James Cho writes: "Four days ago, the 2nd public release of the NSA's 'security-enhanced' version of Linux (it's not an entire distribution) came out. The NSA describes it as having 'a strong, flexible mandatory access control architecture incorporated into the major subsystems of the kernel". However it must be noted that this 'is not intended as a complete security solution for Linux' and that there is 'still much work needed to develop a complete security solution'."

epowers writes: "It's been a long time since /. ran this story, but a few days ago the Open Watcom Project made it's first public release. It's only a binary patch targeted at 11.0a/b owners, but it's still an important roadmark on the way to the planned full open source release of both the Watcom C/C++ and Fortran compilers. Most programmers, particularly game programmers, should remember the amount of prestige id software's DOOM generated for the Watcom compiler and the sudden proliferation of 32-bit DOS games with the tell-tale "DOS/4GW" startup banner. The download is available for free, but Open Watcom requests a $1-$50 donation to help support the development effort required to remove code Sybase doesn't own and to prepare the open source release."

spectecjr asks: "Everyone's seen lens flare effects being used in various 3D games recently (including Half Life, Unreal Tournament, etc); but typically, these effects are simulated using Photoshop to create textures which are then billboarded to the screen. So how do the people who write Photoshop plug-ins simulate lens flares? All the tutorials on the 'net seem to be of the nature of the fake-out method used above. So if you were going to write a lens flare simulation from scratch, how would you do it?" Interesting question. It would be interesting to know the mathematics behind modeling lens flares, using the Photoshop model and more realistic models, if they exist.

alanjstr writes: "eWeek reports that 'The Open Source Development Lab has created a code benchmarking tool--known as the Scalable Test Platform--that it says will allow developers to easily test their Linux kernel patches from a variety of tests and server configurations.' It is intended for centralized performance testing." OSDL is sponsored by a lot of companies, including VA Linux, parent company of OSDN and Slashdot.

Michael 'Buccaneer' Koch writes: "Earlier this week, Discreet, the makers of 3D Studio Max, released a new tool for making content for games like levels and models. Its name is gmax and can be downloaded freely. Developers can build support for their games by writing plugins for gmax and paying a fee to Discreet. It really sounds like a good idea for the mod-community."

Knight2K asks: "My company is currently using CVS to handle our code repository. The project managers, however, are unhappy with some problems with the system. Most of the developers appear to feel that CVS does what they need just fine, but don't seemed to be bothered by switching to something else. It seems to me that CVS handles part of these things, and cultivating a culture of responsible revision handling would take care of others. I would like to be an advocate for CVS here, but I don't want to just promote the Open Source solution if there are legitimate reasons or advantages to switching to a commercial project."

Snatch writes: "Recently a committee was created by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to develop a new standard called 802.15 Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN), which will use the Bluetooth standard as its foundation. This article discusses the goals and specifications being developed by the 802.15 committee. Once developed, the 802.15 specification will provide a common standard that has broad market applicability, as more wireless devices will interoperate with each other."

zmower writes: "John English has just put his out-of-print "Ada 95: The Craft of Object-Oriented Programming" online at http://www.it.bton.ac.uk/staff/je/adacraft/ I've read this and a few other Ada books. This was a good read and definitely the best introduction to Ada book."

proclus writes: "GNU-Darwin has provided a special FreeBSD ports tarball (20 Mb) for GNU/Linux users. We have modified the FreeBSD Ports System to bring thousands of free software offerings within the reach of every GNU/Linux user. The system is not fully automated yet, but you can untar it in your home directory and try it. Just follow these directions. This system provides full access to the FreeBSD ports, so that users can compile and install software in their home directories. Root access is not required."

Kentai asks: "Im thinking of building my final year CS project around developing a piece of software for the Playstation 2 and I am wondering what various pitfalls I should expect. Bringing our own software to the living room on nice hardware seems like a whole new computer medium that would be fun to exploit. Problems I am expecting so far include: issues like obtaining a compiler (pretty important), the whole Playstation 2 CDR issue and legal issues. What compilers can one use to develop PS2 software, and how much does each solution cost? Also, has anyone had any luck or placed any hope on a Java VM for this platform?"

SecretAsianMan asks: "In the early days of the Web, being a webmaster required only a basic knowledge of HTML and some skill in graphics. Many programmers, myself included, scoffed at so-called 'web programming', considering it highly unworthy of the name. While we were busy scoffing, the Web grew up. Today's Web is much more than a collection of static HTML documents; it is dynamic, interactive, and filled with enough buzzwords to make your head spin. I'm considering retargeting myself to web development in order to open up more job possibilities. What should I learn, and in what order? What is the best method to fast-track into web development?"

Tube writes "There's been allot of WAP smack these days, some kicking of the WAP dog when he is down, and even some spitting in the eye of WAP, but it's still moving forward. The Wireless Section of DeveloperWorks is running a feature that tells you where it is and where it's going. XML and WML 2.0: XHTML is giving WAP the fuel to keep it righteous." The feature has some good points; but I still find WAP to be almost entirely useless to me, compared to how it was supposed to have walked my dog, cooked dinner, dry cleaned my t-shirts, cloned me, traded currency derivative and played bridge well. Ah, well, I suppose that's an issue more of hyping then the actual protocol.

Trapper writes: "The fourth Advanced filesystem implementor's guide article has just been released today. It covers the significance and benefits of devfs, the device management filesystem. The series of Advanced filesystem aricles shows you how to set up new advanced filesystems under the Linux 2.4 release. Article 3 covers using the virtual memory (VM) filesystem and bind mounts, article 2 covers using ReiserFS and Linux 2.4 and articel 1 covers Journalling and ReiserFS."

Michael Buffington asks: "I just picked up a Samsung Uproar cell phone combination MP3 player for a much reduced price of $179.00, which is a great deal when you consider what a nice digital mobile phone costs these days combined with the cost of even the worst MP3 player. I'm impressed with the phone and it's features, but would like know if any other owners of the phone have thought of the feasibility of developing software to interface the phone (other than the MusicMatch bloat-ware that's required on an Windows machine no less). I'm considering diving into USB driver programming, but before I do, I thought I'd Ask Slashdot to see if anyone has already figured out what's possible? It has 64MB of RAM, perhaps it could support a custom OS? Maybe rather than just being able to download MP3's, I could download phone numbers and appointments into the phone. Would be great to find out what the limitations are." That's a great price for such a combo and it would be an utter steal if this device can be extended beyond the limits of its existing software. Anyone else playing around with these and would care to share their thoughts and experiences on this device?

andyfsu99 inputs: "Recently I've noticed the increasing confusion between Java the language and Java the platform. Recruiters and project managers routinely ask for a numeric "rating" of a developer's Java skills. Do they mean Java the language (OO concepts, syntax, libraries, etc)? Or Java the platform (EJB, JCA, JSP, etc)? How do you answer this question? Clearly, Sun is pushing the platform definition. How will this effect the evolution of emerging techologies like C# and .NET? Will major new languages be forever coupled with platforms moving forward?"

Stephanie Black contributes this review of a book which might be nice to have around if someone suggests that Open Source is "not for business use." Managing Open Source Projects is one of a class of books that will probably expand hugely in the next few years.

nealbutler writes: "This is up on perl.com, and I suppose a lot of people have seen it, but I think it's cool enough to warrant an article! wxWindows, the free C++ Crossplatform GUI framework is now available for perl! I've wxPython, and it rocks, so Tk/Perl's days may now be numbered...My main development platform is (unfortunately...) Win32, and Tk/Perl doesn't have half as much Win32 stuff as wxWindows does (e.g. accessing proper windows dialog boxes, etc.)."

AMK writes: "I've written an article about Web application architecture, describing the design we use at my workplace which relies on an object-oriented database, a Web app server we wrote, some parts of extreme programming, and lots of Python code. It shows a straightforward way of building a system that can cope with a complex Web-based application."

idg101 asks: "I can remember the days when i was 10, programming in QBASIC and checking out all the programs on such sites as this one. There were exciting! Around age 13 i can remember talk of getting an internet interface to work with in your programs. Now, I am 19, and the story has apparently changed. Qbasic.com looks the same as it did many years ago. What happened to QBASIC and its followers?" My guess is that Microsoft has been doing it's best to replace all of the old-school BASIC interpreters with it's Visual Basic...which is all well and good unless all you wanted to do was fiddle with a 10-100 line quickie. So, reiterating idg101's question: are there still lightweight BASIC interpreters still floating around?

gobbles writes: "Intel has just announced free (as in beer) C/C++ and FORTRAN compilers for Linux. With support for OpenMP and Pentium 3, 4 and Itanium optimizations, this is a winner - suddenly Intel hardware becomes a whole lot more attractive for Linux developers. For those with Pentium 4 or Itanium systems, performance gains of 50% or more are just waiting to be had! Grab the compilers here and take 'em for a spin! Athlon owners need not apply."