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You can run OS X on x86 using PearPC. Coincidentally, I tried it just this weekend. It's not perfect and slower than Cherry OS (based on their claims), but if a trial is all you're looking for then I can vouch for the fact that it works.

Much like the real thing, looking at an Apple through my apartment's Windows isn't the same as taking a bite for myself.

All I can say is I can finally get access to all those hundreds of OSX apps I keep hearing about that won't Run on Windows.... No... Really. All those... OSX Apps...

No wait, I have that backwards.

So what do you think, is it based on PearPC or what? If they can get OSX on an X-Box (OSX-Box?), I'm sure there's nothing they can't do. And with X-Box2 being based on the Mac chip, we might get a cheap X-Box2 emulator in time for Christmas.

PearPC

It's free (beer or libre, you choose)! It's admittedly slower than a G4, but cool anyway. And free! :)

PearPC, same thing only open source, free, and runs on Windows and Linux.

PearPC was first and is cheaper.

sounds like they achieved what PearPC was trying to accomplish.

I am interested to know if this is actually true...

I wonder how this CherryOS would compare with PearPC in terms of speed and functionality. Of course, I don't know much about either product, so I might be comparing apples to oranges (or Cherries to Apples?)

Well, he comes right out and EXPLAINS why you'd buy this over an iPod - he only runs Linux. Last I checked, iPods weren't doing much of anything under Linux.

When was the last time you checked?

"It plays Oggs" doesn't exactly make up for the "It suffers from a well known and widespread flaw that forces the user to beat the crap out of it in hopes that it will correct itself and not die under the pummeling" angle.

Well, he comes right out and EXPLAINS why you'd buy this over an iPod - he only runs Linux. Last I checked, iPods weren't doing much of anything under Linux.

When was the last time you checked?

"It plays Oggs" doesn't exactly make up for the "It suffers from a well known and widespread flaw that forces the user to beat the crap out of it in hopes that it will correct itself and not die under the pummeling" angle.

Well, he comes right out and EXPLAINS why you'd buy this over an iPod - he only runs Linux. Last I checked, iPods weren't doing much of anything under Linux.

When was the last time you checked?

"It plays Oggs" doesn't exactly make up for the "It suffers from a well known and widespread flaw that forces the user to beat the crap out of it in hopes that it will correct itself and not die under the pummeling" angle.

4. What new great features can we expect in the next BitlBee version? What lies ahead?
Webcam support! ;-)

aalib? Oh man how awesome would that be, camwhores in ascii. But on a more serious note, well, actually, I doubt his was on a serious note ;)

I started implementing Garmin USB support via libusb in GPSBabel a while ago. There's some kind of a problem with the bulk read that I never got past. Any Garmin USB-using libusb jocks are encouraged to contact me so we can get it over the finish line.

You can find the current status on our mailing list archive.

you ... have to purchase Adobe's version, Adobe Writer.

Or you can use the open source pdfcreator

If he used the Java VM, he would got TCL for free. And he could have used all the other languages for the Java VM.
It's like Mono/DotNET, but with more languages.

Just basic is just a watered down free as in free beer version of a commercal product as far as I can see.

I found a really free GNU version of Liberty basic through a simple search through google.... just FYI.

gpsd: serve up realtime GPS data

here

gpstrans: download/upload Garmin data here

gpsbabel: up/download & convert GPS data here

v.in.garmin + GRASS GIS 5.7: download GPS directly into serious mapping & analysis software here here

gpsd: serve up realtime GPS data

here

gpstrans: download/upload Garmin data here

gpsbabel: up/download & convert GPS data here

v.in.garmin + GRASS GIS 5.7: download GPS directly into serious mapping & analysis software here here

There is not enough innovation either in C# nor in Java, and what is there is often not implemented in the best possible way.

Generics (C# 2.0 already supports this)

Both Java and C# generic are quite limited, compared to C++ templates. And they are easier to use with expression reduction, since you can give them a nice-to-use form.

Enhanced For-Loop (the foreach construct in C# 1.0, duh!)

It is much better if you can define your own for loops, as in XL.

Autoboxing/Unboxing (C# 1.0 already has this, everything is an object, even the primitives - not really, but they do it so well...)

Autoboxing means you have boxing in the first place, which means your language doesn't support stack object. Nothing to be proud of. And _auto_boxing is only a form of implicit conversion. In XL, any implicit conversion can be implemented using expression reduction.

Typesafe Enums (again C# 1.0 already implemented this, but I think they've added a little bit more twist in Java, that its actually a better implementation)

Ooooh! Enums! Innovation!

Varargs (C# 1.0's params construct, ellipsis construct in C++)

Still no type-safe, instantiation based varargs.

Static Import (I don't know if C# 1.0 has this, or C#2.0, but C# has a construct for aliasing your imports - which is way cooler. Static Import, actually promotes bad coding habits IMHO)

Yes. (XL had import aliasing for a while, see examples above...)

Metadata/Annotations (this is C# 1.0's Attributes, Sun's upturned noses just gave it a fancier name - also, C#'s implementation is better and more intuitive)

What you really want is metaprogramming, to actually enhance the language as you go.

There is not enough innovation either in C# nor in Java, and what is there is often not implemented in the best possible way.

Generics (C# 2.0 already supports this)

Both Java and C# generic are quite limited, compared to C++ templates. And they are easier to use with expression reduction, since you can give them a nice-to-use form.

Enhanced For-Loop (the foreach construct in C# 1.0, duh!)

It is much better if you can define your own for loops, as in XL.

Autoboxing/Unboxing (C# 1.0 already has this, everything is an object, even the primitives - not really, but they do it so well...)

Autoboxing means you have boxing in the first place, which means your language doesn't support stack object. Nothing to be proud of. And _auto_boxing is only a form of implicit conversion. In XL, any implicit conversion can be implemented using expression reduction.

Typesafe Enums (again C# 1.0 already implemented this, but I think they've added a little bit more twist in Java, that its actually a better implementation)

Ooooh! Enums! Innovation!

Varargs (C# 1.0's params construct, ellipsis construct in C++)

Still no type-safe, instantiation based varargs.

Static Import (I don't know if C# 1.0 has this, or C#2.0, but C# has a construct for aliasing your imports - which is way cooler. Static Import, actually promotes bad coding habits IMHO)

Yes. (XL had import aliasing for a while, see examples above...)

Metadata/Annotations (this is C# 1.0's Attributes, Sun's upturned noses just gave it a fancier name - also, C#'s implementation is better and more intuitive)

What you really want is metaprogramming, to actually enhance the language as you go.

There is not enough innovation either in C# nor in Java, and what is there is often not implemented in the best possible way.

Generics (C# 2.0 already supports this)

Both Java and C# generic are quite limited, compared to C++ templates. And they are easier to use with expression reduction, since you can give them a nice-to-use form.

Enhanced For-Loop (the foreach construct in C# 1.0, duh!)

It is much better if you can define your own for loops, as in XL.

Autoboxing/Unboxing (C# 1.0 already has this, everything is an object, even the primitives - not really, but they do it so well...)

Autoboxing means you have boxing in the first place, which means your language doesn't support stack object. Nothing to be proud of. And _auto_boxing is only a form of implicit conversion. In XL, any implicit conversion can be implemented using expression reduction.

Typesafe Enums (again C# 1.0 already implemented this, but I think they've added a little bit more twist in Java, that its actually a better implementation)

Ooooh! Enums! Innovation!

Varargs (C# 1.0's params construct, ellipsis construct in C++)

Still no type-safe, instantiation based varargs.

Static Import (I don't know if C# 1.0 has this, or C#2.0, but C# has a construct for aliasing your imports - which is way cooler. Static Import, actually promotes bad coding habits IMHO)

Yes. (XL had import aliasing for a while, see examples above...)

Metadata/Annotations (this is C# 1.0's Attributes, Sun's upturned noses just gave it a fancier name - also, C#'s implementation is better and more intuitive)

What you really want is metaprogramming, to actually enhance the language as you go.

There is not enough innovation either in C# nor in Java, and what is there is often not implemented in the best possible way.

Generics (C# 2.0 already supports this)

Both Java and C# generic are quite limited, compared to C++ templates. And they are easier to use with expression reduction, since you can give them a nice-to-use form.

Enhanced For-Loop (the foreach construct in C# 1.0, duh!)

It is much better if you can define your own for loops, as in XL.

Autoboxing/Unboxing (C# 1.0 already has this, everything is an object, even the primitives - not really, but they do it so well...)

Autoboxing means you have boxing in the first place, which means your language doesn't support stack object. Nothing to be proud of. And _auto_boxing is only a form of implicit conversion. In XL, any implicit conversion can be implemented using expression reduction.

Typesafe Enums (again C# 1.0 already implemented this, but I think they've added a little bit more twist in Java, that its actually a better implementation)

Ooooh! Enums! Innovation!

Varargs (C# 1.0's params construct, ellipsis construct in C++)

Still no type-safe, instantiation based varargs.

Static Import (I don't know if C# 1.0 has this, or C#2.0, but C# has a construct for aliasing your imports - which is way cooler. Static Import, actually promotes bad coding habits IMHO)

Yes. (XL had import aliasing for a while, see examples above...)

Metadata/Annotations (this is C# 1.0's Attributes, Sun's upturned noses just gave it a fancier name - also, C#'s implementation is better and more intuitive)

What you really want is metaprogramming, to actually enhance the language as you go.

There is not enough innovation either in C# nor in Java, and what is there is often not implemented in the best possible way.

Generics (C# 2.0 already supports this)

Both Java and C# generic are quite limited, compared to C++ templates. And they are easier to use with expression reduction, since you can give them a nice-to-use form.

Enhanced For-Loop (the foreach construct in C# 1.0, duh!)

It is much better if you can define your own for loops, as in XL.

Autoboxing/Unboxing (C# 1.0 already has this, everything is an object, even the primitives - not really, but they do it so well...)

Autoboxing means you have boxing in the first place, which means your language doesn't support stack object. Nothing to be proud of. And _auto_boxing is only a form of implicit conversion. In XL, any implicit conversion can be implemented using expression reduction.

Typesafe Enums (again C# 1.0 already implemented this, but I think they've added a little bit more twist in Java, that its actually a better implementation)

Ooooh! Enums! Innovation!

Varargs (C# 1.0's params construct, ellipsis construct in C++)

Still no type-safe, instantiation based varargs.

Static Import (I don't know if C# 1.0 has this, or C#2.0, but C# has a construct for aliasing your imports - which is way cooler. Static Import, actually promotes bad coding habits IMHO)

Yes. (XL had import aliasing for a while, see examples above...)

Metadata/Annotations (this is C# 1.0's Attributes, Sun's upturned noses just gave it a fancier name - also, C#'s implementation is better and more intuitive)

What you really want is metaprogramming, to actually enhance the language as you go.

There is not enough innovation either in C# nor in Java, and what is there is often not implemented in the best possible way.

Generics (C# 2.0 already supports this)

Both Java and C# generic are quite limited, compared to C++ templates. And they are easier to use with expression reduction, since you can give them a nice-to-use form.

Enhanced For-Loop (the foreach construct in C# 1.0, duh!)

It is much better if you can define your own for loops, as in XL.

Autoboxing/Unboxing (C# 1.0 already has this, everything is an object, even the primitives - not really, but they do it so well...)

Autoboxing means you have boxing in the first place, which means your language doesn't support stack object. Nothing to be proud of. And _auto_boxing is only a form of implicit conversion. In XL, any implicit conversion can be implemented using expression reduction.

Typesafe Enums (again C# 1.0 already implemented this, but I think they've added a little bit more twist in Java, that its actually a better implementation)

Ooooh! Enums! Innovation!

Varargs (C# 1.0's params construct, ellipsis construct in C++)

Still no type-safe, instantiation based varargs.

Static Import (I don't know if C# 1.0 has this, or C#2.0, but C# has a construct for aliasing your imports - which is way cooler. Static Import, actually promotes bad coding habits IMHO)

Yes. (XL had import aliasing for a while, see examples above...)

Metadata/Annotations (this is C# 1.0's Attributes, Sun's upturned noses just gave it a fancier name - also, C#'s implementation is better and more intuitive)

What you really want is metaprogramming, to actually enhance the language as you go.

There is a VIM Emulator Plugin for IntelliJ IDEA.

There is also a Vi Plugin for Eclipse.

Also, KDevelop has happily embedded KVim for ages now.

Is that enough?

With P2P services, those who produce the software are not able to effectively control the content upon the services. The original Napster service was in a position to exert control because all communications relied on its central location. A P2P service could have a license agreement prohibiting illegal uses, but there would be no way for the makers of the software to enforce that agreement except by tracking down individual users. Should they be required to do that? The P2P manufacturer could add copy protection technologies (which might become outdated quickly) but there would be the same problem with people defeating them. In any case, copy protection would likely not be compatible with FOSS P2P software. If there was a P2P feature with absolutely no significant non-infringing purpose, then liability just might be considered. However, it should be noted that the fact P2P is decentralized has legitimate reasons: privacy (consider leaked documents about wrongdoing), efficiency (sharing the load), and reliability (no central control that can fail or be attacked.)

Consider the Freenet service which is said to be difficult to use but extremely resistant to being censored. It is said the service cannot enforce copyright and protect free speech at the same time. The emphasis of the project is to protect free speech although the service is likely used for illegal activities by some (not all) as well. The issue of illegal P2P usage i.e. illegal porn is mentioned, but it is said that people should not be denied certain freedoms because a few individuals might misuse those freedoms. Incidentally, some of the uses of Freenet (and its likely goal) are much more serious than enjoying the latest music. It is said that the Freenet software is used in China to evade official censorship, for instance.

It is interesting that there was a case with the Madster (formerly called Aimster) service. That service appeared to be centralized, but encryption was used for the communications. This meant that the communications could not be monitored for wrongdoing. However, individuals using the service might well have wanted privacy when communicating. In the end, the service came under fire. There was no evidence of significant non-infringing use. Of course, with the communications encrypted, there was no way for the service to accurately determine how much use was or was not infringing.

With P2P services, those who produce the software are not able to effectively control the content upon the services. The original Napster service was in a position to exert control because all communications relied on its central location. A P2P service could have a license agreement prohibiting illegal uses, but there would be no way for the makers of the software to enforce that agreement except by tracking down individual users. Should they be required to do that? The P2P manufacturer could add copy protection technologies (which might become outdated quickly) but there would be the same problem with people defeating them. In any case, copy protection would likely not be compatible with FOSS P2P software. If there was a P2P feature with absolutely no significant non-infringing purpose, then liability just might be considered. However, it should be noted that the fact P2P is decentralized has legitimate reasons: privacy (consider leaked documents about wrongdoing), efficiency (sharing the load), and reliability (no central control that can fail or be attacked.)

Consider the Freenet service which is said to be difficult to use but extremely resistant to being censored. It is said the service cannot enforce copyright and protect free speech at the same time. The emphasis of the project is to protect free speech although the service is likely used for illegal activities by some (not all) as well. The issue of illegal P2P usage i.e. illegal porn is mentioned, but it is said that people should not be denied certain freedoms because a few individuals might misuse those freedoms. Incidentally, some of the uses of Freenet (and its likely goal) are much more serious than enjoying the latest music. It is said that the Freenet software is used in China to evade official censorship, for instance.

It is interesting that there was a case with the Madster (formerly called Aimster) service. That service appeared to be centralized, but encryption was used for the communications. This meant that the communications could not be monitored for wrongdoing. However, individuals using the service might well have wanted privacy when communicating. In the end, the service came under fire. There was no evidence of significant non-infringing use. Of course, with the communications encrypted, there was no way for the service to accurately determine how much use was or was not infringing.

You're right. In fact, the statement was made in January, and the one developer in question (who is, as far as I can tell, a good guy who just happens to have contracted rabid Stallmanism) may well have changed his mind in the meantime. I didn't mean to slight Gnocatan- a neat little project for which I've provided a few .spec cleanups and am still linked to on the homepage as the source for rpms (though I haven't built new packages since getting fed up with Fedora Core)- or the developer in question; I just wanted to make a point. Perhaps I should have added a disclaimer to that effect, though my post was already quite lengthy as it was.

Here's the relevant thread; it may be worth mentioning that gnome is only used for help (yelp) and four minor things mentioned in a post last month.

You're right. In fact, the statement was made in January, and the one developer in question (who is, as far as I can tell, a good guy who just happens to have contracted rabid Stallmanism) may well have changed his mind in the meantime. I didn't mean to slight Gnocatan- a neat little project for which I've provided a few .spec cleanups and am still linked to on the homepage as the source for rpms (though I haven't built new packages since getting fed up with Fedora Core)- or the developer in question; I just wanted to make a point. Perhaps I should have added a disclaimer to that effect, though my post was already quite lengthy as it was.

Here's the relevant thread; it may be worth mentioning that gnome is only used for help (yelp) and four minor things mentioned in a post last month.

Just like everyone urged their friends and family to switch from IE to Firefox, now could be the time to recommend gaim to them in place of their regular IM client. Except, maybe, those who like chinese porn.

For Linux, there's MythTV and Freevo. They're both free, and I've heard good things about both of them.

I'm planning to get a mini-ITX form-factor computer and install Linux and one of the above to use as a media box. I'd also like to put some games and possibly Stepmania on it. That would be a nice setup.

Anyone care to share any personal experiences with MythTV or Freevo?

http://www.mythtv.org/
http://freevo.sourceforge.net/
http://freshmeat.net/projects/knoppmyth/
Maybe give you a start.

note how the red areas are somewhat similar to the light areas on the nasa night map

C# is just one option for .NET eh?
Hmm... if only there were some other languages that could be compiled to JVM bytecode.

C# is just one option for .NET eh?
Hmm... if only there were some other languages that could be compiled to JVM bytecode.

Not to mention Gnocatan. The AI is poor (I haven't tried the Java version you link to, so I can't compare) and the UI a bit clumsy, but it works pretty well as a networked game.

There's also Sea3D, and a number of other open source implementations.

Gnocatan which is fairly playable on Linux.

If you are used to a gnumake environment on unix then you are no stranger to pain. Also take a look at Nant (http://sourceforge.net/projects/nant/).

It is this similarity and 'compatibility' of Java & C# that is now making it easy to port various applications between the two languages. For instance, the very popular Lucene (Information Retrieval library from Jakarta (i.e. Java)) has a very solid .Net port written in C# called dotLucene. The Lucene -> dotLuene port is fairly automated, it appears, which allows developers of the .Net/C# port to keep up with the original software written in Java.

If C#/Java continue in this direction, I think we will see many more applications that have parallel versions in the two languages.

See:
Lucene
dotLucene

Keep the bucket simple and have lots of Magnets for the people you normally interface with and Spam is a thing of the past. You can even put the server on a remote location so it is available when you travel.

You can even redirect your spam to a Gmail account and have it all marked Spam thereby helping Google et al improve their filtering tools.

I don't understand all this cry about spam. I've been using bogofilter almost since day one and today, if I see one spam a month I'm surprised.

Meanwhile, my spam folder is autocleaned via cron job from messages older than five days. Sometimes it accumulates 1500 messages (yes, that's 1500 spams in five days)[1].

But I had to ignore some guidelines to achieve these results. I didn't teach bogofilter from dead corpus, I just installed it over empty database and taught it live. Also spam cutoff is set to 50 instead of the default 90 (?). I do have occasional false positives (much rarer than false negatives) this way, but I like it anyway.

The best testament to all this is the unmasking of my address on /.

And there are better filters than bogofilter.

Robert

PS I work exclusivelly on Linux, but viruses are annoying anyway, so I installed Clam AV, hence viruses don't increase my spam count.

1. They didn't try to push their way of packaging applications on you which IMHO is the WRONG way.

2. It was easier to change the themes/colors of things. I know its nit-picky but I didn't really care for the way it looks and I couldn't figure out how to make it different.

See how to customise the look of your desktop

For the toolkit, select a GTK theme as normal. For the window manager themes, click on Apps, then on Configure, then on Themes. Click on the preview of the theme you want. If it's not already on your computer, it will be downloaded and cached automatically.

Unless you're not using zero install, in which case, you can download the themes tarball, extract it somewhere (maybe enter the root password and copy it to somewhere other uses can find it), etc, or whatever your 'right' way of packaging things requires you to do to install things.

Nautilus would be a much better file manager if it were stable.

I've come to rely upon emelfm. It has lots of useful features, loads in a split second, and it has never segfaulted on me or crashed or messed up my wallpaper or locked up an X session or completely changed after an upgrade or done anything it wasn't supposed to. gmc was like that. You hardly knew it was there until it was gone.

Well, we have an automated build system that is, with the exception of SourceSafe, completely free.

The .NET Framework SDK 1.1 providers all the compilers, resource generators, etc. Completely free from MS.

We use SourceSafe for version control. Though there are free alternatives out there.

We use Draco.NET to fire off builds automatically, and to give reports of the builds via an XML file and e-mail.

We use NAnt for build workflow. As well as the version and record tasks from NAntContrib.

We use VB.Doc to rip XML comments out of any VB code, and NDoc to take all the XML comments and create MSDN-style developer documentation.

We use NUnit for our automated unit testing. We currently use NUnit2Report to make the XML test case results into pretty reports, but we might just write a utility to combine all the documents ourself and just use XSL to do the transforms.

Last, we use InstallShield to create installer projects, but you could use Wix or something else to make them for free.

Well, we have an automated build system that is, with the exception of SourceSafe, completely free.

The .NET Framework SDK 1.1 providers all the compilers, resource generators, etc. Completely free from MS.

We use SourceSafe for version control. Though there are free alternatives out there.

We use Draco.NET to fire off builds automatically, and to give reports of the builds via an XML file and e-mail.

We use NAnt for build workflow. As well as the version and record tasks from NAntContrib.

We use VB.Doc to rip XML comments out of any VB code, and NDoc to take all the XML comments and create MSDN-style developer documentation.

We use NUnit for our automated unit testing. We currently use NUnit2Report to make the XML test case results into pretty reports, but we might just write a utility to combine all the documents ourself and just use XSL to do the transforms.

Last, we use InstallShield to create installer projects, but you could use Wix or something else to make them for free.

Well, we have an automated build system that is, with the exception of SourceSafe, completely free.

The .NET Framework SDK 1.1 providers all the compilers, resource generators, etc. Completely free from MS.

We use SourceSafe for version control. Though there are free alternatives out there.

We use Draco.NET to fire off builds automatically, and to give reports of the builds via an XML file and e-mail.

We use NAnt for build workflow. As well as the version and record tasks from NAntContrib.

We use VB.Doc to rip XML comments out of any VB code, and NDoc to take all the XML comments and create MSDN-style developer documentation.

We use NUnit for our automated unit testing. We currently use NUnit2Report to make the XML test case results into pretty reports, but we might just write a utility to combine all the documents ourself and just use XSL to do the transforms.

Last, we use InstallShield to create installer projects, but you could use Wix or something else to make them for free.

Well, we have an automated build system that is, with the exception of SourceSafe, completely free.

The .NET Framework SDK 1.1 providers all the compilers, resource generators, etc. Completely free from MS.

We use SourceSafe for version control. Though there are free alternatives out there.

We use Draco.NET to fire off builds automatically, and to give reports of the builds via an XML file and e-mail.

We use NAnt for build workflow. As well as the version and record tasks from NAntContrib.

We use VB.Doc to rip XML comments out of any VB code, and NDoc to take all the XML comments and create MSDN-style developer documentation.

We use NUnit for our automated unit testing. We currently use NUnit2Report to make the XML test case results into pretty reports, but we might just write a utility to combine all the documents ourself and just use XSL to do the transforms.

Last, we use InstallShield to create installer projects, but you could use Wix or something else to make them for free.

Well, we have an automated build system that is, with the exception of SourceSafe, completely free.

The .NET Framework SDK 1.1 providers all the compilers, resource generators, etc. Completely free from MS.

We use SourceSafe for version control. Though there are free alternatives out there.

We use Draco.NET to fire off builds automatically, and to give reports of the builds via an XML file and e-mail.

We use NAnt for build workflow. As well as the version and record tasks from NAntContrib.

We use VB.Doc to rip XML comments out of any VB code, and NDoc to take all the XML comments and create MSDN-style developer documentation.

We use NUnit for our automated unit testing. We currently use NUnit2Report to make the XML test case results into pretty reports, but we might just write a utility to combine all the documents ourself and just use XSL to do the transforms.

Last, we use InstallShield to create installer projects, but you could use Wix or something else to make them for free.

Well, we have an automated build system that is, with the exception of SourceSafe, completely free.

The .NET Framework SDK 1.1 providers all the compilers, resource generators, etc. Completely free from MS.

We use SourceSafe for version control. Though there are free alternatives out there.

We use Draco.NET to fire off builds automatically, and to give reports of the builds via an XML file and e-mail.

We use NAnt for build workflow. As well as the version and record tasks from NAntContrib.

We use VB.Doc to rip XML comments out of any VB code, and NDoc to take all the XML comments and create MSDN-style developer documentation.

We use NUnit for our automated unit testing. We currently use NUnit2Report to make the XML test case results into pretty reports, but we might just write a utility to combine all the documents ourself and just use XSL to do the transforms.

Last, we use InstallShield to create installer projects, but you could use Wix or something else to make them for free.

Seriously. I learned Basic when I was a kid, but if I could be a kid again, I would have learned Python instead (if it had been invented then). the limitations of Basic (no pointers, etc), give it serious problems with anything but low end programs. It certainly has no place in modern commercial development. Visual Basic programmers might disagree, but it's my experience that you're all brutally retarded anyway.

Basic might be good for beginning programmers to get a brief overview of how to code, but before long I would expect them to move onto a better, more capable language before it gives them bad habbits and slows them down. C is a complex language, but Python is exactly right for learners - it's complicated and hugely capable if you want it to be, but is quite capable of small projects and is forgiving for learners.

* Python - A modern, neet-o general purpose language.
* Psyco - Runtime compiler.
* Py2Exe - Converts Python scripts to Windows executables.
* Pythonwin - Windows extensions (and an excellent code editor).

(I want to recommend learning assembler for beginners, since you'll understand exactly what's going on, but almost nobody cares about it these days.. sigh..)