Development
The Open Clip Art Library
The Open Clip Art Library is An Online Massive Open Source 2d Graphics Repository according to the project FAQ. The project was started in early 2004, it now boasts over 3,000 images. The goal of the project is simple and clear:
This project aims to create an archive of clip art that can be used for free for any use.
All graphics submitted to the project should be placed into the Public Domain according to the statement by the Creative Commons.
Version 0.10 of the library was just released:
We have packaged up this month's release and our package size has gone up from a 20M package to 23M. We now have 3207 images that pass our Library tests and have the proper meta-data embedded. Its pretty amazing!
Images are stored as SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) and PNG (Portable Network Graphics) files in a multi-level directory tree. To get an idea of the available images, the library's top level directories include:
animals, buildings, computer, decorations, education food, geography, logos, office, people, plants, recreation, shapes, signs_and_symbols, special, transportation, unsorted
See the online clip art browser for examples.
New clip art images may be created with applications such as Inkscape and Sodipodi, typical office users can then import the images into OpenOffice.org, KWord, and AbiWord, or any other application that supports the SVG or PNG formats.
The project releases are being synchronized with timely events:
"
Our community focused on submitting Valentines Day clip art to help everyone with the upcoming holiday. For the month of February we are trying to collect images related to 'black history month'.
"
The
project roadmap gives a good indication of where the work is
being focused for future releases.
The complete version 0.10 library is available for download here (23 MB). Also, a set of Perl language tools (zip file) are available for working with the clip art archive.
If you need a selection of images for creating web pages, holiday cards, or presentations, the Open Clip Art Library is the first place to look. If you have an artistic ability, the project could surely make use of your contributions.
System Applications
Audio Projects
Planet CCRMA Changes
The latest changes from the Planet CCRMA audio utility packaging project include a cleanup of the Fedora Core repository, new kernels, and new versions of ALSA, and the CMT LADSPA Plugins.
Database Software
PostgreSQL Weekly News
The January 28, 2005 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is out with a collection of the latest PostgreSQL database articles.
Interoperability
Samba 3.0.11rc1 Available for Download
Version 3.0.11rc1 of Samba has been announced. "This is a release candidate of the Samba 3.0.11 code base and is provided for testing only. While close to the final stable release, this snapshot is *not* intended for production servers. If all goes well, this this version will become the final 3.0.11 stable release (with possible minor changes)."
Libraries
ObjectHandler 0.1.0 released (SourceForge)
Version 0.1.0 of ObjectHandler, part of the QuantLib library for quantitative finance, has been announced. Here is the change explanation: "QuantLib (or any generic C++ library) integration into spreadsheets and other end user tools requires a standalone ObjectHandler component, a repository allowing objects to be stored, shared, updated, interrogated, and destroyed."
Networking Tools
Release of iptables-1.3.0rc1
Release 1.3.0rc1 of iptables, a packet filtering framework, is available. "1.3.0rc1 is the first release candidate of the iptables-1.3.x branch, featuring a libiptc rewrite for major performance improvements at rule loading time. Apart from that, a surprisingly big number of small bug fixes have accumulated since the 1.2.11 release in June 2004."
SSL-Explorer v0.1.7 released! (SourceForge)
Version 0.1.7 of SSL-Explorer, an open-source SSL VPN solution, has been announced. "This release includes many new features, the most important of which being the automatic installation of Java applications from our online application store as well as client-side native application execution. Also HTML-based application content may now be launched in a similar manner to provide support for Java Applets and ActiveX controls through the VPN."
Desktop Applications
Audio Applications
Aqualung 0.9beta4 released
Version 0.9beta4 of Aqualung, a music player with gapless track changes, is available. "This new release adds many new features, including file metadata (FLAC/Vorbis/ID3) display & importing, volume calculation and playback RVA (relative volume adjustment) support."
ccAudio2 Version 0.2.1 (beta) released
Beta version 0.2.1 of ccAudio2 has been announced. "'ccaudio2' is a simple, highly portable, stand-alone, C++-based framework for manipulation of audio data. It is meant to be a C++ framework that is as useful as "audiofile" or "sndfile" is for C programming, and to cover various generic and useful manipulations of audio data as well as audio file access. The package includes a stand-alone audio processing command line tool to demonstrate library functionality." See the Change Log for a description of changes in this version.
QjackCtl 0.2.14 released!
Version 0.2.14 of QjackCtl, Qt application for controlling the JACK sound server daemon, has been released. "No big features, only a bunch of optimizations and cleanups."
jack_convolve 0.0.4 announced
Version 0.0.4 of jack_convolve, a convolution engine for jackd, has been announced. Here are the change notes: "new version. the executable is called jack_convolve again. I added libsamplerate support and support for multiple response files."
CAD
Twenty-second release of PythonCAD now available
Release 22 of PythonCAD is available. "The twenty-second release contains primarily internal code enhancements in regards to the Python language. PythonCAD running under PyGTK releases after the 2.4.0 release will now utilize the gtk.ComboBox and the gtk.ColorButton widgets, while PythonCAD running under older releases will still utilize the same widgets as before. This change removes the DeprecatationWarning users with the newer PyGTK release would see. A problem where restoring a deleted TextBlock entity was fixed, and a variety of other fixes and improvements are also included in this release."
Desktop Environments
GNOME Software Announcements
The following new GNOME software has been announced in the last week:- Epiphany 1.5.5 (interface improvements, bug fixes)
- Epiphany Extensions 1.5.6 (new extensions, bug fixes)
- Pyphany 0.1 (initial release)
- gtkmm 2.5.6 and glibmm 2.5.5 (support for more compilers)
- gtkmm 2.4.10 and glibmm 2.4.6 (support for more compilers)
- Gazpacho 0.4.0 (bug fixes and other improvements)
- Coaster 0.1.4.1 (bug fixes)
- Gnome OSD 0.7.0 (new features)
- mCatalog 0.1 (first beta release)
- GtkHTML 3.5.5 (bug fixes and translation work)
KDE Software Announcements
The following new KDE software has been announced in the last week:- amaroK 1.2-beta4 (bug fixes and other improvements)
KDE CVS-Digest (KDE.News)
The January 28, 2005 edition of the KDE CVS-Digest is online. Here's the content summary: "Digikam adds an image border tool. Kopete oscar_rewrite merged into HEAD. Plus many bugfixes and improvements in Quanta and Kopete."
Electronics
Games
Eris 1.3.3 Released
Version 1.3.3 of Eris, a client-side session layer for the WorldForge game project, has been released. "This is the third unstable release of the current development work that will become Eris 1.4, and is being made to coincide with the release of Ember. Minor API changes have taken place since the previous release, related to how Eris::Connection reports time-outs (they are now handled by the existing Failure signal). Various crashes related to time-outs and the meta-server query code have been resolved."
GUI Packages
Linux GUI Testing tool - release 0.1.0
Initial release 0.1.0 of the Linux GUI Testing tool is out. "This is the first release of a testing framework for GNOME, Open Office, Firefox, and QT4 (though at this point only tested against GNOME.) Ideally it'll allow for regular automated testing of complete desktops, just like LTP allows the kernel to do. The main development so far has been done by a Novell group in bangalore, but they'd love to have more involvement from outside."
FLTK News
The latest news from the FLTK project (Fast, Light ToolKit) include the release of version 1.0 of the FLTK training videos, fldiff 0.3, and a home site update.
Interoperability
Wine Traffic
The January 28, 2005 edition of Wine Traffic is available with all of the latest Wine project discussions.
Medical Applications
Future of FreeB (LinuxMedNews)
Fred Trotter posted an article on LinuxMedNews concerning the future of the FreeB medical billing system. "Yesterday I spent several hours talking to David Uhlman about a new approach to medical billing. As a result of this discussion I have decided to hand over the reigns of FreeB development to him and his new company, Uversa For a good few of you, that is really all you will care to know about this issue. FreeB development will continue, and its main goals, to be a separate biller useful to several projects will continue. Some of you will be curious as to why... so that rather lengthy technical monologue follows."
Music Applications
liblo 0.16 announced
Version 0.16 of liblo, the Lite OSC library, is available with bug fixes. "Liblo, the Lite OSC library, is an implementation of the Open Sound Control [1] protocol for POSIX systems. It is written in ANSI C and released under the GNU General Public Licence. It is designed to make developing OSC applictions as easy as possible."
MIDI to CSV Utilities 1.0
Version 1.0 of the MIDI to CSV (comma separated values) Utilities have been announced. "Not a long time ago, somebody asked in Linux-audio-users mailing list for a commandline utility allowing MIDI to text conversion. I'm proud to introduce you a set of tools from John Walker, who wrote and released it into the public domain."
Office Suites
ooo-build 1.3.8 Announced
Build 1.3.8 of OpenOffice.org has been announced. This version adds several new features, GCC 3.4 support, and lots of bug fixes.OpenOffice.org Newsletter - Volume 02 - Issue 7 - 01/2005
The January, 2005 edition of the OpenOffice.org Newsletter is online with a number of new articles.Hacking Open Office (O'Reilly)
Peter Sefton works with OpenOffice.org internals on O'Reilly. "In this article, I'm going to explore some of the ways that OpenOffice.org's Writer application (I'm using version 1.1.2 on Linux and 1.1.3 on Windows XP) is open to customization and configuration. I'll walk through some of the techniques I used to set up the first templates I built with the application in my quest for an interoperable, XHTML-ready system of templates and styles which will work across Microsoft Word and Writer."
Video Applications
gephex 0.4.2 released
Version 0.4.2 of gephex, a real-time video effects platform, is available. "0.4.2 is a bugfix and stabilization release of the 0.4 branch. It also introduces minor feature enhancements."
Web Browsers
Updated Schedule for Mozilla Firefox 1.1 (MozillaZine)
MozillaZine covers the latest release schedule for version 1.1 of the Firefox browser. "The final version of 1.1, previously scheduled for March, will now be released a little later than originally planned (an exact date isn't given). In addition, there will be a series of test builds issued before 1.1 final: a Developer Preview, a Preview Release and one or more release candidates. Mozilla Firefox 1.1 isn't expected to contain any major new features but will include updated versions of core components such as Gecko, which has received many improvements over the last few months."
Firefox Roadmap Update (MozillaZine)
MozillaZine covers the latest Firefox 2.0 Roadmap. "The update calls for a Developer Preview (Alpha) in March, a Preview Release (Beta) in April and Firefox 1.1 final release in June 2005."
Pyphany: Epiphany Python Bindings (GnomeDesktop)
GnomeDesktop looks at the Pyphany project. "Yesterday marks the first Pyphany release. Pyphany is a set of Python bindings for Epiphany and a Python extension loader for Epiphany. You can use Pyphany to write Python extensions for the Epiphany web browser."
Languages and Tools
Caml
Caml Weekly News
The Caml Weekly News for January 25 - February 1, 2005 is out with the latest Caml language articles.
HTML
Nvu 0.80 Released (MozillaZine)
Version 0.80 of the Nvu web authoring system has been announced. "Also known as Nvu 1.0 Beta pre-Release 3, this latest version has experimental XHTML support, line numbers in the HTML Source view, support for editing PHP code and HTML comments and fixes for many bugs."
Java
Internals of Java Class Loading (O'ReillyNet)
Binildas Christudas discusses Java class loading issues on O'Reilly. "When are two classes not the same? When they're loaded by different class loaders. This is just one of many curious side effects of Java's class-loading system. Binildas Christudas shows how different class loaders relate to one another and how (and why) to build your own custom class loader."
Advanced Synth (IBM developerWorks)
Michael Abernethy looks at Synth on IBM developerWorks. "Take an in-depth look at the Synth look and feel, the newest addition to Swing introduced in Java 5.0. Synth lets developers rapidly create and deploy custom looks for an application by introducing the concept of a "skin" to Java UI programming. Software Engineer Michael Abernethy takes you through Synth concepts step-by-step to build an application with a Synth look from scratch. After reading this article, you should be able to create professional-looking UIs in no time."
An Introduction to Service-Oriented Architecture from a Java Developer Perspective
Debu Panda works with SOA architecture applications under Java on O'Reilly. "The use of heterogeneous technologies and applications in corporations is a reality. At a time when resources are scarce, IT shops cannot just throw away their existing applications; rather, they must leverage their existing investments. service-oriented architecture (SOA) is popular because it lets you reuse applications and it promises interoperability between heterogeneous applications and technologies. In this article, I will introduce SOA from a Java developer perspective and examine the technologies available in the Java space to build service-oriented applications."
Lisp
CL-PPCRE 1.2.1 released
Version 1.2.1 of CL-PPCRE, a Perl-compatible, fast, portable regular expression library written in Common Lisp, is out. "These versions provide a cleaned-up build procedure, performance improvements, better Allegro CL compatibility, and a few bug fixes."
SBCL 0.8.19 released
Version 0.8.19 of Steel Bank Common Lisp has been released. "This version features improvements to foreign library loading, debugging and profiling. SBCL has also been ported to native 64-bit mode on x86-64/Linux."
PHP
Active Calendar 1.0.1 Released
Stable version 1.0.1 of Active Calendar, a PHP class that generates calendars as HTML tables, has been announced. "It generates calendar for 1971-2037 and can produce static calendars without any links or calendars with navigation controls, a date picker control, and linked days. User confige the layout through CSS; JavaScript is not required."
IBT PHP Library Release 0.9.2 Stable (SourceForge)
Stable release 0.9.2 of the IBT PHP Library, a shell of high-level PHP functionality that encases PHP content and logic, has been announced. "The 0.9.2 release of the IPL is our second release. It has been thoroughly tested and is stable. This release comes earlier than expected and has, so far, outperformed expectations. 0.9.2 holds many exciting new features such as an entire workflow engine, the ability to create action scripts, a workflow class for building cusom workflow engines, a new email class to ease the tasks involved in sending email, and some added header and data manipulation functions."
Programming eBay Web Services with PHP 5 and Services_Ebay (O'Reilly)
Adam Trachtenberg uses PHP to work with eBay web services on O'Reilly. "By using eBay's web services APIs, members of the eBay Developers Program can hook into the eBay platform using XML to integrate eBay into their own applications."
Python
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!
The January 28, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is online with another week's collection of Python articles and resources.Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!
The February 1, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is out with new Python language articles and resources.Enhanced Interactive Python with IPython (O'ReillyNet)
Jeremy Jones looks at IPython on O'Reilly. "An interactive programming environment can be a powerful tool to assist in writing programs. Python has one as part of its standard distribution. Yet IPython, "an enhanced Interactive Python shell," is a far superior replacement."
Ruby
Ruby Weekly News
The January 24, 2005 edition of the Ruby Weekly News is available with the latest Ruby language articles.
Tcl/Tk
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!
The December 27, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with the week's Tcl/Tk articles.Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL
The February 1, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL is online, take a look for the latest Tcl/Tk articles.Scripting a Binary Tree Using Tcl (O'ReillyNet)
Michael Norton puts Tcl to work on binary trees. "I tend to use Tcl extensively because I look at this scripting language as a big tub of Lego bricks. Who doesn't like to play with Legos? To me, Tcl is Legos for the computer programmer. It comes with lots of bricks that snap together, enabling you to build something incredible. But here's a thought that will surely make the pragmatic C programmer's head spin. I'm going to put the Tcl language to work with managing binary trees."
XML
Formal Taxonomies for the U.S. Government (O'Reilly)
Michael Daconta explains XML taxonomies on O'Reilly. "The FEA DRM specifies three abstract layers of an organization's information: business context, information exchange, and data element description. Business context specifies the use of a taxonomy to categorize government information. One definition of a taxonomy is "a scheme that partitions a body of knowledge and defines the relationships among the pieces. It is used for classifying and understanding the body of knowledge.""
Cross Compilers
GNU Development Chain Release 3.0
Release 3.0 of the GNU Development Chain, a set cross compiler, debugger, and other utilities for the Motorola 68HC11/68HC12 microprocessor family, is out. "It is based on Binutils 2.15, Gcc 3.3.5, Gdb 6.2 and Newlib 1.12.0."
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