Slashdot Mirror

I still have my boxed copies of CP/M-86, DR-C and DR-Fortran at home. Having used CP/M on an Apple ][+ with a Z80 card it was a pretty easy transition. To this day I still use Joe as my editor. It's a virtual clone of WordStar that I used on the CP/M machine 20 years ago.

Too bad DOS and MS won out, CP/M was the cat's meow at the time.

For independent software development and running your software business:
Eric Sink
Joel on Software (read business of software newsgroup)

For inexpensive, reliable order processing:
SWREG
ShareIt

Installers:
NSIS (Windows)
BitRock (Linux, Windows)

Icons/Website:
Go to KDE Look find some artwork you like and contact the author.

A related application is called synergy allows two machines to share a single mouse/keyboard.

Not as useful (you can't move windows between the machines) but it works on Macs, Windows, and any machine with XFree86.

I find that its a great app if your desk tends to share a desktop computer with a laptop.

AFAIK it's a reference to "A Shrubbery!" from the Monty Python movie The Quest for the Holy Grail.

...
static char *usblp_messages[] = { "ok", "out of paper", "off-line", "on fire" };
...

look at win32 webcam apps. you're lucky to find any that arent lightly to mildly hacked at versions of Dorgem with spyware / adware / trojans du jour tacked on.

Either their docs/FAQ is misleading, or the tool doesn't do what you're saying it does...

According to their Getting Started page, they require that the other servers you intend on running Xdmx against, all be running Linux, all booted into X, and logged in as a valid user.

But then that isn't running virtual desktops, or dual-headed. Its VNC.

How do I launch an app from my laptop, using Xdmx, to another Linux server, running a completely different instance of X? According to their literature on the website, this isn't possible. I have to launch the same app on both machines, but they're different copies of the same app, on different drives.

That isn't multi-head, that's just VNC, essentially.

Or did I miss something?

Try out Buddy.

Same here.
Ever since I've tried Goscreen I've been looking for a similar alternative and found it in Virtual Dimension. When I sit behind someone else's pc or laptop, I get kinda frustrated at not being able to switch desktops. But because I also want to be able to work on one screen and have another open for reference/status/whatever, I started the trend at work to use a second workstation. Soon after that I started using tightvnc with win2vnc (the improved version).
Thanks to the link to synergy provided by gl4ss I'm going to hook up my third workstation running FreeBSD as well (had a bit too much trouble with using vnc for X).
I'm going to get sooo spoiled. *grin*

Same here.
Ever since I've tried Goscreen I've been looking for a similar alternative and found it in Virtual Dimension. When I sit behind someone else's pc or laptop, I get kinda frustrated at not being able to switch desktops. But because I also want to be able to work on one screen and have another open for reference/status/whatever, I started the trend at work to use a second workstation. Soon after that I started using tightvnc with win2vnc (the improved version).
Thanks to the link to synergy provided by gl4ss I'm going to hook up my third workstation running FreeBSD as well (had a bit too much trouble with using vnc for X).
I'm going to get sooo spoiled. *grin*

For those of you looking to try out some of the editors Rob mentioned (namely Sam and ACME) - the most recent port of those applications to Linux/BSD/OSX is maintained at the plan 9 port page by Russ Cox - although it would be wise to read the papers before trying the executables.

There's also a recently reactivated project to bring Plan 9 filesystems and namespace concepts to Linux which is maintained over on Sourceforge.

Virtual Desktops!

With something like VirtuaWin you can actually have a simulated dual screen setup. Enable audio on your AIM, and you know when to jump to the next screen.

I use ALT+# where # is the desktop I want to jump to. I have 1-9 configured, but normally use 1 & 2 (1 - Web surfing, 2 - Email). Then they expand from there. So 3 gives me a screen for all my putty terminals when I'm troubleshooting server issues, 4 can be a development window. 5 is for database-specific stuff (ie: 4: ASP.NET, 5: SQL Enterprise Manager). And so on. Exceeding 6 though, can get annoying due to the extra finger stretch, so I try not to, but if need be there is the ALT key on the right.

VirtuaWin!

MirandaIM is cool, but unfortunately it uses TOC, not OSCAR. Thus, you can't check people's away messages without actually IM'ing them, you can't have file transfer and directIM, and you can't see typing notifications.

I'm working on an instant messenger that still fits on a floppy, requires no install, yet implements OSCAR. To look at it and laugh at my inferior coding skills, go here.

VirtuaWin actually does a really good job of handling mousewarp style and keyboard controlled virtual screens in windows.

disclaimer: i made an icon set for them once, but otherwise i ain't biased.

I'm not sure what you mean by "pretend", but win2vnc will let you use one keyboard and mouse for two+ desktops.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/win2vnc/

I discovered Synergy a while back, and I use it at work all the time now. I have a PC sitting on my desk (Linux), and most of the time have my laptop (Windowws) sitting next to it. With synergy, I basically use my laptop as a second monitor, for browsing the web, reading email (since I have it with me all the time), looking at reference manuals, etc. It's very handy to be able to have a web page open explaining a problem, showing example code, etc, while coding in the other monitor. It's an extra boost to be able to control them with one keyboard/mouse, and be able to copy&paste.

I've also been using a dual-monitor setup at home lately (one PC) while working on a video project, though my second monitor is a TV. It's handy to have the output preview on there though, as it keeps my main screen less cluttered, and I can see what the output will actually look like on a TV. (For some reason, with strobe lights in the background for example, if I watch it on a CRT the whole picture flickers, while on a TV it looks normal .. however, if I actually render and watch the output of the project on the CRT, it looks fine .. likely this is an issue with the way it's doing preview or something, but either way having the TV is functional).

From a concept-programming standpoint, LitWindow seems to be a sort of hacked-together meta-programming language for GUIs. The concepts are good, but the implementation is sorely limited by the language they use (C++).

For instance, their data adapter are the poor's man meta-program generating useful reflective data from a data structure. You actually need to duplicate the description of the data structure, precisely because this is not a _real_ meta-program, but only a clever hack using the C preprocessor...

Now, what if you had a real way to extend the language as you need it, rather than this crude hack? Wouldn't it be cool if the data adapters could be generated automagically?

Whoops... http://gaim-encryption.sourceforge.net/

Maybe is just that what is needed...

If some of the US government institutions insist on using Windows, then they should at least use open source security software, such as TrueCrypt (truecrypt.sourceforge.net).

I don't personally see the need for such a thing anyways. I've gmail open in a tab and when I get a mail, the title changes to indicate this. Also, non-critical mail, such as mailing lists and stuff goes directly to a label without hitting the inbox, so no false alerts there.

I have my browser up often, often, so it works fine for me. Not to mention it works equally well on linux. For me, who use both win and lin often, I like common things to be similar. :) That is why I'm extra sad SIM seems to have stopped development. It was by far the best IM client I've ever used (I guess I really, really liked all those features and the plugin system), and it worked on both platforms almost exactly the same. Sadly, it has encoding issues when talking to some others, like Mac ICQ users and GAIM users, which finally forced me to drop it as it doesn't seem to get fixed. :(

Now I run Miranda, which is way good and GAIM, which is not, but as good as it gets I suppose. Before anyone starts up the flamethrowers, GAIM is not buggy or anything, it just does not fit me personally, featurewise and especially interface-wise. We all have our preferences.

Google may be on their way to ruling the universe, but the little backwater program gaim will forever rule IM.

From the article:

the LBT places fringes on each point-like portion of the image. When we combine pictures taken with these fringes at three different angles, the fringes cross and give information about the exact placement of the point of light, distinguishing other points of light close to it. It is the crossings of these fringes that allow us to reconstruct a high resolution image.

So, does this mean that video from 2 cheap webcams pointed at the same subject, can be combined to a single higher quality stream?

The Intel Intel Open Computer Vison library already uses binocular vison to track objects in 3D space. Can it be applied to this application?

Just because you use the protocol does not mean you are stuck with the bloatware client. Try GAIM or Trillian. They have a nice amount of features, operate on the AOL IM Network without all the bloat of the official AIM Client.

I would suggest jabber. You can sign up for/access it from gaim and you can choose a server with AIM/MSN/Yahoo compatability so you're not stuck with an AIM and Jabber client.

Try using GAIM. It's a chat client that allows you to use a variety of protocols, including AIM. No ads, no bloat, and if you have multiple messenger services, it can cut the number of extraneous icons in your taskbar. Only drawback IMO is the lack of video and sound options and the occasional interruption of service when one of the messenger services decides to get clever with their protocol. However, Gaim tends to catch up within about 24 hours on the latter case.

If you want something quick you can always use Tk alongside ToGL http://togl.sourceforge.net/...

You basically write your GUI in Tcl/Tk and use ToGL for the OpenGL rendering window...

2: : 1: : 16,642: : Mozilla/8.0 (compatible; Quit looking here and get back to spanking your monkey.)
3: : 2: : 30,776: : Mozilla/8.5 (Aww fuck. Now they want my license and registration.)
2: : 0: : 9,790: : Mozilla/8.0 (compatible; Woo-hoo, I'm in a famous site's Web log. HI MOM!)
1: : 0: : 11,460: : Mozilla/8.0 (compatible; ...What? You mean people actually READ this shit?!)

http://nikg43.sourceforge.net/best/

I helped some friends build their bot. Ours was special because we used the printer as the body/frame. It was their first year their school was competing, so it was all new to us. We didn't have a reverse but it did have zero turning radius. I don't think we won anything but it was still fun.

It had a griping arm to pick up the balls since they were worth the most points. It really couldn't do anything else.

Why is this news? There have been similar players out for nearly a year. e.g.:

Pinnacle Showscenter
Actiontec MediaPlayer
D-Link DSM-320
Neuston

Open Show Center (OSC on Sourceforge) is an open source software for running them too.

I personally have 1.2 TB of movies ripped to Xvid on an old pentium running Apache that feeds my Actiontec MP.

iPod Linux will run Tremor, as I mentioned in my original post, but it's not real-time yet and probably won't be any time soon. The iPod Linux guys are more concerened with perfecting basic audio output and MP3 playback before moving on to Vorbis.

Sounds about right, so in the spirit of imagining user requirements, I'll simply describe what I have done: I've got a P3 450 MHz running XP Pro, with 300 GB of hard drive space. I'm using the optical digital output (SPDIF) from my soundcard driving a $9000 stereo system, so I don't want to fool with any kind of lossy compression, so I use FLAC. I use Winamp as the player, since there is a FLAC plug-in for Winamp, and a webserver plug-in. The webserver plugin allows you to send http get requests to Winamp to send commands to it. Then I have a perl script that scans my directory structure (spanning multiple logical hard drives) for all FLAC (and WAV, and mp3), and generates an HTML file that has a (per album) table of contents, which is hyperlinked into the webpage body. In the body, you can play an album, any one song, or "create a playlist on the fly" by simply checking checkboxes (per song). This webpage is served by an Apache server, which is also running a Perl CGI script, which receives the commands from the webpage, and dispatches the appropriate commands to the Winamp webserver plugin. Additionally, I can control my pre-pro from the same webpage, by using Win32SerialPort for Perl, and the pre-pro's serial port. Lastly, I have a set of scripts that: (1) Convert WAV files to FLAC (for use right after ripping a CD) (2) Convert WAV/FLAC files to mp3, and copy them to another PC, where I maintain my iPod directory. (3) Copy these mp3 to my PC at work. Now I only need to use Apple's COM interface to automatically update my iTunes library so I don't have to go into iTunes and tell it to add a new folder! Almost forgot to mention, the main reason I think the web interface is such a good idea, is because: (1) I can control it from any computer on the network, and (2) Using either an RF keyboard, and/or a standard universal remote and Girder, I can have full control of the stereo from my couch. For now, I have a 17" monitor in my stereo rack (yeah, it ain't pretty), and use PHP commands to make the web page text large on that monitor. Long term, I plan to have a 50-60" LCD or DLP projection TV, which will be much nicer.

http://gjukebox.sourceforge.net/

A little bit of a pain to get going, but worth it!

jason

Me too. TiVo-S2 w/ HMO TiVo with http://javahmo.sourceforge.net/ JavaHMO plays MP3s beautifully through my THX receiver over my WiFi connection. It doesn't work for TiVos that are from the satelite guys tho. Sorry. I have a Series2. Originally I setup http://freshmeat.net/projects/mod_mp3/ mod_mp3 under Apache for many years - which worked nice for computers, but it didn't support Apache2. After switching to Apache2, I searched until finding http://freshmeat.net/projects/musicindex/ MusicIndex which is still working perfectly. Highly recommended. Most recently, I've gotten a http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.a spx?sku=DJSTD15&c=us&l=en&cs=04&category_id=2999&p age=external Dell Jukebox (15GB) for $129. This addresses music access when I'm not at home since my current consulting gig is at a draconian baby bell that blocks all media file streaming. Yes, I would have preferred an iPod or iRiver solution, but they are over 2x the cost. The Dell is ok after you get passed the crappy Win32 tools - it doesn't just appear like a USB storage device, you must use their software to copy files over making it almost worthless for all sorts of other uses. Since I converted all my CDs over the last few years, this wasn't a complete showstopper though it still sucks. An Open Source solution recompilable and modifiable by me would have been much nicer IFF a USB storage device couldn't work.

There are tons of resources on the web for doing just this. I did this with an old toshiba Libretto 100 (the one that's a P166 and about the size of a VCR tape, easily stashed under a seat). For driver-friendly control, use a parallel-port LCD display, like this, and a serial port IrMan with a credit card-sized universal remote. I built the whole thing for under $100, not counting laptop.

Just google for car mp3, or look at CAJUN to get started. If it helps I used ZipSlack as my linux distro, but any small distro will do.

Freevo does a lot more than just the PVR function that the name implies. It also plays music and displays photos. It automatically rips CDs and looks them up in CDDB for indexing. I have it running on a Via mini-ITX system hooked up to my stereo. Works great.

First of all, for playback, and since we are talking about a dedicated system, give the mp3 player task maximum priority (e.g.: -20). All other tasks must run with low priority (e.g.: 19). This way you ensure the kernel will attend your mp3 player task more often than everything else.

Second, for audio extraction and encoding you can use cdda2wav that also extracts to pipes suitable for use with the Blade Encoder.

For playback, mpg321 shall be enough.

I shouldn't probably say this, but too many people commit this mistake and then complain about Linux's performance: remember to enable DMA for your HDD and CD-ROM drives, doing so will make your IDE transfers 10 times faster (at least) and free your processor for other, more important things, such as encoding / decoding audio instead of transferring data.

Here's my setup:

Tivo, 80 hour version, hooked up to the 5.1 reciever.

Wireless 802.11b access via a linksys USB nic - hooked up to the tivo.

D-Link wireless router, hooked up to the server as well as the internet connection.

CentOSrunning on the server. JavaHMO loaded on the server as well

With this setup, the music is automatically browsable so long as the server is on and functional. All one has to do is select 'music and pictures' within the tivo menu, and volia - all of the cd's, ripped, sorted by directory.

As an added bonus, there's the DVR functionality there as well. Parents, even older ones, can appreciate that (they may not with an xbox).

Also, might I suggest using the MusePack audio format, as it produces higher quality encodes, and is faster than mp3 (both for encoding and decoding), which would be nice for your low-spec machine. However, all the players I know that can use it are X-based (other than the command-line decoder). Is it really an issue to run an X session that opens XMMS? You can use the built-in twm window manager, no Gnome/KDE nonsense.

this? With Bemused, you could control your jukebox from anywhere in the house with your cellphone and view the placelist on your phone.

This is the other Jukebox (GJukebox) which I was referring to. It has all of the functions (such as ripping, storing in directory structures, etc) that you are looking for. It has also pretty mature code. Take a look for sure if you are interested in this type of setup.

KL

Funny this story was just posted... I've been trying out a couple of these web frontended jukeboxes the last couple of days. I personally like Tunez! the best because I can setup an icecast stream. The installation was fairly simple.

I've also tried Jukebox (which i found difficult to get going - with a icecast stream) and also tried the Andromeda look-alikes.

Last I heard write was still experiencing random failures [...]

That was 4-5 years ago. Then Anton Altaparmakov disabled the unreliable write support and started to write a new driver from scratch. Today that one is included in Linux 2.6 kernels and it's reliable. Altough the write support is still limited but for example NTFS resizing is widely used and very reliable for over two years.

There are also two additional binary-only, full-featured, read-write NTFS drivers. One of them is Captive NTFS, using Windows' own NTFS driver the Wine way, and the other one is Paragon's NTFS driver.

Knoppix has four of the NTFS drivers:
1) old, broken NTFS in 2.4 kernels
2) new, safe NTFS in 2.6 kernels
3) Captive NTFS
4) userspace utilities: shared code with 2) but no kernel driver needed

Color version due out in two weeks There is a list for announcements that you can sign up for: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkula tor-announce Also, mouse based movement/placement.

There's also an open-source version: OpenTeddy.

I just wish OpenTeddy and this inkulator thing would somehow work right out of Blender...

Here (In case it gets slashdotted, it is a hand flexing in a very peculiar manner)

I'd recognize that motion anywhere.

Black or white is assigned to a plane of a 3D Mesh based on user input. For example, the operator might want the left and bottom planes of a figure to be inked. He can then specify how much "leftness" or "bottomness" is required to pass the threshold and have that area of the model inked.

This is in contrast to Cel or 'Toon shading based on posterization of calculated light, which is the more typical method for cartoon shading. In that method, the continuous pattern of light derived from Phong shading is posertized into 3 levels--black , grey and white for hightlights.

Did you see these: talking man walking man
Those look pretty incredible to me as far as animations go and other then a few minor things too perfect to be hand drawn, I'd be hard pressed to distinguish it from a hand drawn animation.
Regards,
Steve

Did you see these: talking man walking man
Those look pretty incredible to me as far as animations go and other then a few minor things too perfect to be hand drawn, I'd be hard pressed to distinguish it from a hand drawn animation.
Regards,
Steve