Java

Java3D Source Code Released 220

Posted by michael from the have-a-nice-steaming-cup dept.
mrp101 writes "Over the past few months (aka year) the future of Java3D has been in question. Not too long ago Apple announced a port to Mac OS X, but still no official update from Sun. A few weeks ago Sun announced that they were going to release the source code and begin collecting comments for version 1.4/2.0. And today they delivered, right before the JavaOne conference. The announcement can be found here(1) and the CVS here(2). The code includes the core scenegraph, the vector math library, and Sun's own add-on utility libraries."
Programming

The Pragmatic Programmers Interviewed 162

Posted by Hemos from the position-yourself-as-well dept.
jpkunst writes "An interesting interview at the O'Reilly Network with Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas, authors of The Pragmatic Programmer, who recently started their own publishing company. Many topics are covered. Dave has this to say about outsourcing: 'To get job security, developers need to position themselves as highly effective business-value generators, working with the rest of the company to solve common goals. If you sit in your cube waiting for a spec to be thrown over the wall, then you may be in for a wait -- that spec might be in an envelope on its way to Bangalore'"
Programming

What Motivates Software Developers? 40

Posted by Cliff from the why-do-you-code? dept.
TekZen asks: "LWN posted a reference to an ABC News article that claims 'Other than Linux, all the other open-source projects move along at a rate best described as glacial.' The reason? 'This probably is a function of how motivation and lack of fear work among open-source developers.' Are you motivated by fear to develop at work? What motivates you as an Open Source software developer?"
Spam

Impoverish a Spammer Today 343

Posted by michael from the lose-money-fast dept.
esj at harvee writes "Recently the Camram project released its latest version of a hybrid sender-pays anti-spam system. The project has proven that sender-pays works and has demonstrated how to make it work with existing e-mail systems. Camram has developed hybrid sender-pays techniques that scale down to the desktop and up to the enterprise. It's a completely decentralized system that can put spam-fighting power in the hands of individuals. It gives you control of not only the current generation of spam, but also any future commercial spam -- why replace Viagra ads from a scam artist with Viagra ads from Pfizer?"
Microsoft

How Microsoft Develops Its Software 816

Posted by michael from the remember-the-triangle dept.
crem_d_genes writes "David Gristwood has a post on his blog that notes '21 Rules of Thumb - How Microsoft Develops Its Software', on which he will elaborate at TechEd in Amsterdam next week. It was derived from interviews with Jim Mccarthy, also of Microsoft. Gristwood: 'As someone who has been involved with software development for over two decades, the whole area of how you actually bring together a team and get them to successfully deliver a project on time, is one worthy of a lot of attention, if only because it is so hard to do. Even before I joined Microsoft, ten years ago, I was interested in this topic, having been involved myself in a couple of projects that, I shall politely say, were somewhat less than successful.' Tips include such features as 'Don't know what you don't know.'; 'Beware the guy in a room.'; 'Never trade a bad date for an equally bad date.'; and 'Enrapture the customers.'"
IBM

Computer Pioneer Bob Bemer Dies 348

Posted by CowboyNeal from the riderless-horse dept.
tpconcannon writes "Bob Bemer, the man who helped introduce the backslash as well as the escape key to computing, has passed away at his home at the age of 78. He also helped develop ASCII during the 60's at IBM. More interesting is that he predicted the Y2K bug all the way back in 1971!"
PHP

Advanced PHP Programming 189

Posted by timothy from the high-praise dept.
sympleko (Matthew Leingang) writes "PHP5 has hit its third release candidate, so get used to the idea of using it. George Schlossnagle has written a great book on PHP programming which ought to generate some enthusiasm. But it's not just about PHP5: the book includes great information on everything from coding style to high-level problem-solving. I met George through a friend of mine who works for the Developers Library, and I'm glad to have finally gotten a look at his book." Read on for Leingang's review of Advanced PHP Programming: A practical guide to developing large-scale Web sites and applications to PHP5.
Communications

News From The Evolution Front 52

Posted by timothy from the stereo-vision-is-all-the-rage dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Sun's Java System Calendar Server connector (Hydrogen) for Evolution 1.4 on Solaris and Linux was GPL'ed today and is now available in GNOME CVS. This follows the recent GPLization of Novell's Ximian Connector (for Microsoft Exchange servers). In related news, the next major version of Evolution (version 2.0) is supposed to be released sometime during the next month, and beta testing have picked up pace. If you have some spare time, you can also give the Evolution 1.5.9 a spin. You can also use jhbuild to build Evolution from CVS (since the binaries are quite old by now). There is also a new project in GNOME CVS, called Evolution Brainread which adds a blog viewer to Evolution. It is not yet quite ready for production use, but looks quite good."
GUI

Call For A New Default Theme For Mozilla Sunbird 56

Posted by timothy from the snide-remark-about-rendering dept.
synopsis5 writes "The developers of Mozilla Sunbird, the standalone version of Mozilla Calendar, are looking for a new default theme and are asking the community to build a new one. Interested theme creators should read the guidelines posted in the MozillaZine Themes forum, which feature complete details. Submitted work must be licensed under the standard MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license and a rough showcase needs to be produced by Tuesday 13th July for the theme to be considered. A few showcases have already been brought forth and are discussed. Take a look!"
Spam

Spamassassin Beats CRM-114 In Anti-Spam Shootout 330

Posted by timothy from the hawaii-alaska-and-utah dept.
Simon Lyall writes "A new study of antispam software shows that Spamassassin performed well in various configurations along with Spamprobe , Bogofilter and Spambayes also came out good while CRM-114 failed to live up to its previous claims . The study shows: 'The best-performing filters reduced the volume of incoming spam from about 150 messages per day to about 2 messages per day.'"
Operating Systems

Minix from Scratch Project Established 229

Posted by timothy from the but-that's-unpossible dept.
decuser writes "The MFS - Minix from Scratch project was established in the wake of the Brown-Tannenbaum controversy. MFS aims to be to the Minix community what LFS is to the Linux community, a recipe for building an alternative OS from 'scratch.'" See the project's website at mfs.sunsite.dk or minixfromscratch.org.
GNU is Not Unix

More On The Open Sourcing Of Iraq 287

Posted by timothy from the available-blueprints-are-a-good-thing dept.
popdookey writes " The BBC's broadcast, The World, has run a piece on the growing Linux movement in Iraq as was previously reported here on Slashdot. 'In Iraq, a group of computer users has started writing open source computer code. They're Linux enthusiasts. The idea is to make low-cost, home-grown software and is said to hold great promise for developing countries. It could leapfrog Iraq into a more competitive future. The World technology reporter Clark Boyd reports.'"
Programming

Farb-Rausch Releases PC Demo Creation Software 203

Posted by simoniker from the rsi-demo-maker dept.
RaD Man [ACiD] writes "Farb-Rausch, one of the best-known groups at the forefront of the PC demoscene, has just released Werkkzeug, a fully featured, freely downloadable PC demo creation tool used to make the visually stunning and award-winning demo The Popular Demo. Not only have they freely published the creation tools, but they've also released the original datafiles for The Popular Demo as well." We also recently featured a 96kb FPS demo from the same authors.
IBM

Eclipse Reaches Version 3.0 70

Posted by timothy from the da-da-da-dum dept.
Tarantolato writes "The Eclipse Foundation has released version 3.0 of its open-source Java-based IDE. Eclipse backers like IBM say the program offers not only increased productivity and ease of use, but also a plugin-based architecture for creating 'rich client' applications with the networking capabilities of web-based apps and the persistence and native widgets of desktop applications. The Lotus Workplace platform is already Eclipse-based. Some in the Java community, however, are concerned with Eclipse's use of SWT rather than the standard Swing widget set, and some analysts think that project is part of a 'broader challenge to Microsoft's entire .Net development framework' from IBM. Meanwhile, Eclipse executives are attempting to woo Microsoft into joining the foundation."
Programming

OpenBSD Hackathon Underway 67

Posted by timothy from the so-don't-even-ask dept.
Triumph The Insult C writes "Aside from some stealth developers, the annual OpenBSD Hackathon, held in Calgary, is underway, according to Theo. They've been doing some recent work on SMP, and have some impressive AMD SMP gear there that they've got to hack around with. A few years ago, it was PF. Who knows what they'll come up with this time that knocks our socks off."
The Internet

Dan Kaminsky Suggests Having Fun with DNS 212

Posted by timothy from the bits-is dept.
boogahsmalls writes "A few weekends ago Dan Kaminsky of scanrand fame presented some pretty cool ideas involving DNS that made plenty of heads spin at the LayerOne Technology Conference. Some of his concepts included Voice over DNS and storing Knoppix in a DNS cache. He's also apparently got a couple new tools in the pipe including a scanrand based DNS scanner and a visualization suite. Could another version of Paketto Keiretsu be in the works?" (OpenOffice.org does a great job of opening the PowerPoint slideshow.)
Wireless Networking

Jean Tourrilhes On Linux Wireless LAN 143

Posted by simoniker from the spelling-101 dept.
mcleodnine writes "Jean Tourrilhes of the Linux Wireless LAN Howto project took some time to answer a few questions from members at LinuxQuestions.org. Among some of the more interesting commments was his pick of best and worst Open Source friendly vendors ('Some of those TI engineers even sent me e-mails criticising some features of the Wireless Extensions'), an opinion or two about the Next Big Thing in wireless (MIMO), and a poke in the eye for OS zealots of any religion."
KDE

Deep Inside the K Desktop Environment 219

Posted by Hemos from the kteach-kyourself-kabout-kit dept.
Lemmingue writes "Ars Technica published a very good article about the KDE architecture. It's a essential read for anyone wondering how Konqueror can open documents in the same window or just understand the license issues regarding the Qt use. The article describes most of the technologies behind the KDE (Qt, KParts) and how the project is organized. The article is full of links, screenshots and diagrams."

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