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I happen to have made the mistake of letting several of my clients get in the habit of being able to contact me via Yahoo IM. I won't be doing that again. When freehoo quite working, I tried a number of other clients, and then had to go to the binary-only client Yahoo distributes; this required a newer libc6 and I ended up apt-get upgrading half the packages on my main machine and now some of my tools won't compile anymore.

I need to find a command line only client like freehoo but for Jabber, or else start running my own Zephyr server again. My business has picked up enough that I don't need to bend to my clients choice of communication -- a potentially pleasant evening blown scrambling about fixing shit is a high price to pay for a "free" service.

You want something done right, do it yourself. I can't let that kind of stuff be dependent on Yahoo. This reminds me of when they announced they would start charging for pop access to the email; they said they would start charging by a certain time, so I started looking around at alternatives, and then pop suddenly quit working well before the announced date. I don't need these kind of people fucking up my life.

If you want a free AAC codec, why not use FAAD?

To: webmaster@
Subject: Re: GH, almost followed after

Free CableTV!No more pay!-

ballast flack buenos chromatin horsewoman condolence prosecution catnip consular tongue chromatography avenue gingham administer pm compartment mesh swelt waitress redtop deplore corpsmen aleph birdie confiscatory dunk awe airline collectible horn thetis badminton chagrin holland springfield ecclesiastic addressograph darwinian condemnate boeotian frenetic valeur oceania epithet smyrna kiev rockland turbidity python frankel acid btu nascent bricklay deforest east cerulean muskmelon thulium estes bizarre constitute sequestration blind ablution disquietude divorcee parquet crossword agitate etch bird rhoda impetus persuasion vermiculite richfield teethed pudding glutamine squeegee lakehurst smoke vhf fist october brood satyr taxpayer when sky brant airstrip ulan micky checkmate militarism raffish firsthand prohibit squid committeewoman curie inventory dexter theta capstone shiv bright balmy roebuck heady cream agleam but alkali naomi causate liquidus quicklime zodiacal ecstasy wing snappy bitterroot desiderata alum coiffure isocline purina wilkins calculi nail pompous whereof beaumont lax lumbermen salami highwaymen oscar thither clue discussion earl shale tarpon aztecan churchyard loath otter desolater b precision dangerous baffle busch strive backwood staple stockroom kaddish chariot stucco libreville vermilion pose valedictory conscionable indiscriminate torus benton gullah maggoty knelt beatrice pathfind roberto aforesaid pyramid coincident anyplace arcsin lymphoma aghast wee span douglass bus sylvania whip diameter collagen australia anyone jug cog psychotherapeutic detain cincinnati crux chimpanzee heed yogi calcium homogeneous catfish tx educate guanine kendall watery craftsman jaime chloroform apparition northernmost indices locoweed dot data tenney relevant junco ronnie acquiescent cotoneaster de brock deborah opal garth an derivate turbid arachnid balk surf pearce atkinson data demark disney adventurous swum roseland ama officiate removal beckman expose gop dunham

However, I do think it would do him well to publish in some academic journals in order to receive funding. Great ideas can come from outside academia, but the world of academia is where you get funding for 'thinking for the sake of thinking.' It seems his work could easily be translated into a few journal submissions.

Regardless, I'll buy his latest book and make my small contribution to his non-traditional research.

... insert plug ...

By the way I released the latest version of my own AI software today, which allows a computer to learn protolanguage based on visual perception. More info here and in my sig.

There has been an ongoing discussion about just these types of spams in the forums of the excellent Bayesian filter POPFile. If the gibberish filled spam doesn't randomly happen to have one of the words your corpus recognizes as "good" or "clean" the spam shouldn't get through. The larger your corpus (total collection of classified words) gets, the more likely this is to happen. A good Bayesian email filter should be able to operate on a relatively small corpus, keeping track of only those words that are most unique to your email load, and thus not be fooled by a spam which is little more than an image and fifty lines of text copied from some random source.

This is what I love about bayesian filtering.

Because it adapts, each new technique the spammers try ends up diluting the effect and ruining it for all spammers. And because they're greedy and will sell each other out without hesitation, it's basically using their own motivations against themselves.

Might as well put in a plug for my favorite bayesian filter: ASSP

Isn't this similar to JACK? From what I gather, GStreamer extends it to video, also.

I also use Linux to transfer files to my iPod, and the program I use is gtkpod. For the most part it is a painless process, since you can auto mount/umount your iPod when you start/close gtkpod, but it's not uncommon to have gtkpod freeze up in the mounting stage or not umount properly. Then the only way to get things to work again is to reboot. Hopefully when I upgrade to the 2.6 kernel things will be a bit more smooth.

I use my iPod with Linux, and have for over a year. In fact, it has never been used with any other operating system, and I have never used iTunes or Musicmatch (or whatever the windows thing is called) so I can't really compare.

Linux firewire support is experimental in 2.4, so getting it working requires your basic linux skills, but I haven't had any real problems. Most firewire cards and MBs use a standard driver, so it is just to compile the modules (and firewire harddisk support) and run. I have never gotten automatic hotplug support working here, but scanning the scsi bus manually isn't that big a deal (and others apparently have). With kernels before 2.4.20 I had a recurring hard lockup while transfering, which was annoying, but that is gone now. And I don't think the drivers are completely optimal so the transfers are slower then advertised (but still many times faster than USB).

I don't know if it is better with the new iPods that support USB2.0, since I have an old firewire only model. And I haven't tried the 2.6 kernel which is supposed to have better firewire support.

The best software for adding and removing music that I have found is gtkpod. It is a nice, easy to use, GUI program that allows you to select music, construct playlists, etc. The page also contains information for getting all the other stuff working.

I am happy with my iPod on Linux.

Maybe I'm a fanatic about these things but...

What's wrong with mp3's/oggs? The premise on which iTunes is based (that here is a method that allows you to download legally) is wrong; in fact, lots of musicians are putting mp3's out there for free. Look at dmusic.com , IUMA, irate radio and netlabels . Some of the stuff is eclectic, experimental, not mass market, but it's not that far off.

I stopped listening to commercial music 6 months ago (although I still donate to artists with tipjar links). For "open content" listeners like me, all this talk of proprietary locked content only encourages musicians to put their content in locked formats. That is bad for everyone.

Share the Music day ; sharethemusic weblog

Like most /.ers I'm a big fan of the hitchhiker's guide. I even made a funny splash screen for a program I'm writing parodying the guide. Enjoy :^)

Offtopic - NASA is really embracing Java lately. At least parts of the control and visualising software for the current mission uses Java, including Java 3D. Java not ready for user interfaces eh?

Indeed. The software we used to command both rovers during cruise is written in Java (I wrote it!); we're using the same software to command them on the surface as well. (The surface commanding is actually done with an integrated mix of software -- my half is in Java; the other half, the 3-D visualization stuff, is in C++. We also have various kinds of links to other JPL applications, most of which are written in C or C++.)

And no, this isn't Maestro (a.k.a. SAP) I'm speaking of. But Java is an important part of this mission, as is Linux.

Oh, and just so I can be on-topic: everyone who wants a Mars-time watch pays for it out of his own pocket. I'm cheap, so I'm using the nifty MarsClock application on my Palm, as well as a GNOME panel applet I wrote myself that displays UTC and Mars time. We also have big electronic whiteboards that display UTC, PST, and Mars times (and the app that does this is written in Java). But I might get a Mars watch anyway, as a souvenir if nothing else.

maybe not a watch but a palm pilot

Mens

On a related note, there is a nifty project on SourceForge about a kernel that does precisely what I'm talking about. The safe language in use is a natively-compiled, heavily Lisp-influenced language with low-level extensions for kernel development.

Go build it!

Pedantic [LEGO]Geek mode on

A: Lego Army men
Many fine examples already exist for filling units in most era's.

B: Lego Star trek
Trek is often done. Tho Blake's 7 is more hip.

C: Lego Warhammer 40k
A whole[all units] Dark Eldar army and ideas for modeling units for other powers can be found.

D: Lego D&D
Players of D&D[with LEGO] and other game systems are legion. As are the armies. Several rule-systems for play are also out there.

E: Lego Half life
There are CAD models[in easy format for conversion] for many of the parts go nuts. Sprite based(using POV to render frames) has also been done for a few games over the years.

F: Lego programming department
Cluster em.

PDG mode off [/;-)

iTunes supports quite a lot of different third-party players

You're wrong. iTunes doesn't support anything other than an iPod when you're running iTunes For Windows. Quote:

"Other MP3 players do not work with iTunes for Windows."

Having said that, I'm using iTunes as a catalog and jukebox on my PC with 192kbps AAC files. Taking files with me is a two step process: I drag & drop directly from iTunes onto a Python script I wrote to transcode AAC files I want to listen to on the road to 128kbps MP3 (decode to wav, encode). I then use another program (RioRio) to transfer music to my Diamond Rio 500 (because the included software was Music Match - and that thing absolutely sucks).

My 500 only has a 64MB capacity, so the transcoding doesn't take long. Yes, it's messy - but it works and I have hi-def on the desktop, low def when I'm mobile and don't care.

As an aside, anyone know of any other jukebox & catalog software for Windows that doesn't make you put files in a playlist before you can listen to them? (Which is what turned me off every other player before I found iTunes).

My God... YES. The Windows version of the iPod has been out for ages. Since the first generation, in fact. It used to work with MusicMatch, now it runs on iTunes for Windows. There are even a few Linux tools to work it already. Hell, it can even RUN Linux if you want.

Just image a large warehouse filled with racks upon racks of these things running as an OpenMosix cluster... Super (space efficient) computing at its best. ;)

Nothing is smart enough to tell the difference because the content is contextual (hence the name). In a corporation like the one I'm at now (a class A railway) we have hundreds of terabytes of information flowing through our systems on a regular basis. Trying to track it, categorize it, and make sense of what's there is next to impossible. Yet we still keep trying.

I've been trying to architect the information gathering myself in a manual way using a distributed model. Rather than having one system (or hundreds of systems depending on how you look at it) go out and farm the information, have each system submit themselves (automated if such a way exists) to a central repository so that it makes sense. Like I said, any entity is the best thing to know about itself and how it should be classified.

The Trove system from SourceForge is such a beast. Any project submits themself to the trove for categorization. If you abstract that concept up a level, you get a general classification system that lets you not only search based on it, but also filter the information and allow something to be categorized in multiple dimensions. It's not just about one listing anymore, because Pink the singer could be listed under Rock, Pop and Female. You can't choose just one. The trove system as it is, isn't the most scalable in the world, but with a little work could be and could be generic enough to classify documents, objects, people, whatever. just a thought...

Sounds good. There ought to be something similar under BSD or GPL.

Political dissidents would definitely benefit from this kind of super search system, and so do normal users like kids doing searches for their homework.

We need our own "commie" version.

I wish I was fluent in computer languages or else I'd be the first one to start this up under BSD licence.

Any suggestions as to what language I need to learn to develop this kind of search engine?
Its gotta have a capability like freenet to distribute load on the network and the system while keeping users anonymous, since private users won't have the resource to come up with 1000s of servers. I'm thinking on the lines of XML.

Seeing as how OSDN is happy to host various hacker tools on sourceforge, why don't some of these 'illegal' utilities open the source and host there? Clearly the people who run sourceforge have no morals. Heck, at least Games X Copy has some redeeming value.

You know, if you *really* want to test your own systems, go grab a copy of OpenSTA.

Reasonably flexible and GPL'd.

For example... copy a disc

Using dd or standard inferfaces will only get you the standard data session, error corrected. You need to use this lower level tool to get at the more esoteric features, or to make a working copy if the system uses copy protection.

JEP - Java equation parser jep.sourceforge.net just a simple parser for equations, but can be used as the first steps for a CA program.

SingSurf - Draws singular algrbraic and other surface. SingSurf.

Javaview - JavaView a platform for 3D mathematical graphic.

It would be really nice to see a good open source framework, which allows easy extension into domain specific areas. I can't really see it happening. Maybe the best thing is to work on interopability of the packages, say through the OpenMath or MathML systems.

Do you mean something like NTLM authentication against a domain?

Things like PMD are pretty damn helpful as well. :-)

I've been thinking about this, and I have to wonder if the uCLinux porters just didn't set the power management bits correctly. The cores in the iPod are software-clockable up to 133 MHz. Tremor (the integer Ogg decoder) requires only about a 90 Mhz ARM core. It should be more than fast enough.

That having been said, has anyone implemented a segment loader for the second ARM core yet? That's probably the Right Way (tm) to handle decoding....

So it really should be possible.

You might also try psst.sourceforge.net for voice encryption and chat.

Rip to FLAC.

Then use this to encode to the codec of the week on the fly.

Yeah it takes more space, but gigs are cheaper than time (my time at least).

Core is a minimal distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system designed to be the basis for a complete system constructed by the end user. A fresh installation of Core will boot into a console and provide the user with the tools needed to download, compile and install other applications. Core contains nothing beyond what is required to perform these tasks

No, really. We haven't had any corruption reports and people are actually using it.

As for Linux support, it works great and there is a good Linux client

I haven't looked at slapt-get yet, but swaret is great, and the dropline installer gives you the most kickass Gnome desktop available. (Although, at the moment I'm experimenting with a combination of the development version of Fluxbox and the ROX file manager.)

I also recommend giving the Slackware Live CD a go. Hmm, it appears to have been renamed SLAX. It's my rescue/utility CD of choice, primarily because it fits on a mini (185MB) CD-R. It's a nice balance somewhere between tomsrtbt and Knoppix

Go Slackware!

I haven't looked at slapt-get yet, but swaret is great, and the dropline installer gives you the most kickass Gnome desktop available. (Although, at the moment I'm experimenting with a combination of the development version of Fluxbox and the ROX file manager.)

I also recommend giving the Slackware Live CD a go. Hmm, it appears to have been renamed SLAX. It's my rescue/utility CD of choice, primarily because it fits on a mini (185MB) CD-R. It's a nice balance somewhere between tomsrtbt and Knoppix

Go Slackware!

System Shock (1994), Looking Glass.

NTFS is generally kernel stuff. Writing is, at least in 2.4, NOT recommended. The Linux-NTFS people say that the risk of failure is.. big.

But for 2.6 kernels, there's another world. The "new" NTFS drivers are better, and reads perfectly well. Quoting the Linux-NTFS website: The new driver, introduced in 2.5.11, has some write code, but it's very limited. The driver can overwrite existing files, but it cannot change the length, add new or delete existing files.

All in all, NTFS isn't reliable except for reading in 2.6 kernels. These NTFS drivers are in the kernel tree.

A good FAQ is at this place

FAT sucks, but works brilliantly for almost nothing. Like temp files.

If you're lucky, the Mandrake folks gave you the availability to write temp files to the USB key (boxed Mandrake Move). I don't know, though.

Have a look at my DEM micropayment system. It's not yet finished but it will provide an open source micropayment system. Everybody can be a payment provider (or PgpID identity provider) in this system.

Have a look at my DEM micropayment system. It's not yet finished but it will provide an open source micropayment system. Everybody can be a payment provider (or PgpID identity provider) in this system.

I'm just working on an identitiy server (PgpID) which will solve that problem and a micropayment system (DEM) to go with the ID server. With PgpID you can have a single identity provider who knows your real email address and credit card number. Everybody else can receive "opaque" addresses, like email addresses which are forwarded to you but don't give away your identity, e.g.: sadf789b78dfg789df@id-provider.com. Since it's all open source everybody can offer the service and you can pick an identity provider you trust.

I'm just working on an identitiy server (PgpID) which will solve that problem and a micropayment system (DEM) to go with the ID server. With PgpID you can have a single identity provider who knows your real email address and credit card number. Everybody else can receive "opaque" addresses, like email addresses which are forwarded to you but don't give away your identity, e.g.: sadf789b78dfg789df@id-provider.com. Since it's all open source everybody can offer the service and you can pick an identity provider you trust.

There is a sourceforge project that aims to continue Speak Freely development. Here is their webpage. This project's succes totally depends on finding enough volunteers to do the work, so maybe it's time to do something if you like this project.

There is a sourceforge project that aims to continue Speak Freely development. Here is their webpage. This project's succes totally depends on finding enough volunteers to do the work, so maybe it's time to do something if you like this project.

What's the difference between geeks and nerds? Are nerds better communicators? This "goodbye" letter from SpeakFreely's inventor is good form, even useful documentation. It would be perfectly appropriate on the , but there's nothing. The farewell will be lost to those just picking up this orphaned project. So they won't know its heritage, its allergies, or its Dickensian origin. While a bit tearjerking, those mysteries will also contribute to the demise of this worthy contender in the VoIP evolution game. All of which could be mitigated by this little note on the little bugger's basket, in the project news page, where its new family can find it. Leave the orphan on the doorstep, not behind the dumpster.

And yeah, I use Windows for the most part, the Unix version is here.

It is open source :^)

Spamassassin
SpamAssassin(tm) is a mail filter to identify spam.
Using its rule base, it uses a wide range of heuristic tests on mail headers and body text to identify "spam", also known as unsolicited commercial email.

and Razor
What is Vipul's Razor?
Vipul's Razor is a distributed, collaborative, spam detection and filtering network. Through user contribution, Razor establishes a distributed and constantly updating catalogue of spam in propagation that is consulted by email clients to filter out known spam. Detection is done with statistical and randomized signatures that efficiently spot mutating spam content. User input is validated through reputation assignments based on consensus on report and revoke assertions which in turn is used for computing confidence values associated with individual signatures.

They are. But NTFS is a huge project. It takes a lot of time. Today it's developed as a hobby, couple of hours a week or not even that much.

> I would really like to think that in a few months
> someone will figure out how to (safely) lift these restrictions

The developers said in the forums: somebody having lots of time must start active coding (no need for reverse engineering any more) or hire coders and finance the development.

They are. But NTFS is a huge project. It takes a lot of time. Today it's developed as a hobby, couple of hours a week or not even that much.

> I would really like to think that in a few months
> someone will figure out how to (safely) lift these restrictions

The developers said in the forums: somebody having lots of time must start active coding (no need for reverse engineering any more) or hire coders and finance the development.

Alex Treme does all the hard Work on Morphix but, I am trying to keep the Morphix FAQ upto date and have also written a HowTo with the aim of being really easy to follow.

So any constructive critisism would be helpful, either here or on the Morhphix Forum

Thanks,

Brendan

Alex Treme does all the hard Work on Morphix but, I am trying to keep the Morphix FAQ upto date and have also written a HowTo with the aim of being really easy to follow.

So any constructive critisism would be helpful, either here or on the Morhphix Forum

Thanks,

Brendan