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OpenBSD want to distribute firmware along with the OS under an acceptable license. They are not asking for the source
code of the firmware. Intel are instractible here, so owners of Intel wireless devices needs to personally accept a license
before downloading the firmware. As an example: http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/firmware.php

As for open source drivers: OpenBSD wants hardware documentation, not a Linux driver, so that they can write their own drivers.
Intel claims that they are open source friendly and gives out documentation, but the last is clearly a lie since OpenBSD had to reverse
engineer several Intel wireless chipsets.

Giving the appearance of beeing friendly to open source, while not beeing so, is the latest fad in business. Intel is an example
of this fad.

Upon selecting a link above you will be taken to the firmware license agreement. Agreeing to the terms
presented on that page will direct your browser to the firmware download.

I (not the gp author) left EJB because I could not stand the redundant XML configuration, -Home and -Remote classes and so on. EJB3 gets rid of those classes but a (for most users) completely redundant configuration stays as it is present with Hibernate and many other persistence frameworks. I never understood why everyone would want those since it all can be written in pure Java code.
But now there is cope which I try to use as much as a can (read: as much as clients permit me to) since it does everything (schema, persistence mapping, searches and so on) in Java. Small, fast and very powerful.

http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/

but obviously not enough for *BSD

While I actually think TFA is virtually useless, I understand that people want better wireless support for their various open source OS's. Intel's drivers for this are really quite open when compared to most others, but if you want drivers that are more open than Intel's, choose ones with the RT2400, RT2500, RT2570, and RT61 chipsets by RaLink. The drivers were open-sourced last year and have progressed quite well. Find more info at http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php/Main _Page and http://sourceforge.net/projects/rt2400.

Others answered the question but I can add practical experience here. For A while I tied splint [1] and after after a while it became clear that the greatest problem whas the lack of array bound.

I tried hard, realy hard to get splints bound checking to work - but in the end it did not work out.

The project is not stalled since 2004 [2] and for me it is now clear that the "Secure Programming Lint" was a hopeless endeavor.

As for casting: Ada has about 3 different ways of type convertions and is still provable. The difference here is implicid type conversing. My favorite example:

unsigned i = -1;

The result depends on the compiler in particular if it is a 16 bit, 32 bit or 64 bit compiler.

And last not least: C has been patched to many times. The first C is from about around 1973 and did not feature unsigned (the reason why Unix file I/O features a 2 and not 4 GB limit), struct and arrays. Yep, the [] syntax was patched on later.

Now speaking of patching the C language: C99 does have propper arrays with bounds attached to them. But there is allmost no compiler which implements this C99 feature. M$ and Borland have no plans for variant arrary, GNU C has it on the bug list for years now (depite the fact that GNU Ada has variant arrarys since the first release from ruffly 1998).

Martin

PS: I have programmed in Ada, C, C++, Java and Pascal and my favorite language is now Ada.

[1] http://www.splint.org/
[2] http://sourceforge.net/projects/splint

It would not be better to use the browser to show only HTML, extend HTML document oriented tags with application oriented tags, SVG and use a protocol designed for applications not one for download documents? A protocol like X11 but with HTML, DOM nodes and DOM modifications. A stateful protocol without cookies, binary, designed for minimizing the amount of data traffic needed between server and client. An asynchronous protocol with witch server can send HTML pages and DOM modifications to the client/browser at any moment and the cliente/browser shows the HTML, make the DOM modifications and sends function execution request to the server with user input. Just some ideas

Niel Armstrong did have alot of critics who complained that he changed his story, or was trying to change what he had apparently said in order to make it sound better/different. This computer analysis should quiet his critics, but the unfortunate truth is most of the public will probably never hear about this analysis and life will go on...

There was an interview several years back where Mr. Armstrong said that he said the word *A* during his famous radio transmission from the moon. Someone could try Voice Stress Analysis on that interview to determine if he is lying or telling the truth, to verify the results of this analysis. =)

You should look into using Darik's Boot and Nuke. It is very easy to use and works great - just boot up off the disc, select which drive/partition you want to wipe out, select the method, and it does everything else. Takes awhile to completely wipe out the drive, but the time it takes is worth it. At the place I work, when we occasionally have to deal with problem laptops, even if it has nothing to do with the hard drive, I still send it back with everything (minus the battery). HP suggests taking the hard drive out, but I would rather just leave everything there incase there is a problem when shipping it back to them. Even if there might not be sensitive data on the drive, I still completely wipe it out with Darik's.

If you're talking about Star Control, why not add a link to it as well? :)

np: Sly & Robbie ft. Wyclef Jean & Bounty Killer - Bounce (Rhythm Doubles)

You also make indexed PNGs with variable transparency with tools such as pngquant and pngnq.

Also a half decade old program probably has worse compression then OptiPNG.

1. Reduce color depth if the quality lossis acceptable, it certainly is if you would use GIF.
2. Use OptiPNG.

It's funny how you mention MNG like you have the slightest clue what it is when you obviously don't. MNG is not "animated PNG". The description "animated PNG and/or JNG" would be more accurate. Do you have any guess what the J in JNG stands for?

If you want a cross-platform open-source browser that natively supports MNG, head on over to http://mngzilla.sourceforge.net/.

Yep, you're probably doing something wrong.

First, pick the proper colour mode (palette vs. 24bit). Crunch the palette as small as you actually need. And, of course, use the highest possible compression level.

Tools like pngcrush are also invaluable because you can leave out stuff you absolutely don't need. pngcrush -cc -brute tends to leave GIFs home weeping. =)

Paradroid is an absolute classic (and the first game I ever bought on diskette). The "battle for control" of other droids brains is one of the most fun action-puzzles I've ever played. The smooth scrolling 'hi-res' graphics were a class above at the time. And finally, one of the robots you could take over was a Dalek in all but name! Mmmm Daleks. The control felt great, the tension and challenge are also superb -- this is from back when games weren't soothingly easy. And the flavor and illustration of the wide variety of droids is also fun.

Everyone else, if you haven't played Paradroid, find it and run it under emulation (or download it for Wii if it ever makes it). It's definitely one of those games that has aged well and is still both challenging and fun.

Or... try one of these remakes for some flavor:
http://freedroid.sourceforge.net/
http://www.jpct.net/paradroidz/paradroidz.html
http://www.paradroid.ovine.net/

Dirac is out there and has been for a long time

Oh yes indeed. There's even a video to watch while you're waiting...

BTW, more info on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_(codec).

Is this the Dirac project that's being run by the Duke Nukem team?

I fail to see the relevance of this comment. Dirac is out there and has been for a long time, though the speed isn't quite there yet. You can download version 0.6 from the official web site. Hell, it's even available in the Ubuntu repositories.

Yeah. Don't they use a spell checker?

Try this: http://www.iespell.com/
or this: http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/
or this: http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/opera/spell check/

I find it amusing how you said that, and were modded insightful. This requires serious lack of sarcasm in both you, and all the people that modded you.

Actualy, there is some truth to the grand-parent's statement about PDF. Check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pdf

If you stick to the subset of PDF that is an ISO standard and don't touch any Patent from Adobe, you can make a PDF generator (http://www.google.com/search?q=pdf+generator).

That is the reason why OpenOffice.org support exporting to PDF. That is also the reason why you can print directly to PDF any unix flavor... or on Windows with GPL tools: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

Parallel BZIP2 (PBZIP2) and bzip2smp are parallel implementations of bzip2. I've not looked for any similar gzip implmentations.

http://openvpn.net/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sslexplorer

*sigh*

This will be interesting since I was wondering how the RCU+SMR stuff will play out and I don't want to wait a year to find out. I'm guessing patent application 20020194436 "Software implementation of synchronous memory Barriers" will get expanded and generalized somewhat. Note, I am not filing patent applications since I'm not under an IP agreement like Paul. Kind of a free agent at this point.

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=deta il&aid=1559571&group_id=4421&atid=354421

-Rick

almost...

http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/

Eh,

http://www.quagga.net/
http://off.net/~jme/vrrpd/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vrrpd/


To bored to finish feeding you today...

1. Vertical montor. Look at all the delicous, delicious code.
   
2. Blackbox.
   
3. A menu shortcut for opening 4 xterms, three on the left and one tall one on the right, filling all the space on the screen. I should have one for an emacs and three xterms (like in the above screenshot), but I don't.
   
4. Nine virtual desktops, each one accessible via Ctrl + Shift + one of the letters in the 3x3 block at the left edge of the keyboard (QWE / ASD / ZXC). I think of them as a big 3x3 square, and certain applications always live in certain places. A web browser is always in the top center (Ctrl-Shift-W), programming is in the left center (Ctrl-Shift-A), etc. I can keep as many applications open as I need, all full-screen, and I can shift to the one I want quickly with one (non-mousing) hand. Thinking of the desktops spatially makes it easier to remember where things are.
   

Is a desktop GUI that is based on the menu system style of MythTV instead of "START". This would make it SO easy to navigate for novices, I mean, after all, what's wrong with a GUI for a computer that was made to be easy enough to navigate for people who watch TV?

For video, I have better luck(on Windows XP) with the various FFMpeg based players(VLC, mplayer) than I do with directshow(Windows Media Player, winamp, etc). They don't do drm, but the codec support and fault tolerance is way better. They at least try to play broken video files, which is a big improvement over WMP. FFDShow installs FFMpeg as a directshow filter, giving you access to the codecs in the gui of your choice.

Links:

http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/
http://ffdshow.sourceforge.net/tikiwiki/tiki-view_ articles.php

Artificial Intelligence is coming a lot sooner than 2020.

The Singularity Timetable predicts True AI in 2006; an AI landrush in 2007; human-level AI by 2008; and Superintelligent AI by 2012.

AI has been solved in both theory for neuroscience and software for robots.

A theory of artificial intelligence has been implemented in Forth for robots and in JavaScript for tutorial artificial intelligence.

AI in Forth is free, open-source artificial intelligence for robots.

JavaScript for Artificial Intelligence describes how even a simple language like JavaScript is ideal for instructional artificial intelligence tutorials.

The Joint Stewardship of Earth will be in effect long before the year 2020.

Turing Store Books tells you all about the very most important writings by human beings about the coming artificial intelligence.

Mind.html in JavaScript has an enormous installed user base and can no longer be stopped from engendering a global AI Mind by 2020 if not sooner.

Artificial Intelligence is coming a lot sooner than 2020.

The Singularity Timetable predicts True AI in 2006; an AI landrush in 2007; human-level AI by 2008; and Superintelligent AI by 2012.

AI has been solved in both theory for neuroscience and software for robots.

A theory of artificial intelligence has been implemented in Forth for robots and in JavaScript for tutorial artificial intelligence.

AI in Forth is free, open-source artificial intelligence for robots.

JavaScript for Artificial Intelligence describes how even a simple language like JavaScript is ideal for instructional artificial intelligence tutorials.

The Joint Stewardship of Earth will be in effect long before the year 2020.

Turing Store Books tells you all about the very most important writings by human beings about the coming artificial intelligence.

Mind.html in JavaScript has an enormous installed user base and can no longer be stopped from engendering a global AI Mind by 2020 if not sooner.

It's just as good as any other proprietary freeware racing game. I would prefer to support the development of a Free one, like torcs.

Microsoft created a product that, IF USED CORRECTLY (and programmed to correctly), works just fine.

And what was the name of this mysterious product? Its certainly nothing that has seen the light of day.

Its certainly not any version of Windows, with that wonderful "surf the net, get your patches automatically ... oops, you're already owned before you have a chance to install the first patch" user experience ...

It can't be Microsoft Office, which confuses the heck out of most people when doing even simple tasks ... and leaks all your edits, private annotations, revision history, etc., as well as piggybacking macro viruses ...

It can't be Outlook ... "where am I going to send your files today"

Internet Explorer, with the "sploit of the day?" Nah.

The simple fact is that if all a person is using is those 4 pieces of software, replacing them with linux, openoffice, thunderbird and firefox is doing them a favour.

Heck, someone even came out with a replacement for Clippy that runs under linux. http://vigor.sourceforge.net/screenshots/ Is it cheesy? Yes. That's the whole point.

I just use FLVSplitter and open them in any DirectShow capable player/editor. WMP or MPC work.

Usually I run them through an AviSynth DirectShowSource() script and then open them in VirtualDub, where I can apply filters, edit, and/or reencode.

http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php

The web URL may be misleading by being written as "youtube_en.php", but you can change the source bias to any of perhaps 30 different proprietary media accessories, including YouTube and GoogleVideo. The media format to download is nothing more than what the author pre-programmed to detect what is available on that website. Most Google Videos I download are available in WMV, MPEG4, and FLV. It seems some I've downloaded only let me use the default FLV. From what I've downloaded on YouTube, I have yet to find a format other than FLV for some reason.

Of'course, once the file is complete it can be converted to a more needful format than FLV by using Transcode with a good front-end or perhaps MediaCoder.

Anyone have anything better?

I made up a quick little shell script to update the rlists, and stats.:

mv pubring.mix pubring_old.mix

mv rlist.txt rlist_old.txt

mv pubring.asc pubring_old.asc

mv type2.list type2_old.list

mv mlist.txt mlist_old.txt

wget http://stats.melontraffickers.com/pubring.mix

wget http://stats.melontraffickers.com/pgp-rsa.asc -O pubring.asc

wget http://stats.melontraffickers.com/type2.list

wget http://stats.melontraffickers.com/rlist.txt

I just run this in the directory all the mixmaster stuff is in.

mplayer gui
http://mpui.sourceforge.net/

For Windows CD ripping, I always used CDex (rips using cdparanoia, automatically grabs titles from FreeDB, and encodes using an included version of LAME).

I use CDex for all my ripping needs.

It's one program, has great quality, an easy user interface (I configure everything one time, insert a CD, click 'OK' after it completes the CDDB query, and click the 'Burn' button).

It rips fast, can use any number of formats (my collection is primarily ogg vorbis) without additional configuration headache, and is free (as in beer and speech. Or whatever the two freedoms people like around here).

It only runs on Windows though, but since you were talking about WMP, I don't think that's a problem for you.

Who the hell still uses WMP anyway?

  http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

http://sqlunit.sourceforge.net/ is based on JUnit and it specifically designed to test databases and result sets. It is what I use when building automated test streams. Supports many databases on fresh download and can be extended easily if required.

Not even the smallest distros provide you for that (according to recomendations... however, once I have time, I'll try to get it to run with XFCE or some *box).

I can't argue with your experiences with the USB 2.0 upgrade; my Neuros was upgraded just fine. They did have some production quality issues with the USB 2.0 units as well, which meant a lot of people had to ship stuff back and forth. This was a bummer, and it took them a while to get it straightned out. They eventually did.

The PC software they provided was awful. If you think it was bad with a 20G player, try it with an 80G. Solution: Use the open source replacement for that software. The requirements for this were available long before the C# code or firmware was, and there are several good replacements.

They also did open-source the firmware. It's all there on the website, and a number of people have alternate firmware available. It took them some wrangling to get all the rights to do the releases - they also had to drop a feature to do it - but the entire firmware is open source. You can find it at: http://neuros-firmware.sourceforge.net/

Before you thrash someone for not doing what they promised, check to see that it's actually true. While it did take them a while to get it all out, they said they would, and they have.

So you're saying that programming languages should be designed around Microsoft Word? And for the record, I see no reason why you couldn't edit Python code using MS Word. Even if you couldn't, you could just install gvim for Win32 or just dump it into a folder and run it from there (if you don't have admin access to the machine), or use Notepad, or whatever.

You're grasping at straws. So far, you've given me all sorts of reasons why whitespace significance could hypothetically be a problem, but no examples of how it actually is a meaningful problem in real life. I cringed at the thought of Python's whitespace significance when I first used it. I got over it in about a week, because it just isn't a problem.

I have found exactly one scenario where the whitespace handling is a problem: in mod_python Python Server Pages (basically inline-able Python code, like you can do with PHP). Even there, it worked, but I just didn't trust it to be maintainable. On the other hand, most people consider inlining code that way to be bad practice anyway. Furthermore, if you use the more elaborate Spyce intead of mod_python's built-in methanism, you can use braces around blocks anyway.

The bottom line is that I've been using Python, often in a professional capacity, for about 5 years, and the "whitespace issue" has just never been a serious problem, and has been quite helpful for when I've had to debug other people's code. You, so far, haven't convinced me that it can be a real problem, because you haven't given me any real examples of where Python was the wrong choice of language due to the way it handles whitespace.

So you're saying that programming languages should be designed around Microsoft Word? And for the record, I see no reason why you couldn't edit Python code using MS Word. Even if you couldn't, you could just install gvim for Win32 or just dump it into a folder and run it from there (if you don't have admin access to the machine), or use Notepad, or whatever.

You're grasping at straws. So far, you've given me all sorts of reasons why whitespace significance could hypothetically be a problem, but no examples of how it actually is a meaningful problem in real life. I cringed at the thought of Python's whitespace significance when I first used it. I got over it in about a week, because it just isn't a problem.

I have found exactly one scenario where the whitespace handling is a problem: in mod_python Python Server Pages (basically inline-able Python code, like you can do with PHP). Even there, it worked, but I just didn't trust it to be maintainable. On the other hand, most people consider inlining code that way to be bad practice anyway. Furthermore, if you use the more elaborate Spyce intead of mod_python's built-in methanism, you can use braces around blocks anyway.

The bottom line is that I've been using Python, often in a professional capacity, for about 5 years, and the "whitespace issue" has just never been a serious problem, and has been quite helpful for when I've had to debug other people's code. You, so far, haven't convinced me that it can be a real problem, because you haven't given me any real examples of where Python was the wrong choice of language due to the way it handles whitespace.

One of you is vehemently arguing oranges...ORANGES! The other is scolding you for not using apples.

Just give up fighting and let the LaTex nerds have their due. You've got to understand that they firmly believe that their software is ideal for every single possible application out there, instead of just good for a few specific things (i.e. Tex with math formulas is amazing).

Me? It kind of creeps me out to embed symbols in text that's going to be put to a page, because it takes me back to the dark days of using Perfect Writer. WYSIWYG writing is an absolute godsend for me, but I certainly don't use it for everything. I'm a published fiction writer myself, and these days I use FreeMind for fiction writing. I find that it really helps to take me from the brainstorming phases to the first key pages pretty easily. It's an invaluable tool for any kind of writer, and it can be whatever you want it to be--an outlining tool, a planning aid, etc. You might want to check it out. :)

• Bibus
• refbase
• Zotero

• Bibus
• refbase
• Zotero

I am also in need of good citation support & am a bit of geek about it (I am a co-developer of refbase).

There are a few issues with your post.

An office suite is A LOT more than a bibliographic management system & it would not be a small task to implement it in XUL in Firefox. There have been a number of online word processors & they haven't yet seen great success.

The other thing is that Endnote is not that great of a bibliographic manager & there are more serious attempts to replace it. Zotero for Firefox will be worth watching. The new MS XML format has metadata support for citations. And OO.o has the bibliographic project to add citation support to OO.o. Bruce D'Arcus's blog is worth following.

I have done document capture using a scanner and a digital camera.

It falls into three main steps:
- 1. Acquire the image via camera or scanner
- 2. Fix image quality
- 3. (optional) OCR the image

I fix the image quality (i.e., reduce colors, fix the spotlight effect of a digital camera's flash, etc) by:

1. Stretch the image's contrast using ImageMagick (similar to automatic level adjustment)

convert.exe input_image_0.png -equalize image_1.png

2. Reduce the number of shades of white. (changes all pixels within 10% of white to be white)

convert.exe image_1.png -white-threshold 90% image_2.png

3. Reduce the number number of shades of black. (changes all pixels within 10% of black to be black)

convert.exe image_2.png -black-threshold 10% image_3.png

4. Adaptive threshold the image. Important that you set the window (WidthxHeight) to be about the height of two lines of text and about 4 characters wide. A smaller window runs faster but can cause noise to be put inbetween two adjacent lines of text.

convert.exe image_3.png -lat 20x20 image_4.png

5. (optional) OCR image_4.png

Other options:
- Threshold by a percentage

--> 50% threshold using
convert x.png -monochrome out.png

--> User definable threshold amount (e.g., 80%) using
convert x.png -threshold 80% out.png

Lastly, you can chain together commands so that the steps can be simply written as one line:

convert input_image_0.png -equalize -white-threshold 90% -black-threshold 10% -lat 20x20 output_image.png

Noise removal can be optionally done before any other image processing
Noise removal methods:
- NL filter for 'edge enhancement' in gimp (Filters -> Enhance -> NL Filter) (Use settings, Edge Enhancement, Alpha(0.60) Radius (1.0)). This is similar to the pnmnlfilt.exe in Netpbm - found at netpbm.sourceforge.net

- Despeckle (not always helpful)
- Dust and scratches in Photoshop
- Smart blur in PhotoShop
- Unsharp mask - It does a good job smoothing background noise but does not do a very good job at edge enhancement (NL Filter does a better job).

ImageMagick is open source and can be had here http://www.imagemagick.org/
Netpbm can be had here http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/

I did this in two projects:

- Scanning a large number of oversized newspapers (10 inches by 12.5 inches) (serveral hundered pages)
- Scanning in 8.5 inch x 11 inch tinted color pages from books (about 500 pages, messy because pages had a color background)

The multiple scan for an oversize page takes too much time because you have to scan the page face down on the scanner.
This requires you to:
1. lift up the paper,
2. flip to the next page,
3. flip over,
4. place on scanner (align it)
5. scan (suggest 300 dpi or higher black and white (monochrome) scan)
6. align page for second scan
7. scan (suggest 300 dpi or higher black and white (monochrome) scan)
8. (later) put both scans into a single image file, or, much more time consuming, join the two scans into a single seamless image

This takes about 1 minute per page given a 10 second per scan scanning time.

A digital camera would take about 10 seconds per page without any post processing, page joining in an image editor, etc.

The main OCR issue with a camera is that you need to approach the quality of 250+ DPI scanner image. You need to take a camera snapshot with a dpi higher than 250 to get near scanner quality because camera will distort the image, add noise, over sharpen, etc. I've had good results taking images that work out to 350 dpi with a digital camera.

I have used Evolution on Win32. It mostly works and it looks like development binaries are also reasonable. I wouldn't consider it much more alpha than Sunbird. I suspect that other comments on the GPL are the more likely explanation.