Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop, Server and Netbook editions have been released today. The new version is starting even faster than the previous one, is using the ext4 file system by default, the GNOME 2.28 desktop environment and the GRUB 2 boot manager, it comes with a lot of software updates. Outstanding are the new Ubuntu Software Center and Ubuntu One, the cloud system. To learn about the new features have a look at the feature overview.

To download Ubuntu 9.10 or to obtain CDs see: Get Ubuntu. For instructions on upgrading visit: Upgrading to Ubuntu 9.10.
Upgrades to the latest version of Ubuntu are entirely free of charge as always.

To get more information, visit www.ubuntu.com.

Karmic Koala is coming, its release is scheduled for tomorrow, Ubuntu user groups all around the world will celebrate the release with parties, so we will do in Berlin.

For the 8th time the Ubuntu-Berlin user group will give a party at their favorite hacker location c-base. It will take place on Saturday, October 31st, entry is free. Talks and presentations will be held, Ubuntu 9.10 can be tested, help for installation will be given, experienced users will answer questions. WLAN is available for free. Every time I’ve been there, several times during the years, it has been a very pleasant evening.

If you’re interested but cannot come to Berlin, have a look at the world wide release parties list or visit the Party map.

The new version TexmakerX 1.9.2 has been released today. This version brings several new features and fixes some bugs. TexmakerX is a fork of the LaTeX editor Texmaker. It has adopted changes of the original Texmaker 1.9.2 and provides further features like preview for marked text, a random text generator, a synonym dictionary, improved usability, new templates and symbols and more.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

The first alpha version of the upcoming Version 2.0 of the LaTeX editor TeXnicCenter has been released today. It is a development version, not stable, just released for testing, but it shows that the development is in progress and it gives an impression of the new version.

Some of the new features are:

• a new editor component based on Scintilla providing zoom, proportional fonts and code folding,
• Unicode support to enable writing in Russian, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, …
• improved modern user interface, the tool windows could be rearranged,
• improved BibTeX support regarding error parsing, search in literature tool window.

TXC 2.0 has been developed with Visual Studio 2008, not with the free version because access to the MFC is needed. Help in development is welcome, if you’re interested contact the maintainer Tino Weinkauf.

For more information and download visit

• the announcement of Tino containing further information about known issues,
• the download page,
• the TeXnicCenter homepage,
• the review of TXC 2.0 alpha by Thorsten on LaTeX-Community.org.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

The first update to REVTeX since 2001 has been released yesterday, today it’s been uploaded to CTAN. REVTeX 4.1 is a set of LaTeX2e macro packages. It is especially well-suited for preparing manuscripts for submission to the journals of the American Physical Society (APS) and American Institute of Physics (AIP). The Version 4.1 brings bug fixes, improved functionality and support for a wider range of journals.

For more information, download and documentation including update info and FAQ visit the REVTeX 4 homepage.

The German Ubuntu Linux User Conference “Ubucon” will be held for the third time in Göttingen, hosted by the Georg August University, October 19-22, 2009.

The conference program includes three LaTeX events:

• LaTeX in the year 2009: talk about new TeX software and features like TeX Live 2009, Biber, Asymptote, LuaTeX and XeTeX, further small tools will be presented. Friday, 4-6pm.
• LaTeX introduction for new users: a workshop introducing the LaTeX system, presenting basic features and commands. Users are encouraged to bring their own laptops to the workshop for participation. Saturday, 9-11am.
• Producing magazines with LaTeX: a workshop for advanced users dealing with layout topics like wrapping text around figures with the goal of creating a magazine. Users should join with a laptop. Saturday, 11-13am.

For further information like program, accommodation and news visit the Ubucon Homepage.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

The Nederlandstalig LaTeX Forum has been founded by Frank Puttemans today. It’s a LaTeX Forum in Dutch language. Especially Dutch-speaking LaTeX users are invited to join the forum, to open discussions, to share knowledge and to answer questions of other users. The first forum post has been written today, there’s more to come.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

Version 0.53 of LEd, a freeware LaTeX-Editor for Windows systems, has been released. New features are dvi viewer support for both MiKTeX 2.8 and TeX Live 2008, a Dutch (Belgium) dictionary, the Italian translations have been updated as well as English and Polish dictionaries, the performance has been improved and some small bugs have been fixed.

For further information visit

• the original announcement,
• the download area,
• the LEd homepage,
• LEd’s future plans.

[update 2009–10–09] A bugfix (build 6501) has been released, build 6500 could occasionally incorrectly reload files, see announcement.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.

Joseph Wright has published a post giving an overview of the dtx format on his blog Some TeX Developments. It’s the first post of a small series dealing with that LaTeX package format.

The script match_parens has been uploaded to CTAN today. This program has been written by Wybo Dekker to assist the user in checking parenthesis (and braces, brackets) balancing in documents, the characters {}[]()<> are supported.

It’s written in Ruby, though it’s been announced on ctan-ann as Perl script, therefore a Ruby installation is required. On Ubuntu (and Debian) Linux systems Ruby can be installed by:
sudo apt-get install ruby
which installs libruby1.8, ruby, ruby1.8 on Ubuntu 9.04. Of course it could be done using Synaptic on Ubuntu as well. You can define the script to be executable by
chmod u+x match_parens
or use option a instead of u to allow execution by all users. Afterwards the script could by invoked with the name of the file to be checked as parameter, like
./match_parens test.tex
The output of the programm will show mismatches at the left margin. Have a look at this example:

1	[	[Hello, here is some
2		text] (without) a meaning.
3	(	(This text should show,
4	(	how a printed text will
5		look like at this place.)
6	({	({If you read this text,
7		you will get no information}).
8		Really? Is there no information?
9	[	Is there [a difference between
10		this text and ] some nonsense
11		like Huardest gefburn . Kjift –
12	((	Never mind! (A blind text (like
13	(	this) gives you information about
14	({[	{[the selected font, how the
15	({[	letters are written and the
16	({[)	impression of the look).
17	({[)

Unmached parentheses can be seen on the left, vanishing after being matched, at the end you can see the remaining matching problems.

This small tool with its just about 20 lines of Ruby code can be useful especially in checking large TeX documents where errors for instance caused by nested braces could be hard to locate.

This text is available in German. Dieser Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar.