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I've always considered it pretty hard to come up with a good passwords, so I've outsourced it to pwgen. uSaV1vei should be pretty good against dictionary attacks and it isn't that much harder to remember as long as you don't have very many of these kind of passwords. I use something like this only on important places, like at work. If you get access to my playlist you could probably guess my Slashdot password in three tries.

I'd add a computer algebra system, like Maxima (with its wxMaxima front-end) or Yacas. Very cool capabilities. Wikipedia's list of computer algebra systems gives lots of links to more info.

I'd add a computer algebra system, like Maxima (with its wxMaxima front-end) or Yacas. Very cool capabilities. Wikipedia's list of computer algebra systems gives lots of links to more info.

http://mumble.sourceforge.net/

Open alternative to TeamSpeak / Ventrilo.

        * Very low latency.
        * Denoising of audio.
        * Echo cancellation to enable playing on surround speakers.
        * Automatic volume control so all players are equally loud.
        * Positional audio with supported games (the voice of players comes from their direction ingame).
        * Unlimited number of channels with as deep a nesting as desired.
        * Per-channel groups and access control lists.

For years I've been searching for an open source application that would manage large mailing lists and have the marketing know-how of the Lsoft Listserv/Maestro bundle. I finally found it a couple months ago -- http://www.openemm.com/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/openemm The application is a single server spin off of the paid version by Agnitas in Germany. Once I installed it, I was so impressed with what this application does that I'm actually getting involved in the open source project. I'm assuming that's just going to be the trend: find the application you want in the open source world and since someone else has already invested a lot of time into the code, you feel almost obligated to help out.

He probably didn't know how to without paying Symantec.... Of course, you don't need to these days.

He probably didn't know how to without paying Symantec.... Of course, you don't need to these days.

Betrayal at krondor! Thank god for DOSBox!
I can't wait for a GC/Wii homebrew version of DOSBox (+virtual keyboard)... That would be neat. *sigh*

PDFCreator is not difficult to find: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
VLC is not just for Mac OS X.

...Adium (I know, Mac only, but it's OSS and could be ported and is a sweet IM client)...

You know, Adium is based on libgaim, the library Gaim uses. See this. Gaim kind of sucks compared to Adium though. Adium's user interface is much nicer, but that's not going to change any time soon, since Adium uses a bunch of Cocoa frameworks.

I would not force Linux on them, but there is a lot of Windows OSS;

AbiWord first of all.

Gnumeric spreadsheet

VideoLAN Client (VLC)

GAIM multi-protocol IM software

GZIP file compression tool

wxBASIC BASIC Interpeter or similar

Games! This whole list; http://osswin.sourceforge.net/games.html

I think this would about do it and still fit on a modest USB stick.

What do you think?

"I am completely broke and unable to continue developing LiVES." What a nice demonstration of the open source software development model's effectiveness.

I'm a big fan of http://plone.org/ which is a CMS that sits on top of the http://www.zope.org/ application server. All of which is OSS. I can't speak to OSS CRM but others here have. There are plenty of fantastic server side developer productivity boosting OSS software out there.

• Try http://jakarta.apache.org/ for lots of Java libraries.
• I find http://www.springframework.org/ is a great framework extension for Java.
• I like spring better, but http://www.hibernate.org/ provides an ORM for both Java and .NET developers.
• If you are working in Perl, then http://www.cpan.org/ is the place for you.

When it comes to client side software there is a huge amount of great OSS apps.

• I believe that http://sourceforge.net/projects/ganttproject/ is great for project management.
• I have used http://sourceforge.net/projects/freemind/ for years and know it to be a great mind mapping tool.
• I believe that http://live.gnome.org/Dia/ is a great diagramming tool.
• I'm a big fan of http://www.umlet.com/ and find it to be very useful for creating UML diagrams.
• I switched from sodipodi to http://www.inkscape.org/ which is fantastic for drawing vector images.
• I am also a big fan of http://www.gimp.org/ which is used to draw raster images.

I have used all of these projects for years and would most definitely label them as quality, winner OSS.

I'm a big fan of http://plone.org/ which is a CMS that sits on top of the http://www.zope.org/ application server. All of which is OSS. I can't speak to OSS CRM but others here have. There are plenty of fantastic server side developer productivity boosting OSS software out there.

• Try http://jakarta.apache.org/ for lots of Java libraries.
• I find http://www.springframework.org/ is a great framework extension for Java.
• I like spring better, but http://www.hibernate.org/ provides an ORM for both Java and .NET developers.
• If you are working in Perl, then http://www.cpan.org/ is the place for you.

When it comes to client side software there is a huge amount of great OSS apps.

• I believe that http://sourceforge.net/projects/ganttproject/ is great for project management.
• I have used http://sourceforge.net/projects/freemind/ for years and know it to be a great mind mapping tool.
• I believe that http://live.gnome.org/Dia/ is a great diagramming tool.
• I'm a big fan of http://www.umlet.com/ and find it to be very useful for creating UML diagrams.
• I switched from sodipodi to http://www.inkscape.org/ which is fantastic for drawing vector images.
• I am also a big fan of http://www.gimp.org/ which is used to draw raster images.

I have used all of these projects for years and would most definitely label them as quality, winner OSS.

is there a lightweight CSS-compatible browser that's not a memory pig

I'm looking for one too. I'm planning to evaluate Atlantis, but haven't done so yet because you need to build it from source and I haven't taken the time yet.

Apple took the guts of Konqueror and made a library. Someone else took that library and made a GTK+ version called GTK+ WebCore. Someone else wrote a simple GTK+ application using that library, and that's Atlantis.

I want a browser that looks nice (I want subpixel antialiasing, Japanese characters correct, etc.) and absolutely does not leak memory. I'm hoping Atlantis will work out for that.

http://www.akcaagac.com/index_atlantis.html

And it's actually OpenVistA. Note the trailing upper case.

Erm, except that its SourceForge page says that it's OpenVista.

http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?doci d=14041&group_id=1#project

This rocks; http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpscheduleit I use it at our University helpdesk for loaning out cameras, external HDD's etc, and I also use it as a booking system for a small aircraft owned by our 6-man group. A great example of someone spending hundreds of hours of their own time writing software with huge real-world value, and for absolutely no reward.

This is a project that was once was a commerically held game, whose development company went out of business, but the code was still being held by Edios (Pumpkin Studio's pimp in this case). It's a gret RTS, despite its age. I say winner because its good to see this project saved and its code made availble. I also say lose because it problly won't grow anymore than it has. Winner: http://sourceforge.net/projects/warzone2100/

What I do absolutely need, however, is a fast browser that's light on resources.

Hmm, I wonder where you might be able to find such a browser that supports modern technology...

http://datadraw.sourceforge.net/

Slow down cowboy ! Slashdot requires blah blah blah..

The space below intentionally left blank.

Now, why this is all labled under the term "Tuxphone" is beyond me. It's misleading at best. But it's probably still the most open effort around, as there simply is NO completely open solution here. There are lots and lots of companies which claim to offer an Open Source cellphone, but they all lie. When it gets right down to it, there's at least one part which is closed off and locked up. This includes Trolltech's Greenphone.

Note there are better replacement libraries for the Tuxphone, which are more robust, generalized and secure. Here's one: libgsmc.sourceforge.net .

Regarding the Carriers, this entire project doesn't appear to deal with the protocol that goes out over the airwaves. That's still locked up. What this DOES deal with is standardizing the interface to the chips which DO handle the actual airwave protocol.

GSM chips offer an interface which is just like a modem. ATDT..., but taken well beyond what Hayes originally intended. Yet it still works. So this effort doesn't seem to be dealing with the airwave protocols at all.

Or, in short, no, you won't be able to hack the cellphone network.

Regarding DRM, that remains to be seen. It's unlikely that any DRM will be put in for GSM. GSM is a well-defined international standard that anyone can use. But for non-GSM networks, forget it. There's not a chance in the world that the Carriers will open up their non-GSM networks. They like it locked down, and strongly so. Otherwise, they can reem you for all the rediculous charges on your cellphone.

Or, in otherwords, it's not your phone. It's theirs.

I use tools like this and this in order to to tease out the information needed. UML is much further down in the process.

I use tools like this and this in order to to tease out the information needed. UML is much further down in the process.

This is the same approach that is built-in to the qore language http://qore.sourceforge.net/.

It makes it really easy to manipulate data in XML format.

However, qore supports deserialization of mixed text and data and multiple out-of order elements, XML attributes (imagine parsing a docbook file for example), as well as serialization (conversion of a qore data structure to an XML string) with the same features.

The same limitations regarding streaming input and very large files affect this approach, but in all other common cases, it makes it really remarkably easy to manipulate and create data in XML format using this approach.

(Qore also supports JSON with the same approach -- serialization and deserialization between JSON strings and qore data structures...)

thanks,
David

Mind for MSIE has recently developed the ability to embark upon meandering chains of thought. Not only must concepts from one idea give rise to a branching idea, but the artificial AI Mind must be able to deal with gaps in its own knowledge base and dead ends where no further data are available.

The Technological Singularity should be here by 2012 at the latest. AI was incredibly hard, but now AI has been solved.

Yes, so determined that they're actually paying for someone else to do it and host it on sourceforge.

http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/

"Novell's contribution to the ODF Converter project is porting and integration with OpenOffice.org"

Can some cat from Novell remind us all which part of openoffice.org is written in C#?

The only hard part is the ludicrously low pay and non-existent benefits. It really really sucks not having medical coverage for my family. But for me, it's still been worth it. After a grueling first semester of teaching, I went back to a high tech job for six months at 4 times the pay. But it quickly grew VERY tedious, so now I'm back teaching again.

The programming experience was also a great help for my research. There is SO much opportunity for software development in the biosciences, that I strongly recommend it to all who value creative intellectual work over financial benefit. As an additional (more speculative) incentive, I'm hopeful that biotech will someday make the transition from risky research to profitable engineering. If and when that happens, those with the experience should expect opportunities and payoffs that make the dotcom boom pale in comparison.

mhack

Try Basic 256.

If you have kids, it's excellent. If you don't, working on it is a great programming exercise, and helps potential new programmers out.

We're about to do a new release, too, that includes sound support for windows.

The correct link for the installer is here:

http://shellter.sourceforge.net/evolution/

Our company is the same. Our previous IT "guy" was 100% *nix. He used to bring in different flavors of *nix on a CD and say, "Hey, Try these!". I use Windows normally, but he knew I was a system and network admin of Solaris systems running on Sun machines. As hard as he tried, we (like the article's author) just couldn't make it work for the company. I manage about 18 people and I tried making OpenOffice work, but as soon as we tried working with someone's M$ file (from PowerPoint or Word), the document was really screwy. It got to the point that I'd sometimes just export information as an HTML file so that I knew the style, format and look would stay intact (but they couldn't modify it well with Oo). I eventually asked for 18 M$ licenses, and was limited due to fiscal decisions to only 8. The 8 who got full M$ office had no problems, and the rest limped along.

Now, 3 years later, the remaining Linux systems and OpenSource software is on it's way out the door. Exectutives are now balking at limited Calender and some other limitations. You might say, "What has changed?" We're getting executives from other, more technologically advanced companies. So they want the full functionality (which, regretfully, means tons of more meetings....something I didn't miss from my previous, IT-savy company).

Although, it's ironic I got the CEO and other VPs hooked on WebCalendar for scheduling outside of work.

I like the little 8051 chips from Silicon Labs http://www.silabs.com./ A good variety of diffrent 8051 chips with various perpherials. Dev kits for only $100 comes with an eval Keil C compiler but you can download SDCC http://sdcc.sourceforge.net/ that will integrate with the IDE.

I agree that the MSP430 is a good processor. The micro-processors course at my university has been using it for 2 years. Crossworks for MSP430 is a nice IDE that has an educational license for $299. If that's too steep, you can go with the open source mspgcc.

Go with AVRs and get a real free C++ compiler. Assembler? Dunno, I've never needed to touch it.

Kernel Virtual Machine - http://sourceforge.net/projects/kvm/

Previously I was using the Logitech Quickcam Web via the qc-usb driver which died after 4 years of nearly constant use. Now I'm using a Logitech QuickCam Communicate STX (the older model product id 0x08ad) supported via the qspcav driver. Overall both of these drivers have been very stable for me, YMMV.

You're going to be doing a lot of tinkering.

If you get a big-endian (e.g. PowerPC) thin-client and use a little-endian (e.g. i386) back-room machine (your existing workstation), you're in for pain: conceptually all things X should be endianness-neutral, but lots of software simply has bugs that hinder features or render that software unusable. Examples: MPlayer, XScreenSaver, and things that do "exotic" things with the display: video playback, 3D graphics, etc.

For ordinary programs and plain graphics, X11 over a LAN works tremendously well. You'll probably be without sound, though: lots of programs expect to be able to open a local sound card and pump stuff out to that. You'll need to run a sound server (ESound works well) and ensure all sound-utilizing programs you'll run will work with that sound server. For GNOME on Ubuntu on a virtual machine without /dev/dsp, sound "just worked" as clients apparently deduced the location of the ESound server from the DISPLAY environment variable; I don't use GNOME much at all, though; YMMV.

If you do like tinkering, search eBay for the IBM NetworkStation 1000; I got mine for less than $20, after shipping. These are powered by PowerPC processors, and have Ethernet, PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors, a serial port, and a parallel port. They also have sound and smart card hardware, not supported by Linux. They are extremely small, and contain no moving parts. They use a laptop-style power supply. There's an unofficial modification to the Linux 2.4 kernel to get it booting on these things; though the project seems dead.

You can find other thin-clients on eBay for dirt cheap. For maximum party pleasure, make sure you can run Linux on whatever you consider purchasing. If you want sound or USB support, make sure you check that the machine has this hardware. Make sure yours uses Ethernet; there's at least some Token Ring thin-clients in existence.

USB in a Linux thin-client environment blows chunks. There's a project to encapsulate USB over TCP streams; it's semi-dead and has some reliability and polish issues. There's no other way to smoothly support floppy or CD-ROM drives on your thin-clients, even if they have that hardware. Some people might suggest running an FTP server on your thin-client and SSHing in to mount or unmount; I find that disgusting.

As somebody mentioned, iMacs work. Linux runs fairly well out-of-the-box on this platform. These also support netbooting. Make sure to get one without a system fan—remove the hard disk, and you'll have no moving parts.

Whatever you do, don't waste your time with LTSP. It's a distribution of Linux specialized for running on thin-clients, but for some unimaginable reason the "LTSP way" also involves installing their opaque software packages on the (confusingly-named) "server." If you can even run Linux on some platform, you're better off installing Linux on it directly. After that, enable XDMCP with xdm, gdm, or whatever you use on your existing workstation, and throw a line into /etc/inittab on the thin-client (e.g. 7X:23:respawn:/usr/bin/X11/X -query workstation-address ).

You've heard of DOSBox, haven't you?

was an interesting article, particularly the part about the hybrid "roadrunner" architecture.

However what is more relevant to today's non-supercomputing needs is SMP scalability.

One of the challenges with SMP scalability is cache coherency; synchronizing the caches on the processors is a costly operation (this is necessary to ensure that each processor has the same view of certain memory at the same time), normally (always?) done with a cache invalidation.

So the more invalidations you do, the more often the processor has to fetch memory from main memory, and the less it's using its cache. Processing slows down dramatically.

I've tried to design the qore programming language http://qore.sourceforge.net/ to be scalable on SMP systems. The new version (released today) has some interesting optimizations that have resulting in a large performance boost on SMP machines - the optimizations involve reducing the number of cache invalidations to the minimum (more than just reducing locking, although that is a part of it too - even an atomic update - for example on intel an assembly lock and increment - involves a cache invalidation and therefore is an expensive operation on SMP platforms). There is more work to be done, but in simple benchmarks of affected code paths the performance increase was between 2 and 3 times as fast with the optimizations on the same qore code.

Anyway it would be interesting to know if other high-level programming languages have also taken the same approach (or will do so); as we go forward, it's clear that SMP scalability will be an important topic for the future...

http://hplip.sourceforge.net/

Do you mean something like this? It's been around for some time now, however, I haven't been able to try it out yet since I primarily run Mac OS X.

If all Windows users have to boot their PC daily, can you please explain my Windows box being up for well over a month so far without needing a reboot? While continuously running BOINC, microtorrent, Steam, Hamachi, and about 5-6 other programs in the background?

And of course, Windows has absolutely no way of hiding all those tasks, or the taskbar, or anything else. Of course, there are also no programs or add-ons straight from MS or anyone else that give you more than one virtual desktop for WinXP, and have been since 2002. I could go on but you get the picture - you, as usual, have no idea what you're talking about. Desktops are only as cluttered as the people who use them.

If all Windows users have to boot their PC daily, can you please explain my Windows box being up for well over a month so far without needing a reboot? While continuously running BOINC, microtorrent, Steam, Hamachi, and about 5-6 other programs in the background?

And of course, Windows has absolutely no way of hiding all those tasks, or the taskbar, or anything else. Of course, there are also no programs or add-ons straight from MS or anyone else that give you more than one virtual desktop for WinXP, and have been since 2002. I could go on but you get the picture - you, as usual, have no idea what you're talking about. Desktops are only as cluttered as the people who use them.

PoDoFo http://podofo.sourceforge.net/ too

on OS X I like Preview

Preview is good. PDFView is better.

• flpsed
• PDF Edit
• KWord
• Scribus
• Inkscape
• GIMP
• pdftk
• Jarnal
• Multivalent

I know that I can print to XPS right now, but I can't print to PDF without paying 300 bones (standard edition) or 449 (professional).

Let me introduce you to PDFCreator -- free, open source printing to PDF. If you want to create interactive forms and such, the Adobe software is worth the money; but for simple PDF printing, all you need is PDFCreator. (Or OpenOffice, for that matter, which has "Save to PDF" built in.)

"All the people complaining about DRM should actually DO something"

DONE.

Sayings - Deterred Bahamian Novel - http://www.ourmedia.org/node/262954

Tings - Anuddah Bahamian Novel - http://www.ourmedia.org/node/85937 &
http://www.ourmedia.org/node/111123

drew Roberts's Storefront - Lulu.com - http://www.lulu.com/zotz

Some tings for you from zotz : CafePress.com - http://www.cafepress.com/zotz

Now for some other stuff of mine:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zotzbr o&search=Search
http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=(creator%3 A%22drew%20Roberts%22)%20OR%20(collection%3A(ourme dia)%20AND%20%2Fmetadata%2Fauthor%3A(drew%20Robert s))
http://code.google.com/p/drsoundwall/
http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145
http://musicians.opensrc.org/DrewRoberts
https://sourceforge.net/projects/zbcw

I am not the only one doing such things either. For instance:

http://ccmixter.org/media/tags/attribution

"so CREATE something yourself and see how it works voluntarily instead of forcing authors to agree with your politics."

Ah, I am not the one running to get copyright laws amended over and over. Retroactively. There was a legal (lopitical?) agreement made with the public, but it wasn't good enough for some. They wanted to change the agreement. Now it is wrong for others to change it back to something more like it was? Or even completely different?

Seems some people are trying to force us into new "agreements." Why should we not fight back?

all the best,

drew