Slashdot Mirror

this one that represents file sizes

KDE's filemanager has an optional mode to view like that (the FSPartView plugin). But it isn't shiny, so it's not useful. The standalone KDirStat is better.

smarty + turck mmcache = fast templating

I so wanted to frag a blind friend of mine on a level playing field.
Well as level as it ever gets.
I would consider running AALIB but all it and a braille display do is make a vibrator and nothing would get done.

I wonder if this version of Quake can be played using CABAL...

• Python - Get the Python interpreter, base libraries from here. The default install includes the IDLE editor.
• Win32All - Windows extensions package that includes the excellent Pythonwin editor.

• wxPython - Wrapper to the cross-platform wxWindows window manager library. It's a better windowing system than the TCL/TK library that is the default Python install.
• Boa Constructor - GUI builder that uses the wxWindows library.

• Psyco - x86 runtime compiler. Transparently improves the performance of most Python code - for performance-critical apps, it's often a much better solution than a C rewrite.
• Py2Exe - Builds Python scripts into Windows executables. Perfect for distributing programs to systems that do not have Python installed. Use with Psyco for the best effect.

• PyOpenGL - Use OpenGL from within Python
• Python Image Library (PIL) - Package for easy image loading and manipulation

• PostGreSQL - Full-function SQL database. More complete and advanced than MySQL.
  
• PyGreSQL - Python bindings for the PostGreSQL database.
  

• Plone - Web applications, built on top of the Zope framework.

• Python - Get the Python interpreter, base libraries from here. The default install includes the IDLE editor.
• Win32All - Windows extensions package that includes the excellent Pythonwin editor.

• wxPython - Wrapper to the cross-platform wxWindows window manager library. It's a better windowing system than the TCL/TK library that is the default Python install.
• Boa Constructor - GUI builder that uses the wxWindows library.

• Psyco - x86 runtime compiler. Transparently improves the performance of most Python code - for performance-critical apps, it's often a much better solution than a C rewrite.
• Py2Exe - Builds Python scripts into Windows executables. Perfect for distributing programs to systems that do not have Python installed. Use with Psyco for the best effect.

• PyOpenGL - Use OpenGL from within Python
• Python Image Library (PIL) - Package for easy image loading and manipulation

• PostGreSQL - Full-function SQL database. More complete and advanced than MySQL.
  
• PyGreSQL - Python bindings for the PostGreSQL database.
  

• Plone - Web applications, built on top of the Zope framework.

• Python - Get the Python interpreter, base libraries from here. The default install includes the IDLE editor.
• Win32All - Windows extensions package that includes the excellent Pythonwin editor.

• wxPython - Wrapper to the cross-platform wxWindows window manager library. It's a better windowing system than the TCL/TK library that is the default Python install.
• Boa Constructor - GUI builder that uses the wxWindows library.

• Psyco - x86 runtime compiler. Transparently improves the performance of most Python code - for performance-critical apps, it's often a much better solution than a C rewrite.
• Py2Exe - Builds Python scripts into Windows executables. Perfect for distributing programs to systems that do not have Python installed. Use with Psyco for the best effect.

• PyOpenGL - Use OpenGL from within Python
• Python Image Library (PIL) - Package for easy image loading and manipulation

• PostGreSQL - Full-function SQL database. More complete and advanced than MySQL.
  
• PyGreSQL - Python bindings for the PostGreSQL database.
  

• Plone - Web applications, built on top of the Zope framework.

I recently finished a pair of GUI apps written in Perl with the wxPerl toolkit.

The wxWidgets stuff is pretty cool IMHO. It allows you to build cross platform GUI applications in many languages (Perl, Python, C++, Ruby, etc.). I personally didn't find the learning curve too steep. I already knew Perl pretty well which made it a lot easier.

When you're comfortable with wxPerl you could switch to C++ or something if you wanted/needed to without having to learn a new GUI framework.

X.

I recently finished a pair of GUI apps written in Perl with the wxPerl toolkit.

The wxWidgets stuff is pretty cool IMHO. It allows you to build cross platform GUI applications in many languages (Perl, Python, C++, Ruby, etc.). I personally didn't find the learning curve too steep. I already knew Perl pretty well which made it a lot easier.

When you're comfortable with wxPerl you could switch to C++ or something if you wanted/needed to without having to learn a new GUI framework.

X.

When I speak to my colleagues about open source programs, their first questions are on - how easy is it to manage, and how easy is it to deploy. For something that requires configuration changes multiple times a day on multiple servers, responding that "you manage it from the command line" is not a valid option.

This is why I felt I had scored a major coup in getting internal support for deploying snort in our environment - because distributed management could be handled by IDS Policy Manager (free), and viewing/analysing alerts could be handled through ACID. Both functions (management and analysis of events) could have been done at the command-line, but the ability to do them via a centralised application and a web server meant that less time would be spent performing routine tasks - and secured management (boss) support.

and gmail

and Glinx GMail

more here

bring on the lawsuits!

What open source chatterbots do people out there recommend?

I've had a lot of luck with Megahal myself.

It was pretty easy to hack it into a telnet client to hang out on my favorite chat (we call 'her' Terry).

My favorite thing about this one is that you can feed it a training file, and it'll almost talk intelligently. I had a lot of luck feeding 'her' snippets from Confucius and Dr. Seuss.

The only bad thing is that 'she' is pretty easy to teach, and so now goes around all the time talking about killing Kevin!

I'll second that. I've saved every sent and received email since June of 2002, and the total size is now around 65MB.

I actually ended up writing a POP/IMAP webmail program to consolidate all of my email in a MySQL database (shameless plug for Toby Web Mail).

PDFCreator for Windows XP costs $0.

I'm sure you're very proud of yourself for buying UNIX for $130 a year. Congratulations.

The notion of templating in PHP (or any web platform) is described by Martin Fowler in Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture as the Template View.

Implementation of the Template View is examined in some detail at http://wact.sf.net/index.php/TemplateView, which begins looking at "Why use templates" then examines different styles of templating, in terms of their markup and the API they provide to populate the template with data. The purpose is to lay this discussion to rest once and for all.

Where PHP's concerned, the real question is why has everyone (and their dog) written their own template engine? In an ad hoc survey we counted over 80 public domain template enignes "out there"

What's even more puzzling is why 90% of them all look the same with markup like;

...and a pinhole API like;

My guess at the reason why is public here

As to what template engines in PHP are actually worth using, there are only two IMO;

The first is PHP itself - use some self discipline and keep the pages where code gets mixed with HTML to the most basic PHP syntax - just the flow control statements like if/else, while and foreach.

The second is any which can offer templating capabilities similar to Java's JSTL or ASP.NET. Which is where WACT comes in. Check the examples to get the idea.

The notion of templating in PHP (or any web platform) is described by Martin Fowler in Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture as the Template View.

Implementation of the Template View is examined in some detail at http://wact.sf.net/index.php/TemplateView, which begins looking at "Why use templates" then examines different styles of templating, in terms of their markup and the API they provide to populate the template with data. The purpose is to lay this discussion to rest once and for all.

Where PHP's concerned, the real question is why has everyone (and their dog) written their own template engine? In an ad hoc survey we counted over 80 public domain template enignes "out there"

What's even more puzzling is why 90% of them all look the same with markup like;

...and a pinhole API like;

My guess at the reason why is public here

As to what template engines in PHP are actually worth using, there are only two IMO;

The first is PHP itself - use some self discipline and keep the pages where code gets mixed with HTML to the most basic PHP syntax - just the flow control statements like if/else, while and foreach.

The second is any which can offer templating capabilities similar to Java's JSTL or ASP.NET. Which is where WACT comes in. Check the examples to get the idea.

The notion of templating in PHP (or any web platform) is described by Martin Fowler in Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture as the Template View.

Implementation of the Template View is examined in some detail at http://wact.sf.net/index.php/TemplateView, which begins looking at "Why use templates" then examines different styles of templating, in terms of their markup and the API they provide to populate the template with data. The purpose is to lay this discussion to rest once and for all.

Where PHP's concerned, the real question is why has everyone (and their dog) written their own template engine? In an ad hoc survey we counted over 80 public domain template enignes "out there"

What's even more puzzling is why 90% of them all look the same with markup like;

...and a pinhole API like;

My guess at the reason why is public here

As to what template engines in PHP are actually worth using, there are only two IMO;

The first is PHP itself - use some self discipline and keep the pages where code gets mixed with HTML to the most basic PHP syntax - just the flow control statements like if/else, while and foreach.

The second is any which can offer templating capabilities similar to Java's JSTL or ASP.NET. Which is where WACT comes in. Check the examples to get the idea.

If you can write your own BIOS for the chip and throw it in an X-Box and make it work, you are free and clear.

You're talking about the Cromwell BIOS, available here, right?

As a member of the team that was doing the measurements at the CeBIT and author of the Bluesnarfing paper I know, that Slackware 9.0 has been used as a basis system. The Bluez bluetooth implementation and a recent linux-kernel (linux-2.6.2) have been installed on the system separately. I am not saying that KOPPIX is a bad thing (I saw Klaus Knopper here in Salzburg, recently)! Knoppix absolutely rules!

Java, Open Source OLAP. Mondrian

New as of 1968
Can anyone say MUMPS?

Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System.

MUMPS origin

The latest version of the MUMPS language/database is Cache

There is even a free version called GT/M

Sanchez GT/M

The story of MUMPS is actually a sad tale of a bad language with a great Database.

Origin in 1967
ISO standard 11756 (1991).
ANSI standard: "MUMPS Language Standard", X11.1 (1977, 1984, 1990)
Effectivly killed in the late 90's by Intersystems.

The hallmarks of M were the very terse sytax and fast eficient databases.

99 bottles of beer program example

R O,C,B,b U 0 F X B,O,C,B,C W "Take one down, pass it around,",! S b=b-1 X B,O W ".",! H:'b W !
W " on the wall"
W ",",!
H 1 W $S(b:b,1:"No more")_" bottle" W:b-1 "s" W " of beer"
99

My signature is a complete DSM program that prints out a formatted, justified report of all the prime numbers between 1 and 1000.

• Some argue that template engines make applications easier to maintain and make for cleaner code. Others argue that template engines introduce unnecessary overhead and require too much additional processing power. Do the readers of Slashdot think that it is important to use templates or are they just an extra unnecessary layer?

There's no single answer. Like anything else, it depends on your application.

Templating gives you the flexibility of being able to change the look of the pages independently of the information it represents. Templating requires more planning and design, since it's part of a feedback loop that affects how the information is shaped.

For some applications, separating the presentation logic from the application logic is simply a necessity, and the pains taken to design around a template system is an investment from which you will reap the benefits later, either when you change the application logic or the presentation logic.

(Separation of application interfaces from application logic is usually equally important, not the least because it allows refactoring, ie. the continuously improvement of code without affecting interface compatibility.)

• There are dozens of PHP template engines to choose from including Smarty, phplib, and bTemplate. Which template engines do you have experience with and which ones have the best performance?

I don't know any of them, as I don't use PHP unless forced to, so no comment on that. However, I have used a lot of template systems in my time, and the best one I have had the pleasure of working with so far is TAL.

TAL (Template Attribute Language) was originally implemented for Zope. It is, however, completely general, and has been enthusiastically received by the open source community, spawning several implementations, including an implementation for PHP.

One of the core ideas of TAL is that it's valid XML, and therefore valid XHTML, and it's designed in a way to does not intrude on the original markup. You can view a TAL template in a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver, and it will look fine; moreover, if the template is well-written, it may even look like a static preview of the real, dynamically generated template.

TAL is in fact just one part of a trinity that also includes TALES (TAL Expression Syntax) and METAL (Macro Extensions for TAL).

TAL specifies the template structure. TALES is a way to refer to external information. And METAL lets you define template regions that acts as reusable macros: headers, copyrights, headlines, boxes, what have you. METAL greatly aids in supporting the idea of "skinning". Represent documents as TAL templates that refer to METAL macros, and to switch your "skin", just point them to a different set of macros.

TAL, which is based on XML, is a declarative language. It will take some time -- but not much -- to get used to. For example, to iterate over a list/array/whatever:

<tr tal:repeat="person results">
<td>...</td>
</tr>

This goes over the elements in the "results" list, and for each element, assigns the value to the variable "person".

<tr tal:repeat="person results">
<td tal:content="person/name">Person's name</td>
<td tal:content="person/age">Person's age</td>
</tr>

Here, we use tal:content to insert the person's details into the table cells. As you can see, TAL uses a path syntax: person/name means the attribute "name" of the variable "person

The link didn't come through: fairshare

1. Runtime Revolution
2. SuperCard
3. PythonCard

There may be others...

That comment makes a spectacularly bad case. It provides no analysis to back up its wild claims. Approximately zero lines of the comment has to do with the paper, which it essentially mischaracterizes.

That paper makes a spectacularly bad case

It makes a fine case. The worst part is that it exaggerates the value of its own minor insight. The grandiose title harkens to the famous "Goto Considered Harmful", which in its time was a more insightful position.

Nobody should be surprised that globally correct choices cannot be decided with only locally correct data (for a non-greedy process, of course).

Moreover, the actual problems caused by suboptimal makefiles pales in comparison to what havoc goto can wreak. Anything wrong with makefiles can be solved by Moore's law (wait for the hardware to get faster, so you can do full rebuilds quickly). But spagetti code makes it more difficult for programmers to work with software, and there has been no observed exponential growth curve of human intelligence.

people write bad makefiles

That's a cop-out. The Makefile system has turned out to be too flexible for most needs. Because the build system relies on authors of individual make, the behavior of different Makefiles can be completely different (they're arbitrary programs, after all). That problem is analogous to the non-existent "package manager" on Microsoft Windows. Each Windows installer is an arbitrary program that might do anything, and whose actions cannot be reasoned about by software tools.

Furthermore, having one makefile in every directory is an almost assurewd way to produce bad makefiles.

which apply equally to recursive and monolithic ones.

Wrong. There is an inescapable difference in the performance (both speed and correctness). Recursive simply cannot compare with monolithic.

Note that "monolithic" doesn't necessarily mean the makefile is stored in only one file on disk. A collection of files assembled via include directives is equivalent to monolithic, but somewhat easier for revision control. Non-"make" build control processes, such as Ant or those provided with some IDEs, also share the advantages of monolithic makefiles.

The software industry has already demonstrated its support for RMCH, because all new "yet-another-better-than-make" projects take its ideas as unavoidable preconditions.

a part of the following is an anology.

the same pattern we know from the virus thing.

1) new virus
2) new anti-virus software
3) profit
4) goto 1)

in my opinion there is such a low number of people getting sued because the ifpi is not able/ has not the technology (be honest, they are not able) to find more people with 4 gigs of shared data. and the methods they use have not been tested yet by any european court[1].

and the other side did just start their engines yet while the ifpi is running out of fuel. this is literally just the beginning.

no need to get nervous.

[1] for example, in germany they first report an offence to the police by knowing that this criminal procedure will be appointed (therfor they had to aver every single download for every single shared file, which they can't) in order to get the ip address of their "target" (the providers must only reveal the ip address of a customer in connexion with a criminal procedure) so they can sue her at the civil court. one out of 68 defenders will argue like this or even better.
--
"should we blame the government or blame society? or should we blame the images on tv? no. blame canada." - someone popular

until gnome comes up with an integrated all-in-one development IDE ala' kdevelop, I'm not using it.

You haven't looked hard.

What about Anjuta, or MonoDevelop, combined with Glade?

Well, that, and because gnome is slow as ass compared to kde.

Unqualified, unsubstantiated, stupid as ass FUD.

Why not use ROX? It works equally well under KDE and Gnome, maximises use of screen estate, automatically switches to small icons at a configurable point, and one click switches between icon and detailed list view. It's also blindingly fast. Seriously, try it.

Phillip.

I don't know why Apple haven't released an OS X version of the OpenMosix project, which works wonders on Linux. It moves processes automatically between nodes while they are running, automatically re-routing disk and network access, and copying memory data across. Needs tricky work on the kernel, but combined with Rendezvous technology, it could be a killer. Your heavy tasks would be automatically routed around the workgroup, as and when is appropriate, even if they are only half-way complete.

PDFCreator gives you "print to PDF" capability in Windows. It's free software.

This is my dissertation project!

I'm writing a p2p social networking tool that operates over XMPP. I already have a working prototype written in Java, although it needs a GUI before it can be of any use.

This site is at http://hearsay.sourceforge.net, but there isn't much documentation so far.

Forget iChat, get Fire.

a better example would be freenet. Its a distributed web where pages are ranked by popularity. A slashdot, in theory, would cause more clients to replicate the site... an automirroring tool. I don't think it works quite the same way as bitTorrent.

Taken from http://wiki.xbox-linux.org/ -- "5 Are all MechAssault CD's the same?

No. You need the original version, not the "Xbox Game of the Year" version. The newer disk has been patched and can waste a lot of time. The CD labels are identical. Look at the laser etching on the back. The new one says MS02308L while the original is MS02301L."

Notice that the only difference between the two strings is the second to last character. 8=bad, 1=good.

My recommendation would be to go to a used game store and ask to take a look at the a used copy of mech assault. If it's the right one, then buy it. If you buy it, you aren't under the same time crunch as you are if you rent it. (not to mention that you can usually get it for a mere $15)

There a couple other problems you can run into during the install. If your Xbox dashboard is above a certain version number, the Mech Assault install won't work. You have to downgrade your dashboard. You can view the version number of your Dashboard by getting System info in the dashboard(or something of that nature). Instructions on how to downgrade the dashboard are towards the bottom of this page.
The file required to downgrade the dashboard is not that difficult to get, but it can be tricky to find. (I can help you get it if need be)

Depending on what DVD drive you have, you will need to use certain brands of CD-R/RW. It is very important that the disc be compatible (for obvious reasons). In any given Xbox, there is either a Samsung, Phillips, or Thompson drive. You can identify which drive you have using this picture here. At wiki.xbox-linux.org there is a "compatibility list" that tells you what brands of CD-RW should work with your drive. The Thompson drive is the least desirable of the three, and ideally you want a Samsung drive.

There are a bunch of people readily available to help troubleshoot any problems. I got some good help troubleshooting my install, and I don't mind helping anyone out that might need it.

If you don't have an Xbox already and you want to install Linux, I would recommend picking up a used one (as opposed to new). Used Xboxes are less likely to be problematic during a Linux install due to the simple fact that they're likely to have older firmware and such.

Slashster is an Open Source PHP / Mysql based FOAF.

Congrats to PeopleAggregator for making Slashdot though. Dunno why my site didn't make front page... Heh.

Maybe they were talking about GLIS... who knows.

"But there's way too much information to decode The Matrix. You get used to it. I don't even see the code. All I see is Blonde, Brunette, Redhead...."

My biggest grievance against packages is the dependacy fiasco. For instance, I have Red Hat at work. And the majority of the programs are .rpm's

Try apt4rpm (apt for rpm based distributions). Worked wonders for me.

I have 33 cds. About 25 of those were bought because I had downloaded some songs from the cd, liked them, and decided I wanted higher quality versions of them (I rip all my cds to FLAC). Most of those 25 I never would've heard because they're not what MTV and Clear Channel cater to (primarily heavy metal, progressive metal, and trance).

Prior to discovering Napster, I had all of 6 cds, and bought more at a rate of a couple a year. Now it's more like a couple a month. I doubt I'm alone in this trend.

Thunderbird can support (ie, pick up and send) from your hotmail address without a problem if you use hotwayd.

I think you're talking about psDooM (Credit to grub as it was posted earlier)

http://tomatoide.sourceforge.net/

It works. Almost. I've largely lost interest in it. The reasons why it isn't a practical way to program are legion, and BlueJ is probably a better implementation of the same idea, anyway.

Best feature: You can modify a running program while it's still running.

Those "others" that ported the Mac version would be Trolltech themselves.

And a Windows port of the GPL X11 version does exist, but, as you can see from the link, it has fallen on hard times. It seems that removing all the unix dependencies; reimplementing Windows-integration features like COM interop and accessibility from scratch; supporting gcc, mingw, Borland, and Microsoft compilers; and making sure it's all compatible with Trolltech's existing libraries for Windows is more than a couple of hackers can knock out in a weekend. That's an awful lot of wheel-reinvention, just so Trolltech can feel all warm and fuzzy about "supporting Linux".

I don't know in Gnome-land, but KDE has K3b, which gives Nero, in my humble opinion, a run for its money.

Real life anecdote: two weeks ago I went to my friend Lorenzo's with a Knoppix disc, booted it and showed him. He liked it and wanted to keep it, but it was my only copy and I had deleted the ISO from my own hard drive. No problem. Mount his HD read/write, fire K3b, select the HD for temp storage of the iso, and rip/burn in under 30 minutes. Flawless.

The operating system was running from the same CD we were copying, mind you. No hassle.

Maybe the UQM guys should start working on that. =D

Doom as a tool for system administration - Sourceforge project page

I don't know, I hear some of their hardware runs linux

What this could mean, is that they plan on actually giving xboxes away, instead of just selling them at a (small) loss.

I am trying to setup Popfile to sort mailing list messages into multiple buckets: very interesting, mildly interesting, worthless and so forth. I belong to several high-volume mailing lists and I've been wishing for an easier way to find what I care about without having to skim several hundred messages to find it. I am hoping the classifier will eventually pick up on what people and topics I like best.

Ultima VII has an incredible musical score! I had a SoundBlaster with (TurtleBeach?) WAV table synthesis daughter board at the time. Not quite the Roland MT32, but sounded great.

The score was so well composed that it could transition based on game events. That happends a lot in games today, but it enhanced the gameplay immeasurably at the time. The whole mood of different towns and caves was set by the score.

The Exult project has Ogg-encoded music from the game, as generated by the Roland MT32. When I play the tracks, I can vividly recall the experience of the game.

FluxBox , based upon BlackBox, is more feature rich but still very fast. No graphical pager though ;-)

Try this Graphical Pager.