uses Windows XP or Linux operating systems. Previously, the Eee PC 901 offered 20GB of SSD storage for the XP version and 12GB in the Linux versions. [full story]

October 22 - 1:10pm EDT   Linux is no longer a choice of operating system on the Picobook Pro, according to Apricot. Although the netbook was only released last week, Apricot has decided to remove the option of SuSE Linux Enterprise Edition, which cost only £279 ($454) instead of the £328 ($534) for a Windows XP system. In compensation the company has lowered the price of the latter, which is now £299 ($487). [full story]

June 16 - 6:40pm EDT   Dell recently announced the last day to purchase one of the company's Inspiron laptops, desktops or workstations with an OEM Windows XP license, which is due to expire on June 30 as per Microsoft's Windows Life-Cycle Policy. Buyers have until June 18 to purchase computers thus equipped, and have the option of buying Windows Vista Business or Ultimate with a downgrade service to Windows XP Professional thereafter. This news confirms earlier reports that the PC and laptop maker will not offer Windows XP pre-loaded onto its products past the Microsoft-imposed deadline. [full story]

June 2 - 11:10am EDT   Owners of Windows XP and Vista should avoid using Apple's Safari browser for the foreseeable future, Microsoft has warned. The company notes that while there is a vulnerability in how XP and Vista handle executables on the desktop, this may not be an immediate issue except that browsers like Safari do not ask permission to download a number of files. An independent analyst, Nilesh Dhanjani, suggests that this could be used to litter websites with automatic malware downloads, effectively "carpet-bombing" PCs. [full story]