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DevelopmentThe FlowDesigner Data Flow Development EnvironmentFlowDesigner, formerly known as OverFlow, is a data flow oriented development environment. The software is written in C++ and is licensed under the GNU GPL.
It can be used to build complex applications by combining small, reusable building blocks. In some ways, it is similar to both Simulink and LabView, but is hardly a clone of either.
In other words, FlowDesigner allows the user to connect functional pieces together graphically using the cartoon programming approach. FlowDesigner contains toolboxes for these applications:
Two projects that use FlowDesigner are the RobotFlow Robotics Toolkit, and the Open Mind Speech project which is building a set of speech recognition tools and applications. Version 0.8.0 of FlowDesigner has been announced. "This release fixes many build problems and includes multiple GUI improvements, better node documentation, new nodes, and more." The code is available for download here. Some screenshots are available in the images section.
System Applications Audio Projects ALSA 1.02 releasedVersion 1.02 of the ALSA sound driver is out. A new ALSA bug tracking system has also been set up. See the full announcement for all of the details.
liblrdf 0.3.4 availableVersion 0.3.4 of liblrdf is out. "liblrdf is a lightweight RDF metadata handling library with extensions for manipulating LADSPA Schema-specific data."
Planet CCRMA ChangesThe latest changes from the Planet CCRMA audio utility packaging project include new versions of the Alsa Modular Synth, Qjackctl, Qsynth, Seq24, and Noteedit.
Speex 1.1.4 releasedVersion 1.1.4 of Speex, an audio codec, is out. "This release has minor fixed-point improvements and a code cleanup. The SSE code has been converted from inline assembly to SSE intrinsics, so it should now work on win32. More functions have been written to use SSE."
Clusters and Grids Perspectives on grid: Grid computing -- next-generation distributed computing (IBM developerWorks)Matt Haynos writes about Grid computing on IBM's developerWorks. "Two major needs have dramatically increased the value of the concept of grid computing in the last few years. A lean economy has forced those with a limited IT budget to more fully utilize their existing computing assets and to become more flexible to respond to rapidly evolving markets by being able to intelligently allocate finite resources to the appropriate business applications. In this first of a series of articles, Matt Haynos provides a cursory analysis of the similarities and differences between grid computing and such distributed computing systems as P2P, CORBA, cluster computing, and DCE."
Database Software PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe January 26, 2004 PostgreSQL Weekly News is out with another roundup of PostgreSQL database news.
Filesystem Utilities ntfsprogs 1.8.4 released (SourceForge)Version 1.8.4 of ntfsprogs, a set of ntfs filesystem utilities, has been announced. "This release fixes several memory leaks (mostly in directory lookup/handling code)."
Mail Software milter-spamc 0.13 is outVersion 0.13 beta of milter/spamc, an email spam filter, has been announced. Change information can be found here.
Troubleshooting with Postfix Logs (O'Reilly)Kyle Dent digs through Postfix log files on O'Reilly. "Postfix provides a number of ways to get information that can be helpful when you are trying to diagnose a problem. The standard logging often provides more than adequate information for understanding problems and determining their cause. This article discusses Postfix logging in general, how to find all of the relevant information in the logs, and finally, how to increase the amount of logging when more information is needed."
Printing cups_ftp 1.04 releasedVersion 1.04 of cups_ftp, which allows the CUPS print server to work over an FTP connection, is available.
Foomatic 3.0.1rc2 released!Version 3.0.1rc2 of the Foomatic printer database is available. "This release is a pre-release approaching the next stable release Foomatic 3.0.1. This time mainly bugfixes were done, but also the compatibility to *BSD and non-bash systems is improved."Also, a companion release of foomatic-filters is also out with some bug fixes.
Telecom VoIP and POTS Integration with Asterisk (O'Reilly)John Todd shows how to integrate Voip and standard telephony with Asterisk. "Asterisk is an open source PBX replacement system, which does in software what many expensive PBX systems do in custom hardware. Voicemail, voicemail/email forwarding, call forwarding, voice menus, multi-ring -- these are just a few of the hundreds of features that Asterisk offers."
Web Site Development Gallery v1.4.2 Release Candidate 1 Available! (SourceForge)Release candidate 1 for Gallery 1.4.2 has been announced. Gallery is a web-based image archive. "This version is mostly focused on bugfixes and minor improvements. Some of these include: Improved voting/ranking features; Gallery internationalized in even more languages; Config. Wizard is more informative and friendly; Improved skins capabilities (more customizable); EZ-Prints service updated to their new, friendlier interface; Tons of small improvements and bugfixes."
mnoGoSearch-php 3.2.4 is outVersion 3.2.4 of mnoGoSearch-php, the PHP frontend to the mnoGoSearch web site search engine, has been released. See the Change Log file for more details.
mod_python 2.7.10 is releasedVersion 2.7.10 of mod_python has been released. This is a security fix, more change information is in the source code.
Tiki 1.7.5 -Eta Carinae- released (SourceForge)Version 1.75 of Tiki, a CMS/Groupware package, is available. "The main purpose of this release is to address the CSRF issues which affect web applications. However, we have also managed to sneak in some extra goodies as a bonus."
Desktop Applications Accessibility Free Standards Group launches accessibility workgroupThe Free Standards Group has announced the launch of a workgroup to develop accessibility standards for Linux.
Audio Applications Two new releases of TkecaTwo new versions of Tkeca, a GUI interface for the ecasound audio utility, have come out this week. Version 4.0.0 was announced and features many changes and bug fixes. Version 4.0.1 features one more bug fix.
Visecas 0.3.5 announcedVersion 0.3.5, a GUI frontend for the Ecasound audio utility, is out. "This is an interim release which fixes several serious bugs. Hacking Gtk::Fileselection from Ruby on a Debian system (which currently comes with a patched GtkFileselection) turned out to be a very bad idea regarding portability."
Desktop Environments GNOME Clipboard Daemon - your clipboard will actually work (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop.org mentions the GNOME Clipboard Daemon as a solution to some of the problems with cut and paste operations under the X window system. "Normally, when you copy something in an X application and you close it, the content of the clipboard is lost. This is probably one of the biggest reasons why people keep saying that copy & paste in Linux "doesn't work"."
GNOME Platform Bindings 2.5.3 released (GnomeDesktop)Version 2.5.3 of the GNOME Platform Bindings has been announced. "Here is another scheduled release of the GNOME Platform Bindings, which provide a GNOME development platform for programming languages other than C, in the style of those languages. This release set gives some bindings a schedule and rules to work within, so we can endorse those bindings. We very much hope that Linux distributions will therefore choose to distribute these bindings as a supported development platform."
Gnome Summary for January 18 - January 24, 2004Here is this week's Gnome Summary, with news about new GTK# applications, Gaim status, and much more.
KDE TrafficIssue #74 of KDE Traffic has been published. Take a look for the latest KDE development news.
KDE-CVS-DigestThe January 23, 2004 edition of the KDE-CVS-Digest is out. Here's the summary: "KStars adds more telescope devices. KAddressbook adds custom field support. Krita gets working brush and new patterns. CSS code from Safari added to Khtml."
kdenonbeta Official Clean Up: Where will your code go? (KDE.News)KDE.News reminds developers that they are cleaning out old, inactive projects from the KDE source repository. "If you are the author of a program in kdenonbeta that is still there after this cleanup, now is a good time to think about the future of your code."
Electronics Gnucap 0.34 releasedVersion 0.34 of Gnucap, the Gnu Circuit Analysis Package, is out. "This is primarily a bug fix and compatibility release."
TkGate 1.8.1 releasedVersion 1.8.1 of TkGate, a digital circuit simulator, has been released. "A bug occurring when clocks are used to drive adders, when printing partial scope traces, and when doing an undo from the edit module interface screen was fixed. Several enhancements were added to the scope window, inluding a toolbar, a "crosshair", and the ability to select ranges on the scope for printing using the right mouse button. The capability to suppress sorting of traces on the scope was also added."
XCircuit 3.1.37 releasedVersion 3.1.37 of XCircuit, an electronic schematic drawing program, is available. Change information is in the source code.
Financial Applications GNUe TrafficIssue #105 of GNUe Traffic is out with the latest GNU Enterprise news. Topics include Sequences, Dropdown triggers, and GNUe on Mandrake 9.2.
Games Planesweeper 0.3 releasedVersion 0.3 of Planesweeper, a MineSweepr clone, is available. "It uses PyOpenGL to render the traditional board onto a three dimensional plane."
GUI Packages FLTK Beginner Tutorial 1.0A beginner's tutorial for FLTK, the Fast, Light ToolKit, has been published by Robert Arkiletian.
GTK+-2.3.2 released (unstable) (GnomeDesktop)Unstable version 2.3.2 of GTK+ has been released. "This is a development release leading up to GTK+-2.4. Changes since GTK+-2.3.1 include many API fixes for new widgets and bug fixes in new and old code, along with various new API enhancements, such as allowing saving a GdkPixbuf to an in memory buffer, and a blazingly fast fixed-height mode that can be enabled for GtkTreeView."
Advanced UI design for GNOME (IBM developerWorks)Vladimir Silva introduces SLIK on IBM's developerWorks. "GTK programming has almost never been this easy: IBM developer Vladimir Silva shares his skills, his enthusiasm, and his modified code for the SimpLIstic sKin interface (or SLIK). SLIK provides a great tool for building advanced user interfaces in Linux or Unix systems. A part of the GQmpeg toolset, it is written using the GTK toolkit, a powerful set of widgets for graphics used by such applications as the GIMP and other GNOME-based apps."
Imaging Applications GQview 1.3.8 releasedVersion 1.3.8 of GQview, an image viewing application, is available. "This continues the series of beta releases for the next stable release (1.4), many bugs were fixed. The Finnish, Japanese, and Swedish translations are also updated."
Interoperability Wine TrafficIssue #206 of Wine Traffic is out with the latest Wine news.
Wine 20040121 is availableRelease 20040121 of Wine, the WINdows Emulator, has been announced. "This is still a developers only release."
Mail Clients Aethera 1.0.2 Now with Kolab Support (KDE.News)Version 1.0.2 of Aethera, an email/PIM client, has been announced. "Aethera now has integrated support for the Kolab groupware server. Aethera 1.0.2 comes with support for email, calendar and todo using KOrganizer as a plug-in, sticky notes, address book and now Kolab integration."
Multimedia GNOME multimedia software releases flourishing (GnomeDesktop)GnomeDesktop.org mentions several new GNOME multimedia applications. "The earlier reported GTK#-based Muine is now at v0.2, Rhythmbox released v0.6.5 while mp3 clients GNomad v2.4.1 and gtkPod v0.72 were also released."
Music Applications Didgeridoo 0.0.1 announcedThe initial release of didgeridoo, a voice-controlled resonator-based musical instrument for JACK, is out. Who says open-source software isn't innovative?
gmorgan 0.22 ReleasedVersion 0.22 of gmorgan is out with lots of new features. "gmorgan is a rhythm station. a full programable accompaniment tool in real-time and also a pattern based sequencer."
New LADSPA PluginsVersion 0.1-0 of TAP, Tom's Audio Plugins for LADSPA, has been released. The components of TAP include an equalizer, a reverb effect, a stereo echo, and a tremolo effect.
Office Suites KOffice 1.3 releasedThe release of KOffice 1.3 has been announced. This release includes many improvements over 1.2, including a new Word import filter, better spell checking, automatic hyphenation, over 100 new formulas in KSpread, and much more.
OpenOffice.org Developers DigestThe OpenOffice.org Developers Digest for week 3, 2003 is available. "Topics include : so whats currently being implemented for OOo 2.0?, Release of developers snapshot m20, OOo thesauri development, Native Lang Translation Tools, The start of a grammar checker?, The dev@api.openoffice.org newsletter, Developers Guides in multiple languages, Separation of icon set from build process, Separate builds of 1.1.1 for Mac OSX 10.2 and 10.3, Multiple-Inheritance Interface Types for UNO, and MinGW + tcsh build efforts started."
Web Browsers Epiphany 1.1.5 is availableDevelopment version 1.1.5 of Epiphany, a lightweight web browser for GNOME, is available with lots of bug fixes, new translations, and more.
Galeon 1.3.12 released (GnomeDesktop)version 1.3.12 of Galeon, the lightweight web browser, is out. "Here it is! After much parallel development we can finally announce the first egg based release of galeon. So, lots of changes and improvements in this one!". This release works with Mozilla 1.4 through 1.6.
Lynx 2.8.5 pre 3 releasedVersion 2.8.5 pre 3 of Lynx, a text-mode browser, is available for download. Change information is in the source code.
Elinks 0.9.0 stable releasedVersion 0.9.0 (stable) of Elinks, a text-mode browser, is out. "ELinks is an enhanced version of Links, a Lynx-like text Web browser with support for tables, frames, background downloads, SSL etc. It has a menu-fashioned user interface and is smaller and more lightweight than Lynx. ELinks adds many valuable features, like HTTP and proxy authentication, reasonable cookies support, Lua scripting, downloads resuming, very high configurability and more. ELinks has built-in support for HTTP, FTP, finger and local files; users can define their own external handlers for any other protocols."
New translations of Mozilla 1.6 availableNew Spanish and Polish translations of Mozilla 1.6 are available.
Minutes of the mozdev Admin MeetingThe minutes are available for the January 23, 2004 mozdev admin meeting. The MozillaZine summary says: "Issues discussed include site performance improvements, news feeds, the generation of category pages, mirrors and incorporation."
Developers Must Now Consider Mozilla Firebird, Mozilla Thunderbird and Camino When Making API Changes (MozillaZine)MozillaZine reports on changes to the Mozilla development process. "In a newsgroup posting, Mozilla Firebird developer Ben Goodger, Mozilla Thunderbird developer Scott MacGregor and Camino developer Mike Pinkerton have announced that those making API changes to core components must now ensure that they do not adversely affect Firebird, Thunderbird or Camino."
Word Processors AbiWord v2.0.3 released (GnomeDesktop)Version 2.0.3 of the AbiWord word processor has been announced. "The AbiWord Development Team is pleased to announce the immediate availablity of AbiWord v2.0.3. This is mostly a bugfix release, and fixes numerous issues reported by our users. We encourage everyone to try out, or upgrade to this release."
Miscellaneous ClusterSSH 1.46 releasedVersion 1.46 of ClusterSSH has been released. "ClusterSSH controls a number of xterm windows via a single graphical console window to allow commands to be interactively run on multiple servers over an ssh connection."
Liar Liar v0.5 Released (GnomeDesktop)FootNotes announces the first release of a different sort of free software package. LiarLiar analyzes voice samples in an attempt to determine whether the speaker is telling the truth or not. "Currently, the software is very pre-Beta, so don't expect too much accuracy. Accuracy will be addressed in an upcoming release."
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe Caml Weekly News for January 20-27, 2004 is out with three new Caml language articles.
Java Java theory and practice: Garbage collection and performance (IBM developerWorks)Brian Goetz covers Java garbage collection issues on IBM's developerWorks. "This month, columnist Brian Goetz looks at the performance impact of the choice of collector, how various coding idioms interact with the garbage collector, and how allocation and other related costs have changed in Java virtual machines over the past several years."
Taming Tiger: Pre-release of Tiger is now available (IBM developerWorks)John Zukowski covers the latest version of J2SE on IBM's developerWorks. "Sun has quietly released an alpha version of J2SE 1.5, also known as "Tiger," and developer John Zukowski is in the big top ready to start his Tiger-taming act. This new column picks up where Magic with Merlin left off, detailing the changes to the platform and providing examples for quick reference."
Lisp Introducing MovitzMovitz is an ANSI Common Lisp development platform with the unique ability to be booted directly on x86 PC architecture machines, i.e. with no operating system. "It can be used for developing "operating system kernels, embedded, and single-purpose applications". The Movitz platform consists of a Common Lisp cross compiler for the x86 architecture, a run time environment, and debugging/monitoring tools. It also includes a sample operating system kernel written in Common Lisp."
Perl This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)The January 19-25, 2004 edition of This Week on perl5-porters has been published. "Another summary this week, not really different from the previous ones, as it contains the usual bug reports and other discussions. The bugs, however, are new."
PHP PHP Weekly Summary for January 26, 2004The PHP Weekly Summary for January 26, 2004 is out. Topics include: SPL now default, SimpleXML asXML(), SimpleXML documentation, PHP 5 for Netware, Removal of gpc_order, Tidy extension OO.
Web App Security Testing with a Custom Proxy Server (O'Reilly)Nitesh Dhanjani explains PHP security issues on O'Reilly. "In this article, I'll discuss some common web-application security flaws and then demonstrate how to detect them. In the process of auditing web applications for security flaws, I will also present a PHP script that will act as a web proxy server, allowing us to intercept and alter HTTP requests between the web browser and the target web server. As we will see, this PHP script will aid us tremendously in testing for security flaws."
Python Year in Python 2003Here is a summary of what happened in the Python community in 2003. "In 2003, there was one new major release of Python and several minor bugfix releases. The Python Software Foundation began to assume a greater role and visibility in the community, organizing the first PyCon conference. A number of noteworthy books were published, and the conference calendar was also full."
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! for January 26, 2004 is out. Take a look for a new collection of Python language articles.
Python Computer Graphics Kit 1.1.0 releasedVersion 1.1.0 of the Python Computer Graphics Kit is out with the following changes: "Two new modules "cgkitinfo" and "slparams" and a bunch of fixes and additions".
Tcl/Tk Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! for January 26, 2004 is out with the week's Tcl/Tk article links.
XML XML Security: The XML Key Management Specification (IBM developerWorks)Manish Verma explains XKMS on IBM's developerWorks. "The XML Key Management Specification (XKMS) outlines an easy mechanism for accessing and integrating with Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). In this article, Manish Verma explains the objective behind XKMS and then offers a step-by-step guide to using the XKMS service to register and retrieve information related to a public and/or private key."
Cross Assemblers gputils-0.12.0 ReleasedVersion 0.12.0 of gputils, the GNU Pic Utilities, is out. Here's the release blurb: "Fixed many bugs and released gpal. Although, gpal really isn't ready to be used."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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