Slashdot Mirror

briandonovan writes "World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Director Tim Berners-Lee and his compatriots would like to transform the current Web into a 'Semantic Web' where 'software agents roaming from page to page can readily carry out sophisticated tasks for users' using 'structured collections of information and sets of inference rules.' The Resource Description Framework (RDF), designed as a language for expressing information about resources on the Web, and allied technologies are the result to date of ongoing efforts at the W3C to furnish Semantic Web proponents with the requisite tools. While it's far too early to predict whether TimBL's grand vision will be realized, RDF/XML (the XML serialization of RDF) is already in widespread use, having been incorporated into a surprising array of applications." Read on below for briandonovan's link-stuffed review of O'Reilly's Practical RDF. Practical RDF: Solving Problems with the Resource Description Framework author Shelley Powers pages 331 publisher O'Reilly & Associates rating 9/10 reviewer Brian Donovan ISBN 0596002637 summary Great introduction to RDF, an assortment of tools and utilities for working with RDF, and some real-world applications.

RDF first hit my radar screen a couple of years ago while I was working on a barebones tool to manage my personal website. I was writing the code to generate RSS feeds ("What is RSS?") for my site and had to choose whether to support RSS 0.9x (non-RDF) or RSS 1.0 (RDF-based) or both. Long story short: I went with RSS 1.0 and was able to implement the feeds, but never got any further into RDF afterwards. I couldn't make headway through the RDF-related working drafts rapidly enough to justify the time that I was spending, there weren't any worthwhile-looking books available at the time, and the few online tutorials that I found were sorely lacking -- possibly because the specs themselves were still evolving as the RDF Core Working Group hashed out some remaining issues.

Fast forward a few years: the dust in RDF-land seems to be settling a bit (although new working drafts of all of the current RDF specs were released on September 5th, most of the changes from previous versions appear to be relatively minor) and, with the publication of Shelley Powers' Practical RDF: Solving Problems with the Resource Description Framework, there's finally a good book available on the subject.

Overview After an introductory chapter that touches on the history of RDF and some applications of RDF/XML (the preferred, W3C-blessed serialization of RDF), the book is divided into three broad sections. In the first, the reader is guided through the raft of documentation produced by the RDF Core WG, including : Resource Description Framework (RDF): Concepts and Abstract Data Model, RDF/XML Syntax Specification, RDF Model Theory (formerly Semantics), and RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema. Before moving on to Part II, where she surveys programming language support and tools available for working with RDF (with code snippets where appropriate), Powers spends a chapter developing an RDF vocabulary, "PostCon," that's used throughout the remainder of the book for demo purposes.

Chapter 7, the first in the tools-focused portion of Practical RDF is dedicated to (mostly Java-based) editors, parsers, validators, browsers, etc. for desktop use. Next, she dives into Jena, the Java RDF toolkit that began life as the labor of love of HP Labs researcher Brian McBride before being elevated to the status of a formal HP Labs project under their Semantic Web Research umbrella. Another HP Labs Semantic Web project, Damian Steer's BrownSauce, a slick little Java-based RDF browser, was introduced back in Chapter7. Means for manipulating RDF/XML in Perl (RDF::Core, part of Ginger Alliance's PerlRDF project), PHP (RAP, the RDF API for PHP), and Python (RDFLib) are addressed in Chapter 9. RDF query engines/languages are taken up next -- rdfDB QL, the query language of R.V. Guha's rdfDB (written in C); SquishQL, implemented in the Java-based Inkling query engine (built atop PostgreSQL); RDQL, used within Jena; and Sesame, a JSP/Servlet querying engine that supports both RDQL and its own query language, RQL, and can be deployed atop MySQL or PostgreSQL. Powers rounds out this part of her book with a chapter that deals briefly with the leftovers. Drive, an RDF API for C#, is briefly discussed along with RDF APIs for less fashionable programming languages : Nokia's Wilbur for CLOS, XOTcl for Tcl, and RubyRDF for Ruby. Redland, an RDF toolkit written in C with Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl wrappers, is covered at some length (about half a dozen pages) and a couple more are given over to Redfoot, a Python RDF framework consisting of RDFLib (mentioned earlier in the Perl/PHP/Python chapter), a small-footprint HTTP server (according to the changelog at redfoot.net, they're using Medusa), and a native scripting language called Hypercode that lives within CDATA blocks in RDF/XML (example).

The last third of Practical RDF is devoted to uses of RDF and begins with a chapter on the OWL Web Ontology Language, an extension to RDF that's designed to supply more constraints for RDF vocabularies than can be provided by RDF Schema alone. This chapter would have been better situated after Chapter 5, which addresses RDF Schema, and feels a bit out of place here. RSS 1.0, the RDF-based syndication format, gets a chapter all of its own, beginning with a short synopsis of the evolution of RSS and the rift between the RSS 0.9x/2.0 and RSS 1.0 camps, progressing through descriptions of the RSS elements, some discussion of the use of modules, RSS autodiscovery, and aggregators (Amphetadesk, Meerkat, and NetNewsWire are mentioned), and finishing with an example RSS file (a syndicated list of book recommendations), producing RSS 1.0 using the Informa RSS Library (a set of Java classes), and merging two RSS 1.0 files using the XML::RSS Perl module. Two "Applications Based on RDF" (commercial and noncommercial) chapters top off the book. Noncommercial applications of RDF are visited first : Mozilla, where history and bookmarks, among other classes of information, are stored in RDF; the Creative Commons licensing scheme, whose proponents encourage content creators to embed RDF snippets into their documents and applications to provide information about the work itself and the restrictions placed on its reuse under the particular CC license that they've chosen; a Java and PostgreSQL based digital library system jointly developed by MIT and HP that uses RDF; and FOAF (Friend-of-a-Friend), an RDF vocabulary designed to express personal information and interpersonal relationships. Among the list of commercial applications utilizing RDF that comprises the final chapter in the book is Chandler, the same as yet very-alpha personal information manager that's managed to garner multiple mentions on this site.

The Verdict

The real meat of Practical RDF, for me, was in Chapters 1 through 6 (plus the OWL chapter, Chapter 12). This is not to say that the material in the last 2/3 of the book isn't useful or interesting. The section on RDF software tools is a great annotated survey of what's out there right now ... and I would imagine that installing and testdriving each of the software applications featured in those chapters must have been an extremely time-consuming process. The chapters describing real-world applications of RDF could be useful to someone trying to convince a manager that RDF is a viable, widely-used technology. Given a choice, though, I would rather have seen those pages spent on additional coverage of RDF, RDFS, and OWL with more example RDF vocabularies developed (like PostCon, which the author formulated, then refined through RDFS and OWL). The displaced material could have been made available online at the author's site for the book. A lot of that information will become less accurate over time as the software evolves and people come up with more applications for RDF anyway.

All nitpicking aside, though, if you're looking for a book on RDF, then you can't go wrong with Shelley Powers' Practical RDF.

You can purchase Practical RDF from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

briandonovan writes "World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Director Tim Berners-Lee and his compatriots would like to transform the current Web into a 'Semantic Web' where 'software agents roaming from page to page can readily carry out sophisticated tasks for users' using 'structured collections of information and sets of inference rules.' The Resource Description Framework (RDF), designed as a language for expressing information about resources on the Web, and allied technologies are the result to date of ongoing efforts at the W3C to furnish Semantic Web proponents with the requisite tools. While it's far too early to predict whether TimBL's grand vision will be realized, RDF/XML (the XML serialization of RDF) is already in widespread use, having been incorporated into a surprising array of applications." Read on below for briandonovan's link-stuffed review of O'Reilly's Practical RDF. Practical RDF: Solving Problems with the Resource Description Framework author Shelley Powers pages 331 publisher O'Reilly & Associates rating 9/10 reviewer Brian Donovan ISBN 0596002637 summary Great introduction to RDF, an assortment of tools and utilities for working with RDF, and some real-world applications.

RDF first hit my radar screen a couple of years ago while I was working on a barebones tool to manage my personal website. I was writing the code to generate RSS feeds ("What is RSS?") for my site and had to choose whether to support RSS 0.9x (non-RDF) or RSS 1.0 (RDF-based) or both. Long story short: I went with RSS 1.0 and was able to implement the feeds, but never got any further into RDF afterwards. I couldn't make headway through the RDF-related working drafts rapidly enough to justify the time that I was spending, there weren't any worthwhile-looking books available at the time, and the few online tutorials that I found were sorely lacking -- possibly because the specs themselves were still evolving as the RDF Core Working Group hashed out some remaining issues.

Fast forward a few years: the dust in RDF-land seems to be settling a bit (although new working drafts of all of the current RDF specs were released on September 5th, most of the changes from previous versions appear to be relatively minor) and, with the publication of Shelley Powers' Practical RDF: Solving Problems with the Resource Description Framework, there's finally a good book available on the subject.

Overview After an introductory chapter that touches on the history of RDF and some applications of RDF/XML (the preferred, W3C-blessed serialization of RDF), the book is divided into three broad sections. In the first, the reader is guided through the raft of documentation produced by the RDF Core WG, including : Resource Description Framework (RDF): Concepts and Abstract Data Model, RDF/XML Syntax Specification, RDF Model Theory (formerly Semantics), and RDF Vocabulary Description Language 1.0: RDF Schema. Before moving on to Part II, where she surveys programming language support and tools available for working with RDF (with code snippets where appropriate), Powers spends a chapter developing an RDF vocabulary, "PostCon," that's used throughout the remainder of the book for demo purposes.

Chapter 7, the first in the tools-focused portion of Practical RDF is dedicated to (mostly Java-based) editors, parsers, validators, browsers, etc. for desktop use. Next, she dives into Jena, the Java RDF toolkit that began life as the labor of love of HP Labs researcher Brian McBride before being elevated to the status of a formal HP Labs project under their Semantic Web Research umbrella. Another HP Labs Semantic Web project, Damian Steer's BrownSauce, a slick little Java-based RDF browser, was introduced back in Chapter7. Means for manipulating RDF/XML in Perl (RDF::Core, part of Ginger Alliance's PerlRDF project), PHP (RAP, the RDF API for PHP), and Python (RDFLib) are addressed in Chapter 9. RDF query engines/languages are taken up next -- rdfDB QL, the query language of R.V. Guha's rdfDB (written in C); SquishQL, implemented in the Java-based Inkling query engine (built atop PostgreSQL); RDQL, used within Jena; and Sesame, a JSP/Servlet querying engine that supports both RDQL and its own query language, RQL, and can be deployed atop MySQL or PostgreSQL. Powers rounds out this part of her book with a chapter that deals briefly with the leftovers. Drive, an RDF API for C#, is briefly discussed along with RDF APIs for less fashionable programming languages : Nokia's Wilbur for CLOS, XOTcl for Tcl, and RubyRDF for Ruby. Redland, an RDF toolkit written in C with Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl wrappers, is covered at some length (about half a dozen pages) and a couple more are given over to Redfoot, a Python RDF framework consisting of RDFLib (mentioned earlier in the Perl/PHP/Python chapter), a small-footprint HTTP server (according to the changelog at redfoot.net, they're using Medusa), and a native scripting language called Hypercode that lives within CDATA blocks in RDF/XML (example).

The last third of Practical RDF is devoted to uses of RDF and begins with a chapter on the OWL Web Ontology Language, an extension to RDF that's designed to supply more constraints for RDF vocabularies than can be provided by RDF Schema alone. This chapter would have been better situated after Chapter 5, which addresses RDF Schema, and feels a bit out of place here. RSS 1.0, the RDF-based syndication format, gets a chapter all of its own, beginning with a short synopsis of the evolution of RSS and the rift between the RSS 0.9x/2.0 and RSS 1.0 camps, progressing through descriptions of the RSS elements, some discussion of the use of modules, RSS autodiscovery, and aggregators (Amphetadesk, Meerkat, and NetNewsWire are mentioned), and finishing with an example RSS file (a syndicated list of book recommendations), producing RSS 1.0 using the Informa RSS Library (a set of Java classes), and merging two RSS 1.0 files using the XML::RSS Perl module. Two "Applications Based on RDF" (commercial and noncommercial) chapters top off the book. Noncommercial applications of RDF are visited first : Mozilla, where history and bookmarks, among other classes of information, are stored in RDF; the Creative Commons licensing scheme, whose proponents encourage content creators to embed RDF snippets into their documents and applications to provide information about the work itself and the restrictions placed on its reuse under the particular CC license that they've chosen; a Java and PostgreSQL based digital library system jointly developed by MIT and HP that uses RDF; and FOAF (Friend-of-a-Friend), an RDF vocabulary designed to express personal information and interpersonal relationships. Among the list of commercial applications utilizing RDF that comprises the final chapter in the book is Chandler, the same as yet very-alpha personal information manager that's managed to garner multiple mentions on this site.

The Verdict

The real meat of Practical RDF, for me, was in Chapters 1 through 6 (plus the OWL chapter, Chapter 12). This is not to say that the material in the last 2/3 of the book isn't useful or interesting. The section on RDF software tools is a great annotated survey of what's out there right now ... and I would imagine that installing and testdriving each of the software applications featured in those chapters must have been an extremely time-consuming process. The chapters describing real-world applications of RDF could be useful to someone trying to convince a manager that RDF is a viable, widely-used technology. Given a choice, though, I would rather have seen those pages spent on additional coverage of RDF, RDFS, and OWL with more example RDF vocabularies developed (like PostCon, which the author formulated, then refined through RDFS and OWL). The displaced material could have been made available online at the author's site for the book. A lot of that information will become less accurate over time as the software evolves and people come up with more applications for RDF anyway.

All nitpicking aside, though, if you're looking for a book on RDF, then you can't go wrong with Shelley Powers' Practical RDF.

You can purchase Practical RDF from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Mr.Oreo writes "According to Flipcode, Finnish videogame development company Cat Mother Ltd. has now closed its offices, but in their last meeting the company board decided to publish all company source code as open source. A large part of the game assets are also available. Published material includes a fully playable prototype of a 3rd person action/adventure game, and a commercial quality in-house 3D-engine (C++/DirectX9). The source code is published under the BSD license, and the content is published under the GPL license. Just downloaded the engine and snooped through it - it looks pretty complete, and definitely worth having a look at if you're a 3D code monkey."

Mr.Oreo writes "According to Flipcode, Finnish videogame development company Cat Mother Ltd. has now closed its offices, but in their last meeting the company board decided to publish all company source code as open source. A large part of the game assets are also available. Published material includes a fully playable prototype of a 3rd person action/adventure game, and a commercial quality in-house 3D-engine (C++/DirectX9). The source code is published under the BSD license, and the content is published under the GPL license. Just downloaded the engine and snooped through it - it looks pretty complete, and definitely worth having a look at if you're a 3D code monkey."

prostoalex writes "Following the lead of America Online's previous attempts and MSN's actions, Yahoo is planning an update that may cut out third-party providers like Trillian or Gaim. If you're a current Trillian user with a valid Yahoo ID, you probably noticed the new welcome message: 'Yahoo! is upgrading to its newest version of Yahoo! Messenger on September 24, 2003. The upgrade is part of an ongoing process to continually enhance the overall quality of the Yahoo! Messenger service for our millions of users'." Update: 09/18 01:17 GMT by S : Trillian has just released a patch that updates the IM software "...to the newest Yahoo! and MSN protocols, to remove the recent upgrade messages."

An anonymous reader writes "According to The Inquirer, Microsoft has used their Xbox Live Vole System to patch any Xboxes that access it....without asking their permission before installing the software. However, in this occurrence, the bug appears to be the 'dashboard bug' that allows Linux to be easily installed on an Xbox. Further, according to The Xbox Linux Project, users who do not have an Xbox Live account may find themselves being patched without permission as well. If a gamer tries to access any part of a game that uses Xbox Live, the console can 'phone home' and install the patches anyway. While patching bugs can be a nice touch to poor software, I don't know if I feel comfortable with ANYONE installing software on my hardware without asking permission first."

SiliconEntity writes "A new project from Dartmouth College demonstrates significant advances in combining Linux with TCPA. The software turns a Linux PC into a 'virtual secure coprocessor', which is able to check that none of its software is compromised and even (in a future version) prove its integrity to a remote system. Full GPL source code is available for the 2.4 kernel. This work is separate from the earlier IBM research which also combined Linux with TCPA, with the new project apparently more complete and with a road map towards a very functional Linux based trusted computing system. This could be an important technology for Linux to challenge Microsoft as it pushes forward with NGSCB (aka Palladium)."

IgD asks: "My colleagues and I are developing an open source medical records system. A senior supervisor approached us and let us know a third party is offering a decent amount of money in the form of a grant for any legitimate medical research project. We were all but promised the money if we could come up with a proposal. Has anyone in the Slashdot community received a grant for open source software development? Are there any good examples of such a grant available? How could one measure the results of open source development for publication?"

lucas.clemente writes "OpenOSX has just announced a cheap alternative to Microsoft's Virtual PC for Mac OS X, OpenOSX WinTel. What's more, the OpenOSX version will be compatible with Apple's new G5 architecture, whereas Virtual PC users will have to wait until the next major upgrade for G5 compatibility." It's a frontend to bochs, which we've discussed before as a possible Virtual PC replacement, and the biggest obstacle seemed to be getting it up and running. Perhaps this product will fill that hole. Prices start at $25 for download, but it is covered under the GPL.

Simon P. Chappell writes "Now, I enjoy a good technical book more than the next geek, but it's been quite a while since one left me quite so excited with the possibilities that it presented. Code Generation in Action is beyond interesting, it is a masterful tome on its subject matter, written by one who is obviously an experienced practicioner in his craft." If "code generation" isn't a familiar term to you, this enthusiastic overview on devx.com is a concise introduction to what code generation is about, though it makes no pretense of ambivalence about its importance as a programming tool. Read on for the rest of Chappell's review. Code Generation in Action author Jack Herrington pages 342 (10 page index) publisher Manning rating 9 reviewer Simon P. Chappell ISBN 1930110979 summary A masterful tome.

Overview Code Generation in Action, CGiA to its friends, is presented in two parts. The first part is four chapters, and covers a code generation case-study, the basic principles of code generation, including the different types of code generation strategies together with reasons why you would or would not use each strategy. The book's chosen toolset for building generators is presented next, and then some walk-through examples of building simple generators wraps up the first part.

The second part is a kind of a cross between a cookbook and a list of engineering solutions. There are nine chapters with the breadth of solutions covered being quite impressive, covering the gamut of generation of user interfaces, documentation, unit tests and data access code. Each chapter presents a couple of solutions within its topic area, often for different technologies within that topic. For example, the user interface chapter covers the generation of Java ServerPages, Swing dialog boxes and then Microsoft MFC dialog boxes. No favouritism here!

What's To Like There's a lot to like with this book. The writing is very clear and of good prose. I found the introduction to be very compelling, and I felt completely drawn in by the opening case-study. The four chapters of part one are a concise case for code generation, and would be very useful information to help persuade co-workers and management of the positive risk/benefit ratio with trying code-generation on a live project.

It would be impossible to try enough of any solution from part two in a time-frame short enough to make this review useful, but in the solutions that match my areas of knowledge, I found myself admiring Herrington's straight-forward and pragmatic approach.

What's To Consider There are two aspects of this book that I want to flag. One of these aspects, some will love and others will hate, and that is the choice of generator language for CGiA. The author has chosen to use Ruby as his working language. This is an interesting choice. Ruby is certainly a language that is inspiring a lot of admiration these days (in fact, it's hard to get Dave Thomas to stop talking about it :-), but with the majority of the code-generation examples being for Java-related technologies, I wonder why Java was not selected instead.

I also found myself wondering about the lack of discussion of how to integrate these Ruby tools into a typical Java build process. Many developers I know use ant to bring automation and consistency to their builds, yet the book doesn't mention this. (JRuby anyone?) Certainly something to consider for the second edition or future code-generation authors.

Summary

This is a masterful tome that inspires and delights, although the two issues raised above did cost it a perfect score of ten.

Table Of Contents

1. Code generation fundamentals
2. 1. Overview
   2. Code generation basics
   3. Code generation tools
   4. Building simple generators
3. Code generation solutions
4. 1. Generating user interfaces
   2. Generating documentation
   3. Generating unit tests
   4. Embedding SQL with generators
   5. Handling data
   6. Creating database access generators
   7. Generating web services layers
   8. Generating business logic
   9. More generator ideas

You can purchase Code Generation in Action from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

An anonymous reader writes: "FootNotes is reporting about what might be the coolest thing since textmode Quake: a curses-based GTK-2.0 port called Cursed GTK. This not only makes it possible to give Gnome the look and feel of Contiki, but also brings many real opportunities, such as remote logins where X forwarding is not possible, or remote logins over very slow modem lines. Screenshots here, here, here and here! Patches for bugs are welcomed by the authors."

An anonymous reader writes: "FootNotes is reporting about what might be the coolest thing since textmode Quake: a curses-based GTK-2.0 port called Cursed GTK. This not only makes it possible to give Gnome the look and feel of Contiki, but also brings many real opportunities, such as remote logins where X forwarding is not possible, or remote logins over very slow modem lines. Screenshots here, here, here and here! Patches for bugs are welcomed by the authors."

An anonymous reader writes: "FootNotes is reporting about what might be the coolest thing since textmode Quake: a curses-based GTK-2.0 port called Cursed GTK. This not only makes it possible to give Gnome the look and feel of Contiki, but also brings many real opportunities, such as remote logins where X forwarding is not possible, or remote logins over very slow modem lines. Screenshots here, here, here and here! Patches for bugs are welcomed by the authors."

An anonymous reader writes: "FootNotes is reporting about what might be the coolest thing since textmode Quake: a curses-based GTK-2.0 port called Cursed GTK. This not only makes it possible to give Gnome the look and feel of Contiki, but also brings many real opportunities, such as remote logins where X forwarding is not possible, or remote logins over very slow modem lines. Screenshots here, here, here and here! Patches for bugs are welcomed by the authors."

An anonymous reader writes: "FootNotes is reporting about what might be the coolest thing since textmode Quake: a curses-based GTK-2.0 port called Cursed GTK. This not only makes it possible to give Gnome the look and feel of Contiki, but also brings many real opportunities, such as remote logins where X forwarding is not possible, or remote logins over very slow modem lines. Screenshots here, here, here and here! Patches for bugs are welcomed by the authors."

martinde writes "The Prismiq Media Player is a networked set top box that can play MP3s, streaming media, browse the web, and do other cool stuff. It runs Debian on the dedicated hardware client, but in the past it has required a Windows server on the backend. It looks like now there is beta support for Linux in the backend. Anyone tried this device, with or without Linux?" This is a device that I've been playing with/testing - our sister (Yes, Virginia, they are owned by OSDN) site Thinkgeek sells them. Pretty cool device - reminds me of a XBox Media Player in terms of function, but with less soldering, and a keyboard. I'll be trying the Linux backend server - that would solve one of my major complaints, which is that the media server currently is Windows-only.

f-matic writes "Dave Phillips' Linux Sound website has been updated (for the first time in a while) with lots of new software links and news from the recent BYOL conference, plus links to some interesting Linux multimedia articles. Seems like things are getting pretty interesting in the linux audio world, with a Supercollider port in the works, not to mention February's Linux article in the prestigious Sound on Sound magazine."

-tji writes "A new company, www.pchdtv.com, has just released the first digital TV receiver card for Linux. Along with the Linux drivers, they have also modified xine to support HD playback and add XvMC support for MPEG2 hardware acceleration with some video cards. This has great potential for integration into PVR apps, like freevo and mythtv. There is also another project to reverse engineer drivers for the Teralogic TL880 based DTV cards. The one active developer has done a great job, but could use some help."

-tji writes "A new company, www.pchdtv.com, has just released the first digital TV receiver card for Linux. Along with the Linux drivers, they have also modified xine to support HD playback and add XvMC support for MPEG2 hardware acceleration with some video cards. This has great potential for integration into PVR apps, like freevo and mythtv. There is also another project to reverse engineer drivers for the Teralogic TL880 based DTV cards. The one active developer has done a great job, but could use some help."

libertynews writes "KPLUG President Kevin Pedigo has just announced his latest project -- RPMPAN, an archive of CPAN Perl modules in RPM format, generated nightly."

joejg writes "As FootNotes is reporting, the developers at Gaim have responded to the ban Microsoft is placing upon users of third-party clients accessing the MSN protocol. It appears that starting October 15th I will not be able to talk to my MSN friend in South Korea." Gaim's site is more optimistic, saying they may still be able to connect, only without a license to do so.

joejg writes "As FootNotes is reporting, the developers at Gaim have responded to the ban Microsoft is placing upon users of third-party clients accessing the MSN protocol. It appears that starting October 15th I will not be able to talk to my MSN friend in South Korea." Gaim's site is more optimistic, saying they may still be able to connect, only without a license to do so.

Alcimedes writes "Maybe I'm jaded as to the quality of games coming out these days, but I haven't found that much lately that really catches my eye. So it was with great joy that I returned to the SC2 project page to find out that my favorite game of all time, Star Control 2, has been ported to Mac OS X." Jay Brewer writes "Small Fry Studios will be releasing a Mac OS X version of our new shareware game, Hillbilly Whack! Save Winnie May! this fall. We've launched a small preview site with teaser trailers and screenshots of the classic-style-on-steroid game." Ambrosia has ported Escape Velocity and EV:Override (using the EV Nova engine) to Mac OS X, free to existing EV Nova customers. And Cliff Johnson's amazing The Fool's Errand has a sequel coming on Halloween Day, The Fool and his Money. You can go over now and catch the preview material, and download free copies of The Fool's Errand and 3 in Three (which work mostly fine in Classic mode on Mac OS X).

aqsalter writes "Benjamin Reed of Fink fame is calling for help porting KDE to Mac using Qt/Mac. Interested parties should swarm the KDE-Darwin mailing list. KWrite for Mac here we come!"

DrCarbonite (Jeff Martin) writes "I've used OpenBSD in the past, and benefitted from its extensive online documentation. Sometimes an off-line reference is useful (i.e. required), and Absolute OpenBSD fills this void." Read on for the rest of Martin's review, as well as a more critical one from Marius Aamodt Eriksen. Absolute OpenBSD: UNIX for the Practical Paranoid author Michael W. Lucas pages 489 publisher No Starch Press rating 8 reviewer Jeff Martin, Marius Aamodt Eriksen ISBN 1886411999 summary Well-written guide to administering OpenBSD for the intermediate to advanced user.

OpenBSD is not your average open source operating system, and consequently it does not have an average user community supporting it on the Internet. Absolute OpenBSD (AOB) by Michael W. Lucas, bills itself as "the definitive guide to OpenBSD." In addition to detailing the operating system (OS), Lucas does a wonderful job of illustrating and preparing new users for the different community surrounding OpenBSD.

A book like AOB is going to introduce many new users to OpenBSD, and it would be a disservice both to the existing community and the newcomers to not explain OpenBSD's culture. Thus, the first two chapters discuss the OpenBSD philosophy and also show the user how to become self-supporting when it is time to solve problems rather than flooding the mailing lists with easily answerable questions.

Critics may feel OpenBSD's rugged individualism is an indictment of its usability, but then they may be better served by a different OS.

The next few chapters focus on the installation of OpenBSD. AOB covers both dedicated and multi-boot installations. Most serious users will likely choose the dedicated installation, however Lucas points out that may not be an option for someone looking to sample OpenBSD, or for those users who wish to share a common data partition. Both types are covered, allowing the reader to decide which is most appropriate. Important installation caveats are also mentioned, such as OpenBSD's requirement that its root partition must be completely contained within the first 8 gigabytes of the hard drive. Although OpenBSD supports several different hardware platforms, when specifics are required Lucas focuses on the i386 platform. Lucas does a good job explaining the concepts, so users of non-Intel hardware should have minimal difficulty installing on their particular hardware.

Following the installation discussion, Chapter 6 covers OpenBSD's booting process and its /etc/rc scripts. Lucas' explanations go beyond simply itemizing these different aspects, choosing instead to provide the reader with the reasons a certain option may be needed. Expert users will already know when they wish to boot in single-user mode, but others will appreciate the discussion on how to boot alternate kernels, run fsck, and boot from alternate hard disks.

OpenBSD is promoted as a secure OS, and AOB is diligent in covering this aspect. File flags and securelevels are introduced and discussed. Lucas does a good job explaining what they do and what acceptable scenarios would be for their application. OpenBSD's systrace utility is explained in detail. Writing systrace policies, generating them using the policy-generation tool, and obtaining predefined policies from the Internet is described in depth.

OpenBSD administrative information receives attention as well. Chapters 11 and 12 cover configuring and building custom kernels. The treatment in Chapter 13 of compiling ports and installing packages is very helpful-- and in fact necessary for those looking to install essential utilities such as fortune.

OpenBSD's ports system was originally adapted from that in FreeBSD, and users of that OS may see some similarities. Users from a different background will appreciate the primer.

Three chapters of AOB are devoted to OpenBSD's in-kernel packet filter, pf. This is arguably one of OpenBSD's best features, and Lucas suitably spends a lot of time discussing it. Chapter 17 covers basic pf usage, such as explaining pf's configuration file, tables, and macros. In addition, Lucas takes a timeout to also explain pf's suitability for particular tasks. Chapter 18 describes advanced applications of pf, including network address translation, load balancing, and bandwidth management. Chapter 19 concludes with managing live pf execution. Correctly managing a live firewall on-the-fly is important for sites requiring high uptime, and Lucas does well in explaining the various methods available for logging, viewing statistics, and rule management. Wrapping up, AOB also describes how to configure authenticated pf access by authorized users. "pf" has a lot of power, and spreading the material over 3 chapters worked well in presenting the reader with information at a manageable rate.

One of the strengths of an OS-specific book such as AOB is that the material covered benefits from a more focused approach. If it doesn't apply to OpenBSD, it doesn't need to be covered. Lucas has an experienced background in system administration, and this experience shines through well in the material. His remarks about the dangers of a system with open access via RPC seem especially prophetic in light of current events -- and not mindless ranting.

Overall, AOB is a well-written book that hits its market squarely on target. Those new to OpenBSD will appreciate the comprehensive approach that takes them from concept to functional execution. Existing and advanced users will benefit from the discussion of OpenBSD-specific topics such as the security features and pf administration. Lucas does well in his attempt to increase the number of those who would be practical paranoids.

Marius's turn: Reviewer Marius Aamodt Eriksen also liked some aspects of Absolute OpenBSD, but found more faults in it; his critique may help you decide whether this book is for you (and he disagrees about the match between the book and its audience). He writes:

The book covers a very broad area, but it lacks depth in some parts. Perhaps my biggest problem with Absolute OpenBSD is that it should have focused more the features that make OpenBSD unique: its security features. For example, it does not cover IPsec. Many of the various security features of OpenBSD are mentioned, but few are covered in much detail.

Michael Lucas' writing style is quite relaxed and informal. However, this often gets in the way of content. The numerous rants about how Windows security sucks simply get irritating. It is distracting from the focus of the book and simply unneccessary. Also, the tangents on TCP/IP and various other underlying technologies likewise deviate from the focus of the book. Lucas also does not hesitate to express personal opinions and views on a range of subjects. Though I typically have no problems with authors expressing their views, Lucas' tend to be unfounded and not well argued; they too are simply distracting. At times, it almost felt like Lucas was trying to put down less experienced people, teaching them lessons they "should know." I cannot imagine that this is what the typical audience of the book are looking for.

Absolute OpenBSD makes little effort to cover the various architectures that are supported by OpenBSD. The install section only covers i386; though probably not an issue for most users, it would be nice to have a more complete reference.

Otherwise, I would consider the contents of the book to be quite complete, and most definitely sufficient to provide a good introduction to OpenBSD and many of its neat features. An entire chapter is devoted to how to find more help, covering the various documentation, man pages and mailing lists. This is an excellent idea, and makes up for most of the (content) shortcomings of the book.

The PF (Packet Filter) section was very good; it covered a very broad set of features that PF provides, while carrying sufficient technical detail. The examples were very illustrative and appropriate for the text.

I spotted a few technical errors while reading the book. The editing also seems a bit rushed: in addition to the technical errors, there a number of typos. Unfortunately, there isn't an errata section on the book's website; I strongly recommend Lucas and his publisher make one available.

My biggest problem with Absolute OpenBSD is that it is not true to its audience. I imagine that the audience is one which would like to know how to do something in OpenBSD without being told how "real system administrators" do it, or how much Microsoft sucks. My recommendation to Lucas would be to write Absolute System Administration and leave it out of Absolute OpenBSD. I do not mean to sound harsh, merely critical. The book has very many good sides, and by many counts is an excellent reference for people looking to migrate to OpenBSD. I would not have any problems recommending it to anyone who wanted to migrate to OpenBSD or see what it's about -- just be wary of the distractions.

You can purchase Absolute OpenBSD from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Anonymous Coward writes "Someone forwarded me this site working to create an open source search engine called Nutch. In the age of weighted rankings on search engines for profits, there's an obvious need for an unbiased search engine. After all, isn't a search engine supposed to be for finding relevant data, not as an indirect and sometimes slimy method of advertising? Nutch is clearly in their intial stages, but it would certainly get my vote." You can find the project on SF.net, and also read the Business 2.0 article on it.

TeachingMachines writes "Leslie Polzer has written a nice summary of the current state of GUI Toolkits for the X Windows System (article title of the same name). Those of you who are planning to spend hours and hours scouring the Internet for a mature cross-platform GUI toolkit may save some time and trouble by reading this summary. Leslie's review covers the pros and cons of using GTK+, Trolltech QT, FLTK, wxWindows, and the FOX Toolkit."

MilenCent writes "The O'Reilly Network posted an interview with super-deluxe Nethack variant SLASH'EM's Warren Cheung and J. Ali Harlowe last month talking about the impending beta release of v0.0.7E2. (Don't you just love incredibly provisional version numbers? In development for years and not even a 0.1 yet!) There's another recent O'Reilly article on the game too."

Deusy writes "Footnotes is running an update article on gDesklets, Gnome's answer to KDE's Karamba. I've heard a lot of noise with regards to Karamba (and Super Karamba) and a lot of moans from Gnome users about the lack of a Gnome equivalent. Hopefully this should fill that void and more, as one of the developers comments that gDesklets is the product of "months of planning" and describes Karamba as an "ugly hack"."

DrCarbonite writes "Andre' LaMothe is releasing a brand new game console, the XGAMESTATION which may fulfill the fantasies of Slashdot readers everywhere. 16-bit Motorola CPU with a graphics architecture "similar to the Commodore 64, Atari 800, and Apple II". Its an electronics kit being marketed as a game system that wants to be hacked/modded/rebuilt. It supports homebrew everything-- joystick adapters, displays, software, roms, the whole nine yards."

BWJones writes "Apple has now made their public source license 2.0 free. From the release "The Darwin team at Apple is pleased to announce that version 2.0 of the Apple Public Source License has been certified as a 'Free Software License.' APSL 2.0 includes numerous changes and simplifications to make it even easier to use Apple Open Source software as part of your programs. To indicate acceptance of APSL 2.0, you can now use your new or existing "Apple ID", rather than having a separate Darwin account."" proclus adds "This is great news for Darwin-based free software projects like The GNU-Darwin Distribution and Fink. GNU-Darwin has had an ongoing discussion about this development, and annouced and end to our 'Free Darwin Campaign,' so long as Apple avoids DMCA-based legal action."

BWJones writes "Apple has now made their public source license 2.0 free. From the release "The Darwin team at Apple is pleased to announce that version 2.0 of the Apple Public Source License has been certified as a 'Free Software License.' APSL 2.0 includes numerous changes and simplifications to make it even easier to use Apple Open Source software as part of your programs. To indicate acceptance of APSL 2.0, you can now use your new or existing "Apple ID", rather than having a separate Darwin account."" proclus adds "This is great news for Darwin-based free software projects like The GNU-Darwin Distribution and Fink. GNU-Darwin has had an ongoing discussion about this development, and annouced and end to our 'Free Darwin Campaign,' so long as Apple avoids DMCA-based legal action."

jasonjordan writes "The West Australian FreeNet Group was the first to go War Flying - and now we've released "frottle" (freenet throttle) - an open source project to control & manage traffic on fixed wireless networks. Such control eliminates the common hidden-node effect even on large scale wireless networks. frottle works by scheduling client traffic by using a master node to co-ordinate - effectively eliminating collisions! Developed and tested on the large community wireless network of WaFreeNet, We've found it has given us a significant improvement in network usability and throughput. "

jasonjordan writes "The West Australian FreeNet Group was the first to go War Flying - and now we've released "frottle" (freenet throttle) - an open source project to control & manage traffic on fixed wireless networks. Such control eliminates the common hidden-node effect even on large scale wireless networks. frottle works by scheduling client traffic by using a master node to co-ordinate - effectively eliminating collisions! Developed and tested on the large community wireless network of WaFreeNet, We've found it has given us a significant improvement in network usability and throughput. "

Ndr_Amigo writes "ScummVM (an interpreter for several different adventure game engines, like Simon the Sorcerer 1 and 2, the LucasArts' SCUMM adventures and Beneath a Steel Sky, earlier Slashdot story) just released version 0.5.0. Among the usual bugfixes, new game support, etc, the interesting thing about this version is that the developers of one of our target games (Beneath a Steel Sky, by Revolution Software) actually supported us. To the extent of not only supplying us with the original assembly source code, but later deciding to release the game as Freeware to coincide with our reimplementation of their engine. This is a complete turnaround from our prior experiences, and shows that there are still a few smaller active game developers out there that are willing to help keep the classics alive for their fans... And of course you can download ScummVM and the freeware release of Beneath a Steel Sky from the ScummVM homepage :)"

Dave_B93 writes "Scorched3d (a Scorched Earth clone that features a 3D Environment, plus LAN and Internet play) has just released an update, to Build 35. It's now cross-platform (Win32, Linux, Solaris), and includes Server side bots, batteries, fuel, napalm, sand hogs, diggers and leapfrogs in addition to all the previous weapons. It's also been open-sourced under the GPL. You can find the SourceForge project here (Scorched3d was mentioned previously in this article.)"

worldcitizen asks: "Now, with all the noise from the SCO case regarding copyrights, what constitutes a derivative work and who owns what, a question started creeping up: What would happen if Microsoft starts claiming copyright infringement or other Intellectual Property claims in the wizard-inserted code that Visual C++ generates? Would it be possible that even the simplest 'Hello, world' is tainted? Copyrights don't even require uniform enforcement. Could they selectively enforce it on Free Software projects for Windows that have used VC++ for development? Could they license it in such a way that makes it illegal to use Visual C++ for Free Software? Should this be a wake-up call to never use Visual C++ unless you have a cross-licensing agreement with Microsoft (obviously not for Free Software projects)?"

Rosco P. Coltrane writes "With Morse code slowly disappearing off the air, there seems to be a growing number of people who carry out conversations in Morse over the internet. Several Windows and Linux clients using VoIP or special protocols, such as EchoLink, EchoLinux, MorseMail, CW Communicator or CWirc exist for Morse lovers worldwide to pound brass and make contact with one another. Could the next must-have computer input device be a morse key ?"

Nachtjäger writes "The Galeon website has an interview with the developers, describing overall project health, current problems, and future direction. There's also a place to ask your own questions for future interviews."

Vito asks: "I'd like to use WebDAV over SSL (with [preferably digest] authentication against Unix accounts) to provide a few hundred Windows users with secure, easy, and free access to their Linux home directories. WebDAV is supported as Web Folders in Windows, meaning there is no need to download and install SFTP, SCP, FTPS, and other clients. It's also supported natively in Mac OS X, and Linux users can install davfs. But this setup doesn't seem to be possible (safely) using Apache. Do I have alternatives?"

"Apache has mod_dav, which seems to be primarily designed to provide a single shared space to files, where the Apache process user has read/write access. mod_auth_digest doesn't seem to be usable at the same time as mod_auth_shadow. It would appear that the only way to 'properly' do what I want to do would be to run Apache as root(!), have vhosts for every user (webdav.username.domain.com), have Apache change to that user's uid and gid before enabling webdav for their home directory, and then use basic authentication instead of digest authentication.

Is anyone out there trying this? Has Anyone used Jigsaw, kirra-httpd or even the no-longer-available MoulDAVia in a production environment? What are you using to provide non-trivial, safe WebDAV services?

I know I can use something like a restricted SCP- and SFTP-only shell, like scponly and rssh, but again, I'd prefer WebDAV as it wouldn't require the end user to install a client application."

__past__ writes "REAL software just announced that the next version of their REALbasic IDE will add support for building native Linux applications, in addition to the Windows, Mac OS classic and OS X targets. Given that it will include a converter for existing Visual Basic projects, this could be a usefull tool for migrating existing apps written in everybody's favourite language to free platforms, something that other projects like Gambas or KBasic don't address."

Simon P. Chappell writes "The Eclipse IDE has thundered into the collective consciousness of Java developers since its release by IBM as Open Source Software. Up until this time, the majority of available documentation at the Eclipse website has been for plug-in developers, with scant attention given to the rest of us that actually want to use the tool for anything else. This book restores the balance and brings much needed help to those interested in this IDE." Read on for the rest of Simon's review, about which he says "Full Disclosure: I received a free, review copy of this book, so feel free to assume that I've been bought off and have traded my technical integrity to put about an inch of dead tree on my shelf." Eclipse in Action author Gallardo, Burnette and McGovern pages 383 (15 page index) publisher Manning rating 8 reviewer Simon P. Chappell ISBN 1930110960 summary A good book that lives up to its name.

Overview With a book like this it's difficult to know where to pitch the level. Do you aim for the lowest common denominator or do you assume some experience on the part of your reader? This book seems to have pitched itself well, not pandering to the absolute Java newbie, not afraid to get down into the code and yet gentle enough that newer Java developers can follow easily. The heavyweight chapter on writing plug-ins is at the back where it shouldn't frighten those of a sensitive nature.

The book is divided into two sections. The first and largest section concerns actual use of Eclipse during Java application development. The second section is for those who wish to write plug-ins for Eclipse.

The book takes a very 'Test Driven Development' approach to Java development and this shows in the manner that Eclipse is presented and taught. Emphasis is given to the tools that come with Eclipse, especially Ant, Junit and the CVS client. For those already skilled in these tools, this might seem like filler, but remember that there are still pitifully few Java developers using even these simple and free tools. My hat is off to the authors for their TDD evangelism, skillfully disguised as Eclipse usage instruction.

What's To Like I liked the progression followed in the book, first teaching the basic operation of Eclipse and then moving on to the tools that come with the base install. What's To Consider Some may consider that the material on Ant, Junit and CVS is filler. The 'Test Driven Development' theme may be a little too much evangelism for some.

I use Eclipse on a Mac OS X box and I felt that there was very little discussion concerning the cross-platform attributes of the tool. All of the screenshots were from a Microsoft Windows build of the software; a Linux or OS X screenshot would have been helpful.

One more niggle and then I'm done. There is no information on using Eclipse with other programming languages (a couple of paragraphs in the introduction chapter doesn't really count). I've recently started tinkering with Ruby and have used a Ruby plug-in to allow me to work within Eclipse as I learn the language. This is a wonderful testament to the power and extensibility of Eclipse.

Summary This is a good book. You know it's a good book when you already use the tool (both pure Eclipse and IBM's WSAD) regularly and you find yourself learning things that you had not previously been aware of. If you are working with Java and want a good free IDE that's going to grow with you, then Eclipse is a tool you should try -- and consider this book the User's Guide that would have been in the box if Eclipse came shrink-wrapped.

Table Of Contents

1. Using Eclipse
2. 1. Overview
   2. Getting started with the Eclipse Workbench
   3. The Java development cycle: test, code, repeat
   4. Working with source code in eclipse
   5. Building with Ant
   6. Source control with CVS
   7. Web development tools
3. Extending Eclipse
4. 1. Introduction to Eclipse plug-ins
   2. Working with plug-ins in Eclipse

You can purchase Eclipse in Action from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

orv writes "When Andreas Mohr found that his new wireless networking card wasn't supported under Linux rather than returning the card and getting himself a supported one, he decided to set up a project to write his own drivers instead - http://acx100.sourceforge.net. Companies such as D-Link had initially promised to release linux drivers for these cards but later backed down from that promise and announced that Linux would not be supported and that customers should not hold on to the cards in the hope of getting them working, as shown on their current FAQ. Texas Instruments, the makers of the chipsets upon which these 802.11b+ cards are based refused to release code or specifications for the cards, no doubt for similar reasons that were recently discussed here. The fact that the current alpha release is certainly as good, and in some areas better, than the binary drivers that escaped from one of the card manufactureres speaks volumes for the quality and determination of the team to create their own drivers."

PlainBlack queries: "Our company has been developing an open source project for a couple years now that has gotten pretty popular. The one thing we haven't yet figured out how to do well is packaging. It seems like every operating system has it's own standards for packaging, and installers, and for each OS we support, we end up adding a lot of time to our packaging process. So my question is, what do all of you do to package your apps? Do you just release source tarballs? Do you manually package your RPMs, EXEs, DEBs, DMGs, BINs, PKGs, [and MSIs] by hand? Do you have an automated build process that creates all the packages? If so, how does it work? Is it available for other developers to use?" There are tons of installers listed on SourceForge, but which one allows the creation of OS packages without too much hassle? Duplicating work, especially software installation procedures, across all supported OSes, is time consuming. Is there an easier way?

PlainBlack queries: "Our company has been developing an open source project for a couple years now that has gotten pretty popular. The one thing we haven't yet figured out how to do well is packaging. It seems like every operating system has it's own standards for packaging, and installers, and for each OS we support, we end up adding a lot of time to our packaging process. So my question is, what do all of you do to package your apps? Do you just release source tarballs? Do you manually package your RPMs, EXEs, DEBs, DMGs, BINs, PKGs, [and MSIs] by hand? Do you have an automated build process that creates all the packages? If so, how does it work? Is it available for other developers to use?" There are tons of installers listed on SourceForge, but which one allows the creation of OS packages without too much hassle? Duplicating work, especially software installation procedures, across all supported OSes, is time consuming. Is there an easier way?

chadlnx writes "The Warp Pipe Project, an open source project to bring LAN-based GameCube games online, recently released a specification detailing how GameCubes communicate over a network. The Warp Pipe Project is aggressively seeking out developers who would be interested in this project through its SourceForge project page."

chadlnx writes "The Warp Pipe Project, an open source project to bring LAN-based GameCube games online, recently released a specification detailing how GameCubes communicate over a network. The Warp Pipe Project is aggressively seeking out developers who would be interested in this project through its SourceForge project page."

ptorrone writes "It was just a matter of time until the Segway technology would be used as a robotics platform. University of Southern California Robotics Lab's Segway RMP (Robotic Mobility Platform) has a lot of great information if you're looking to convert a Segway to a robot. On the site there are videos as well as instruction on how to build your own." Update: 07/13 21:30 GMT by T : Dr. Andrew Howard writes with an important clarification about the project: "This is *not* a standard Segway HT that we have converted to robotics applications. Rather, this is a customized, limited production unit that has been specially modified by the manufacturer. The web-site does *not* show how to convert an existing Segway HT into a robotic platform."

ptorrone writes "It was just a matter of time until the Segway technology would be used as a robotics platform. University of Southern California Robotics Lab's Segway RMP (Robotic Mobility Platform) has a lot of great information if you're looking to convert a Segway to a robot. On the site there are videos as well as instruction on how to build your own." Update: 07/13 21:30 GMT by T : Dr. Andrew Howard writes with an important clarification about the project: "This is *not* a standard Segway HT that we have converted to robotics applications. Rather, this is a customized, limited production unit that has been specially modified by the manufacturer. The web-site does *not* show how to convert an existing Segway HT into a robotic platform."

DJPenguin writes "There is an excellent article at the XBox Linux Project that describes exactly how the XBox savegame hack works. It details how the author went to great lengths to hide exactly what was going on. It turns out the exploit code is hidden within an image of Tux himself!" An enlightening read, to say the least.