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I would also check out something like Mindmeld. It seems to have a lot of the features of a wiki, but with a completely different interface (Ask Jeeves style, you type in the question and it gives you the answer).

We could do all this before, what added value is there to running this kind of thing?

With an XBox it made sense because you didn't actually have a UI to work with. With a PC you don't need this kind of thing at all.

If you're going to run it on a mini itx and use it like a toaster, why not use movix or something similar that has an operating system with it?

Media Portal is not new, and has been posted on /. before (that's how I read about it first).

Furthermore, it's not at version 1.0 like the article claims. Read the snip on the website about rumors.

The trouble with dead tree books, of course, is that probably none are new enough to mention new extensions to podcasting such as ipodder.

The project is at SourceForge if you guys want to give maxconsole a break.

The SF Media Portal site seems to be /.'d. Here's the Google Cache.

don't link the home page or anything
http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/

Well, like the XBox, you could put Linux on it. An entirely pointless exercise currently because even if you manage to get it working perfectly you'll be stuck with something that's significantly less funtional than it started out. Although with more penguins. Ultimately though, should the project ever take off, there's the potential of adding Ogg Vorbis playback and who knows what else.

Umm, what?

(Quick primer for people unfamiliar with these: TADS is an authoring system and playing system for text adventure games. Z-Code is a platform independent bytecode for text adventure games. Z-Code games were originally produced by Infocom using proprietary tools. Inform is a modern authoring system that also outputs Z-Code.)

TADS has its advantages (a friend of mine who wrote the above mentioned "Magocracy" used it to great effect), but it also has serious disadvantages that must be weighed. Perhaps its most serious disadvantage is that it simply isn't as portable as Z-Code. TADS pretty much has a single interpreter and iffy specs. The only real specs for TADS games is the TADS interpreter itself. Z-Code is well documented at this point with many interpreters being available. TADS interpreters require relatively modern processor and memory while Z-Code was designed to run on home machines from the early 1980s.

All of this boils down to: my old Palm III happily plays very recent Z-Code games but has no hope of running any TADS game. Thanks to Frobnitz I've got 9 games sitting on my Palm right now. Z-Code is so stable that I'm happily running a 4 year old version of Frobnitz

While the interpreter support for graphics is but a pale shadow of TADS, graphics are really the point, are they? Yes, some games greatly benefit from them (I do like the "Earth and Sky" games), they're hardly a requirement for most games. Beyond that the Z-Code spec is quite flexible.

As for the development language, while Inform does have some strange quirks, it's a fine language that reasonably expresses intent. And while I'm a C++ and Perl coder at heart, I'm not so attached to a particular syntax that I'll pick a language based on it.

Ultimately it's telling that TADS games rarely come up in lists of "great interactive fiction you should play." It's dominated by Z-Code games. Apparently Z-Code isn't that limiting.

Don't get me wrong, TADS does have advantages. It shines in graphics integration. The author of Inform has said, "This author at least has long admired the elegance of Mike Roberts's Text Adventure Development System (TADS)," in his own book on Inform and goes on to mention some specific features he likes. Personally I disagree with enough of the library design that I'm tempted to replace it with the Platypus library. But since I'm personally interested in maximizing the number people who can play what I write and I don't have any truly serious problems with Inform or Z-Code, I'll be using that.

(For anyone sold on my little spiel, check out the excellent and free Inform Beginner's Guide and Designer's Manual , the free development software, and an interpreter. Of course, TADS is just as free, so check TADS out yourself.)

I have been using WebCalendar for 2 years now without any major problems. It's a PHP based calendar that can be used on a MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, ODBC or Interbase type database. It's pretty easy to setup and maintain

Actually, NPR Quake is not Quake 2, it's Quake, and it's based on GLQuake. Apparently the modifications were not all that extensive. Playing in any of the sketch modes is pretty challenging, it's hard to see anything at a distance except on the most uncomplicated maps. Anyway, in the other direction, tenebrae quake brings (more) realistic shadow/lighting effects to the original quake.

I develop in a range of languages, but mostly Java for its cross-platform-ness and GUIs, and Python for its clear syntax.

If i had a combination of the two - python's pureness and cleanliness and Java's x-platform libraries - i would be pretty happy. However, i would still be stuck with Swing for GUI work.

These languages face a Catch-22: until they're more popular, they won't attract enough developers to ameliorate the library situation, yet until they offer better libraries, [...]

Rich.

Actually, there's more than that. For example there's a gtk frontend to an spc library called playspc_gtk. It's the spc player I mainly use. Though sexyspc is actually quite good, it can't load rar or 7z archives as a playlist. But, to each his own.

How about psdoom, or perhaps just some good ol' fragging in general. Also helps to get with coworkers who deal with the same lusers and comiserate. And, if you got a really bigtime luser with a decent attitude, you can always start the practical jokes. Although, if you follow this route, be sure that all will be taken in jest, and be open to some retaliation....

well, to make it more friendly,
i believe that there could be an array of preset configurations that one could chose,
you know, something relatively similiar to redhat, e tc. where they ask you, "server", "workstation", "internet box" or whatnot
and make it relatively simple, via these preset variables
to do what they must do, to set up the base system, anything else, it seems like the user, would be on his or her own.
i also must add, that gentoo uses portage, its "port" of ports package management system from the BSD mindset..
and there is now, a couple of viable gui-only, portage package management tools around,
such as: Porthole (http://porthole.sourceforge.net/), Guitoo (http://guitoo.sourceforge.net/), and a couple of others
but those two are the main players in their feild.

i just thought that i could & should shead some light on the subject, in the even that a "newb" were to get discouraged or whatnot.
kind regaurds,
KingPunk

well, to make it more friendly,
i believe that there could be an array of preset configurations that one could chose,
you know, something relatively similiar to redhat, e tc. where they ask you, "server", "workstation", "internet box" or whatnot
and make it relatively simple, via these preset variables
to do what they must do, to set up the base system, anything else, it seems like the user, would be on his or her own.
i also must add, that gentoo uses portage, its "port" of ports package management system from the BSD mindset..
and there is now, a couple of viable gui-only, portage package management tools around,
such as: Porthole (http://porthole.sourceforge.net/), Guitoo (http://guitoo.sourceforge.net/), and a couple of others
but those two are the main players in their feild.

i just thought that i could & should shead some light on the subject, in the even that a "newb" were to get discouraged or whatnot.
kind regaurds,
KingPunk

The Common Lisp standard library offers "just about everything" except sockets, threads, a relational database API, a GUI API, standard HTTP/FTP/XML-RPC libraries, XML libraries, cryptographic libraries, imaging libraries, and the list goes on. There's also nothing even approaching a consensus on web development frameworks, as exists in Java servlets and EJBs. Plus, the most technically excellent open source implementations don't work on Windows.

Wrong and wrong again.

But you knew that, didn't you?

This is where .net and mono could do a difference. They allow any language to be used with each other. So get your favorite functional language compiled for .net and you instantly have the whole library.

But despite this and this, as far as I can see there have not been any massive worldwide shifts toward functional programming recently.

I guess it's hard to change.

In a recent thread I discovered this little gem: the Hauppage MediaMVP, which reminds me so much of the Linksys WRT54G... I mean, it's a Linux-based networked media player, and of course there are hacked firmwares:

• MediaMVP Media Center
• SHS PVR user forums

The original firmware does not support playing DivX on the box itself (it does if you stream it from the server), but it's very likely that it will be done in the future. MythTV-client functionality is under development.

Most of the major distros have support for SELinux additions either in their base packages or as a subproject, and SELinux was designed to work with Fedora, not Gentoo.

SELinux for Distributions

Yes, there are some excellent ones too. WxPython is especially good:

www.wxpython.org

Also a simpler toolkit to use that sits on top of WxPython is Python Card:

pythoncard.sourceforge.net

And if you are into GUI builder kits try WxGlade:

wxglade.sourceforge.net

Yes, there are some excellent ones too. WxPython is especially good:

www.wxpython.org

Also a simpler toolkit to use that sits on top of WxPython is Python Card:

pythoncard.sourceforge.net

And if you are into GUI builder kits try WxGlade:

wxglade.sourceforge.net

In the meantime, you can use CinePaint.

There are many gui widget libraries available for python, and several RAD tools to get into 'em quickly. Try Boa constructor http://boa-constructor.sourceforge.net/ or google for pyglade

Since Python first ran on Windows, it used WinSock 1.1. Starting with Python 2.4, the socket module uses WinSock 2.0.. Most users probably won't notice the difference, but WinSock 2 is highly improved over 1.1 and offers many advanced features such as QoS.

QuickTime is annoying but MOV is still the best quality low bit rate format. What I do is install QuickTime, disable it's system tray icon and then have Media Player Classic take over all it's file associations. MPC can use the libraries that QuickTime installs to play MOV files but is much lighter weight and has better playback controls (And doesn't ask you to upgrade to the pro version every time). It can replace QuickTime, real player, and windows media player (apparently, it uses their libraries) and is better than all of them.

Get Media Player Classic from sourceforge.

Check out the "Touch Window from Outside" feature: View -> Video Frame -> Touch Window from Outside. It's great for video with black bands on top and bottom.

There's no way I can keep track of the 200-odd different passwords I have

Try KeePass (OSI certified'n'all). I've been using it for months on a USB stick, and it's quite handy.

Password Safe is your friend.

That's why I use Password Safe .

There is also GPass for Gnome and PwManager for KDE

There is also GPass for Gnome and PwManager for KDE

Your time has come... here it is.

E-commerce Single Sign-On exists and it's name is PayPal.
You can shop in thousands of stores at eBay.
Even if you are a Slashdot Geek you can use your PayPal acount at Source Forge.
Google search Paypal Donate returns a lot of blogs, open source projects and other webs that belive that Paypal it's the Single Sign-On E-commerce solution.

85 % growth and 437.60M revenue says something about it.

May i suggest you take a look at KeePass Store all your passwords in a single database that you can access with either one master-password, or combined with a key-disk that you have to insert first.

This is one good reason not to use the official IM clients. ;) Trillian, Gaim, Miranda IM are apparently good (I've only used Miranda IM though). Of course they may not all support *all* the options the official clients do. (e.g. ICQ and AIM and MSN group chat is absent from Miranda IM AFAIK, though others can start a MSN group chat with you)

Why not run this
with mythtv or freevo?

Not that I've done it myself yet.

Yes, we have all been throgh the phase of not being able to come to a family gathering without being peppered with various things about why someones machine is doing bad things, told everyone about Windows Update and why someone's cold didn't come from a computer virus, but anti-virus is still nice to have.

Istead of seeing it all as freeloading, why not turn around and get favours back? A nice dinner every now and then, related to a plumber or lawyer, use their services back. But, this is all mundane. Why not use your spare time to contribute skills where it can do real good stuff?

This project on SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/care2002/ for eaxmple. They're creating an open source Hospital Management system. It is being heavly deplyed in the thirs world where hospitals can easily cover 200k people and still do everything by paper.

I use my own cash to travel to this hospital in Tanzania: http://haydom.no/. It is run literally in the bush, it is in the middle of nowhere, yet covers patients in an area the size of Texas, has 400 beds and the whole hospital now has managed to get basic things like e-mail, a working installation of the system above, and on my last trip a month back I got to use their satelite link for the most down to earth thing:

Having all this hi tech wiz-stuff around, satelite links, a small server with IMAP and a few PC's I was summoned to the X-Ray dept, told to bring my digital camera so that I could snap a picture of an x-ray of a small kids chest, take it online and mail it to a colleague back home to get assistance on the diagnosis. This kid had never seen a digital camera, had no idea what the internet was, and better yet, even senior personell was baffled by having a kid's x-ray in a mondern hospital within ten minutes for diganosis.

There are plenty projects that cover this kind of donation of time and work, why not give back where it can really matter? After all, when's the last time you got to play hero geek and literally save a life?

Slashdot is known to "bitchslap" (via a perl script of the same name) people who are openly yet honestly critical of the site or the editors. If I use any of my accounts I'm just asking to AT THE VERY LEAST be modded down for going against the flow on this site. I've already had other posts of mine in this thread modded down (as well as up, but only once).

You're referring to this script which you can read in the CVS. It hasn't been used in years. You would know really well if you were bitchslapped because every single one of your comments would have its score manually set to -1 and your karma would instantly be "Bad". /. editors have a few better things to do than bitchslap users.

But, anyhow, posting AC does not separate you from your comments or your actual accounts. To prevent trolling and crapflooding, the MD5'd IP of posters as well as the MD5'd subnet is stored with comments. It would be trivial for editors who wished to do so to associate a given AC with posters from the same site, unless you're using multiple proxies that don't happen to get picked up by Slash.

But, yes, such paranoia is totally unncessary. As I relayed in my previous comment, either this site is run properly with ethics or it's not. If you believe the former case, there's no bloody reason for you to be hanging around, because of all of these evil editors and mean old Tacos are out to get you. If the latter is the case, such covert attempts are at best naive and whimsical. Further, if the latter is the case, you're likely just getting modded down by other more moderately minded users of Slashdot, such as myself.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'm communicating that last point well, because you totally read past it in your response above. The last two paragraphs of your response indicate a fundamental disconnect. Do you disagree or simply not understand what I'm saying here?

OldMiner wrote:

Slashdot continues to be run in many ways like the hobbyist site it was originally.

AC wrote:

No, it's much worse than it was. I've been here since 1998. It was a hobbyist site then. It isn't now, given the OSDN-now-OSTG sponsorship.

Just because the site was bought up by OSDN doesn't mean the place is run differently. I'd appreciate any evidence to the contrary. Heck, if your presumption that the site is "a geek circlejerk" is correct, it would indicate that the site is more the same hobbyist, small time affair it's always been.

elevating those that agree (moderation) and filtering out those who are GENUINELY dissenting (not trolling).

Those of us who came here and stayed, stayed because we liked what we found. Those of us who moderate, moderate the way we think is correct. Any community is going to be self-reinforcing, including this one. So, yes, if you scream against the status quo, you will be modded down unless the quality of your posts is above par. If you want to criticise what most others think is working just fine, it would behoove you to not be an ass about it. It would behoove you because you're trying to convince everyone else here that they're wrong, and you're right.

Agreed! Ripping is labor-intensive, and metadata is even more so. Getting the FLAC tags right the first time will make everything easier down the road.

Some time ago, I proposed a way to handle metadata externally, by simply giving each file a name like [cddb-disc-id][tracknumber].extension and then tagging each target format from the local cddb cache.

How do you handle it if a metadata error is found later? Is there an easy way to regenerate the tags for all the formats when someone edits the master?

But at least a user interface can be consistent. Dragging the floppy to the trash would suggest wiping the entire floppy disk, but it doesn't do that; in fact, it makes sure your files aren't deleted!

It's the exact same argument as winders (l)users having to click the start button to shut down... but then, I use fluxbox over xfree86, so intuition isn't really what I look for in a GUI...

etree-scripts.sourceforge.net

But then... digital distribution started last year with Apple iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, etc. All of these companies REQUIRED that the encoded file (AAC, WMA, etc) come from the master WAV file. Ack! Screwed! 9 months of ripping down the drain!

So... we finally realized what I was kicking myself for not realizing in the first place - and exactly what the story post mentions: hard drive storage is cheap. labor is expensive. rip the CD *once*, lossless, and NEVER have to rip it again. We wiped all our useless MP3 drives and started again: ripping all 78,000 CDs to FLAC format. Since it's a perfect digital copy of the master audio fles, and supports metadata tags, too, it's the perfect archiving format.

VERY easy to just script-up a bulk converter. http://perl.pattern.net/transcode is a great Perl solution. I posted my audio-converter scripts here, which include the use of SOX to make 30-second audio clips (since we needed that for work).

To all those here saying "MP3 is fine!" - you're being short sighted. In a few years there will be a newer better codec, and all your old MP3s will look as bad to your ears as your old 320x240 JPGs from 1995 look now. Go lossless. (FLAC, WAV, etc) - your future self will thank you.

But then... digital distribution started last year with Apple iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody, etc. All of these companies REQUIRED that the encoded file (AAC, WMA, etc) come from the master WAV file. Ack! Screwed! 9 months of ripping down the drain!

So... we finally realized what I was kicking myself for not realizing in the first place - and exactly what the story post mentions: hard drive storage is cheap. labor is expensive. rip the CD *once*, lossless, and NEVER have to rip it again. We wiped all our useless MP3 drives and started again: ripping all 78,000 CDs to FLAC format. Since it's a perfect digital copy of the master audio fles, and supports metadata tags, too, it's the perfect archiving format.

VERY easy to just script-up a bulk converter. http://perl.pattern.net/transcode is a great Perl solution. I posted my audio-converter scripts here, which include the use of SOX to make 30-second audio clips (since we needed that for work).

To all those here saying "MP3 is fine!" - you're being short sighted. In a few years there will be a newer better codec, and all your old MP3s will look as bad to your ears as your old 320x240 JPGs from 1995 look now. Go lossless. (FLAC, WAV, etc) - your future self will thank you.

I needed a command-line batch converter so I wrote one and posted it on sourceforge. Check out: http://wav2mp3.sourceforget.net/

I'm always willing to listen to feature requests. Sounds like a wav2flac equivalent might be something you'd want. I was driven to this solution because lame doesn't support multiple file inputs to convert.

You can cron the conversion so it happens after hours. Rip during the day, convert at night.

I needed a command-line batch converter so I wrote one and posted it on sourceforge. Check out: http://wav2mp3.sourceforget.net/

I'm always willing to listen to feature requests. Sounds like a wav2flac equivalent might be something you'd want. I was driven to this solution because lame doesn't support multiple file inputs to convert.

You can cron the conversion so it happens after hours. Rip during the day, convert at night.

I needed a command-line batch converter so I wrote one and posted it on sourceforge. Check out: http://wav2mp3.sourceforget.net/

I'm always willing to listen to feature requests. Sounds like a wav2flac equivalent might be something you'd want. I was driven to this solution because lame doesn't support multiple file inputs to convert.

You can cron the conversion so it happens after hours. Rip during the day, convert at night.

Sun Nov 28 - benr - DR17 now in CVS!!!

Enlightenment DR17 has been added into the primary CVS tree. No, hell hasn't frozen over and last we looked pigs weren't flying although this might signal Duke Nukem Forever sometime before Christmas. Feel free to grab it and muttle around. It's limited in its support for ICCCM, no NETWM support and it has no iconification, virtual desktops, shading, keybindings or button bindings, but it does work. Patches are welcome, contributions are welcome, but bug reports should be ignored... this is CVS code afterall.

If you haven't followed Enlightenment in a while, you'll need to catch up on the EFL first. The EFL is the foundation (get it?) of the DR17 window manager. Information on CVS and the build order can be found here.

Learn more about Enlightenment DR17 on its project page.

Is a VFS module for samba called File Ext Map. It takes a share, and a file indicating what conversions to perform, and then converts the files on the fly when called. I haven't got it to work with Samba 3, but in theory, you just set up a share of your flac files, and it would show them as ogg files, for instance.