X

First Xouvert Milestone Released 404

Posted by timothy from the will-it-rock-your-world dept.
An anonymous reader writes " The first milestone of xouvert, the X-server replacement has been released. Xouvert includes MAS giving the X server its very own sound server. Nice. :) Also, just noticed that enlightenment quietly released an update to the 0.16 series. " (Here's a link to the Xouvert download page.)
GUI

KDE 3.2 beta 2 Released 30

Posted by timothy from the breaker-breaker-beta-2 dept.
KentoNET writes "The KDE dot is reporting that KDE 3.2 beta 2 has been released. 'Dobra Voda,' as the release is named, still has some rough edges, but developers are urging users to test and report bugs in the new beta. Binaries are available for SuSE, Fedora and Slackware. Also released was another beta of Gideon, KDE's in-development IDE."
Intel

Open-Source Machine Learning Library Available 21

Posted by timothy from the avoid-falling-heavy-objects dept.
Ridgelift writes "CNet has this article on Intel's OpenML (press release). "The chipmaker's research arm on Monday said it is offering the Open Source Machine Learning Library, a collection of software that can help computers learn from various experiences. It will offer the library to interested parties for free via the Web." Open the pod bay doors, HAL."
Sun Microsystems

Sun Negotiating With Wal-Mart Over Java Desktop 468

Posted by simoniker from the sun-mart-wal-java dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to an EWeek article, Sun is challenging Microsoft on a new front: the consumer market. Believing its Java Desktop System is "a more effective home and retail solution," the company is negotiating with major retailers Wal-Mart and Office Depot to include the Java desktop on consumer PCs and laptops."
Unix

Unix Network Programming, Vol. 1 160

Posted by timothy from the tab-a-slot-b-socket-n dept.
prostoalex writes "Reviewing Richard Stevens' Unix Network Programming is akin to reviewing the New Testament for a Christian audience, or The Elements of Style for English majors. Everyone who is somehow involved in network programming on Unix/Linux systems generally refers to the tome as ultimate learning resource and the best reference out there." Read on for the rest of Alex's review.
Java

Tomcat 5.0 Released 44

Posted by Hemos from the pissing-all-over-the-place dept.
aquarium writes "The Apache Jakarta Project announces the release of the first stable version of Tomcat 5.0. Improvements include performance optimizations, scalability and reliability enhancements, and improved Taglibs handling."
PC Games (Games)

108 Ways To Do The Towers of Hanoi 192

Posted by Hemos from the and-50-ways-to-leave-your-jacob's-ladder dept.
hlarwood74 writes "While it is common to program in a few different languages, somebody has written "towers of hanoi" in 108 different ways, most of them in different programming languages. It's not just the number of languages though ... there are many neat implementations and in some cases he's come up with some strange ways of solving hanoi such as this: "you ping the hanoi machine with the number of disks encoded in the type of service field, and you get response packets whose sequence numbers represent the disk moves need to solve the puzzle". I wanted to ask "why" but the title of the page (hanoimania) explains a few things :)"
Programming

Perfect Weather on the Net 290

Posted by michael from the problems-for-a-rainy-day dept.
ctwxman writes "Here in the East, we're having a heck of a weekend. The snow has been flying, accompanied by wind, accompanied by people on TV saying, 'stay home.' I'm one of those people. I forecast the weather for a living. It's a great job... a magnificent physics puzzle, solvable with high level math and some acquired skill. And, there's a new puzzle every day, tenuously linked to the one you solved yesterday. When I started doing this over 20 years ago, the data to accomplish the task was tough to come by. I remember how excited I got when I first was able to get data at 300 baud on a request/reply basis (I guess we call that interactive now). Now, nearly everything you need to forecast the weather is here, on the net. Yes, there are a zillion sites that already have the finished forecast, but this is Slashdot. We don't need no stinkin' forecasters!" Read on for ctwxman's notes on do-it-yourself weather forecasting.
Toys

The Robots are Coming 239

Posted by michael from the metal-man dept.
An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices.com's new 'Linux-powered Robots Quick Reference Guide' offers an interesting glimpse into of some Linux-powered robots currently available or near production, and provides an extensive reading list with further information on Linux in robotics. According to a fascinating article at TechNewsWorld, Linux is poised to play a centrol role in an emerging industry that many expect to overtake the PC industry in size: robotics. Japan is currently driving robot innovation, according to the article, impelled by a looming labor shortage. Consumer robots like the Sony Aibo and Honda Asimo make headlines, but ubiquitous, cheap, and practical utility robots are what most Japanese robot makers are focused on, and 'carmaker Honda believes that robots will become its most important business,' according to the TechNewsWorld article. Watch out -- the Linux-powered robots are on the march!"
Programming

Future of 2.4 and 2.6 Kernels 314

Posted by michael from the too-many-cooks-spoil-the-soup dept.
Blair16 writes "According to this article on C|Net, not everybody is chomping at the bit for the new Linux 2.6.0 kernel. Marcelo Tosatti, the appointed deputy for the 2.4 kernel is not expecting to make any non-crucial additions to the popular kernel, saying that all new projects should be pumped into the new 2.6. This has upset some people who are not quite willing to move to so-called untested software. Some of their claims seem legitimate, but I wonder if all these people will really be left in the cold?"
Programming

The Rise and Rise of IT Administrators 686

Posted by CowboyNeal from the thorn-in-the-side dept.
maffstephens writes "Have you noticed how difficult it's become to develop software? Not because software is more complex, but because there seems to be an army of administrators standing in your way - sys admins, network admins, database admins, runtime admins - the list is endless. They should be there to help us, to make our lives easier, but the reality is often very different. This thought-provoking article from Software Reality is all about the emerging culture of spiteful, dog-in-the-manger prevention amongst corporate IT administrators. Software development has become so inefficient as a result, it's no wonder so many companies are outsourcing."
Programming

Open-Source Development 'Faster, Better, Cheaper' 150

Posted by michael from the plan-for-success dept.
David Hart writes "Faster, Better, Cheaper: Open-Source Practices May Help Improve Software Engineering -- Walt Scacchi of the University of California, Irvine, and his colleagues are conducting formal studies of the informal world of open-source software development, in which a distributed community of developers produces software source code that is freely available to share, study, modify and redistribute. They're finding that, in many ways, open-source development can be faster, better and cheaper than the 'textbook' software engineering often used in corporate settings."
Programming

Recommended Data Modeling Tools? 58

Posted by Cliff from the charting-your-data-structures dept.
dnxthx asks: "After performing a fairly comprehensive web search (including Slashdot) I came to the (possibly incorrect) conclusion that there were no high-visibility sites that comprehensively reviewed and compared data modeling tools such as ER/Studio, ERWin, DeZign for Databases, System Architect, or Visio for Enterprise Architects. Since some of these tools can be quite expensive (ERWin is about $4K US it seems), I was wondering what the Slashdot community's experiences were with data modeling tools such as these, or some that our group has overlooked."
Linux

Debugging Configure 72

Posted by michael from the click-ok-to-continue dept.
An anonymous reader writes "All too often, checking the README of a package yields only the none-too-specific "Build Instructions: Run configure, then run make." But what about when that doesn't work? In this article, the author discusses what to do when an automatic configuration script doesn't work -- and what you can do as a developer to keep failures to a minimum. After all, if your build process doesn't work, users are just as badly off as if your program doesn't work once it's built."
PC Games (Games)

NYT on Game Mods 172

Posted by michael from the foreign-territory dept.
Bansuki writes "The New York Times has an article about the role of the modding communities in the games industry. It's a decent overview of the current state of modding though it focuses heavily on Epic Games and the Unreal engine. They spotlight the Unreal University program (an Unreal sponsored event giving classes to potential modders) and Red Orchestra (a highly ambitious mod of the Unreal Warfare engine). The article also mentions machinima as a type of mod with artistic potential and gives due credit to Id Software and Bioware for their work in making engines available to the community. But here's a glaring omission: Half-life and its wildly successful mods. Odd."
IBM

Sun Drops Bid To Join Eclipse 80

Posted by simoniker from the puns-aplenty dept.
ilovestuff writes "According to ZDNet, Sun Microsystems has decided not to join the Eclipse open-source tools effort backed by rival IBM. In addition to dropping the plan to join Eclipse, Sun said Wednesday that it will no longer try to merge the Sun-sponsored NetBeans.org open-source Java tools project with Eclipse. The Eclipse open-source project, founded by IBM in 2001, is an IBM-owned consortium which has gained the membership of several development tools companies over the past year."
Programming

How to Misunderstand Open Source 318

Posted by timothy from the in-light-of-recent-events dept.
Sam Hiser writes "This article intends to clear up some misconceptions about open source software development practices. It can help developers, IT and business managers transition from a closed development environment to an open one characterized by shorter time-to-market and lower costs. The author, Tom Adelstein -- an experienced CPA, code developer, project manager and consultant -- makes clear the notion that Open Source Software bears a mark of professionalism."

Slashdot Top Deals