Amazon EC2

The new Ubuntu is more than just a good Linux desktop distribution; it's Canonical's shot at the business server big-time.

It's always been possible to make your own Linux distributions, but now Novell has made it easier than ever and will offer business support for your particular spin.

If you still think Ubuntu is just this cute little Linux for Linux fans, boy do you have a surprise waiting for you in Ubuntu Server 9.04.

Whether you're a service provider, an application architect, or an end user, the cloud is still pretty cloudy. But we've already moved on to talking about standards. Is it too early, an impossible goal, or a productive conversation? The thing is, the cloud is changing how we do business. The cloud will change how we do standardization as well.

Over the festive break there were quite a few announcements related to Amazon's EC2 service.

It's IT Blogwatch: in which Sun finally releases OpenSolaris, but with a surprising, cloud-computing twist, courtesy of Amazon EC2. Not to mention a joke for Photoshop users...

Heather Harreld Havenstein has, err, this: [Good grief -Ed.]