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yellowTAB has announced the deal with ABC Software where they will become ZETA's first Switzerland's distributor. Here's the press release:
Based in Buchs, Switzerland, ABC-SOFTWARE has decided, after extensive testing, to include ZETA in their catalogue. yellowTAB is proud to have won one of the largest distributors in Switzerland as a partner and is very much looking forward to a successful partnership together. ABC-SOFTWARE will begin taking orders for ZETA from 17th August.
ZETA's page can be found here and the book is here .

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A little bird sent me 3 screenshots of the latest Blender 2.37a running on ZETA. Yes, you read correctly, the latest Blender version now runs on ZETA and it's quite usable, fast too. In the screenshots below, a standard gfx driver is being used, not Rudolf's OpenGL alpha and the speed is very good, including the rendering.

How soon will you be able to use it? At the moment, I can't tell you that, basically because I don't know, so for now, I hope you enjoy the screenshots. Stay tuned as we'll bring you more details as they become available.

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BeBug is holding a Wallpaper Contest where anyone interested can participate. The prize? A copy of yellowTAB's ZETA R1, worth 100 Euros.

The deadline for submissions is August 31st and the voting will take place online, up until September 14th. The lucky (and talented) winner will be announced 4 days later, on September 18th. All entries must include BeBug, either the name or logo (or both) and must be 1024x768 and up. So start up your pencils (as in tablets) and let loose your talent. E-mail your submission(s) to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and good luck.

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One of our readers (an... expensive one, you know who you are) pointed me in the right direction, which I followed and ended up trading a couple of e-mails with Axel about this. The starting point was this link which shows the Axel creating a directory for the FreeBSD stack port. ? wrote him about it and he replied stating:
That's the plan, yes. However, I probably won't participate in the port itself a lot (...) It's a try to have an up-to-date and perfectly working networking stack ASAP. The FreeBSD stack has recently been freed from its giant lock, so that it's a good choice for Haiku (...)
It's an understandable (and welcome in my opinion) move from Haiku's part. They need a good, stable, fast and reliable network stack, and the FreeBSD one is a good example of that. And as Axel said, they need it fast.

The following part of this news piece got to be longer than I thought, so click below to read it.

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The Zeta/BeOS Fenix port will no longer be mantained, this primarily means that no more games like Devilish Racing, Camaleon or Masters of Invento Fighting will be packaged nor submitted to Bebits.

I have written the reasons for this decision, a list of Fenix's features and contact information as well as what needs to be done (just in case you want to take the port :) here.

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There are two new tutorials out there for everyone to read and learn. The first one is a small tutorial made by BeSly, the German BeOS & Zeta Knowledgebase. It shows you the best settings to use with WonderBrush when working with icons, creating and/or editing them. It's available in 3 languages, English, Dutch and the original in German.

The second one was made by Begasus, from BeBug, and it's about the IM Kit, how to get it up and running, with detailed instructions on how to install it and configure it to your liking. You can find the english version here while the original in Dutch can be found right here. Thanks to all who made these and translated them. Go, read and enjoy.

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YellowBites is pleased to announce the immediate availability of WonderBrush 1.7.0. Among the many new features and improvements are extensive support for Gradients as an object fill mode as well as very basic SVG import. The SVG implementation is complete enough to edit and create ZETA icons.

WonderBrush gains some self-respect for finally offering an Ellipse and Rectangle tool. Last but not least, a few bugs have been fixed as well. There is a special version for ZETA 1.0 that makes use of ZETA specific features. A license for commercial use is just EUR 17.50 plus VAT and can be purchased at Mensys or Kagi.

Update: YellowBites has just released version 1.7.1, a fast-in-coming update with several bug fixes and a few additions as well.

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The BeGeistert organization team has just announced Begeistert 15 - "Das 15. Gebot". It will take place 8-9.10.2005 in JH Duisburg Meiderich. Yes, you read correctly, BeGeistert is on the move. The Jugend Herberge / Youth Hostel in D?sseldorf will be, from the beginning of August 2005 until the end of 2007. in various stages of being rebuilt. Hopefully BeGeistert will once again return. Duisburg is on the other hand not far from D?sseldorf.

Jugend Herberge Duisburg Nord



The BeGeistert organization team will bring further information in the nearby future.

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After a period of hiatus, two new ads have been placed here at ICO's BeOS Classifieds, showing there's place in the BeOS/ZETA world for such a system, even if rarely used.

Vasper (who has placed several ads in the past) is looking to buy original BeOS games, like Civilization and Corum for example. He offers ?15 + shipping. A good deal, so if you have a copy you wouldn't mind parting with, go for it.

The other is a "For Sale" ad, posted by memson, and the item in question is the all important (for devs) Be Developer's Guide. According to memson, the book is in very good condition and for a bit more (how much will be up to the two of you) he'll part with the PR2 CD that was included (talk about memorabilia!). He's asking for ?20 in the UK and ?29 (US$35) outside of it, all plus shipping of course.

So if you want to make some money, or if you're a developer wanting a good source of information, head over and make contact. And don't forget, the Classifieds are there for just that, providing a first step for users to establish contact between themselves, the rest is up to you.

Update: There's a new ad online, the user's looking to buy Omicron's Personal Assistant, check it out.

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The latest BeDoper article tells the story of how Jonathan Thompson (no relation to the Thompson company I guess) got to join LucasFilms. It seems it all started with GL (not the Open kind, but the man himself) heard about Jonathan's Project X. So head over there and read it.

In the middle of all the spam I usually get, Jason's e-mail got lost, sorry about that Jason.