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DevelopmentThe R Project for Statistical ComputingThe R project is building an open-source GPL-licensed language for statistical computing and graphics, R has its roots in the S language, which was originally developed by AT&T's Bell Labs. See the Evolution of S document for a complete history of the language. The R project was originally started at the University of Auckland, it now includes a lengthy list of contributors. R is being developed under the guidance of The R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
R can be considered as a different implementation of S. There are some important differences, but much code written for S runs unaltered under R.
R provides a wide variety of statistical (linear and nonlinear modelling, classical statistical tests, time-series analysis, classification, clustering, ...) and graphical techniques, and is highly extensible. The S language is often the vehicle of choice for research in statistical methodology, and R provides an Open Source route to participation in that activity.
The R environment contains an integrated set of software tools including:
Version 2.0.0 of R was released this week. "This new release marks more a coming of age than a radical change of the product. Since the release of 1.0.0 on February 29, 2000, R has developed steadily and settled on a release cycle with a "dot-release" two times per year." New features available in R 2.0.0 include:
If you are looking for an extensive set of tools for visualizing data, R is certainly worth investigating. The source code for R is available from the The Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN).
System Applications Audio Projects FLAC 1.1.1 has been releasedVersion 1.1.1 of FLAC, the free, lossless audio codec, has been released. "There is a new changelog with a complete list of changes/fixes/improvements, but the main ones include: almost 2x decoding speedup on Macintosh, better Ogg FLAC support, and several new options to flac and metaflac."
Database Software New test version of knoda 0.7.2-test1 releasedVersion 0.7.2-test1 of Knoda, a database front-end is available. "The main new features: View support for PostgreSQL, Sqlite, and ODBC has been added. The ODBC driver has been improved a lot. Some bugs have been fixed."
PostgreSQL 8.0 Beta 3 ReleasedVersion 8.0 Beta 3 of PostgreSQL has been released. "Its been almost 4 weeks since we've released PostgreSQL 8.0 Beta2, and there have been enough improvements to the code to warrant a new Beta, to reduce the number of "already fixed" bug reports."
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe October 5, 2004 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the week's PostgreSQL database development news.
How to Misuse SQL's FROM Clause (O'Reilly)Stéphane Faroult looks at common problems with the SQL FROM clause on O'Reilly. "It may seem surprising to state it so, but the FROM clause of SQL statements seems to be one of the most often misused parts of SQL queries. Misused? How is that possible? We put into the FROM clause all the tables to join together in a query, don't we? Well, well, well. Not quite. At the risk of sounding pedantic, perhaps a bit of (applied) theory would be welcome."
Embedded Systems Embedded Linux Training MaterialsMichael Opdenacker has announced a 500 page training document on embedded Linux systems. "It features 3 trainings (Introduction to Unix and GNU/Linux, Embedded Linux kernel and driver development, Development tools) as well as 4 presentations (Java in embedded Linux systems, Linux 2.6 new features, Introduction to uClinux, Real-time in embedded Linux systems). The 500-page materials are released under the GNU Free Documentation License".
Filesystem Utilities Announcing gnomevfs-mount 0.0.1The initial release of gnomevfs-mount is out. "Since I saw gmailfs, I wondered why gnome does not have a way to mount gnomevfs-uris on the linux filesystem. I have taken a look into fuse and I realized it would be very easy doing the same with gnomevfs."
GParted 0.0.5 releasedVersion 0.0.5 of GParted, the Gnome partition editor, is available. Changes include i18n support, bug fixes, and UI improvements.
Libraries libannodex 0.5.68 ReleasedVersion 0.5.68 of libannodex has been announced. "libannodex is a C library providing a simple programming interface for reading and writing Annodex media. Annodex is an open standards based technology that extends the World Wide Web's hyperlinking, searching, and compositing infrastructure to time-continuous data, enabling video surfing, searching for clips of audio and video files using ordinary Web search engines, and on-the-fly composition of a video on a Web server from previously annodexed clips." This release features improved temporal interleaving, lookahead for the Ogg and Anx importers, improved EOS handling, and more.
liboggz 0.8.5 ReleasedVersion 0.8.5 of liboggz, a C library for working with Ogg format compressed audio streams, is out. Changes include a new oggzmerge tool, a new OggzReadPage API, improvements to the seeking behavior, a seek-stress example program, bug fixes, and more.
libxklavier 1.04 releasedVersion 1.04 of libxklavier, the X Keyboard utility library, has been released. "This release is mostly bugfix. Some compilation problems on non-linux systems are resolved - and a small attempt to resolve some runtime problems was made (without breaking compatibility - more stuff will go into the devel branch to be started soon). Some memory leaks are cleaned up (thanks to kmaraas and valgrind). The only non-bugfix change is introduction of some simple test apps into the package - useful for debugging and as examples."
Mail Software bogofilter 0.92.7 releasedVersion 0.92.7 of bogofilter, a spam filter, is available. "A variety of small fixes have been made to bogofilter and bogotune and to their documentation."
Reporting Application Errors by Email (O'ReillyNet)Sean C. Sullivan shows how to send error messages via email in an O'Reilly article. "Even if your application logs an error to a local file, the developer doesn't know there's a problem until a user notices it and sends the log file back. It can be more useful for apps to email their own error messages back. And as Sean C. Sullivan explains, it's not hard to do with either log4j or java.util.logging."
Networking Tools Pads 1.1.3 Released (SourceForge)Version 1.1.3 of Pads, a signature-based network asset detection engine, is available. "This version of Pads is a feature and bug fix release. It has a new feature that allows MAC addresses to be resolved into hardware vendor names along with minor bug fixes."
Printing Common UNIX Printing System 1.1.22rc1Version 1.1.22rc1 of CUPS, the Common UNIX Printing System, has been released. "CUPS 1.1.22 is a bug fix release which fixes device URI logging, file descriptor and memory leaks, crashes related to printer browsing, and error handling in the browsing code. The new release also adds support for PostScript files from other Windows PostScript drivers."
Security Unicornscan 0.4.2 announcedUnicornscan, an information gathering and correlation engine, was launched this week. "Unicornscan is an attempt at a User-land Distributed TCP/IP stack. It is intended to provide a researcher a superior interface for introducing a stimulus into and measuring a response from a TCP/IP enabled device or network."
Web Site Development MediaWiki 1.3.5 released (SourceForge)Version 1.3.5 of MediaWiki, the collaborative editing software that runs the Wikipedia free encyclopedia, is out. "MediaWiki 1.3.5 is a security update, which contains a small fix for a potential cross-site scripting vulnerability. All MediaWiki 1.3.x users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to this latest release."
Quixote 1.1 ReleasedVersion 1.1 of Quixote, a Python-based web applications framework, has been released. The CHANGES file lists numerous bug fixes.
Silva 1.1 releasedVersion 1.1 (final) of Silva, a browser-based CMS for creating publications for the web, paper, and other media, is available. New features include XSLT support for rendering Silva objects, an XML export/system, abbr and acronym support, a new parser for the SilvaDocument forms-based editor, and bug fixes.
Whitebeam 0.9.30 ReleaseVersion 0.9.30 of Whitebeam, an XML based web application server, has been released. "This release of Whitebeam exposes a comprehensive server-side JavaScript API to the Postgres database."
NMS Project Needs Help (use Perl)Use Perl has posted a plea for help with the NMS project. "The nms project is a project that provides drop-in replacements for the CGI programs provided by Matt's Script Archive. The idea is to provide users with secure and well-written alternatives to Matt Wright's scripts. Even Matt recommends them. But the project is in danger of becoming a victim of its own success. We have a large number of users which is growing daily. And although we makes the programs as easy to install and use as possible, the... er... inexperience of our users means that we are getting a lot of support requests. We've also got a lot of ideas for enhancements but not enough time to implement them."
Miscellaneous GNOME CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor 0.3 announcedVersion 0.3 of the GNOME CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor (GNOME CPUFreq Applet), is out. Changes include the ability to change the CPU frequency, new and improved governors, and more.
Desktop Applications Accessibility ATutor 1.4.2 ReleasedVersion 1.4.2 of ATutor, a Web-based Learning Content Management System (LCMS) designed for accessibility and adaptability, is out. New features include: "Surveys and unmarked tests, secure content, system wide searching, category based themes, new languages, and more."
Business Applications OpenWFE 1.4.4 released (SourceForge)OpenWFE 1.4.4 is available. "OpenWFE is an open source java workflow engine. It is a complete Business Process Management suite, with 4 components : an engine, a worklist, a webclient and a reactor (host for automatic agents). It can also be used behind the scene. OpenWFE 1.4.4 introduces an important new feature in its process definition language : variable substitution. ${myvar}, when used in the attribute value of a tag gets resolved to the content of the myvar variable. Coupled to an iterator or a concurrent-iterator, it can simplify definitions dramatically."
CAD Seventeenth release of PythonCAD availableRelease 17 of PythonCAD, a Python-based CAD package, is available. "The seventeenth releases of PythonCAD can print! This release includes the ability of the program to generate a PostScript file that can either be sent to a printer or saved directly to a file. Printing support is not entirely complete however, and will be enhanced over the next several release. This release also includes improvements in the user interface for changing existing drawing entities, especially text and dimensions."
Desktop Environments KDE CVS-Digest (KDE.News)The October 1, 2004 edition of the KDE CVS-Digest is available. "Highlights of this week: XML autoindenter in Kate. Rendering speedups in Kolourpaint. New media:/ kioslave. Improved SQL parser in Kexi. Konversation adds support for SSL. Summary of Network-Integrated Multimedia Middleware, from the aKademy presentations."
Xfce 4.2 BETA1 is outThe Beta 1 release of Xfce version 4.2 has been released. "This is the first release based on the 4.1 development branch of Xfce, so inevitably it may include bugs. This beta release introduces many new features in comparison with Xfce 4.0.x."
Desktop Publishing LyX 1.3.5 is releasedVersion 1.3.5 of LyX, a document processor built on top of TeX, has been released. "This is mainly a bugfix release, with few notable user-visible improvements."
Advanced XML-based typesetting and printing (NewsForge)Jonathan Bartlett works with DSSSL, the Document Style Semantics and Specification Language, in a NewsForge argicle. "DSSSL is more than just a styling language like CSS. It is a full programming language, which means you can have stylesheets that are as complex and context-sensitive as you want. You can have if statements, procedures, and loops in your stylesheet, and you can custom-process XML documents yourself. DSSSL is based on the Scheme programming language."
Electronics Oregano 0.3.1 releasedVersion 0.3.1 of Oregano, a schematic capture and circuit simulation package, has been announced. "This release fixes backwards compatibility with GTK 2.2. There some UI bugfixes, Gnome HIG fixes, and Mac OS X support. Some translations are updated, and many are out of date."
XCircuit 3.3.0 releasedVersion 3.3.0 of XCircuit, an electronic schematic drawing package, is out. Changes include a new spice parser and PostScript display improvements.
Games Cyphesis 0.3.4 ReleasedVersion 0.3.4 of Cyphesis has been released. "Cyphesis is a small to medium scale server for WorldForge games, with builtin AI. This version includes the demo game Mason which is currently in development. This release is intended for server administrators wishing to run a Mason server or anyone wishing to work on serverside game development."
G3D 6.04 Released (SourceForge)Version 6.04 of G3D has been announced. "The G3D 3D Engine powers commercial games, graphics research, university courses, and hobbyist projects. You can use it to make your own 3D programs for MSVC 6, MSVC.NET, Linux, and OS X. The 6.04 release adds a new manual and tutorial, OpenGL 2.0 support, easy-to-use access to programmable hardware, and new demos including a network game infrastructure."
Four Cool Ways to Use Neural Networks in Games (O'Reilly)David M. Bourg and Glenn Seeman apply Neural Networks to Game software on O'Reilly. "In our book, AI for Game Developers, we cover many different AI techniques that are used in games. Many of the techniques we cover, such as chasing and evading, pathfinding, finite state machines, and rules-based systems, among others, have obvious applications in games. However, some of the other techniques we cover, such as neural networks, genetic algorithms, and Bayesian techniques, are not as familiar and thus their applications in games may not be as obvious."
GUI Packages PyGTK 2.4.0 announcedVersion 2.4.0 of PyGTK, the Python language bindings to GTK, is available. Changes include wrapping for objects in GTK+ 2.4.0, Enum and Flags wrapping, better constructor integration, threading improvements, bug fixes, and more.
Mail Clients Evolution 2.0.1 releasedStable version 2.0.1 of the Evolution mail client is out. "Evolution 2.0 is the stable version of the 1.5.x development series. It will upgrade your existing 1.4 install if you were not using 1.5 previously, but will not delete it until told to." Numerous bug fixes are included.
Multimedia KPlayer 0.5.2 released (SourceForge)Version 0.5.2 of KPlayer, a KDE media player, has been released. "The new 0.5.2 version features a brand new user manual, whats-this hints throughout the user interface including configuration dialog and file properties, improved mouse wheel support, several other improvements and bug fixes, and new Hungarian and Polish translations."
Office Applications Gnumeric 1.3.91 is outVersion 1.3.91 of the Gnumeric spreadsheet is available. "I would have liked to characterise this as just stabilisation release, but there is more in here than bug fixes. Yaacov Zamir and Morten cleared out lots of old code and synced the cell printing to use the same pango generation we used for display. While that was going on Emmanuel added some nice eye candy to the plots, grid lines. I was surprised by how much they add to the charts. The docs are also shaping up nicely."
Office Suites OpenOffice.org 1.1.3 is outStable version 1.1.3 of the OpenOffice.org office suite has been released. "OpenOffice.org 1.1.3 is ready for use by businesses, enterprises, governments and individuals, and offers near-perfect compatibility with legacy proprietary office suites such as Microsoft Office."
OO.o build-1.3.5.5 releasedBuild 1.3.5.5 of OpenOffice.org is available. "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."
OpenOffice.org NewsletterThe September 2004 edition of the OpenOffice.org Newsletter is online with the latest OOo office suite news.
Web Browsers Firefox 0.10.1 Released (MozillaZine)Version 0.10.1 of the Firefox browser has been announced. "The Mozilla Foundation today released Firefox 0.10.1, which patches a security hole that was discovered this week."
Mozilla 1.8 Alpha 4 Released (MozillaZine)MozillaZine has the announcement for Mozilla 1.8 Alpha 4. "New features include partial support for some new Web standards (such as CSS3), improvements to the popup blocker, keyboard shortcut improvements, virtual folders in Mail and Newsgroups (allowing one to save searches), a spellchecker included by default on Linux and, of course, too many bug fixes to mention."
Miscellaneous GNOME screen ruler announcedA new project, the GNOME screen ruler, has been announced. "This new app lets you measure things on the screen in pixels (inch and millimeter metrics coming soon). This type of ruler is quite popular on OSX. It's useful for graphics artists, GUI designers, maybe others."
viewglob 1.0 released (SourceForge)Version 1.0 of viewglob is out. "viewglob is a tool to increase the usability of the Unix shell by leveraging the expressiveness of graphical environments. It sits as a layer beneath an xterm and watches your bash or zsh shell activity as you type. An interactive GTK+ display shows the layout of relevant directories and highlights file selections and potential name completions. This 1.0 release makes several stability fixes and adds two useful features".
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe September 28 - October 5, 2004 edition of the Caml Weekly News is available. Take a look for the latest Caml language news.
Java Reduce code bloat with XDoclet (IBM developerWorks)Sing Li reviews XDoclet on IBM's developerWorks. "The open source XDoclet code-generation engine, an integral part of many leading Java frameworks, is often heralded as an enabler for attribute-oriented programming and continuous integration. But XDoclet also has an undeserved reputation for being difficult for beginning developers to grasp and master. In this article, the ever-popular Sing Li takes on XDoclet and reveals the simple yet elegant design at its heart, enabling you to understand the technology and put it to productive use."
Twice as Nice (IBM developerWorks)Andrew Glover explores Nice on IBM's developerWorks. "Nice is a JRE compatible, object-oriented language that brings tremendous expressiveness to the Java platform. Nice also lets you implement many of the cutting edge features found in Java 5 on any Java virtual machine. In this fourth installment of the alt.lang.jre series, regular contributor and all around "Nice" guy Andrew Glover walks you through some of the most exciting features of Nice."
Lisp SBCL 0.8.15 releasedVersion 0.8.15 of SBCL (Steel Bank Common Lisp) is available. "This version renames the image saving hooks, adds single-stepping of code to debugging facilities, supports saving cores with foreign code loaded, and fixes some bugs."
Using Java with LispBill Clementson has assembled a set of weblog entries on the topic of using Java with Common Lisp.
PHP Scry 1.1 Released (SourceForge)Version 1.1 of Scry, the Simple PHP Photo Album is available. "New features include: pagination, two URL modes, better legacy GD compatibility, easier setup, and optional exif support. Version 1.1 also corrects a number of outstanding bugs reported on SourceForge."
Conduct Web experiments using PHP, Part 1 (IBM developerWorks)Paul Meagher uses PHP to analyze web data on IBM's developerWorks. "This two-part article series offers Web developers a practical introduction to the design of experiments (DOE) and categorical data analysis (CDA). This first part demonstrates how to use PHP to implement an experimental protocol for measuring the effectiveness of a Web-based offer. The second part will examine analyzing the resulting data using CDA tools that we'll implement using PHP."
Python GnomePython 2.6.0 announcedVersion 2.6.0 of GnomePython, the Python language wrappers for the GNOME 2.6 APIs, is out with lots of changes.
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!The October 4, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is available. Take a look for numerous Python language articles.
python-dev SummaryThe latest python-dev Summary is out with coverage of the python-dev mailing list from September 1-15, 2004.
Tcl/Tk Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!The October 5, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is out with the week's Tcl/Tk article links.
UML Gaphor 0.6.0 announcedVersion 0.6.0 of Gaphor, a Python-based UML modeling environment, is out. New features include a code reverse engineer plugin, a diagram layout engine, and improved plugin support.
XML Don't Be Afraid to Drop the SOAP (O'Reilly)Sam Tregar explains some problems with SOAP on O'Reilly. "Two years ago I added a SOAP interface to the Bricolage open source content management system. I had high expectations. SOAP would give me a flexible and efficient control system, one that would be easy to develop and simple to debug. What's more, I'd be out on the leading edge of cool XML tech. Unfortunately the results haven't lived up to my hopes. The end result is fragile and a real resource hog. In this article I'll explore what went wrong and why."
Build Tools iCompile Automatic C++ Build System (SourceForge)Version 0.3 of iCompile, an automated C++ build tool, has been released. "This release contains a new manual and several new features like a --quiet option, the ability to automatically build static and dynamic libraries, and new configuration options."
Editors MlView 0.7.0 releasedVersion 0.7.0 of MlView, the GNOME XML editor, is available with a long list of improvements and bug fixes.
Miscellaneous Groovy, Java's New Scripting Language (O'ReillyNet)Ian F. Darwin explores Groovy in an O'Reilly article. "When some Java developers hear about Groovy, their first reaction often is, as mine was, "Oh, no, not another scripting language for Java." We already have, after all, JavaScript and Rhino, Jython, Jelly, BeanShell, JRuby, Tcl/Java, Sleep, ObjectScript, Pnuts, Judoscript, the Bean Scripting Framework (BSF)--which gives access to Perl, TK/Tcl, and more--and many others. But other developers have been hoping for a scripting language with the power of Perl, Python, or Ruby but without having to re-learn everything from the ground up."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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