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1. Slackware for trhe Linux distribution.
2. Fluxbox for the GUI.
3. Then, you can use either the Gnome Slackbuild or the Slackbuilds files to compile Mono on your Slackware machine.

I think you have some very good points here, but I wanted to correct you on your comments about Logitech, as they do not only support Microsoft; they do also support Mac OS X, more so for mice than keyboards, although under keyboard+mouse sets, they do offer a Mac-specific choice and a Mac/Win choice. So basically, they still don't support Linux, but they do not only support Microsoft. Plus, even if you're not using a Logitech-branded device, if it's branded by a computer-manufacturer, chances are that it may be made by Logitech.

Personally, I generally dislike media keyboards since the additional keys are a waste of space, if you map a key combination to do whatever function the media button would, but I've pretty much exclusively owned and used Logitech mice for as long as I can remember (since the early 1990s, I think).

However, just because X.org/Gnome/KDE/etc. may not support all of the buttons on your keyboard, there is software out there that will let you map these buttons. You may want to take a look at Keytouch, for example.

Still, it's definitely preferable to have it just work, fresh out of the box.

Same concept, but it sounds like its at a slightly more stable state. Check it out as I just did.

Why not just make your own desktop environment?

I used to use Gnome, but then it got too bloated so I moved to XFCE. Now XFCE is bloated (memory leaks in the panel app don't help either), so I made my own "desktop environment".

I use fbpanel as a panel, Sawfish as a window manager, ImageMagick's "display" program to set the wallpaper, the Gnome settings daemon/screensaver applications, and a quick little Bash script I wrote to launch a Nautilus window without taking over the desktop.

Sawfish has more features than Metacity, and pretty close to the same number of themes.

The whole thing takes less than 40mb. I realize something like this isn't for everyone, but for me it does just what I want without using that much memory.

I've been the employer allowing a contractor to keep copyright to his code. Why? The contractor was the maintainer of HylaFAX+, and was offering to do custom work for us at a very reasonable price provided we made that policy exception; otherwise, his rates were much, much higher. In addition to fixing bugs on a timeframe that matched with our release schedule (rather than the as-time-permits bugfix schedule for regular OSS users), he added integration points and hooks where we could connect to our custom, proprietary code. Everyone -- including our competition -- has access to those hooks, but we were the folks with the code (both in our product and in the glue) to take immediate and best advantage of them.

We even released some of our less proprietary related bits upstream to the community -- such as scriptage for using Inkscape as a just-in-time SVG renderer for much fancier cover pages than HylaFAX was able to handle on its own. Why? Because I wrote them in-house, and I wasn't going to be there (or working on faxing) forever; having those bits (which weren't exactly "secret sauce", just a little bit of extra flare) in the public consciousness meant that whoever ends up taking over the fax subsystem (of our much, much larger product) now that I'm gone will be able to pick up any third-party enhancements to that code which have been made upstream -- and maybe, just maybe, having that example available of what the enhancements we paid to add to HylaFAX+ can do will result in the HylaFAX.org branch deciding to pick them up, meaning that customers owning fax hardware only the iFax commercial variant of HylaFAX.org can interoperate with would be able to use that hardware with our product.

With the ability to boot up a LiveCD, wouldn't retrieving the NTLM password hashes and cracking the passwords with rainbow tables a better idea? The process can be done with Ophcrack within minutes on a modern PC. That way, the attack gains access to the local Administrator account but leaves no traces behind (i.e. no modification of system files).

The Administrator account would then allow the attacker to login into Vista and launch cmd.exe at System-Level. This can be accomplished by using the Task Scheduler at.exe to run cmd.exe at the next minute.

I'm speaking here as an amateur Nintendo DS developer with some experience with DevkitPro, the "toolchain" made by some guys to run stuff on Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Gamecube and recently Wii, among others. I have no direct experience with Wii developing, but I think I can help you a little...

* Which programming language can I use? I am guessing C/C++ is supported?

The "toolchain" is called "DevkitPPC" (a part of DevkitPro, which is available here) consists of GCC and some other utilities (many from GNU) and libraries to generate ELF executables that the Wii can run. So, basically, C and C++ are supported.

I don't know about the last version, but they're working daily on the CVS mainly with Wii updates, so expect the next version (r15) to be very nice. All this is available as a Windows installer, or you can get binaries (or the source) for Linux. I remember seeing something for OSX, but I don't know how it is nowadays.

* Which UI library exist? Is there support for input devices, can I also output text and images?

* Which network library exist? Can I use internet/WLAN connection, can I use Berkeley sockets API?

* Are there existing example applications? Not only "hello world"... maybe something more complex?

The libraries for the NDS are very low-level stuff, with very recent additions towards higher-level stuff; so I'd imagine the Wii stuff is still very low-level.

There are some Wii examples to get you started. I don't know if the main packages include them, you can grab them here if not.

Finally, if you start developing for the Wii, expect to visit forums, dig up information on IRC and generally learn *very* low-level stuff to do anything beyond a simple "hello world".

More than that, they released the source around 5-6 years ago, and a few people are working to get it working on modern works.

The new name of the game (due to trademark issues, I think) is 'The Ur-Quan Masters'.

http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
It needs some command lines to make it use the PC menu and sounds, but it's much better than using the old binaries in dosbox. Supermelee works with other humans over network, and you can change the default random seed for the galaxy creation to play a "new" game.

4) Any S60 (i.e. Nokia smartphone) device plus putty. If the keyboard is too small, use a bluetooth wireless keyboard.

5) Internet tablet/surfpad. Most of them (like Nokia 770/N800/N810) can connect to a phone over bluetooth to get you online when only cell is available.

I use the Nokia E51 with PuTTY for Symbian OS. The interface is still a little buggy but it's good enough to make quick config changes or perform updates.

It doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard but it is tiny and I always have it on me. It supports wifi and 3G too.

Upside: The E51 has more system memory (96 vs 64MB) and a faster processor (369 vs 220MHz) than the E61i since it is a newer phone.

I have a nokia 6120c . It 's a smartphone in disguise. Looks like a standard phone, no large screen, but it runs symbian, and hence putty. http://s2putty.sourceforge.net/ It's bearable, but I wouldn't want to use it for much . One problem I find is that the connection breaks if unused for a short time.

I use ssh
a) to cheat on crosswords (i wrote an alias for grep /usr/share/dict/words)
b) to confuse friends by making my computer play james brown - i feel good by itself (again, another alias)

Certainly on the screen I have, you wouldn't want to much with it seriously. I pay £5 / month for unlimited data (web browser and email more useful than ssh), and then, like everybody else, pay a ridiculous mount for 150 byte text messages. Crazy, huh?

Oh, and you have an ordinary phone keypad, here is the list of passwords (length >=5 ) that you can type quickly (thanks again grep): adapt,gamma,madam,magma,pajama,pawpaw

I use a Nokia N73 (although all of the recent N and E-series phones would probably work) with the S60 port of Putty. My secret to SSH bliss is to use an external bluetooth keyboard - in this case an iGo Stowaway. It's close enough to full-size to be comfortable, features useful terminal keys (Ctrl, Alt, Esc, pipe, etc.) and it's also not prohibitively expensive.

My only gripe would be the size of the terminal. On a candybar phone like the N73 with a 240x320 display, you're unlikely to get an 80x25 character terminal. If there are any specific applications you need to use, make sure they're happy running in a smaller terminal. There are a few out there (particularly curses apps) that will check the size of your terminal and refuse to start if it is below a minimum size.

I use the Nokia E90 for similar purposes. It features a 800x352 pixel display and you can run a version of PuTTY on it. Depending on the font size you're willing to use, it gives you a terminal size from 88x23 characters up to 160x50 with the smallest font. Combine that with the vertical split patch for GNU screen and you have a mighty useful terminal for system administration. It works quite well for me.

as opposed to using traffic shaping, you can force the guy to switch clients to azureus http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

in advanced mode, you can set upload and download maximums, if you plan on allowing this, and using latency specific online gaming, you should set the limits to HALF of what azureus is capable of without anyone using the internet.

Think. Stop.

It's more annoying than you might think. I've done it, all my friends have done it, my cousin's done it and our dog will be doing it soon.

Don't don't don't. It's a VASTLY under subscribed and overly competitive market. Once you think you're the best, and you're successful, you become too reliant on a core group of customers who won't last for ever.

There are reseller accounts available with lots of ISPs, but few are on a commission basis (ie: you're the one who has to cover your client's costs and invoice them). Flat fees are usually available to dedicated servers licensors @ £50/m+ - but the market is changing and I'm not at all surprised if they're cheaper.

Plesk - possibly the worst thing I've ever used. Convoluted backend I couldn't hack on to extend pop-before-smtp the way I wanted.
CPanel - the original but very costly 6 years ago when I last used it. Has some impressive addons
EnsimDirectAdmin - Not one I've used personally, but I hear its ok.
VHCS - Freeware. Never used it personally. But there are many OS projects and forks out there if you look hard enough ]

Cubepanel and BlueQuartz worth a mention.

Most of these project offer "lite" versions which are free for restricted personal use. The only major difference between the free and paid versions is that the latter has multi-user and reseller capabilities.

I'd recommending taking up a decent Linux or BSD distro with a proven track record of security fixes. "apt-get update" is sufficient for the home user, but realistically, you want to track purely security updates. Consider an enterprise OS (CentOS?!)

Matt

Exactly what I was thinking.
Although I suppose people can use this instead.

Cubit

• When I merged two pieces of source code using Meld, I donated $10
• Upon finding out I could resize windows in Vim in an xterm, I donated $10, and another $5 when I found out how nicely it works together with X11 clipboards
• When my business started earning money, I donated to CentOS because that's what's installed on my servers
• When the Dag Wieers RPM repository had packaged a piece of software for me, he saved me an hour of work -- so I donated $10

Thanks, but between numpy and matplotlib, I've basically got MatLab covered (plus I actually shelled out for a student edition back when I needed it for my class on matlab.) Hell, instead of Presentation I can use PsychoPy and PyEPL. It's just that often I'm stuck using other programs 'cause I'm a lowly inexperienced undergrad and therefore only have as much say as anyone will give me (which, well I'm working on convincing one prof. 'cause he's programmed before and therefore hates Presentation as much as I do.)

Thanks, but between numpy and matplotlib, I've basically got MatLab covered (plus I actually shelled out for a student edition back when I needed it for my class on matlab.) Hell, instead of Presentation I can use PsychoPy and PyEPL. It's just that often I'm stuck using other programs 'cause I'm a lowly inexperienced undergrad and therefore only have as much say as anyone will give me (which, well I'm working on convincing one prof. 'cause he's programmed before and therefore hates Presentation as much as I do.)

Here is a java command line tool designed to check the validity of 1000's of pdf files:

http://multivalent.sourceforge.net/Tools/pdf/Validate.html

There is also a tool for repairing some pdf errors:
http://multivalent.sourceforge.net/Tools/index.html

Never used it myself, just stumbled over it when I was searching for some pdf software.

--
Regards

Here is a java command line tool designed to check the validity of 1000's of pdf files:

http://multivalent.sourceforge.net/Tools/pdf/Validate.html

There is also a tool for repairing some pdf errors:
http://multivalent.sourceforge.net/Tools/index.html

Never used it myself, just stumbled over it when I was searching for some pdf software.

--
Regards

I once found this:

http://multivalent.sourceforge.net/

The Multivalent suite of document tools includes a command-line utility that validates PDFs. It can be run across a whole directory of files too, so should do the trick.

Written in Java, so should run anywhere.

• Comodo - Still in beta, lots of false positives. Configuration is all in local text files, so some level of remote management is possible, but they certainly don't provide the tools for it.
• PC Tools - Requires interaction from the user to do updates, so not a contender.
• ClamAV is free of course, but does not provide a scan-on-access monitor. More suitable for mail servers than workstations.
• Winpooch - uses the ClamAV engine for on-access scanning, project seems dead, never tried it.
• Spyware Terminator - Also does AV using the ClamAV engine. I'd never heard of this one before today, and unfortunately their site design looks a little on the fly-by-night side. They offer a corporate edition with central administration for the wacky price of $2 per seat per year.

Your comment is so stupid. Ranting on about how Microsoft and ODF.

http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/

An ODF plug-in for Office 2007 was started before Office 2007 was even released !!!

Look at the contributors... it was instigated by Microsoft, and developed by independent 3rd parties.

It's all open source so you or anyone else can inspect the code and see for yourself.

The ODF plugin for Office 2007 has been around for years whilst the whole ODF /OpenXml rant that has been going on slashdot.

Whilst Microsoft has been attempting to make its formats open, and moving to incorporate open formats such as ODF into its products. The "Open Source" movement has been moving to suppress all these efforts, whilst making excuses which are more politically than technically motivated for not incorporating Microsoft's OpenXML format into the "Open"Office product.

Jaw dropping ignorance and hypocrisy.

This isn't new. The plugin has been available from....

http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/

for quite some time...

Note the contributors...

http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/#contributors

Whilst Microsoft has funded this project, it was not directly developed by microsoft, it has been developed by independent developers, as it is open source, anyone can inspect the code, including you.

There has been so much disinformation about the whole OOXML/ODF its really been quite impressive.

This isn't new. The plugin has been available from....

http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/

for quite some time...

Note the contributors...

http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/#contributors

Whilst Microsoft has funded this project, it was not directly developed by microsoft, it has been developed by independent developers, as it is open source, anyone can inspect the code, including you.

There has been so much disinformation about the whole OOXML/ODF its really been quite impressive.

Err what? You mean the format they added support for in December 2006? The open source plugin they sponsored, paid for and chucked developers at it? That format?

He didn't say to use regexps to split the fields. He specifically said to split on the delimiter (probably by using split() !)and then to use a regexp on the field you're wanting to match. He's talking about Perl, and that's pretty much how it'd be done in Perl.

BTW, you don't need Cygwin to have grep and egrep (and ls, find, bc, cat, gzip, bzip2, split, join, wc, cut, and more) on Windows. Cygwin is great if you need to have a Unix-like environment with the right libraries and all, but it's extreme overkill for having the most common GNU command-line tools. GNUWin32 and UNXUtils both give you enough tools to ease the pain of the Windows CLI.

He didn't say to use regexps to split the fields. He specifically said to split on the delimiter (probably by using split() !)and then to use a regexp on the field you're wanting to match. He's talking about Perl, and that's pretty much how it'd be done in Perl.

BTW, you don't need Cygwin to have grep and egrep (and ls, find, bc, cat, gzip, bzip2, split, join, wc, cut, and more) on Windows. Cygwin is great if you need to have a Unix-like environment with the right libraries and all, but it's extreme overkill for having the most common GNU command-line tools. GNUWin32 and UNXUtils both give you enough tools to ease the pain of the Windows CLI.

The original poster is asking for a solution without providing all of the requirements. The original request is for a database program to replace a Notepad based text file, and yet most of the responses on the 6+ pages of comments have been around which programming language has bindings to which database, or discussions on SQL syntax. It would be helpful if the OP could elaborate a little on whether (s)he even has programming skills.

I read the request as looking for an application to replace the Notepad system. If the OP was just using a text editor, then it doesn't really sound as though (s)he needs SQL. A flat file of records with the ability to do straight text search sounds like an option. The question then is what type of tool can be used to manipulate that system?

Following the text editor/file model, one option, though larger than the 800kb discussion around SQLite could be Emacs with Forms Mode. This is also a (very big) text editor, but allows you to view a file of records in a nice editable form, but you can still open the record file directly and use all the searching capability of an editor. Of course this is probably very much overkill for someone used to using Notepad, but I suggest it merely to point out a type of option.

Another potential option might be to use one of the wiki-on-a-stick systems. Tiddlywiki and Stickwiki would allow the OP to use a browser with a wiki interface to record the data into a single transportable file. (S)He could organize how ever desired, though if the OP wants to be able to extract the data for loading elsewhere, that could be a little problematic as these tools tend to store the text in the generated HTML page in little division blocks. Some may offer export capability though.

So, the question is what are the full requirements, what skills does the OP have, how much configuration and/or system administration is (s)he wanting to do to have this simple system, and how do you wish to manipulate the data that is captured?

If you want to hand edit it, then some tool that saves records in a flat structure (one per row or one per file) that can be manipulated by a text editor is needed. If all you want is some way to record information and search it, then there may be other options. Many PIM tools also offer limited record management systems that you might look into.

I use a perhaps not-well-known alternative called ldapdns, which used to be based on the DJBDNS code. It gets its DNS information from LDAP, which is very, very nice -- I can make a change in LDAP and the change is instant as opposed to making a change to the BIND stuff, which I then have to restart BIND, etc.

Does SHSQL fit your needs ?

There's a venerable way to manage small databases: use the proben Unix tools awk and sort.
Both are simple tools that work with plain text files (it works better if the field separator is the tab character).
You can get innumerable references on the web. The best version for you would be the GNU Win32 port found here:
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html
Get the Gawk and Textutils packages and enjoy.

TextDB: If you don't have access to a database but you do have access to PHP, and you want your web data stored in a database, then this is what you're looking for! Full sql compatibility is planned as well as a perl port. This is OS-independent and is licensed under GNU GPL, has a web-based interface and is developed using PHP. (check out: http://sourceforge.net/projects/textdb). Berkeley DB (BDB): This is a computer software library that provides a high-performance embedded database, with bindings in C, C++, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, Smalltalk, and many other programming languages. Berkeley DB is redistributed under the Sleepycat Public License, an OSI and FSF approved license and runs on a variety of operating systems including most Unix-like and Windows systems, and real-time operating systems. It comes in three different editions: Berkeley DB(originally written in C), Berkeley DB Java Edition, Berkeley XML DB (check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_DB)

There is one called Freestyle that is currently being worked on. And pretty soon Blender will have an API for working with other renderers such as RenderMan.

What about using a FLOSS meal planner, like both of the Gourmet meal planners: http://grecipe-manager.sourceforge.net/ http://frdcsa.onshore.net/frdcsa/internal/gourmet

"Find a copy of Q&A for DOS ver 4, it runs under WINE...Another great product is Paradox Dos 3.5 or 4.0, published by Borland..."

Why does one need to run WINE to run a DOS app? Dosemu is a low overhead DOS emulator that is far better suited to running DOS apps on Linux with minimal resource/configuration overhead.

http://dosemu.sourceforge.net/

Not one but two Tcl-based flat file database systems exist:

TclVSDb (Tcl Very Small Database) http://sourceforge.net/projects/tclvs/
Provides multiple hierarchical tables (with rows and fields) per database and multi-user concurrent access with locking. Database files are standard ASCII and are portable between platforms.

Starbase http://wiki.tcl.tk/3444
A simple relational database system. The basic table manipulating features are similar to the /rdb system (but does not require it). The data files are just ASCII tab delimited tables. You can use either Unix file utilities or a pure tcl interface program.

try Sqlite or Qdbm ( http://qdbm.sourceforge.net/ )

There are a number of XML databases, several free and open source, that will rely only on "flat-files". You could probably get by with Microsoft's xml libraries, though there are a number of ways to manipulate and query a set of xml documents. Several of these XML databases implement XQuery which may help if your dataset grows beyond effective queries by visual inspection in Notepad.

eXist is one alternative; while I haven't personally used it the home page indicates it's a fairly capable project.

Sedna also appears to be feature-rich.

There was a similar discussion on Slashdot specifically with reference to XML databases, here.

Happy hunting -

Just get Python, and use the version of SQLite that comes with it:

import sqlite3
mydb = sqlite3.connect('sample.db')
mydb.execute("create table contacts (fname text, lname text, email text)")

mydb.execute("insert into contacts values('Spooky','Monster','spook@spammity.spam')")

mydb.commit()
mydb.close()

You can then use the free and open SQLite database browser to browse, edit, and print your table.

You may think you're keeping it simple by using a flat file, but you're really not. It may be somewhat easier to manually edit, but it's also easier to screw up, and I've never heard of one with the ability to undo changes.

I would have recommended HSQL, but you don't want Java. Frankly, usually, when we're talking databases I won't say "use a spreadsheet", but with 10 fields, you might as well use a spreadsheet. Of course OpenOffice.org Base is out, because it uses HSQL.

Something like CSQL might fit, but I have no experience with it.

...Windows fonts are not available on Linux...

Or apt-get install msttcorefonts for debian/ubuntu users.

db