The widely-used Debian GNU/Linux distribution has a new project leader, Australian Anthony Towns, following an election process spanning several weeks. Australian Anthony Towns won the poll from a field of several candidates after 421 votes - from 43 percent of the eligible community of Debian developers - were cast. He will take up the post for one year from Monday 17 April, taking over from incumbent Branden Robinson.

The NeXT Information Archive is back. "NIA has evolved from being an information place to being the actual place for ALL NeXT related material; We provide you with information, guides, articles - yes, all the classic stuff, that you know us for - but we've also started to bring you software directly on our site. Help you on your way with learning programming and in general just bring resources to you – everything needed for being able to use NeXT as your daily operating system and of course thereby using NeXT software."

"Red Hat today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire JBoss. By acquiring JBoss, Red Hat expects to accelerate the shift to service-oriented architectures, by enabling the next generation of web-enabled applications running on a low-cost, open source platform."

Good news! Inheritance and polymorphism can facilitate more concise code, which reduces waste throughout the lifecycle of a C++ product. By pushing more generic code into base classes, you can help reduce application code clutter as well as cutting down on code duplication. In this article, software consultant Stephen Morris insists that less code means less testing, lower maintenance costs, and easier upgrades.

"Increase the Accessibility and Comprehensibility of a Visual Model with Literate Modeling", "Crafting Java with Test-Driven Development, Part 9: Driving a User Interface" and "Designing the Obvious, Part 4: Use Cases, Screenflows, and Wireframes". Read more for excerpts and links.

Core Data is one of Apple's latest technologies that allows the developer to effortlessly develop applications with a very complex data store. By utilizing Core Data your Cocoa application can instantly have access to a full database for storing the applications data. All without a single line of code. But what if you want or need to store parameters that may be file specific but not application specific? In this article InformIT will walk through one solution that allows for elegant access to document specific parameters in a Core Data application.

I'm from the Netherlands. That may sound like a weird statement to start a column with-- don't worry, at the end of this week's Sunday Eve Column you'll understand why I put my nationality so bluntly up front.

Troubles for the Kubuntu project: a number of Kubuntu developers are complaining that Canonical is not answering their requests. They state: "We all from the kubuntu.de-team have pursued this aim together, but most of the work has been done by Andreas Mueller (amu). He is not only co-founder and unpayed developer of the Kubuntu-project, but he's also hosting this website and he's taking over all the arising expenses. During our endeavours for Kubuntu, there were made several requests to Canonical. All those requests are unanswered 'till today! Up to now, there is only one payed developer. Since Canonical ignores all our personal and partly financial engagement until now we have to assume that Canonical is not willing to make Kubuntu a '1st class distribution'."

"Nobody can write perfect code, since errors can creep in from anywhere. Hence we need some way to debug the programs. One such way is to use ptrace() system call. Debugging programs like gdb are dependent on this system call. This call gives one process control over another process. The process under control can be run step-by-step and its contents can be read and modified, i.e. you can change the core image of it."

"Linux system administrators should learn traditional DNS. Front-ends and quick templates to setup domain records have a place in managing sites. When confronted with DNS configurations already in existence, nothing can substitute for knowing and using the fundamentals. The vast majority of users on the Internet have no clue about DNS. They may have seen the term when they set up their ISP connection, but they do not realize its connection to their lives. Simply put, DNS servers allow you to use friendly names in your browser, email or other Internet applications to perform tasks which require IP addresses."

"A computer process is a running instance of a program, including all variables and other states, or simply it’s defined as a program in execution. Now we will see how this task or process is implemented in Linux kernel. The description of the characteristics of a process is given in the structure task_struct."

As expected processor licensor ARM Holdings and Handshake Solutions NV, a Royal Philips Electronics subsidiary, have developed an asynchronous processor based on the ARM9 core. The ARM996HS is thought to be the first commercial clockless processor and is being described as particular suited to use as an automotive microcontroller. Because clockless processors consume zero dynamic power when there is no activity, they can significantly extend battery life compared with clocked equivalents.

"It's the year 2006, and installing applications in GNU/Linux can still be a nightmare (especially if they are not available in your distribution's repository). Simon Peter is the developer of Klik, a piece of software that tries to resolve this problem. Simon kindly accepted to answer a few questions for FSM."

"Chances are that you think Linspire lets you run Windows applications, that you have to run it as root, and that it's really not quite a proper Linux. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. At LinuxWorld in Boston this week, CEO Kevin Carmony explained what Linspire Linux is, and isn't, all about."