CeBit - First Impressions.

Well. I've arrived, and in one piece. You won't believe this, but I'm typing this on a german keyboard, from the stall just next to YellowTab's. CeBit is huge. More to come later.

CeBit, Zeta, Images, oh my!

In preparation for my journey to CeBit this week, I decided to do some packing. Along with the regular assortment of travel items, I thought it prudent to stare into my crystal ball for some assurance of the future.

Lo and behold, I was beset with images of... a folder.. no wait.. it was a file tab.. yes.. it's coming clearer now.. definately a tab of some kind. Yellow.

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Refracted.

Xentronix has released a new public beta of Refraction and for those who haven't been following its progress, we provide you with a refresher. Xentronix has been working on Refraction, an Image Editing suite much like Photoshop or Corel Photopaint for quite some time now. Xentronix, trying to fill the void for quality commercial software on the BeOS, is doing everything they can to ensure a functional and worthy product that will put the functionality back into our favorite OS. As a graphic designer I'll try to enlighten you with my experiences on how far it's come and then you can go try it out for yourself.

The newest version of Refraction has come a long way. Important bug fixes and features galore fill Refraction as the Xentronix team tweaks the UI and behavior of the app to take advantage of BeOS's freindly environment.

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OpenBeOS Happenings.

Sorry for not reporting this sooner, but for some strange reason i couldn't reach the OpenBeOS site all weekend. Well, i probably know the reason, my crappy ISP, but that's a whole different talk.

This weekend saw the release of newsletter #37, which covers some resource compiling, some non-musical jamming and ends up with some abstract concepts my Michael Phipps. Read it all right here.

Also, and speaking of Michael Phipps, he has really taken a linking to it, and yesterday he was on the air again, with the On Computers crew. As always, you can get the show in either ogg format (a bit over 32MB) or mp3 format (a bit over 81MB.. tough choice). Also, and about this interviews Phipps has done. I was contacted by a few people (hi Sylvie) concerning transcripts. I asked someone in BeShare which got halfway through the first one, but i haven't seen him in quite some time now. If someone has them, or could make them, we here at TBJ will post them and thus allow many more readers to access the interviews as well. Any volunteers?

Darkwyrm Runs Into Some Problems While The Coding Continues.

Darkwyrm has updated his site, this time with some not so good news like the ones he has us acostumed to. Better to read from his own words:

I've known that this day would come for a couple weeks now, but I didn't want to think about it. For financial reasons, I need to ditch my current ISP and, thus, cable internet access. It almost like cutting off a hand, but it's for the right reasons. NetZero and Juno are evil, but they won't cost me anything, so things will just slow down for me instead of completely stop. The app_server and Seeker will continue to be developed. I will still be posting news, but more than likely not as often. In the future, I can be contacted at darkwyrm DOT netzero DOT net. Also, because I won't be monitoring e-mail while I'm at the keyboard, e-mail responses may be slightly slower - 99% of replies coming in 24-48 hours. *Sigh* Development is really hard when you have no money.

On a slightly happier note, development has gone pretty well this week. Marc Flerackers (a fellow member of the Interface Kit team) has been working on a BPicture implementation and I have adapted some of his code to allow the app_server to play BPictures. It's not finished, but most of the needed functionality is there. I've also been working with Adrian Oanca, the IK team's BWindow guy, to get a lot of things worked out. There should be code committed to the tree soon, from his comments. In other news, I've also begun work on Seeker 1.1, which now has an Address Bar, a user-configurable Send To menu (not to be confused with Tracker's Open With menu), localization support, and the ability to navigate the your PC's entire filesystem from the root directory. Suddenly, we'll be able to look at /dev and /var without jumping to the Terminal. :) A Send To Seeker Tracker Addon is in the works with equivalent functionality if started via Tracker's Open With menu.

Yep... "rl" sucks sometimes, preventing us from doing what we most want... or from being with someone else... Though he keeps coding and makes good progress, it's still a shame when something like this happens... a reminder to those who sometimes forget there's more to life than a computer, and code lines or even an OS...

New Refraction Beta Goes Public.

Xentronix promised and now they deliver. The new Refraction beta is out, bringing it up to version (beta) 6.0.

As usual with ongoing work, this new version brings us fixes, additions and changes to what probably is the most notorious BeOS commercial application in development. It has a new selection system, new tools (e.g. Retouch tool and Air Spray) and the Filters number was increased by 22.

So what are you waiting for? To read it all about it, head over to this page, and if you want to skip the reading and feel like taking it for a spin, just click here. As always, don't forget developers are just nuts about feedback.

OpenBeOS MIDI Kit Reaches Milestone 2.

This just hit my mailbox, from Matthijs Hollemans to the OpenBeOS mailing list. As the title says, the MIDI Kit has reached Milestone 2. It features a completed libmidi2.so, so you can now send and receive MIDI events. As Matthijs says, the kit is fully functional, apart from not having a softsynth and the ability to talk to hardware devices.

You if you'd like, you can click right here and download an already compiled package, which can work side by side with R5's MIDI Kit. Don't forget to give feedback. Good job guys, keep it up.

Gaming News.

I bring you a couple of gaming in BeOS news, for your reading pleaure. No offers needed... except a laptop, used (though in mint condition) is fine.

First, there's a new gaming site on the town and it's called BeGaming. It's goal is "to provide you with the latest news relating games and BeOS, we will also provide webspace for BeOS game-projects and other "multi-platform" projects such as a BeOS nightlybuild of ScummVM whích will be available soon.". So be sure to pay them a visit.

Second and last but not least, Travis Chase brings us a new version of Ur-Quan Masters. This brings it up to version 0.2 Alpha, so try it at your own risk, and don't forget to provide feedback, developers are nuts about it. You can grab it right here. As always, enjoy it to the max.

Secure Browsing In BeOS.

Sergei Dolgov pointed it out to me and i tried out with success as well. If you use Mozilla and/or Phoenix in BeOS to browse the Web, you can rest assured that you're perfectly safe while doing it.

If you go to this site it'll run a series of tests (22 to be precise) on your browser, during which you'll see many windows open and close. The test takes a few minutes to perform so you have to be patient.. but not beard-growing patient. And it's good to know you're quite safe while browsing your favorite sites.

I didn't try it with Opera, since i don't use it, maybe someone could try it (hint: François) and let me know? These aren't earth shattering news, but it's good to know you're "in safe hands".

Ohmforce VST Plugins Reviewed.

Like the kids (who listen to too much hip-hop) say these days, fat props to LeBuzz for posting it and to Jimmy Packes for writing the review of two Ohmforce VST plugings, Mobilohm and Hematohm. Funky names? Yes. Funky sounds? Oh yes. So go read it all over at LeBuzz.com. And if you want to go straight to the source, point your browsers this way. Enjoy.

BeOS Radio Week, 2003.

Deet dit dit deeet.

This just in. Reports abound about the upcoming BeOS Radio Week, scheduled for March 24th through the 31st, with estimates circulating that it will be even bigger than last year's event, which caused untold amounts of positive reactions in those that listened to the stellar broadcast. Tell your friends, family, and your boss to tune in. Crank up the radio, and rock out like it's 1999.. err.. Have a good time. ;-)

On a more serious note, I would like to thank the entire BeOS Community, in advance, for setting aside some time to tune into BeOS's official radio station, and use it as an ice breaker when showing people an alternative operating system. It's the fact that our community is so close-knit that makes everyone new to it smile when we show them how much we care. Take care, and tune in.

BeTips Finds New Home.

It is with great pleasure that I announce to everyone what some people already know. The transfer of BeTips.net from Scot Hacker to myself, Chris Simmons, so that the tips database lives on. Here's what Scot wrote up to explain his decision.

Dear BeOS Community:

As most of you know, I had a long-running and deep involvement with BeOS, lasting for around four years. I wrote the BeOS Bible, the BeView for Byte.com, BeHive for ZDNet, and founded this site, The BeOS Tip Server. I was proud that this site was one of the first full-time BeOS web servers on the internet (though keeping it online was always a challenge, even post-BONE). And I was proud of the TrackerBase system I developed to serve dynamic database-driven web content directly out of BFS.

The content itself represents several years of weekend work, both in terms of the tips I've written for the site (around 1/3 of them) and in editing the submissions that rolled in at a fairly rapid pace when Be was at its peak popularity. In a way, writing tips and reading the submissions of others became my umbilical to the heart of the BeOS user experience, and served as a launchpad (indirectly) for a lot of the columns I wrote over time.

When Be tanked, my involvement with BeOS ceased and I migrated to Mac OS X. I ported the Tip Server to PHP/MySQL, and began hosting the site on my Mac.

Being married, working full-time, and having a new baby does not leave me time for OS tinkering, and the Tip Server has started to get stale. I finally decided that it was time for the domain to be in the hands of someone who was actively using and promoting BeOS. I put out the call for a new home and was amazed to receive five hosting offers in a few days -- an indication that the BeOS community had more vitality remaining than I thought (and a reminder of how wonderfully enthusiastic and supportive the community has always been).

I'd like to thank Chris Simmons and the BeOS Journal for taking over the database, the domain, and tip editing responsibilities. Chris is held in high regard in the BeOS community, and has done great work getting the site set up on the new host quickly. No URLs will break in the process - even the tip of the day will continue to be generated and fed to BeBits and other sites that want it. The discussion board picks up right where it left off, and the submission and search engines are fully functional.

Most importantly, Chris has plans for future evolution of the site - the stale period is over. As much as this is a bittersweet parting, my main goal is to ensure that the site remains in the hands of enthusiast BeOS users, and I believe Chris will do a great job of that.

Thanks to all past and future BeTips contributors, and thanks to everyone for the great ride.

Scot Hacker

Thank you Scot. It is truly an honor, and a privilige, to carry on with what you started. Here's a toast to yet another aspect of BeOS's future. ;)

-Chris Simmons.

Japanese Support Improves in MDR.

As was reported before, Japanese support in MDR has been incorporated in recent versions, and with the release of the new 2.0.1 beta1 version it's been improved.

Among other improvements, this versions brings the user a new pop-up menu for switching character sets on the fly. The Japanese translation was done by Koki and Jun Suzki, and there was the help of several beta testers, just to name a few of many: Shinta, Koichi Kimura and Matatsugu Karino.

You have seen several news pieces about the Japanese BeOS community, and if all goes well, i.e. the coming together of the western and eastern groups, you'll be reading a lot more about it. BeOS needs everyone.

Matrox Driver Progress.

Rudolf Cornelissen (whom we had an interview with not long ago) has posted a status update to his (open)BeOS Matrox MGA Driver. Since the last update, he has made some good progress with more than TvOut. Read it:

Currently I am working on the Millenium 1/2 support in the driver. TVout for G400-G550 has improved also since 30 January. It's not completed yet though. I have had some requests for DVDmax support, so I am going to have a look at that. Chances are this will be implemented for G450/G550 at first, while on these cards normal Desktop output will be setup later. The Matrox 2D/3D engine has to be setup to do Texture scaling and filtering for that. BTW: If someone has a singlehead G200 (or G100 if this exists?) with TVout let me know: I think I might be able to make that work too...
If there are people outthere with a Millenium1, a Millenium2, or a G100/G200 with TVout please contact me: I could use some betatesters to improve support..

Very nice indeed. And if you fit the profile and would like to contribute to the further improvement and development of a BeOS driver, contact Rudolf and let him know you want to help.

On a side note (Editor's note.. eh), i would like to thank, once again, all of our readers. You have made February, the shortest month of the year, into our biggest ever! We had over 422 thousand hits (averaging just over 15.000 per day), with almost (very close) 12 thousand unique visitors. I have said it before and i'll say it again, you guys (and girls) ROCK! Thank you very much. As always, we'll try our best to bring you the latest and greatest of the BeOS world.