hellaGUI: major bug fix and some minor ranting
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A GTK/python frontend to the news leecher "hellanzb" providing most functionalities available from the "hellanzb daemon" and Drag and Drop file-enqueuing.Hellanzb can be obtained through your distro's package manager or at http://www.hellanzb.com   looks like hellagui only worked for me. There was a major bug : if no config file was present, hellagui would crash on start.  Now, if a developer, even of such a lowly glade hack as this one, says "this is working" and has even got screenshots to prove it, and the package doesn't work for you, it's very probable that there is some weird bug he (the developer, in this case me), missed.   It seriously doesn't hurt to just drop a small mail stating "sorry dude, but your application is just a pile of bugdung and it crashes". I'll even welcome "U 5vXX0r. it Cr4sh3d" messages ... If there is a shell output, even better. If not I'll survive and ask myself WHY it crashed and then fix it.  Anyway ... this version should work ... please DO tell me if it doesn't.
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Update fixes crashes caused by incompatibility with hidden advertising app.
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I'm back, with a very interesting topic too!  Joel Spolsky, ex-Microsoft Manager and software engineering guru has a new essay, How Microsoft Lost the API War that is creating quite a big storm in the blogging communitiy.  Joel posits that the priests in the holy Temple of Microsoft have lost their way, because it has split into two factions, and the wrong faction is winning. One faction worships on the alter of backward compatibility, while the other is led by fervent priests who are proselytizing to raise up the new gods of .NET and Longhorn. Joel suggests that the new gods will cause the destruction of the holy Temple because Microsoft's great victories were built on the altar of keeping customers happy with backward compatibility. Furthermore the old gods of the Windows API continue to grow more grotesque and cruel with the passing of time, driving former worshipers into the arms of the friendlier gods of World Wide Web.  This story sounds extremely plausible. I must admit that i fit the profile of the developer who used to develop on the Window's API, is familiar with COM and Win32 who now develops mostly using PHP and Python. However I continue to develop and maintain Windows apps that keep our customers happy, and we still plan to develop new Windows apps. Some points:  Temple of the Blind? Firstly, Microsoft is still a compelling place to work for to people who feel that they can make a difference. The Temple continues to attract talented people with a Unix background. For example we have the recent hiring of Ward Cunningham, author of the Wiki.  Microsoft is still able to keep talented people like Raymond Chen, and others like him who continue to look after the Windows API, and Longhorn apparently will still give high priority to backward compatibility. Open sourcerers like Miguel Icaza are sufficiently attracted to the .NET vision to stake their careers on Mono. Longhorn and .NET are compelling technologies, so even if Win32 is not so cute anymore, M'soft is providing something that remains very attractive.  What i do see M'soft doing wrong is that they aren't disseminating the .NET runtime fast enough. It remains an optional install in XP Service Pack 2 for example. Also their IE dev team appears to be hog-tied due to political reasons; nevertheless IE remains good enough, particularly when I can embed IE as an activeX control, something I cannot do with Mozilla (AFAIK) - Update: I'm wrong.  Temple of the Spider?  Secondly, people don't merely use a web browser. They run the web browser in the OS.  So let me ask you, if you are using DreamWeaver or HomeSite or Photoshop or vi or emacs or Gimp, how many of you are willing to give it up for a java applet (or whatever your favorite technology is) running in your web-browser? Precisely.  Temple of the Abandoned?  Third, Joel makes the claim that developers are not developing to the Windows API. Well he could be right. But I bet a lot of them are still calling Win32.  If you are using a framework or IDE like Delphi or wxWindows (or .NET or VB) then you certainly are insulated from the Windows API, but that doesn't mean that you're not calling the Windows API all the time. I don't see Borland dropping their Windows version of Delphi at any point in time.   In fact, the fact that many developers are using some form of framework is a compelling argument for Microsoft to enhance the .NET framework to attract developers who are using other frameworks.  Today, not that many students learn x86 assembler, but that doesn't mean that Intel lost the CPU wars. Just because fewer people are learning Win32 doesn't mean Microsoft has lost the API wars, if the frameworks run predominantly on Win32.  Temple of the Lost  Joel even warns you in the beginning that "because I'm talking about big trends, I need to exaggerate and generalize". But you still get sucked in because Joel Spolsky is a first-class writer, in the same order as Philip Greenspun or Eric Raymond. That makes him so persuasive and plausible. But this is not Indiana Jones and doomed temples, but Steve Jobs and reality distortion fields.  Other opinions:  Harry Fuecks (PHP is ASP's upgrade path),  Dennis Hamilton (M'soft is just covering all bases), Robert McLaws (Joel is wrong in 7 points), Oliver Travers (the web is not good enough), One Run-time to Rule them all....
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How a simple bug betrays Microsoft's disdain for basic best practice principles
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A quick post from janschneider.de talks about questions regarding the PHP5 compatibility of Horde, IMP, or other applications on the Horde mailing list
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Blog: Here's a follow up to a blog of a few days ago outlining workaround until Google issues a patch.
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Latest PEAR Releases:Console_CommandLine 0.1.0Services_Amazon 0.7.1Testing_Selenium 0.4.2HTML_Table 1.8.2Structures_DataGrid_Renderer_Pager 0.1.3Structures_DataGrid_Renderer_HTMLTable 0.1.4Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_MDB2 0.1.11Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_DBQuery 0.1.11Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_XML 0.2.0Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_DBTable 0.1.7Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_CSV 0.1.6Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_Array 0.1.3Structures_DataGrid 0.9.0Structures_DataGrid_Renderer_XUL 0.1.3Structures_DataGrid_Renderer_Smarty 0.1.4Structures_DataGrid_Renderer_HTMLSortForm 0.1.3Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_DataObject 0.2.1OLE 0.6.1PHP_CodeSniffer 1.0.0Console_CommandLine 0.1.1Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_PDO 0.1.0Net_FTP 1.4.0a1
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KGuitar is powerful KDE-based music tabulature editor with support of guitar, drums, classic note scores, MIDI synthesizer output, chord, scales, modes, melody and rhythm construction and analysis tools, lots of tab effects, Guitar Pro files import.   After a long period of silence, I'm pleased to announce KGuitar 0.5.1 - a major bugfix release that covers most of issues for the last few years :)      * Compatiblity fixes: added support for autoconf 2.61, automake 1.10, gcc 4.2. Removed last bits of qt2->qt3 transition deprecations. Internal structures refactoring.     * Added zoom level (Ctrl Minus, Ctrl Plus), introducing multiple bars per row, automatically tuning to available window width;     * Finally introduced new exception-based framework for converters load/save. Makes converters much more bullet-proof and easier to write and debug.     * Guitar Pro import undergone major rewrite. Now it properly loads all gp4 files I have. Guitar Pro v3 and v5 formats are coming next. Anyway, Guitar Pro loader is now much more helpful about what errors it gets and less crash-prone. It detects and helps debug problems it encounters.     * Lots of displaying, mouse and keyboard control, printing fixes and prettifying. Track pane now has a header and it's synchronized with track list. Melody editor now has trapezoid and shark fin inlays.     * New QMap-based API for song metainformation - stores not a fixed number of fields, but key=value pairs.     * Misc things: project transitioned to Subversion.  As always, comments and especially bug reports are welcome. Also keep in mind that KGuitar is now registered at http://www.ohloh.net/projects/8959?p=KGuitar - so, take a look there too :)
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Also: Windows worm travels with Tetris [News.com Extra]
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Luke Welling takes a humorous look at something he misses in PHP - register globals being set to on.    I am aware that there are some things so shocking that you are not supposed to say them in polite company [...] so confronting that they are best kept to yourself regardless of how strongly you believe them. I have a similarly shocking sentiment that I feel I have to share.   I really like register_globals in PHP.    He reminicies about the days gone by of being able to assume that register_globals is turned on, the days of simpler, lighter code that's even easier for the newbies to get into. Anyone for a tshirt?
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Pierre-Alain Joye ha posted some great news about the Zip PECL package today on his blog - it's finally reached stable.   Zip is stable since two releases. I lacked the time to report it :) Three bugs were important. Once PHP 5.2.0 is out, I will focus on the new features. Write stream support, unicode (php6+ support), pattern based addition/extraction and crypting functions.   The three bugs he mentions were a problem with zipArchive::addFile, comment/cdir problems with new archives, and setting properties in extended classes.   You can check out the homepage for the project here or just view the Changelog for complete updates.
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Gabe: The Penny Arcade store has been updated with some new items. First we've got a brand new zip up hoodie.    It's got a slick PA logo on the front and Tycho's speech from the comic strip "I Hope You Like Text" on the back. We've been getting requests for a zip up like this for a long time. I don't want to sound like a used car salesman but my guess is that these will not last long.     We've also added a new sticker pack. This pack includes Tycho, Gabe, Annarchy, Charles, The Merch, The Fleshreaper, The Fruit Fucker and two bumper stickers.  The sticker pack is $10 but we've got a special deal going right now. If you spend $50 in the store we'll toss in the sticker pack for free.    Also, don't forget that you can now purchase prints of just about all our comic strips. If you're looking for strips with specific characters or games, Pennypacker is a great way to search our archives. I've had a few people ask me what my favorites are or which ones I think would make for especially nice prints. Tycho and I are each working on a list of our favorites but off the top of my head I'd say "The Hawk And The Hare" series would look pretty classy all framed up and hung on someone's wall.     -Gabe out
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News, Infocus, Columns, Vulnerabilities, Bugtraq ...
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Latest PEAR Releases:Text_Wiki_Creole 0.5.1HTML_QuickForm_Renderer_Tableless 0.5.3PHP_Archive 0.11.0pearweb_phars 1.3.1PHP_Archive 0.11.1pearweb_phars 1.3.2Validate_FI 0.3.0Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_DBQuery 0.1.10Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_MDB2 0.1.10Structures_DataGrid_DataSource_DBTable 0.1.6File 1.3.0Tree 0.3.0pearweb_index 1.0.0RC1pearweb_index 1.16.2pearweb_index 1.16.1pearweb 1.16.0pearweb_index 1.0.0HTML_QuickForm 3.2.8
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Chris Hartjes has posted again about the "rebirth" of a Zend Framework component he's worked on - the Zend_Service_Audioscrobbler.   So, dear readers, I received some nice emails and comments from those you have used Zend_Service_Audioscrobbler, along with having a nice email conversation with Wil Sinclair from Zend.   He still wants to "rip things up and start over", but has decided on a slightly different route - mapping the older function calls to the new ones via a __call catch and including a message stating that the older function call would be deprecated.
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As Alexey Zakhlestin points out today, Lukas Smith has made the announcement that the MySQL group is finally recognizing the efforts of the PDO developers and supporting them:   Ok, it seems that MySQL AB is finally committing to fix up PDO_MySQL and  to generally accept the fact that PDO is the future. Of course mysqli  will also be actively maintained. But they will also make mysqlnd play  nicely with PDO etc.   There's budgets and time lines for the project so things are already moving along and developers to the project will soon be assigned. Lukas also mentions updated on PHP's side - validating that the documentation for the extensions (mysql and mysqli) are up to date and correct.
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Latest PEAR Releases:PHP_CompatInfo 1.4.1HTML_Progress2 2.3.0RC1pearweb_phars 1.1.0pearweb 1.4.0Auth 1.5.0HTML_QuickForm_altselect 1.0.0RC1PEAR_PackageUpdate 0.6.1PHP_Beautifier 0.1.13pearweb 1.4.2Structures_LinkedList 0.1.2pearweb 1.5.0RC1Console_Getopt 1.2.2Structures_DataGrid_Renderer_Flexy 0.1.0HTML_CSS 1.1.3Text_CAPTCHA 0.2.1PHP_CodeSniffer 0.4.0