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To take it a step further, try running the code in Callgrind. Callgrind is part of the Valgrind suite. It basically runs your app on a soft CPU. It's intended for use as a profiling tool, but it gives you a complete map of what is calling what, and how many times. The output is most valuable when you create snapshots around specific use cases in the code -- you can do that with callgrind's external control tool. KCachegrind is an excellent tool for viewing callgrind output.

For C++ code, Doxygen can be useful, as it shows the class inheritance. As requested, it uses a (rudimentary) parser. It works with several other languages too, although I can't vouch for its utility for them.

Another suggestion I would make, if this is business app and runs atop a SQL database, start by looking at the database schema. Maybe it's just the way my brain works, but to me it is easier to start wrapping your head around the basic architecture of a system from the database schema than from diving into the application code.

When facing a similar situation in my current job, where neither the code nor the database had any useful documentation, I found a saving grace in SchemaSpy. The documentation isn't that great and it took me half a day to get it to work, but it produces a nicely diagrammed schema in HTML that was my base reference while I was deciphering the system.

cscope and kscope if your into X11.
http://cscope.sourceforge.net/
http://kscope.sourceforge.net/

cscope and kscope if your into X11.
http://cscope.sourceforge.net/
http://kscope.sourceforge.net/

I'll plug my own open-source project for this:
Browse-by-Query-- it won't help with C/C++(sorry for the original questioner), but it will handle Java or C#.
It dumps the code into a database and lets you query it to find the relationships.
I'm biased, of course, but I've found it's just the thing to understand how a particular piece of functionality in an unfamiliar code base fits into the big picture.

kcachegrind is very nice for a lot of languages. It makes an easy to read function call map, among other things.

See:
http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/
and:
http://uml.sourceforge.net/index.php

These tools allow you to 'visualize' a codebase in several very helpful ways.
One important way is to generate connection graphs of all functions.
These images can look like a mess, or a huge rail yard with hundreds of connections.
The modules, libraries, or source files that are a real jumble of crossconnected lines are a clear indication of where to start clean up activities. :)

Good luck!

ETrace : Run-time tracing http://freshmeat.net/projects/etrace/

This book is worth a read http://www.spinellis.gr/codereading/

Draw some static graphs of functions of interest using CodeViz http://freshmeat.net/projects/codeviz/

Write lots of notes, preferably on paper with a pen rather than electronically.

It's called: Windows Installer XML, not executables. It builds installation packages from XML files.

Tutorials & info are maintained here: http://www.tramontana.co.hu/wix/
Sourceforge link: http://wix.sourceforge.net/

Just thought of correcting the name. By the way, thanks for the info, WK2.

Right now NOTHING even writes to MS-OOXML.

Then due to the fact that there are blobs of binary data in it, in propriety Microsoft formats. Others are not free to implement code that reads or writes these formats. These formats are not publically documented. Let alone public standards.

Who else will ever be able to read MS-OOXML?

Who else will be able to write to it?

Only Microsoft.

At least when you are talking about xhtml or html5 it is possible to create a browser that can read and render both formats.

Let's suppose that ODF is indirectly controlled by Sun, and OOXML is directly controlled by msft. Why is it that the indirect control by Sun is cause for alarm, but the direct contol by msft is not cause for alarm?

And if msft chose to do so, msft could support ODF just as much as Sun. Msft is also free to contribute to the ODF standard. Therefore ODF does not give Sun any competitive advantage.

Might not be what you're looking for, but ever since I discovered Python and SQLite I've found this little tool http://sqlitebrowser.sourceforge.net/ to be brilliant.

Granted, I'm not using SQLite to do anything complicated - mostly just as dumb storage for non-huge cross-linked lists but it still seems remarkably capable, very fast and very low on resources, with the GUI providing a nice interface for a quick gander at the data structure.

There's also a Ruby/GTK gizmo here http://rsqlitegui.rubyforge.org/

Seriously though, is it just me or is speech recognition support still sadly lacking under all current distros?

Based on the fact there are no leading edge projects out there. I mean, apart from IBM's ViaVoice a few years back (and now no more), and the CMU Sphinx project http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/html/cmusphinx.php is there any other Linux/FOSS solution?

• *Simple* speech recognition. I want it to react to a keyword ("Computer", or "House", or similar sci-fi-ey) and then a few simple commands. Sphinx-2 seems ideal, but I'd need good dictionary files.
• Ubiquitous microphones (preferably exclusively usable by the speech recognition engine. Setting proper /dev permissions will help). Probably the most difficult/expensive to get right; it needs to work in noisy environments.
• Machine controllable electronics, sufficiently protected so that . Where those 433MHz remote switches come in I guess. Needs to be code protected, for obvious reasons.
• Scripts to tie all this together.

> Let's suppose that ODF is indirectly controlled by Sun, and OOXML is directly controlled by msft. Why is it that the indirect control by Sun is cause for alarm, but the direct contol by msft is not cause for alarm?
>
> Why is it relevant that Burton never disputed msft's direct control? Does that make msft's direct control of a supposed open standard all right?

Absurd strawman. Nobody said that. What he's suggesting Burton was saying is the exact opposite. Why is MS's control cause for alarm but Sun's control is not? That is why it's relevant.

> And if msft chose to do so, msft could support ODF just as much as Sun.

They do support it (though "just as much as Sun" is subjective...and probably not quite true): http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=5F3A7CD5-6E9E-4439-B375-4391ADFD2BBD, and the actual open source project: http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/.

Also, just because MSFT can conceivably contribute to the standard does not mean that Sun does not have competitive advantage because of the standard. I'm not saying they absolutely do, but your syllogism does not follow logically.

OLE2 filez:
OOO - http://www.openoffice.org/ - OSS Office
POI - http://poi.apache.org/ - Java API To Access Microsoft Format Files

MS Access:
Jackcess - http://jackcess.sourceforge.net/changes-report.html#a1.1.11- Jackcess is a pure Java library for reading from and writing to MS Access databases.
http://www.kexi-project.org/

Most of the CDs I've seen like this can easily be ripped with CDex.

A beta version of Duke Nukem Forever is actually available for download >em>right now, from this address. The file is a bootable .iso CD image. Burn it to a CD (be sure to choose the right option: you want to make a CD from an ISO image, not a CD with just one file on it ..... that won't work), then reboot your computer with the disc in the drive. At the boot prompt which appears, type "autonuke" (without the quotes) to automatically start a game of Duke Nukem Forever.

Please remember this is beta test software and all features may not be complete.

1. new people available to projects
2. old people now unavailable to project

I observe that at this time, the increase in new people on the Internet dwarfs changes in either rate. True, the loss of key players can kill a project. Just because more middle-class white males may be forces to stop working on 'F/OSS' will not mean the end of F/OSS. OpenSource is not a business in competition with proprietary software. And as long as a project is Opensource, someone can dig up the old tapes and start patching away. The pool of raw talent is growing. Invite these new people in, they might be able to help.

Inability to upgrade, leads to more intense skill sets.

I agree that manufactures have been dumbing down the documentation. This is done not only to be friendly to the Aunt Mable crowd, but also protect this new "Intellectual Property" that the marketing department has gotten the legal department worked up about.

However, real - or open - standards vs fake - de-facto / Microsoft - standards are published in their gory detail. Many many books are published today on the details of how things work, worked and will work. However, you must go to your library and read them to benefit. Today many people want instahacking sk1llz at the push of button. Unfortunately, the real world is also garbage-in/garbage-out. Those 3rd world folks are required to put in the effort to make work what is just a push-of-a-button away for 1st world people. The difference if subtle: they have to read, you ought to read.

And, to top it off, I resent the SourceForge and all such "organizations". I much enjoy and miss, the days when each project had it's off-beat web-site hanging off of some obscure computer connection, or even hosted by some free hosting site like Geocities. Greatly enhanced the fealing of individuality and added a lot of color to the Linux community. When Sourceforge came around, it so much feals corporate, institutionalized and all the horrible things that most of us hate.

Enhanced the fealing (sic) of individuality? Don't you mean ugly?

Hmmm, let's see: sourceforge provides webhosting and other tools for a project, but how many still have their own websites?

• Slashcode @ sf.net points to slashcode.org
• keepass project's site is keypass.info
• filezilla is hosted at filezilla-project.org
• The TortoiseSVN project has a nice site at tortoisesvn.net
• Clamwin uses clamwin.com
• many more...

And that was just from clicking randomly on the top 10 downloads page. (Technically I also hit sourceforge's own project, but can you really blame sourceforge for hosting at sourceforge?) I don't really see the addition of a useful 'professional' index really impacting the 'feals' (sic) of the projects. I think it's less geocites and more "it's only 100 bucks, just register the domain already."

You still end up at some obscure computer connection for many projects. Not everything is a myproject.sourceforce.com site. However, for tiny projects they get free hosting and some do fairly

1. new people available to projects
2. old people now unavailable to project

I observe that at this time, the increase in new people on the Internet dwarfs changes in either rate. True, the loss of key players can kill a project. Just because more middle-class white males may be forces to stop working on 'F/OSS' will not mean the end of F/OSS. OpenSource is not a business in competition with proprietary software. And as long as a project is Opensource, someone can dig up the old tapes and start patching away. The pool of raw talent is growing. Invite these new people in, they might be able to help.

Inability to upgrade, leads to more intense skill sets.

I agree that manufactures have been dumbing down the documentation. This is done not only to be friendly to the Aunt Mable crowd, but also protect this new "Intellectual Property" that the marketing department has gotten the legal department worked up about.

However, real - or open - standards vs fake - de-facto / Microsoft - standards are published in their gory detail. Many many books are published today on the details of how things work, worked and will work. However, you must go to your library and read them to benefit. Today many people want instahacking sk1llz at the push of button. Unfortunately, the real world is also garbage-in/garbage-out. Those 3rd world folks are required to put in the effort to make work what is just a push-of-a-button away for 1st world people. The difference if subtle: they have to read, you ought to read.

And, to top it off, I resent the SourceForge and all such "organizations". I much enjoy and miss, the days when each project had it's off-beat web-site hanging off of some obscure computer connection, or even hosted by some free hosting site like Geocities. Greatly enhanced the fealing of individuality and added a lot of color to the Linux community. When Sourceforge came around, it so much feals corporate, institutionalized and all the horrible things that most of us hate.

Enhanced the fealing (sic) of individuality? Don't you mean ugly?

Hmmm, let's see: sourceforge provides webhosting and other tools for a project, but how many still have their own websites?

• Slashcode @ sf.net points to slashcode.org
• keepass project's site is keypass.info
• filezilla is hosted at filezilla-project.org
• The TortoiseSVN project has a nice site at tortoisesvn.net
• Clamwin uses clamwin.com
• many more...

And that was just from clicking randomly on the top 10 downloads page. (Technically I also hit sourceforge's own project, but can you really blame sourceforge for hosting at sourceforge?) I don't really see the addition of a useful 'professional' index really impacting the 'feals' (sic) of the projects. I think it's less geocites and more "it's only 100 bucks, just register the domain already."

You still end up at some obscure computer connection for many projects. Not everything is a myproject.sourceforce.com site. However, for tiny projects they get free hosting and some do fairly

1. new people available to projects
2. old people now unavailable to project

I observe that at this time, the increase in new people on the Internet dwarfs changes in either rate. True, the loss of key players can kill a project. Just because more middle-class white males may be forces to stop working on 'F/OSS' will not mean the end of F/OSS. OpenSource is not a business in competition with proprietary software. And as long as a project is Opensource, someone can dig up the old tapes and start patching away. The pool of raw talent is growing. Invite these new people in, they might be able to help.

Inability to upgrade, leads to more intense skill sets.

I agree that manufactures have been dumbing down the documentation. This is done not only to be friendly to the Aunt Mable crowd, but also protect this new "Intellectual Property" that the marketing department has gotten the legal department worked up about.

However, real - or open - standards vs fake - de-facto / Microsoft - standards are published in their gory detail. Many many books are published today on the details of how things work, worked and will work. However, you must go to your library and read them to benefit. Today many people want instahacking sk1llz at the push of button. Unfortunately, the real world is also garbage-in/garbage-out. Those 3rd world folks are required to put in the effort to make work what is just a push-of-a-button away for 1st world people. The difference if subtle: they have to read, you ought to read.

And, to top it off, I resent the SourceForge and all such "organizations". I much enjoy and miss, the days when each project had it's off-beat web-site hanging off of some obscure computer connection, or even hosted by some free hosting site like Geocities. Greatly enhanced the fealing of individuality and added a lot of color to the Linux community. When Sourceforge came around, it so much feals corporate, institutionalized and all the horrible things that most of us hate.

Enhanced the fealing (sic) of individuality? Don't you mean ugly?

Hmmm, let's see: sourceforge provides webhosting and other tools for a project, but how many still have their own websites?

• Slashcode @ sf.net points to slashcode.org
• keepass project's site is keypass.info
• filezilla is hosted at filezilla-project.org
• The TortoiseSVN project has a nice site at tortoisesvn.net
• Clamwin uses clamwin.com
• many more...

And that was just from clicking randomly on the top 10 downloads page. (Technically I also hit sourceforge's own project, but can you really blame sourceforge for hosting at sourceforge?) I don't really see the addition of a useful 'professional' index really impacting the 'feals' (sic) of the projects. I think it's less geocites and more "it's only 100 bucks, just register the domain already."

You still end up at some obscure computer connection for many projects. Not everything is a myproject.sourceforce.com site. However, for tiny projects they get free hosting and some do fairly

1. new people available to projects
2. old people now unavailable to project

I observe that at this time, the increase in new people on the Internet dwarfs changes in either rate. True, the loss of key players can kill a project. Just because more middle-class white males may be forces to stop working on 'F/OSS' will not mean the end of F/OSS. OpenSource is not a business in competition with proprietary software. And as long as a project is Opensource, someone can dig up the old tapes and start patching away. The pool of raw talent is growing. Invite these new people in, they might be able to help.

Inability to upgrade, leads to more intense skill sets.

I agree that manufactures have been dumbing down the documentation. This is done not only to be friendly to the Aunt Mable crowd, but also protect this new "Intellectual Property" that the marketing department has gotten the legal department worked up about.

However, real - or open - standards vs fake - de-facto / Microsoft - standards are published in their gory detail. Many many books are published today on the details of how things work, worked and will work. However, you must go to your library and read them to benefit. Today many people want instahacking sk1llz at the push of button. Unfortunately, the real world is also garbage-in/garbage-out. Those 3rd world folks are required to put in the effort to make work what is just a push-of-a-button away for 1st world people. The difference if subtle: they have to read, you ought to read.

And, to top it off, I resent the SourceForge and all such "organizations". I much enjoy and miss, the days when each project had it's off-beat web-site hanging off of some obscure computer connection, or even hosted by some free hosting site like Geocities. Greatly enhanced the fealing of individuality and added a lot of color to the Linux community. When Sourceforge came around, it so much feals corporate, institutionalized and all the horrible things that most of us hate.

Enhanced the fealing (sic) of individuality? Don't you mean ugly?

Hmmm, let's see: sourceforge provides webhosting and other tools for a project, but how many still have their own websites?

• Slashcode @ sf.net points to slashcode.org
• keepass project's site is keypass.info
• filezilla is hosted at filezilla-project.org
• The TortoiseSVN project has a nice site at tortoisesvn.net
• Clamwin uses clamwin.com
• many more...

And that was just from clicking randomly on the top 10 downloads page. (Technically I also hit sourceforge's own project, but can you really blame sourceforge for hosting at sourceforge?) I don't really see the addition of a useful 'professional' index really impacting the 'feals' (sic) of the projects. I think it's less geocites and more "it's only 100 bucks, just register the domain already."

You still end up at some obscure computer connection for many projects. Not everything is a myproject.sourceforce.com site. However, for tiny projects they get free hosting and some do fairly

1. new people available to projects
2. old people now unavailable to project

I observe that at this time, the increase in new people on the Internet dwarfs changes in either rate. True, the loss of key players can kill a project. Just because more middle-class white males may be forces to stop working on 'F/OSS' will not mean the end of F/OSS. OpenSource is not a business in competition with proprietary software. And as long as a project is Opensource, someone can dig up the old tapes and start patching away. The pool of raw talent is growing. Invite these new people in, they might be able to help.

Inability to upgrade, leads to more intense skill sets.

I agree that manufactures have been dumbing down the documentation. This is done not only to be friendly to the Aunt Mable crowd, but also protect this new "Intellectual Property" that the marketing department has gotten the legal department worked up about.

However, real - or open - standards vs fake - de-facto / Microsoft - standards are published in their gory detail. Many many books are published today on the details of how things work, worked and will work. However, you must go to your library and read them to benefit. Today many people want instahacking sk1llz at the push of button. Unfortunately, the real world is also garbage-in/garbage-out. Those 3rd world folks are required to put in the effort to make work what is just a push-of-a-button away for 1st world people. The difference if subtle: they have to read, you ought to read.

And, to top it off, I resent the SourceForge and all such "organizations". I much enjoy and miss, the days when each project had it's off-beat web-site hanging off of some obscure computer connection, or even hosted by some free hosting site like Geocities. Greatly enhanced the fealing of individuality and added a lot of color to the Linux community. When Sourceforge came around, it so much feals corporate, institutionalized and all the horrible things that most of us hate.

Enhanced the fealing (sic) of individuality? Don't you mean ugly?

Hmmm, let's see: sourceforge provides webhosting and other tools for a project, but how many still have their own websites?

• Slashcode @ sf.net points to slashcode.org
• keepass project's site is keypass.info
• filezilla is hosted at filezilla-project.org
• The TortoiseSVN project has a nice site at tortoisesvn.net
• Clamwin uses clamwin.com
• many more...

And that was just from clicking randomly on the top 10 downloads page. (Technically I also hit sourceforge's own project, but can you really blame sourceforge for hosting at sourceforge?) I don't really see the addition of a useful 'professional' index really impacting the 'feals' (sic) of the projects. I think it's less geocites and more "it's only 100 bucks, just register the domain already."

You still end up at some obscure computer connection for many projects. Not everything is a myproject.sourceforce.com site. However, for tiny projects they get free hosting and some do fairly

1. new people available to projects
2. old people now unavailable to project

I observe that at this time, the increase in new people on the Internet dwarfs changes in either rate. True, the loss of key players can kill a project. Just because more middle-class white males may be forces to stop working on 'F/OSS' will not mean the end of F/OSS. OpenSource is not a business in competition with proprietary software. And as long as a project is Opensource, someone can dig up the old tapes and start patching away. The pool of raw talent is growing. Invite these new people in, they might be able to help.

Inability to upgrade, leads to more intense skill sets.

I agree that manufactures have been dumbing down the documentation. This is done not only to be friendly to the Aunt Mable crowd, but also protect this new "Intellectual Property" that the marketing department has gotten the legal department worked up about.

However, real - or open - standards vs fake - de-facto / Microsoft - standards are published in their gory detail. Many many books are published today on the details of how things work, worked and will work. However, you must go to your library and read them to benefit. Today many people want instahacking sk1llz at the push of button. Unfortunately, the real world is also garbage-in/garbage-out. Those 3rd world folks are required to put in the effort to make work what is just a push-of-a-button away for 1st world people. The difference if subtle: they have to read, you ought to read.

And, to top it off, I resent the SourceForge and all such "organizations". I much enjoy and miss, the days when each project had it's off-beat web-site hanging off of some obscure computer connection, or even hosted by some free hosting site like Geocities. Greatly enhanced the fealing of individuality and added a lot of color to the Linux community. When Sourceforge came around, it so much feals corporate, institutionalized and all the horrible things that most of us hate.

Enhanced the fealing (sic) of individuality? Don't you mean ugly?

Hmmm, let's see: sourceforge provides webhosting and other tools for a project, but how many still have their own websites?

• Slashcode @ sf.net points to slashcode.org
• keepass project's site is keypass.info
• filezilla is hosted at filezilla-project.org
• The TortoiseSVN project has a nice site at tortoisesvn.net
• Clamwin uses clamwin.com
• many more...

And that was just from clicking randomly on the top 10 downloads page. (Technically I also hit sourceforge's own project, but can you really blame sourceforge for hosting at sourceforge?) I don't really see the addition of a useful 'professional' index really impacting the 'feals' (sic) of the projects. I think it's less geocites and more "it's only 100 bucks, just register the domain already."

You still end up at some obscure computer connection for many projects. Not everything is a myproject.sourceforce.com site. However, for tiny projects they get free hosting and some do fairly

Depending on what youre needs are, Seashore is a good OS X photo editing application built around GIMP code. It works like you'd expect an OS X app to work too.

actually it is easier if you use something like this http://dban.sourceforge.net/- it is better to get something that can hit all the sectors and if I remember right it does drives in parallel, and verification- there are other free wipers too, but for non-commercial/gov't use a single wipe takes out pretty much everything sans a few lines of the sector data when I have tried to recover the stuff with the equipment at work

yep, similar setup at my place. I had an old PIII 733MHZ. I put in a total of 512MB RAM, slackware 12. for backups, it rsync's to another box exactly like it, only with a smaller drive (soon to be replaced by equal sized drives).

Samba shares it out my wife's windows box and to my linux box. we even run apache and gallery on it for pictures and edna on it for mp3s.

the most taxing part is the rsync every night, but after the initial backup it only takes about a minute most days to sync it.

I would suggest something like this http://dban.sourceforge.net/ does a secure wipe on all drives on a machine, guys at work use it to wipe disks on decommissioned kit.

Anyway - what about debugging/validation tools for script languages like Python? (FindBugs(TM) exists for Java) From what I have seen of Python (not too much anyway) is that it is a bit more like Basic (or Fortran if you like) of the 80's. In a few years we will get "programmers with Python-syndrome". Not that Python doesn't have some good parts too - I don't deny that.

I'm a bit worried about the 'Python programmers smarter than Java programmers' statement. It may be true - but then - when they have moved on and maintenance has started - it's not the smart guys that are there anymore it's the average code dumpster divers that sits and tries to figure out what's happening...

There is a difference with a compiling language (like Java) is that when done right with declarations and dependency definitions you can end up getting a system that can be re-compiled and any mismatches can be resolved. In a scripting language you run the risk of not encountering such problems until runtime - where the cost of rectifying them will be much higher.

I think that the paradox is that the "smart" guys are always looking for new things to use - and they may use them well. This isn't really a paradox since the persons that are most prone to change assimilates new knowledge better than the others that are left with the old well-known parts. In a while today's Python-coders will move on to a new pasture unless they degrade and got stuck in Python.

Of course - this seems to end up in a conflict of "compiling" and "non-compiling" languages, same as the "soft" and "hard" type-checking conflict. These issues has been around since the 80's and even earlier.

In the end - it all comes down to how a language does not only in a small system but in a large integration where it is essential that you don't get runtime errors just because a function is called with a different number of parameters (that should have been detected at compile-time).

Personally I advocate for a language with strong data type checks together with the use of tools that allows the programmer to verify the code to not only look good, but also being safe and efficient. If you have a larger project you may want to use tools like PurifyPlus to verify not only the integrity of your code but also detect and allow you to resolve bottlenecks. (And any code regardless of programming language benefits from code optimization)

Another issue is to avoid intermixing of languages in the same code. This is often the case when it comes to web design where you often see a single JSP, PHP, ASP (or possibly other techniques too) file with HTML, Java (or corresponding Microsoft data), Javascript, XML Tag libraries and even VBScript (BARF!!!). Such code is often extremely hard to read. An editor with color-coding may prove helpful - but it's still a real pain.

So - essentially - there is no paradox at all - it's just that either you are a quick learner and race on to new challenges or you stick with the well-known (maybe because you HAVE to - not that you WANT to).

I also have also a small collection of old hard drives. About a year ago, I bought an external enclosure and converted one of the larger parallel ATA hard drives into and external USB hard drive. To do that, I used a Vantec NexStar GX NST-370GX external hard drive enclosure. I now use it as a backup device for all the files that I have on my computer.

Later on, I assembled another Vantec external drive as an additional second backup for the contents of my computer. Most of the time I keep that second backup disk hidden in another building, somewhere else, just in case burglars or fire cause the loss of my computer and the other external hard drive.

There are also similar external hard drive enclosures with a USB interface made by other companies. Some are for parallel ATA hard drives and some are for serial ATA hard drives.

If I were to ever give one of my old hard drives to someone else or throw it away, I would wipe everything off of it by using Darik's Boot and Nuke on the drive first.

Occasionally, I have just wanted to temporarily hook up an old hard drive, to see what is on it. Fortunately, the Linux computer which I built, has a case which can easily be opened in a few seconds by pulling on the handle and removing the side panel. Then with the side panel off, I just place the hard drive on a cardboard box beside the computer and hook the hard drive to an unused 80-pin parallel ATA connector and to a power connector. I don't actually take the time to fully install it in the computer, I just leave it hooked up next to the computer and boot the computer up, with the cover off.

On all of my more recent hard drives, the jumpers were already in the default cable select position. On the older ones, some of the jumpers are set to "master" and some are set to "slave" and some to "cable select." Fortunately, most of my old hard drives have a small chart printed on them showing how to set each possible jumper position. I wear an anti-static wrist strap when working on the computer and fortunately, I don't have carpeting on my floor (which can generate static).

• Vantec Nexstar 3 NST-370GX 3.5" USB 2.0 External Enclosure and USB Hub
• Darik's Boot and Nuke

Oh - there are alternatives to Java. The good thing with Java isn't that it's really a good language or that it's very efficient. But it is relatively easy to create reasonable solutions in it and it is portable.

For some solutions you may be better off using a different language. This since Java isn't the complete truth and solution either - and no programming language is.

I'm currently in progress of converting from OpenVMS running software written in Basic, C, C++, DCL and Java to Linux running almost only Java. The difference is that there are a large number of software packages and libraries available for Java that aren't available for many other languages. And to be portable between different environments is sometimes much more important than using the perfect language.

OK, it always help you if you have a good development tool. The days of a plain editor is almost over. Eclipse is a good development system. (even if it doesn't suit everybody and it has a few glitches). And don't ignore compiler warnings - even those that aren't on by default in the development environment - they are there for a reason. If you think that you can't get enough warnings you can always try FindBugs(TM) on your Java code.

Code comments are useful - but as always don't be excessive about it or you may obscure the code or the comments will get outdated. For an overview you may want to create pictures/flowcharts instead and insert as images in the JavaDoc comments and/or other documentation.

Spinrite http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm/ if the drives are damaged, Darik's Boot and Nuke http://dban.sourceforge.net/ to erase the data, and a six pack of Smithwicks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithwicks for the memories.

How well does it compare to Arbaro? That's the one I know about.

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

To 'clean' the drives.

Sledgehammer works good too.
We always take them apart. The magnets are fun to play with.

What is Overdose? I've searched Google, but all I get is links to Heroin recovery groups...

Ah, nevermind. Its a Yahoo! chat client. I should have searched Sourceforge instead...

Sorry for the off topic, but http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/ does a good job on my work machine. Free as in beer AND free as in speech, what a deal!

I think the key is being able to effectively control FF via GP.

I have tried Wetdog, however it didn't perform as advertised. I haven't tried Mozilla's ADM yet, but it didn't appear to be very GP friendly.

I agree though, if FF wants to be successful, it needs better/more administration tools, specifically designed for use in a MS/AD environment.

http://ngplant.sourceforge.net/

Plant generators have existed for a while. There was a proprietary one (that I forget the name of now) that was very good, and there's the above open source one as well. (Which I haven't actually used.)

As for making it easier for users to create virtual worlds... This is just one small aspect of a world, and doesn't even fully support that, from what I can see.

"Dryad trees are truly 3-D; they can be spun around or viewed from any angle. They also can be downloaded in the OBJ format and loaded into any major modeling program."

So it only creates a static OBJ. There's no animation, no information on how it flexes... You can't make this tree sway in the wind without the same tedious work that's always been necessary.

Saying this helps create virtual worlds is like a crayon manufacturer saying it helps create art... Sure, as long as you only want non-professional art. (And yes, just like crayons, you -can- make professional art with this if you have a ton of talent and are willing to put in the time.)

You haven't told me how many units Walmart had to sell.

gPC sales figures are unreleased from WalMart, but WalMart has re-upped their supply. If you imagine Walmart buying carloads and advertising it in their weekly flyers for Xmas you are severely deluded.

Has you ever given her the chance?

I think you mean, Have I ever given her the chance? Both of her older brothers run WinXP, Only one of them fulltime. She has plenty of opportunity to compare and contrast. There has been exactly one occasion that she has asked for an unsupported game, a game that is now supported.

Openoffice and other Open Source apps available on Windows. You say this as if it is a detriment of Linux/FLOSS? I love the claim that FLOSS apps started as Native Windows apps. StarOffice is probably the only one you could make that claim about. The fact that Firefox, Gimp, and OpenOffice have windows ports is not a reason for using windows . It is a way to keep your apps when you are chained to Windows Box at work. It is also a great way to introduce new people to FLOSS, making the switch is easier if all your daily apps are available.

Quoting sales figures of windows software is useless, What do you compare it to, # of downloads or hits at ftp.debian.com. Microsoft Office is popular, I never said it wasn't. I implied it was an unnecessary expense.

How many of these games have native Linux clients and how many need WINE or Caldega?

First off, it's Cedega and we don't use it. Most of the games I mentioned use Wine, but I fail to see the relevance. Wine is free, and makes those games run better than in native Windows in most cases. UT2k4, Doom3, Quake4 and a few others are Linux native. The 50 or so other games on her machine are native Linux apps.

What do you have against emulating games of yesteryear? I paid for it and it won't run in VISTA or XP or even Linux natively. Enter DosBox, problem solved. Again I point to my Sig, There are a ton of very good games for Linux and Windows. The pace of development is staggering.

My point is this: Linux is increasing in popularity, It's on your phone, your router, in your car, your digital camera, your internet tablet, digital picture frame, the fish finder on your boat, and even the controls of your hot tub.(You have me to thank for that last one.) The recent trend in PC manufacturers shipping Linux PCs is increasing and all your windows fanboyisms are not going to change that. Laptops from Asus, Everex, Lenova, Dell and OLPC sell like mad despite your perceived notion that not having windows will hurt their sales.

By The way, according to my search for Games at Sourceforge sorted by downloads, GlTron tops the list at 993,678 downloads. If you do it by category ZSNES tops it at 16,229,849 downloads, thats out of 22,681 or 14,583 projects (depending on which # you use). You are right that is significantly more than a truckload, sorry. Maybe you use a different Sourceforge though.

You can't have those particular proprietary programs. But with the exception of iTunes, you will find programs which do the same things exactly as well. The ones you are looking for are:

• Flash player and PDF reader are available direct from Adobe. Additionaly, there are several open source flassh players, and PDF renderers are everywhere. Open source Action Script compiler here. Blender can directly generate Flash movies as good as anything produced anywhere, while lots of other Linux programs can produce some Flash output;
• Open Office; KOffice;
• granted, there's no equivalent to iTunes which will talk to the iTunes store;
• Freewheeling, SooperLooper, Audacity, Rosegarden...;
• Starry nights? Hell! you know the professionals use Linux, don't you? Start here and stop somewhere beyond the horsehead nebula...
• As for GPS software, the list is so long I don't know where to start. Anything you want to do with more or less any GPS - from professional navigation for shipping (although that's proprietary and expensive) to mapping your walks in the woods - is available. What is it you want to do?

You can't have those particular proprietary programs. But with the exception of iTunes, you will find programs which do the same things exactly as well. The ones you are looking for are:

• Flash player and PDF reader are available direct from Adobe. Additionaly, there are several open source flassh players, and PDF renderers are everywhere. Open source Action Script compiler here. Blender can directly generate Flash movies as good as anything produced anywhere, while lots of other Linux programs can produce some Flash output;
• Open Office; KOffice;
• granted, there's no equivalent to iTunes which will talk to the iTunes store;
• Freewheeling, SooperLooper, Audacity, Rosegarden...;
• Starry nights? Hell! you know the professionals use Linux, don't you? Start here and stop somewhere beyond the horsehead nebula...
• As for GPS software, the list is so long I don't know where to start. Anything you want to do with more or less any GPS - from professional navigation for shipping (although that's proprietary and expensive) to mapping your walks in the woods - is available. What is it you want to do?

Ripple

Yeah, those examples are LAME.

... does this mean that if I'm on Orkut, I'll be able to add a friend whose on Facebook, and interact with them flawlessly? If not, then this is just a distraction to what social networking should look like.

I checked out the Coverity website and saw on the list of projects the aalib ASCII art library which according to the history hasn't been updated for something like 7 years.

Damn we better protect ourselves from Terrists hiding their WMD's in ASCI art

Email the link? Put the link on tinyurl and remember the 5 last characters.

That would still leave a trail directly to you.

There is a better wau. Usenet. Encrypt a file into (a series of) pictures with something like steghide. Post the pictures to any (relevant) binary newsgroup.

Delivery is done by the Usenet system, so there is NO link between the sender and the reciever. Encryption is done with gpg, so no real worries that even if people see there is something in it that they will be able to read it.

It has no access to anything in the system other than the data in the database - which is all this attack compromised. ... The attack merely used the applications write-access to its own database to modify the database contents - something that is nearly impossible to automatically protect against at the database server level.