Frank Buss writes "Common Lisp is an ANSI standard, which defines a general purpose language and library, and is implemented by free and commercial compilers and IDEs; see *hyper-cliki* for more general information about Common Lisp. The book Practical Common Lisp explains the language with many practical examples and is available in full text online, too." Read on for the rest of Buss' review.

DopeyDad asks: "OK, it was close to a year ago (Eric's site says July 2004, but I'd swear the original rant came earlier last year) that Eric Raymond's tirade on the unfriendly status of configuring the CUPS printing system on Linux was published. Well, I've been struggling with setting up a new laptop and getting it to talk to my print server, using Fedora Core 3, and nothing seems to have changed -- the admin items for adding a printer are exactly as Eric described them back then -- unclear, confusing, and no where near as friendly as their Win* equivalents. Definitely not something I'd expect my Aunt Ethel to be able to figure out. What's going on here? Granted, FC3 is ready to be replaced, but I don't see any CUPS updates for it. Is work being done with CUPS to address Eric's original complaints, or has this issue fallen off the radar?" For those who are still frustrated with the CUPS GUI, how would you improve it?

norburym (Mary Norbury-Glaser )writes "Carla Schroder's Linux Cookbook (O'Reilly) is an extremely dense volume packed with valuable information. The author writes with precision and detail and with a conversational style that handles the topic with a wry humor making this book a pleasure to read. The Linux Cookbook is command-line based so some familiarity with a Linux system, the inherent power of using the command-line and the dangers of using root are necessary." Read on for the rest of Norbury-Glaser's review.

gmletzkojr asks: "The company that I am currently working at develops a fairly complex industrial controller, complete with embedded software, a GUI on the controller, and a Windows app to connect over Ethernet. On previous versions of a similar project, we have performed testing manually - ie, monkey presses button, and sees that light turns on, widget turns, GUI updates, etc. However, this is extremely time consuming (previous complete regression testing took ~3 weeks) and is error prone in itself. How do you perform complete system regression testing? Do you use shrink-wrapped packages, or build your own? How do you test features that are easy for humans to observe, but not as easy for software to detect (ie, the light came on, the GUI updated when I pressed the external input, etc)?"

Ant writes "Blue's News posted an interesting link that shows a chart of icons from various interfaces. Clicking on graphical user interface (GUI) names, section names, or icons themselves will lead to the appropriate page with more details."

An anonymous reader writes "Flexbeta.net compares NeroLinux to K3b under Fedora Core 3. The review notices how NeroLinux does nothing with the eye candy while K3b's GUI is no comparison to NeroLinux. The article also mentions how cumbersome it is to navigate through NeroLinux, also taking note of how long each application takes to accomplish burning tasks."

malcomvetter asks: "I need a command line FTP client that supports 'Implicit SSL', sports some kind of scripting interface, and runs on Win32. Any suggestions? So far, I have only found GUI versions such as FileZilla." I remember once needing a scripting FTP client long ago. It took me a long time, but I finally found one that had a workable but unintuitive interface. Have scripting FTP clients become more prevalent or is your best bet using something flexible with network bindings (like Python or Perl) to get the job done?

anamexis writes "Adobe premiered (no pun intended) opensource.adobe.com recently. The first two libraries available, titled Adam and Eve, respectively, take on complex GUI issues in applications. They are written in C++ and have been released under the MIT License, an OSI-Approved Open Source License."

Viridian writes "Jef Raskin, GUI pioneer, interface expert, Apple employee #31, and the man most credited with the creation of the Apple Macintosh, died of cancer on Saturday February 26, 2005. It was Raskin who named it after his favorite fruit, the McIntosh apple, although he said that he changed the spelling to "Macintosh" to avoid potential copyright conflicts with McIntosh, the audio equipment manufacturer."

norburym (Mary Norbury-Glaser) writes "Mac OS X Server 10.3 Panther is one of the latest in Peachpit Press' Visual QuickPro guides (not to be confused with the beginner "QuickStart" series) and is written by one of the best IT/Mac trainers in the industry, Schoun Regan, with assistance by his devoted sidekick and co-trainer at itinstruction.com, Kevin White. Peachpit and the authors have produced a book with excellent content and delivery; the installation and setup of Mac OS X Server and Web services is explained with clarity and precise detail." Read on for the rest of Norbury-Glaser's review.

OSXCPA asks: "While there are plenty of OS business apps from accounting to ERP, they seem to share a common failing with "commercial" software - the user interface is terrible! Has anyone seen an application that has a UI that made you sit up and stare in amazement at the simplicity and effectiveness of it? For the techno-elite, drooly-gui may not be a priority, but I am working on a project (OS) where I have to show real savings (in task performance time and reduced data entry error) on a specialized accounting system via better UI. Am looking for some inspiration. Any ideas? Projects? Books?"

mo writes "The Desktop Linux Summit has just concluded in San Diego. There were a number of exhibitors, including Novell, AMD, and Mozilla. I've put together a summary of some of the more interesting announcements and booths at the conference. Highlights include a Linux-only 3D game, DRM-free music services, and a new Asterisk GUI."

r3lody (Raymond Lodato) writes "Writing Linux applications is not a simple endeavor. The Linux operating system provides a sophisticated framework for running programs, and learning how to take advantage of that framework requires some research. The book Linux Application Development, 2nd Ed., by Michael K. Johnson and Erik W. Troan provides much of what you need to know within its sturdy covers. Pitched to the intermediate to advanced programmer, all of the basic programming APIs are covered -- some in detail, some in brief." Read on for the rest of Lodato's review of this book.

norburym writes "AppleScript: The Missing Manual by Adam Goldstein is part of the Missing Manual series of beginner/intermediate books published by Pogue Press/O'Reilly and Associates. This series focuses on computer products that have been released without adequate printed manuals (Mac OS X, iLife '04, Google, iPod and iTunes, Windows XP, Windows 2K, among others). I would venture that this also applies to most major software releases, which should keep Mr. Pogue, O'Reilly and their contributing authors busy for quite some time. Their newest release, AppleScript: The Missing Manual, is a welcome addition to their catalog of smart, funny and user-friendly books." Read on for the rest of Norbury-Glaser's review.

prostoalex writes "Shawn Burke from Microsoft says they are ready to ship sources for Windows Forms for .NET Framework 2.0 and asks for specific advice on accomplishing that (specifically, a smart comment tool). Windows Forms contains .NET framework classes for building GUI applications."

wikinerd writes "The GNU Project was working on a new OS kernel called HURD from 1990, using the GNU Mach microkernel. However, when HURD-Mach was able to run a GUI and a browser, the developers decided to start from scratch and port the project to the high-performance L4 microkernel. As a result development was slowed by years, but now HURD developer Marcus Brinkmann made a historic step and finished the process initialization code, which enabled him to execute the first software on HURD-L4. He says: 'We can now easily explore and develop the system in any way we want. The dinner is prepared!'"

elecngnr writes "Maybe size doesn't matter. ZDNet has a story about how the Mac mini may shift consumers away from the larger tower style desktops to smaller ones. Other computer makers, such as HP, have so far been unsuccessful in marketing small computers to consumers. However, Apple does have a history of leading the charge in paradigm shifts in certain aspects of consumer products (e.g. GUI's, color changes, the iPod, and the list goes on). It is also important to recognize that they have been wrong at times too (e.g. the Cube, the Newton, and the one button mouse). Time will tell which list the Mini will belong to."

r3lody ((Raymond Lodato) writes "Java was developed to be a cross-platform language. In other words, it shouldn't matter what processor or operating system you used, just the language itself. Write Once, Run Anywhere is the slogan, and an admirable ideal to attempt to reach. So when I first saw the title of the book Java Application Development on Linux, I expected to find descriptions of some idiosyncrasies in the Linux environment that affected the Run Anywhere part of the equation. What I got was a lot more." Read on for the rest of Lodato's review.

prostoalex writes "Overclockix 3.7 is released, available via bittorrent. It's a live Linux CD with a bunch of utilities for 'torturing' the PC hardware, hence the name. The authors seem to take a reasonable approach on graphical desktop, cutting out what they consider unnecessary eye candy, but leaving in the tools essential for effective GUI. 'Some new package highlights such as knoppix firewall, vlc, superkaramba, KDE 3.3.1, newer 2.6.7 kernel, NX client, and many more', the site says."

Pier Luigi Fiorini writes "The Mockup project is a desktop operating system based on GNU/Linux. It has recently released new source code and published both screenshots and mockups. Read the announcement to know where are the source code tarballs and how to compile them. Mockup uses a new lightweight and modern graphical user interface that supports both pixel and vector based graphics. The GUI is based on bleeding edge technologies like Qt 4.0 beta, Elektra, HAL and DBUS. Elektra is a new backend for text configuration files. Instead of each program to have its own text configuration files, with a variety of formats, Elektra tries to provide a universal, hierarchical, fast and consistent namespace and infrastructure to access configuration parameters through a key-value pair mechanism. This way any software can read/save its configuration/state using a consistent API."