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why wouldn't you just run secureCRT? I mean, I like the linux desktop as much as the next slashdotter. But if I'm forced into a windows machine at work (I am) just run a windows terminal. It works fine, has tabs, fowards X, all that stuff.

On yeah, and get Console2 to replace the normal command console that windows has (OMG - resizable windows!?). And there are a number of GNU tools compiled under windows to run a shell (bash, vi, ssh, grep, awk, etc etc)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/

http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
(they're old, but they work)

http://win-bash.sourceforge.net/
(also old, but works)

I've combined all three to get a useful windows machine.

why wouldn't you just run secureCRT? I mean, I like the linux desktop as much as the next slashdotter. But if I'm forced into a windows machine at work (I am) just run a windows terminal. It works fine, has tabs, fowards X, all that stuff.

On yeah, and get Console2 to replace the normal command console that windows has (OMG - resizable windows!?). And there are a number of GNU tools compiled under windows to run a shell (bash, vi, ssh, grep, awk, etc etc)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/

http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
(they're old, but they work)

http://win-bash.sourceforge.net/
(also old, but works)

I've combined all three to get a useful windows machine.

why wouldn't you just run secureCRT? I mean, I like the linux desktop as much as the next slashdotter. But if I'm forced into a windows machine at work (I am) just run a windows terminal. It works fine, has tabs, fowards X, all that stuff.

On yeah, and get Console2 to replace the normal command console that windows has (OMG - resizable windows!?). And there are a number of GNU tools compiled under windows to run a shell (bash, vi, ssh, grep, awk, etc etc)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/

http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
(they're old, but they work)

http://win-bash.sourceforge.net/
(also old, but works)

I've combined all three to get a useful windows machine.

I tried Splint - relay hard - tried all the annotations - but it was never able to find as many possible problems as an Ada compiler could find. Split was a failure and the project is dead since 2003 [1].

Note that I am fully literate in C and Ada (and C++ and Java) - so I do fully understand the problem.

If anybody does not understand the problem the it's the die hard C programmers who never relay tried another programming language. It's not all syntactic sugar, it's about always knowing how many elements are in an array. With emphasis on "always" - not sometimes - but always.

Have a look at:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Type_System

Last not least, the sad truth is that 80% of all programmers are not smart enough. Note that since you read /. you most likely belong to the other 20% but you should not project your level of C expertise to the other 80%.

Martin

[1] http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/?group_id=34302&ugn=splint

People do need to keep in mind that the statically typed languages that they most commonly work with are quite primitive when it comes to type systems. It's no surprise, for example, that a static analysis tool can find spots where one can get null pointer exceptions, since it's easy to design a language with a type system that guarantees they can't happen.

To make such a language, you just have to distinguish the types of variables that are allowed to be null, from the type of those that aren't, and force code that deals with the former to deal with the possibility the variable holds null. Nice does this; and of course, the general labeled union types available in ML and Haskell make nulls completely unnecessary.

FindBugs is becoming increasingly widespread on Java projects, for example. I found that between it and JLint I could identify a substantial chunk of problems caused by inexperienced programmers, poor design, hastily written code, etc. JLint was particularly nice for potential deadlocks, while FindBugs was good for just about everything else.

For example:

• Failure to make null checks.
• Ignoring exceptions
• Defining equals() but not hashCode() (and the other variations)
• Improper use of locks.
• Poor or inconsistent use of synchronization.
• Failure to make defensive copies.
• "Dead stores."
• Many others

At least in the Java world, I wish more people would use them. It would make my job so much easier.

My experience in the Python world is that pylint is less interesting than FindBugs: many of the more interesting bugs are hard problems in a dynamically typed language and so it has more "religious style issues" built in that are easier to test for. It still provides a great deal of useful output once configured correctly, and can help enforce a consistent coding standard.

Yes, some static analysis tools really work. FindBugs works well for Java. Fortify has had good success finding security vulnerabilities. These tools take static checking just a step beyond what's offered by a compiler, but in practice that's very useful.

The problem with stuff like MythTV is that it does not appeal to the average DVR user. Most people who use a Media Center PC and can set it up probably have no idea what a SVN is or how to operate something like MythTV.

This is not newbie friendly. It's easy to say "MythTV, MythTV" and espouse the benefits of it, but you're not going to get people to use it if it is not easy to set up.

When you have an installer that you can click on and get the program working without having to mess with Linux and command lines (like WinMyth), THEN it will have a chance in the consumer market. Until then, the average user will put up with it or just hook up the ol' VCR.

Andy

Check these out.

Future Pinball

PinMAME

Epic Pinball (DOS only and "abandonware", but IMO one of the best video pinball games ever made)

BrutalChess

GLtron (it's a fun little game too)

Check these out.

Future Pinball

PinMAME

Epic Pinball (DOS only and "abandonware", but IMO one of the best video pinball games ever made)

BrutalChess

GLtron (it's a fun little game too)

It seems that OpenMCU, which is part of the OpenH323 project, does exactly what you want. You can then use your favorite H.323 client to connect. Be warned though, that running a MCU consumes huge amounts of bandwidth.

Of other interest is the PanoTools Wiki.

Note however, that you can't make cake from crap. 'Garbage in, garbage out' as the saying goes. The whole concept of a camera on your phone, to me, is like having a television on your fridge.

After the developers pissed a lot of people off, Pidgin was forked and among other things Funpidgin promises voice and video support as well. I think they'll pull it off before the Google guys.

It's hard to test whether you've broken a driver when you don't have the hardware to test with. Perhaps the future will be Qemu emulation of all the different hardware in your system : )

This is not to say that there need to be tests for things that can be caught at compile time or run time regardless of hardware but there is only so far you can take it.

It's not like the kernel doesn't have any testing done on it though. There's the Linux Test Project which seems to test new kernel's nightly. If you ever look in the kernel hacking menu of the kernel configuration you will see tests ranging from Ingo Molnar's lock dependency tester (which checks to see locks are taken in the right order at run time), memory poisoning, spurious IRQ at un/registration time, rcu torture testing, softlockup testing, stack overflow checking, marking parts of the kernel readonly, changing page attributes every 30 seconds... Couple that with people like Coverity reporting static analysis checks on the code. Tools like sparse have been developed to try and so some of the static checks on kernel developer machines while they are building the code.

But this is not enough. Bugs STILL get through and there are still no go areas of code. If you've got the skills to write tests for the Linux kernel PLEASE do! Even having more people testing and reporting issues with the latest releases of the kernel would also help. It's only going to get more buggy without help...

Artificial intelligence still eludes DARPA.

Lack of an AI Theory is the problem.

That's actually not a bad idea. He could use Distributed Multihead.

Like, say, the display class in DIO or Speedtables. :)

Disclaimer: I based STDisplay on DIODisplay. :)

Put a low resource version of Linux on it and have it boot up Stella right away.

Tell your kids, "THIS was what we used as Gameboys when I was a kid".

I've always wanted a portable 2600.

Frets On Fire, people!!!

Using Azureus/Vuze http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ and ISP Network Monitor http://azureuswiki.com/index.php/ISP_Network_Monitor I've been able to track Comcast's network interference here in Atlanta. In general the interference has been 24/7 but there is the occasional reprieve (about five hours Sunday morning being the most recent).

The four files I've been uploading are GPL / public-domain and I would encourage you to visit the links above and do the same. The more data collected the better.

As torrents gain in popularity I'm hoping that software companies adopt this superior technology for updates - not just to improve downloading efficiencies but also to make it much more difficult for the ISPs to throttle P2P traffic. Can you imagine the impact if Microsoft's updates were torrent files?

http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/

Play guitar with your keyboard. Supports all guitar hero songs.

Or use Boot and Nuke on the thing (it's the only way to be sure), install an utterly vanilla system image, and download anything important with an encrypted connection after you get to the hotel. If you want to risk it, bring anything important on CD/DVD. Heck, put an autorun DVD video on there at the start of the disk. There's plenty of space.

They can image the hard drive all they like, but all they're doing is getting a clean system.

An excellent free, gay man editor. You can find it here:

http://analtron.sourceforge.net/

It completely replaces WoMen for me. And unlike some other gaymen, it is a native Blackman ass that performs great.

White Willy

I spent a week checking for an update before looking to their blog, in which I found a posting suggesting that users live with the problem until the final version was released.

it was at that point that I gave up and started using CoRD instead. It's far from perfect, but I haven't seen any evidence that the developers have contempt for their users' needs.

A few years and two PDAs ago, I coded a C# app for my Pocket PC (WM 2003SE) using both the app and my Linux PC.

I used a port of the DotGNU project as an on-board compiler, and I think that I used Mono on Linux. (It may have been DotGNU, I don't recall.)

I believe that I ripped the DLLs comprising the compact framework off the device, and then used that to compile when on Linux. I think that there was a switch to turn off linking against the system DLLs, and I just linked against the DLLs from the device. Once the exe was built, I was able to run it on Linux using mono (since they had implemented WinForms, I could just run it straight), or I would simply copy the exe to the device via an SD card and then I could run it from there.

I never finished developing the app, so I never got around to figuring out how to package a CAB, but that should be trivial. I know that there are Linux apps to create CAB files, so it should just be a question of finding one buildable on the Mac and figuring out what to put into the manifest.

The other alternative is cegcc. It should be fairly easy to create a Mac hosted cegcc.

Mac OS X?
No thanks.

No proprietary software.

I rather run Ubuntu;
* http://www.ubuntu.com/

I can use Mac4Lin theme;
* http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac4lin/

I have, actually. Python makes this very easy, you don't need to worry about the underlying OS as long as you program in a platform-agnostic way, ie use os.path.join(path, file) rather than path + '\\' + file, and only use relative sizes and positioning for GUI elements.

You're right about testing though, even if there are no (or very few) code changes, you do need to test in every supported platform which takes time.

You can make the case that you've managed to prove alleged intent (you haven't, but we'll roll with it). Now prove they actually did what is implied on that email.

Many years ago Bruce Perens posted on USENET something about how ESR had allegedly threatened to kill him over some stupid disagreement. If I post that in a discussion about open source, everyone's first reaction would be to claim that it is irrelevant, since Perens is still alive and Raymond is not in jail, wouldn't it?

For this (which gets trotted out every other week) to be meaningful you need to also show that they did indeed do something evil, not just that they were talking about it.

There are a lot of bad things you can lay at Microsoft's feet. This is not one of them (unless you're twitter and you think repetition somehow engenders truth). Concentrate on those, and stop making crap up.

Why dont you give Mrxvt/Materm a spin? I have been using since I was forced to use Gnome and wanted to have all the features of Konsole and found it to be more. Do check out examples of mrxvtrc on the internet - there's a lot you can do with it! P.S. its not been updated for a while, but it works very, very nicely and it is much lighter on resources than Konsole.

For home use try BackupPC or similar software. http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/

How about some software that you train with scans of your handwriting and it generates a vector font based on your own handwriting. Now that would be cool.

If they came up with a vector-based online font creation tool, that would be something I could get excited about.

I'll toss in a vote for ASSP

http://assp.sourceforge.net/

The same problem happens with a project I am helping with. We got some patches from time to time, maybe once each two months.
Please let me use this chance to publicize it here:
Gazebo project (if the page is slow blame Sourceforge but please, be patient)
It is a robotics simulator and thus it is also pretty specific. It also connects with the Player/Stage project what means that the same program used to control the robots of the simulator can be used without modifications for the real life robots.
If anyone is interesting in physics simulation or in robots or in 3D application, just jump in the project. It has a small codebase and most of it is quite straighforward.

The problem with these projects seems to be that the user base is more worried about having their problems solved that any type of collaboration. I guess a lot of people still doesn't understand the practical benefits of OSS.

Anyway, I still haven't read here any good idea apart from "you should have written your URL in the article"

Something like *Tidy is all you need if you don't feel like using some fancy text editor or are too lazy to configure your editor.

http://perltidy.sourceforge.net/
http://rubyforge.org/projects/tidy
http://tidy.sourceforge.net/
etc

Something like *Tidy is all you need if you don't feel like using some fancy text editor or are too lazy to configure your editor.

http://perltidy.sourceforge.net/
http://rubyforge.org/projects/tidy
http://tidy.sourceforge.net/
etc

Childish, but I agree with you. That said I always find it amusing when people whine or whatever over something provided to them FOR FREE. Personally I've never had a problem uploading a tar ball, nor has the only other programmer I know well enough for this (Oblig. Plug FreePDB). If you have a problem with SourceForge then try FreshMeat, or get yourself a Dreamhost account and host things there - that way your own server isn't really getting nuked and things are just SEP. Basically, quit whinging about it and fix your damned problem.

Back on topic: IMHO the best way to get more interest in the project is to find like minded people. What is your software trying to do/solve? Google something that would find it - post your URL in a few forums. Leave the link in your forum signature with a "looking for developers". Actually do something about getting your stuff out there. An online resume with a link to the software perhaps? There is a hundred ways to get information out to the world. Mostly they just require a little effort.

I personally love ASSP (anti spam server proxy) for my clients.

It has a great deal of flexibility and since the highest false positives are flagged by the bayesian engine, you can set that specific filter to use "testing" mode which flags those messages with a subject line like [SPAM]. Couple that with a client side rule to deposit messages with that subject line into the junk mail folder, you then can allow employees to go through their own messages to look for their missing mail.

ASSP also has a feature to allow for users to contribute to the filtering rules, so the filter gets more accurate over time. They can send messages that get marked false positive to an internal address that modifies the bayesian database so that messages of that type make it through next time. That feature also white-lists the sender's address along with simply sending that recipient a message.

By far, it is the most flexible and powerful spam filter I've ever encountered and would highly recommend it for any small to medium sized business.

The question is whether enhancing a work without adding any creative information makes it a new work. Obviously, in the case under discussion, the film footage was all taken by NASA. All the Discovery Channel is doing is running it through a few computers. Can this be considered art? If I write a computer program that makes random art, can I claim copyright on the art that the computer creates? Certainly, the computer has no rights, but is a creator of a program entitled to copyright the program's output?

My program automagically turns Public Domain books into a collection of HTML documents. Am I entitled to copyright Public Domain works after they have been run through my program? I expended time and effort writing the program.

i was in a similar situation. ~50 users, gfi mailessentials. the software is bad -- you have to get away from it. there are too many bad things to list. try following the support forum for a month or so, and see how much progress gets made..

i moved to vamsoft's "orf filter". this cuts out about 98% of the spam at the MTA level, as god intended. (gfi accepts all mail, period, and then backscatters NDRs out into the world.)

i left gfi in place for awhile after installing orf and used it strictly as a categorizing filter, moving everything to the users "junk e-mail" folder.

eventually i replaced gfi with spamassassin for windows (http://sawin32.sourceforge.net/), an exchange event sink to score the messages before they were accepted (http://www.christopherlewis.com/ESA/ExchangeSpamAssassin.htm), and the mailshell event sink to move tagged messages to the users junk folder (http://www.mailshell.com/mail/client/oem2.html/step/exchangeplugin).

aside from vamsoft, which is extremely reasonable in price, these are all $free solutions which work incredibly well. orf blocks most spam at the MTA. anything that makes it past is categorized by spamassassin, put in the user's folder, and it becomes the user's problem. the users manage their own email, without anyone else looking at it. better for them (privacy), better for me (don't have to deal with it). the change was essentially transparent for the users; they only noticed that they were getting less junk.

i still follow the gfi support forum, but it's mostly just to chuckle. i'd love to share some of this with the folks who are struggling with the software, but any post that suggests a different, non-gfi solution is quickly deleted -- i understand they need to try to keep the rats on the sinking ship, but the censorship it pretty hard to stomach.

anyway. hope this helps.

Pidgin can still send YouTube URLs through MSN if you (and the person at the other end) use something like Pidgin-Encryption. The reason is because they don't know what you are saying in the first place: end-to-end encryption.

Rather than linking to pidgin, which is run by people who don't care what the user wants, link to funpidgin.

Pidgin can still send YouTube URLs through MSN if you (and the person at the other end) use something like Pidgin-Encryption. The reason is because they don't know what you are saying in the first place: end-to-end encryption.