Ask Skycycle Anything.

We're asking the BeOS Community if they have any questions for Skycycle, the official band of Zeta.

The interview is not a sure-thing at this point in time, due to Real Life issues, but we're confident things will work out.

Before you post the really obvious questions, please take a look at their official homepage, run by Eddy Groen.

You can even download a lot of their music too, for free!

I personally have acquired a taste for their great style and rythym, with "Ramona the Palm Reader" being one of my favorite tracks.

Good luck!

Comments...

La Catch-up.

Just a couple of quick updates for all before I head to a well-deserved rest. (Play Diablo II too much, and look what happens. ;)

First, I'd like to direct your attention away from the many behind the curtain, and towards this link. There, you will find our submission asking you to think up some questions for Rudolph Cornelissen. It's still required, just a few more, please. ;)

The naming vote that we started back in November only has a few days left before we prune it to a final 10 submissions, so please vote now, and let yourself be heard. We will then run the last and final round for the entire month of January, 2003, and present the winning vote to the beunited and openBeOS groups. It's not a formal declaration of war, or anything dramatic. It just allows more choice for those that care to be involved in this decision. Thank you.

I'm positive that Eric Forhan would love more comments in the "Porting Our Game" forum entry, so please head over there and again, let yourself be heard. It just takes a small amount of time to let people know what you think, so please, take some time now. The more that we involve ourselves with efforts and projects that the entire community can benefit from, the greater the end reward. Thanks!

One final thing. A small glimpse of the coming weeks:

• Zeta Review, YellowTab Interview, surprise guest.
• Interview with an internet rock band.
• Part 2 of "New Age BeBox" (part 1)
• More announcements and updates, of course.

So, stay glued to your computer monitor in the weeks ahead, as we report on the news of the BeOS Community, a community that cares and shares with it's members like no other. The year 2003 is going to be interesting, to say the least.

PostMagic Update.

PostMagic's Nathan has given us another update with news concerning his (and everone's) project.

In it he mentions some code being rewritten, in an attempt to make it simpler and better designed. Here's the scoop:

This marks the end of implementation number 0.2 development. I have converted the code to be completely frame-independent, and completely time-based now. Also, while I was working though the code, I realized I was not liking current inheritance structure. So, after taking experience from both the first and second implementations, I have come up with a simpler, better design. Hence, the current implementation is now out the window, and the new design is under construction. This overhaul will also make for yet simpler implementations of the render and playback engines. Unfortunately, I had quite a lot of code written that now will not be used ... rrrr. (Hmmm, it seems like I am trying to avoid overly complex systems and APIs. What a novel concept! :-) ).

This is a project you should pay close attention to in the future, it has great potential. And in case you missed our interview with Nathan (no presents for you), you can read it here.

Blue Eyed OS Update.

Well, as you've noticed by now, we here at TBJ don't stop, we work non-stop, 24/7 to bring you the latest from the BeOS world... and no, i didn't drink any alcohol today... anyway, on with the news.

The Blue Eyed OS crew brings us an update. Along with the costumary season greetings, they do give us some interesting news on the project's status. As usual, and for all of you voyeurs out there, here's the full monty:

We promised a first developer release, but we were only able to deliver a minimal one for Christmas, my apologies. If only we had 3 or 4 more coders, the app_server could be complete. It's just a question of time now. I'm working hard on the native part of the app_server, it's close to completion. In less than 2 months, you will be able to test it and play BePuyo with our native window managing system. It will still be a developer release, but 'experimeted' linux users will enjoy to play with it and coders could start writing code using the B'loved API.

Interesting times we have ahead, so stay tuned everyone.

Yet Another BeOS Vote.

You know those vote things on the in Ter net? The ones where you like, support your, uh.. favorite OS... Well, uh, it's back, and like.. you should click it. Yeah.

To see like what I'm rambling about, eh.. go to the XPde site, and check out the BeOS poll.

Oh.. Have a Merry Xmas too. ;-)

Merry Christmas.

Hello everyone. Just a quick note to wish a Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate it. I don't, but i know it's a big night to those who do, so, enjoy it with your families and loved ones.

A Merry Christmas from everyone here at The BeOS Journal.

BeBochs 2.0 Ready to Go.

If you've been visiting our site regularly (and i know you have), you've read about the BeBochs development in progress, by Yellowtab's Bernd.

Now, YellowTab announces that they have BeBochs 2.0 packages ready for download at their site. Also, they will soon have a R5 packaget ready as well. Each package will include a 10MB dxLinux image ready to go.

I know many were waiting for this (not wanting to dig into Bochs' cvs), so this is good news indeed. For the complete scoop, including some of the many improvements, and the download link, go directly to YellowTab's site.

eDonkey For BeOS.

This comes from our reader Neiang, straight from Argentina. He wrote us about eDonkey, and BeOS. What is eDonkey you ask? It's a new type of file sharing that is gaining more and more popularity.

Neiang tells us about MLDonkey, which is open-sourced client compatible with the eDonkey network and now it can also connect to other networks, like Gnutella and Direct-Connect, to name a few. Let me paste Neiang's mail so you can get all the information he provided us:

Hi!, i'm a member of a spanish BeOS web page called BeOS Aires. Well for months i've tried that somebody port eDonkey to BeOS, i've written to the owners of eDonkey but they only said that they'll try to get a new programmer but i think that they say that to make me happy hehe.

Mmm... maybe you know that there are several clients to connect to edonkey network like mldonkey that it's avaliable for several OS (windows, linux, MacOS...) well it can be ported to other OS like BeOS but my knowledges about programming are limited and i'm looking for programmers that can port mldonkey to BeOS. I've posted some news in BeOS Aires' website about it but there is not many programmers in the spanish BeOS comunity :( So i write you asking for your help, can you post about it on BEOS JOURNAL?

There is a F.A.Q. that says how to port mldonkey to other OS, here is the link. Maybe if some programmer reads the F.A.Q. and can port it to BeOS, the BeOS comunity will have eDonkey :).

Well, are there any takes? Vitviper brought us, not along ago, our first Direct-Connect client, and now there's the chance of getting an eDonkey client too. As you know, choice is good, so go for it!.

Interview With Bruno G. Albuquerque About openBFS.

We actually concluded this interview quite some time ago, but with Real Life™ being what it is, I am now just posting this for your reading pleasure. ;-)

It's short, and to the point, focusing on the development of openBFS...

Read more...

Zeta Shows BeBOCHS Progress. (FreeCIV/CnC fans rejoice.)

With all the flurry lately about Zeta, we thought it would be nice to show the public some screenshots we managed to obtain from Bernd Korz directly.

Fans of Civilizaton and Command & Conquer will be glad to hear (and see) that all major problems with both games have been solved, including pesky font issues. Bernd has been busy lately making stellar changes to BeBOCHS, and chief among them was integration of system fonts into BeBOCHS.

Read more...

Zeta Interview Questions.

The BeOSJournal has managed to obtain an exclusive interview with Bernd Korz, of YellowTab.

Most of you probably already know he is developing Zeta, an independant distribution of BeOS, that is coming out shortly.

We are conducting a full review, comprised of 9 people, including myself, that are testing it on hardware platforms ranging from a lowly pentium 200 to a high end machine(s) like AMD Athlon XP and Pentium 4.

We would at this time ask you for your questions, comments, and concerns about this issue, as to incorporate your thoughts into our interview with Bernd.

Please post what you would like here, and we'll weed through the posts during the next couple of days.

The interview will be conducted 1-2 days after we finish our review.

Thank you, and good luck.

Comments

beunited Announces Gobe Talks.

As you all know, Gobe Productive is in risk of not being open-sourced. As you also know, pledges started and it took off really well, with $10,000.00 being plegded in just 3 days.

Today beunited.org has publicly announced that conversations with Gobe have begun, due to the great response of the community. Here's part of the announcement:

We graciously encourage everyone who has pledged a donation to contact everyone they know and spread the news. The more support the community gives, the more the possibility of releasing the source becomes. It's up to the community to make this a reality. Please tell a friend and make it happen.

So do as they say, tell your family, friends and foes and click here to pledge.

Zeta Reaches Beta 3.

YellowTab's Zeta has reached Beta 3, and is on testers hands as you read this. According to Bernd, later this week a new beta will be ready.

This version has many fixes and improvements over the previous version. I talked to a couple of beta testers and so far their opinion is very good. None have complains concerning stability and according to a beta tester's own words "the tracker is incredible".

Not concerning the OS specifically, but it will come with it, Bernd has also been working on FreeCIV and FreeCNC and both are looking great. FreeCNC in particular, working perfectly in full screen with sound support. I'm sure you remember the news piece about BeBochs and Windows 98 booting in 71 secs, well now it boots in a mere 49 secs.. quite impressive.

Zeta is shaping up quite nicely and i for one am looking forward to it. The BeOS Journal will bring you a review soon, so stay tuned.

Post Magic Interview.

We bring you today an interview with Nathan, of Post Magic fame. A very interesting read in which he talks about Post Magic's past, present and future.

Read On...

Updated Matrox Driver (widh Dualhead Support).

Just a quick note in case you didn't notice. Rudolf Cornelissen (a good coder and a very nice guy i might add) has released an update to his excelent Matrox driver.

There are many fixes and new features in this 0.13beta2 version, including Dualhead support for the G550 (and improving the implementation on the G400 and G450), as well as implementing (fully) coldstart for the G200, among many others.

You can download the driver here and as always, give Rudolf feedback on it. I did (including giving him a G200) and i got this warm fuzzy feeling inside.

Darkwyrm is "still here, sort of".

Darkwyrm, coder extraordinaire, has posted a small updated to his website, to let us know he's still around, after a case of "household sickness" (which misteriously left his cat intact, case for study?). Here's his (non-delirious) blurb:

I have heard of an ancient Chinese curse: "May you lead an interesting life." That I have done this week. Amongst other things, the only member of the house who *hasn't* been sick is the cat, and I'm convinced he belongs in an asylum. Productive work of any kind has been out of the question. Too exhausted to think, I've been writing Seeker code. I have also found out why you don't code when you can't think. It don't work good. Hopefully this week will be better. Things get much less hectic after Tuesday. Just letting you know that I'm still here, sort of.

Good to "see" you back on your feet (even if still wobly). And don't forget everyone, you can download prototype #7 here and provide what coders love the most, feedback.