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Try gnucash or kmymoney2. Both have OFX support and provide things like dual-entry accounting, account management, etc.

1. Games
2. Tax Software
3. To accomodate Windows zealots:
   1. Use VS to make Windows executables from code I developed under Linux. (Maybe GCC can cross compile to Windows platforms? I don't know.)
   2. Testbed for whatever needs doing to their machines.
   3. Read their Word documents that are too screwy for Open Office to read well.
4. So I can use hardware. More than once I've spent hours trying to access some hardware in Linux, reading howto's, Googleing error messages, to at last discover the trouble is a bug in the version of the kernel I have. One such kernel bug made ripping audio CDs under 2.6.7 with -dev:ATAPI fail.
   1. DVD burning with DVD Shrink.
   2. Swap DVDs and CDs without all this mount/umount fuss. Submount helps but still isn't quite as good.
   3. USB memory sticks. And USB printing still bites under Linux.

I was an Amiga user for years, then I installed muFS and the whole set of GNU software. All the commercial C compilers were way to expensive for me, so I choosed gcc. As soon as there was the 68000 port available, I switched over to Linux. I've never had a Windows installation in the last 14 years.

I, for one, (do not welcome our new LaTeX overlords)-- rather, I use MiKTeX and TexnicCenter to do LaTeX in Windows. Output to PS, PDF, or DVI (any probably others). Never had a problem with it at all.

Maybe Linux has some nice tex2dvi and dvi2pdf commands, but that's hardly a selling point to me.

If you look at the source code, you'll see that it's a plugin that adds a "Import OpenOffice Document..." command to the File menu. It uses an XSLT transformation to convert the document into a a file Microsoft's patented/proprietary WordML document which is only supported in Office 2003 and then directs Word to open this file. Subsequent saves to the document would simply update the "temporary" WordML document (without prompting).

A real filter would add an SWX option to the normal Open dialog (and allow you to associate SWX with Word) and load the document directly into Word's document model. If the filter has write support, saves would automatically save back to the SWX. If the filter was import-only, saving would prompt the user to choose a document format to save into (where the user could select RTF or HTML or something that's portable). I haven't been able to find the docs on Words import filter API; however, it would make sense that MS would keep those proprietary.

LaTeX presentations look awesome if you use http://latex-beamer.sourceforge.net/

I highly recommend it.

That's just 'cause the quicktime player is crap. The codec, however, is just fine.
Just use some other player to play the quicktime files, and you'll have no problem. (My suggestion: Media Player Classic)

Sounds like he wasn't running cpufreqd. It doesn't exactly install itself.

This is very similar to the memory usage comparisons between Internet Explorer and Firefox. IE using native windows controls (and much of it's codebase intergrated into windows) and Firefox rendering it's own widgets, although K-Meleon (a browser that uses the gecko engine but with native windows controls) uses a simlar amount of memory as IE and loads just as fast.

Did you consider WiKID Systems?

Available in both open (https://sourceforge.net/projects/wikid-twofactor/ ) and closed source (http://www.wikid.com/ versions. Closed source supports wireless devices such as Blackberries, Palm, PocketPC J2ME. Unlike certs, there is no need to manage white & black lists (CRL) etc. Unlike RSA soft tokens, the PIN is stored on the server and communication between the token and the server is encrypted asymmetrically. If the token is stolen, the PIN must be checked at the server allowing lock-out after an admin set number of attempts. Open sourced plugins are available for PHP, Java, COM/IIS, Citrix, C++, SugarCRM, etc. with more on the way. Token roll out can be completely automated via ASP scripts using trusted LAN credentials.

In terms of evaluating based on financial, relative security and operations issues you might want to read this, which I wrote for WiKID: http://www.securitydocs.com/library/3048. A cleaner costs analysis between a hardware tokens such as RSA and WiKID is here: http://www.wikidsystems.com/features/lessexpensive .

I will not dispute what you are saying. I also can't quite understand why Java is dragging down OO.o. My general complaint and the use of the word myth is directed at the blanket statement that if a program uses Java, it is slow.

With that said, I believe a good example of a fast Java GUI application is Azureus. As bittorrent clients go, it is quite amazing.

It's not just azureus, try downloading and then seeding any linux distro offered on torrent and watch what happens when you try to do anything with big software shortly later.

Artificial intelligence is the prime example of a Golden Age for outside-the-box developers.

The AI User Manual tells how to get started in Outside-the-Box Artificial Intelligence.

The Mind.Forth AI Engineshows that you can work on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) without perpetuating the colossal failures of the traditional AI Establishment.

The AGI Mail Archive is a community forum of AI Outside-the-Boxers.

A Web site on PC-based robots sports an outside-the-box A.I. Zone where you may think outside the box about putting artificial intelligence into hi-tech robots.

Artificial intelligence is the prime example of a Golden Age for outside-the-box developers.

The AI User Manual tells how to get started in Outside-the-Box Artificial Intelligence.

The Mind.Forth AI Engineshows that you can work on Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) without perpetuating the colossal failures of the traditional AI Establishment.

The AGI Mail Archive is a community forum of AI Outside-the-Boxers.

A Web site on PC-based robots sports an outside-the-box A.I. Zone where you may think outside the box about putting artificial intelligence into hi-tech robots.

...which means you want a built in tarball roller? Not a bad idea. Anybody want to add a button to Kile's File/Save?

Okay done. Well, it's not in the File/Save, but automatically archiving a project into tar.gz format at the click of a button has been available for a while.

Jedidiah.

Having said that, I hate having to program with Visual Studio. It's like a great big book of usefull spells, but they are written in invisble ink :o)

Since I'm using wxWidgets for my OpenSource applications, I use VisualStudio quite a lot, even if I intend my applications for Linux. This is because there isn't any useful debugging tool on Linux. GDB: Only Make has as similar bad command mode, DDD: Crashes more often, Eclips: Never been able to install it for wxWidgets, Anjuta: Haven't come to test debugging. I've looked several times at any IDE listed at freshmeat.net but 90% doesn't even support debugging and therefore don't deserve the predicate IDE! I ask when is there a usable debugging tool on Linux?

O. Wyss

PS. You can view my with VisualStudio created Linux application via wyoGuide.

3. The formal seperation of System and applications is not very good, see OS X for an example of how to do this properly.

I'm always amazed when the usability of Linux is discussed. There is no usability of a kernel and only a small part is usability of the desktop. Usability of a system is almost entirely defined by the usability of the used applications. But not the usability of single applications, no the usability of all used applications in an correlated manner. So as long as there isn't anything established as proposed by wyoGuide, this discussion will just go with no end.

This is in the section where he's talking about filling in event handlers for a VB form:

> This bothered me because Visual Basic was treating a
> program not as a complete coherent document,
> but as little snippets of code attached to visual objects.

So true. You can't "read" the program, instead, you can only leap about from handler to handler. And another good point when talking about a XAML demo:

> It was very, very cool, except that the 12 tick marks
> of the clock were implemented in 12 virtually identical chunks of XAML.

I'm not sure about this one - seems that one of the few times that duplicated code is OK is when it's in generated code; i.e., in a JavaCC-generated parser. For everything else, there's CPD, the Copy/Paste Detector.

Forgot the link to the article...have included all relevants links in this one.

Linux.com ran a story about web development tools.They approach it as "web development tools for Linux," but most are available for win32 and OS X. I have almost no experience with commercial web development tools (except when trying to tidy up their ugly code). I use content management systems/wikis/etc. where possible (so others can add content & no one need worry about the code or an editor) & a text editor () when not. That being said, Bluefish, Quanta, and Nvu are all nice. All of these options are discussed in the article, as is Screem, which I haven't seen first-hand.

Here's my chance to blab about the PVR I built myself. It's not pretty, but it runs great.
Here are the specs: Leadtek WinFast PVR 2000 TV/FM tuner card; P4 2.8E / ASUS P4P800; onboard sound; 512MB RAM; 80GB + 120GB HD; WinXP Pro.
The software I built uses: Windows Media Encoder SDK; Visual Basic 6; PHP; FireBird; Apache.
Using VB, I wrote code that goes to Zap2It and downloads 12 days worth of TV show programming and parses it into my FireBird DB. From there I have a web front end that lets you search/sort though shows. You can choose to record one show or create a rule that would record a certain show every time it's on. It also handles scheduling conflicts by prioritizing rules and doesn't record a show if it's been previously recorded.
The back end is a VB app that runs all the time and checks the FireBird DB for the next show to be recorded. When it finds one and it's time to start recording it issues a command line request to the Windows Media Encoder to start recording on channel x for x number of seconds. The size and audio/video bitrate are set using the encoder's profile editor.
The profile settings I use consist of: Windows Media Audio 9.1/Video 9; VBR quality base of 90 (usually has a video bitrate of just over 1000kbps); Video size 320 x 240. At these settings the CPU uses about 20% and 1hr worth of video is about half a GB.
I play the shows by streaming them to the Xbox running xbmc.
I also have a command line script that runs every night and deletes any shows that are older than 15 days. If I haven't watched it by then, it's not worth watching.
This setup has worked great for me for the last year. The next step would be to replace the whole setup with MythTV. I'd have the back end on my computer and the front end on the Xbox.

What tools and methods are the best practice when trying to use Linux and Open Source to analyze and fix a network?

• Nagios
• Snort
• ethereal
• dsniff (not updated in ages)
• ncat
• nmap
• nessus v 2 (or one of the forks of version 3)
• SARA

I'm working on a little project you might be interested in. It hasn't updated in a while, but that's just been due to a lack of time on my part as I finish my degree...

No, problem not solved. All LockTight does is add a keybind to dump you to the screensaver. You still have to have the "Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screensaver" box checked in Security. I do not wan't locking linked with sleep and screensaver functionality! After working as a sysadmin for a couple years, I developed the habit of "ctrl+alt+del, Enter"ing before I got up so as not to leave root accessable to passers by. Why the hell can't I do this with my powerbook? If I'm working with it at home and don't care about locking, I still have to type in the damn password everytime I wake it from sleep, negating the utility of having a near-instant wake up.

This is the 2'nd most annoying thing about my powerbook. The first is their brain damaged choice of fn key location, but at least that can be worked around.

Secure Shell file system mount has been available as a module for some time. ssh_fs.o I think, or something, but it works sufficiently enough.

the project is here: http://shfs.sourceforge.net/

enjoy...
harryk

Do you want to mount filesystems through ssh? Try shfs.

A few years ago, I wrote the skeleton for this sort of thing. It was for a job, the guy never did the paperwork to hire me, so I stopped working on it and put my code on Sourceforge. It worked; I just hadn't polished anything. (The management interface, in particular, sucked.) It pretty much requires FreeBSD to use as your filter box.

The basic architecture is like this. First, there's a management interface that's just some PHP scripts talking to a MySQL database. That's how you add leases, how long you want them to last, etc. You could also add the leases to the database using any other means you want.

A daemon is running that frequently sweeps the database and reconfigures the kernel part (described in a minute). The daemon expires old leases, adds new leases, etc. It also watches the traffic (passively, so the traffic isn't going through the daemon) and logs usage stats. (This last was part of the spec the original customer gave me.)

The kernel part is what actually does the filtering. This doesn't need any custom kernel modules or anything; it's just a netgraph node inbetween the interfaces you're filtering on that uses the built-in BPF netgraph driver. (In those days, the packet filters in FreeBSD didn't support MAC filtering.)

Anyway, like I said, it all works-- or at least did when I wrote it, and I don't see any reason that anything would have broken seriously. Check it out; it's macf on SourceForge.

There seems to be lots of SATA-RAID based iSCSI SAN devices available nowadays.. Some links to products I have seen:

http://www.equallogic.com./ They make nice SATA-raid based iSCSI SAN devices with all the features you could expect (volumes, snapshots, array/volume-expansion, hotswap, redundant controllers, redundant fans, etc).

http://www.equallogic.com/pages/products_PS100E.ht m
14 250G sata disks, 3U, 3.5 TB of raw storage.

http://www.equallogic.com/pages/products_PS300E.ht m
14 500G sata disks, 3U, 7 TB of raw storage.

http://www.equallogic.com/pages/products_PS2400E.h tm
56+ TB

Looks good. I have not yet used them myself :)

Another iSCSI SATA SAN possibility:
http://www.mpccorp.com/smallbiz/store/servers/prod uct_detail/dataframe_420.html
16 sata disks, review:
http://www.infoworld.com/MPC_DataFrame_420/product _53700.html?view=1&curNodeId=0

This company also has SATA iSCSI SAN devices:
http://www.dynamicnetworkfactory.com/products.asp/ section/Product~Categories/category/iSCSI/options/ IPBank/drivetype/L~Series/formfactor/Integrated/in face/SATA~-~Serial~ATA

iSCSI SAN comparison:
http://www.networkcomputing.com/story/singlePageFo rmat.jhtml?articleID=170702726

There are also software iSCSI target solutions for use with your own/custom hardware.
http://iscsitarget.sourceforge.net/ for building linux-based iSCSI target/SAN.

If you are familiar with iSCSI targets / iSCSI SAN devices please post your comments!

B) Second, everything still has to be on the same screen. With a dual-monitor setup, you can stick your comms and entertainment on one screen (the "distraction" screen), and focus on the task at hand on the other.

Maybe a kind of virtual desktops will work for you, if you are on Linux, chances are you already have them, if you are on windows try Virtual Dimension

Now, one thing I would love to have is an extension to those multi-desktop programs which let me see all my desktops (or some of them) at the same time on my screen (a la Microsoft Virtual Desktop manager desktop previewer). I think it could be possible via VNC but the last time I tried and connected to the localhost with VNC (On Windows XP), the screen was not usable (because of inifinte image recursion).

All actions like these do is force development of next gen p2p like Mute Filesharing.

http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/

ACID is no longer being actively maintained, if you want ACID's functionality you should go get BASE! Better yet, go get SGUIL and use Snort as part of a Network Security Monitoring, you'll be glad you did.

ACID is no longer being actively maintained, if you want ACID's functionality you should go get BASE! Better yet, go get SGUIL and use Snort as part of a Network Security Monitoring, you'll be glad you did.

true... but... the problem is physical location. Basically it boils down to connection oriented networks vs. connectionless networks. sure someone can tap a traditional pots line, but they had to be physically "on the line". with VoIP and programs like http://ettercap.sourceforge.net/ this physical domain it extended making it possible for someone to access the path of communications from almost anywhere in the network. I'm not saying that traditional phone security was any better, but VoIP not only suffers from those security issues (DoS, toll fraud, invalid subscribers...), but also from IP inherent problems too (DoS, man-in-the-middle, packet sniffing...) ps. if you want secure voice and you secure it at the handset.

You may want to try The Gimp on windows then. Last time I worked real hard getting my wacom to work correctly (using this: http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/ ). I think I had it working in X, but not completely in The Gimp. For Windows, I think I had better luck (definately easier to set up), but I think the performance was still sporatic. Hopefully, new versions are better.

This is just 1 anictode one the subject. I hope you have better luck.

I agree with that definition of microkernel, but "Salamander" apparently does not.

I'm sure he agrees with that definition, but he's disagreeing with your assertions that the kernel as a managed virtual machine of some sort would be more practical and useful. While potentially an interesting direction for research, it does not at all seem feasible with current hardware. Well, current consumer hardware; high-end architectures have more exotic features which may make it possible.

Like it or not, hardware page-level protection is the best we have, and microkernels are thus far the best way of exploiting this widely deployed architecture. Fortunately, page-level protection really is good enough for every purpose we need. In particular see CapROS and Coyotos for pure object-oriented operating systems (Actors message-passing syle with true capability security). I think you'll learn a lot from the papers written on EROS/CapROS.

• 3d-Desktop,
• SphereXP

Here

Looks like windows 3.1, lol.

Tanenbaum is unscientific: he focuses on a single variable and ignores all the others; he fails to even state his claims properly, let alone support them with data; and he fails to justify a novel approach with a detailed empirical analysis of prior work.

Even if what you say is true, there are plenty of others making very detailed analyses of microkernel architectures, and they have reached many of the same conclusions: that microkernels are feasible, useful, and practical, if done correctly. The real problem is that microkernels have a stigma attached to them, and because they are hard to properly design and implement. As such, only researchers have traditionally worked on them, and we all know researchers are not going to develop a full-featured system like Linux. Hopefully, that will change with CapROS.

See my other posts in this thread:
Performance
Examples of microkernel sytems

The biggest problem seems to be that that extra layer of abstraction slows things down (which makes sense really). [...] If heavy usage servers can be run as virtual machines in Xen then why not use a microkernel too?

Funny you should mention Xen, because it's essentially a microkernel running other kernels as protected processes.

So. Any examples of microkernel OS's that handle heavy server load, function well as a desktop, and can handle multimedia tasks like gaming?

Other posts mention QNX, so I won't bother.

I'd find it hard to believe that with solid numbers showing that microkernel is just as fast and without additional overhead that someone like Linus wouldn't use it since it's an easier programming model (better for security, stability, etc).

You'd be surprised. There's a lot of vested interest in the current programming paradigms and existing codebase. A principled microkernel architecture might just be incompatible with POSIX, which eliminates a large swath of portable and useful software.

If you want performance, you need look no further than L4, EROS (and it's successor CapROS). For a principled design, I'd go with EROS/CapROS or the next generation capability system Coyotos (who's designers are trying very hard to implement POSIX while maintaining capability security).

Something useful right now, doesn't exist as far as I know.

The biggest problem seems to be that that extra layer of abstraction slows things down (which makes sense really). [...] If heavy usage servers can be run as virtual machines in Xen then why not use a microkernel too?

Funny you should mention Xen, because it's essentially a microkernel running other kernels as protected processes.

So. Any examples of microkernel OS's that handle heavy server load, function well as a desktop, and can handle multimedia tasks like gaming?

Other posts mention QNX, so I won't bother.

I'd find it hard to believe that with solid numbers showing that microkernel is just as fast and without additional overhead that someone like Linus wouldn't use it since it's an easier programming model (better for security, stability, etc).

You'd be surprised. There's a lot of vested interest in the current programming paradigms and existing codebase. A principled microkernel architecture might just be incompatible with POSIX, which eliminates a large swath of portable and useful software.

If you want performance, you need look no further than L4, EROS (and it's successor CapROS). For a principled design, I'd go with EROS/CapROS or the next generation capability system Coyotos (who's designers are trying very hard to implement POSIX while maintaining capability security).

Something useful right now, doesn't exist as far as I know.

While I think it's great MS is serious about providing a better CLI for their OS, Monad does not impress me. Any of the scripting languages on *nix can be turned into a shell if anyone wanted to. In fact, we already have a C SHell, and apparently there's a Perl SHell. Claiming "ours is better because it is not based on 30-year-old technology" is a silly argument MS trots out when they don't have a real reason for you to use the technology they just "invented."

I'm also concerned about the security implications of allowing such a technology into the core of Windows. In MS's hands, MSH could easily become another Windows virus infection vector (and as I recall it has already had security issues).

No, sheesh. There's no reason to fork ubuntu when there's already Moooovix.

Endlessly rising or descending tones using Shepard tones can be pretty creepy when done slowly and coupled with a distraction.

One of the creepiest effects I know of is Libet's Experiment. It turns out that you can measure a brain signal called the "Readiness Potential" on an EEG that appears about 0.5-1.5 seconds before you consciously decide to push a button! Hook the EEG up to a light, and the light will come on when you're about to push the button; you can't fool it. It's possible these days to rig an audio card EEG; a skilled geek should be able to build a Libet machine to leave lying around for folks to play with. Let us know if you achieve OpenLibet, as we will all want to build our own.

Just wanted to add a link to this movie clip.

Hook it up on a projector and you're definately there!

Hook it up on a projector and you're definately there!

Small Correction: It's 0.2.7, not 2.7.

ReactOS is still Alpha Software, and as such, is incorporating elements from later Windows NT iterations. Some Winsock 2 API's have already been implemented, that came in Windows XP. Even some Windows 2003 Functionality, like Guarded Mutex, is present.

0.2.7 shipped with a 2 major bugs that have been largely fixed (touch wood)... 0.2.8 is due out in a few weeks, with 0.2.8 RC1 already out on their Sourceforge Page (http://sourceforge.net/projects/reactos).

Once it's got the NT4-esque layout, it's then easier to play catchup to the later versions.

So... does FireFox use a Java UI, too?

No, it uses XUL, which is a whole different can of non-native portable code, with the added fun of interpeting JavaScript. Face it, theres two options for a GUI. Use a platform native that run likedy split but is a pain to port, or use a platform indepenedent package that lets your app look pretty much the same all over (and is probably skinable, too) but take a speed hit to be able to get things running everywhere.

If you are looking for a Gecko based browser that uses native windows controls, you'll be wanting K-Meleon, Firefox's leser known stepsister.

I just started looking into PHP (somewhat as a result of this article) but I found the following frameworks:

Seagull

WASP

Fusebox

Mach-II

No, Ruby will be more popular than either Java or PHP for building web-based applications. Take PHP's targeted purpose and framework simplicity, add the power of a better language, and you've got Ruby, and mindshare.