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Development

The GNOME 2.10 Desktop and Developer Platform

Version 2.10 of the GNOME 2.10 Desktop & Developer Platform was announced this week.

GNOME 2.10 includes a number of interesting new features, such as a video player and a CD ripping utility, and hundreds of bug fixes. Released on schedule, to the day, it is the culmination of six months effort by GNOME contributors around the world: hackers, documentors, usability and accessibility specialists, translators, maintainers, sysadmins, companies, artists, users and testers.

[GNOME 2.10] Digging a bit deeper, the What's New document describes a wide variety of improvements. Here are the highlights:

  • Nautilus file manager improvements:
    • Performance and stability improvements.
    • Better interoperability with web browsers.
    • Usability improvements.
    • Automatic renaming for new files.
  • New artistic desktop backgrounds to choose from.
  • Improved typing focus as per the Freedesktop.org standard.
  • Inclusion of the Totem video player.
  • Inclusion of the Sound Juicer CD ripper.
  • Epiphany web browser improvements:
    • A better full screen mode.
    • Secure site display in the location bar.
    • Exportable bookmarks.
    • A new extension manager.
  • Evolution email and groupware client improvements:
    • Support for offline email, contact, and calendar work.
    • The ability to attach files to events.
    • Support for exceptions on recurring events.
    • Support for US weather information.
    • Support for shared folders.
  • Inclusion of GnomeMeeting for VoIP and video conferencing.
  • Better keyboard layout selection through the control panel.
  • New and improved Panel Items (Applets):
    • Removal of the Actions panel menu.
    • New Places and Desktop menus.
    • An integrated modem control applet.
    • An optional panel trash can.
    • Built-in controls for mounting removable media.
    • An improved weather monitor.
    • A new sound mixer.
    • Support for the Sticky Notes note taking applet.
    • A processor speed monitor for laptops.
    • Removal of the CD applet, the Wireless applet, and the Mailbox Monitor.
  • GNOME Utilities improvements:
    • GNOME text highlighting and spell checking improvements.
    • A wider selection of archive formats for the Archive Manager.
    • The GNOME Dictionary adds word suggestions and online dictionary linking.
    • The Floppy Formatter adds support for USB drives.
  • System Administration improvements:
    • GNOME System Tools has improved support for wireless networking.
    • User and group administration has been improved.
    • More system changes are applied instantly.
    • The Log Manager now supports the viewing of multiple logs.
    • Archived logs can now be opened.
    • Logs can be copied to the clipboard.
  • Game Improvements:
    • A new version of Same GNOME has been added.
    • The Nibbles game adds browsing of the local network for other users.
  • The GNOME 2.10 Development Platform has API improvements.
  • Full Python language bindings are now included.

The Release Notes mention improved internationalization, continuing standards compliance, a few known issues (bugs) and more.

There is also a GNOME 2.12 release schedule, look for the next version in about 6 months.

GNOME 2.10 adds some useful features to what is already a mature and stable desktop environment.

The source code for GNOME 2.10 and a live CD are available for download here.

Comments (none posted)

System Applications

Database Software

Firebird 2.0 Call for testers

A call for testers has gone out for version 2.0 of the Firebird database. "The Firebird Project will soon be releasing the first public "alpha" release of Firebird 2.0. Version 2.0 is a long-awaited important major release of Firebird with many new features, enhancements and bugfixes (see alpha Release Notes for details). In number of changes, the jump in this release is equivalent if not greater than the transition from version 1.0 to version 1.5."

Comments (none posted)

Filesystem Utilities

Detox 1.1.0 is available

Version 1.1.0 of Detox is out. "Detox is a utility designed to clean up filenames. It replaces non-standard characters, such as spaces, with standard equivalents." See the Change Log for change information on this version.

Comments (none posted)

Networking Tools

Release of iptables 1.3.1

Version 1.3.1 of iptables, a firewall application, is out. "The final 1.3.1 version contains some minor bugfixes to the recently-released version 1.3.0".

Full Story (comments: none)

OpenSSH 4.0 released

OpenSSH 4.0 is out. There does not appear to be a big pile of new features to motivate the dot-zero version number; click below for the announcement and list of changes.

Full Story (comments: 2)

Peer to Peer

MantaRay version 1.6 released (SourceForge)

Version 1.6 of MantaRay, a peer-to-peer communication and messaging solution, has been annnounced. "MantaRay 1.6 includes new delivery algorithms that enforce stricter once and only once guaranteed delivery in queues and durable topic subscribers. The new algorithms also improved MantaRay's persistency. In order to better align MantaRay with the JMS specification, the receiver can now determine the message acknowledgment mode. In addition, several JMS bugs were fixed in this release."

Comments (none posted)

Printing

PyKota 1.21 released

Version 1.21 of PyKota, a Python-based print quota system for CUPS, has been announced. Changes include bug fixes, better documentation, and more.

Comments (none posted)

Telecom

Speex 1.1.7 Released

Version 1.1.7 of Speex, an audio CODEC, is out. "The changes for this release are very broad and include generic optimizations in the encoder, ARM-specific optimizations (gcc inline assembly), optional shortcuts in the encoder sacrificing quality for speed, fixed-point improvements (perceptual enhancement converted), reduction in memory usage, the Symbian code now uses the same API, and several bug fixes."

Comments (none posted)

Web Site Development

Midgard 1.6.3 "Threadened by Patents" Released

Version 1.6.3 of the Midgard Open Source Content Management Framework is out. "This is a maintenance release that includes some bug fixes and support for the new Zend Thread Safety (ZTS) mode in PHP."

Full Story (comments: none)

UnCommon Web 0.3.7 released

Version 0.3.7 of UnCommon Web, a web application development framework written in Common Lisp, is out. "This version makes it easier to upgrade live applications and provides a few changes to components."

Full Story (comments: none)

libannodex 0.6.1 Release

Version 0.6.1 of libannodex, a library for working with Annodex media, is available with bug fixes and other improvements.

Full Story (comments: none)

mod_annodex 0.2.1 Release

Version 0.2.1 of mod_annodex, an Apache module for working with Annodex media, has been released. It features support for a new time range format.

Full Story (comments: none)

Datamining Apache Logs with PostgreSQL (O'ReillyNet)

Robert Bernier looks at Apache log files through PostgreSQL on O'Reilly. "System log files encapsulate a wealth of information for administrators and developers. Teasing that data out of the logs into a format that reveals patterns may be a challenge, though. Robert Bernier shows how to parse, store, and query Apache httpd log data from PostgreSQL to find useful information."

Comments (none posted)

Desktop Applications

Desktop Environments

GNOME Software Announcements

The following new GNOME software has been announced this week:

Comments (none posted)

KDE Software Announcements

The following new KDE software has been announced this week:

Comments (none posted)

KDE CVS-Digest (KDE.News)

The March 4, 2005 edition of the KDE CVS-Digest is online, here's the content summary: "Beginnings of Subversion support in Cervisia. Cleanup of initial application sizing. KDevelop adds QT Designer support for Python. IDN issues fixed in Konqueror. Digikam adds more plugins: Insert Text, Channel Mixer, Infrared, Blur, Distortion, and a new ratio crop tool. Kmail adds an account setup wizard."

Comments (none posted)

Xfce Weekly News launched

The first issue of the Xfce Weekly News has been launched, it covers the week of February 25 - March 3, 2005. Thanks to Biju Chacko.

Comments (none posted)

Xfce Foundation Classes Website Online

The Xfce project has announced the availablilty of a new Xfce Foundation Classes web site. "In October of last year Jeff Franks made an interesting proposition on the Xfce-Dev list. Jeff had developed a relatively complete and lightweight GTK+ binding for C++ called GTK+ Foundation Classes. For a number of reasons, Jeff felt that GFC needed a new home, and Xfce seemed the best bet. Now, after many months of hard work, Jeff announced the new Xfce Foundation Classes, with a first developer release and stack of well written documentation, all available from the new." Thanks to Biju Chacko.

Comments (none posted)

Music Applications

Jesusonic for Linux 0.99 beta

Christian heavy metal rockers should checkout the latest version of Jesusonic, a Freeware-licensed guitar effects processor for the Debian distribution. "The Jesusonic is a fully programmable effects processor for guitar, bass, vocal and general use. Effects can interact with each other (for example, a volume detection effect can trigger a tremolo effect), or (especially in the case of the Jesusonic CrusFX 1000) with the user (you can assign triggers to effects like loop samplers, for example). A wide assortment of built-in effects are included and users can modify effects or write completely new effects on the fly."

Comments (none posted)

liblo 0.18 announced

Version 0.18 of liblo, an implementation of the Open Sound Control protocol for POSIX systems, has been announced. "This is bugfix release and fixes a critical bug in 0.17 that bites when trying to connect multiple clients to one server. All users of 0.17 should upgrade as soon as possible."

Full Story (comments: none)

soprano sax soundfont

A new soprano saxophone soundfont has been announced.

Full Story (comments: none)

Office Applications

DataVision 0.9.0 released (SourceForge)

Version 0.9.0 of DataVision, a reporting tool, is available with numerous changes. "DataVision is an Open Source reporting tool similar to Crystal Reports. Reports can be designed using a drag-and-drop GUI. They may be run, viewed, and printed from the application or exported as HTML, XML, PDF, LaTeX2e, DocBook, or tab- or comma-delimited text files."

Comments (none posted)

Office Suites

OpenOffice.org 2.0 beta released

Version 2.0 beta of OpenOffice.org has been released. "This beta release is the result of many months work in expanding the functionality, performance and compatibility of the office suite. This intense effort has yielded impressive results including the addition of a new database module, implementation of the OASIS OpenDocument XML file format and a host of other new features and capabilities."

Full Story (comments: 1)

OpenOffice.org build 1.9.79.1 is out

Build 1.9.79.1 of OpenOffice.org has been announced. "This package contains Desktop integration work for OpenOffice.org, several back-ported features & speedups, and a much simplified build wrapper, making an OO.o build / install possible for the common man. It is a staging ground for up-streaming patches to stock OO.o."

Full Story (comments: none)

Web Browsers

Mozilla's Weekend at FOSDEM 2005 (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine covers browser issues from FOSDEM 2005. "Marson reports that Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe, said that "a few companies" have installed Mozilla Firefox or Mozilla Thunderbird on 100,000 systems. He also says that some parts of the French government are considering switching to Firefox. Based on comments from Gerv, the story reports that a US-based Fortune 100 company has rolled out Thunderbird to 50,000 PCs and is paying the Mozilla Foundation to customise it. According to Tristan, enterprises that are deploying Mozilla aren't shouting about it because they want to avoid damaging their relationships with Microsoft."

Comments (1 posted)

Minutes of the mozilla.org Staff Meeting (MozillaZine)

The minutes from the February 28, 2005 mozilla.org staff meeting are online. "Issues discussed include Mozilla 1.8 Beta 1, Mozilla 1.8 final, Mozilla Firefox 1.0.1, Mozilla Firefox 1.1, Mozilla Thunderbird 1.1, FOSDEM, update.mozilla.org, developer.mozilla.org and the international domain name Punycode spoofing issue."

Comments (none posted)

Word Processors

AbiWord 2.2.5 Released (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop covers the release of AbiWord 2.2.5, a word processor. "While AbiWord v2.2.4 had a nice list of bugfixes, our users were kind enough to report that there were still nasty bugs running around. So here we are releasing AbiWord v2.2.5, shorty after the previous release. This release is a bugfix release only."

Comments (none posted)

Miscellaneous

Gourmet Recipe Manager 0.8.0 Released! (SourceForge)

Version 0.8.0 of Gourmet Recipe Manager has been announced. "Gourmet can import most major recipe formats, including mealmaster and mastercook, and can export a number of useful formats, including HTML. Version 0.8.0 marks a number of major improvements, including a new improved speed for imports, a new recipe card interface, infinite Undo throughout the interface, and experimental MySQL and SQLite backends."

Comments (none posted)

Nvu 0.9RC1 Released (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine has an announcement for the first beta release of Nvu 0.9, a cross-platform web authoring system. "Nvu 0.9RC1 includes improvements to the Link dialogue, printing fixes and a new default theme. There are builds for Windows, Linspire 5.0, Fedora Core 3 and Mac OS X, with a source tarball also available."

Comments (none posted)

Open Clip Art Library Release 0.11 Announcement (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop.org has the announcement for release 0.11 of the Open Clip Art Library, a collection of small images. "Some of the new clip art received this month includes more images of food, computer-related items and even a little boombox. In addition to the collected 0.11 package, each clip art file can now be found by keywords using developer Jonadab's new Keyword Search Tool."

Comments (none posted)

Languages and Tools

Caml

Caml Weekly News

The March 1-8, 2005 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with the week's Caml language development news.

Full Story (comments: none)

Haskell

The Monad.Reader debut

The initial publication of The Monad.Reader, a monthly online Haskell language e-zine, is out. Thanks to Shae Matijs Erisson.

Comments (none posted)

HTML

Linking in XHTML 2.0 (IBM developerWorks)

Micah Dubinko explores the details of XHTML 2.0 hyperlinks on IBM developerWorks. "As a fundamental part of the Web, hypertext linking has been the subject of repeated attempts at standardization beyond the basic format allowed in simple HTML. Such attempts can be characterized as efforts to balance machine processing ability with authoring convenience. The latest specification in this area, XHTML 2.0, just might have gotten it right."

Comments (none posted)

Java

A Look at Commons Chain: The New Java Framework (O'ReillyNet)

Bill Siggelkow explores chains and the Java Framework on O'Reilly. "In part one of a two-part series, Bill Siggelkow covers the basics of Chain, a promising new framework from the Jakarta Commons subproject that lets you integrate Chain into the Struts build process."

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AOP and metadata: A perfect match, Part 1

Ramnivas Laddad discusses aspect oriented programming and metadata on IBM developerWorks. "In this first half of a two-part article, author Ramnivas Laddad provides a conceptual overview of the new Java™ metadata facility and shows where AOP could most benefit from the addition of metadata annotations. He then walks you through a five-part design refactoring, starting with a metadata-free AOP implementation and concluding with one that combines the Participant design pattern with annotator-supplier aspects."

Comments (none posted)

Aspect-Oriented Annotations (O'Reilly)

Bill Burke covers Aspect-Oriented Annotations on O'Reilly. "Annotations are one of the new language features in J2SE 5.0, and allow you to attach metadata onto any Java construct. Meanwhile, Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) is a fairly new technology that makes it easier for you to encapsulate behavior that is usually messier, harder, or impossible to do with regular object-oriented (OO) techniques. Together, they make a new powerful combination that gives framework developers a more expressive way of providing their APIs. This article dives into combining these technologies using the JBoss AOP framework in various coding examples to show how you can use this combination to actually extend the Java language."

Comments (none posted)

Assertion Extensions for JUnit

Tony Morris introduces the Assertion Extensions for JUnit on IBM developerWorks. "Unit lets you test software code units by making assertions that the intended requirements are met, but these assertions are limited to primitive operations. IBM Software Engineer Tony Morris fills the gap by introducing Assertion Extensions for JUnit, which provides a set of complex assertions that execute within the JUnit framework. Follow along as the author shows you how using this new package from alphaWorks can increase the reliability and robustness of your Java software."

Comments (none posted)

Lisp

McCLIM 0.9.1 released

Version 0.9.1 of McCLIM, an open-source implementation of the CLIM 2 (Common Lisp Interface Manager) specification, has been released. "This version changes the installation process, includes a new Max OS X Cocoa backend, provides improved documentation and new applications/examples, and more."

Full Story (comments: none)

SBCL 0.8.20 released

Version 0.8.20 of SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp) has been released. "This version provides performance improvements and several bug fixes."

Full Story (comments: none)

Perl

Parrot 0.1.2 'Phoenix' Released (use Perl)

Version 0.1.2 of Parrot, the Perl 6 virtual machine, has been announced. Changes include new string handling code, the beginnings of a generational garbage collector, better Python support, improved test coverage, and more.

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A Plan for Pugs (O'Reilly)

chromatic interviews Autrijus Tang on O'Reilly. "Autrijus Tang is a talented Perl hacker, a dedicated CPAN contributor, and a truly smart man. His announcement of starting an implementation of Perl 6 in Haskell on February 1, 2005 might have seemed like a joke from almost anyone else. A month later, his little experiment runs more code and has attracted a community larger than anyone could have predicted. Perl.com recently caught up with Autrijus on #Perl6 to discuss his new project: Pugs"

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Automate Perl module deployment (IBM developerWorks)

Martin C. Brown works with Perl module deployment on IBM developerWorks. "If you run Perl across many different computers of any sort, you know how frustrating it can be to install Perl extension modules across those machines. The administrative process is even worse if you have a Web server farm and need to keep each machine up to date with a set suite of extension modules for your installation. CPAN helps, but there are issues with CPAN that make it an unwieldy solution for use on a network. This article provides possible solutions before covering the final system. The main goals are a unified installation/module set, a single download, and a guaranteed unified set of version numbers across all the computers in the network."

Comments (none posted)

Python

Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!

The March 7, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is out with the week's Python language articles.

Full Story (comments: none)

python-dev Summary

The February 2-14, 2005 edition of the python-dev Summary is out with coverage of activity from the python-dev mailing list.

Full Story (comments: none)

python-dev Summary

The February 15-28, 2005 edition of the python-dev Summary is online with coverage of the python-dev mailing list traffic.

Full Story (comments: none)

Ruby

Ruby Weekly News

The March 6, 2005 edition of the Ruby Weekly News is available with the latest news and discussion from the ruby-talk mailing list.

Comments (none posted)

Rolling with Ruby on Rails, Part 2 (O'ReillyNet)

O'Reilly has published part two of a series on Rails with Ruby. "Curt Hibbs introduced Ruby on Rails by building a simple but functional web application in just a few minutes. Does the ease of use continue? He thinks so. In the second of two parts, Curt completes his example Rails application in merely 47 lines of code."

Comments (none posted)

Og: Teaching Ruby objects how to persist

George Moschovitis explains ObjectGraph (Og) on the RubyGarden. "RDBMS systems are a proven and robust technology for storing and querying data, but after experiencing the wonders of Ruby, it is hard not to wish for a better way to integrate the OOP and Relational paradigms. Og makes your dream come true! Og stands for ObjectGraph and provides a transparent way to make your objects persistent while leveraging the full querying power of an RDBMS system. In fact, Og is designed to use an RDBMS system like MySQL or PostgreSQL to implement the actual data store where the objects are serialized."

Comments (none posted)

Tcl/Tk

Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!

The March 7, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with another weekly roundup of Tcl/Tk articles and resources.

Full Story (comments: none)

XML

Batch processing XML with XSLT 2.0 (IBM developerWorks)

Jack Herrington writes about XML batch processing on IBM developerWorks. "A common problem with XSLT is that it takes only a single XML file as input. You can use a cross-platform Java™ tool to create an XML directory listing, then use XSLT to process every file in the directory from that listing. This tip covers installation and use of such a tool, as well as the corresponding XSL that processes multiple files from the directory listing."

Comments (none posted)

Show Me the Code (O'Reilly)

Joe Gregorio codes a bookmark service on O'Reilly. "In my inaugural article, I outlined the four basic steps you needed to follow when creating a RESTful web service. Now let's take those basic steps and follow them through a worked example. To stay on familiar ground we'll create something that you may find familiar: a web bookmark service."

Comments (none posted)

Getting Started with XQuery (O'Reilly)

Bob DuCharme has put together an introductory article about XQuery on O'Reilly. "Although the W3C's XQuery language for querying XML data sources is still in Working Draft status, the recent XML 2004 conference showed that there's already plenty of interest and many implementations. While the Saxon implementation may not scale up as much as the disk-based versions that use persistent indexes and other traditional database features, you can download the free version of Saxon, install it, and use XQuery so quickly that it's a great way to start playing with the language in order to learn about what this new standard can offer you."

Comments (none posted)

Gems from the Mines: 2002 to 2003 (O'Reilly)

Uche Ogbuji mines the XML-SIG mailing list on O'Reilly. "In this article I continue where the last one left off, mining the XML-SIG archives for 2002 and 2003. As always, I have updated code where necessary to use current APIs, style, and conventions in order to make it more immediately useful to readers. All code listings are tested using Python 2.3.4 and PyXML 0.8.4."

Comments (none posted)

Miscellaneous

Introducing the IBM Rational Unified Process (IBM developerWorks)

Mats Wessberg introduces IBM's Rational Unified Process (RUP) framework, and discusses improvements that can be made to the traditional process of software development. "To introduce beginners to the RUP framework, the process of software development is often compared to the construction process. But software development with the RUP is actually more like making a movie than building a house, as this article suggests."

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