If you would like to unsubscribe from XSWeekly at any time, simply send an e-mail to xsweekly-unsubscribe@wuzzle.org and you will be removed. You can e-mail me at demigod@xsweekly.com with any questions, suggestions, etc. XSWEEKLY Shell Related News 24.02.01 - 02.03.01 ------------------------------------------------- All these problems lately with LS.net and FPN being down shed a light on something. There are so few shell related web sites these days. When those sites went down, LS2K was the only place left to check out news. While this is great for LS2k, it isn't all that great for users. I can remember about a year ago there were a lot of sites, either specialized or general, about shells. Now I can name only a few. What happened? Was it the cut in payout of banner ads? Lack of interest in Win32 shells? Lack of time? I'm sure that all of these play a part, but where are the new sites to take there place? I really don't know what kind of impact this has on the shell community as a whole, but I'm pretty sure it isn't all that good. We have seen with FPN and Desktopian going down that there were no other places to go for general shell news. Oh sure, Shell Extension City was still up, but he isn't shell specific like the others. What we need are more general shell specific sites out there like there used to be. Even dedicated ones specific to one or two shells would be nice. I'm not talking about geoshell.com, I'm talking about Phil GeoShell House O' News kind of thing. Inter- faceWorkshop fills this gap nicely, but a lot of his news is for his Japanese audience only. I guess this is more of a call to arms more than anything. With the recent downtimes it is now more evident that we need other alternatives for news besides a few major sites. I myself try to cover more and more shells as time goes by, but my time is limited and becoming more limited by the day. What I am suggesting is that you take a look at places like FPN and InterfaceWorkshop and go from there. Take what interests you and do up a page on it. It doesn't have to be elaborate or take a ton of time. I think we just need a few more people to contribute back into the shell community to have it flourish once again. - demigod ---------- [ Mail Bag ] ---------- This weeks mailbag question is: Do you think there are enough shell related web sites? e-mail - mailbag@xsweely.com url - http://www.xsweekly.com/mail.html ----------- [ Spotlight ] ----------- - NeXTer's Dominion NeXTer, famous for his work on the LS core, has up and moved his site on over to ls2k.org. Here you will find some of his personal software and insights on a bunch of stuff. url - http://nexter.ls2k.org ................................................. -= Shell Specific =- ................................................. ------------------ [ Top News Stories ] ------------------ - LiteStep.net In Trouble (9:59 28.02 na) Pimpin.net which hosts ls.net and a host of other sites, is down grading from dual ds3's to a dsl 1.1 because the banners are no longer covering the cost of the bandwidth. LiteStep.net is now in need of new hosts because the dsl 1.1 will not be able to support the amount of bandwidth that it pushs. If you can offer any help, please e-mail cccp. %%UPDATE%% (10:31 01.03) After only a day of downtime, they have found a host. FPN and LiteStep.net will now be moved to deskmod. Once the dns kicks in everything will be up and running once more. url - http://www.litestep.net e-mail - cccp@litestep.net (source: http://www.litestep.net) +-------<*>-------+ - LiteStep Mailing List Page Competition ~ Bryan (11:52 28.02 na) Bryan, owner of the LS mailing list, has asked for a redo of the list page at wuzzle.org. From the e-mail to the list: "I'm having a competition, "I want someone to make the litestep list pages look cool, unfortunately, you have a bunch of restrictions. "Only very minimal changes to the html will be allowed, and none to the list display pages (the threads and messages) "However, the stylesheet is fair game. "here is the current stylesheet: http://wuzzle.org/list/lists.css.txt "Get creative, you'd be amazed what you can do with a stylesheet. "Winner gets credit, and an email address @litestep.ru.ac.za or wuzzle.org or wherever. "The pages to be changed: http://wuzzle.org/list "Bryan" url - http://wuzzle.org/list e-mail - bryan@wuzzle.org (source: LS Mailing List) +-------<*>-------+ - FPN on LockerGnome.com ~ rootrider (12:42 28.02 na) In the new Daily Update on lockergnome.com, Chris points out root's review of WinXP. Another great step for the shell community, and a pretty decent write up by root too. url - http://floach.pimpin.net e-mail - rootrider@wsu.edu (source: http://floach.pimpin.net) +-------<*>-------+ - DTop/Chunkymunky Gone ~ yaso (13:22 28.02 na) Yaso has decided to completely shut down dtop.org. After the name battle over chunkymunky and the switch to dtop, the site degraded to almost no posts. There is, however, a light at the end of this tunnel. Yaso is coding up a new site, skinnerz.com. No word on exactly what this site will be about but it seems mildly obvious from the name. e-mail - yaso@bigfoot.com (source: http://www.dtop.org) --------- [ Modules ] --------- - geekamp 1.9.61 ~ azathoth (11:46 28.02 ls) geekamp is a front end for winamp and now for sonique. New in this version: - !Amp_PlayPause now opens Winamp if not already open. (Suggestion by Poul Dam) - !Amp_PowerOn now focuses the player if it is already open. - !Amp_PowerOn now works again. - Code restructuring leads to slightly faster executing time (think 1 or 2 cycles ) - Constants redefined for easier source reading. - Slapped myself on the head for being so damn stupid in the code. - Re-wrote readme.txt to be more concise and easy to read. - Added changes.txt to shorten main readme size. url - http://www.ls2k.org e-mail - azathoth@ls2k.org (source: http://www.ls2k.org) +-------<*>-------+ - Lockpc 1.1 ~ Repugnant (12:37 28.02 ls) "A small (3K) module that will let you lock your computer through the !LockPC bang command. This is intended for Windows 2000 users only (though it should work with Whistler too)." %%UPDATE%% (10:35 01.03) - Works with NT4. url - http://www.personal.psu.edu/jew208/ e-mail - repugnant2k@hotmail.com (source: http://www.ls2k.org) +-------<*>-------+ - geOAmpList, AmpVol, and AmpTime ~ Rattboi (13:41 28.02 geo) Rattboi has coded up three geo plugins for winamp. They are pretty self explanatory off of the names. url - http://damienent.8m.com/Programs.html e-mail - bradonk@hotmail.com (source: http://damienent.8m.com/Programs.html) +-------<*>-------+ - Label 1.3 ~ Maduin (11:05 02.03 ls) Maduin has thrown out another version of his desktop label program. From the changes this is becoming a swiss army knife of a module. New in this version: - Added support for multiple "Labels" commands. - Added the following sysinfo functions. o hostName o IP o randomLine('file') - Added the following support functions. o capitalize(x) o trim(x) - Added LabelUpdateInterval: number of milliseconds between updates. - Fixed various transparency issues. - Known issue: if one item in a label autoupdates, the whole label will do so, so don't mix stuff like randomLine with CPU/mem, etc. - Again I haven't updated the docs... next time, I promise! =) url - http://trident.mcs.kent.edu/~kschaffe/ e-mail - kschaffe@kent.edu (source: http://floach.pimpin.net) ----------- [ Web Sites ] ----------- - LiteStep Magazine Online ~ avs (12:33 28.02 ls) This looks like it will be an all in one litestep site. Some of the future projects will be a list of modules with description, positives, and negatives, themeing tutorials, and a ton of other LS related items and articles. url - http://avs.ls2k.org/ e-mail - avs@myrealbox.com (source: http://www.ls2k.org) +-------<*>-------+ - LSDev On SourceForge (11:09 02.03 ls) The LS Dev team's current home is up and running. This may be just a temporary housing, or it could become permanent. As of right now there is a main page, ability to submit bugs and post to a simple board. I'll keep you posted as to the permanent location of the dev team. url - http://sourceforge.net/projects/litestep/ (source: http://sourceforge.net/projects/litestep/) ---------- [ Programs ] ---------- - ShellON 2.30 ~ delusional (13:25 28.02 na) ShellON is a full featured shell manager. It boasts a ton of other features such as the ability to load an unlimited number of shells, crash protection, and a ton of others. New in this version: - Crash protection (!) Added a thread that sits waiting for the shell to close. - Added install parameter to set ShellON as the default system shell. - Moved the Parameter code in the config program so it checks earlier in the load process. It is much quicker now. - You can drag the Launcher windows around. - Moved wallpaper code for Launcher to a separate thread, so you don't have to wait for all the wallpaper stuff before you can load your shell. - Hopefully done more fixing for the NT/2k code. - Wallpaper order was not maintained when Monitor Folders function was used. - Altered the form settings so the forms appear screen center, not desktop center. Sometimes the forms would appear half on each of two monitors. - Changed some of the Windows to tool windows. For no reason. - Put the new email and site addresses into the Help File. - Deleted the main form, doh! Luckily I had a 2.19 backup, but there was still some coding to redo:( url - http://delusional.psionstyle.co.uk/ e-mail - delusional@psionstyle.co.uk (source: delusional via e-mail) --------------- [ Latest Builds ] --------------- - LiteStep (not available at time of publishing) o 24.6 build 010201 o http://builds.litestep.net/builds/ls-0246-dev-20010102.zip - geOShell o 4.6.5a o http://news.geoshell.com/Plugins/Download/geoshellr465a.zip - PureLS o 012201 o http://www.purels.org/binaries/01-01-28r.zip ................................................. -= Alt OS Specific =- ................................................. ---------- [ Programs ] ---------- - SealBuilder 1.01 ~ Ganesh (14:55 28.02 sel) This is a program generator for SEAL. It is written in Vb and supports the following objects: +StatText +TextBox +CommandButton +VTrackBar (from Bad Controls ) +DriveList +FolderList +Editor url - http://ganisoft.virtualave.net/seal/ e-mail - gruswami@emirates.net.ae (source: http://pub8.ezboard.com/bsealsystem) +-------<*>-------+ - AZoom - chir (10:50 01.03 at) AZoom is a basic pixel zoomer app for AtheOS. It allows for multiple sized magnification and the opening of any gfx file. url - http://www.geocities.com/chir_geo/atheos e-mail - chir@geocities.com (source: AtheOS Mailing List) ----------- [ Web Sites ] ----------- - BadSEAL.org Shut Down ~ BadSector (13:47 28.02 sel) I'm not sure why it has been shut down but it has. Currently you can access BadSEAL via this new url: http://www.crosswinds.net/~badseal/ BadSector will set up the badseal.org redirect in the future. url - http://www.crosswinds.net/~badseal/ (source: http://pub8.ezboard.com/bsealsystem) --------------- [ Latest Builds ] --------------- - SEAL (not available at time of publishing) o 1.0E o http://michalopoylos.tripod.com/seal/s1e-disk.zip - V2_OS o 0.70 o ftp://vp.dyn.dhs.org/0.70/v2_os.img - AtheOS o 0.3.1 o http://www.atheos.cx/download/list.php3?0.3.1 ................................................. -= Beyond the Specifics =- ................................................. ------------- [ Interesting ] ------------- - What's Wrong With Copy Protection If you haven't read this yet, do so. It is a very well written and thought out article on what is really wrong with copy protection and the way that companies are using it as if they were laws. url - http://www.toad.com/gnu/whatswrong.html ---------- [ Programs ] ---------- - Scope b4 Fahim is back to coding, but not a shell this time. Scope is a very small, multi-window browser that is coded off of the IE engine. If you are looking for a small, fast browser, this is the one for you. url - http://cyberian.tripod.com .................................... All contents Copyright (c) 1999-2001 XSWeekly. All rights reserved.