Longtime BeOS user/developer Stephan Assmus wrote in with this bit of news:

The YellowBites website has gotten a complete makeover. The long missing pages for WonderBrush have been added, including a few brief turorials. All the graphics on the site have been created in WonderBrush. Some of the information of the old site had really been outdated, so the update was long overdue. Let’s hope YellowBites can keep their pages up to speed with their software. This update shows YellowBites commitment to the BeOS and Zeta platform.

Must check out this WonderBrush application, yes, I must.

Over at the Bezilla blog, Niels Reedijk posted a new development version of FireFox 1.0 for people to download and test. There is a net_server version for BeOS R5 users and a BONE version for those who use BONE or Zeta.

The following are links to downloads and a list of patches mentioned in the blog:

In other news, Firefox 1.0.0-d4 is released which includes a new piece of candy.
Check out www.de-smederij.nl/firefox/MozillaFirefox-1.0.0-d4.zip for net_server, and http://beosland.free.fr/archives/mozilla/MozillaFirefox-10-d4-upd-bone.pkg for BONE. The latter one uses the SoftwareValet for installing. It’s nice. The latter one is done by jeannot31.

But the new and the updated are far more interesting.
- 267219 - the directorypicker code is updated and is now waiting for a review.
- 266327 - The add bookmarks window will now close, and the pref window won’t whine about failed saving of prefs either. This is all fixed by this patch. It is currently waiting a super review. This patch couldn’t be made without tangobravo’s help.
- The search bar is now fixed. (If it still doesn’t work, delete compreg.dat from your config/settings/Mozilla/Firefox/default.4a3/ dir)

If you’ve downloaded and tested one of these versions of FireFox, let the developers know of any problems and improvements that you notice when using the browser. Any feedback will help them make a better FireFox browser for the BeOS community.

Raycone Software announced a few days ago the launch of their new and improved webpage (which is still under construction) and that work has been done to their products with new releases coming soon. They are also going to use a new payment processor to make purchasing easier for people allowing for more than one way to purchase their products. There are a lot of details, so head over to their site to get the full announcement.

Personally, I’ve tried both their products and found InsiteConstructor to be pretty good. I can’t wait to see what improvements have been made to both InsiteConstructor and InsiteDesigner, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on their site for further updates.

Initially it was reported that BZGames.de was going to close due to a lack of time to maintain the site. But now it seems the site is going to stay after all. The site has a new look which looks great and a new backend used to run and maintain the webpage.

A few things have been updated since the new look such as an updated and revised version of their BeIDE Tutorial (English Translation) and a short report on Zeta Neo (English Translation).

The Belgium BeUserGroup has actually been up for some time now. The site was started by Jan-Rixt Van (Jixt) and Luc Schrijvers (Begasus). The site contains news, BeOS related tips, software downloads and many BeOS related links.

The site is really coming together and is looking good. It’s nice to see more and more BeOS/Zeta user group sites from different countries and in different languages on the net, it can help people who don’t speak english very well to obtain info or help on BeOS/Zeta related topics in their own language.

You can go to their WhoAreWe section to learn more about the site and their objectives. I attempted to translate this page with BabelFish, but the translation isn’t that great, I actually found the French translation better than the English version. Either way, for those who want it, you can find the english translation here.