Tomorrow, the eleventh edition of BeGeistert, NeXTSteps, is already about to take off, and it again promises to be the biggest one ever. Those not attending are definitely going to miss out on a lot.

Frank "frankps" Silye and Eddy "Eddyspeeder" Groen both will write about the events on BeGeistert and perform interviews with some of the attendants, so that at least everyone will know about what has all happened during this semi-annual event. Too bad the great atmosphere of BeGeistert can't be captured in words, though

It isn't certain if there is a chance to come online during the weekend. If this is possible there will be an item on what's happening, but no guarantees can be made.

In addition, Frank is also going to report from SYSTEMS 2003, which is starting directly after BeGeistert.
A couple of news items related to BeOSMAX this morning. First, they announced that V3.1 will be the last one available. It will be include several updates and fixes over V3.0. Though no date for release is announced, they do say that it's close.

Second, I received a mail about a new site, dedicated to BeOS newcomers, called TechStorm's BeOS Page. It's still in it's early stages, providing only the user with several relevant links, from BeOS distributions, to software and news sites, but I'm sure they'll keep improving it. This just comes to show that general interest in BeOS is on an uphill ride.
Earlier this year, yellowTAB has generously granted me to hang around a day at their main office in Mannheim, Germany. I really enjoyed myself that day, but unfortunately it all went by so fast. In this article, including several pictures, I'm not only taking you on a tour through the building but I also let you experience a typical day in the office.

Hit read more to enter the yellow zone!

The Israeli Ministry of Commerce has suspended all governmental contracts with Microsoft, and it seems this suspension will go on throughout next year. The Ministry is also studying the possibility of switching over to OpenOffice.

This comes after the decision by the Israeli Antitrust Authority, which acknowledged that Microsoft is indeed a monopoly [Ed. note: *gasp* *shock* *holding onto chair*]. This all started after users claimed they were tired of having little or no Hebrew support both in applications and OS. You can read about it in more detail over at The Register.
yellowTab just announced that they're experiencing problems with Paypal, affecting their ability to receive customer orders. Here's what they said:
To all our customers,

we are currently experiencing difficulties with PayPal. Unfortunately this also affects our web shop. We are working with PayPal to resolve this problem but should you experience difficulties placing an order then please accept our apologies and send the order by e-mail instead to Torsten Linde (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) who will personally take care of your order.

Yours faithfully

Torsten Linde CEO yellowTab
So if you've been having problems placing your order, now you have an alternative while this situation isn't resolved.
DarkWyrm has updated his site once more, with news of the app_server status progress.

This time he reports on Adi's work on the redraw and clipping code for the server, which is probably the toughest part of the server.

Work has also been done on the messaging system and on the Appearance and Cursos preferences apps. You can also see a screenshot of the latter. For the full monty, check his site. We'll keep you up to date on their progress here at ICO.
yellowTab has updated it's site with a couple of news items. First, they announce a partnership between yT and Xentronix. yT has ported the latest SANE to Zeta and Xentronix will deliver a "Lite" version of Refraction as the UI for the application. To complement and provide the end user with a more complete solution, yellowTab is porting GOCR, an OCR solution. We'll keep you posted on this one as well.

Next, yellowTab reports on their Java and C# Zeta support. They're porting Java 1.4.2 and Mono, and to accomplish that had to add some functionality that BeOS never had. Read it all by following the link above.

Last but not least, Bernd Korz updated his column, this issue being called A time for reflection. He covers various aspects of Zeta, the new ports, the much debated kernel sources and others points. It is definitely an interesting read, so what are you waiting for?
Thansk to Konrad (once again) for pointing me in the right direction for this one.

It seems the Abiword port is no longer on "life support" as was mentioned in a previous Abiword weekly news. In their latest issue they mention that the BeOS is back on track, they had a few offers to maintain it. However, no code has been commited yet. I'm sure they'll get busy soon.

Good news indeed. I wonder if a certain gentleman is involved in this... you know who you are.
For all of you out there who have a Radeon card based on the R300 chipset (Radeon 9500 and up), some good news. Euan Kirkhope has just released an altered version of the Thomas Kurschel driver, adding support for the R300 cards.

It's urged that everyone with such a card, to download the driver (mirrored here at ICO) and to provide the ever needed feedback through the BeBits talkback page. Good day for drivers, that's for sure.
Rudolf is a machine, sorry to break it to you like this, but I had to tell someone... he's a coding machine. He just announced at his site that version 0.06 is now available for download and it comes with 2D acceleration... awesome.

Click on read more for the full monty.