Microsoft XP is officially being retired.  To mark the date when Microsoft will officially withdraw support for XP, developers at the software giant have released a "Windows XP End of Support Countdown Gadget."  Installing directly to the desktop, the gadget ticks ticks down the days until the end of XP support (scheduled for 2014).  Ironically, the dashboard widget will only work on computers upgraded to Windows 7 or Vista.  

DataStax's OpsCenter Free for Devs

DataStax OpsCenter is a new platform for managing and operating Apache Cassandra applications. One of the best features of the new OpsCenter is the unique visual layout depicting clusters and overall metric tracking.  The new version of DataStax is free for developers and general, non-production usage.

Chrome OS Notebooks Available With a Subscription?

According to a recent rumor from Neowin, notebooks bearing Google Chrome OS might be available for a subscription fee when they're released in June or July or of this year.  For $10-$20 per month, the user would get free hardware upgrades.  Better yet, users would get free device replacement in the event that the notebook breaks.  What isn't clear is whether each individual would receive a completely new notebook, or if the notebooks would be returned at the end of the subscription period.
 

New Templates For SproutCore 1.5

Version 1.5 of SpoutCore, the HTML5 web application framework, now has TemplateView.  The new feature makes it easier for developers to produce the view layer of a model-view controller application.  Here's a link to a video from the development team explaining the new feature:

Dispatch from the Edge Part 1b from SproutCore on Vimeo.

The Top Java Memory Problems – Part 1

This interesting overview covers memory leaks and more!  Thanks for the link Michael Kopp.