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DevelopmentMythTV - A Personal Video RecorderThe MythTV project by Isaac Richards is an effort to create a homebrew Personal Video Recorder (PVR).
MythTV is a homebrew PVR project that I've been working on in my spare time. It's been under heavy development for two years, and is now quite useable and featureful.
![[MythTV]](/images/ns/mythtv.png)
The project was started in April, 2002, the Background document details the early history and motivation for the creation of MythTV. The introduction section from the Installing and using MythTV document explains the project in more detail.
MythTV is a suite of programs that allow you to build the mythical home media convergence box on your own using Open Source software and operating systems.
Some of the main features of MythTV include:
Custom mini-distributions of MythTV are available for the Knoppix and Fedora Core Linux distributions and the XBox and VIA EPIA M hardware platforms. MythTV has also been built on Debian and Mandrake systems. To set up MythTV, new users should read the Checking prerequisites and System Configuration Requirements documents. MythTV version 0.17 was released this week, changes include native OS X support, a timestretch function, interface support improvements, a new firewire capture method, and wide screen/HTDV support in the user interface. See the UnderDevelopment document for details. MythTV would make a good platform for home use, it could also be envisioned as a platform for a commercial video product.
System Applications Database Software Bond 2.0.9 is availableStable version 2.0.9 of Bond has been announced. "BOND (building object network databases) is a rapid application development tool which allows you to develop GUI front ends to PostgreSQL databases. It uses XML to define widget layout and how to obtain information from databases. This project is designed to simplify the process of developing database applications for GTK."
Gentle.NET 1.2.0 released! (SourceForge)Version 1.2.0 of Gentle.NET, a database independent object persistence framework written in C# for .NET and Mono, is available. "This release adds an advanced caching subsystem and a provider for SQL Server CE. There have been major improvements to the configuration subsystem, error reporting, and a number of other components. A bug affecting the use of multiple brokers has been fixed. MySQL users should upgrade due to critical bugs in the MySQL library shipped with previous versions."
Perl Code Kata: Testing Databases (O'Reilly)Stevan Little uses Perl to test databases on O'Reilly. "This code kata introduces an alternate approach to testing database code, that of using mock-objects, and specifically of using the DBD::Mock mock DBI driver."
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe February 11, 2005 of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the week's PostgreSQL database articles.
Interoperability New stable release of Samba Console (1.1.23)Stable release 1.1.23 of Samba Console is available. "Samba Console is a web management console for Samba domain controlers. The goal is to give a better experience to the new Linux administrators that need to manage a production Samba server from anywhere using a simple web browser."
Libraries FreeImage 3.6.0 released (SourceForge)Version 3.6.0 of FreeImage, a library with support for the PNG, BMP, JPEG, TIFF and other image formats, is out. "FreeImage 3.6.0 brings many internal improvments with better toolkit functions (rotate, rescale), better support for the metadata API from other languages, better compression for the GIF plugin, and also an updated Delphi wrapper."
liboggz 0.9.0 ReleasedVersion 0.9.0 of liboggz, a C library for accessing Ogg Vorbis compressed audio data, is out with code cleanup, bug fixes, and more.
Networking Tools Release of iptables-1.3.0Version 1.3.0 of iptables, a packet filtering implementation, is out. "The final 1.3.0 version contains some minor bugfixes and is otherwise identical to the 1.3.0rc1 release candidate. 1.3.x is a major update to 1.2.11. Apart from fixing numerous bugs (see changelog), it contains the much-hyped libiptc rewrite."
Web Site Development Wiki module for phpWebSite released (SourceForge)The initial release of Wiki for phpWebSite has been announced. "Wiki for phpWebSite finally brings the power and convenience of a wiki to phpWebSite. This module requires phpWebSite version 0.10.0 or later. phpWebSite provides a complete web site content management system ( CMS ). All client output is XHTML 1.0 and meets the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative requirements."
mnoGoSearch-php 3.2.9 releasedVersion 3.2.9 of mnoGoSearch-php, a PHP frontend to the mnoGoSearch web site search engine, is available, it features one bug fix.
libannodex 0.6.0 ReleaseVersion 0.6.0 of libannodex, a C library for reading and writing Annodex media, is out with new features and bug fixes. "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."
mod_annodex 0.2.0 ReleaseVersion 0.2.0 of mod_annodex has been released. "mod_annodex is a module for Apache httpd, and provides server-side support for annodex media. Parallel versions are available for Apache versions 1.3 and 2.0."
mod_python 3.1.4 and 2.7.11 security fixVersions 3.1.4 and 2.7.11 of mod_python have been released with a security fix. See the release notes for details.
Writing Apache's Logs to MySQL (O'Reilly)Chris Josephes illustrates the use of PHP for managing Apache logs on O'Reilly. "In Profiling LAMP Applications with Apache's Blackbox Logs, I discussed using Apache's built-in logging directives to record server performance metrics. By recording performance metrics, web server administrators can have a historical record of how the server handled incoming HTTP requests. This article expands on that concept by adding a couple of logging directives and recording the logging data directly in a MySQL database."
Miscellaneous Bootchart 0.8 Released (SourceForge)Version 0.8 of Bootchart, a tool for performance analysis and visualization of the GNU/Linux boot process, is available. "Version 0.8 greatly improves the boot logger. External tools (such as top and iostat) are no longer used, as all data are collected from the proc file system directly. The installation procedure was also streamlined."
The Hula Project (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop covers the launch of the Hula project. "Nat wrote: Today we are thrilled to be launching Hula, a new project to build an open source mail and calendar server. Hula is a really exciting project already in part because we think that we can fill a hitherto-unclaimed spot in the stack of open source applications and in part because we've "primed the pump" by basing it on an existing, functioning codebase: a Novell product called NetMail."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications QjackCtl 0.2.15a releasedVersion 0.2.15a of QjackCtl, a GUI frontend to the Jack Audio Connection Kit, is out with an important bug fix.
Desktop Environments GNOME Software AnnouncementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
KDE Software AnnouncementsThe following new KDE software has been announced this week:
KDE CVS-Digest (KDE.News)The February 11, 2005 edition of the KDE CVS-Digest is online, here's the content summary: "Win32 tools and build support added to kdelibs. Digikam adds undo support for image editing. Kipi adds EPS image file format. KPDF begins work to support annotations. KDE now sports a new logo. Plus many bug fixes in preparation for the release."
A Fireside Chat on KDE Usabilty (KDE.News)Aaron J. Seigo chats with several KDE usability experts on KDE.News. "Recently, our very own Fabrice Mous asked if I might write an article about usability and KDE development. At first I was hesitant, and not just because I have a lot more hacking to get done before KDE 3.4 is released (which is soon). I often get asked about usability and the Open Source process, and even I sometimes get tired of having the same old conversations over and over. I thought that this time it would be refreshing to ask someone else these questions and see what they had to say. So I arranged to meet up with several people on IRC who are involved in software usability and the KDE project. Here's what ensued..."
Electronics XCircuit 3.3.9 releasedVersion 3.3.9 of XCircuit, an electronic schematic drawing package, is available. This version features changes to the selection mechanism.
Games Equator 0.1.0 ReleasedVersion 0.1.0 of Equator has been announced for the WorldForge game project. "Equator is a world builder client and general purpose editor. The aim is to create a single tool that has all the facilities required to build a game using WorldForge. This is the first alpha release of equator, and many features are not yet implemented, or do not work well."
Graphics Inkscape 0.41 ReleasedVersion 0.41 of the cross-platform Inkscape SVG drawing tool is out. "The primary focus of 0.41 has been bug fixing. With over 100 bugs fixed since the 0.40 release, this significantly strengthened Inkscape on Windows and for international users. We owe deep thanks to the many users who have worked patiently with us to report the problems and validate these fixes. Several serious crashes, memory leaks and mis-features are now corrected and certain areas are noticeably snappier thanks to user submitted bug reports. A couple new features also found their way in."
OSGEdit 0.6.0 is out (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop covers the release of OSGEdit 0.6.0, a 3d scene editor and composer that works with OpenSceneGraph. "This new version has big improvements in the interactivity, by using auto-commit of changes instead of deferred application. Other changes include support for editing particle systems, visual arrangement of properties into tabs, sync with OpenSceneGraph 0.9.8, port to MacOSX, and lots of usability/bug fixes."
Interoperability Release 20050211 of WineRelease 20050211 of Wine has been announced. Changes include work on the MSI dll, OLE work, and bug fixes.
Music Applications Rosegarden-4 1.0 released!Version 1.0 of Rosegarden 4, an audio and MIDI sequencer, has been released. "Rosegarden is one of the most comprehensive Linux music software projects, and is the only Linux application to offer full composition and recording capabilities to musicians who prefer to use classical notation."
SWH Plugins 0.4.13Version 0.4.13 of SWH Plugins, a set of audio effect plugins, has been announced. The project home page has more change information: "Changes include removal of denormals from the SC4 and SC4 mono plugins, and the fast lookahead limiter. These changes are especially important for people running JAMin on Pentium 4's. There is also some mild quality imrpovements to the tape delay and FAD delay, but more needs to be done there."
Office Suites ooo-build-1.9.78 announcedBuild 1.9.78 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."
Science Chemtool 1.6.6 ReleasedVersion 1.6.6 of Chemtool is available with a new bug fix. "Chemtool is a small program for drawing chemical structures on Linux and Unix systems using the GTK toolkit under X11."
Web Browsers Mozilla NewsThe minutes are available from the following Mozilla meetings: Also, Mitchell Baker has posted A blog discussion about the differences between mozilla.org staff and Mozilla Foundation Employees.
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe February 8-15, 2005 edition of the Caml Weekly News is online. Take a look for new Caml language articles.
Groovy MVC programming with Groovy templates (IBM developerWorks)Andrew Glover uses Groovy for MVC programming on IBM developerWorks. "Views are an integral part of MVC programming, which is itself a ubiquitous component of enterprise application development. In this installment of Practically Groovy, Andrew Glover shows how Groovy's template engine framework can simplify view programming and make your code more maintainable over time."
Java Creating Varargs in Java 1.5 Tiger (O'Reilly)O'Reilly has published an excerpt from the book Java 1.5 Tiger: A Developer's Notebook by Brett McLaughlin and David Flanagan. "In this excerpt from Chapter 5 of the book, Brett and David cover how to create and iterate over variable-length argument lists (better known as varargs), which will have you writing better, cleaner, more flexible code in no time."
Get pane relief with Tiger (IBM developerWorks)John Zukowski works with panes and Tiger on IBM developerWorks. "How many times have you written code with frame.getContentPane().add(), or forgotten to get the content pane before calling add() and ended up with an Error thrown at runtime? As consultant John Zukowski shows you in this Taming Tiger tip, these problems are a thing of the past."
Perl This Week in Perl 6 (O'Reilly)The February 1-8, 2005 edition of This Week in Perl 6 is out with the latest Perl 6 development news.
Python Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!The February 15, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is out with the latest Python articles and resources.
Ruby Ruby Weekly NewsThe February 13, 2005 edition of the Ruby Weekly News is available with the latest news and discussion from the ruby-talk mailing list.
Tcl/Tk Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!The February 14, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with the latest Tcl/Tk articles and resources.
XML Very Dynamic Web Interfaces (O'Reilly)Drew McLellan discusses dynamic web interfaces on O'Reilly. "One of the classic drawbacks to building a web application interface is that once a page has been downloaded to the client, the connection to the server is severed. Any attempt at a dynamic interface involves a full roundtrip of the whole page back to the server for a rebuild--a process which tends to make your web app feel inelegant and unresponsive. In this article, I'll be exploring how this problem can be tackled with the use of JavaScript and the XMLHttpRequest object."
Look up XML schemata and Web services with these helpful resources (IBM developerWorks)Uche Ogbuji has assembled a list of web resources for XML schemata and Web services on IBM developerWorks. "It's not always easy to find XML schemata and Web services that meet your exact needs. This tip shows you how to comb through the enormous variety of Internet resources to find schemata and Web services using common search criteria."
IDEs Eclipse Plugins Exposed, Part 1: A First Glimpse (O'ReillyNet)Emmanuel Proulx discusses Eclipse plugins on O'Reilly. "Many developers use Eclipse out of the box as an IDE, never investigating its powerful extensibility. But as Emmanuel Proulx shows in this first installment of a new series, Eclipse's modular system of plugins allow you to customize it to your suit your development needs."
Miscellaneous Luban: A New Component Oriented Programming LanguagePeter Xiaochuan Huang has announced his Luban programming language. "Happy new year of rooster to everybody! And we announce the birth of a new programming language: Luban. Luban is a component oriented scripting language created by Xiaochuan(Peter) Huang in New Jersey, USA. Peter Huang created Luban because he always wants better tools. He always wants something easier when using Java, and he always misses name space and interface when doing scripting. He eventually went out and created Luban: a scripting language with a simple and robust component model tailored for scripting.You may say Luban is positioned somewhere between Perl and Java."
Free RexxHoward Fosdick has put together a list of open-source tools and interpreters for the Rexx language. "Rexx's distinguishing characteristic is that it combines power with ease of use. The language is as easy as PHP or Basic but packs the power required to drive mainframes. It is a general-purpose language with a strong international standard that is used for both applications development and systems administration."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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