This is the fifth article in a series on common usability and graphical user interface related terms . On the internet, and especially in forum discussions like we all have here on OSNews, it is almost certain that in any given discussion, someone will most likely bring up usability and GUI related terms - things like spatial memory, widgets, consistency, Fitts' Law, and more. The aim of this series is to explain these terms, learn something about their origins, and finally rate their importance in the field of usability and (graphical) user interface design. In part V, we focus on modes.

Dave Morse (1943-2007), Amiga Computer co-founder, died on Saturday, November 2nd. In 1982, he left Tonka Toys (where he was Vice-President of Marketing) and became the Chief Executive Officer at Hi Toro, Inc., which he co-founded and which morphed later that year into Amiga, Inc. and led through the development of the Lorraine Project (a codename inspired by Dave's wife Lorraine) - ultimately, the Amiga 1000 Computer. Our take: We want to wish all the strength in the world to his family and friends, and I personally would like to thank him for creating a truly visionary computing platform. Forget Apple, forget Microsoft, forget Linux: the Amiga was the real revolutionary device.

DTrace has been ported to QNX. "The initial port to Neutrino that Colin and I have done is slightly different from the other OS ports. Since Neutrino is a micro-kernel, we wanted to see how far we could go keeping the dtrace module out of the kernel... And if possible even outside of the process manager. The current implementation has all of the dtrace system code, normally found in the kernel or a kernel module, encapsulated in a resource manager, io-dtrace, and the utility is a straight port of the Solaris utility."

Fedora 8 has been released. It sports a new look and feel, a codec installation program, the first signs of the GNOME online desktop, various security improvements, support for Compiz and Compiz-Fusion, Java support via Iced-Tea, and much more. Get it from the download page. Update: A couple of articles about the release: 1, 2, 3. Update II: One more: 4.

"Faster than virtualization, but harder to implement, containers are a promising security technology for Linux. Watch the 2.6.24 kernel for experimental support for creating and managing containers."

Ars has a review of Ubuntu 7.10. They conclude: "Ubuntu 7.10 provides an unparalleled desktop Linux experience and sets new standards for power and ease of use. This release lives up to Ubuntu's reputation and delivers cutting-edge new features and solid enhancements. Although Ubuntu 7.10 is very impressive, some of the new additions - particularly Compiz and Tracker - lack the polish and robustness that they need to truly shine. These technologies are still a work in progress and give Ubuntu 7.10 a slightly unfinished feel. Ubuntu also unfortunately inherits some of the minor weaknesses of the GNOME desktop environment."

Apple has seeded the first build of Leopard 10.5.1. "Apple details a number of issues addressed in the seed. Specifically, there have been fixes to Mail Sync, Spotlight Index, Disk Management, DesktopServices and moving files across partitions, Text Drawing, iCal and CalDAV syncing, Keychain login, Read-Only Issue with SMB, AirPort 802.1X, Application Firewall, To-Do Notes, and Smart Mailboxes. This list of issues, however, is never exhaustive, so other bugs may have also been addressed in this seed."

This is the fourth article in a series on common usability and graphical user interface related terms . On the internet, and especially in forum discussions like we all have here on OSNews, it is almost certain that in any given discussion, someone will most likely bring up usability and GUI related terms - things like spatial memory, widgets, consistency, Fitts' Law, and more. The aim of this series is to explain these terms, learn something about their origins, and finally rate their importance in the field of usability and (graphical) user interface design. In part IV today, we focus on a dead horse Fitts' Law.

"The United States patent and legal system has turned into a battlefield where companies and technology developers can be attacked. Open source and free software developers have historically ignored this secondary battlefield, focusing instead on the primary battlefield of development and proliferation of their project. This omission leaves open source projects and individual developers vulnerable to patent infringement lawsuits. By creating its own defensive patent portfolio as commercial companies do, the open source community can arm itself for this battle."

Adobe Systems wants to transform its flagship Photoshop software with an interface customized to the task at hand, a potentially radical revamp for software whose power today is hidden behind hundreds of menu options. A new user interface will help Photoshop become "everything you need, nothing you don't," said Photoshop product manager John Nack, describing aspirations for the Photoshop overhaul on his blog Monday. "We must make Photoshop dramatically more configurable," Nack said. "Presenting the same user experience to a photographer as we do to a radiologist, as to a Web designer, as to a prepress guy, is kind of absurd... With the power of customizability, we can present solutions via task-oriented workspaces," Nack said.

The LLVM Compiler System is being used for all sorts of interesting things these days. It basically provides an extremely modular and easy to use set of open source (BSD-licensed) compiler libraries that can be used to build various applications from. Despite this, many people don't really understand it, and are scared away by the breadth of the project or by compilers in general. The Kaleidoscope tutorial starts out from scratch and slowly builds up a simple language to show how LLVM can help out with this. We end up with a JIT compiler for a fairly interesting little language with less than 700 lines of code. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg, once you start with LLVM, there are all sorts of things you can do.

Apple has released the source code to Darwin 9, the underlying open source operating system ofMac OS X 10.5 Leopard. "Darwin is the open source UNIX-based foundation of Mac OS X. Darwin integrates a number of technologies, including the Mach 3.0 microkernel, operating system services based on FreeBSD 5 UNIX, high-performance TCP/IP networking, and support for multiple integrated file systems. Because the design of Darwin is highly modular, you can dynamically add device drivers, networking extensions, and new file systems."

Rasterman, the lead developer of the Enlightenment project, speaks about the future of Enlightenment, including the project's focus on the embedded world (Rasterman works at OpenMoko now), the relationship with commercial vendors, reorganized leadership, and even some hints at an upcoming release. "The primary thing of importance is getting E17 out the door. It's actually looking petty good. Only 2 really big TODO items left. I'm doing a theme revamp. The Default theme has very much aged. The gold bling isn't incredibly popular. I'm working on something I think people will love - and it still shows off E. It will replace the current default - and will also knock off some of the comment the default theme so its better documented for people to build new themes from and learn Edje."

Some more Leopard news. "When it comes to Apple's new operating system, Leopard, users are likely to notice the flashy graphics and animations, the tight integration of applications, and the speed with which it churns through data. What they don't see are a large number of the under-the-hood changes that Apple built in so that its own developers - and those who come up with third-party apps - use all of that underlying software goodness." Additionally, there's another thorough Leopard review, and another one. There is also a problem with Skype not liking Leopard's firewall, and Leopard not liking massive data copies.