Robert Simmons continues his efforts to clarify confusion over the use of nested classes in Java in this week's installment, excerpted from Chapter 6 ("Nested Classes") of Hardcore Java. Robert discusses the somewhat troublesome limited-scope inner classes; one specific type within this category, known as anonymous classes; and the various problems programmers can encounter with limited-scope classes.

Alexander Yurchenko recently added device hotplug support to the tree and will be enabled by default in GENERIC once testing is complete for all architectures which can support it.

Gentoo announced beta level live cds and stages for ppc64. The hardware supported by gentoo-ppc64 is PowerMacintosh G5, IBM pSeries, older IBM 64 bit RS/6000s (such as the model 260, 270, F80, H80, see linuxppc64.org for a complete list) and soon IBM iSeries hardware.

DotGNU Portable.net 0.6.6 has been released . Read the announcement here. It's been 2 months since the last release , threading has been rewritten twice , timers redone once , binary/SOAP serialization and lots of stuff done in Windows.Forms . This release includes Portable Studio IDE, MyXaml, Photo Tool (wx.NET), KDE DCOP Support, MDI and FileDialogs, Gtk-Sharp, Svg Rendering, XHTML Rendering .

Software development is an iterative process that benefits from coordination between developers and with historical archives. To facilitate such practices, developers can turn to special versioning software. In this article we will explore Subversion, one of the most recently released version control suites. Read the article at DevChannel.

Microsoft Corp.'s Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005—the first major upgrade to the Tablet PC operating system—provides enough enhancements to entice some new converts. The update also will tide over current fans and developers until the release of a "Longhorn" version for Tablet PCs—or whatever Microsoft has planned for the Tablet operating system on the company's long and often-winding product road map.

Following recent discussions about tuning swapiness and dynamically allocating swap as needed, a new discussion ensued on the lkml questioning the need for swap altogether when a system has "sufficient" ram.

Channel Zone Editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols thinks he's finally figured out what Sun really wants to sell on the x86 platform—and it's not Linux.

OrangeCrate has an interview with Matt Asay, Director of Novell's Linux Business Office. He talks about Linux strategy, the GPL, partnerships, and Linux on the desktop.

We've made some updates to the Pricegrabber menu (at the lower left hand side of the site). For your convenience, we've updated some of the products there, and added some new gadgets. It's a great way to compare prices, and if you use osnews.pricegrabber.com when you buy (or even just research), you support OSNews. Bookmark it! If anyone has any ideas for products or categories that should be added to the list, let us know.

The Brazilian Linux distribution Kurumin has just released version 3.0 final. I don't know much more, because my Portuguese isn't so good. Download locations, ChangeLog, and plenty of other information is available here, along with plenty of other useful information, I'm certain.

There's a new screenshot over at directfb.org that shows the new TextureTriangles() method using existing windows as the texture. Every change in the original window is immediately visible in the transformed presentation.

Novell is embarking on an "eat your own dog food" project in which it will eventually migrate all of its 6000 employees worldwide to SuSE Linux (and drop MS Office for OpenOffice). The company's Australian employees will be the advance guard. Many of them have already been using OpenOffice for some time, and the transition has been relatively smooth. According to the article, "Using a custom set of technologies which read Windows users preferences into SuSE after a dual-boot installation, the average desktop can be migrated in less than an hour."

Interesting tool for Java developers:Static analysis tools promise to find existing bugs in your code without requiring much effort on the part of the developer. Of course, if you've been programming for long, you know those promises don't always pan out. Even so, good static analysis tools are a valuable addition to your toolbox. In this first of a two-part series, Senior Software Engineer Chris Grindstaff looks at how FindBugs can help improve the quality of your code and eliminate bugs lying in wait.