ITBusiness.ca: A tale of two open source citiesMunicipal departments within Toronto and Calgary break the public sector mold by proving they can improve their IT infrastructure using Linux. Plus: How open source opens up career paths

washingtonpost.com: Taking Stock of GoogleGoogle, the storied Internet search site founded in a garage just six years ago, yesterday filed its official plan to sell shares to the public, a deal eagerly anticipated by Silicon Valley to mark the re-emergence of tech from its post-bubble malaise.

Yahoo! News - Blog-Tracking May Gain Ground Among U.S. Intelligence OfficialsPeople in black trench coats might soon be chasing blogs.

Some analysts say U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials might be starting to track blogs for important bits of information. This interest is a sign of how far Web media such as blogs have come in reshaping the data-collection habits of intelligence professionals and others, even with the knowledge that the accuracy of what's reported in some blogs is questionable.

War based on 'flawed logic'The US military strategy in Iraq is based on a "flawed" logic because it is pursuing the mutually exclusive goals of changing the country's regime and doing it "quickly and on the cheap," an American military scholar has concluded.

Low-calorie diet may lead to longer life, study shows A small group of people who are drastically restricting how much they eat has produced the strongest evidence yet for a tantalising theory that very low-calorie diets can extend the human lifespan.

The first study of people who voluntarily imposed draconian diets on themselves in the hope of slowing the ageing process found their cholesterol levels, blood pressure and other major risk factors for heart disease - the biggest killer - plummeted.

Similarly, risk factors for diabetes and possibly other leading causes of death such as cancer and Alzheimer's were reduced.

PCWorld.com - Spyware Runs Rampant, Study Says Think spyware isn't spreading? According to a new report from EarthLink and Webroot Software, there's an average of almost 28 spyware programs running on each computer. More serious, Trojan horse or system monitoring programs were found on more than 30 percent of all systems scanned, raising fears of identity theft.

PCWorld.com - Iomega Debuts Versatile Backup DriveIomega is releasing this week a new all-around backup solution: It uses hard drive technology, but is packaged in removable cartridges so you can buy one drive yet swap media.

The Iomega Rev 35GB/90GB drive is available in several configurations. The external USB drive lists for $400; the internal ATAPI drive goes for $380. Both come with a single, 35GB cartridge. Individual disks will cost $60, or $200 for a four-pack.

Blogging and Sun: The RSS Tide Is Rising... (SYS-CON)(Printview)David Edmonson, a Solaris Engineer out of the UK, has put together a Sun Blog aggregator called Planet Sun. It gives an interesting confirmation that, since Tim Bray's arrival, blogging may be more and more a part of the way that Sun helps "spread the word" about Java and any of its other technologies. A few people within Sun have started internal blogs, including Bray and his boss John Fowler, to give everyone access to information that is similar to water cooler or intra-meeting jabber. And now Planet Sun is aggregating the external ones.

News: "Iraq: What happens next?"

Iraq is in the throes of the heaviest fighting since President Bush declared an end to the war, with dozens of US troops killed in the past week. Diplomatic editor Anne Penketh considers four scenarios

Iraq is not Bush's Vietnam: this is an unprovoked war of choice: "When George Bush and Tony Blair meet here next week to discuss Iraq, one dark truth will dominate everything: This is not how it was supposed to be."

A year ago, the assumption was that come April 2004, a liberated Iraq would be well on the way to acquiring democracy, freedom, peace and prosperity, and all those other wonderful attributes of civilisation Western armies can bestow. How different today. A year on, an ungrateful Iraq is on the brink of civil war, its factions united only by resentment of the American and allied occupiers, and by the bullets and bombs they use against them

DVD rentals a click away A handful of enterprising computer geeks in Ottawa have launched a new company, called Zip.ca, that could save movie renters in this country millions of dollars a year.

Only a week old, Zip.ca is Canada's first large-scale on-line DVD rental company, which for a monthly fee of $24.95 allows consumers to rent three DVDs at a time, mails them the product within two days, and -- here's the multimillion-dollar clincher -- charges no late fees.

International News Article | Reuters.comANALYSIS-Arab Rulers' Worst Fears on Iraq Come True
As U.S. forces battle on a new front in Iraq, Baghdad's Arab neighbors watch the escalating violence with alarm and a message that affords them only the grimmest satisfaction: "We told you so."
Arab leaders had said loudly and repeatedly that a U.S. war against Saddam Hussein would unleash chaos in multi-ethnic Iraq and the region and open a Pandora's box of radicalism.

Microsoft, Sun Settle Antitrust Differences (TechNews.com)"DrLudicrous writes 'Sun Microsystems and Microsoft have reached some kind of settlement (NYTimes, registration required) with regards to patent issues and Sun's antitrust suit against Microsoft. Microsoft is apparently going to pay Sun about 1.6 billion US dollars, join into a ten-year pact of cooperation, and resolve a set of patent disputes. This has been in the works for about a year, starting as a series of phone calls between Scott McNealy and Steve Ballmer."

Mercury News: Bay Area news, technology, jobs, cars & real estate...FlashMob I, the world's first attempt to create a supercomputer by asking volunteers to bring their machines to one place at one time and then hooking them all together.