davidw writes: “The Tcl maintainers are pleased to announce the 8.3.4 releases of the
Tcl scripting language and the Tk toolkit. This is the fourth patch
release of Tcl/Tk 8.3. More details can be found below. We’d like to
thank all those that submit bugs and patches as they are the primary
source of information for us to identify problems in the core.”
Where to get the new releases:
——————————

Tcl/Tk 8.3.4 sources are freely available from the Tcl Developer Xchange
web site at:

http://www.tcl-tk.net/software/tcltk/8.3.htmlhttp://tcl.ActiveState.com/software/tcltk/8.3.html

This web page also contains additional information about the releases,
including new features and notes about installing and compiling the
releases. The files are directly available from the Tcl SourceForge
project’s file distribution area (which includes Mac binaries):

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=10894

ActiveState also provides Windows, Linux and Solaris binaries that
include numerous popular extensions at:

http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Downloads/ActiveT cl/
(should be available by end of day Oct 23)

For additional information:
—————————

Please visit the Tcl Developer Xchange web site:

http://www.tcl-tk.net/http://tcl.ActiveState.com/

This site contains a variety of information about Tcl/Tk in general,
the core Tcl and Tk distributions, and much more.

Thank you for your contributions:
———————————

As usual, this release includes contributions from the Tcl community.
Tcl/Tk is maintained by the community, with the source repository and
bug database at SourceForge:

http://tcl.SourceForge.net/

Everyone is encouraged to participate in making Tcl an even better
language.

Summary of Changes in Tcl/Tk 8.3.4:
–

————————————-

The following were the main changes in this release. A complete list
can be found in the ChangeLog file at the root of the source tree. This
is a patch release, so it primarily included bug fixes and corrections
to erratic behavior. Below are only the most notable changes.

* Improved build support for GNU (HURD), QNX and Mac OS X

* Enabled 64bit compilation on HP-11 via –enable-64bit

* Updated msgcat and http packages

* New file I/O flush management for Windows (up to 100x speedup)

* Plugged a few minor memory leaks in error cases

* Corrected handling of spaces in pathnames passed to ‘exec’ on Windows

* Win64 support using Whistler64 RC 1

* Native memory allocator now the default on Windows.

* Corrected thread finalization problems for threaded builds.

* Updated unicode encodings from http://www.unicode.org/

* Fixed tk_chooseDirectory crash on Win95

* Removed 2 second ‘raise’ delay for some Unix windows managers

* Updated Mac/Windows wish console

* Enhanced ‘bgerror’ dialog

* Fixed file filtering in Motif file dialogs

The full list can be seen at

http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?relea se_id=57667

—
Jeff Hobbs Tcl Core Release Manager”

Dave writes: “Changelog:final:
– page write-out throttling
– Pete Zaitcev: ymfpci sound driver update (make Civ:CTP happy with it)
– Alan Cox: i2o sync-up
– Andrea Arcangeli: revert broken x86 smp_call_function patch
– me: handle VM write load more gracefully. Merge parts of -aa VM
Download it here, or (preferably) from a mirror site. Redhatbox.org“

Kelly McNeill writes: “The latest worm to wiggle its way into the Internet is called “Anthrax.” This comes as no surprise, of course, given the recent anthrax news headlines and public fear. Some (uncreative) kid just had to do it, even if the effort was less than successful. The Anthrax worm is a mass-mailer, and also attempts to fool the recipient into opening a VBScript attachment by sending e-mails with “Anthrax” as the subject line.”

– By Grant Gross –

Competitor Scott Draeker isn’t impressed with TransGaming Technologies’ plan to use its version of Wine to get Windows games to work on Linux.

On Monday, TransGaming and MandrakeSoft announced the WineX project, which would allow games designed for Windows systems to run on Linux machines. When asked about the traditional Linux gaming model, in which companies such as Draeker’s Loki Entertainment port games to Linux, TransGaming president and COO Vikas Gupta predicted the WineX model will blow them away. “This obviously gives us a huge competitive advantage since our approach renders the traditional approach obsolete,” Gupta said.

Not so fast, says Draeker, whose Loki Entertainment has been the flagship company of that “traditional” approach. Draeker has doubts about games running on Wine working as well as games actually made to run on Linux.
Although Loki filed for bankruptcy back in August, the company has continued to release games, including Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns in late August and Postal Plus “coming soon.”

Draeker’s response to Gupta’s quote on how TranGaming is making the traditional approach obsolete: “Sure it does, in exactly the same way that deleting Linux and running Windows makes porting games to Linux obsolete.”

Draeker adds: “The reason people use Linux is not because it’s a great way to run
Windows software. If you want Windows software then you should be
running Windows. Our customers use Linux to run Linux software.

“When Loki ports a game we don’t use emulation or other tricks. We are
creating a native Linux application. That’s the only way to take
advantage of the features and stability that Linux offers. No Windows
software, no matter how well emulated, can do that … Linux users
demand more than Windows software can offer.”

Sounds like this isn’t the last comment about each other we’ll hear from Loki and TransGaming.

Kelly McNeill writes “How often do you give your e-mail address to clients and business prospects? Is it memorable? Is it meaningful? Does it say something about you or your business? Does it suggest your role in the company? Or is it meaninglessness, just numbers and letters in random order? Now that e-mail is becoming an expected and necessary element of business communications, we ought to be more aware of how often it is seen and used by clients and customers.”

Ian Bell writes “This phone is really cool, reminds me of a phone from the movie Matrix. Features brushed aluminum and chrome alloy with a pleasant light blue screen and button lighting. Here is a bit from the article:
One look and you know what this phone is designed for – style. Plain and simple, Nokia was out to make a real looker. This phone is visually intriguing and tacitly gratifying. Its clean chrome lines frame a rich brushed aluminum case that sings to the touch..
Website link
“

Kelly McNeill writes “Embedded in IE 6.0 is the first incarnation of a new privacy platform standard established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), called the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P). P3P allows consumers to put their privacy preferences in their Internet browsers. The software using the browser to automatically read the privacy policies at the Web sites visited, and alerts consumers if they enter a site that does not meet the personal privacy requirements they entered.”

MozillaQuest Magazine reports: “SuSE is to start shipping its new, SuSE Linux 7.3 operating system
(OS) distribution in the United States and North America today. The
German version has been shipping for about ten days.”

ZDNet reports: “Microsoft on Tuesday announced the first details of what it will
charge software developers to build applications linked to its .Net My
Services Web services plan.”

It’s posted at LWN.net. Among the items: “In a recent announcement Progeny Linux
Systems publically stated that they ceased development on their
Progeny Debian product. The primary motivation for this decision is
Progeny’s desire for proper convergence with Debian. It has been said
that Progeny Debian was an amazing product, with a modern installer
and hardware detection.”