Hello everyone, I'm now back home so it's time to write the report about this past weekend's BeGeistert. As usual, BeGeistert's numbers tend to fluctuate and this time was no different. Last October's BeGeistert (I wasn't here in the Spring) for example was one of the busiest but this time we didn't make it into the 20's, it was close though. So was it fun?

Click below to find out.

Update: There's another report by luroh along with 4 crappy pictures :)

Update 2: And here are Humdinger's photos. Enjoy.

I've been reading xkcd on and off for a couple of years now (lately more on than off) and I enjoy it a lot, along with Penny Arcade it's my favourite webcomic. Imagine my surprise when just a few minutes ago I went to the site to check out the latest strip and I see Haiku mentioned. That's always nice :)

The strip's funny as usual and hits a chord with everyone who's ever had to contact tech support for one reason or another, so head over and read it.

Update: After the comic was published and due to the HUGE amount of traffic it generated, the Haiku site was down for a while. Cool :)

 

Good evening everyone. I just read an update over at BeBits which surprised me quite a bit and left me upset as well. There is the possibility that BeBits will be shut down permanently as early as the first day of 2011. First, let me paste the update here so you can read it in full:

 

BeBits gets a huge amount of traffic (still). BeBits has a long history, high page rank, is deeply ingrained in search engines, and its code is unique and developed from the ground up (kind of like BeOS). These attributes make it popular, efficient, fast, and less likely to attacks, etc.

Haiku developers, BeOS users, and Haiku users have a supportive and nostalgic connection to BeBits.

The owner is seeking a single experienced web developer + business partner with a background or community involvement in the BeOS/Haiku scene. The developer should have a mutual community and business interest to revive/restore BeBits to its previous glory, and provide it with new unique and interesting features, HTML 5.0 compliance, and vision for the future.

The offer is unique and will expire Jan 1st, 2011 - which is when BeBits may disappear forever if there's no interest.

Please submit your proposal under BeBits' 'Contact Us' menu item.

It might be the late(ish) hour, close to midnight, but that post doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It starts of by saying BeBits still has lots of traffic, high page rank, has (which goes without saying) a long history and there's a connection to the site from both Haiku and BeOS users and developers. Then in the next paragraph the offer is layed out and if not accepted the site will be shut down on January 1st. What is the reasoning behind the offer? The need to update the site? And why the closing of the site if it's not updated/refreshed/whateverotherchange? The cost of keeping the site up?

Like I wrote above it might be the hour but it just doesn't make much sense to me. Maybe someone could help me to try and understand? Comment away if you'd like.

 

Charlie Clark from the BeGeistert Organization team just sent an e-mail to the Haiku mailing list announcing that the BeGeistert 023 registration period is now open, for those who are attending. As a reminder, BG 023 will take place at the Düsseldorf Youth Hostel as usual, during the weekend of October 23rd-24th.

Also in case you forgot as well, you pay not only for attending BeGeistert but also for each night spent at the Youth Hostel, which makes sense of course, and it's all quite cheap, so that's one less excuse for you not to be there. As for transportation, as usual there are some offering a ride and others looking for one, if all goes well, they'll meet. So as you can see there are absolutely no excuses why you shouldn't be there (or be square), so I'll be seeing you on October 23rd (22nd actually to be more precise. Charlie, wait for me to have dinner!).

This weekend saw this year's Ohio LinuxFest which took place in, you guessed it, Ohio. More precisely in downtown Columbus (not to be confused with the TV detective). Haiku was there and it was taken by Darkwyrm and Joe Prostko. They were later joined by Mike Summers who, according to Darkwyrm was a regular "chick magnet". That, I'm sorry, but I find hard to believe. Not that Mike is a chick magnet, but that there were chicks to be magnetized at a LinuxFest... but we'll take his word for it.

The event went quite well with many attendants showing interest in Haiku and its capabilities, although its shortcomings were noticed as well, naturally. It's been said before and it will be said again (and was by Darkwyrm in his report), an office suite is badly needed (among others of course). There are some ongoing efforts to bring one to Haiku and it won't be soon enough when that happens. But back on topic, they seemed to have a good time and it shows in Darkwyrm's report, so head on over to the Haiku Blog-O-sphere and read it.

After some excruciating hours of waiting for mmadia to finish the darn report (lazy bum...), the report finally went online less than one hour ago, yay! This year's results are mostly good, out of the 7 students allotted to Haiku this year, 5 passed the program, which is just a bit over 70%, not a bad result (though still below the program's overall result of 89%).

The two students who unfortunately didn't make it were Lucian Grijincu (his project was lkl-haiku-fsd) and Nathan Mentley (for the x86_64 Port project). The other 5 has mentioned passed the program with one (Alex Wilson) even receiving commit access halfway through the GSoC period. Most of them also would like to continue their contribution toward the project which is a great sign of how the whole process was (well) handled by Haiku and the mentor.

Enough of the short-short version (remember Spaceballs?), click right here for the full monty. Thanks to everyone who took part of this year's Haiku GSoC project and thanks to mmadia for the report.

Fresh from the publishing of his first (and of all time) book on programming with/on Haiku, Darkwyrm isn't resting on his laurels. Yesterday he published the first lesson on a new series. This series is aimed not only at those following his lessons but also at those whom already have some experience coding with Haiku.

He warns though that most likely won't be able to keep the weekly schedule as before, due to his real life work (damn that real life, always getting in the way of fun stuff), but he'll try to write them as quickly as possible. What are you waiting for still reading this? Head over there (in Scorpion's voice of course)!

Hello and welcome to the new and improved IsComputerOn. This change has been postponed for a long time, due mainly, to lazyness. Its main reason was to upgrade ICO's Joomla installation to the latest version available, 1.5.20.

To you, at first sight, it might not appear that much different, but if you notice the look has been improved, at least I hope so. Gone is the bar above the logo and the logo's background has been cleaned up as well. I especially like how the logo moves over the bottom border of the site's header. Also, a new commenting system is in place and I hope you'll enjoy using it, but of course if you have any problems with it let me know (you can use the handy Contact Us page).

On the backend somethings have changed as well, making it even a greater pleasure to bring you the news. That's basically it, infomercial's over, now back to our regular programming.

P.S.: If you had ICO bookmarked with its old address (starting with http://joomla.xxxx) please update your bookmark, replacing "joomla" with "www". Now back to our regular programming.

Another day, another year passes and Haiku is no exception. It's past midnight here in the old Albion (and other GMT lands) so today marks the 9th anniversary of Haiku's birth (or creation if you wish). As I'm sure most of you know, it was on this day that, back in 2001, Haiku's story began, then named only OpenBeOS.

Nine years later here we are, with two Alpha releases under its belt and walking (power walking? jogging? running full gallop?) to reach the much anticipated R1 goal. Join me all in wishing Haiku a very happy birthday and may many more come down the road.

Oh, and while you're at it, how about giving Haiku a birthday present? In the form of a donation maybe? *wink wink nudge nudge*

No, I didn't just swallow a mosquito nor have I watched a Uwe Boll film, YAHC just means "Yet Another Haiku Contract" and it's definitely good news! After Axel completed his contract to work on the network stack (and he has now taken up the Haikuware Wifi bounty so he'll keep working on it) another contract was announced over at the Haiku website and it's with someone who's done it before, namely Stephan, aka stippi.

Stephan was hired to work full-time for a total of 160 hours, during which he'll be working on the app_server, the media kit and the MediaPlayer, all areas he's well versed in, so no doubt the advances will be noticeable. These contracts only mean good stuff for Haiku (and for the developers) but for Haiku to be able to continue the trend they need your help, so head over to the donations page and "give a little bit" (in Supertramp voice of course).