Inotify is a file system event-monitoring mechanism slated for inclusion in upcoming Linux™ kernels that is designed to serve as an effective replacement for dnotify, which was the de facto file-monitoring mechanism supported in older kernels. Inotify is a powerful, fine-grained, asynchronous mechanism ideally suited for a variety of file-monitoring needs including, but not limited to, security and performance.

Many users and IT administrators had a lot to say about Microsoft's removal of the "blocker" mechanism this week, which had temporarily disabled the delivery of WinXP SP2. THG contacted members of the IT community and spoke with often-cited security experts, who discussed their concerns about the damage SP2 may cause and some cases where the download might really be necessary.

After many years of trying, Branden Robinson has finally won the Debian Project Leader election. Linux Magazine has an in depth interview with Robinson about his plans as DPL, the problems that face Debian, and what it's like to finally win the election.

There's been quite a lot of buzz around so-called 'search' tools lately, from the on/off WinFS, to Beagle and Apple's Spotlight. Tenor is KDE's proposed 'framework' for taking this even further. Kurt Pfeifle, along with insights from Scott Wheeler (one of Tenor's authors and primary designers), sat down to talk about the current problems, Tenor itself, how the thinking is different and how KDE's flexible technology provides a solid basis for making it happen.

One fundamental difference guarantees that Windows will continue to dominate says Tom Yager.

Spurred by another quarter of strong Mac and iPod sales, Apple Computer reported on Wednesday earnings that surged past Wall Street estimates.

This is supposed to be the "smartphone for the masses" selling at around $400 without a contract in US (the phone hasn't been released officially in US yet so it's rare to find). Here's a comprehensive review of the unit at GSMArena with plenty of pictures. The device comes with a recent build of Symbian OS v7. Pros: GPRS class 10, EDGE class 5, 1.3 MP camera, Bluetooth, includes a 32 MB MMC card, FM radio, image/video editor, Real player, 176x208 hi-res screen, email, XHTML browser. Drawbacks: It seems to be using a rare kind of MMC (about $55 for 256 MB), only 6 MBs of internal memory, earphones only deliver mono sound for mp3 playback and they don't seem reliable with FM either.

The Linux based Compound XML Document Editor (CXDE) from IBM’s software group uses Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) to provide a more customized editing experience for developers. CXDE offers a standards-based, model-driven editor for mixed-namespace XML documents such as: XHTML, XForms, XML-Events, SMIL, SVG, VoiceXML, XUL, and MathML. Another good Java-based XML free alternative is Vex.

Neither SCO Group's copyright claims on select Linux code nor Microsoft will be able to slow the spread of Linux in the enterprise over the next two years, an analyst for Gartner Research said. The biggest hurdles to greater Linux enterprise penetration are process-based, according to George Weiss.

Amiga, Inc. today announced the launch of the new AmigaAnywhere™ SDK (software development kit) version 1.5, providing increased performance, time to market and revenue opportunity for Amiga's global developer community.

JD4X v0.5 now supports both jdk v1.4 or v1.5 (jdk 5). The binary version released is however, compiled for jdk 1.5 (jdk 5).

Linuxlookup.com is reporting the first Mandriva Linux release is now available. Mandriva Linux Limited Edition 2005 is a transitional release which provides all the best and up to date open source applications to power-users, 32-bit/64-bit trouble-free coexistence, capability to boot from a USB key and many other features, with an excellent stability.

PalmOne released today a sequel for its popular Tungsten E. The Tungsten E2, looks essentially identical to its predecessor, but offers Bluetooth wireless networking, and a more powerful battery. Like the original, the E2 has a 320-by-320-pixel display. This is 30% brighter and has 40% better color saturation. This handheld has 32 MB of NVFS memory, with 26 MB available to the user. NVFS memory holds information without a charge or power. It runs at 200 Mhz, it has a headphones-in jack, but it lacks a microphone. It uses PalmOS Garnet 5.4.7 and sells for $249. Reviews here, here and here.

Here's another, a bit long-ish, review of Ubuntu 5.04.