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DECnet, baby, DECnet.

Komodo is written in XUL with xpcom+python.

"GTK is highly portable, but it is however horrible when it comes to any platform but linux. It runs in windows, without a windows theme to match. it runs in os x, but only via x11."

BS. I guess that I didn't write the Gtk-wimp theme engine, then. And I guess I'm not running Gimp, Gaim, Xchat, Dia, Inscape, and Workrave on Win32 right now... The gtk-wimp screenshots are out of date, btw, but are good enough to get the general idea across.

GTK 1.2 has also been ported to Apple's Carbon framework. I have plans to do something similar for GTK 2.x.

"Qt's one of the better-off toolkits, but it suffers from gtk's problems too. It's only good on linux. half-assed os x port (at least it's not x11 dependent) and the windows port is totally unmaintained (yay 2.0!)."

Huh? Trolltech gets a lot of money from licensing QT 3.3 on Win32. I've licensed it. It's maintained, and works great. The OSX port isn't as half-assed as you'd like to think. It's not FOSS on Win32, like it is on OSX and *NIX, but that's Trolltech's decision, not mine.

You're right, XUL may be horribly under-appreciated. But realize that's largely Mozilla's own doing. They've been promising a standalone GRE for about 5 years now, and have yet to follow through. Much of the Mozilla platform is meant for eventual public consumption, but it's not ready for that today. When I can 'gcc -o myapp -lMozillaGRE -lMozillaJScript', come tell me.

Sorry, but FileZilla runs as a native Win32 app. It doesn't have anything to do with Mozilla.

I know the jokes about the original N-Gage never seem to end around here, but I've been perfectly happy with mine and I still fail to find anything today that comes close in terms of functionality. Consider this:

* State of the art phone

Tri-band GSM (I live and am using it in France, but it worked flawlessly during my trip to the Bay Area a few months ago) with the IMHO great Nokia usability.

And please, the whole sidetalkin' stuff is really overblown : I see no reason not to always use it as I do with the included hands free kit (2 earspeakers and a speed dial remote to take incoming calls or make new ones using voice-recognition)

MP3/MIDI ringtones, etc... and Bluetooth (improves your sex life!)

* MP3/AAC player.

Ok, MMCs aren't cheap and space is rather limited (we're talking a few hundred megs, not gigs), but my 128Mb one easily holds a few games + one album, which is more than enough for the daily commute time if you think about it.

Before leaving, I just connect it to my laptop using a standard mini-USB cable, and it shows up as a regular USB mass storage device under Windows or Linux, like your average digicam. That also makes it a USB key you're less likely to lose than a real one (because it's also your phone, so you'd better pay attention to it :) )

And OGG support is coming through third party software.

* FM tuner

with instant access key, and which you can record to AAC.

* Games

Looking at Tony Hawk Pro Skater or Tomb Raider, I'd say the N-Gage roughly has the horsepower of a PlayStation 1.
I'm not using that much actually, but all the other features still make me love my N-Gage

* Software : Symbian S60 system

That means a beautiful, consistent UI, and a stable OS.
The included software is good : WAP browser, SSL-enabled IMAP/POP3/SMS integrated message center, the usual calculator/pda stuff, RealOne player... ... and lots of third party software like Opera (which is *real* good and usable), streaming radios clients, etc...

I also love CityMaps, paid $5 for the single city version of this map software/route planner and it's so much handier than carrying a map or a separate device (also no recurring costs to use it since it's offline)

* It's ONE device

That's what buys me with the N-Gage : I don't like carrying too much stuff around, having to reach for it when I need it, and risking to forget them before leaving.

There I have MP3/radio/phone/games/basic PDA/internet client(+bluetooth modem) in just one device, and I've found this nowhere else.

(I don't care about the games, just the MP3/phone/internet/3rd party software capabilities, and even that I can't seem to find anywhere else)

there's no LSongs Music Store (yet).

Have you ever used iRATE? It's cheaper than iTMS.

do they have Rendezvous sharing, a music store, book creation on demand, export to movie, etc?

At least this music "store" runs on Linspire. If the company gets enough requests from CNR customers, it'll probably add support for Rendezvous. Other CNR apps probably have book creation and slideshow generation.

do they have Rendezvous sharing, a music store, book creation on demand, export to movie, etc?

At least this music "store" runs on Linspire. If the company gets enough requests from CNR customers, it'll probably add support for Rendezvous. Other CNR apps probably have book creation and slideshow generation.

I doubt it'll keep spammers at bay forever, so I really should start looking into some more spammer hostile things I can do to my mail server. Worst case, I can always shut the damned thing down. I was ready to do that anyway. If the service is useless to me (Because filtering spam takes so long that I don't have time for anything else) why should I bother running it?

I just recently (last night) discovered syn, an editor that, among other things, can function as a console window. Like I said, I just discovered it and I have barely started trying it out, so I can't tell you yet how well it works. Try it out for yourself - it sounds to me like what you were looking for.

Russ

I just recently (last night) discovered syn, an editor that, among other things, can function as a console window. Like I said, I just discovered it and I have barely started trying it out, so I can't tell you yet how well it works. Try it out for yourself - it sounds to me like what you were looking for.

Russ

get MUTE! Simple, Anonymous File Sharing

I've been storing mine in GNU Keyring for Palm OS... it's portable, secure, and helps me keep 100s of passwords that I can fall back on if I haven't used it enough to remember them all.

It also has a great password generator, allowing you to select character sets to choose from, and has a fairly decent amount of randomness - sure beats out banging something out on a qwerty...

Argh, I wrote GPhoto, I meant GThumb. I have no idea whether GPhoto is any good or not, but GThumb's the one with the nice UI.

I switch between DOSBox and DOSemu with a Win95 boot disk
These two projects should really merge since one has some things working and the other has other things working. DOSBox is a lot easier to set up and get running, but I've found DOSemu to be more 'flowing'.

See here and here. More and more pieces of the moviemaking toolchain are available Openly, only a matter of time before someone adds a GUI wrapper to integrate it all. Will they dare call it Raxip? (-:

Good IS policy should explain why passwords are important, and suggest ways users can choose strong passwords (and what constitutes a strong password), and counter the problem of having to remember too many. Two suggestions :

1) Encourage users to use Schneier's Password safe program.
They only then need to remember one well-chosen password, which unlocks the password database.
2) Encourage users to make passwords from acronyms of easy to remember phrases, e.g. "My cat is called Bob, he is 6" => McicBhi6.

This is a good summary of available performance/test tools for Linux:
Linux Test Tool Matrix

gah. tvision is here. Much too early to be posting on /.

Creative never released drivers for their emu10k1 chipset (SB Live, Audigy2). They didn't even released the specs for them. That's why the drivers until recently have never been able to use most of the features availiable on the cards (IIRC it still doesn't support all the features). The only thing creative did was host the OSS drivers on their site, nothing more. And now the projects moved to sourceforge.

As for dropping the ball, how? The drivers have always worked for me and for a lot of people who have used it. You seem the be the only person who I've met who's been having long term problem getting their SB Live to work under Linux. Not only that but the drivers are still being worked on and maintained both the OSS and ALSA versions.

then r# maybe?

It uses RRDTool to create the plots - very nice.

NDIS Wrapper, though it only applies to network drivers.

It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine). This gives all the more reason not to run proprietary hardware. For those who do, however, I suppose there's always hope that someone will be willing to wrap windows drivers to get the job done. As much as I detest the idea, it's really a shame this isn't done more often, as it would go a long way towards silencing loyalist weenies who look for any little defect in Linux so they can write a cheezy little expose and earn their $1.98.

Well, some people try.

The "slackware-current" version of Slackware right now has the 4.4.0 version in the official "X" section, but recently the X.org version was made available (in the 'testing' section) as an alternative. I suspect that X.org may supplant the XFree86 4.4.0 version before the next 'official' slackware release.

Not that I've noticed - I've been compiling X out of the DRI cvs tree to get DRI for my laptop's ProSavage/DDR video - I'm honestly not sure whether they're working from X.org or XFree86.org or what, but the video driver still shows "4.3.99.12" as the version number as of yesterday's build...

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

AppDirs, AppDirs, AppDirs.

No dropping to a commandline. No GCC flags for the user to get hung up on. No need to be root. Just unpack it, click it, and it runs.

Toss ZeroInstall in the mix so that all the requirements are seamlessly pulled for the user, and no one has to worry about installation again. If you want to know if current apps would work as AppDirs, take a look here:

http://www.cs.sunyit.edu/~geerp/rox/appdir-packa ge s.html

It's a collection of regular programs like Aterm and Dillo placed in AppDirs. Now imagine if all the requirements for those were also available as AppDirs. Just click the AppDir and let ZeroInstall get the libraries for you, or grab them yourself and pop them in, say, /home/$user/lib/$lib_name, click the AppDir, and boom, it just runs.

Simple, n'est pas?

I've said it before, I'll say it again:

AppDirs, AppDirs, AppDirs.

No dropping to a commandline. No GCC flags for the user to get hung up on. No need to be root. Just unpack it, click it, and it runs.

Toss ZeroInstall in the mix so that all the requirements are seamlessly pulled for the user, and no one has to worry about installation again. If you want to know if current apps would work as AppDirs, take a look here:

http://www.cs.sunyit.edu/~geerp/rox/appdir-packa ge s.html

It's a collection of regular programs like Aterm and Dillo placed in AppDirs. Now imagine if all the requirements for those were also available as AppDirs. Just click the AppDir and let ZeroInstall get the libraries for you, or grab them yourself and pop them in, say, /home/$user/lib/$lib_name, click the AppDir, and boom, it just runs.

Simple, n'est pas?

You mean the Vigor Project?

Have a look at this thing:

QT3 Win32

I haven't used it, however.

Why not? Would you prefer MP3, perhaps or Ogg Vorbis? What's better than an uncompressed format for this sort of archival work?

Isn't making an interface usable something interesting? Something challenging? Aren't challenges something geeks do well? Ignore Microsoft. Why not make the best interface that can be made? It'll take time but it'll arrive. I'd like to see lots of distributions with a strong core feature set to each of them, but with each carrying an ever varying application set. Think KDE on a large scale.

What I find interesting is that whenever someone says "usability" and "linux", people automatically assume "the graphical interface".

How about the rest? A well thought out OS, as far as usability is concerned, is thought so from the ground up.

Pardon me, but I'm going to point at Mac OS X. It's definitely not just the interface that's different, that's just the icing on the cake. The underlaying OS is vastly different from your average Linux distro, because the way it is organized. It has to do with everything: the bootscripts, the security, the application packaging, the filesystem organization, etc.

Think about it: those guys at Apple probably sat down and said "let's make it easy on the user", then they started doing things more or less from scratch. Only some of the people who contribute to Linux give a thought to the basic design principles that Linux is organized upon. No I don't mean the freaking graphical interface, I mean everything. The result is obvious.

The Linux heritage is UNIX, which has always been a black hole of usability. UNIX was always an OS designed by the extra-power users for other extra-power users. Naturally, Linux inherits all the flaws in it.

Frankly, I think it will take something like 10 or 20 years for Linux to become usable (you know what I mean by usable, don't start nitpicking please) and impose itself on the market. If it won't be too late by then. Why? Because companies like Apple and Microsoft can afford to redesign the entire operating system every few years. Think about how the Windows systems have evolved, or how Mac did. Eventually, one of these summers, you're going to look at the new Windows system and say "dude, that looks so good and usable, and it's thought out so well." People already say this about Mac, it's just the price tag for the hardware keeping them back.

Granted, the Linux community could do the same in 6 months to 1 year. The problem is that they don't even begin to acknowledge the need for a complete overhaul. The replies to this post will probably say "what's wrong with Linux as it is today?" Therein lies the problem.

There are already avangardist projects like GoboLinux or Zero Install (heck, even SELinux makes a good example, see how many adopt that soon) out there who try to challenge the basics of the Linux system design, but not many people take them seriously. It's a shame, because if anything, such projects have proved that you can do anything with Linux, as long as enough people start to see the need for the change.

Every year, the major distro's come up with bells and whistles, and better hardware detection, and package newer versions of the software, and better tools to tie together with ducttape the problems in the system. And we delude ourselves into thinking that Linux systems are evolving. Please. No, I don't mean the kernel or the applications, I mean the systems.

Sigh. You'd think there would be a breakthrough at some point, somewhere. That someone would understand the need for fundamental changes. That someone would design a new breed of Linux system. That it would implement that new system to a fairly usable point. That a company would appear to pick it up and bring it to the masses. That the community would embrace it.

But it doesn't happen. There are 5 hops I mentioned here, and something happens at some point. I can figure out some reasons and you can probably figure them out too. So we all clap for the 10th version of the same old distros, going on the 20th.

Umm.. what about FLAC? :)

Don't expect to port to Windows without paying the Trolls.

Why on earth not? If you've only ever agreed to the GPL license on their X11 version, there is absolutely nothing they can do to stop you from porting the library, like these people are doing.

1) No GPL version for the Windows platform. As much as people in the Open Source community might hate MS, many (most) Open Source packages are cross-platform where Windows is a platform.

A port of the GPL'd Qt/X11 to Windows can be found here. Remember, there was a time when Gtk didn't run anywhere but X11 either, yet hobbyists managed to port it. Qt is arguably much easier to port, as it was designed this way, and Trolltech has already proven it with their own proprietary version.

2) A non GPL version of the library costs an outrageous sum of money. Sure Trolltech wants to make money, but lower the costs a bit.

Honestly, I'm not sure how Trolltech can afford to pay all of their programmers a decent wage by simply selling a developer tool (which by definition is a bit of a niche market), even at such a high price. They must sell a heap of licenses... I'm no business major, but I think that Qt has to be expensive if we want Trolltech in business (and we do, Linux on the desktop wouldn't be where it is today without 'em).

3) Why compete against Java? Somebody who uses Java is not going to switch to Qt as Java is still simpler. To me C++ != Java, and I am not saying one is better or worse than the other.

Ahh, but maybe Qt can keep a C++ user from switching to Java? I learned Qt before I learned Java, and during my study of the latter I kept thinking how much it was like Qt. At this stage, if something cool is possible in Java, I'd like to see it also possible in Qt/C++ (assuming such a feature would make sense in that context).

Sourceforge may be a 'geeky' site but there are many OSS project for Windows on there. These all come with .exe files that just work. For example: FMA

This is what is needed for usability. Most people don't want to bother with dependancies.

We wouldnt have to worry at all about the dependency hunt if more people used a dependency fetcher. One good one that maintains strong security is dependable

It's just too bad that Apple practically requires you to use Objective-C to access their core libraries

oh?

*Python
*Perl
*Java (the language, not the runtime)
and lastly
*C/C++

instead of something more standard and accepted.
ObjC is older than perl. this means that it as close to a standard as perl is. (they are both both de facto)

It's just too bad that Apple practically requires you to use Objective-C to access their core libraries

oh?

*Python
*Perl
*Java (the language, not the runtime)
and lastly
*C/C++

instead of something more standard and accepted.
ObjC is older than perl. this means that it as close to a standard as perl is. (they are both both de facto)

You are right. QT is more than just a GUI. QT XML Module provides a very neat XML solution (both DOM and SAX), but unfortunately their implementation is really slow

A friend of mine has some work in this area... Server-side programming in C++...T++ are not very useble yet, but proof it could be done.

http://apollon.sourceforge.net

Apollon has a really slick installer. Yes, installer. You download a single file, give it execute permissions, and run it. It loads a QT window, configures, compiles, and installs. Its bloody sweet.


Too bad the program itself is worthless.

A computer should be as close to self healing and reliable as possible, and whenever possible it should update and restore itself.

That's exactly what needs to happen.

A surprising step that hasn't become the standard part of many (if any) is the use of the badmem kernel patch to weed out errors in bad memory sticks and make the computer more stable.

This is a perfect example of software correcting a hardware error with the result being a more stable system.

Apple has now, hasn't it? (I don't own a Mac myself, but I saw a friend of mine using "fink", which he described as "apt for Macs")

Well fink is more like *BSD ports, except it can use apt and whether downloading .deb's or building from source uses dpkg. It's not from Apple, but of course it's for OS X. Personally, I like both the Apple (self-contained executable, just drag and drop from an automounted .dmg file), all preferences stored under ~/Library in xml form) and fink ways of doing things. It's painless either way.

MUTE-Net is a searchable anonymous p2p application that just came out in December 2003, and is working well (for anonymous p2p).

They did not put in file resume yet because they wanted to fix all the problems other then a node disconnecting first. After file resume is in it should be a great program, esp. since it has file hash like emule/edonkey.

Wikipedia Article on MUTE

I mean Gaim is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks. It is good, has more features than the *real* software and it is Free. This could be the start of something similar. Who cares how I interface to ITMS, either through their proprietary interface or a perl script, as long as I pay apple for the service?

Do you mean "any other publisher of software for Mac OS", or "any other publisher of proprietary software for Mac OS"? The Fink project is a "publisher of software for Mac OS", no? Are you more concerned with using specific titles or with getting work done?

AITree Cognitive Architecture -- AI Has Been Solved for Wi-Fi Robots
The mind-modules below are ordered in such a way that you may comprehend the internal structure of the AI4U Mind-1.1 software at a glance. Notice for instance how many subroutines are nested beneath the Sensorium module. You may click on any mind-module listed here to read its documentation and to inspect its source code in Forth or JavaScript. This primitive AI-has-been-solved implementation is an invitation for you to build upon the current cognitive architecture by enlarging it or by specializing in your own favorite mind-module.

• Alife Module for Immortal Wi-Fi Cyborgs and Wi-Fi Robots
  • enBoot (English Bootstrap to introduce a few concepts and structures)
  • Security (for both robot and human safety and for housekeeping)
  • HCI (Human-Computer Interaction for the operator of the Wi-Fi robot)
  • Rejuvenate (so that a Wi-Fi robot or cyborg may live potentially forever)
  • psiDecay (for the gradual deactivation of concepts over time)
  • Ego (for resurrecting a Wi-Fi robot when perhaps brain-dead by misadventure)

• Sensorium (audition, taste, smell, etc., including exotic robot senses)
  • Audition (for the Wi-Fi robot to have a sense of hearing)
    --- Listen (necesary for event-driven hearing and for detecting verbal input)
    --- --- audSTM (auditory Short Term Memory with associative tags for recognition)
    --- --- --- audRecog (auditory Recognition of sounds and phonemes done by pattern recognition)
    --- oldConcept (for the recognition of words already known to the AI)
    --- --- Parser (for the identification of parts of speech in word-recognition)
    --- --- --- Instantiate (to create an instance or concept-node on a concept-fiber)
    --- --- Activate (to reactivate known concepts)
    --- --- --- spreadAct (spreading Activation for thinking by association)
    --- newConcept (contributes to machine learning of new words)
    --- --- enVocab (English Vocabulary, and potentially others)
    --- --- Parser (for determining the part of speech of any input word)
    --- --- --- Instantiate (for creating new concept-nodes or instances)

• Emotion (fear, love, hope, etc., so that Wi-Fi robots may have human-like feelings)

• Think (for the linguistic generation of thought)
  • Activate (for the reactivation of known concepts)
    --- spreadAct (spreading Activation so that thoughts may form)

AITree Cognitive Architecture -- AI Has Been Solved for Wi-Fi Robots
The mind-modules below are ordered in such a way that you may comprehend the internal structure of the AI4U Mind-1.1 software at a glance. Notice for instance how many subroutines are nested beneath the Sensorium module. You may click on any mind-module listed here to read its documentation and to inspect its source code in Forth or JavaScript. This primitive AI-has-been-solved implementation is an invitation for you to build upon the current cognitive architecture by enlarging it or by specializing in your own favorite mind-module.

• Alife Module for Immortal Wi-Fi Cyborgs and Wi-Fi Robots
  • enBoot (English Bootstrap to introduce a few concepts and structures)
  • Security (for both robot and human safety and for housekeeping)
  • HCI (Human-Computer Interaction for the operator of the Wi-Fi robot)
  • Rejuvenate (so that a Wi-Fi robot or cyborg may live potentially forever)
  • psiDecay (for the gradual deactivation of concepts over time)
  • Ego (for resurrecting a Wi-Fi robot when perhaps brain-dead by misadventure)

• Sensorium (audition, taste, smell, etc., including exotic robot senses)
  • Audition (for the Wi-Fi robot to have a sense of hearing)
    --- Listen (necesary for event-driven hearing and for detecting verbal input)
    --- --- audSTM (auditory Short Term Memory with associative tags for recognition)
    --- --- --- audRecog (auditory Recognition of sounds and phonemes done by pattern recognition)
    --- oldConcept (for the recognition of words already known to the AI)
    --- --- Parser (for the identification of parts of speech in word-recognition)
    --- --- --- Instantiate (to create an instance or concept-node on a concept-fiber)
    --- --- Activate (to reactivate known concepts)
    --- --- --- spreadAct (spreading Activation for thinking by association)
    --- newConcept (contributes to machine learning of new words)
    --- --- enVocab (English Vocabulary, and potentially others)
    --- --- Parser (for determining the part of speech of any input word)
    --- --- --- Instantiate (for creating new concept-nodes or instances)

• Emotion (fear, love, hope, etc., so that Wi-Fi robots may have human-like feelings)

• Think (for the linguistic generation of thought)
  • Activate (for the reactivation of known concepts)
    --- spreadAct (spreading Activation so that thoughts may form)

AITree Cognitive Architecture -- AI Has Been Solved for Wi-Fi Robots
The mind-modules below are ordered in such a way that you may comprehend the internal structure of the AI4U Mind-1.1 software at a glance. Notice for instance how many subroutines are nested beneath the Sensorium module. You may click on any mind-module listed here to read its documentation and to inspect its source code in Forth or JavaScript. This primitive AI-has-been-solved implementation is an invitation for you to build upon the current cognitive architecture by enlarging it or by specializing in your own favorite mind-module.

• Alife Module for Immortal Wi-Fi Cyborgs and Wi-Fi Robots
  • enBoot (English Bootstrap to introduce a few concepts and structures)
  • Security (for both robot and human safety and for housekeeping)
  • HCI (Human-Computer Interaction for the operator of the Wi-Fi robot)
  • Rejuvenate (so that a Wi-Fi robot or cyborg may live potentially forever)
  • psiDecay (for the gradual deactivation of concepts over time)
  • Ego (for resurrecting a Wi-Fi robot when perhaps brain-dead by misadventure)

• Sensorium (audition, taste, smell, etc., including exotic robot senses)
  • Audition (for the Wi-Fi robot to have a sense of hearing)
    --- Listen (necesary for event-driven hearing and for detecting verbal input)
    --- --- audSTM (auditory Short Term Memory with associative tags for recognition)
    --- --- --- audRecog (auditory Recognition of sounds and phonemes done by pattern recognition)
    --- oldConcept (for the recognition of words already known to the AI)
    --- --- Parser (for the identification of parts of speech in word-recognition)
    --- --- --- Instantiate (to create an instance or concept-node on a concept-fiber)
    --- --- Activate (to reactivate known concepts)
    --- --- --- spreadAct (spreading Activation for thinking by association)
    --- newConcept (contributes to machine learning of new words)
    --- --- enVocab (English Vocabulary, and potentially others)
    --- --- Parser (for determining the part of speech of any input word)
    --- --- --- Instantiate (for creating new concept-nodes or instances)

• Emotion (fear, love, hope, etc., so that Wi-Fi robots may have human-like feelings)

• Think (for the linguistic generation of thought)
  • Activate (for the reactivation of known concepts)
    --- spreadAct (spreading Activation so that thoughts may form)