"On the weekend of December 10th and 11th, a small group of nine KDE contributors met in Hamburg to work on quality assurance checks for KDE's code base. This not only covered C++ sourcecode but also other aspects such as checking the state of the API documentation, looking for common errors in KDE's manuals and evaluating the usability of KDE applications. Read on for the full report."

Because of the amount of controversy its review of Aperture received, Ars Technica have posted a follow-up to address some of the issues which were raised by readers. It includes a side-by-side comparison of Apple's RAW importer with those of Capture One Pro and Adobe, which illustrates the difference in quality.

Dependency injection and aspect-oriented programming are complementary techniques, so it's natural to want to use them together. This article shows you how to add some power to your programming by combining dependency injection of the Spring framework with aspects written using AspectJ.

We are very excited to share our first podcast (this one's a bit of an experiment). We are hoping to make podcasts a semi-regular feature on OSNews. In this episode, we discuss "bloat" and the way the term is used today. OSNews, episode 1 can be downloaded as an MP3 (4.37 MB) or an Vorbis (3.85 MB) file. Update: For those who claim it's not a podcast until it's published via RSS, we're now publishing a valid RSS 2.0 feed that can includes the podcasts. Update 2: Different filename for podcast RSS feed.

Last week OSNews had the pleasure of meeting with three of the people behind the new Nokia S60 browser sharing with us information about the project. Dig in for more info and lots of screenshots.

Syllable 0.6.0 has been released. This version includes stronger support for CD drives graphics cards and improved stability in the native file system, among many other improvements.

You know how insecure 802.11x wireless networks are. In this article we'll create an OpenBSD-based secure wireless access point that prevents unauthorized access and encrypts every packet using a VPN tunnel. OpenBSD is one of the most secure operating systems available, is easy to use, and includes almost everything you need for this project in the base installation.

Only last year, Honda Motor's now-familiar humanoid robot, Asimo, was learning how to run and avoid tripping over obstacles. Now, the 5-year-old droid is ready to take on simple office work, greeting visitors and fetching refreshments.

When we speak of Debian Linux distribution, the number one thing that come into our minds is its flag-ship utility apt-get . Infact this package management is so popular that a large part of Debian's popularity revolves around it. Ask any person why he or she thinks Debian is a better distribution and in 7 out of 10 cases the answer will be apt-get. Here is a consice but very complete article on using apt-get and dpkg the backend for apt-get.

Design patterns help users to abstract details at a higher level and better understand architecture. If you are familiar with Gang of Four design patterns and the JavaServer Faces (JSF)framework in general, this article will help you gain insight about the design patterns used in JSF framework, and how they work in-depth.

Without tip-toeing around the matter, Linus Torvalds made his preference in the GNOME vs. KDE matter quite clear on the GNOME-usability list: "I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE. This 'users are idiots, and are confused by functionality' mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do. Please, just tell people to use KDE." Also, "Gnome seems to be developed by interface nazis, where consistently the excuse for not doing something is not 'it's too complicated to do', but 'it would confuse users'." Update: More of the discussion here.

"Though most people don’t know it, Microsoft has, not one, but two new operating systems that it is working on. The first, Vista, many people have heard of. Currently scheduled to ship just after the second coming of Christ, Vista has garnered most of the spotlight. However there is another OS lurking in the basement in Redmond and its name is Singularity (.pdf). So what does Singularity look like? A joke, at least at first glance. But taking a moment to analyze the situation I came up with some interesting observations which I will now share with you."

The most full-featured smartphone in the world, the Nokia N80, is previewed by AllAboutSymbian. The SymbianOS 3rd Edition S60 phone has all modern features a user needs (including WiFi, 3G, VGA videoconf camera in addition to a 3MP camera, UPnP, Bluetooth 2.0 with the A2DP and printing profiles, 352x416 screen, stereo FM radio etc) and it's short only to DVB-H TV reception and a more powerful 3D accelerator. The russian site Mobile-Review previewed the S60 3rd Edition a few days ago too showing off the immense visual and other differences of the operating system compared to the older version.

VMware has released VMware Player version 1.0.0-final for Windows and Linux. VMware Player runs virtual machines (VM's) created by VMware Workstation, GSX Server or ESX Server. It also supports VM's created with Virtual PC and Virtual Server from Microsoft. VMware also released version 1.0.0 of their free Browser Appliance VM running Ubuntu Linux 5.10 with Mozilla Firefox 1.07 and 1.5.