Innovative BeOS Software Spotlight Part 2
Stephen B. - July 27th, 2006
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Last week, I posted the first part of an article spotlighting innovative software that has been developed for the BeOS (and family). As promised, here is the second half – for all of those who held back your “what, you forgot such-and-such application?!?!?” comments until the article was complete, you may now fire away. Or better yet, write up and send me a description of why such-and-such application (also known as BeSuchAndSuch) is the bee’s knees – or the wasp’s nipples, or really, any errogenous zone of any winged insect in the Western hemisphere. I’m not picky. Also, related to the first part of this article, about half a dozen people wrote in or commented that they would be interested in trying the GoogleFS software. I posted an update to the original post, but in case anyone missed it you can obtain the google_fs here (profuse thanks to Fran??ois “mmu_man” Revol). Please read on for the full article.
While randomly browsing about the other day, I came across a blog post containing a video of a rather cool – and somewhat violent – method for switching virtual desktops using the motion sensor in Apple’s new laptops (intended to disable the hard drive in case of falls). While I’m hesitant to spoil the video, this post would be pretty pointless otherwise – it shows the developer of the hack, Erling Ellingsen, switching between virtual workspaces by whacking the right or left side of his screen. For those wondering “what relevance does this have to BeOSNews,” the idea has also been implemented under Linux using the similar motion sensor in IBM / Leonovo ThinkPads – so it probably wouldn’t be that difficult to accomplish under BeOS / Haiku / ZETA. Sadly my Thinkpad is a generation or two earlier than models containing the motion sensor (an X30 – still a sweet little laptop nonetheless, especially if I ever find my laptop-to-desktop ATA converter and get BeOS on there), but despite that critical factor, it would still be a pretty neat toy.
Despite the fact that BeOS / ZETA has a small third-party developer community, there are some very high-quality applications available to end users. One thing that has always impressed me is the way that developers of BeOS / ZETA software have been able to take advantage of unique features in the OS and provide clever, simple approaches to common tasks. Read on for Part 1 of our overview of some of the more innovative, lesser-known pieces of BeOS software. Part 2 will follow next week.
OSNews is reporting on an interesting new development with the SkyOS alternative-operating system: a developer by the name of Lukas Linemayr has implemented support for BeOS People files. Lukas’ blog also contains a screenshot of a slick-looking People application. SkyOS has also been using the OpenBFS filesystem for some time now, so BeOS and SkyOS People files should be compatible.
Over on HaikuNews Kian Duffy has posted a fascinating short piece called “The Telling Secrets of Haiku’s Bugzilla“. Among the 700 (or so) entries, Kian dug up some great indications of Haiku’s current development status – including a cool screenshot of Haiku with an uptime of 52 hours-plus. Kian also mentions that, in addition to giving a good overview of what’s working and what’s not, the Haiku Bugzilla is the best place to submit any bugs you encounter while testing Haiku. A somewhat obvious point, but one that’s worth repeating as the Bugzilla is not as widely-known as some of the other Haiku Project resources.
Magnussoft, the new global distributors for ZETA (and apparently now the developers of it as well, although solid details are scarce) have announced a new Beta testing program. A notice was posted on July 4th to announce that applications for the Beta program are now closed – congratulations to everyone who was accepted. In other Magnussoft-related news, they also announced that the release of ZETA 1.21 will be pushed back to the end of July (it was originally scheduled for a June 20th release). The post on ZETA-OS.com states that the delay is being made in order to give ZETA developers more time to work on drivers and do additional “polishing.”
Although the Haiku Podcast has only been around for a few short months, it has already become a familiar fixture in the BeOS / Haiku community. The third episode is now online for your listening pleasure and this time around Siksosis presents us with two interviews, in addition to the regular features. In this episode, Siksosis chats with Charlie Clark of BeGeistert and Karl vom Dorff from Haiku Bounties, and features the EMail client Beam as his BeBits app-of-the-month. Kudos to Sikosis for all the great work, the Haiku Podcast got off to a great start and has only improved since then. The interviews have been especially enjoyable, it’s been great to be able to “put a voice” to long-time community members.
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