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Not exactly great - but I managed to get a few photos of the conference. It was a great time, and special thanks goes out to Steve Dickinson for all of his help and to Tom Rhodes over at the FreeBSD Project. Steve and Tom both manned the booth during those important times when I really needed a break (lunch :) and they both answered a volley of BSD and Linux related questions. Also - a special thank you to Beth for making sure I actually showed up

Over the next two or three entries I'm going to provide summaries of activity represented on some of the mail-lists most relevant to the development and use of audio software for Linux (and other platforms). I'm subscribed to a variety of such lists, and it occurred to me that a summary of their traffic would be a good indicator of the breadth and depth of our corner of the larger Linux world. I'll proceed through my lists in loose alphabetical order, starting with news from theArdour camp.

If you've never studied JavaScript before, don't buy this book...yet! Christian Wenz's JavaScript Phrasebook is not written for the "drop dead newbie" to JavaScript. You might learn a few things from this book if it's your first introduction to JavaScript but more than likely, you'll also end up confused.

There is one huge difference between the free and non-free software that has some very practical implications in the way we use it. One of those implications are the dependencies between single software packages in the free software model. What do they have to do with the free software philosophy and why should not you be afraid of them? Read on to find this out.

Puppy Linux has been updated to version 2.11: "Puppy version 2.11 is out. Puppy 2.10 was the first Puppy to use LZMA compression for the 'pup_210.sfs' Squashfs file (the file that has all of the applications). We found however that it doubled the start-up time for each application, not very noticeable on a modern fast CPU, however very much a problem on older hardware. Thus, for 2.11 we have gone back to the standard GZIP compression. Version 2.11 is basically an improved 2.10. Apart from reverting to GZIP compression, this release has various bug fixes. There is also an 'xorgdrvrs' ISO that includes the extra X.Org basic video drivers."

The first version of the Debian Live Initiative's make-live software is now available - see the website live.debian.net. Debian Live aims to make software to produce official Debian Live CDs, rather like Knoppix. The first version uses the Casper technology created by Ubuntu.

BrandZ is a framework that extends the Solaris Zones infrastructure to create Branded Zones, which are zones that contain non-native operating environments. The term "non-native" is intentionally vague, as the infrastructure allows for the creation of a wide range of operating environments. Each operating environment is provided by a brand that plugs into the BrandZ framework. A brand may be as simple as an environment with the standard Solaris utilities replaced by their GNU equivalents, or as complex as a complete Linux userspace.

As the project celebrates its 10th anniversary, we can all reflect on the enormous success achieved when people and organisations with a vast variety of different backgrounds and skills join forces. For people and organisations who wish to contribute to KDE by providing financial support in an ongoing manner, the KDE e.V. now offers the new Supporting Members scheme. KDE e.V. is both excited and proud to announce Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, as our first Patron of KDE.

The OpenVZ project announced today that its OS-level server virtualization software technology has been ported to -- and is now available for -- systems based on 64-bit Power processors.

Ext3 has become one of the most popular Linux filesystems. However, with hard drives sneaking up on a terabyte, concerns exist that ext3 won't be able to handle 21st-century storage requirements. With this in mind, the Linux kernel developers have just released the first real-world test version of ext4.

The European Commission is to create a portal for European public sector bodies to store and share open source application code and exchange open source knowledge. The Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR) will be developed and managed by a consortium led by Unisys.

This is a detailed description about how to set up a Mandriva 2007 Free Edition based server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters (Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server (with SMTP-AUTH and TLS), DNS server, FTP server, MySQL server, POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc.).

So whats the big deal anyway? I argue over on GPLMedicine.org that developing proprietary versions of VistA is both unethical and foolish. I would love to hear anyresponses.

Despite some indications to the contrary this week, the Mozilla Foundation did not release its next release of the Firefox browser, which is still being widely publicly tested under Release Candidate 2. As Mozilla's vice president for engineering, Mike Schroepfer, told BetaNews on Friday, Firefox releases take place on a qualitative basis, not on a deadline or time scale.

The Firefox web browser has come a long way since the project was announced as a fork from the open-sourced Mozilla project. Version 1.0 was released in 2004 and quickly won critical acclaim for its speed, compatibility with web standards, and features. In a couple of years, Firefox managed to reach a milestone that its predecessor never quite reached: hitting 10 percent market share worldwide. Version 2 of the browser recently hit Release Candidate 2, but the team is already making plans for 3.0.

Ecma Office Open XML (OOXML) specification (Volume 5, section 3.17.4.1, "Date Representation") contradicts 400 years of civil calendar practice, encodes nonexistent dates and returns the incorrect value for WEEKDAY? Read this blog post, i'm scared.

It’s been more than five years since Microsoft released Windows XP. Now, the software giant is readying XP’s successor, Vista. Will the new version be worth the price and pain of upgrading? More importantly, is Windows still relevant?

The European Commission is to spend €4m on an open source observatory and repository (Osor) to span the member states and enable them to share information across the public sector.

Web hosting provider Linux PHP Host (http://www.linuxphphost.com) announced recently it has added a number of new services to its suite of service offerings. The services are firmly focused on attracting the open-source community.

Oracle is to start ranking the severity of security bugs it fixes using an industry-standard scoring system starting with its next quarterly patch update, due on 17 October.