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Also worth mentioning the immensely useful IPCop Support Web (note that this used to be .net, but that's dead for some reason). IPCop rocks, though the default traffic shaping capabilities are pretty rudimentary (the web interface is a bit limited, you can always edit the files in /var/ipcop/shaping), but there's a thriving mod/add-on community: do a search for 'shaping' in the aforementioned forums for help. You might want the take a look at the layer-7 filter dicussed here. I'd consider going for a few other mods, too, such as the Advanced Proxy, URLFilter and maybe the IPCop Addon Server with the BlockoutTraffic module.

I welcome the news, but I'm still suspicious of the motives. I currently am stuck with an onboard
VIA KM400 based video after my old MX440 blew up taking out the AGP slot in my old motherboard. I've been using the OSS Unichrome drivers http://unichrome.sourceforge.net/ as VIA's own drivers had a limited selection of distros and kernels.
The current config here is a 2.4.30 kernel with the r30 Unichrome release, Mesa and DRI from CVS and X.Org 6.8.2 I had to hack in the AGP support from a patch designed for an older kernel, as the chipset isnt supported in the main branch. Most everything works well enough, The Goom plugin for XMMS is ok, though Lemuria is dog slow. Q3Arena works as well as on Windows or better, NWN works better. There are a few issues with the Privateer remake http://priv.solsector.net/ and with UT200x that remain to be fixed. I'm hoping that the crew working on the Unichrome project can fill in the missing pieces now with the source available, as there has been a constant struggle to get necessary information from VIA

L7 may work well for you.

It matches traffic by analyzing the packets, and you can then run various iptables rules against those matches.

1. *connect usb cable*
2. mount /mnt/iriver
3. cp ~/mp3/stuff /mnt/iriver
4. umount /mnt/iriver
5. *disconnect usb cable*

1. *connect usb cable*
2. ifp put ~/mp3/stuff
3. *disconnect usb cable*

For cards newer than the G550 (like the triple-head Parhelia), Matrox seems to have stopped supporting open-source entirely, making the Radeon 9250 the best chip with open-source 3D drivers.

Is the 9250 faster than the FireGL 8800? Without any doubt, the r200 series are the best DRI compatible cards, followed by the r100s, Voodoo 3/4/5, and Matrox G400. Intel's chips are excellent and well supported, but end up with poor performance because they use system memory.

There's still hope that the r300 project will get to the point where a Radeon 9800 is a better buy than a Radeon 7200, but the fact that any results have been achieved without support from ATI is pretty amazing in itself.

There's also some hope that the old Utah-GLX driver for Nvidia cards will be ported to DRI, that someone will produce an AGP card with an Intel video chip, that Mesa performance will improve to the point where a dual-cpu system doesn't need a high-speed GPU, or even that one of the minor players will realize that ATI and Nvidia know how to use a disassembler.

Plus, you can even get gigabytes of "non-free" music for free, legally. Find some good internet radio stations and use something like Streamripper.

This is a welcome move in some respects, it certainly shows that VIA now considers the Linux user as a valuable customer base that must be supported.

However, there is already a thriving open source driver implementation for this platform: link providing code that was based on a version of VIA's code that they released to a limited number of open source developers a few years ago.

It is also worth noting that the "VIA Open Source" package still relies on a proprietary binary library to provide MPEG acceleration on their hardware. This library provides a completely non-standard API that applications must interface to to implement MPEG support. This is in contrast with the Unichrome project's solution, providing full source code for their MPEG implementation and implementing the standard and well established XvMC API in their driver.

The Unichrome project has also been responsible for implementing support for VIA MPEG acceleration in Xine, MPlayer , MythTV. Again this contrasts with VIA's solution to application support which has resulted in them producing forked VIA specific versions of Xine [VeXP] and MPlayer [VeMP] without involving the donor projects in the process or contributing back to them.

Along with many performance, feature and stability enhancements to the codebase the Unichrome project has also been responsible for reorganising and cleaning the codebase to a state that is now acceptable for inclusion in the base X.org source tree and resolving the security issues in the DRM code so that it can be included in the official Linux kernel.

It is, therefore, a shame that VIA decided to make this grandiose eye catching announcement, rather than just getting involved in the existing open source communities and simply helping and contributing to the Unichrome, Xine, MPlayer and MythTV projects. That might have been less eye catching or press release friendly, but it would certainly be a better way to win friends in the Linux community.

This is a welcome move in some respects, it certainly shows that VIA now considers the Linux user as a valuable customer base that must be supported.

However, there is already a thriving open source driver implementation for this platform: link providing code that was based on a version of VIA's code that they released to a limited number of open source developers a few years ago.

It is also worth noting that the "VIA Open Source" package still relies on a proprietary binary library to provide MPEG acceleration on their hardware. This library provides a completely non-standard API that applications must interface to to implement MPEG support. This is in contrast with the Unichrome project's solution, providing full source code for their MPEG implementation and implementing the standard and well established XvMC API in their driver.

The Unichrome project has also been responsible for implementing support for VIA MPEG acceleration in Xine, MPlayer , MythTV. Again this contrasts with VIA's solution to application support which has resulted in them producing forked VIA specific versions of Xine [VeXP] and MPlayer [VeMP] without involving the donor projects in the process or contributing back to them.

Along with many performance, feature and stability enhancements to the codebase the Unichrome project has also been responsible for reorganising and cleaning the codebase to a state that is now acceptable for inclusion in the base X.org source tree and resolving the security issues in the DRM code so that it can be included in the official Linux kernel.

It is, therefore, a shame that VIA decided to make this grandiose eye catching announcement, rather than just getting involved in the existing open source communities and simply helping and contributing to the Unichrome, Xine, MPlayer and MythTV projects. That might have been less eye catching or press release friendly, but it would certainly be a better way to win friends in the Linux community.

There's also a web interface to Azureus you can set up so when someone starts a game, they can limit your upload speed further (or altogether stop your uploads) if necessary. It's handy on ADSL connections, where upload speed is severely limited. I can get that episode of West Wing I missed while I sleep, and my roommate can pause it at 3am without knocking on my door.

If not, I'll stick with the drivers from unichrome.sourceforge.net.

Try nvtv: http://sourceforge.net/projects/nv-tv-out

Rather than "Starter Edition," here's some suggestions, if anyone from Redmond just happens to read this. (I know they won't do it - it's more a mental exercise while I eat)

1. Go download this, and make it natively multi-user if it isn't already. Give it a strong native security model, too...you can get some ideas here, and the best part is, they won't mind you doing that if you don't try and patent said ideas. Also, modularise your GUI, and don't prevent users from accessing the CLI when they want to.

2. Have the CLI composed of this and this for us CLI types.

3. Make the Add/Remove Programs panel essentially a net-aware frontend for either this or this.

4. Use this for hardware detection. Also re drivers, get rid of the suicidal policy of seeing third-party hardware vendors as the enemy, and actually support them...via tools, docs, etc. These people are your friends...they'll help you stay relevant.

5. Download this and use it as your default FS, and then get this and this, (although you already seem to know about this last one) and incorporate both of those into your stock UI. You've essentially got WinFS right there, without all the added complexity you'd no doubt throw into it if you tried to code it from scratch.

6. For the Agent angle, incorporate the last point, as well as putting help/docs in a non-binary format, making them searchable with this, converting said search results for use with this, and then use the AIML output as input for something like this. Also, instead of making the agent a tightly anthropomorphic personality, make it more generic, and more as though it's simply "the operating system" communicating with a user, rather than that dog or Clippit instead.

7. Give Outlook a major overhaul. This and this are examples of directions it IMHO should go in.

Just some random ideas, anywayz. Dreaming's fun. ;) I'll probably get modded Offtopic, but it was worth it.

Rather than "Starter Edition," here's some suggestions, if anyone from Redmond just happens to read this. (I know they won't do it - it's more a mental exercise while I eat)

1. Go download this, and make it natively multi-user if it isn't already. Give it a strong native security model, too...you can get some ideas here, and the best part is, they won't mind you doing that if you don't try and patent said ideas. Also, modularise your GUI, and don't prevent users from accessing the CLI when they want to.

2. Have the CLI composed of this and this for us CLI types.

3. Make the Add/Remove Programs panel essentially a net-aware frontend for either this or this.

4. Use this for hardware detection. Also re drivers, get rid of the suicidal policy of seeing third-party hardware vendors as the enemy, and actually support them...via tools, docs, etc. These people are your friends...they'll help you stay relevant.

5. Download this and use it as your default FS, and then get this and this, (although you already seem to know about this last one) and incorporate both of those into your stock UI. You've essentially got WinFS right there, without all the added complexity you'd no doubt throw into it if you tried to code it from scratch.

6. For the Agent angle, incorporate the last point, as well as putting help/docs in a non-binary format, making them searchable with this, converting said search results for use with this, and then use the AIML output as input for something like this. Also, instead of making the agent a tightly anthropomorphic personality, make it more generic, and more as though it's simply "the operating system" communicating with a user, rather than that dog or Clippit instead.

7. Give Outlook a major overhaul. This and this are examples of directions it IMHO should go in.

Just some random ideas, anywayz. Dreaming's fun. ;) I'll probably get modded Offtopic, but it was worth it.

I bet you downloaded the 6 updates (7 MB on my machine) 15 times. Ah, if only Microsoft could learn...

I use both Expose and Desktop Manager to organise the 8-15 apps and dozens of windows I have open at any one time. DM is alpha, and a bit quirky but functional and hasn't crashed yet. It's GPL'd and runs as a standalone app, with some acqualicious interface elements. I'm using it with the four desktops it came prefigured with. Took a couple of minutes to find, download, install, and begin using.

FWIW, I'd be surprised if OS X got this feature soon. It's cluttery (like my real world desk) and not a very Apple kind of aesthetic. I'd rather they left some workflow interface things up to 3rd party variation, anyway. Look at how good Quicksilver is as an interface enhancement, for instance, or Pathfinder. I do wish Apple would loosen up the interface, and give us skinning options and things like replacing Finder.

The system reads a high-level description of a document similar in style to LaTeX and produces a PostScript file which can be printed on most laser printers and graphic display devices. Plain text output is also available, PDF output is not supported anymore.

You can use Python instead of AppleScript via Appscript. I'm just learning Python at the moment and haven't tried this, but it looks interesting. You can also use PyObjC to combine the best of Python and Objective-C/Cocoa into a single app. And the excellent editors by Bare Bones Software, BBEdit and TextWrangler have great support for Python.

OS X 10.3 has Python 2.3 pre-installed. I'm not sure which version will be supplied with Tiger.

Overall Python support looks very strong on OS X, and with the number of FOSS developers giving the platform a try I think this will only get better.

spoof IP source if you are connected to LAN, no SSH is required, only signature see http://larytet.sourceforge.net/tryRodi.shtml

my project does exactly this http://larytet.sourceforge.net/tryRodi.shtml

Maybe this way?

This is one of the things that bothers me the most about somefree(freedom or cost) software. The usability is not there. I ran into a case of this just this weekend.
We wanted to put strong passwords on our financial accounts because of a security failure on one of our email accounts. I checked sourceforge for some good programs that will generate and store strong random passwords. KeePass looked good, so we tried it out. Create an entry--OK. Generate a password with cool user-controlled methods of randomness--OK. Try to copy that password to paste it into the change password dialog on my financial site--HA HA, Not a chance! Why would someone want to do something like that? As they were generated, they would not display on the screen. They were in "******" characters and you could not select or copy them. There didn't seem to be any way to copy this password out of this program and into a web browser where I'm trying to log in or change a password.

I went through all the sections in the help files and found nothing useful. There was even a FAQ in the help files. I would have thought, "How do I USE these wonderfully generated passwords?" would have been a good question to have there, but no dice. So I asked a web designer friend of mine if he had any recommendations of password programs, and he mentioned Whisper 32, which I tried. It works great. It generates the passwords, and you can copy them and paste them into your web browser, just like people would actually want to do.

Python is very popular on Mac OS X. Of the scripting-style languages (Perl, Python, Ruby, etc.), it probably has the most thorough support for writing real applications.

Things like PyObjC let you do everything that the native frameworks can in Python. (That is, you can write full Cocoa apps entirely in Python). Also, you can use Python in Obj-C code. I know for certain that people have written plugins for many apps seemlessly this way.

I don't know what you mean by "getting undo for free" -- if you mean Core Data, in Tiger, then the answer is "maybe". I don't see why not with something like PyObjC, but it would probably involve some Obj-C coding.

The hardware costs could be as little as $10 or so per device, and it would be not much larger than the ATA connector!

Another previously shareware feature

...addictive

Supertux!!!

'nuff said. I'll go back to play.

try

http://pyobjc.sourceforge.net

check out this

>No AIM

There's Gaim. That will let them use AIM, but it will also mean that if their friends use MSN or ICQ instead, they can talk to all of them from within the same program.

>No Kazaa.

Heard of mldonkey? eDonkey, Kazaa, Gnutella, BitTorrent, Napster, and Direct Connect, all in the one app. Got more clients than you can shake a stick at, too.

Define "high level language." :) The three most popular choices for doing Cocoa development are Objective-C, Java, and Python. Obj-C and Java are the ones "officially" supported by Apple, and have the largest user base, but PyObjC is a bridge between the two languages that (among other things) lets you write Cocoa apps in pure Python.

I'm a heretic these days in that I prefer Java to Python, but the choice is availble to you should your opinion differ.

SpellBound - spell checking for Mozilla/Firefox.

I don't know how advanced Tridge's tools are, but GNU CSSC (downloadable from the the GNU FTP servers) has a certain amount of read-only compatibility with BitKeeper. See also the BitBucket project (code here).

I don't know how advanced Tridge's tools are, but GNU CSSC (downloadable from the the GNU FTP servers) has a certain amount of read-only compatibility with BitKeeper. See also the BitBucket project (code here).

The 3 pass algorithm is ok for some applications. If I remember correctly it is approved for information below Secret level in the DoD.
A co-worker of mine sent me a link to a white paper that details a 35 pass algorithm http://wipe.sourceforge.net/secure_del.html that mathematically ensures erasure all information on (1,7) RLL, MFM, and (2,7) RLL formats.
Since you stated in your original query that the disk is dead, I am not sure that you will be able to apply any algorithm.
Since you mention that this would be done for RMA material, I would suggest changing the terms of your contract with your supplier. Your contract should be modified such that you get a new drive and return the case of the defective drive (no platters) to the supplier of the hard drives. If your information is sensitive enough to warrant wiping, the supplier shouldn't even get the chance to get at your information. If the white paper is to be believed, you should probably remove the cache memory from the hard drive before returning it for RMA as well.
For actual software that does this, search http://sourceforge.net/ there was at least one hit there (Erasure?) but it may not meet your needs.
I hope this answers all of your questions.

The 3 pass algorithm is ok for some applications. If I remember correctly it is approved for information below Secret level in the DoD.
A co-worker of mine sent me a link to a white paper that details a 35 pass algorithm http://wipe.sourceforge.net/secure_del.html that mathematically ensures erasure all information on (1,7) RLL, MFM, and (2,7) RLL formats.
Since you stated in your original query that the disk is dead, I am not sure that you will be able to apply any algorithm.
Since you mention that this would be done for RMA material, I would suggest changing the terms of your contract with your supplier. Your contract should be modified such that you get a new drive and return the case of the defective drive (no platters) to the supplier of the hard drives. If your information is sensitive enough to warrant wiping, the supplier shouldn't even get the chance to get at your information. If the white paper is to be believed, you should probably remove the cache memory from the hard drive before returning it for RMA as well.
For actual software that does this, search http://sourceforge.net/ there was at least one hit there (Erasure?) but it may not meet your needs.
I hope this answers all of your questions.

> I'll hand it to PDF for being pretty good, even if the software to use PDF (read AND write) is very expensive

On what planet, exactly, is writing PDFs expensive ? I manage to do this for free all the time with a variety of software packages. I thought everyone else did the same. If not, well, I'm glad to have possibly helped you cut your PDF production expenses ;-)

> I believe a browser should be smart enough to withstand whatever's thrown at it, and if it recieves errored data, to notify the user as such, and move on

Most browsers, when they receive erroneous[*] data, are perfectly able to "withstand" it (actually, they just ignore whatever tags or parameters they can't understand). I suppose you're talking about not rendering the page if it has bugs ? Well, you *can* force a browser to do that (Gecko will do it if you send an application/xhtml+xml MIME type header), but you cannot generalize this beahviour, for the following reasons : (1) the *vast* majority of Web pages out there are invalid (*cough*Slashdot*cough*), and (2) even those who are valid can be rendered invalid by external factors (ad banner code, for instance). And you cannot fail to render much of the Web, at least, if you want to have users, because without a large userbase, you won't be able to push for more standards support (yes, it's quite ironic, I know).

> it is also our fault for not implementing all of the features

It would probably help if the standard was a tad less obscure. Of course, you've a lot of conformance tests out there, but still...

> As Microsoft does have more of the market share, that shouldn't stop people from creating pages that don't work with Internet Explorer

Huh... Yeah, sure. Whatever. I'm sure my customers would be thrilled at the opportunity to break their site for ~80% of their visitors, don't you think so ? Seriously, that's not (yet) possible, the best people can do is make standards-compliant pages that work on most browsers (note I didn't even say "all browsers" because there are differences in CSS rendering between nearly every one of them. *Sigh*).

> If it was anyone's "fault" [...] it's the Web Developers for not using the standards

What about the funny people at Netscape who started the nonstandard tag mania in the first place ? The W3C for not being vocal enough ? I only heard about Web standards fairly recently (a few years). That campaign should have been launched much earlier, *before* the damage (i.e. gazillions of invalid pages all over the Web) was done !

[*] Yes, I'm a grammar Nazi, too. You're out of luck, today *grin*

How about using a vanilla PC with a removable HDD bay. Grab a copy of Darik's boot and nuke from here. Set a few options on the boot disk and get it to run automatically when booted, set floppy as boot device. Now you can just whack in any HDD through the enclosure, power on, and it'll nuke itself automatically. Advantage of using lesser and more common hardware.

As about 50 other people have said, DBAN, Darik's Boot and Nuke. It far exceeds HIPAA Security Rule guidelines for secure deletion of media containing ePHI. It's about as close to a truly secure disk wiping system as you can get.

An old PC and a copy of DBAN works just fine for me. But while I do decommission drives with HIPAA in mind, I don't do more than a few every year.

But I like that USB-IDE idea... in combination with the GPL'd Eraser it should make wiping old drives a lot easier for me, and let me get rid of that dusty dinosaur I keep around for wiping drives.

I use an external firewire enclosure and wipe to nuke drives that I ebay.

There's a self-booting CD diskzapper that looks like it ought to do the trick, though I have not used it.

Other posters mentioned Darik's Boot and Nuke as a floppy-boot solution.

The ultimate boot cd has a number of different disk wipers on it -- and a ton of other useful utilities on it. No self respecting geek should be without a copy.

The Recovery Is Possible bootable CD has a copy of wipe on it.

I wouldn't be suprised if Knoppix-STD had some erasing tool on it too, though I haven't checked.

Anyone know of a bootable image suitable for USB flash sticks?

I use an external firewire enclosure and wipe to nuke drives that I ebay.

There's a self-booting CD diskzapper that looks like it ought to do the trick, though I have not used it.

Other posters mentioned Darik's Boot and Nuke as a floppy-boot solution.

The ultimate boot cd has a number of different disk wipers on it -- and a ton of other useful utilities on it. No self respecting geek should be without a copy.

The Recovery Is Possible bootable CD has a copy of wipe on it.

I wouldn't be suprised if Knoppix-STD had some erasing tool on it too, though I haven't checked.

Anyone know of a bootable image suitable for USB flash sticks?

I use an external firewire enclosure and wipe to nuke drives that I ebay.

There's a self-booting CD diskzapper that looks like it ought to do the trick, though I have not used it.

Other posters mentioned Darik's Boot and Nuke as a floppy-boot solution.

The ultimate boot cd has a number of different disk wipers on it -- and a ton of other useful utilities on it. No self respecting geek should be without a copy.

The Recovery Is Possible bootable CD has a copy of wipe on it.

I wouldn't be suprised if Knoppix-STD had some erasing tool on it too, though I haven't checked.

Anyone know of a bootable image suitable for USB flash sticks?

See http://www.g4tv.com/unscrewed/features/45707/Dark_ Tip_Destroy_All_Data.html
have a few pieces of s/w and h/w mentioned there. use the floppy method on a standalone machine to plug your disk into and wipe it. try Darik's Boot and Nuke method: http://dban.sourceforge.net/

• You want to save money at the expense of ease of use for customers and you are already invested in pdfs.
• You want to provide a big document that can be downloaded and printed off all at once (I never want this out of online documentation).
• You need to have everything look the same everywhere.

I like their logo and theme song!

I must say, I've never quite got used to virtual desktops. I know they work well for those that use them, but for normal users they would be, quite simply, too confusing. I don't count myself as a "normal user", but even so, I've managed fine for ten years or so without them, and the last three - on the Mac - have been by far the most efficient, especially now that I use Command+H. Exposé has its uses too, of course.

That said, there are plenty of utilities for the Mac that do virtual desktopping, such as CodeTek VirtualDesktop Pro and Desktop Manager, the latter being open source too! So you can get that virtual deskopping buzz even on the Mac...

iqu :)

here is a link for ASSP, if you like it give them money. http://assp.sourceforge.net/

The point is that KDE supports multiple desktops and MacOSX doesn't.

Want free software? What's wrong with the following:
Gentoo for OS X: http://www.metadistribution.org/macos/
Darwin Ports: http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/
Fink: http://fink.sourceforge.net/
Freshmeat: http://osx.freshmeat.net/
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php? form_cat=309

I need clarification. Are we discussing Open Source Software or Open Source GUIs?

Mac OS X has an open source kernel, a closed source GUI, OSX specific frameworks and some apple specific drivers. I don't see what the problem is. They have to have something extra to entice people to buy their OS. Fortunately, they support open standards and document their APIs very well. I consider "open standards to be far more important that open source software. as the former help to prevent vendor lock in while the latter does not necessarily do that. What good is it to have open source software if it does not support interoperability?

Running Linux or FreeBSD on a mini will gain you nothing for software availability and you will lose WiFi support so I really don't see what is the point to not run OSX.

Want free software? What's wrong with the following:
Gentoo for OS X: http://www.metadistribution.org/macos/
Darwin Ports: http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/
Fink: http://fink.sourceforge.net/
Freshmeat: http://osx.freshmeat.net/
Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/trove_list.php? form_cat=309

I need clarification. Are we discussing Open Source Software or Open Source GUIs?

Mac OS X has an open source kernel, a closed source GUI, OSX specific frameworks and some apple specific drivers. I don't see what the problem is. They have to have something extra to entice people to buy their OS. Fortunately, they support open standards and document their APIs very well. I consider "open standards to be far more important that open source software. as the former help to prevent vendor lock in while the latter does not necessarily do that. What good is it to have open source software if it does not support interoperability?

Running Linux or FreeBSD on a mini will gain you nothing for software availability and you will lose WiFi support so I really don't see what is the point to not run OSX.

AFAIK, fink has packages for KDE, ie you can run KDE on top of OS X ... same goes for Gnome and a couple other window managers http://fink.sourceforge.net/pdb/search.php?summary =kde