Development

GTK-Gnutella

GTK-Gnutella is a Graphical GNOME client that is used for accessing the Gnutella Peer to Peer file sharing network.

Your development page editor had a chance to install and play with the latest version of GTK-Gnutella this week. From a network security standpoint, there is something rather unnerving about an application that starts up and immediately starts connecting to hosts all over the net, especially an application that is designed to share files from Your System. Fortunately, the application defaults to sharing no files. One UI component that is immediately obvious in its absence is an easily findable STOP button. By default, the application wants to continue to generate lots of network traffic, even if the operator only wants to get familiar with the many UI options.

Rationality was pushed aside, and the exploration of the utility commenced. It took a while to figure out that most of the functionality of GTK-Gnutella is controlled by the small command tree that's located in the upper left corner of the application. Further exploration revealed that the power of the application can be accessed by going into the search section and entering search terms.

A search was set for mp3, and the application was left running. After a while, there was a screen full of potential mp3 files to be downloaded. A file was chosen, and the application cranked away. A short while later, I had an MP3 file with the group Phish singing some Hebrew music. Serious time could be wasted on such an application.

Unfortunately, a good percentage of the available files appeared to be illegal copies of copyrighted material. One wonders, with all of the freely copyable music that's available these days, why one would go to the trouble to copy and distribute the commercial music that's so readily available from the usual distribution channels. Enter the DMCA. Perhaps the contributors would be well advised to become more familiar with some of the bands that allow taping, or the countless free music sites such as the IUMA.

A search for all jpg files located a ton of "T&A" images, not too surprising considering the percentage of Internet bandwidth that's dedicated to such stuff.

Content aside, this does look to be a utility with the potential for many interesting uses. The concepts behind the distributed storage network are quite fascinating. Although the aforementioned network connections look like they are generating a lot of traffic, the protocol has been optimized for minimum bandwidth usage. Just let it crank, possibly share some of your favorite files, and plug into a global network that's full of free content.

Version 0.93 of GTK-Gnutella has been announced this week on SourceForge. See the announcement for the list of changes with this version. Development help is needed for GTK-Gnutella, see the GTK-Gnutella development page for more information.

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Planet CCRMA Changes

The latest changes from the Planet CCRMA audio utility packaging project includes new versions of MidiShare, Qjackctl, libsigc++, Gtkmm2, Scons, Cheesetracker, Fluidsynth, and more.

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PostgreSQL v7.4 Release Candidate 1

The first release candidate for PostgreSQL 7.4 is out. There is one major change between Beta5 and RC1 found so far, RC1 will no longer work with TCL8.0.x, due to a change to pgtclCmds.c.

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PostgreSQL Weekly News

The October 30, 2003 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News has been published, take a look for the latest PostgreSQL news and a report of the beta5 testing.

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QUASAR Persistence 1.3 released (SourceForge)

Version 1.3 of QUASAR Persistence has been announced. "QUASAR Persistence is an object-relational persistence-manager written in Java. Persistent objects and the corresponding or-mapping are described in a model. Instances of this persistence classes can interact with the database and can be queried with a language, that is oriented at the objectmodel. It has an open architecture, is J2EE conform, and can be run standalone or integrated in EJB application servers."

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Spambayes version 1.0a7 is released

Version 1.0a7 of Spambayes, a Bayesian anti-spam filter, has been released. Numerous changes and bug fixes are included.

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iptables 1.2.9 released

Version 1.2.9 of iptables, part of the Linux firewalling subsystem, has been announced. "1.2.9 is (like most other 1.2.x releases) a maintenance release, containing lots of bugfixes that have accumulated over time."

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Sync4j 1.1 released (SourceForge)

Version 1.1 of Sync4j, an open-source SyncML server and framework, has been announced. "Along with many bugs fixed, this release adds the following features: multimessage support, message processing pipeline architecture."

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moregroupware 0.6.9 has been released (SourceForge)

Version 0.6.9 of moregroupware, a web-based groupware package that was written in PHP 4, has been released. "The new release features a lot of changes, some of them have fundamental character. There have been bug fixes done to all areas of the application, and a lot of new features have been added."

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Lindows.com Announces Mozilla-Based Nvu Web Publishing Software (MozillaZine)

MozillaZine covers an announcement that Lindows.com is starting a project to build a Web publishing product for Linux, based on Mozilla Composer and released under the Mozilla Public License.

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Open Guides (O'Reilly)

Kake Pugh explains Open Guides, a Perl-based web application for managing tourist guides for cities. "I meant it when I said I wanted to be able to find pubs. I want to find all pubs in Notting Hill that serve food and have a beer garden. The Open Guide to London must have this information! There's no obvious way to get to it directly, though. I may have to write some code."

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Invoking Web services with Java clients (IBM developerWorks)

Bertrand Portier discusses Java web services on IBM's developerWorks. "In this article, IBM developer Bertrand Portier describes the different types of Java Web services clients and explains how to write portable, vendor independent code. There are two families of Web services clients in the Java world: unmanaged and J2EE container-managed clients. The article starts by briefly describing the Web services invocation process and the Web services standards for Java environments. The two families of Java Web services clients are then described, including their similarities and differences for the two steps they need to perform: service lookup and access."

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Audacity 1.2.0-pre3 released

Version 1.2.0-pre3 of the Audacity sound file editor is available. "This version fixes all of the known major bugs in 1.2.0-pre2 and adds support for the VST Enabler. Everyone who is testing 1.2.0-pre2 or any previous beta version of Audacity (1.1.x) is encouraged to upgrade immediately."

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Speex 1.1.1 Released

Version 1.1.1 of Speex, an audio CODEC package, is available. "This release adds a partial fixed-point port which can be enabled using the --enable-fixed-point option at configure time. Not all floating-point operations have been converted yet, but all the code should work."

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Announcing KDE 3.2 Beta 1 'Rudi'

The first beta release of KDE 3.2 is now available. Code named "Rudi", this release has all the features you can expect to see in the final 3.2 release.

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KDE-CVS-Digest

The October 31, 2003 KDE-CVS-Digest has been announced on KDE.News. "In this week's CVS-Digest: Feature freeze instituted for 3.2 release. Groupware support merged, sort of. Many bug fixes, including 'enter closes completion popup' in Konqueror." The digest is available here.

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XFree86 Independent Driver Releases

The XFree86 project has announced the availability of Independent Driver Releases. "These Independent Driver Releases help making plugging in the latest experimental driver try-outs all the easier in your base XFree86. This is a real bonus for those who only install full releases of XFree86 and just want to see what's new or those who are worried that the Snapshots are just a little too cutting edge and may leave an unstable XFree86 platform for them to use."

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New releases of GNOME Commander, Straw and more (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop.org has a multiple announcement for new versions of Gnofract 4D, gThumb, GNOME Commander, Straw, Gammu, Gewels, and gLabels. For those who appreciate cool fractal images, Gnofract 4D is worth a quick install.

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Conglomerate 0.7.6 Released (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop.org reports on the release of Conglomerate 0.7.6, an XML editor that is aimed at the DocBook document type. "A fair amount has changed since the last release: there are plenty of new features which need testing. In particular, support for non-Roman scripts should be substantially better - we now support GTK Input Methods, and I believe I've fixed the last remaining multibyte character bug. Testers welcome!"

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GIMP 1.3.22 Released (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop.org covers the release of version 1.3.22 of the GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program. "This release features lots of bug fixes and also has some new features like a dockable histogram and improved session management."

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Wine Traffic

The October 31, 2003 edition of Wine Traffic has been published. Take a look for the latest Wine news.

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FreeB Initial Release (LinuxMedNews)

LinuxMedNews has an announcement for the initial release of FreeB. "The FreeB project is the only known Free and Open Source medical billing package in existence. Its importance to FOSS in medicine cannot be over-stated. Project leader Fred Trotter announces: 'FreeB was released today. FreeB is the only Free and Open Source Medical Billing Project that is designed to integrate with any Practice or Hospital Management System.'"

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leafnode-1.9.45 released (SourceForge)

Version 1.9.45 of leafnode, a caching Usenet news proxy, is available. "Leafnode 1.9.45 fixes a very old bug that let fetchnews confuse 'line that starts with a dot' and 'a line that consists only of a dot', leading to random error messages when the upstream server offered a group that started with a dot."

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Mozilla 1.6 Alpha Released (MozillaZine)

Version 1.6 Alpha of the Mozilla browser is available. "The Mozilla Foundation has just released Mozilla 1.6 Alpha, the first milestone of the 1.6 development cycle. Amongst its other enhancements, 1.6a features many Mail & Newsgroups improvements, including vCard support, an option to remove mail from a POP server after x days and a preference for placing the user's signature above quoted text when composing an email or newsgroup posting."

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Minutes of the mozilla.org Staff Meeting (MozillaZine)

The minutes from the October 20, 2003 Mozilla.org staff meeting are online. "Issues discussed include facilities, FTP, CD sales, website traffic and the website beta."

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AbiWord 2.0.1 released (GnomeDesktop)

GnomeDesktop.org covers the release of AbiWord version 2.0.1, which features a number of bug fixes.

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AbiWord Weekly News

Issue #168 of the AbiWord Weekly News has been published. "2.0.1 is now out, or atleast, by the time most of you read this. A new and exciting feature just hits head. And, a possible preemptive strike against SCO!"

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Caml Weekly News

The October 28 - November 4, 2003 edition of the Caml Weekly News is available with more Caml language news.

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Scheduling recurring tasks in Java applications (IBM developerWorks)

Tom White shows how to perform scheduling in Java on IBM's developerWorks. "All manner of Java applications commonly need to schedule tasks for repeated execution. Enterprise applications need to schedule daily logging or overnight batch processes. A J2SE or J2ME calendar application needs to schedule alarms for a user's appointments. However, the standard scheduling classes, Timer and TimerTask, are not flexible enough to support the range of scheduling tasks typically required. In this article, Java developer Tom White shows you how to build a simple, general scheduling framework for task execution conforming to an arbitrarily complex schedule."

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Use a consistent trace system for easier debugging (IBM developerWorks)

Scott Clee introduces his Java trace class on IBM's developerWorks. "When faced with a thorny bug, many developers use System.out.println statements to send status messages to the console so that they can more easily pin down the moment at which their program goes awry. But those statements slow down program execution and can be difficult to clean up once the code is ready for production; more to the point, they are more of a stop-gap measure than a truly consistent debugging system. In this article, Scott Clee introduces a tracing utility class that improves upon this debugging method."

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lgtk 0.0.3 released

Version 0.0.3 of lgtk, the Common Lisp bindings for the GTK toolkit, is out. This is the first public release for the project.

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Perl 5.8.2 RC2 is out (use Perl)

Use Perl covers the release of Perl 5.8.2 RC2. "Perl 5.8.2 Release Candidate 2 has been uploaded to CPAN. I hadn't planned on RC2, but there have been a few significant tweaks since RC1, most notably in some library calls with threading."

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Parrot 0.0.13 'Screaming Pumpkin' Released (use Perl)

Version 0.0.13 of Parrot, the Perl 6 virtual engine, has been announced. "Proposed originally as a fun release it has a remarkable list of improvements, additions, and fixes. While some milestones have not really been reached, there have been many steps towards getting these done."

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This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)

The October 27- November 2, 2003 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is online. "The big news of the week is of course the first release candidate of perl 5.8.2, the problems it solves, and the new problems it causes."

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This week on Perl 6 (O'Reilly)

The October 26, 2003 edition of This week on Perl 6 is available from O'Reilly. Take a look for lots of Perl 6 language topics and techniques.

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PHP 4.3.4 and 5.0.0 Beta 2 released

Two new releases of PHP are available. The description for version 4.3.4 says: "This release contains a fair number of bug fixes and we recommend that all users of PHP upgrade to this version."

The version 5.0.0 Beta 2 description says: "This is the first feature complete version of PHP 5, and we recommend for PHP users to try it. PHP 5 is still not ready for production use!"

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PHP Weekly Summary for November 3, 2003

The PHP Weekly Summary for November 3, 2003 is out. Topics include: PHP 5 Beta 2, PHP 5, Windows DLLs, PHP 4.3.4 RC 3, LZO extension, Continuity SAPI, DOM and SimpleXML.

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PHP Web Services Without SOAP (O'ReillyNet)

Adam Trachtenberg explains how to use REST on O'Reilly. "Web services are hot these days, and SOAP gets a lot of the buzz. It's not the only game in town, though. REST advocates claim their approach is how the Web was meant to be. You decide. Adam Trachtenberg, coauthor of PHP Cookbook, demonstrates how to access Amazon.com's web services with PHP and REST; no special tools needed!"

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phpDocumentor 1.2.3 is released (SourceForge)

Version 1.2.3 of phpDocumentor, a JavaDoc-like automatic documentation generator for PHP, has been announced. "This is a bugfix maintenance release. Only a few small bugs have been found and fixed."

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Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!

The Dr. Dobb's Python-URL for November 3, 2003 is out, with weekly news and links for the Python community.

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PEP 239: Generator Expressions accepted

Python PEP #239, entitled Generator Expressions, has been accepted into version 2.4 of the language. "This PEP introduces generator expressions as a high performance, memory efficient generalization of list comprehensions and generators."

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Charming Python: Numerical Python (IBM developerWorks)

David Mertz explores Numerical Python and the newer Numarray on IBM's developerWorks. "Numerical Python (often called NumPy) is a widely used extension library for fast operations on fixed-type arrays, of any dimensionality, in Python. Since the underlying code is well-optimized C, any speed limitations of Python's interpreter usually go away when major operations are performed in NumPy calls. As successful as NumPy has been, its developers have decided to supercede NumPy with a new module called Numarray that is mostly, but not quite entirely, compatible with NumPy. In this installment, David looks both at the general features of NumPy and at the specific improvements forthcoming with Numarray."

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Capturing the power of re.split

Simon Willison examines the use of re.split on his weblog. "The second tip is so powerful I've been kicking myself for not finding out about it sooner. It relates to the regular expression module's re.split() function. Just like string.split(), this lets you split up a string based on a certain token."

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This week's Tcl-URL

Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL for November 5 is out with the latest from the Tcl/Tk development community.

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XML Schema Design Patterns: Is Complex Type Derivation Unnecessary? (O'Reilly)

Dare Obasanjo discusses XML type derivation issues on O'Reilly. "W3C XML Schema (WXS) possesses a number of features that mimic object oriented concepts, including type derivation and polymorphism. However real world experience has shown that these features tend to complicate schemas, may have subtle interactions that lead tricky problems, and can often be replaced by other features of WXS. In this article I explore both derivation by restriction and derivation by extension of complex types showing the pros and cons of both techniques, as well as showing alternatives to achieving the same results."

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