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I agree with your comments -- for traditional programming.

But I worked my but off for 15 years of research, development, and experimentation and changed the coding and maintenance game rules.

I just finished off some major updates to the project website for MSS Code Factory. Take the time to do a bit of reading, then check out some of the manufactured code for 1.9 or 2.0 in the Subversion repository.

Yep, it's big.

Over 1,000,000 lines for 2.0 so far, and that's just the manufactured code.

But it runs like a bat out of hell, and thanks to automation, maintenance is trivial. Bug fixes implemented in the rules can be applied to the entire code base in minutes -- it takes 5-10 times as long to check in the changes as it does to write them.

"Am I evil? Yes, I AM!"

In fairness, VC++ does have some baked-in COM magic - that's probably what DrYak was referring to.

Yup indeed.
- Under VC++ you just #import a COM, and then have an object behaving automagically just like a regular C++ object.
- Under GCC you have to rely on stuff like disphelper to call COM objects easily with run-time bindings.

I faced the same kind of problem, and bugs were sent via email with generic descriptions that proved difficult to decipher. Until I found an early copy of this software, which I then modified and sent updates to the developer. It's worked WONDERFULLY for us. It's called Panic Button, and it takes a screen shot and allows for a text description to be entered. http://sourceforge.net/projects/panicbutton/ I hope it works for you.

http://latexinword.sourceforge.net/

So OS X definitely takes at least one extra step? I don't count that as an improvement. "Swipe, wait, move to click on icon", or "move to corner, wait, move to click icon" vs "move to click icon".

I doubleheight the taskbar at the bottom because as you said Windows 7 does not do vertical taskbars well if you have many taskbuttons.

By the way, maybe winkey+[number] might be helpful for you. It's not so helpful for me, since I often have multiple windows open for each app (emails, IM, browser, IDE, ssh etc). So it's either direct mouse clicking, or if I really want rapid access amongst a bunch of windows then I use a utility I wrote ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/linkkey/ ).

I find win-tab useless as well. It looks nice and works if you have only a few windows open. But if you only have a few windows open, you don't really need that much help from the GUI do you?

Car analogy: a Desktop UI that only works well for the case where you are only switching between two or three windows is as good as a car that only travels as fast and as far as an experienced and fit person can walk. That it looks cool while doing so, does not impress me from a technological or practical point of view. The reason why I want a car is so that I can reasonably quickly, comfortably and safely travel 30+ times the distance I can walk.

OS analogy: an OS that only manages 3 processes well is a crappy OS. With modern hardware, you'd want an OS that can handle hundreds or even thousands of processes well.

Anyone can design a UI that allows a user to manage 1-3 windows/items. But experienced users don't need much help to handle 1-3 windows.

Car analogy: a Desktop UI that only works well for the case where you are only switching between two or three windows is as good as a car that only travels as fast and as far as an experienced and fit person can walk. The feature that it looks cool while doing so, does not impress me from a technological or practical point of view. The reason why I want a car is so that for the 10% case, I can reasonably quickly, comfortably and safely travel 30+ times the distance I can walk.

I do run most apps full screen/maximized but I don't see how just a single swipe will quickly take me to any specific window out of 30+ windows. At work I often have 30+ task buttons on my task bar (I've already mentioned the reasons why I do that - it'll be rather stupid if a modern desktop computer can't handle more windows than I can).

80% of the time you will be using apps maximized, and 80% of the time you will only be switching between two of them, and 80% of the time you will only have one window from each app open.

On MS Windows most people can learn to quickly switch between two windows in one step. It's called alt-tab. If a more modern and recent Desktop GUI can't help more/better than that it's disappointing.

With Windows 7, you can actually do winkey+[number] and it will raise a window of application #[number]. So it can be fast with multiple apps, IF you only have one window per app...

But that's not always the case. Some time back, at a project, I had to switch amongst 4 or more windows. It was something like: compare two documents by bit, sometimes refer to one or more references, then update/add stuff to another document, then repeat.

Yes it would help if I had many big monitors. Unfortunately I only had a laptop with one screen. Fortunately I had written a program that allowed me to map alt+[number] to different windows ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/linkkey/ ). So I could do alt+1, alt+2, etc.

But I found it silly that modern Desktop GUIs didn't help me whereas there was already similar concept on stuff like GNU Screen and the linux/*BSD text consoles.

GUI designers focus on helping newbies which is good, but most newbies can learn to go beyond that. Most people can go beyond crawling and learn how to stand, walk, run, and drive a car.

I ran XP in Classic, but when I switched to 7 I just tweaked the colour scheme a bit and I've been fairly happy with it ever since. Happier still since installing the Explorer portion of ClassicShell, but overall everything else they did to the interface I was fine with. I'm sure I'll be on the lookout for something similar to get rid of the damned ribbon in Window 8 if I bother upgrading...

http://www.sourceforge.net/
http://www.portableapps.com/
http://www.freshports.org/
http://www.getdeb.net/

Or just man up and install linux and use the repositories. Failing that, go to the program's WEBSITE and download it there like you are SUPPOSED to!

If you write your own proxy server, you could modify the z level of content from known interstitials, maybe you could derive it from proximodo or privoxy. This would have the advantage of being unnoticed by the intersticials since you are still pulling the content,

If you write your own proxy server, you could modify the z level of content from known interstitials, maybe you could derive it from proximodo or privoxy. This would have the advantage of being unnoticed by the intersticials since you are still pulling the content,

There is no way to compare the quality of two languages without using the same set of programmers (seasoned and unseasoned) on both languages and then create an implementation. Both languages have their merits, but what many Java coders fail to do is to be strict about their coding. However there are tools to help Java coders - Eclipse is fairly extensive in compiler warnings and you can add the Findbugs plugin too and you will catch more errors and get a very stable system.

But it is also a difference between a programming language that is easy to extend and a language that is harder to extend. One more difference is that Java has the potential for memory leaks which Cobol doesn't. That is one of the traps Java has, but an experienced programmer can easily circumvent those traps.

And then - Java is flexible and has a lot of supporting functions (Corba, JMS etc) that Cobol lacks - or if it has them are limited to a certain environment at an expensive license which means that it's easy to interact with other systems with Java while Cobol almost always requires the other systems to adapt.

But if you think that Java is bad, then you can also look at C# - where the type-safety is crippled and you are more or less locked to a single environment. The potential for bugs in C# is bigger than for Java.

Going for Ada instead would be better, but the community support for Ada is weak.

No, those are not tools, those are standards.

You can use xpath to find anything in xml (For example third object with property A=10 and property B>20).
As for actual tool - use any DOM engine from any language where your data is kept.

There are also command line tools for that: http://xmlstar.sourceforge.net/docs.php

I'll have to check this software lineup in more detail and see if I have competition for my code manufacturing approach. I use expert-systems techniques to "compile" an enhanced ERD/object model that is not based on UML into the object-relational-mapping code (currently focusing on Java, though I did do an earlier variant with C# as well.)

But I'm not trying to prove a be-all solution with my work, I'm just trying to automate the grunt work and leave the business logic and user interfacing up to skilled developers.

Check out http://msscodefactory.sourceforge.net/ if you're curious. I'm debugging the latest version of the PostgreSQL DbIO code right now, and should have that done by Monday. After that I can start doing the "forks" of the PostgreSQL DbIOs for other databases.

Here's a little more information from our legal folks:

A: Earlier this year, we went through a pretty robust process to receive our Truste certification which covers privacy, security and safe harbor (our privacy policy is located at ADD LINK). We are continuing to look for ways to improve our security controls and protect user personal information. We did fully disclose an incident early in 2001 and the details and what we did about can be found at: http://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-attack-full-report/

They also recommended that I point you to our corporate privacy policy, here: http://geek.net/privacy-statement

It is surprising that Slashdot even let you post a deb: url, as the filter usually seems to destroy most non-http(s) links. However, not everyone uses a Debian-based distro, and not everyone tries some random package (even from the repository) before reading a little about it, so posting the home page would have been a bit more useful.

What does Source Forge do that is above and beyond the call of duty to protect user information? Have you guys had any data breaches that you haven't disclosed, or fully disclosed? What would you have done differently in hindsight?

When we have attacks, and compromises (which has happened in the the past) we report in detail on it in the blog. Here's one example: https://sourceforge.net/blog/update-sourceforgenet-attack/

As with any company, these sorts of things have a procedure that we have to follow, and I'm checking with the people along that trail to see what I should say in response. There haven't been any compromises or attacks during my time at SF, so I don't have any personal experience as to how we respond to this, but I've asked some of the guys on our engineering team to help me put together a response to this question.

more accurately the Internet was invented to drop cross continental nukes on the USSR from anywhere
also
the computer got invented to stop getting sunk by "ze Germans"

I don't know if I would like to be a part of this program but the thought of "nuke ninja" is hilarious. maybe icesurfer want's to help!

So, let's see if YOU have done more, earlier, & better than I have, ok? Here goes:

----

Windows NT Magazine (now Windows IT Pro) April 1997 "BACK OFFICE PERFORMANCE" issue, page 61

(&, for work done for EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com on PAID CONTRACT (writing portions of their SuperCache program increasing its performance by up to 40% via my work) albeit, for their SuperDisk & HOW TO APPLY IT, for a finalist position @ MS Tech Ed, two years in a row 2000-2002, in its HARDEST CATEGORY: SQLServer Performance Enhancement).

WINDOWS MAGAZINE, 1997, "Top Freeware & Shareware of the Year" issue page 210, #1/first entry in fact (my work is there)

PC-WELT FEB 1998 - page 84, again, my work is featured there

WINDOWS MAGAZINE, WINTER 1998 - page 92, insert section, MUST HAVE WARES, my work is again, there

PC-WELT FEB 1999 - page 83, again, my work is featured there

CHIP Magazine 7/99 - page 100, my work is there

GERMAN PC BOOK, Data Becker publisher "PC Aufrusten und Repairen" 2000, where my work is contained in it

HOT SHAREWARE Numero 46 issue, pg. 54 (PC ware mag from Spain), 2001 my work is there, first one featured, yet again!

Also, a British PC Mag in 2002 for many utilities I wrote, saw it @ BORDERS BOOKS but didn't buy it... by that point, I had moved onto other areas in this field besides coding only...

Being paid for an article that made me money over @ PCPitstop in 2008 for writing up a guide that has people showing NO VIRUSES/SPYWARES & other screwups, via following its point, such as THRONKA sees here -> http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=ee926d913b81bf6d63c3c7372fd2a24c&t=28430&page=3

It's also been myself helping out the folks at the UltraDefrag64 project (a 64-bit defragger for Windows), in showing them code for how to do Process Priority Control @ the GUI usermode/ring 3/rpl 3 level in their program (good one too), & being credited for it by their lead dev & his team... see here -> http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/handbook/Credits.html or here http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2993462&group_id=199532&atid=969873

AND lastly: http://g-off.net/software/a-python-repeatable-threadingtimer-class where I got other programmer's work WORKING RIGHT (in PyThon no less, which I just started learning only 2 week ago no less) by showing them how to use a "Dummy Proxy Function" as I call it, to make a RepeatTimer class (Thread sub-class really) to take PARAMETERIZED FUNCTIONS, ala:

def apkthreadlaunch():
getnortonsafeweb(sAPKFileName = "APK_1_NortonSafeWeb360Extracted.txt".rstrip())

a = RepeatTimer(900, apkthreadlaunch) # 900 is 15 minutes... apk

Where it was NOT working for many folks there, before (submitted to the maker of the RepeatTimer class no less, & yes, it WORKS!)

----

What do I have to say about that much above? I can't say it any better, than this was stated already (from the greatest book of all time, the "tech manual for life" imo):

"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." - Corinthians Chapter 10, Verse 10

(And, because I got LUCKY to have been exposed to some really GREAT classmates, professors, & colleagues on the job over time as well)

So, let's see if YOU have done more, earlier, & better than I have, ok? Here goes:

----

Windows NT Magazine (now Windows IT Pro) April 1997 "BACK OFFICE PERFORMANCE" issue, page 61

(&, for work done for EEC Systems/SuperSpeed.com on PAID CONTRACT (writing portions of their SuperCache program increasing its performance by up to 40% via my work) albeit, for their SuperDisk & HOW TO APPLY IT, for a finalist position @ MS Tech Ed, two years in a row 2000-2002, in its HARDEST CATEGORY: SQLServer Performance Enhancement).

WINDOWS MAGAZINE, 1997, "Top Freeware & Shareware of the Year" issue page 210, #1/first entry in fact (my work is there)

PC-WELT FEB 1998 - page 84, again, my work is featured there

WINDOWS MAGAZINE, WINTER 1998 - page 92, insert section, MUST HAVE WARES, my work is again, there

PC-WELT FEB 1999 - page 83, again, my work is featured there

CHIP Magazine 7/99 - page 100, my work is there

GERMAN PC BOOK, Data Becker publisher "PC Aufrusten und Repairen" 2000, where my work is contained in it

HOT SHAREWARE Numero 46 issue, pg. 54 (PC ware mag from Spain), 2001 my work is there, first one featured, yet again!

Also, a British PC Mag in 2002 for many utilities I wrote, saw it @ BORDERS BOOKS but didn't buy it... by that point, I had moved onto other areas in this field besides coding only...

Being paid for an article that made me money over @ PCPitstop in 2008 for writing up a guide that has people showing NO VIRUSES/SPYWARES & other screwups, via following its point, such as THRONKA sees here -> http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=ee926d913b81bf6d63c3c7372fd2a24c&t=28430&page=3

It's also been myself helping out the folks at the UltraDefrag64 project (a 64-bit defragger for Windows), in showing them code for how to do Process Priority Control @ the GUI usermode/ring 3/rpl 3 level in their program (good one too), & being credited for it by their lead dev & his team... see here -> http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/handbook/Credits.html or here http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2993462&group_id=199532&atid=969873

AND lastly: http://g-off.net/software/a-python-repeatable-threadingtimer-class where I got other programmer's work WORKING RIGHT (in PyThon no less, which I just started learning only 2 week ago no less) by showing them how to use a "Dummy Proxy Function" as I call it, to make a RepeatTimer class (Thread sub-class really) to take PARAMETERIZED FUNCTIONS, ala:

def apkthreadlaunch():
getnortonsafeweb(sAPKFileName = "APK_1_NortonSafeWeb360Extracted.txt".rstrip())

a = RepeatTimer(900, apkthreadlaunch) # 900 is 15 minutes... apk

Where it was NOT working for many folks there, before (submitted to the maker of the RepeatTimer class no less, & yes, it WORKS!)

----

What do I have to say about that much above? I can't say it any better, than this was stated already (from the greatest book of all time, the "tech manual for life" imo):

"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." - Corinthians Chapter 10, Verse 10

(And, because I got LUCKY to have been exposed to some really GREAT classmates, professors, & colleagues on the job over time as well)

I still prefer Firefox over Chrome for many reasons, though I think the primary reason is Pentadactyl.

2000? Hell, I have my email back to the early 1980s.

The real problem is that back then it was OK to put all messages in one file, and having one message per file is far more useful for searching with grep.

Actually I find this less of an issue. Check out grepmail and mboxgrep. I use these pretty regularly and they're very useful for doing e.g. grepmail 'foo.*bar[a-z]' ~/Mail/mbox.gz >/tmp/messages; mutt -f /tmp/messages

Okay, so most of the people here have wasted your time trying to convince you that "storage is cheap" or that there isn't a good reason to store all that e-mail, let alone try to organize it all. I'm with you, not them. It's the fricking 2000s. It should be easier to archive this stuff and organize it if you *want* to.

I've always wanted to do something about my messy mail archive of mbox files (dates back to the 1990s), but I dreaded the thought of coding something up from scratch given all the quirks of e-mail formatting. I had high hopes your post would elicit some sage advice from the readers of /., but so far I don't see much other than the good mutt+ruby solution. In frustration, I've started looking but I haven't found much either. For what it's worth, here's what I've go so far:

1) There are plenty of commercial solutions that promise to do everything for a low price (e.g., MailSteward for OS X looks pretty good and has a free trial up to 15000 messages). Maybe. But I'm cheap and will exhaust the fully free solutions before spending money. Most of them are more focused on mailbox conversion/migration (e.g., Emailchemy) than actual filtering/archiving.

2) Free / some assembly required:
archivemail - mostly for date-selection of messages and archiving/compressing. Doesn't help with attachments. Python.
archmbox - more capable than archivemail. Can do filtering based on date, header field matches, etc., copy selected messages and compress to archive. Perl. Closer.
MHonArc - converts mbox to HTML files with links to attachments. Meant for mailing list archiving, but it should work the same for a personal mailbox. Perl. There's also an OS X front end for it.

The HTML approach isn't ideal, but that could be a convenient way to browse through the archives (e.g., toss it all up on a password-protected web site and your mail archive is available anywhere, like your own personal and backed-up GMail), and a contributed program in the MHonArc distribution can turn an MHonArc archive back *into* an mbox file, which might let you do some modifications to the HTML files and linked attachments with scripts and then backconvert them after.

I haven't tested any of these, but I think I'll try MHonArc and see how it goes.

Okay, so most of the people here have wasted your time trying to convince you that "storage is cheap" or that there isn't a good reason to store all that e-mail, let alone try to organize it all. I'm with you, not them. It's the fricking 2000s. It should be easier to archive this stuff and organize it if you *want* to.

I've always wanted to do something about my messy mail archive of mbox files (dates back to the 1990s), but I dreaded the thought of coding something up from scratch given all the quirks of e-mail formatting. I had high hopes your post would elicit some sage advice from the readers of /., but so far I don't see much other than the good mutt+ruby solution. In frustration, I've started looking but I haven't found much either. For what it's worth, here's what I've go so far:

1) There are plenty of commercial solutions that promise to do everything for a low price (e.g., MailSteward for OS X looks pretty good and has a free trial up to 15000 messages). Maybe. But I'm cheap and will exhaust the fully free solutions before spending money. Most of them are more focused on mailbox conversion/migration (e.g., Emailchemy) than actual filtering/archiving.

2) Free / some assembly required:
archivemail - mostly for date-selection of messages and archiving/compressing. Doesn't help with attachments. Python.
archmbox - more capable than archivemail. Can do filtering based on date, header field matches, etc., copy selected messages and compress to archive. Perl. Closer.
MHonArc - converts mbox to HTML files with links to attachments. Meant for mailing list archiving, but it should work the same for a personal mailbox. Perl. There's also an OS X front end for it.

The HTML approach isn't ideal, but that could be a convenient way to browse through the archives (e.g., toss it all up on a password-protected web site and your mail archive is available anywhere, like your own personal and backed-up GMail), and a contributed program in the MHonArc distribution can turn an MHonArc archive back *into* an mbox file, which might let you do some modifications to the HTML files and linked attachments with scripts and then backconvert them after.

I haven't tested any of these, but I think I'll try MHonArc and see how it goes.

http://dbacl.sourceforge.net/spam_chess.html

Now that's cool.

*Googles for literally 3 seconds*:

Gnome
KDE

*Googles for literally 3 seconds*:

Gnome
KDE

I have some good news for you: http://pythoncard.sourceforge.net/

Even though it's mostly in Russian it's Linuxy and open source and updated every week and I highly recommend it. http://wive-ng.sourceforge.net/?WR-NL_RT3050(2)

All I want is realtime alarms sent when a log entry matches a pattern.

SEC simple event correlator might be what you're looking for.

If you need to access remote server via SSH do two things VERY early in the process:

1) Convert SSH to use pubkey authentication ONLY and disallow root logins via SSH. SSH with password authentication (especially with root access) is very bad practice.
2) Install denyhosts (denyhosts.sourceforge.net). This daemon adds anyone trying brute force attacks to hosts.deny file. This also helps keep down the failed login attempts in the security log files because after a couple of attempts, they are blocked by hosts.deny.

Simple solutions that take a couple of minutes to implement.

I think I may want to contest this patent.

The patent cites Slashdot comment moderation as an example of how not to assign importance to user actions. Its authors were apparently unaware that the algorithm they described in November 2010 is virtually identical to the way Slashdot has actually assigned importance to user voting on Firehose stories since May 2008 (give or take). I know because I wrote it.

What this patent calls "authority," we call user "clout."

Multiple clouts, actually. Each Slashdot user has a number that describes how valuable the system believes their up/down votes in the firehose are, and it's separate from how valuable their descriptive tags applied to stories are. (Up/down votes are simply tags with special names, making vote-scoring and description-determination very similar under the hood.)

It's been a while since I looked at this code -- I work for sister company ThinkGeek now -- but scanning over our public repository here are some of the interesting parts:

plugs/Tags/tags_updateclouts.pl - the tags_peerclout table is the way that each type of clout is built. It has fixed entries at gen=0, the zeroth generation, which would typically be the Slashdot editors or other users considered reliable and definitive. To build gen=1, the code looks at how many users tagged or voted on the same objects as the gen=0 users did, and assigns the gen=1 users scores based on similarity (or difference). Then from the gen=1 users, gen=2 users are assigned scores similarly, and so on.

The gen=0 entries in that table "designate one or more contributing authorities by delegating to each a specific quantity of authority." I don't think I could describe that better myself.

plugins/Tags/Clout/Vote.pm process_nextgen() - here's where each new generation of user clout is successively determined, for firehose votes in particular. Line 194 invokes the algorithm and line 203 assigns that user their new voting clout. This iterative process is the automated method through which "each contributing authority may in turn designate and delegate authority to one or more additional contributing authorities."

plugins/Tags/Clout/Vote.pm init() - sum_weight_vectors totals the change in clout for each generation, and possible weight decreases exponentially. If you're in gen=1 the maximum weight you can have is only 60% of the maximum from gen=0, etc. The fraction is smaller than 100%, which helps ensure "that the total quantity of authority delegated does not exceed the quantity of authority the contributing authority was itself delegated." When the clouts are used to determine firehose item ratings, "the ratings are combined in a manner that affords a higher priority to the ratings provided by contributing authorities to which a greater quantity of authority was delegated."

All this may have changed since it was written. I don't actually know what's running on Slashdot at this moment. I'm just going by the public repository that I knew was on sf.net, and I don't even know if there's a later version of the code available anywhere.

But I suspect that this system would constitute prior art.

Also, looking over my code from 2008, boy, I really wish I'd put in more comments.

I think I may want to contest this patent.

The patent cites Slashdot comment moderation as an example of how not to assign importance to user actions. Its authors were apparently unaware that the algorithm they described in November 2010 is virtually identical to the way Slashdot has actually assigned importance to user voting on Firehose stories since May 2008 (give or take). I know because I wrote it.

What this patent calls "authority," we call user "clout."

Multiple clouts, actually. Each Slashdot user has a number that describes how valuable the system believes their up/down votes in the firehose are, and it's separate from how valuable their descriptive tags applied to stories are. (Up/down votes are simply tags with special names, making vote-scoring and description-determination very similar under the hood.)

It's been a while since I looked at this code -- I work for sister company ThinkGeek now -- but scanning over our public repository here are some of the interesting parts:

plugs/Tags/tags_updateclouts.pl - the tags_peerclout table is the way that each type of clout is built. It has fixed entries at gen=0, the zeroth generation, which would typically be the Slashdot editors or other users considered reliable and definitive. To build gen=1, the code looks at how many users tagged or voted on the same objects as the gen=0 users did, and assigns the gen=1 users scores based on similarity (or difference). Then from the gen=1 users, gen=2 users are assigned scores similarly, and so on.

The gen=0 entries in that table "designate one or more contributing authorities by delegating to each a specific quantity of authority." I don't think I could describe that better myself.

plugins/Tags/Clout/Vote.pm process_nextgen() - here's where each new generation of user clout is successively determined, for firehose votes in particular. Line 194 invokes the algorithm and line 203 assigns that user their new voting clout. This iterative process is the automated method through which "each contributing authority may in turn designate and delegate authority to one or more additional contributing authorities."

plugins/Tags/Clout/Vote.pm init() - sum_weight_vectors totals the change in clout for each generation, and possible weight decreases exponentially. If you're in gen=1 the maximum weight you can have is only 60% of the maximum from gen=0, etc. The fraction is smaller than 100%, which helps ensure "that the total quantity of authority delegated does not exceed the quantity of authority the contributing authority was itself delegated." When the clouts are used to determine firehose item ratings, "the ratings are combined in a manner that affords a higher priority to the ratings provided by contributing authorities to which a greater quantity of authority was delegated."

All this may have changed since it was written. I don't actually know what's running on Slashdot at this moment. I'm just going by the public repository that I knew was on sf.net, and I don't even know if there's a later version of the code available anywhere.

But I suspect that this system would constitute prior art.

Also, looking over my code from 2008, boy, I really wish I'd put in more comments.

I think I may want to contest this patent.

The patent cites Slashdot comment moderation as an example of how not to assign importance to user actions. Its authors were apparently unaware that the algorithm they described in November 2010 is virtually identical to the way Slashdot has actually assigned importance to user voting on Firehose stories since May 2008 (give or take). I know because I wrote it.

What this patent calls "authority," we call user "clout."

Multiple clouts, actually. Each Slashdot user has a number that describes how valuable the system believes their up/down votes in the firehose are, and it's separate from how valuable their descriptive tags applied to stories are. (Up/down votes are simply tags with special names, making vote-scoring and description-determination very similar under the hood.)

It's been a while since I looked at this code -- I work for sister company ThinkGeek now -- but scanning over our public repository here are some of the interesting parts:

plugs/Tags/tags_updateclouts.pl - the tags_peerclout table is the way that each type of clout is built. It has fixed entries at gen=0, the zeroth generation, which would typically be the Slashdot editors or other users considered reliable and definitive. To build gen=1, the code looks at how many users tagged or voted on the same objects as the gen=0 users did, and assigns the gen=1 users scores based on similarity (or difference). Then from the gen=1 users, gen=2 users are assigned scores similarly, and so on.

The gen=0 entries in that table "designate one or more contributing authorities by delegating to each a specific quantity of authority." I don't think I could describe that better myself.

plugins/Tags/Clout/Vote.pm process_nextgen() - here's where each new generation of user clout is successively determined, for firehose votes in particular. Line 194 invokes the algorithm and line 203 assigns that user their new voting clout. This iterative process is the automated method through which "each contributing authority may in turn designate and delegate authority to one or more additional contributing authorities."

plugins/Tags/Clout/Vote.pm init() - sum_weight_vectors totals the change in clout for each generation, and possible weight decreases exponentially. If you're in gen=1 the maximum weight you can have is only 60% of the maximum from gen=0, etc. The fraction is smaller than 100%, which helps ensure "that the total quantity of authority delegated does not exceed the quantity of authority the contributing authority was itself delegated." When the clouts are used to determine firehose item ratings, "the ratings are combined in a manner that affords a higher priority to the ratings provided by contributing authorities to which a greater quantity of authority was delegated."

All this may have changed since it was written. I don't actually know what's running on Slashdot at this moment. I'm just going by the public repository that I knew was on sf.net, and I don't even know if there's a later version of the code available anywhere.

But I suspect that this system would constitute prior art.

Also, looking over my code from 2008, boy, I really wish I'd put in more comments.

Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.
DBAN is a means of ensuring due diligence in computer recycling, a way of preventing identity theft if you want to sell a computer, and a good way to totally clean a Microsoft Windows installation of viruses and spyware. DBAN prevents or thoroughly hinders all known techniques of hard disk forensic analysis.
DBAN is a free software product that can be used at home or in a business at zero cost. The only official place to obtain DBAN is by download at this web site. We do not sell DBAN media.
Darik's Boot and Nuke

As long as the disk and controller is good, the hard disk should be wiped, well as long as the NSA isn't convinced it wants to see what was on your disk that is.

Use Calibre to convert .epub to .mobi which can be use on the Kindle.

No problem, you just need the right phone.

I assume I missed part of the site...

No...they don't usually publish prices for gear that costs as much or more than a nice car or a small house. For a Blu-ray jukebox solution, you are looking at $45,000-$65,000 on up, depending on magazine and drive count. There are not very many companies who make Blu-ray jukeboxes, and the major manufacturers today appear to be DISC, HIT-Storage, and Fortuna PS.

If you need a DVD-only solution, there are a lot more options and if you are patient, a second hand a 500-700 disc system can be had for under $500-$1000. Nearly all of these jukeboxes are SCSI or LVDS SCSI and most work just fine with mtx.

For the majority of people, ripping discs is going to be the most cost effective solution, but for those with money and the desire/need to have 100s of discs online, options do exist.

Oh no problem friend, if you need to support old hardware or OSes old hairyfeet is your go to guy!

The best browser I've found for Win9x is Kmeleon which is built on the Gecko engine but uses win32 instead of XUL so you get more speed. there is a tutorial but basically all you need is VCRedist, no KernEx hack required. i've ran it myself when testing older machines i've had to support, it works pretty damned good. you may have to hack it a bit to get ABP installed but it is rock solid.

But if you need any advice on win9X or Win2K old Hairy is your man, you wouldn't believe some of the older stuff i've had to support. the oldest was a box I had to build out of an ancient gamer rig I had in my shed for a place that required DOS 3 for an ISA controller on a C&C Lathe. Man talk about having stretch my brain to remember my old DOS foo!

Oh no problem friend, if you need to support old hardware or OSes old hairyfeet is your go to guy!

The best browser I've found for Win9x is Kmeleon which is built on the Gecko engine but uses win32 instead of XUL so you get more speed. there is a tutorial but basically all you need is VCRedist, no KernEx hack required. i've ran it myself when testing older machines i've had to support, it works pretty damned good. you may have to hack it a bit to get ABP installed but it is rock solid.

But if you need any advice on win9X or Win2K old Hairy is your man, you wouldn't believe some of the older stuff i've had to support. the oldest was a box I had to build out of an ancient gamer rig I had in my shed for a place that required DOS 3 for an ISA controller on a C&C Lathe. Man talk about having stretch my brain to remember my old DOS foo!

HP seems to say it follows industry norms. (HP-GL/2, HP-RTL, TIFF, JPEG, CALS G4, HP PCL 3 GUI)

They have a list of supported linuxes: http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/models/designjet/hp_designjet_t790ps_44in.html
They even provide source code for a compatible driver: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/hplip/hplip-3.11.10.tar.gz

I've never personally played with it. But it seems to do fine for generic print. That being said it is "plug and play" so it is doing all sorts of stuff a printer shouldn't. Turn that crap off.

The OS is needed because the printer supports direct print from USB drives.

Lame, you say?

to get an overview of everything I have running and switch to, if need be much like you would with a Mac.

With Windows I just have double height taskbars and ungrouped task buttons. Typically have 30+ taskbuttons on my taskbar at work. I can switch to any window with just one click, rather than: "swipe", wait for Expose's fancy animation then click on window.

Windows 7 allows you to do winkey+tab to show the windows. But that doesn't really work for 30+ windows, and I actually prefer Windows 7 in classic mode :). Windows 7 also puts task buttons of the same application next to each other, which can be helpful sometimes.

If you're a keyboard kinda guy and ever use windows you could try my utility called LinkKey: http://sourceforge.net/projects/linkkey/

Not sure if you'd find that sort of thing useful though. I'm a bit surprised it even got one recommendation (wasn't me ;) ).

I wrote a program that runs on MS Windows that allows you to quickly assign alt/winkey+ to windows.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/linkkey/

Basically if you suddenly have 5 windows you need to quickly switch amongst, just click/raise them in reverse order of precedence (window #5 to window #1), then press "winkey+0".

After that:
winkey+1 = window #1
winkey+2 = window #2
and so on, till winkey+9 in most recently raised order.

Probably only a few people in the world would find it useful, but my turn to say "Works For Me" :).

FWIW I actually suggested it to the OSS GUI bunch:
lists.kde.org/?l=kwin&m=114068120330057
http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/DesignersPlayground/KeyboardShortcuts

Speaking of commercial games now available for free, Ur-Quan Masters is a classic, and happens to be open source now as well. (For those who aren't familiar with the new title, UQM is Star Control 2.)

Here's where I get 90% of my music (the other 10% I actually go to shows). Requires a Torrent client plus Monkeys Audio, libFLAC and Shorten codecs but that's no biggy - the links are there...

There exists such a project currently:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDisc

Couple this with the selection from OSS-WIN solves your dilemma significantly: http://osswin.sourceforge.net/

I'd add a few suggestions:

• VLC
• XBMC

I'd add a few suggestions:

• VLC
• XBMC

Don't get me wrong, djbdns is an excellent DNS server.

to be nitpicking:
djbdns is a set of servers.
tinydns is the authoritative, non-recursive content dns server. of this, no security issues have been reported in the last 10 years.
dnscache is the recursive resolver over which some people argue that it might have a hole based on a dns protocol design flaw.
if you want both functionalities but do not want to dig into dnscache, you can also use tinydns and ie unbound together. yes, its that modular.
 

djbdns can work -- but it requires patching by hand or using an unofficial fork like Zinq (which appears to still be supported -- the last release was done this year).

plain wrong. it does not require patching. zinq is an effort to put many patches for the entire package together. it is still up to you to to RTFM on what these patches do. not understanding these topics would also imply that you should simply not run dns software for the better of the rest of the world.

Don't get me wrong, djbdns is an excellent DNS server. Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated for over 10 years and, since then, three different security holes have been discovered the djbdns package, the root server list has been updated, errno has been changed to make Linux more thread safe (requiring a patch to compile it), and so on.

djbdns can work -- but it requires patching by hand or using an unofficial fork like Zinq (which appears to still be supported -- the last release was done this year).

(I can also murmur darkly about the fact that djbdns uses a circular queue instead of a LRU for its cache, its lack of a Windows port, its need to use external helper programs to configure the server, etc., but, then again, its core recursive binary is even smaller than MaraDNS 2.0's tiny recursive binary. And three security bugs in the last decade is better than the 13 security issues in MaraDNS I have had to patch against.)