Perl Needs Better Tools  Perl is a fantastic language for getting your work done. It's flexible, forgiving, malleable, and dynamic. Why shouldn't it have good, powerful tools? Are Perl development tools behind those of other, perhaps less-capable languages? J. Matisse Enzer argues that Perl needs better tools, and explains what those tools should do.   [Perl.com]

Michal Zalewski on the Wire  What motivates a hacker? Perhaps curiosity, the pursuit of knowledge, and the simple joy of saying "Hmm, that's funny! What happens if I ...?" Eccentric security researcher Michal Zalewski exhibits these traits. Fearless interviewer Federico Biancuzzi recently talked with Zalewski about his curious approach to computer security, the need for randomness, and how the hacker mind works.   [ONLamp.com]

What Is the X Window System  Developed at MIT in 1984, the X Window System, now up to X11 release 6, or X11R6, has been the standard environment for Unix windowing systems. Ellen Siever provides some historical context for X's staying power, then discusses its major features: working with X and the X server and X clients; configuring X; and much more. Ellen is a coauthor of Linux in a Nutshell, 5th Edition.   [LinuxDevCenter.com]

Security Alerts
PHP Trouble  Noel Davis looks at problems in PHP, Adobe Reader, Kismet, LibTIFF, Evolution, Mutt, bluez-utils, Ignite-UX, CPAINT, Awstats, Clam AntiVirus, and Gaim.   [LinuxDevCenter.com]

This Week in Perl 6, August 17-23, 2005  Matt Fowles summarizes the Perl 6 mailing lists, with p6i seeing the most HLL discussion yet; p6l debating binding, parameters, and primitives; and p6c appreciating pretty graphics.   [Perl.com]

Using Drools in Your Enterprise Java Application  Enterprise Java developers have many fine framework choices at the presentation and persistence levels, but what about the business logic that sits in the middle? Do you want to recompile a mass of if ... then spaghetti code every time a manager drops a new gotcha in your lap? In this article, Paul Browne suggests that a rule engine like Drools may be an ideal fit for this task.   [ONJava.com]

Mobile Video: Working with MPEG-4 Clips on Mobile Phones  MPEG-4 files can be struggle to work with, but the format is so good it's worth taming. In this article, Douglas Dixon uses the QuickTime Player to view and deconstruct clips created by several camera phones. He examines the details of the MPEG-4 format for mobile phones--called 3GPP--and works around some of the idiosyncrasies of how different devices create slightly different formats.   [DigitalMedia.oreilly.com]

Python and XML
Should Python and XML Coexist?  In his latest Python and XML column, Uche Ogbuji claims that the costs of using XML as a little language in a Python application may outweigh the benefits of doing so.   [XML.com]

Hands On: Ableton Live 5  This premier music-production program gained massive features in its latest upgrade. Here are step-by-step recipes for shuffling beats, gating pads, extracting hits, maximizing MIDI, and much more.   [DigitalMedia.oreilly.com]

Distributed Tiger: Xgrid Comes of Age  In this first of two articles, Drew McCormack shows you how to set up a small Xgrid for testing purposes, submit simple jobs to the grid with the command line interface (CLI), and query their progress. The second article will be a Cocoa Tour de Force, involving new Tiger technologies like Automator and Core Image, in addition to Xgrid.   [MacDevCenter.com]

Setting Up Vonage with Your PC  If you're looking to save money on phone calls and get extra VoIP features, Vonage is a good bet. Russell Shaw shows you how to set up Vonage with your PC.   [WindowsDevCenter.com]

What Is a Smartphone  A single device that can act as mobile phone and PDA is much better than having to carry multiple devices, hence the emergence of the smartphone. Michael Yuan discusses the evolution of the device. Then, for users, he details key features to look for when you're buying a smartphone. For developers, he describes the programming languages and APIs you can use to develop smartphone apps. Yuan is the author of Nokia Smartphone Hacks.   [Wireless DevCenter]

What Is Visual Studio  What can you really do with Visual Studio? James Avery discusses some of the various applications you can build using Visual Studio, some of its most compelling development features, and what you need to know to get started writing quality applications in Visual Studio. James is the author of Visual Studio Hacks.   [ONDotnet.com]

Remote Scripting with AJAX, Part 2  In part one of this two-part series, Cameron Adams created an example application that showed how to use remote scripting to implement the AJAX XMLHttpRequest protocol. Now, in part two, he shows how to create a usable interface for the example app.   [XML.com]

Identity Management Architectures and Digital Identity  Building an identity management infrastructure requires a strategy; one that takes into account not only the technology, but the politics and economics surrounding digital identity. Phil Windley calls such a strategy an identity management architecture, or IMA. Here, he defines what an IMA is, and discusses the key components and myths to developing one. Phil is the author of O'Reilly's Digital Identity.   [O'Reilly Network]

What Is ClamXav (and do Mac users really need antivirus?)  Do Mac users need virus protection? We believe yes. In this article F.J. introduces you to ClamXav, a free, open source antivirus application for Mac OS X. And as a bonus, we're including an interview with the developer who added the GUI to the excellent ClamAV engine to create ClamXav--Mark Allan.   [MacDevCenter.com]

Remote Scripting with AJAX, Part 1  In this two-part series, Cameron Adams demonstrates the advantages of using remote scripting with the AJAX XMLHttpRequest protocol to create web apps and improve website functionality. Here in part one, he creates an example application that shows how to implement XMLHttpRequest. Stay tuned for part two next week, where he'll show how to create a usable interface for the example app.   [XML.com]

Linux for Video Production  Linux and open source software is traditionally good for developers and system administrators, and recently good for business users. When will it be good for multimedia users? A handful of projects are making video production and editing possible (and useful)--PiTiVi and GStreamer among them. Jono Bacon examines the present and future of video production with Linux and open source software.   [LinuxDevCenter.com]

Big Scary Daemons
Monitoring Network Traffic with Netflow  SNMP and MTRG can tell you what your network is doing, but they don't always give you the details you need. Netflow does--but it has a complex setup and configuration. Fortunately, Michael W. Lucas shows how to install and configure modern versions.   [Sysadmin DevCenter]

Parsing iCal Data  Perl's suitability as a glue language allows you to connect two applications that wouldn't normally communicate by translating their data files between formats. It's especially nice when these are open file formats. Robert Pratte shows how to parse iCal data files--as used in Apple's iCalendar program--and visualize them using the open source Dot graphic package.   [Perl.com]

What Is the GNOME Desktop  Nope. It's not a garden garnish. GNOME is a desktop software project designed to look familiar to anyone who has ever used a computer. Aaron Weber distills what the GNOME desktop is, what apps users will find as well as what platform development tools developers will find, and the resources to help you get started using it. Aaron is a coauthor of Linux in a Nutshell, 5th Edition.   [LinuxDevCenter.com]

This Week in Perl 6, Through August 14, 2005  Piers Cawley summarizes the Perl 6 mailing lists with containers and metamodels on the Perl 6 compiler list, metamodel and trait questions on the Perl 6 language list, and opcode changes and test modules on the Perl 6 internals list.   [Perl.com]

Building My MythTV Box, Part 2: Software  A MythTV computer makes HDTV much better. In the first article in this series, Matthew Gast went through picking out the hardware for his new machine. Now, it's time to make the software work. Here are all the details.   [O'Reilly Network]

Introduction to the ASM 2.0 Bytecode Framework  J2SE 5.0 made major changes to the language, and version 2.0 of the ASM bytecode manipulation toolkit is well-suited to handle them. In this article, Eugene Kuleshov shows how ASM 2.0 makes working with bytecode easier, and even offers an example of how to map the external dependencies in an arbitrary .jar file.   [ONJava.com]

The Restful Web
Dispatching in a REST Protocol Application  Joe Gregorio, in his latest Restful Web column, shows us how to write dispatch code to handle REST requests.   [XML.com]

Roger Manning, Jr.: The Digital Cookbook  The analog virtuoso behind the Moog Cookbook, Beck, Jellyfish, Imperial Drag, and countless ads and soundtracks shares his tasty digital production tips.   [DigitalMedia.oreilly.com]

Internationalization, Part 1  Writing software that is truly multilingual is not an easy task. In this excerpt from Chapter 8 of Java Examples in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition, author David Flanagan offers programming examples for the three steps to internationalization in Java: using Unicode character encoding, handling local customs, and localizing user-visible messages.   [ONJava.com]

Web Apps with Tiger: Getting Started  Morbus is back with more web serving tools and tricks, updated for Mac OS X Tiger. In this first article, he'll take you on a whirlwind through the basics: turning on the Apache web server, learning a teensy bit of its configuration, then enabling and testing PHP.   [MacDevCenter.com]

An In-Depth Look at Vista, Part 2  Wei-Meng Lee has had time to explore some of the cooler aspects of Vista, such as Aero Glass and Broadcast Presentations. He shows you how to troubleshoot them and get Vista up and running.   [WindowsDevCenter.com]

Build a Simple 3D Pipeline in Tcl  Are you interested in playing with 3D graphics for games? In this article, Michael Norton shows you how to assemble a game console to experiment with using Tcl, which is a great tool for playing with graphics algorithms.   [MacDevCenter.com]