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Personally I have found Mendeley frustrating to use anyway. Seemed more interested in shiny features than working well. Wasn't very good at maintaining its bibtex file (which could be a problem using it with other programs) and expected you to have digital references only.

JabRef is a great multiplatform reference manager which combines excellently with Docear for writing a paper/thesis/dissertation (Docear lets you organize your references and annotations as part of your outline). I have also found it worth it to run PDF-XChange Viewer under WINE. It is unfortunately not open source but it supports any feature you can think of for annotating PDFs and integrates nicely (with a bit of non-windows setup) with Docear.

Zotero is another great reference manager. I have also heard good things about BibDesk (OS X only).

Simple, don't use exchange!! don't try to fix the wrong problem!

If you choose a closed email server full of closed protocols, you will have problems finding tools that work with it! All the tools that can work with it will cost money and usually require yet another closed tool or service.

Use other things or pressure MS to support open protocols. if you don't do that, then you can't complain about application support.

If you really want to follow that path, set up a davmail server and use it (directly with SSL or via a vpn)

Again, exchange is broken and is not required... exchange people don't really know anything else and always complain that nothing can replace it... yet million of companies and people use other solutions and are happy. So yeah, exchange users/companies are "blind" inside a walled garden.

There's also a cool tool called CLOC which gives a nice report about a source tree including the lines of code and in which languages they are written.

automatically encrypt your data locally and upload it to multiple locations. These locations can be public locations as only your private key can decrypt the incremental (or full) backups.

Some backends:

• azure backend (Azure Blob Storage Service) Microsoft Azure SDK for Python - https://github.com/Azure/azure...
• boto backend (S3 Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Storage) boto version 2.0+ - http://github.com/boto/boto
• cfpyrax backend (Rackspace Cloud) and hubic backend (hubic.com) Rackspace CloudFiles Pyrax API - http://docs.rackspace.com/sdks...
• dpbx backend (Dropbox) Dropbox Python SDK - https://www.dropbox.com/develo...
• copy backend (Copy.com) python-urllib3 - https://github.com/shazow/urll...
• gdocs backend (Google Docs) Google Data APIs Python Client Library - http://code.google.com/p/gdata...
• gio backend (Gnome VFS API) PyGObject - http://live.gnome.org/PyGObjec...
• D-Bus (dbus)- http://www.freedesktop.org/wik...
• lftp backend (needed for ftp, ftps, fish [over ssh] - also supports sftp, webdav[s]) LFTP Client - http://lftp.yar.ru/
• mega backend (mega.co.nz) Python library for mega API - https://github.com/ckornacker/..., ubuntu ppa - ppa:ckornacker/backup
• OneDrive backend (Microsoft OneDrive) python-requests - http://python-requests.org/ python-requests-oauthlib - https://github.com/requests/re...
• ncftp backend (ftp, select via ncftp+ftp://)
• NcFTP - http://www.ncftp.com/
• Par2 Wrapper Backend par2cmdline - http://parchive.sourceforge.ne...
• rsync backend rsync client binary - http://rsync.samba.org/

I haven't used this personally, but: http://sourceforge.net/project...

Maybe you'll learn not to spend your money on platforms designed first and foremost for lock-in.

Well you'd save a lot of money, but you'd be pretty short on the gaming stick. No Playstation, no XBox, no Steam, no Origin, no MMOs, no Minecraft, etc etc. You'd be limited to basically whatever Good Old Games has available and the occasionally indie game you stumble across by chance.

decent free/open MMO engines

http://sourceforge.net/directory/games/mmorpg/os:windows/freshness:recently-updated/Didn't Google that one too hard I take it..

then link them together meaningfully, which is the missing part really.

That's really the trick. Unfortunately its close to impossible. What meaningful link could there possibly be between my 60-level, 1000-max-stat fantasy game and your 200-level, 100-max-stat science fiction game?

Even among similar games, there will be huge disconnects in content and lore making this particularly challenging. You could set up farms of a handful of cooperating servers to be sure, but to get that "Massively" part in there, you really won't get away with just "linking them together." Someone will have to spend the money and time on developing an actual large-scale server farm, advertising the game to enough people to make it worthwhile, etc.

All of that is expensive.

But if you just want a small MUD-scale server of a few dozen people, that should be totally in the realm of possibility.

Zowie makes gaming mice that require no special drivers at all. They are no-bullshit, bling-free devices with top notch sensors that you just plug in and go. I have an FK1, and I'm very happy with it.

Roccat makes super-bling++ mice and they've actually provided kernel drivers and GPL configuration software for engaging all their bells and whistles. I've never used their stuff, so I cannot attest to its quality, but I'm intrigued because I've never seen a company provide Linux support like that.

Didn't RTFA but it seems it's something like Ziproxy.

I'm a *nix neckbeard...

Well, I'm not a true neckbeard, but merely a unix beard. But I question anyone's commitment to the Unix way if they are not using Traditional Vi. But I'm rather torn on the issue of facial hair and operating systems because a man I deeply respect has no beard at all!

http://wanem.sourceforge.net/

The SQL gap is not what let MySQL take off. PostgreSQL didn't get a good Windows port until version 8.0 in 2005. That delay is what let MySQL get such a major installed base ahead of PostgreSQL being usable for the typical desktop app.

Reason I ask is simple: Only pure 64-bit game I know of that's free is Hexen II http://sourceforge.net/project...

* It'd be great IF it were both OpenGL supporting AND more importantly (imo @ least) that it's a 64-bit port...

(I do recall this game being fun & it would be great IF it "fits the bill" on those accounts too...)

APK

P.S.=> Speaking of which (on gaming/being a "semi-old time PC gamer" in my time): Just HOW MANY & which games ARE pure 64-bit nowadays? A "little help" on that note gamers (been "outta the loop" gaming for a LONG time now, since oh... Doom II/Quake 4 really) - I truly do NOT know & perhaps you gamers "of today" will know... thanks on that note (trivia related more than anything)... apk

I thought the prime requisite was using Suicide Linux... http://sourceforge.net/project...

Infinite Window manager 'eh? You should have a look at Eagle View.

Works exactly as it does in the video. I think it needs a little 'lock-to' as it can be a little sensitive (that could be my mouse though).

Head tracking may work well, depending on ability to control head/neck. There are several methods (mostly originating in the flight sim community).

1. Face tracking (very easy to try, FaceTrackNoIR or Opentrack)
2. Head tracking with IR clip (bit more reliable than face, many DIY guides out there)
3. Head tracking with Aruco marker (available in Opentrack)

If you can afford it, Jira and WIki from Atlassian (Confluence) are the best out there. If not, i would go with Redmine or Trello. You should also give asana a try. Here's a list that will guide you through what's out there: Freedcamp - Free - https://freedcamp.com/ - Online, doesn't log time directly on the task Velocity - Free and Paid - http://velocity.pm/ (Online) Time Tracking Brigthpod - Free (2 Projects) Paid - http://www.brightpod.com/ - Specify tasks, log work Asana - Free and Paid - https://asana.com/ (Online) - Doesn't log work Moovia - Free (2 members) and Paid - https://site.moovia.com/ (Online) Time tracking, Does not specify tasks Producteev - Free and Paid - https://www.producteev.com/ - Online, Does not specify tasks, doesn't log work Stepsie - Free - http://www.stepsie.com/ - Online, Does not specify tasks, doesn't log work Trello - Free - https://trello.com/ **** SELF HOST Redmine - Free - http://www.redmine.org/ Projects, wiki, issues Chili Project - Fork of Redmine Basecamp - close source - user friendly Open atrium (drupal) - not good issue tracking Collabtive - http://collabtive.o-dyn.de/ Kforge - https://pypi.python.org/pypi/k... ClockingIT - http://wiki.clockingit.com/ Assembla (SaaS Agile) Harvest (SaaS User Friendly) FreshBooks (SaaS) - Not open source - Time tracking invoicing Project Pier - Free - http://www.projectpier.org/ Trac - Free - http://trac.edgewall.org/ 2 plan - Free - http://2-plan.com/ MyCollab - Free - http://community.mycollab.com/... (Self hosted) Manage Yor Team - http://www.manageyourteam.net/ (Self hostes) Kanboard - Free - http://kanboard.net/ (light and self hosted) ProjecQtor - Free - http://www.projeqtor.org/ Task Coach - Free - http://taskcoach.org/ Task Juggler - Free - http://www.taskjuggler.org/ DotProject - Free - http://www.dotproject.net/ Project.net - Free - http://sourceforge.net/project... GanttProject (like MS Project) - Free - http://www.ganttproject.biz/ OpenWorkBench - Free - http://sourceforge.net/project... Codendi - Paid - http://www.codendi.com/ Egroupware 2014 - Paid - http://www.egroupware.org/star... - Atlassian Confluence and Jira - Trial and Paid Britix24 - Trial and Paid - http://www.bitrix24.com/ ProofHub - Trial and Paid - https://www.proofhub.com/ iCoordinator - Paid - http://www.icoordinator.com/en... FengOffice (like MS Project) - Trial and Paid - http://www.fengoffice.com/web/ Bugzilla - Bug tracking Mantis - Bug tracking *** Task Management Task Freak! - http://www.taskfreak.com/

If you can afford it, Jira and WIki from Atlassian (Confluence) are the best out there. If not, i would go with Redmine or Trello. You should also give asana a try. Here's a list that will guide you through what's out there: Freedcamp - Free - https://freedcamp.com/ - Online, doesn't log time directly on the task Velocity - Free and Paid - http://velocity.pm/ (Online) Time Tracking Brigthpod - Free (2 Projects) Paid - http://www.brightpod.com/ - Specify tasks, log work Asana - Free and Paid - https://asana.com/ (Online) - Doesn't log work Moovia - Free (2 members) and Paid - https://site.moovia.com/ (Online) Time tracking, Does not specify tasks Producteev - Free and Paid - https://www.producteev.com/ - Online, Does not specify tasks, doesn't log work Stepsie - Free - http://www.stepsie.com/ - Online, Does not specify tasks, doesn't log work Trello - Free - https://trello.com/ **** SELF HOST Redmine - Free - http://www.redmine.org/ Projects, wiki, issues Chili Project - Fork of Redmine Basecamp - close source - user friendly Open atrium (drupal) - not good issue tracking Collabtive - http://collabtive.o-dyn.de/ Kforge - https://pypi.python.org/pypi/k... ClockingIT - http://wiki.clockingit.com/ Assembla (SaaS Agile) Harvest (SaaS User Friendly) FreshBooks (SaaS) - Not open source - Time tracking invoicing Project Pier - Free - http://www.projectpier.org/ Trac - Free - http://trac.edgewall.org/ 2 plan - Free - http://2-plan.com/ MyCollab - Free - http://community.mycollab.com/... (Self hosted) Manage Yor Team - http://www.manageyourteam.net/ (Self hostes) Kanboard - Free - http://kanboard.net/ (light and self hosted) ProjecQtor - Free - http://www.projeqtor.org/ Task Coach - Free - http://taskcoach.org/ Task Juggler - Free - http://www.taskjuggler.org/ DotProject - Free - http://www.dotproject.net/ Project.net - Free - http://sourceforge.net/project... GanttProject (like MS Project) - Free - http://www.ganttproject.biz/ OpenWorkBench - Free - http://sourceforge.net/project... Codendi - Paid - http://www.codendi.com/ Egroupware 2014 - Paid - http://www.egroupware.org/star... - Atlassian Confluence and Jira - Trial and Paid Britix24 - Trial and Paid - http://www.bitrix24.com/ ProofHub - Trial and Paid - https://www.proofhub.com/ iCoordinator - Paid - http://www.icoordinator.com/en... FengOffice (like MS Project) - Trial and Paid - http://www.fengoffice.com/web/ Bugzilla - Bug tracking Mantis - Bug tracking *** Task Management Task Freak! - http://www.taskfreak.com/

Sourceforge already has one, FYI.

I found, after decades of experimentation, that simplicity and consistency beats everything else if you want to produce reliable software. Now, I use C exclusively just so I don't have to deal with multiple different ways to do something because the C++ standards committee got a bee in its bonnet about the latest hot new concept that first came out in 1959 and was forgotten until last year.

The problem with possessing multiple ways to solve a problem is that every developer takes it as a personal challenge to find and use all the different ways. To make things easier I simply wrote a library containing those things that I usually need (sane string operations, c/line parsing, vectors, etc) and found that 90% of what you can do with X lines of fairly complex grammar in C++ can be done with around 1.5X of straightforward C grammer. I don't need the remaining 10% if it needs 300% cognitive effort to get.

The library is here: Extended C library, libxc, so help yourself (BSD license)

.

Documentation is over here: PDF link, but html available, although the documentation on the website is out of date. If you download the library source you get the full up-to-date docs.

When I started playing go, somewhere around 1987/1989, there was a price money offered for the first computer program that was able to beat a 1st Dan go player.
The price was a million dollars. It took decades until one managed to write such a program and farm in the price money.
I'm pretty certain we have a new price for a program beating a 4th Dan.
Someone with a better internet connection than I have right now, might want to google for that.
A go implementation that is somewhere around between 1st and 2nd Dan is: http://fuego.sourceforge.net/ (there is also a free iPad version of it)

Agreed, wm was horrible. But if it weren't for apps like gsplayer, I would have ditched it MUCH sooner :)

While we're slashvertising BASIC emulators, PC-BASIC is a GPL, Python-based emulator for GW-BASIC. </plug class="shameless">

http://gvr.sourceforge.net/

Why reinvent the wheel. Check out Guido van Robot, a programming language that teaches all the basics of programming (problem solving, sequence, iteration and decision making).

Best yet, it already has fun progressive lessons that are perfect for teaching in the classroom.
http://gvr.sourceforge.net/les...

Whatever you do, remember, start with sequence, then iteration, decision making and ultimately wrap it up with problem solving.

http://gvr.sourceforge.net/

Why reinvent the wheel. Check out Guido van Robot, a programming language that teaches all the basics of programming (problem solving, sequence, iteration and decision making).

Best yet, it already has fun progressive lessons that are perfect for teaching in the classroom.
http://gvr.sourceforge.net/les...

Whatever you do, remember, start with sequence, then iteration, decision making and ultimately wrap it up with problem solving.

I used uTorrent when it was fairly new and it was excellent but in this day and age does it offer anything versus the number of matured open-source alternatives out there? I'm really asking if it has some special sauce that gives it an edge. When it was released one could look past it's closed source nature since it made it's mark being lightweight yet feature packed. Once the major update that brought advertising on-board I saw no reason to use it anymore.

I've been using qBittorent for a couple years and it gives me all the relevant functionality without the mess as well as Transmission QT for Windows and Deluge, I can see no reason to use uTorrent when it's been shown repeatedly to be scum-ware.

Which is another reason to continue to support Mozilla. Their code is open and there are other browsers based on that code tweaked and compiled for different needs. I switched to WaterFox because I wanted a fast 64 bit based version of FireFox and Mozilla hadn't released a 64 bit version at the time. I still use it. There are other versions targeted squarely at the fast/light crowd.

A: Use an OS that cordons off any possibility of accessing the HD or other firmwares to begin with. The Xen hypervisor prides itself on being more secure than most, and its only about 1MB in size. Using that small and hardened attack surface as the gatekeeper to all hardware functions (including NIC and graphics), and as the means of silo-ing one's computing life into work, personal, misc online, etc., its perhaps the best defence out there for PCs. The Qubes GUI even lets you sequester USB controllers inside specific VMs and as such its a line of defence against badUSB. To top it off, it gives you facilities like splitGPG, isolated TorVM, and a means of sanitizing pdfs.

Even if you only use it to separate "online" from "offline" stuff (or even if you only use it as an untrusted "online" system), Qubes will protect the core system such as BIOS and other firmware.

FWIW & BTW, I've read parts of the OPAL 2 spec. for hard drives that states a drive manufacturer should make functions like firmware update conditional on successful authentication (no firmware update without the correct password). But it isn't clear to me whether OEMs are complying with what appears to be a recommendation.

OTOH, you could get a high-security flash drive (the kind with signed updates or read-only firmware) then put your Qubes boot partition on that and enable the Anti-Evil-Mail feature. I think Kanguru and IronKey are two such drive vendors.

That "powerful AI" thinking is done by designers and analysts, not programmers. The vast majority of "programmers" merely translate the business models and logic specifications into code. What I'm saying is that we're not far off at all from capturing that information in the business models and diagrams themselves, and translating it directly into code without the intervention of "grunt coders" (the people you hire for $20/hr from sweat shops or through overseas companies.)

Those few who are also business analysts and designers will be working with those new tools instead of UML diagrams. They'll push a button, and bam, out comes most of the code for implementing the system.

User interface programming and report specifications are the only aspect of "programming" that I see as being retained by the human coders in the long run, and even the report specifications could prove subject to analysis algorithms that allow a report designer to simply highlight the model attributes they want to present, drop-down-select group-by functions over those attributes, and do a little bit of layout specification to produce the report. For all I know, there are already tools that let you do that.

You only need "strong AI" if you expect the system to be designed by the system. I'm not expecting any such thing -- I'm merely expecting the automation of grunt work and IDE point-and-click operations by rule-based systems.

If you want a crude example of the kind of technology I'm talking about, check out my pet project, MSS Code Factory. From an XML business application model, it produces the database schema scripts, stored procedures, JDBC layers, object implementations and interfaces, and XML messaging layers. I keep adding to it and extending it, but it does more than enough to prove my point: you can automate an awful lot of the grunt code of a system.

Now if I can automate that much of the coding process by myself, imagine what a team of serious computer scientists with a real budget could do in the bowels of an IBM, Microsoft, or Apple R&D department.

It was suggested that a Mac made a good replacement for my Linux desktop since it was so Unixy. But the part that matters to me really isn't.

Hmmm. I'm not sure what they meant by, "Unixy," but the Mac OS X interface never struck me as particularly Unixy (nor did NeXT before it). It has always been Mac-like, even if the Great Leap to Aqua meant accepting certain un-Mac-like things like filename extensions. X has always been kind of a different mindset from other GUIs, but I agree it would be nice for the GUI to be customizable to fit whatever you're used to.

Incidentally, did you ever use A/UX? Its GUI always seemed a bit schizophrenic to me in how it somewhat arbitrarily melded certain Mac features with certain Unix features, but in many ways I think it was a better integration of Mac & Unix than OS X is.

What horrible error-prone hard to follow code. Fair enough, it looks okay for this trivial example with only three pieces of logic in it, but real-life code has more than three pieces of logic in them. Look at this code from this library over here, line 85, function xp_new_xcfg() (unfortunately /. won't let me post the actual function code - "please use fewer junk characters").

Using your multiple-block example this short 12 line function becomes a 30-odd line monstrosity that is harder to read, much more error-prone to write and extremely difficult to debug due to redundant lines, yet this is still a trivial, rather short function! Can you imagine the mess that would occur if you tried to convert a more substantial function with error-handling goto's into your multiple-block version?

We were all taught the multiple-block approach to avoiding goto's when learning programming in university/school so it's not like none of us goto-using ancients ever tried it before. The problem with that approach occurs when a codebase is touched by many coders. They may not be as adept at making sure, when they modify that multiple-block version, to (for example) free the previous five pointers in the 6th failure handler "if" statement. Then we get a memory leak.

The goto version greatly reduces the probability that someone, when adding a new line of code with error-checking into the function, will forget how many foobars were allocated prior to that line and free too few in their error-handler "if" block. All they have to do is ensure that they jump to the handler that free's all.

Lots of 'Internet of Things' code will be written in C (with some ASM and C++) as the 'things' tend to be resource constrained. That's a big market coming up.

I'm enjoying using C again on devices with similar performance to those I was using 30 years ago (now: ATMega328P running with 1MHz CPU, ie 1 MIPS; then Z80A with 4MHz clock making for ~1MIPS) but with lots better development tools this time, and several GHz of laptop to run them on.

https://sourceforge.net/p/open...

When not writing C (and developing hardware) I knock out (parts of) huge mission-critical Java systems for banks.

Each is good: each for its niche.

Rgds

Damon

Windows - the most insecure OS in the world. There are probably more viruses, malware and ransonware than actual apps.

I doubt it.

Download.com alone hosts over 51,000 Windows apps. Search Results for all Windows, Sourceforge, 16,000, 2,200 certified Fresh.

Amazon.com 22,000 for retail sale. PC Software

You could make a very strong case for Android being the most insecure, incompetently planned and managed OS in the wild.

Google's position is complicated, because it has produced a platform that it has no power to update. There's no Windows Update for Android phones, and Google has no ability to push out updates to the operating system; it has to depend on a range of OEMs and network operators to adopt its source code changes and distribute them to users. Both Apple and Microsoft, in contrast, have a direct channel to update their mobile operating systems.

Google won't fix bug affecting 60 percent of Android users

Show us all you've done more, BETTER than I have from a partial list of my favorites only then:

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

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

WINDOWS MAGAZINE, 1997, "Top Freeware & Shareware of the Year" issue page 210, #1/first entry in fact

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which ended up fixing a "bug" for them later, here -> http://sourceforge.net/p/ultra... via its implementation (partially, NOT fully yet as I outline it & use in my applications such as this one -> http://www.start64.com/index.p...

APK

P.S.=> THEN there's this too:

APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-1 32/64-bit -> http://start64.com/index.php?o...

The BEST in the antiviruses (MalwareBytes) http://www.av-test.org/en/news... recommend & host it http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl...

... apk

Show us all you've done more, BETTER than I have from a partial list of my favorites only then:

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

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

WINDOWS MAGAZINE, 1997, "Top Freeware & Shareware of the Year" issue page 210, #1/first entry in fact

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which ended up fixing a "bug" for them later, here -> http://sourceforge.net/p/ultra... via its implementation (partially, NOT fully yet as I outline it & use in my applications such as this one -> http://www.start64.com/index.p...

APK

P.S.=> THEN there's this too:

APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-1 32/64-bit -> http://start64.com/index.php?o...

The BEST in the antiviruses (MalwareBytes) http://www.av-test.org/en/news... recommend & host it http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl...

... apk

Show us all you've done more, BETTER than I have from a partial list of my favorites only then:

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

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

WINDOWS MAGAZINE, 1997, "Top Freeware & Shareware of the Year" issue page 210, #1/first entry in fact

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Which ended up fixing a "bug" for them later, here -> http://sourceforge.net/p/ultra... via its implementation (partially, NOT fully yet as I outline it & use in my applications such as this one -> http://www.start64.com/index.p...

APK

P.S.=> THEN there's this too:

APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-1 32/64-bit -> http://start64.com/index.php?o...

The BEST in the antiviruses (MalwareBytes) http://www.av-test.org/en/news... recommend & host it http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl...

... apk

That's all you need. If you want a better quality image than a cheap USB webcam, use the Raspberry Pi camera, but a $5 USB cam works just fine if you don't need a high frame rate -- and if you're just pointing the thing at a menu, you only need one frame a day ;). The software is FOSS, and works just fine on the r-pi. I use such a setup to monitor my 3D printer from elsewhere in the house. If you need fine-grained control over who connects, well the Raspberry's running linux, so go nuts.

Although that seems ridiculous overkill for a relatively static menu.

"Stay on task" like a workhouse or factory? Whose task? To what end?

The new (yet old) paradigm is learner-directed education. A healthy kid's own natural curiosity and desire to succeed then helps him or he power through challenges (if it has not been wiped out before then through boredom/confusion or rewards/punishments). However, most software and even internet content is not that educational and so is a rough fit. We need more good stuff, especially FOSS educational simulations. If kids are not choosing to learn important things with at least some of their time, we need to ask why? What sort of messages are we sending kids about what we value as a society (like what is on TV)?

See also my essay:
"Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools"
http://patapata.sourceforge.ne...
"Ultimately, educational technology's greatest value is in supporting "learning on demand" based on interest or need which is at the opposite end of the spectrum compared to "learning just in case"
based on someone else's demand.Compulsory schools don't usually traffic in "learning on demand", for the most part leaving that kind of activity to libraries or museums or the home or business or the "real world". In order for compulsory schools to make use of the best of educational technology and what is has to offer, schools themselves must change. ...
So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools. Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process."

That said, I strongly believe that there needs to be a way to ensure families have the resources they need to raise healthy educated kids (including paying for tutors and classes as desired). I feel a "basic income" from birth could be part of the answer to that (John Holt suggests that in "Escape from Childhood"), and would provide families with plenty of money to pay for their children's education as desired or time to teach their own. Until then, consider:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towa...
"New York State current spends roughly 20,000 US dollars per schooled child per year to support the public school system. This essay suggests that the same amount of money be given directly to the family of each homeschooled child. Further, it suggests that eventually all parents would get this amount, as more and more families decide to homeschool because it is suddenly easier financially. It suggests why ultimately this will be a win/win situation for everyone involved (including parents, children, teachers, school staff, other people in the community, and even school administrators :-) because ultimately local schools will grow into larger vibrant community learning centers open to anyone in the community and looking more like college campuses. New York State could try this plan incrementally in a few different school districts across the state as pilot programs to see how it works out."

Also, there are so many addicting aspects to modern society, parents need better support in managing that for their children (rather than even more kid-targeted commercials and so on). The problem and some partial solutions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
http://www.paulgraham.com/addi...
https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/the-...

Since this is really a slashvertisement I may as well add some more fuel to the fire. If you're already brave enough to use Inkscape as your bread winner, perhaps you've thought about branching out into making signs? If this is the case then you should definitely check out Inkcut http://sourceforge.net/project... Just add a vinyl cutter to the mix and you're rolling. GIMP, Inkscape and Inkcut, all you need to start making signs on the cheap.

a TRS80 or apple ][ emulator would be good for this —something like SDLTRS..

http://sdltrs.sourceforge.net/

Exchange client on Android isn't horrible.

This is because the ability of other apps to integrate with Exchange is getting too good.

DavMail is a nice little bit of software that allows just about anything to talk to Exchange. I have it on my computer at work so I can use Thunderbird (and Lightning) instead of Outlook. It sits in the system tray, only popping up a notification when a newer version is available. While I've not tried running it on a server so that multiple people can use it, my understanding is that you can do that with it as well.

Perhaps something like Artistic Style might help.

http://astyle.sourceforge.net/

You sure the dvds were 18 years old? I'm not sure there were even consumer dvd writers available around 1996. Perhaps you meant cds?

I actually had really good luck with my burned cds from around 1998 or so. I was able to read all the data off of them recently. A couple had to slow down a bit to be read, though, so there must have been some sort of degradation. Wonder if it could be more related to the burner you used or maybe the reader you used to try to read them? (Also, I can suggest ddrescue for recovering from cds/dvds if needed. It came in handy when I was recovering a scratched cd with info on it that I really wanted. I used it over and over with a couple of different readers to get a complete image of the data.)

Your hard drive suggestion sounds exactly like what I use. All the data I've read from old cds/dvds I now store on hard drives. I use SnapRaid to create a couple of parity disks. (So I can recover from up to two disks failing. Plus, since it isn't online raid, I can fix deletions and other problems as well.) I occasionally backup onto external hard drives utilizing SnapRaid again and then store them in a firesafe at another location.

You sure the dvds were 18 years old? I'm not sure there were even consumer dvd writers available around 1996. Perhaps you meant cds?

I actually had really good luck with my burned cds from around 1998 or so. I was able to read all the data off of them recently. A couple had to slow down a bit to be read, though, so there must have been some sort of degradation. Wonder if it could be more related to the burner you used or maybe the reader you used to try to read them? (Also, I can suggest ddrescue for recovering from cds/dvds if needed. It came in handy when I was recovering a scratched cd with info on it that I really wanted. I used it over and over with a couple of different readers to get a complete image of the data.)

Your hard drive suggestion sounds exactly like what I use. All the data I've read from old cds/dvds I now store on hard drives. I use SnapRaid to create a couple of parity disks. (So I can recover from up to two disks failing. Plus, since it isn't online raid, I can fix deletions and other problems as well.) I occasionally backup onto external hard drives utilizing SnapRaid again and then store them in a firesafe at another location.

If you can't see the difference between X11 and Yosemite, I'm just going to ignore the rest of what you have to say on the subject of graphics.

Hell naw son. It is all aboot Base91 now.

the structure of the program is easier to read in C.
 
I agree, but with the proviso that the C indentation style is what you're used to reading and like to see.
 
I personally am one of those weirdos that likes whitesmiths style since the functions and whatnot are well separated and program structure is easy to deduce by looking at the indentation.
 
In fact, I use Artistic Style to convert any C code that I'm planning to study into whitesmiths style just to save my sanity.
 
I keep meaning to learn to use cscope for this stuff, but somehow never quite get around to it.

ELKS:

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

http://elks.sourceforge.net/in...

Linux should be scalable to any processor.

You want them to learn the abstract concepts of programming. With C, you quickly get bogged down in memory management, notions like pointers, the complete lack of object-oriented programming, awkward functions and weird workarounds like variadic functions. You can learn that stuff after you've understood what a loop is and how variables work.

You don't have to get bogged down, use a library! Anyway, why would someone learning python learn how to construct a linked-list (the basic structure of most CS fundamental concepts)? What C misses is a library, but there are plenty for your taste [shameless plug] - here's one that I work on when I have the time and/or the inclination.

You most definitely don't want to teach a language where all the things that happen are "magic" under a hood that no one can open. C is perfect for teaching engineering students. Not so much for CS students - for them use SICP. For neither student do you want to perform vocational training. You want to educate thinkers, not train drones.

For a Visual Basic like language on Linux, you can look at Gambas a bit like Visual Basic (but it is NOT a clone!).

http://gambas.sourceforge.net/...

For other arguments if he achieve to make his students understand concepts like variables, types, expressions, assignment, functions whatever be the language used to teach, its reusable knownledge for other languages.

Picking AROS or Minix 3.

There is also RouterOS?

Just realize that whatever you do you will suffer some disadvantage.