MacMinute reports that Cocoatech today released Path Finder 3.1 (our review), an update to its Mac OS X file browser and integrated file utility. Version 3.1 extends and improves Mac OS 10.3 Panther integration, adds some new tools, and improves existing features, preferences, and performance. This is a free upgrade for existing Path Finder 3.0 users. On other Mac releases Apple updated its Apple Remote Desktop and released a new firmware for the G5 machines.

This is the second installment of the "Linux on the Opteron, are we ready?" article. Basically, it is a "where are we now?" article, noting that what once did work now does not, and others that did not work now do. The first article was published on OSNews almost three months ago. Since that time not too much has happened publicly in regards to the amd64 Linux situation, but a lot of people mailed to tell me that I should have checked out SuSE or the new Mandrake which was "about to be released" at that time. Also since that time I have upgraded the RAM and acquired a larger hard disk for the machine. I will give a brief rundown of the system as it stands now, what I tried to install on it, and what works.

Red Hat has an 'aggressive' schedule for Fedora Core 2. Red Hat considers two items absolutely "stop-ship" — that is, they will slip the release if necessary to include them. These two items are the 2.6 Linux kernel and SELinux functionality integrated into the distribution.

The International Telecommunications Union's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was last week. Of particular interest was a moderated debate on the issue of preferential treatment for open-source products in government procurement. John Carroll editorializes for proprietary software and RMS on the other side, against it.

Show reports from last Saturday's AmigaOS4 event in Bath(UK) are now available here, here and here. Also a short video from the event is available which shows Quake2 running hardware accelerated on AmigaOS4 and a real-time calculating fractal demo.

According to their website, Xandros 2.0 is now shipping. The site also states that "Users with high-speed connections can purchase and download both the Deluxe and Standard editions of Xandros Desktop 2 at www.xandros.com", but their download section still states "Xandros Desktop OS is not currently available for download." Supposedly they will also have a free, 30-day evaluation version available for download.

Interchange, though not as well-known as other open source projects like Linux and Apache, nevertheless forms the backbone for many companies' technology efforts, large and small. After being absorbed by Red Hat, then cut loose as that company narrowed its focus, its development community has continued to expand the project, and released version 5.0 yesterday. Read the announcement and the release notes. If you need to build a customized, database-driven web application, check it out.

"By now, Windows and Unix are functionally more similar than different. They both support the same major programming metaphors, from command lines to GUIs to web servers; they are organized around virtually the same panoply of system resources, from nearly identical file systems to memory to sockets and processes and threads. There's not much about the core set of services provided by each operating system to limit the kinds of applications you can create. What's left is cultural differences." Read the article by JoelOnSoftware.

The UPS man rang my buzzer. I sat in my chair sweating bullets. Do I even dare? Despite better judgment, I buzzed him in. "Did anyone see you?" I asked in a nervous voice. "Uh, just sign here." He gave me an annoyed look and after getting my John Hancock, he handed me the package. I hurriedly closed my blinds, fearful someone might see the contents as I opened it. The package sat on my coffee table for about an hour while we (that is to say, me and the package) stared each other down. A scene from the cult classic Terry Gilliam movie Time Bandits came to mind: "Mum! Dad! Don't touch it! It's pure evil!"

IsComputerOn reports that Axel Dörfler, OpenTracker's maintainer, would like everyone's opinion on a new feature he is working on: If, let's say, you have folder A and folder B, both showing (their contents) in Tracker windows. You want to create a link (or move, or copy) folder A to folder B, you right-click and drag the little icon (screenshot) into folder B, no need to go to the parent folder of A and then drag it.

The latest Sun Microsystems Java 1.4.2 release update is out, version 1.4.2_03. The only change in this release deals with a CA certificates update in cacerts file.

Microsoft plans to reorganize its Windows unit, creating a new division more tightly focused on the development of the core operating system, CNET News.com has learned. Also, Microsoft posted a review of their technology for 2003 and a preview for 2004.

The latest beta of KDE's 3.2, beta 2, was released a few days ago. I installed the provided Fedora RPMs and had a look in this early pre-release version of the popular X11 desktop environment. Six screenshots are included. We look at both the strengths and the weaknesses of the DE.

Slashdot reports that Intel has released version 8.0 of their C/C++ compiler for both Windows and Linux. This release has been rumored for a long time to contain better GCC source and binary compatibility.