Having met so many of you at Akademy last year, I am now glad to notify you guys that we have approval from a href=http://www.buk.edu.ng/Bayero University Kano Nigeria/a to host the Free and Open Source Nigeria 2009 conference on 6th to 9th March. We want to invite KDE contributors and users including organisations and companies who want to come and give talks or workshops during the event. We are expecting more than 2000 participants from within and outwith the university. We will be glad to receive guests from all over the world, especially people with vast experiences in open source. brp70% of the attendees are going to be students from higher institutions from the northern part of Nigeria,while 2% are government representatives, 10% academicians and 17% are people that will come from outside the academic environment. Everyone will want to know what is free and open source software./p pDue to our few resources ,the committee can only take care of our guest's food, accommodation and site visits of all those that will come from outside the country although we are going to look for a donations if we can get any./p pWe would like to release the programme of events by 19th january 2009.Therefore we will like to know those who would like to speak and give workshops so that we will speed up our arrangements in time./p pFrom our research so far, 90% of the participants are ignorant of free and open source ideas,while the remaining have heard about the idea but do not know its values and importance. This is going to be the first free and open source conference in northern Nigeria, a country with more than 100 million people./p pAll interested companies who wants to advertise their open source products and services can send their banners, pamphlets, stickers, shirts or anything that can sell the idea to our community free of charge so that it can be distributed or place in all the programme halls./p pIf you are interested in coming to give a talk, workshop or just meet Nigerians interested in free software please contact me, Mustapha, at mustspanapha@hut/spansoftnigeria.com./p

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2009-01-04/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a panels now support drag-and-drop unhide. More improvements for scripted Plasmoids. Weather Plasmoid moves into kdereview for eventual move to extragear for KDE 4.2. Lots of reworking the HTML Validator a href=http://www.konqueror.org/Konqueror/a plugin. Start of a BomberMan-like game using Kapman as a base. New game themes in Bomber and KTron. Further progress on the rewrite of Kolf. Start of an effort to refactor game modules in KGoldrunner. A KIPI plugin to export photos to Facebook from KDE photo applications. Support for autoselection in the libksane image scanning library. Work towards automatically detecting digital cameras in a href=http://www.digikam.org/Digikam/a (using a href=http://solid.kde.org/Solid/a). Support for importing old feeds from the RSS plugin (from version 2.2) in a href=http://ktorrent.org/KTorrent/a. Work on Kloss (bindings for the Lua programming language). Start of an iPod plugin for DeviceSync. Final remaining feature implemented in Ark for KDE 4.2. Initial import of KSSH4 to KDE SVN. a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2009-01-04/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

On January 27, a year after the release of the first KDE 4 version, KDE 4.2 The Answer will be released. This release will feature stabalisation and feature completement and is likely to be taken up by a wide audience of users. To celebrate the important event in KDE's history with our fans all around the world we would like to invite our community members to organise a release party. It is all up to the organising teams to make it just the way you like it. There could be presentations, workshops, maybe some translation marathons, a hacking contest, just some socialising fun with a drink or two. It can be short and sweet or a whole-day event. Do not be afraid to invite some local press to the event to get the word about KDE out there into the wide world. If you decide to throw a party, or know about one, do add it to the a href=http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=KDE%204.2%20Release%20Partylist of party locations/a.

As always, KDE will have a presence at next year's a href=http://www.fosdem.org/2009/FOSDEM/a in Belgium on 7-8 February 2008. This is earlier in the month than usual. We are looking for people to give talks in the KDE or cross-desktop devroom. FOSDEM is emthe/em European meeting of free software developers, with over 4000 visitors, 200 lectures and lots of stalls to visit over a 2 day period. You can come and listen to a plethora of interesting talks about anything related to free software, and meet the people behind the nicknames. brpOn Sunday, we will be sharing a room with the developers from Gnome and XFCE. This means that just like last year, we are also interested in talks that transcend free desktops in general. You can have a look at last year's a href=http://archive.fosdem.org/2008/schedule/tracks/kdeKDE/a and a href=http://archive.fosdem.org/2008/schedule/tracks/crossdesktopCrossdesktop/a talks to have an idea about what kind of talk we might find interesting to do in the devrooms./p pFor more information including accommodation, see the a href=http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=FOSDEM2009KDE at FOSDEM 2009 wiki page/a. If you want to give a talk, please contact Bart Coppens before January 10th./p

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-12-28/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: Continued post-release polishing of a href=http://amarok.kde.org/Amarok/a 2.0. Support for conversion between temperature scales in the Weather Plasmoid. Initial import of System Status a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a applet, which is renamed System Load Viewer (shows CPU, memory, and swap usage). Support for on-the-fly compilation of Plasma data engines with the C# language bindings. Further development of the BookmarkSync a href=http://www.konqueror.org/Konqueror/a plugin, including additions of autofetch, autosave, and a settings dialog. More refined integration of Wikipedia place information in a href=http://edu.kde.org/marble/Marble/a. A QtScript engine to allow creation of games using QtScript in KGLEngine. An experimental curve brush added to a href=http://www.koffice.org/krita/Krita/a. Support for the ext4 filesystem added to PartitionManager. More reorganisation of wallpapers in KDE SVN, with a general kdeartwork module cleanup removing IceWM themes, KWorldClock maps, and unmaintained iconsets. PolicyKit-KDE moves to extragear/base. a href=http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/Eigen/a 2.0 Beta 3 is tagged for release.a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-12-28/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-12-21/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: Restoration of basic queue management functionality, support for basic searching and filtering the playlist, work on device handling, and better integration of the Mac OSX Growl notification system in a href=http://amarok.kde.org/Amarok/a 2.0. The a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a Pager now accepts taskbar entry drops, support for dragging applets between panels, and improvements in setting keyboard shortcuts for Plasmoids. Import of a BookmarkSync plugin for a href=http://www.konqueror.org/Konqueror/a, allowing storage and retrieval of bookmarks on multiple computers from a central location. Support for full content zoom (instead of text-only zoom) when using a href=http://webkit.org/WebKit/a with Qt 4.5, with plugins (eg. Flash) starting to work. Support for nested for loops in a href=http://edu.kde.org/kturtle/KTurtle/a. More work on the rewrite of Kolf. A basic prototype of a MuPDF-based backend (for PDF documents) in a href=http://okular.org/Okular/a. More work on the Windows Live Messenger protocol in a href=http://kopete.kde.org/Kopete/a. Support for running programs as other users (using kdesudo) in KDevPlatform (used in a href=http://www.kdevelop.org/KDevelop/a 4, etc). A new game in development, FruitWars, is added to KDE SVN. Reorganisation of wallpapers (including the addition of Air, the default for KDE 4.2) in KDE SVN.a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-12-21/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-12-14/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: Continued work to make applications usable on smaller screen resolutions, this time with changes to a href=http://www.konqueror.org/Konqueror/a, a href=http://ktorrent.org/KTorrent/a, and a href=http://kontact.kde.org/kmail/KMail/a. Start of a KuickQuiz a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a applet, with initial support for placement in the panel. More new Plasma themes. More development of the NetworkManager Plasma applet, including a conversion to the extenders paradigm. A pseudo-working version of QEdje Plasma wallpaper. Printing fixes in a href=http://okular.org/Okular/a. A a href=http://www.smugmug.com/SmugMug/a photo service exporter in kipi-plugins (used by a href=http://www.digikam.org/Digikam/a, etc). Initial version of KMJ, a Mahjongg game for 4 players. Continued work on the KBugBuster and Akonadi/Maemo student projects. Significant refactored changes in the WebGUI plugin of KTorrent. Further improvements in the integration of KDE with PolicyKit, including policykit-kde moving to kdereview. a href=http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/Eigen/a 2.0 Beta 2 and KDE 4.2 Beta 2 are tagged for release.a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-12-14/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-12-07/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: Old-school desktop patterns return as a a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a wallpaper, along with an interactive a href=http://edu.kde.org/marble/Marble/a-based wallpaper display. A simple video player Plasmoid based on a href=http://phonon.kde.org/Phonon/a. Continued optimisations in Plasma and a href=http://www.kdevelop.org/KDevelop/a. Various new colour schemes for KDE 4 added to KDE SVN. KSysGuard processes can now be dragged into a text editor, word processor or spreadsheet program. More progress in the functional refactoring of the Kigo game. Support for compiling sources at runtime with the C# language bindings for KDE. Backup functionality added to KJots. Last.fm service converted to use the KDE system-wide proxy settings, and basic filtering capability added to the service browser in a href=http://amarok.kde.org/Amarok/a 2.0. Further work on the new DeviceSync application. KConfigEditor begins to be ported to KDE 4. KitchenSync and the a href=http://pim.kde.org/akonadi/Akonadi/a OpenSync plugin are disabled for the a href=http://pim.kde.org/KDE-PIM/a 4.2 release. kdekiosk becomes officially unmaintained due to a lack of developer interest. Final preparations for release and the tagging of Amarok 2.0 Final.a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-12-07/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-11-30/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: Various usability improvements and polish in a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a, with further work on JOLIE integration. Italic font support in the Plasma Fuzzy Clock applet. Full support for use-building on signal/slot connections in a href=http://www.kdevelop.org/KDevelop/a, and the start of a framework for code quality checkers using the KDevelop C++ parser. Addition of VIM-like navigation (HJKL) in a href=http://okular.org/Okular/a. Refactoring in the Kigo game (formerly KGo) with a view to future expansion, including work on undo/redo support. Updated artwork in a href=http://opensource.bureau-cornavin.com/ktuberling/KTuberling/a. Support for hiding toolbars in KTimeTracker. More progress in the Skype text chat protocol in a href=http://kopete.kde.org/Kopete/a. Continuation of the improvements to a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_(computing)Ark/a seen in recent weeks.a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-11-30/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-11-23/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: Addition of a DNS prefetch mechanism (as seen in Google Chrome) to speed up page loads in a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KHTMLKHTML/a. First base work on kolf-ng, a rewrite which may become Kolf 2.0 in the future. A crude configuration dialog is added to the NetworkManager a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a applet, preliminary support for horizontal and vertical form factors in the FolderView Plasmoid. kuiserver is now fully merged into the Plasma System Tray. Items can now specify their position in the Plasma System Tray. Support for drag-and-drop re-ordering of the favourites list (and potentially other lists) in the a href=http://en.opensuse.org/KickoffKickoff/a menu. Implementation of basic text extraction from file tags in some TIFF images in a href=http://okular.org/Okular/a. Start of a batch queue manager in a href=http://www.digikam.org/Digikam/a. Initial work for a set-specific preview for the Colours KControl module. Configuration support for the Seeqpod script, and an initial import of a Danish Radio Stations service in a href=http://amarok.kde.org/Amarok/a 2. New IceWorld theme in KBreakOut. Support for enabling/disabling Rich Text in the a href=http://kopete.kde.org/Kopete/a chat window. Rudimentary integration with ConsoleKit in KDM. Eigen 1 has now been replaced by a href=http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/Eigen/a 2 across KDE SVN. Guidance removes own implementations of utilities now covered by KDE 4.2 tools. PartitionManager moves from kdereview to extragear/sysadmin. The Falcon-language a href=http://kross.dipe.org/Kross/a backend moves to kdebindings in time for KDE 4.2. Bomber game moved from kdereview to kdegames for the KDE 4.2 release. The game KGo is renamed Kigo. a href=http://edu.kde.org/kpercentage/KPercentage/a retired as it is unmaintained, with some exercises incorporated into a href=http://edu.kde.org/kbruch/KBruch/a. Amarok 2 Release Candidate 1 (1.98) is tagged for release.a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-11-23/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-11-16/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: KUIServer applet merged into a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a System Tray. Wallpaper configuration added to the Plasma screensaver. Support for drag and drop of images onto the new Pastebin Plasmoid. Support for unloading/reloading Plasmoids from the Python interpreter. More work on PolicyKit integration in KDE. Hidden panel glow hints when using Plasma with a compositing window manager. Improvements to SQL playlists (incompatible with previous saved playlists), and an importer for iTunes added to a href=http://amarok.kde.org/Amarok/a 2. Unfinished Amarok Plasma applets moved to playground in preparation for the release of Amarok 2.0. Sonnet-based spell checking in a href=http://www.mailody.net/Mailody/a. Basic functionality to support collections on network shares, with better interface support for smaller screens in a href=http://www.digikam.org/Digikam/a. Zeroconf support for sending and receiving notes in KNotes. Initial import of MobiPocket format support, and SVG images for PDF stamp annotations added in a href=http://okular.org/Okular/a. Further progress on the reimplementation of the Windows Live Messenger protocol in a href=http://kopete.kde.org/Kopete/a, including a merge into trunk. Further student project work on KBugBuster and Akonadi/Maemo. Start of sound support in KBlocks. Meaningful optimisations in a href=http://strigi.sourceforge.net/Strigi/a. RAW thumbnail loader for a href=http://dolphin.kde.org/Dolphin/a moved from playground to kdereview. Kephal screen management library moved from kdereview to kdebase.a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-11-16/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-11-09/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: Merge of the a href=http://kontact.kde.org/kmail/KMail/a a href=http://www.commit-digest.org/issues/2008-06-22/#1Summer of Code project (including a reworked folder tree and a new message list)/a to trunk (in time for KDE 4.2). The alternative QuickSand interface is integrated into KRunner. Option to enable image support in Klipper, with the start of efforts to convert the utility to KConfigXT. a href=http://phonon.kde.org/Phonon/a intuitively responds to removal of internal (non-hotpluggable) sound devices. First version of scripted services for browsing content from BBC (with basic search ability) and NPR, and beginnings of a SongKick applet in a href=http://amarok.kde.org/Amarok/a 2. Use of a href=http://solid.kde.org/Solid/a in a href=http://www.digikam.org/Digikam/a to identify pictures already downloaded from cameras. RAW image support added to slideshows in kipi-plugins (used by Digikam, etc). Scripted ability to resume paused torrents after a configurable amount of time in a href=http://ktorrent.org/KTorrent/a. Initial support for extraction of EMF files from the Compound File Binary Format (Microsoft OLE file format) in a href=http://okular.org/Okular/a. Practice start dialog with statistics and settings display in a href=http://edu.kde.org/parley/Parley/a. Simple graphs and multiple graphs working in Rocs. A basic GetHotNewStuff implementation in Palapeli. Further work in a href=http://www.kdevelop.org/KDevelop/a. New converter between KPIM and KABC distribution lists in a href=http://pim.kde.org/KDE-PIM/a. Support for import of KnowIt files into KJots. Eyes applet moves to kdeplasma-addons, while kbstateapplet moves to kdereview. Python bindings for the a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a library move to kdebindings. Plasma moves to from kdebase/workspace to kdelibs.a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-11-09/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

KDE 4 saw the introduction of NEPOMUK, the foundations for the Social Semantic Desktop. The idea behind Semantic desktops is to make it possible for computers to identify meaningful relations between files and real-world people and relationships. These relations can then be exploited to help the user find their data. a href=http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/21840/?a=fRead the full MIT Technology Review article on the project/a to learn why it might be the semantic desktop that actually survives and see how its inclusion in KDE is making it accessible to end users during its development process, and read on for a brief overview of how a href=http://nepomuk.kde.org/NEPOMUK/a works. brpNEPOMUK offers a combination of automatically created metadata (such as document modification dates and music file tags) with user-created comments and more complex relationships such as that between an email attachment and the sender and recipients of an email. Files can then be found by using a search combining several items of metadata rather than relying only on keywords. NEPOMUK aims to go a step further than other similar projects by making it easy for members of a community to share their accumulated metadata and to transfer files with the collected metadata intact./p

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-11-02/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: Added support for images in the Pastebin a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a applet, drag and drop support added to the Quick Launch Plasmoid. All comic providers for the Comic Plasmoid moved to kde-files.org to be solely accessible through the GetHotNewStuff mechanism. Security improvements in KWallet. Support for Mono-based KIO-slaves. Addition of a historic map (from 1689) display to a href=http://edu.kde.org/marble/Marble/a. Improvements in scripting in a href=http://ktorrent.org/KTorrent/a. Experiments to allow acquiring images using the TWAIN interface under Windows in kipi-plugins (a href=http://www.digikam.org/Digikam/a, etc). A small Konqueror a href=http://nepomuk.kde.org/NEPOMUK/a annotation plugin, enabling annotation of web pages. A new NEPOMUK Search KRunner in Plasma, added straight to kdebase/workspace. Partition Manager moved from playground/sysadmin to kdereview. Kolor Manager configuration panel imported into playground/graphics. Following work on statistics, support for importing cached album art from a href=http://amarok.kde.org/Amarok/a 1.4 into Amarok 2, with new and improved library-based last.fm interface code imported. Amarok 2.0 Beta 3 (1.94), a href=http://www.kdevelop.org/KDevelop/a 4 Alpha 3, and KDE 4.1.3 tagged for release.a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-11-02/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-10-26/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: A collection importer added to a href=http://amarok.kde.org/Amarok/a 2, which allows importing statistics from Amarok 1.4 databases (as well as arbitrary external sources). Ability to disable the fullscreen thumbnail bar in a href=http://gwenview.sourceforge.net/Gwenview/a. Shadow brightness implemented for KWin-Composite effects. Support for animated icons across KDE. Support for output of MathML Presentation Markup in a href=http://edu.kde.org/kalgebra/KAlgebra/a. Python language bindings for the a href=http://edu.kde.org/marble/Marble/a library, whilst creating a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a DataEngines in Python reaches an almost-working stage. Option to force the number of rows in the Plasma Taskbar. Start of work on KScoreManager. Import of a minimal KPart for the Palapeli game. Beginnings of filter matching for the syndication plugin (replacement for RSS plugin) in a href=http://ktorrent.org/KTorrent/a. More WebCore-based improvements to a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KHTMLKHTML/a. Initial commit of an autobrace KTextEditor extension. Import of KSendEmail, a command-line tool to send email (using D-Bus connectors). The Bomber game moves from playground/games to kdereview, whilst Killbots moves out of kdereview into kdegames for KDE 4.2. Kephal (new screen management library) moves to kdereview. The refactored Plasma System Tray and Taskbar move into trunk in time for KDE 4.2.a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-10-26/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

In a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-10-19/this week's KDE Commit-Digest/a: Support for MTP devices, a script-based integration of the Free Music Charts, and beginnings of a first run tutorial added to a href=http://amarok.kde.org/Amarok/a 2. More steps towards supporting other planets than Earth in a href=http://edu.kde.org/marble/Marble/a. GetHotNewStuff support in the Comic applet, a configurable auto refresh interval in the Web Browser applet, and a first version of a configurable Pastebin applet in a href=http://plasma.kde.org/Plasma/a. KsCD is connected to the Now Playing applet using D-Bus. Support for Python-based Plasmoids. QEdje's wallpaper plugin reaches an almost-working stage. Shade and unshade buttons added to the a href=http://oxygen-icons.org/Oxygen/a window decoration, with a new scrollbar design in the Oxygen widget style. RESTful web service access possible in Lokarest framework. Improvements in the Details view of a href=http://dolphin.kde.org/Dolphin/a. Source Browser usability improvements, and less interface lockups in a href=http://www.kdevelop.org/KDevelop/a. Work on a GeoNames annotation plugin for a href=http://nepomuk.kde.org/NEPOMUK/a. Support for refreshing diffs in a href=http://www.caffeinated.me.uk/kompare/Kompare/a. New syndication plugin (superceding the RSS plugin) added to a href=http://ktorrent.org/KTorrent/a. Spellchecking returns to Lokalise. Initial commits to KPackageKit. Kapman moves from kdereview to kdegames. System-monitor Plasmoid moves to kdereview. Continued porting of KDETV to KDE4. Import of a first version of the Skype text protocol for a href=http://kopete.kde.org/Kopete/a, ported to KDE4. KNewsTicker removed as superceded by Plasma-based RSS applets. a href=http://commit-digest.org/issues/2008-10-19/Read the rest of the Digest here/a.

openSUSE 11.1 is a href=http://news.opensuse.org/2008/12/18/opensuse-111-released/now out/a (a href=http://en.opensuse.org/Screenshots/openSUSE_11.1screenshots/a), featuring KDE 4.1.3 and a a href=http://news.opensuse.org/2008/12/18/sneak-peeks-at-opensuse-111-kde-in-opensuse-111/string of KDE improvements/a. The release brings back the much-loved KDE-PIM suite, and includes new games, the KSCD CD player, KSystemLog to keep track of system changes, improvements to Dolphin, Konqueror (including Webkit part), Plasma (including auto-hide panel, folder view), Marble integration with OpenStreetMap, and much more. The release is available as an installable live CD, or on a DVD with KDE 3.5.10, GNOME, Xfce, and many more applications. brh4KWin Composite Effects/h4 Of particular interest are the a href=http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3747KWin improvements/a in this release. openSUSE users now have a number of backported KWin effects to enjoy, and show off to their friends. If KWin effects aren’t your cup of tea, you can use the new Compiz KDE configuration module to enable and handle a href=http://opensuse.org/Compiz_FusionCompiz Fusion/a on KDE 4. div align=centera href=http://files.opensuse.org/opensuse/en/thumb/d/d1/Kde4-cube.png/800px-Kde4-cube.pngimg src=http://files.opensuse.org/opensuse/en/c/cc/800px-Kde4-cube-thumb.png border=0 //aa href=http://files.opensuse.org/opensuse/en/thumb/1/10/Cover-switch.png/800px-Cover-switch.pngimg src=http://files.opensuse.org/opensuse/en/9/9e/800px-Cover-switch-thumb.png border=0 //a/div h4PackageKit and Powerdevil/h4 KDE has now also a href=http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3773standardised on PackageKit/a for its backend, which means both desktops are using the same update stack. Furthermore, a href=http://www.kdedevelopers.org/node/3752Powerdevil/a is now included for easier and better power management on your KDE 4 desktop. Just click the battery icon in the system tray. div align=centera href=http://files.opensuse.org/opensuse/en/thumb/4/40/Powerdevil.png/800px-Powerdevil.pngimg src=http://files.opensuse.org/opensuse/en/9/99/800px-Powerdevil-thumb.png border=0 //a/div h4Other/h4 The a href=http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/ars-awards-2008.ars/7award-winning/a release also contains a href=http://en.opensuse.org/Testing:Features_11.1230 new features/a, improvements to YaST, OpenOffice.org 3.0, and more freedom with a a href=http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_Licensebrand new licence/a, Liberation fonts, and openJDK. This is also the first release built entirely in the a href=http://en.opensuse.org/Build_ServiceopenSUSE Build Service/a, and the last release to contain the full KDE 3 desktop available on the DVD medium for installation. br /br / Finally remember that for testing purposes, the recently released KDE 4.2 Beta 2 is available in the openSUSE Build Service, via a href=http://opensuse.org/KDE41-click-install/a. Alternatively, you can try out the release with a href=http://home.kde.org/~binner/kde-four-live/KDE Four Live/a.

Today is the day of beta releases: a href=http://www.trolltech.comQt Software/a has released betas of a href=http://trolltech.com/about/news/qt-4.5-beta-previews-64-bit-on-macQt 4.5/a and a href=http://trolltech.com/developer/qt-creator/qt-creatorQt Creator/a mdash; two Qt releases just in time for the holidays! brdiv style=float: right; border: thin solid grey; padding: 1ex; margin: 2exa href=http://static.kdenews.org/danimo/qt_creator_visualizeqstring.pngimg style=border:0px; src=http://static.kdenews.org/danimo/qt_creator_visualizeqstring_mini.png //ap style=font-size:small;a href=http://static.kdenews.org/danimo/qt_creator_visualizeqstring.pngDebug: Visualizing QStringList/a/p/div pThe greater news concerns Qt Creator this time: the complete source code is publicly available under the GPL from now on. Everybody interested in the development of the latest addition to Qt's tool family should head over to the a href=http://labs.trolltech.com/gitweb?p=qt-creator;a=summaryrepository/a and take a look. Qt Creator is intended to make cross-platform development with Qt as easy as possible - especially to those who are new to developing Qt applications./p pYou can find the complete announcement on a href=http://trolltech.com/about/news/qt-creator-ide-beta-releasedtrolltech.com/a and all additional informations are on the freshly updated a href=http://trolltech.com/developer/qt-creator/qt-creatorQt Creator page/a. And of course, there is an a href=http://trolltech.com/about/news/qt-4.5-beta-previews-64-bit-on-macannouncement/a regarding Qt 4.5 beta, too. It highlights new support for a href=http://trolltech.com/products/appdev/platform/qt-for-mac64-bit Qt Apps on Apple's Cocoa Framework/a this time./p

Two days later than initially scheduled due to yours truly preparing for coming year's desktop summit on Gran Canaria, KDE's release team has made availabe a href=http://kde.org/announcements/announce-4.2-beta2.phpKDE 4.1.85, a.k.a. KDE 4.2-Beta2/a to testers and reviewers, codenamed emCanaria/em. KDE 4.1.85 is not suitable for production use but meant to invite feedback and bugreports from the community. The KDE community is in massive bugfixing mode, showing a focus on stability and feature-completeness in the KDE 4.2 series. But behold, 4.1.85 is not a boring release. It brings many visible improvements to KDE 4.1, and will ultimately follow up the KDE 4.1 series as a stable release this coming January. So get your testing gear ready and help us squash those bugs for a 4.2.0 that makes Redmond see flying chairs all over. There's a changelog over at a href=http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.2_ChangelogTechBase/a, and the brave and bored can go for the more detailed a href=http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.2_Feature_Planfeature plan/a. As 4.1.85 is the last release before Christmas, we strongly recommend using a href=http://wadejolson.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/enough-holiday-wallpapers-to-gag-on/Wade's Christmas wallpapers/a and the KWin compositing snow plugin while testing.

Moving towards the 2.0 release with monthly increments of improvement-goodness, the KOffice team has once more honoured its promise to bring out beta releases of KOffice until the time is right for a release-candidate release. So, before a href=http://dot.kde.org/1227137279/the news of the previous beta/a has had a chance to scroll off the Dot news page, we bring you this beta with many, many improvements across the board. Incremental as it is, we think it is a genuine and important step towards a final release. So here it is: a href=http://www.koffice.org/announcements/announce-2.0beta4.phpfull announcement/a and a href=http://www.koffice.org/announcements/changelog-2.0-beta4.phpchangelog/a. brpSome highlights in the release announcements: loading of text styles in presentations saved by OpenOffice.org is fixed, inserting an image in a document becomes possible again and the first set of results from the a href=http://dot.kde.org/1226409524/Berlin meeting/a become integrated into KOffice. And, of course, plenty of bugfixes all over! And the translation teams have been really busy, and many bugs in the localisation support have been caught. pIt's now possible to paint on mask in Krita:/pcentera href=http://cyrille.diwi.org/images/kritablog/krita-effectmask.mpegimg src=http://cyrille.diwi.org/images/kritablog/krita-effectmask.th.png/a/center pIt is really, really time to start helping the developers, by testing and finding bugs, by writing documentation, by helping out with the website or even by helping to get KOffice release ready by writing code and fixing bugs. We intend to release the very first version of KOffice2 in a few months: so let's pull together and make this a great platform for productivity software! pAnd... Next month you'll get another one!

KDE4Daily is an attempt to lower the barrier to entry for people who would like to test KDE trunk in the run-up to 4.2, consisting of a a href=http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/Qemu/a VM image containing a Kubuntu 8.10 base and a a href=http://etotheipiplusone.com/kde4daily/docs/kde4daily.html#Included_Modulescomprehensive/a set of a self-a href=http://etotheipiplusone.com/kde4daily/buildprogress.html/compiled/A KDE4 modules from KDE trunk (all at r888587, initially), along with an a href=http://etotheipiplusone.com/kde4daily/docs/kde4daily.html#Updating_KDE4Dailyupdater system/a inside the VM itself. After an unusually a href=http://etotheipiplusone.com/kde4daily/docs/kde4daily.html#Bugs_In_KDE4Dailyrocky/a round of development, it is time to (finally!) announce the release of a href=http://etotheipiplusone.com/kde4daily/docs/kde4daily.html#Bugs_In_KDE4DailyKDE4Daily/a 4.2! brpThe updater downloads and installs binary updates provided by me to the full set of modules: these updates tend to be roughly 20-50MB each (although they will occasionally be larger), take a few minutes to apply, and will hopefully be pushed out daily - hence the name./p pBecause Qemu is distro-agnostic, you do not need to worry about distros or libraries or dependencies or suchlike; in fact, you can even test out KDE 4 while running Windows! The downside is that eye-candy such as KWin's new Composite-based effects will not be testable as Qemu does not support hardware graphics acceleration, and everything will generally feel a lot more sluggish than is the case with a native install./p pKDE4Daily comes with its own backtrace-generation system so hopefully devs can be assured of having useful backtraces in any crash bugs you file, courtesy of DrKonqui. Do note that this system is still a href=http://etotheipiplusone.com/kde4daily/docs/kde4daily.html#Slow_Backtracerather slow and resource-intensive/a, so if you do somehow manage to crash a KDE app, please be patient while the valuable backtrace is created!/p pThis time around I have included a chunk of the kdebindings module, so you should have everything you need to start writing Plasmoids (or other kinds of KDE apps) in Ruby and Python./p pAn extensive a href=http://etotheipiplusone.com/kde4daily/docs/kde4daily.html#FAQFAQ/A is provided at the KDE4Daily homepage, above; please feel free to ask any further questions in the Dot comments section! Hope you enjoy it!/p

After two years of intense development, Amarok 2 has become a reality! Some of the highlights that are included in the 2.0 release are a completely redesigned user interface, tight integration with online services such as Magnatune, Jamendo, MP3tunes, Last.fm and Shoutcast. There is an overhauled scripting API and plugin support to allow better integration into Amarok. Much of the work has gone into migration from the KDE 3 to KDE 4 framework using core technologies such as Solid, Phonon, and Plasma. Read more about the new release in the a href=http://amarok.kde.org/en/releases/2.0release announcement/a and start Amaroking! brimg src=http://static.kdenews.org/jr/amarok-20-wee.jpg width=500 height=299 alt=amarok 2.0 screenshot style=float: right; border: thin solid grey; margin: 1ex; padding: 1ex / pThe user interface has been redesigned to make context information like lyrics and albums from the same artist more accessible and allow the users to decide which information is most important to them by adding applets to the Context View in the middle. The new Biased Playlists offer a way to let Amarok take care of your playlist in an intelligent way similar to Dynamic Playlists in previous versions. A new service framework allows for a tight integration of online services like Jamendo, Magnatune and Ampache. New services can easily be written as a script. More applets and scripts are being worked on and users are welcome to contribute more to make Amarok suit their needs. The migration from the KDE 3 to KDE 4 framework allows to make use of technologies like Plasma, Phonon and Solid which make Amarok easier to use and maintain and ready for