LWN Weekly Edition
Front pageSecurity
Kernel development
Distributions
Development
Linux in the news
Announcements
Letters to the editor
->One big page
This page
Previous weekFollowing week
Sponsored link
Vyatta –
Linux & Open Source
Alternative to Cisco –
Advanced Routing,
Firewall, VPN, QoS..
Free Download ->
| |||||||||||
DevelopmentThe Xaraya Web Application Framework Xaraya (pronounced Zah-rai-ah) is a cross-platform web application framework that is available under a GPL license.The top level project description states:
Xaraya is an extensible, Open Source web application framework written in PHP and licensed under the GNU General Public License. Xaraya delivers the requisite infrastructure and tools to create custom web applications that include fully dynamic multi-platform Content Mangement Solutions (CMS).
In the simplest terms, Xaraya reduces web site development costs by introducing sophisticated administration tools & services which separate form, function, content, and design. With Xaraya, you work in a simple, structured environment to rapidly develop your website with diverse content, including out of the box, but customizable publications types and functionality.
The Xaraya system requirements include one of a number of different operating system platforms, a web server that supports PHP 4.1.2, and either the MySQL or PostgreSQL database. To set up the system, one must first go through the Preparation and installation steps. Following the basic installation, the Xaraya project tour explains the process of setting up and customizing Xaraya for your site's specific needs. The site configuration process is all performed using web-based configuration menus. Here is a quick summary of Xaraya capabilities:
Version 0.9.13 of Xaraya was released recently. "This release is a maintenance release and supplies key bug fixes to the core code since the last release. There has been much activity in Xaraya core development scenarios in recent months. Xaraya 0.9.13 provides us with an opportunity for a final bug fix release prior to the merging of these exciting development scenarios." The Xaraya design appears to be clean, professionally done, and easy to use. People who need to set up new web sites should give it a try. The code is available for download here.
System Applications Audio Projects Planet CCRMA Changes The latest changes from the Planet CCRMA audio utility packaging project include new versions of Ecasound, ZynAddSubFX, Rtirq, Jack, Qamix, and Beast.
Database Software PostgreSQL 8.0.2 released with patent fix PostgreSQL 8.0.2 is out. The main change is a significant one: the core cache management algorithm has been replaced. It seems that the old one, despite having been published at a USENIX conference, is patented by IBM, so the PostgreSQL hackers ripped it out and put in an unencumbered one. Click below for the announcement, or see this page for a good summary of the story behind this change.
PostgreSQL Weekly News The April 10, 2005 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with links to new PostgreSQL database articles.
Going Native: Making the Case for XML Databases (O'Reilly) Ronald Bourret promotes XML Databases on O'Reilly. "So what are the use cases for native XML databases? As John Merrells, one of the developers of Sleepycat Software's Berkeley DB XML, waggishly put it, there is only one use case, and that is simply, "Got XML?" In other words, if you have more than a handful of XML documents that you need to store, you should store them in a native XML database. The reasons are the same as for storing data in any other database; ease of management, enhanced query performance, concurrent access, transactional safety, security, and so on."
Filesystem Utilities Monitor Linux file system events with inotify (IBM developerWorks) Eli M. Dow uses inotify for file system monitoring on IBM developerWorks. "Inotify is a file system event-monitoring mechanism slated for inclusion in upcoming Linux kernels that is designed to serve as an effective replacement for dnotify, which was the de facto file-monitoring mechanism supported in older kernels. Inotify is a powerful, fine-grained, asynchronous mechanism ideally suited for a variety of file-monitoring needs including, but not limited to, security and performance. Learn how to install inotify and how to build a sample user-space application to respond to file system events."
Interoperability Samba 3.0.14 and 3.0.15pre1 Released Stable version 3.0.14 and testing version 3.0.15 pre 1 of Samba have been announced. The stable version features bug fixes, the testing version adds some new capabilities.
Libraries Oggz 0.9.1 Released Version 0.9.1 of Oggz, a C library for reading and writing Ogg format compressed audio files and streams, is out. Changes include the addition of the new oggzinfo and oggz-validate tools, bug fixes, and more.
Web Site Development Midgard 1.7 alpha 1 is available Version 1.7 alpha 1 of the Midgard web content management framework is out. Changes include a new site wizard, multi-language support, PAM and NTLM support, and more.
Mod_spambot 0.44 released Version 0.44 of Mod_spambot, an Apache module that prevents spambots from harvesting email addresses from web sites, is out with numerous improvements.
Quixote 2.0 released Version 2.0 of the Quixote web content management system is out. "In comparison to Quixote-1.2, I think the most notable change is the changed path traversal pattern. In Quixote 2, the Publisher delegates path traversal to an application-specific instance of the Directory class."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications Ecasound 2.4.1 released Version 2.4.1 of Ecasound, a command line audio recording utility, is available. Here are the changes: "aRts-plugin was added back to the distribution package and code for mp3 header parsing was rewritten. A new playlist mode was added to ecaplay. Many updates have been made to user and programmer documentation."
Data Visualization matplotlib 0.80 announced Version 0.80 of mathplotlib, a Python-based data plotting utility, has been announced. Changes include new plot limit capabilities, polygon editor improvements, and bug fixes.
Desktop Environments GNOME Software Announcements The following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
System Tools Backends have been moved to FreeDesktop Carlos Garnacho has announced the move of the System Tools Backends project. "The system-tools-backends module, recently splitted from the GNOME system tools, have been moved to FreeDesktop. IMO, being a project that can be quite handy and has no GNOME dependencies, that's the correct place for it, so that it can be used for other environments."
Qt 4.0 Beta 2 Released (KDE.News) The final beta release of Qt 4.0 has been announced. "In addition to improvements to the five key technologies presented in beta 1 - Arthur, Scribe, Interview, Tulip and Mainwindow - the second beta version incorporates nearly all new features, tools and resources that will appear in the Qt 4 final release."
Xfce Weekly News The April 8, 2005 edition of the Xfce Weekly News is available with the latest Xfce desktop news.
Games Wavy Navy 1.00 announced Version 1.00 of Wavy Navy, a Pygame shoot 'em up game, is out. "Created from scratch in about 3 weeks of my spare time using Python and Pygame as a test project for Pygame (which was easily up to the task). My art and sound skills are weak, so if you'd like to create better art and sound effects the game is nearly fully skinnable and I welcome contributions!"
Graphics GIMP 2.2.6 Released (GnomeDesktop) Version 2.2.6 of the GIMP has been announced. "This is a bug-fix release in the stable 2.2 series. A large number of problems have been fixed; users are encouraged to update. The source code is available from the usual places, binary packages will appear soon."
Instant Messaging ChatZilla 0.9.68 Released (MozillaZine) Version 0.9.68 of the ChatZilla IRC client has been announced. "This version fixed lots of bugs as well as adding a confirmation on quit if you are connected, the /notice command, /disconnect-all, /reconnect and /reconnect-all, and the ability to save the current view. Changing character encoding now updates the topic, and there is a drop-down on the nickname label to set yourself away and change nick."
Interoperability Wine Traffic The April 8, 2005 edition of Wine Traffic has been published. Take a look for the latest Wine project news.
Music Applications BEAST/BSE v0.6.5 announced Version 0.6.5 of BEAST/BSE, a music composition and modular synthesis application, is out. "This development series of BEAST has a lot of the internals redone, many new GUI features and a sound generation back-end separated from all GUI activities. Outstanding new features include support for skins, many sample file formats, MIDI file import abilities, an improved piano roll widget, the track editor which allows for easy selection of synthesisers or samples as track sources, loop support in songs, mixer support, unlimited Undo/Redo capabilities and MIDI automation."
orDrumbox 0.5.06 released (SourceForge) Version 0.5.06 of orDrumbox, a cross-platform drum machine written in Java, is available. "New in this release: works with JRE/JDK 1.5"
Science Febrl 0.3 released Version 0.3 of Febrl is available, it features support for Python 2.4. "The ANU Data Mining Group is pleased to announce the release of Febrl 0.3, a prototype open source record linkage, deduplication and geocoding system intended to make probabilistic record linkage easier, faster and more accurate for biomedical and other researchers."
Web Browsers More Mozilla Firefox 1.0.3 Release Candidates (MozillaZine) Several Mozilla Firefox 1.0.3 release candidates have been released this week, here's the announcement for the latest one. "These builds should allow extensions and other features to operate as they did in Firefox 1.0.2 while still including the security improvements wanted by the Mozilla Foundation."
Minutes of the mozilla.org Staff Meeting (MozillaZine) The minutes from the April 4, 2005 mozilla.org staff meeting have been announced. "Issues discussed include Mozilla Firefox 1.0.3, Mozilla 1.7.7, the lack of Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.3, Mozilla Firefox 1.1, Mozilla Thunderbird 1.1, the SeaMonkey transition, new newsgroups, the visit to Oregon State University and Spread Firefox."
Independent Status Reports (11 April, 2005) (MozillaZine) MozillaZine has announced the publication of the April 11th, 2005 Mozilla Independent Status Reports, here's the content summary: "The latest set of independent status reports includes updates from MozManual, Googlebar, Petname Tool, InFormEnter, PasswordMaker, Caminol10n, Calendar Help, Russ Key, InfoRSS, Bayes Junk Tool and Flashblock."
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly News The April 12, 2005 edition of the Caml Weekly News is online with the week's Caml language articles.
Groovy Practically Groovy: Mark it up with Groovy Builders (IBM developerWorks) Andrew Glover explores Groovy Builders on IBM developerWorks. "Groovy Builders let you mimic markup languages like XML, HTML, Ant tasks, and even GUIs with frameworks like Swing.They're especially useful for rapid prototyping and, as Practically Groovy columnist Andrew Glover shows you this month, they're a handy alternative to data binding frameworks when you need consumable markup in a snap!"
Lisp Closer to MOP The initial release of Closer to MOP has been announced. "The system, which is part of the Closer Project, is "a compatibility layer for a number of Common Lisp / CLOS implementations that bring their MOPs closer to the AMOP [The Art of the Meta-Object Protocol] specification"."
Perl This Fortnight in Perl 6 (O'Reilly) The March 22 - April 3, 2005 edition of This Fortnight in Perl 6 has been published. Take a look for the latest Perl 6 discussions.
Perl Code Kata: Mocking Objects (O'Reilly) Stevan Little explores Perl's DBD::Mock on O'Reilly. "Mock objects are exactly what they sound like: "mocked" or "fake" objects. Through the power of polymorphism, it's easy to swap one object for another object which implements the same interface. Mock objects take advantage of this fact, allowing you to substitute the most minimally mocked implementation of an object possible for the real one during testing. This allows a greater degree of isolation within your tests, which is just an all around good thing."
Complex layered configurations with AppConfig (IBM developerWorks) Teodor Zlatanov shows how to use Perl's AppConfig on IBM developerWorks. "AppConfig shines as a way of configuring applications in Perl in the simple cases, but occasionally you need more power in command-line processing and configuration-file parsing. Instead of using data formats such as XML or YAML, you can apply a little extra effort and alter AppConfig so it can process complex command-line switches to create multi-level hashes."
PHP phpThumb() 1.5.1 released Version 1.5.1 of phpThumb() has been announced. "phpThumb() uses the GD library to create thumbnails from images (JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, etc) on the fly. The output size is configurable (can be larger or smaller than the source), and the source may be the entire image or only a portion of the original image."
Python Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! The April 11, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is online with the week's new Python language articles.
Ruby Ruby Weekly News The April 10th, 2005 edition of the Ruby Weekly News has been posted. It summarizes the latest news and discussion from the ruby-talk mailing list.
XML Schema standardization for top-down semantic transparency (IBM developerWorks) Uche Ogbuji discusses XML schema standardization on IBM developerWorks. "This installment continues the review of the many different approaches to semantic transparency, discussing what they mean to the developer using XML. One way to save resources on a long journey is to hitchhike. In XML, you can take advantage of countless open schema initiatives that, in effect, use schema standardization for top-down semantic transparency. But it's not all a free ride. In this article, Uche Ogbuji looks at the advantages and disadvantages of third-party schema reuse."
Using Stylesheet Schemas (O'Reilly) Bob DuCharme covers XML Stylesheet Schemas on O'Reilly. "This month I'll talk about the use of schemas with XSLT, but not schemas for the documents you're processing. Schemas for the stylesheets themselves, when those available are a good fit for your tools, can add a lot to your XSLT development."
Managing XML data: A look ahead (IBM developerWorks) Elliotte Harold manages XML data on IBM developerWorks. "Much has been written about how to process XML documents, including how to search them with XPath, transform them with XSLT, style them with CSS, and create them with DOM. But as XML becomes increasingly popular and begins to pervade your systems (whether you want it to or not), a larger problem arises: How do you manage collections of XML documents? When you've got thousands, tens of thousands, or even millions of XML documents to hunt through, how do you find what you're looking for? How do you organize, index, search, store, serve, cross-reference, update, and otherwise manage medium-to-large collections of XML data?"
Version Control monotone 0.18 announced Version 0.18 of monotone, a version control system, is available. "This release adds a number of new features, usability improvements, bug fixes, and performance improvements".
Subversion project says don't bug Linus The Subversion (source control management) project has posted a letter on the parting of BitKeeper and the kernel; it asks that Subversion supporters not push Linus to adopt their system. "Subversion was primarily designed as a replacement for CVS. It is a centralized version control system. It does not support distributed repositories, nor foreign branching, nor tracking of dependencies between changesets. Given the way Linus and the kernel team work, using patch swapping and decentralized development, Subversion would simply not be much help. While Subversion has been well-received by many open source projects, that doesn't mean it's right for every project."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
|||||||||||
![[Xaraya]](/images/ns/xaraya.png){kind=small}
The