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DevelopmentThe eyeOS Web Desktop Environment The eyeOS project, developed by the eyeOS development team, is a cross-platform open-source Web Operating System, a.k.a. a Web Office:
eyeOS is an Open Source Web Desktop Environment, commonly known as Web Operating System (Web OS) or Web Office. eyeOS is Open Source Software, and can be downloaded or used through the official eyeOS server. The basic System comes with some office and PIM applications.
![[eyeOS]](/images/ns/eyeOS.png)
The primary concept behind eyeOS is that it is a desktop system that is completely accessed from a web browser. File storage and most of the application processing is handled by the remote host. Officially supported browsers include Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. Other standards-compliant CSS capable browsers should also work. The demo page gives a pretty good idea of what eyeOS is all about. The standard eyeOS applications include:
Custom themes and wallpapers can be obtained from the eyeLooks, some of the example themes resemble other popular desktops. An interesting feature of eyeOS is the online translation system, support for new languages can be provided by filling in a web form. The eyeOS server is claimed to run on any platform that has a web server with PHP installed. No database manager is required. Linux/Unix is the recommended server platform, according to the project documentation. Stable version 0.9.3-5 of eyeOS was recently released:
We have just released eyeOS 0.9.3-5, which includes two main improvements: The first one, focused into user security, improves the way eyeHome manages the files. The new system allows all files to be uploaded with no restrictions and uses the eyeOS XML FileSystem to recognize it's author, date of upload and file name.
The second improvement is the elimination of the ancient eyeTrash (which was not updated since 0.8.x versions of eyeOS). The new system uses eyeHome as file explorer for the trash, displaying "Trash" in the Sites list. All actions have been moved to eyeHome Actions bar and the translations of eyeTrash have been merged to eyeHome too. The Trash icon has been updated to use this new system.
Some other small bugs have been also solved.
The eyeOS Blog has the latest news on the system, it mentions the achievement of 100,000 registered users on the public eyeOS server as well as an upcoming 1.0 release. There are some tradeoffs to consider with such a system. Performance is limited by the available network bandwidth, and GUI capabilities are limited by going through a browser interface. On the positive side, it should be possible to access an eyeOS desktop from anywhere with a browser and an internet connection. System management issues are also centralized and client machines only require a working web browser. The system is available for use by anyone with a web browser and an internet connection, those wishing to run their own server can download the software.
System Applications Clusters and Grids JPPF 0.24.1 released (SourceForge) Version 0.24.1 of the Java Parallel Processing Framework (JPPF) has been announced. "The Java Parallel Processing Framework is a grid framework for Java, focused on performance and ease of use. The JPPF team has the pleasure to announce a new maintenance release. The communications and execution performance was increased by 10% Numerous bugs were fixed in the server, increasing its stability and scalability. A bug was fixed in the distributed class loader, that would cause the client to crash. The graphical administration console was upgraded to use Substance L&F v3.1 and JFreeChart v1.0.3."
Database Software An Introduction to Hibernate 3 Annotations (O'Reilly) John Ferguson Smart introduces Hibernate 3 annotations on O'Reilly. "Over the years, Hibernate has become close to the defacto standard in the world of Java database persistence. It is powerful, flexible, and boasts excellent performance. In this article, we look at how Java 5 annotations can be used to simplify your Hibernate code and make coding your persistence layer even easier."
MySQL 5.1.15 beta has been released Version 5.1.15 beta of the MySQL DBMS is available. "We are proud to present to you the MySQL Server 5.1.15 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."
Revised PostgreSQL Security Releases New security-fix releases of the PostgreSQL DBMS have been announced. "The PostgreSQL Global Development Group releases today a security update for all PostgreSQL 8.X versions: minor versions 8.2.3, 8.1.8, 8.0.12. This release replaces the security release from February 5th, which contained a type-casting bug affecting many users. If you downloaded a copy of 8.2.2, 8.1.7 or 8.0.11, you should discard that version and install the updated versions instead."
PostgreSQL Weekly News The February 11, 2007 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online with the latest PostgreSQL DBMS articles and resources.
SQLite 3.3.13 released Version 3.3.13 of the SQLite DBMS is out. "This version fixes a subtle bug in the ORDER BY optimizer that can occur when using joins. There are also a few minor enhancements. Upgrading is recommended."
Embedded Systems MiniWebsvr 0.0.6 Released (SourceForge) Version 0.0.6 of MiniWebsvr is available with several new capabilities. "MiniWebsvr is a small web server that aims to one day be embeddable. This version is a stand-alone web server that supports OPTIONS,HEAD and GET, with support for If-Modified-Since and Range HTTP requests to save on bandwidth."
LDAP Software LAT 1.3.2 announced Version 1.3.2 of LAT, the LDAP Administration Tool, is available. "This is the development branch that will eventually become 1.4."
Mail Software Postfix 20070212 is available Version 20070212 of the Postfix mail transfer agent is available. See the change log for details.
Printing Gtk-LP 1.2.3 announced Version 1.2.3 of Gtk-LP has been announced. "GTK LP for CUPS is a frontend for the lpr that comes with CUPS. It is written to make it easy to use nearly all the options from CUPS without knowing them by name. For print-admins, there is also an pretty simple queue tool implemented."
Netgear WGPS606 Printer Configuration Mini HowTo The CUPS printer project has published a Mini HowTo for the Netgear WGPS606 wireless print server. "I had a terrible time getting my HP1200 configured on the Netgear WGPS606 as a linux only user. These are the simple steps on how to go about configuring it."
Web Site Development Drake CMS v0.3.2 Beta (SourceForge) Version 0.3.2 Beta of Drake CMS is available with bug fixes and other improvements. "Drake CMS is a light-weight dynamic web authoring and content manag[e]ment system; its major features are the support of any database system (plus an embedded flatfile database), security, speed, easy management and customization."
Plone 3.0 alpha2 released Version 3.0 alpha2 of the Plone web content management system is out. "Since the alpha1 release a tremendous amount of work has been done. A good indication of this is the list of PLIPs that have been added in this release".
Segue 1.7.0 Released (SourceForge) Version 1.7.0 of Segue has been announced. "Segue is an open source collaborative content management system designed for e-learning that combines the ease of use of course management systems with the flexibility of weblogs for creating various types of sites including course, news, and journal. This new version includes a number of bug fixes as well as introduces three new features".
A New Visualization for Web Server Logs (O'Reilly) Raju Varghese analyzes web logs in 3D with Perl and gnuplot. "There are well over a hundred web server log analyzers (Google Directory for Log Analysis) or web statistics tools ranging from commercial offerings such as WebTrends to open source ones such as AWStats. These take web server logfiles and display numbers such as page views, visits, and visitors, as well as graphs over various time ranges. This article presents the same data in those logfiles in a very different way: as a 3D plot. By the end of this article, I hope you will agree with me that the visualization described herein is a novel and useful way to view the content of logfiles."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications Alsaplayer news The Alsaplayer audio player has some new features and the development has been migrated from cvs to svn. "After the release of the long wanted bugfix Alsaplayer-0.99.77 release last week, I am very pleased to announce the release of a new exiting python module for Alsaplayer. This module is the work of Austin Bingham, a new active developer in the Alsaplayer team. Another developer just joined us, Peter Lemenkov. He is working on some new input plugins, included a wavpack plugin."
Business Applications Nuxeo Weekly News The first edition of the Nuxeo Weekly News has been launched. "You are reading the first issue of Nuxeo Weekly News, a newsletter that will summarise every week everything interesting that has happened in the Nuxeo open source ECM community."
SQL-Ledger 2.7.11 is available Version 2.7.11 of SQL-Ledger, a web-based accounting system, is out with the following change: "added type of contact to differentiate between companies and persons".
Calendar Software pAgenda 3.2 released Version 3.2 of pAgenda, a cross-platform calendar and schedule manager, has been announced. The description states: "Uses sqlite DB to handle multiple schedules with ease in single, small, portable files -- easy to backup or transfer. Simple, functional and the strongest feature is how well it prints out a daily schedule with a single-click. It can also keep track of contacts as well as appointments, import contacts and appointments from other schedule/users of pAgenda."
Desktop Environments GNOME 2.18.0 Beta 2 (2.17.91) Development Release Development Release 2.18.0 Beta 2 of the GNOME desktop is available for testing. "With this release, we'll enter the string freeze: no string changes may be made without confirmation from the l10n team and notification to both the release team and the GDP. Remember we're already API/ABI frozen, feature frozen and UI frozen :-)"
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 February 11, 2007 edition of the KDE Commit-Digest has been announced. The content summary says: "Much-requested "Page scaling" zoom mode introduced to KHTML. Work on the XPS document format backend, and intergration of a Phonon-based audio player for embedded document sounds in okular. More maps added to KGeography. KMines becomes the latest game to move toward a scalable graphics interface, with continued work on KBlackBox and KGoldRunner. scuba and wmap datasource additions to Kst. A better fullscreen interface for Digikam. Continued improvement in the KDE Fonts Manager. Amarok 2.0 development progresses at full speed. Initial import of version 2 of the Gwenview image viewer, and a possible KBabel replacement, KAider, into KDE SVN. Oxygen icons become further integrated into the desktop, with renamings and the setting of the theme as the KDE default."
Xorg Software Announcements The following new Xorg software has been announced this week:
Desktop Publishing LyX 1.4.4 released Version 1.4.4 of LyX, a GUI front-end for the TeX typesetting system, has been announced. "This is of course a bug fix release, but some new features sneaked in, among which: Outline support: it is now possible to move around parts of documents in the Table of Contents dialog. Add new UI settings default-autotoolbars and default-alltoolbars allowing to select what toolbars are active or shown automatically. Improved documentation."
Fonts and Images fntsample 2.2 released Version 2.2 of fntsample has been announced. "fntsample is a program for making font samples that show Unicode coverage of the font. The samples are similar in appearance to Unicode charts. Samples can be saved as PDF or PostScript files."
Games libtprl 0.1.2 released (SourceForge) Version 0.1.2 of libtprl has been announced. "Thousand Parsec has released a new version of libtprl, a C++ ReadLine library. libtprl is used by the C++ server, tpserver-cpp. There are changes to the actual library this time. New methods added and some small cleanup. Added were methods for getting the current commandset, setting whether readline catches signals, redisplaying the line and force redisplaying the line, and setting the finish of completions (disabling the filename completion)."
Open Yahtzee 1.7 released (SourceForge) Version 1.7 of Open Yahtzee is available. "Open Yahtzee 1.7 features enhancements to game play such as new dice graphics and dice animation. Another important change that now Open Yahtzee allows scoring according to the Yahtzee Joker rules, that means that if you have a yahtzee but already scored (even a zero) in the yahtzee box you will be able to score the dice in any open box in the lower section (assuming you scored already the suitable box in the upper section). The new version also int[ro]duces several bug-fixes."
Sear 0.6.3 Released The WorldForge game project has announced the release of Sear 0.6.3. "This version of Sear has a new method of representing character appearance based on clothing entities. It also fixes a crasher bug many users were reporting on Intel hardware. It also uses the newer Guichan 0.5.0 library." Also, version 1.1 of WFUT, the WorldForge Update Tool has been announced.
Instant Messaging Chirpy! 0.6 released Version 0.6 of Chirpy! is out. "Chirpy! is an Open Source online quote management system. It allows you to keep a database of quotes by friends and foes. It is most useful for quotes collected on IRC channels. The Chirpy! project originated mainly out of frustration caused by the Rash Quote Management System, due to its numerous bugs and its lack of efficiency and extensibility. While its developers openly admit that it was a quick job, eventually, this became unacceptable."
Medical Applications GNUmed 0.2.4.2 releases (LinuxMedNews) LinuxMedNews has announced the release of version 0.2.4.2 of the GNUmed medical record system. "For this version patient consultation management has been reworked and stabilized. New features include document import via an XSane interface, better episode management, the ability to export documents from the archive to storage media, drag and drop of files onto GNUmed for even easier archival, DICOM viewer integration, a webbrowser link to medical information on the web, a custom database backup script, a stage 2 link to the ifap index drug database as well as a framework for custom script hooks."
Office Applications Xfe 0.98.1 released Version 0.98.1 of Xfe, a light weight file manager for the X window system, is available. "This release mainly fixes a serious crash bug and some minor bugs. The czech language translation has also been updated."
The Road to KDE 4: Okular and Ligature Document Viewers (KDE.News) KDE.News reviews a couple of KDE4 document viewers. "Users of KDE 4 are in for a treat with both okular and Ligature, as they are both shaping up to support a wide variety of (occasionally overlapping) media formats. But since they can both be embedded into KDE applications using standard interfaces, a user should be equally happy using either one of these viewers."
Video Applications ARToolKit 2.72.1 released (SourceForge) Version 2.72.1 of ARToolKit is available with bug fixes. "The Augmented Reality Tool Kit (ARToolKit) captures images from video sources, optically tracks markers in the images, and composites them with computer-generated content using OpenGL. Dual-licensed, under the GPL, plus commercially by ARToolworks, Inc."
Web Browsers Gran Paradiso Alpha 2 released (MozillaZine) The Alpha 2 release of Gran Paradiso has been announced. "This is the second milestone released from the Gecko 1.9 branch. There are no significant user interface changes. Core layout and rendering changes include support for the Web Applications 1.0 API for changing stylesheets, ACID2 test compliance, and improvements in the Cairo graphics layer. As mentioned earlier, Gran Paradiso the project codename for Firefox 3."
Word Processors Open XML Translator 1.0 now avalaible (SourceForge) Version 1.0 of Open XML Translator is available on the Windows platform. "Open XML Translator provides tools to build a technical bridge between the Open XML Formats and Open Document Format(ODF). As the first component of this initiative, the ODF Add-in for Microsoft Word 2007 allows to Open & Save ODF documents in Word."
Miscellaneous Visprint release 2.1 Release 2.1 of Visprint, a fractal fingerprint generator, is out with bug fixes and new capabilities. "Visprint makes cool fractal fingerprint png images based on the contents of any file. The image will be different for almost every file with even slightly different contents. Visprint uses the IFS fractal generation process, pioneered by Michael Barnsley. It is a way to create images which are self-similar to infinite depths. In other words, the picture is made up of smaller versions of itself."
Languages and Tools C GCC 4.1.2 RC2 announced Version 4.1.2 RC2 of the Gnu Compiler Collection (GCC) is available. "The changes relative to RC1 are fixes for: 1. PR 29683: a wrong-code issue on Darwin 2. PR 30370: a build problem for certain PowerPC configurations 3. PR 29487: a build problem for HP-UX 10.10 a code-quality problem for C++ on all platforms". GCC 4.1.2 should be released within a week.
Caml Caml Weekly News The February 13, 2007 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language articles.
PHP PHP 5.2.1 Released Version 5.2.1 of PHP has been released. "The PHP development team would like to announce the immediate availability of PHP 5.2.1. This release is a major stability and security enhancement of the 5.X branch, and all users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to it as soon as possible."
Tcl/Tk Tcl-URL! The February 7, 2007 edition of the Tcl-URL! is online with new Tcl/Tk articles and resources.
Cross Compilers GCC HC11/12 and MCX11 / MCX12 A new port of the GNU 68HC11/12 cross-compiler has been announced. "I have ported the kernel MCX11 to MCX12 in order to use it with the MC9S12 microcontrollers family."
Editors peppy 0.5.1 released Version 0.5.1 of peppy, the `Proximated Emacs Powered by Python, has been announced. Peppy is: "An experiment using the modern software development process -- this is a wxPython/Scintilla-based editor written in and extensible through Python. It attempts to provide an XEmacs-like multi-window, multi-tabbed interface using the Advanced User Interface (wx.aui) framework of wxPython."
Libraries FreeImage 3.9.3 released (SourceForge) Version 3.9.3 of FreeImage, an open-source library which supports the PNG, BMP, JPEG, TIFF image formats, is available. "This maintenance release improves the speed of the GIF encoder, adds a new JPEG downsampling feature (useful to generate thumbnails) and also provides a better MacOSX makefile."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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