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DevelopmentCampcaster - broadcast radio with Linux The Center for Advanced Media--Prague (CAMP), known for its Campsite multi-lingual news publishing system, is developing free software for use in media under the Campware name:
Campware is dedicated to develop, distribute, support and implement useful tools for independent news media in emerging democracies. All Campware software is released as open source and under the GNU General Public License.
The various Campware projects are being worked on by an international group of software developers and the projects are funded by the Media Development Loan Fund. One of the major projects from Campware is the Campcaster radio station automation system. Version 1.1 "Freetown" of Campcaster was recently released:
Campcaster helps you run your radio station. Do automated broadcasting and live studio playout in one system: schedule your broadcasts from the comfort of your own home with the Campcaster Web component, or do dynamic live shows with the Campcaster Studio desktop application.
What's the big deal about this release? We'll cut to the chase: Campcaster 1.1 is the first release that is stable and feature-complete enough to be used in production systems.
The Campcaster 1.1 press release has more information on Campcaster and how it is being used. The initial project funding has been provided by the Open Society Institute.
Campcaster 1.1, code-named “Freetown,” was built with conditions in
difficult environments such as Sierra Leone in mind, such as limited
Internet availability. But Campcaster's relevance is not limited to the
developing world: stations in the developed world are starting to adapt
the system to their own needs. For example, Vienna, Austria's Radio
Orange is adapting Campcaster's playout system to work with its existing
digital archive, while in Hungary, a network of independent radio
stations is integrating Campcaster's storage server into its IKRA
project, a website engine for radio stations.
The major Campcaster features include:
For those who wish to try out Campcaster, the Installation and Setup cheat sheet has prerequisite and installation information. The software is available for download here.
System Applications Audio Projects Rivendell 0.9.79 announced Version 0.9.79 of Rivendell, a radio station automation system, is out with a new SoundPanel button pause feature and a database schema bug fix.
Database Software MySQL 5.1.14 Beta has been released Version 5.1.14 Beta of the MySQL DBMS is out with a long list of changes. "We are proud to present to you the MySQL Server 5.1.14 Beta release, a new Beta version of the popular open source database. Bear in mind that this is a beta release, and as any other pre-production release, caution should be taken when installing on production level systems or systems with critical data."
PostgreSQL Weekly News The December 10, 2006 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.
Libraries RFIDIOt 0.1i released Version 0.1i of RFIDIOt, an open-source Python RFID library, is out. Changes include new support for FDX-B and EM4x02 tags as well as an updated GUI for e-passports.
Tftpy 0.3 released Version 0.3 of Tftpy, a Python TFTP Library, has been announced. "This release adds variable block sizes, and general option support, implementing RFCs 2347 and 2348. This is accessible in the TftpClient class via the options dict, or in the sample client via the --blocksize option."
Web Site Development Midgard 1.8.1 "42" released Version 1.8.1 of the Midgard web development platform has been released. "Midgard 1.8.1 release includes major features' enchancements: preview for new integrated replication functionality, compatibility with 64bit systems and major fixes."
Framework comparisons (django) The django project notes some comparisons of web development platforms. "Web framework comparisons are inevitable, and they've been showing up more and more often. A couple of weeks ago, Alan Green and Ben Askins put together a "RailsVsDjango" report, and they presented their findings at the Open Source Developers' Conference in Melbourne, Australia. In the latest batch, both from the last 24 hours, we've got a relatively flame-baitish comparison of Django and Rails, along with a much more constructive comparison."
Zope News The November 16-30, 2006 edition of Zope News is out with the latest Zope web development platform news.
Miscellaneous New release of the Linux-ready Firmware Developer Kit Release R1 of the Linux-ready Firmware Developer Kit has been announced. "In this release many bugs have been fixed and several key enhancements have been done to help the ease of use of the kit, and several new tests have been added. The Linux-ready Firmware Developer Kit is a tool to test how well Linux works together with the firmware (BIOS or EFI) of your machine, and is designed for use by both firmware development teams and Linux kernel hackers to prevent and diagnose firmware bugs."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications Third Issue of Amarok Weekly Newsletter Released (KDE.News) KDE.News has announced the third issue of the Amarok Weekly News. "Third issue of Amarok Weekly News talks about cross-desktop media player cooperation, cool new additions to Amarok, and refreshed artwork. And again, it also includes useful tips."
Data Visualization PLplot 5.7.1 released Version 5.7.1 of PLplot, a library of functions for making scientific plots, is out. The release notes state: "This is a routine development release of PLplot. It represents the ongoing efforts of the community to improve the PLplot plotting package. Development releases in the 5.7.x series will be available every few months. The next full release will be 5.8.0."
Desktop Environments GNOME Software Announcements The following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
KDE Software Announcements The following new KDE software has been announced this week:
KDE Commit-Digest (KDE.News) The December 10, 2006 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. The content summary says: "The beginnings of Sega Genesis/Megadrive support in Gamefu. kdegames improvements continue with porting and gameplay work in KBackGammon. OpenDocument master page support in Okular. 'Idle time' detection comes to the 'powermanager' module of the Guidance system utilies. MIDI format support in KTabEdit. The new histogram graphing functionality of Strigi continues to be refined. Following Akonadi, NEPOMUK starts to utilise the power of Strigi. WHATWG audio objects supported in KHTML through Phonon. Appointment printing work in KOrganizer. Kross scripting infiltrates KWord."
Xorg Software Announcements The following new Xorg software has been announced this week:
Electronics Covered 20061205 released Version 20061205 of Covered, a Verilog electronic simulation language code coverage analysis tool, is out with the following changes: "A few updates to the core code to properly support VPI usage were necessary which is why this is not a stable release. At this point, regressions are fully passing with Icarus Verilog, Cver and VCS in both dumpfile and VPI modes of operation -- an important milestone for the upcoming 0.5 stable release. There is still additional testing of existing functionality that needs to be done as well as finishing the GUI documentation support using the new HelpSystem documentation reader utility before I would consider Covered ready for a new stable release."
eispice 0.9 released Version 0.9 of eispice, a clone of the Berkley Spice 3 Simulation Engine, has been announced. Changes include: "Added a self-extracting Windows installation binary to the download page. - Added a prototype PyB Python defined Behavioral Model. - Transitioned from using the obsolete Numeric library to the new Numpy library. - Added nested sub-circuit support."
Financial Applications GnuCash 2.0.3 released Version 2.0.3 of GnuCash, a money management application, has been released. "Personal and small business accounting in GNU/Linux will be easier and better after today's release of GnuCash 2.0.3. This release of the free, open source accounting program improves on the generational advances in the last version. GnuCash 2.0 is based on state-of-the-art gtk2 GUI technology. Developers worked hard to integrate the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) for a consistent behaviour and look-and-feel for the whole Desktop."
Games Pygame 1.8 will be released Version 1.8 of Pygame, a Python-based game development platform, is scheduled for release on December 15. "Following a period of beta, and RC releases Pygame 1.8 will be released at 2006/12/15 10:00:36.873456 AEST! "
GUI Packages Trolltech Releases Qt and Qtopia Core 4.2.2 Trolltech has released Qt 4.2.2. "Trolltech today announced the release of Qt 4.2.2, the latest version of its leading framework for high performance cross-platform application development; and Qtopia Core 4.2.2, the leading application framework for single-application devices powered by embedded Linux. Qt and Qtopia Core 4.2.2, which include a wide range of bug fixes and optimizations, were released today to customers and the open source community."
wxWidgets 2.8.0 released Version 2.8.0 of wxWidgets, a cross-platform GUI toolkit, is out. "The wxWidgets team is pleased to announce a major new release. Compared with the last stable series (2.6), 2.8.0 adds wxAUI (an advanced user interface library for docking and other functionality), wxRichTextCtrl, wxComboCtrl, wxOwnerDrawnComboBox, wxTreebook, various picker controls such as wxColourPickerCtrl, wxHyperlinkCtrl, partial right-to-left language support, support for Core Graphics on Mac OS X, tar archive support, and more."
Interoperability Wine 0.9.27 released Version 0.9.27 of Wine has been announced. Changes include: Better support for noexec kernels, Better Dwarf support in dbghelp, Several Winsock fixes, Various code cleanups and Lots of bug fixes.
Medical Applications Synapse EMR (LinuxMedNews) LinuxMedNews mentions an effort to port Synapse Electronic Medical Record to Linux. "Alpha builds are now available to play with (Libc6). Synapse EMR is a GUI rich free EMR on Win32. See here Lots of things not working yet, but the basic GUI comes up. Still to work on printing, print preview etc. Only 50% thru reading Linux for Dummies so once I finish that I'll have more ideas on how to complete this project!"
Music Applications CLAM 0.95 released Version 0.95 of CLAM, is a C++ framework for doing research and application development in audio and music, is out. "Most important in this release is NetworkEditor 0.4, with a radically reworked UI based on Qt4.2, lots of work on stability and usability, and new visual-prototyping features. You can visually prototype standalone apps (or audio plugins): Edit audio networks with NetworkEditor, then edit its UI using Qt Designer and CLAM widgets plugins. Finally, Prototyper let you run the audio network with its UI."
pnpd 0.00.2 released Initial release version 0.00.2 of pnpd is available. "pnpd is a new computer music system. it's based on a dataflow syntax, that is closely related to pd or max/msp, although it introduces some new concepts. at the moment, it doesn't contain a graphic user interface, but a text-based patcher language. it can be controlled via osc and support audio i/o via portaudio, the dsp backend is highly optimized for performance, especially for cpus supporting sse instructions."
Office Suites OpenOffice.org 2.1 released OpenOffice.org 2.1 is out; click below for details and download information. "The presentations application, Impress, now supports multiple monitors, with the presenter choosing where to display the presentation. The Calc spreadsheet has an improved HTML export capability, using styles to better recreate in a browser the appearance of the original spreadsheet. The database application, Base, has a number of enhancements, including improved support for Microsoft's Access product. The popular Quickstarter is now available for GNU/Linux users as a GTK application."
Web Browsers Gran Paradiso Alpha 1 Released (MozillaZine) The Alpha 1 of Gran Paradiso has been announced. "Gran Paradiso Alpha 1, an early developer milestone based on the Gecko 1.9 branch, has been released. Gran Paradiso, a mountain group located in Italy, is also the project codename for Firefox 3. There are no significant user interface changes. Core layout and rendering changes include use of Cairo as the default graphics library, use of Cocoa Widgets for MAC OSX builds and new SVG elements."
Miscellaneous ISO Master 0.6 released Stable version 0.6 of ISO Master has been announced. "ISO Master is a graphical editor for ISO images with support for ISO9660, RockRidge, and Joliet file names. It is useful for extracting, deleting, or adding files and directories to or from an ISO image. It is based on the bkisofs and GTK2 libraries."
MeshLab 0.9 Released (SourceForge) Version 0.9 of MeshLab has been announced, it features new filtering tools and improved obj file handling. "MeshLab is a GPL portable and extendible system for the processing and editing of unstructured 3D triangular meshes. The system is aimed to help the processing of the typical not-so-small meshes arising in 3D scanning, providing a set of tools for editing, cleaning, healing, repairing, inspecting, rendering and converting this kind of meshes."
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly News The December 12, 2006 edition of the Caml Weekly News is online. Topics include: updated godi package for wyrd, Creating wrappers for C libraries, A Question About Types and Inlining, APC, IMT, IceDock and OCaml D-Bus 0.01.
Haskell Haskell Weekly News The December 12, 2006 edition of the Haskell Weekly News is online. Lots of new, practical Haskell libraries released this week, including support for ogg sound file parsing, a new user interface library, ftp clients and servers, database bindings as well as config files and logging.
Perl This week on the Perl 6 mailing lists (O'Reilly) The December 3-9, 2006 edition of This week on the Perl 6 mailing lists has been published. Take a look for the latest Perl 6 developments.
Python python imaging library 1.1.6 final released Version 1.1.6 final of the python imaging library has been announced. "PIL 1.1.6 final is 1.1.6b2 plus some portability fixes, and threading support for the Sane extension."
python-dev Summary The python-dev Summary is out with coverage of the python-dev mailing list for the period of November 16-30, 2006.
Python-URL! The December 11, 2006 edition of the Python-URL! is online with a new collection of Python article links.
Python Software Foundation board meeting minutes The minutes from the November 13, 2006 Python Software Foundation board meeting have been posted.
Tcl/Tk Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! The December 12, 2006 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.
XML 4Suite XML 1.0.1 announced Version 1.0.1 of 4Suite XML, a Python library for XML processing, has been announced. "Thanks to all the testers, there are a number of important fixes and improvements since 1.0, and we recommend upgrade from all previous versions."
CPAN Module Review: XML::Atom chromatic reviews Perl's XML::Atom on O'Reilly. "I recently needed to filter and process some Atom feeds. I know enough XML that I could process them with my own SAX filter, but this seemed like a better opportunity to use the XML::Atom module. Fortunately, it was very easy."
XQuery, XSLT, and OmniMark: Mixed Content Processing (O'Reilly) Alexander Boldakov, Maxim Grinev, Kirill Lisovsky discuss Mixed Content Processing on O'Reilly's XML.com. "Document-oriented XML usually has highly irregular structure in which elements might be mixed in unknown way. Processing such XML requires advanced data-driven facilities: push-style processing enriched with transformation rules and side-effect-free updates. In this article we emphasize such facilities in three XML-native languages: XQuery, XSLT, and OmniMark; and analyze applicability of these languages and their combinations to document-oriented XML processing."
Build Tools BuildBot 0.7.5 released (SourceForge) Version 0.7.5 of BuildBot has been announced. "The BuildBot is a system to automate the compile/test cycle required by most software projects to validate code changes. It builds and tests the tree each time a change is committed, providing status updates through a web page or other protocols."
Test Suites Linux Desktop Testing Project 0.7.0 released Version 0.7.0 of the Linux Desktop Testing Project (LDTP), a test automation framework and tool collection for testing the Linux Desktop, is out. "This release features number of important breakthroughs in LDTP as well as in the field of Test Automation. This release note covers a brief introduction on LDTP followed by the list of new features and major bug fixes which makes this new version of LDTP the best of the breed. Useful references have been included at the end of this article for those who wish to hack / use LDTP."
Version Control Mercurial 0.9.2 released Version 0.9.2 of Mercurial, a source control management (SCM) system, has been released. This version adds a number of new features and extensions.
Miscellaneous I18N Messages and Logging (O'ReillyNet) John Mazzitelli discusses I18N messages and logging on O'Reilly. "Sick of internationalizing by making your own code take responsibility for finding and using ResourceBundles? The i18nlog project offers an annotations-based way to simplify your internationalization tasks and even allow you to internationalize your logging. John Mazzitelli explains why this is a good idea."
Google Mondrian: web-based code review and storage Niall Kennedy has posted a weblog entry about Guido van Rossum's Mondrian project. "Guido van Rossum unveiled his first Google project, Mondrian, tonight during a Python tech talk at the Google campus in Mountain View. Mondrian is a web-based code review system built on top of a Perforce and BigTable backend with a Python-powered front-end. Mondrian is a pretty impressive system and is currently in use across Google."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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![[Campcaster]](/images/ns/campcaster.png)