Slashdot Mirror

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel

Also check out the Open Source Development Lab's Scalable Test Platform. You can use STP to run your kernel patches and test code that you upload to OSDL's big iron hardware, or you can download the STP source code so you can use it as a test harness on your own machine.

(I should add the STP to my article but haven't gotten around to doing so yet).

Courtesy of good ol' Google:

Sunsite.dk HTTP, Denmark -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Qkaka HTTP, China P.R. -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Utwente HTTP/FTP, Netherlands -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Planet Mirror HTTP, Australia -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
VLSM HTTP/FTP, Indonesia -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
E4A HTTP, Italy -
English and italian binaries.
Edumail HTTP, Belgium -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Giganet HTTP, Hungary -
Mirror with sources, binaries.
GD TU Wien HTTP/FTP, Austria -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Stud FHT-Esslingen FTP, Germany -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
3Way FTP, Hong Kong, China P.R. -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
RWTH-Aachen FTP, Germany -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).
PWR Wroc FTP, Poland -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Sunsite Cnlab-Switch FTP, Switzerland -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).
CHG FTP, Russia -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Mirror AC HTTP, United Kingdom -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Unam FTP, Mexico -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files.
Stardiv FTP, Germany -
Complete mirror with sources, binaries and contrib files (german, french, english).

Thanks OpenOffice team!

here

and

here

Here's some characters to get past the filter. And some more. And some more.

Don't forget that Gentoo Linux runs on PPC. Gentoo is an excellent, modern Linux distribution with a package system similar to portage. It has been reviewed a few times on /. and is quickly gaining popularity.

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel
• Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications

• Pointers, References and Values
• Properly Managing Memory Returned by transcode() in the Xerces XML Library (really about refactoring)

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel
• Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications

• Pointers, References and Values
• Properly Managing Memory Returned by transcode() in the Xerces XML Library (really about refactoring)

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel
• Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications

• Pointers, References and Values
• Properly Managing Memory Returned by transcode() in the Xerces XML Library (really about refactoring)

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel
• Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications

• Pointers, References and Values
• Properly Managing Memory Returned by transcode() in the Xerces XML Library (really about refactoring)

First and foremost, stop the dweeb from using Word, eh.

Then, a gentle introduction to Xemacs w/ XAE

Docbook, Docbook, Docbook. 'Sgot a lite version but with a little DTD knowledge you can trim it down as much as you'd like.

It suffers from the same ailment (although far less so) as HTML; The layout is intimately linked with the content. As long as font size information, background color, text alignment, etc. are part of the document and mixed with section, paragraph, bibliography, etc. there will be trouble.

This is precisely why things like DocBook came into being. It contains absolutely no layout information. It is all about structured content. Layout is handled later by a separate processor. This does not necessarily mean that input must be so sterile. In fact, I believe that a WYSIWYG DocBook editor would be a godsend in providing a "way out" for all of those Word authors but still applying content structure. Perhaps a variation on the Mozilla Composer concept?

And for those who will let go of their emacs when you pry it from their cold, dead fingers, there is at least one XML editor that takes DTDs for input to aid in tag creation and allows for hooks into XSLT processors for "pretty" previews. It called XAE (XML Authoring Environment for Emacs).

Does it strike anyone else as strange that the Linux kernel is still run by a small monarchy?

Actually the truth of the matter is that most successful projects are run by a small group of people (e.g. one to four) with absolute say and complete CVS access with a smattering of others who submit patches on and on and a number of others who submit bug reports. I've actively monitored Open Source projects of various sizes including Scoop, JDEE, Mono and Xindice where the general case seems to be that core development was done by one to four members of the team who controlled most or all of the project with token contributions coming in from a few more.

In fact the recent Slashdot article on KOffice did nothing but reinforce the notion that I've long since suspected that most Free Software/Open Source projects are primarily the work of a small, autocratic team regardless of the size or scope of the project.

* Microsoft continues to make new versions of windows: "Ack! Forced upgrades is a major reason you should switch to Linux!."

* Microsoft stops making new versions: "Ack! No more upgrades! This is insane. - you need to switch to Linux as fast as you possible can!"

Being a programmer, I have to compile quite often. I do this from within EMACS. There's a command which you can start with "M-x compile", which runs make. However, it's more efficient for me to bind this command to a short key sequence, since I use it a lot. People writing their email won't need that, but in fact may want to bind other commands, which are handy for editing human-readable text, to hotkeys.

Another key-binding which often comes in handy is binding "goto-line" to "M-g".

The thing is that EMACS comes with so many features and commands that it's impossible to bind them all to efficient key sequences, but there will always be somebody who will find any one of them very helpful. That's why it's good to be able to customize keymaps, for example.

Other, more far-reaching customizations, which do in fact change the way the application works, are integrated source browsers, like JDE, oo-browser, or information management software like hyperbole. Is EMACS a lesser editor because it allows such customizations?

bye

schani

Yes, the whole "my desktop is liquid" look is trendy at the moment, but I think there definitely needs to be a super-sexy not-found-elsewhere none-ripoff default theme for both KDE and Gnome.

Just take a brose through something like the GUG galleries ( This for example) and imagine these works as entire themes.

In the same way that flashy graphics make people buy video games, KDE and Gnome need to attract the masses with sex appeal.

Yes, I post the link to this here all the time, I think it's useful to people.

Again, the test suite article is here.

Thank you for your attention.

The response I received from a number of kernel developers was that there wasn't such a thing really but it would be great if I did the work of organizing it.

SunSITE.dk seemed to be the best site of the many kind folks who offerred to host it, and so was born The Linux Quality Database.

What my plan was, and is, to organize serious QA efforts among people other than the normal kernel developers, in support of the developers, so they can get faster and more thorough feedback on their code.

Unfortunately, my consulting work has always been very hectic, and so I have not been able to do the work on this that I want to, at least not yet. Things are getting a little more rational in my business, so I have high hopes for resuming my work on it sometime soon.

There is something of value on the site that can help everyone though, I wrote a few articles on the topic of linux kernel and web application quality. The articles of interest to kernel testing are:

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel

I was happy to see that the Open Source Development Lab took advantage of the GFDL on the articles and reproduced them at its own site here.

Some might ask why I don't use an existing bug database such as bugzilla. I may well adapt bugzilla, I'm still trying to figure out what to do, but a central part of what I plan is a bug database optimized for tracking kernel bugs.

A database user will be able to enter in the configurations of the machines they have at their disposal, drawing on a database of known hardware, and give names to particular configurations.

When they report a bug, they can report the bug against selections from a list or menu of the configurations they have previously configured.

Also, they can upload the kernel .config file used in the kernel build.

Doing this will allow developers who are researching bugs to determine whether their code has been used on certain hardware, or to do boolean searches on both hardware and .config options to find out about interactions of kernel code with hardware.

I think bugzilla could be expanded to do this, or another bug database, but this is not a capability in any bug database I've used so far, either open source or proprietary ones at companies I've worked for.

The response I received from a number of kernel developers was that there wasn't such a thing really but it would be great if I did the work of organizing it.

SunSITE.dk seemed to be the best site of the many kind folks who offerred to host it, and so was born The Linux Quality Database.

What my plan was, and is, to organize serious QA efforts among people other than the normal kernel developers, in support of the developers, so they can get faster and more thorough feedback on their code.

Unfortunately, my consulting work has always been very hectic, and so I have not been able to do the work on this that I want to, at least not yet. Things are getting a little more rational in my business, so I have high hopes for resuming my work on it sometime soon.

There is something of value on the site that can help everyone though, I wrote a few articles on the topic of linux kernel and web application quality. The articles of interest to kernel testing are:

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel

I was happy to see that the Open Source Development Lab took advantage of the GFDL on the articles and reproduced them at its own site here.

Some might ask why I don't use an existing bug database such as bugzilla. I may well adapt bugzilla, I'm still trying to figure out what to do, but a central part of what I plan is a bug database optimized for tracking kernel bugs.

A database user will be able to enter in the configurations of the machines they have at their disposal, drawing on a database of known hardware, and give names to particular configurations.

When they report a bug, they can report the bug against selections from a list or menu of the configurations they have previously configured.

Also, they can upload the kernel .config file used in the kernel build.

Doing this will allow developers who are researching bugs to determine whether their code has been used on certain hardware, or to do boolean searches on both hardware and .config options to find out about interactions of kernel code with hardware.

I think bugzilla could be expanded to do this, or another bug database, but this is not a capability in any bug database I've used so far, either open source or proprietary ones at companies I've worked for.

The response I received from a number of kernel developers was that there wasn't such a thing really but it would be great if I did the work of organizing it.

SunSITE.dk seemed to be the best site of the many kind folks who offerred to host it, and so was born The Linux Quality Database.

What my plan was, and is, to organize serious QA efforts among people other than the normal kernel developers, in support of the developers, so they can get faster and more thorough feedback on their code.

Unfortunately, my consulting work has always been very hectic, and so I have not been able to do the work on this that I want to, at least not yet. Things are getting a little more rational in my business, so I have high hopes for resuming my work on it sometime soon.

There is something of value on the site that can help everyone though, I wrote a few articles on the topic of linux kernel and web application quality. The articles of interest to kernel testing are:

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel

I was happy to see that the Open Source Development Lab took advantage of the GFDL on the articles and reproduced them at its own site here.

Some might ask why I don't use an existing bug database such as bugzilla. I may well adapt bugzilla, I'm still trying to figure out what to do, but a central part of what I plan is a bug database optimized for tracking kernel bugs.

A database user will be able to enter in the configurations of the machines they have at their disposal, drawing on a database of known hardware, and give names to particular configurations.

When they report a bug, they can report the bug against selections from a list or menu of the configurations they have previously configured.

Also, they can upload the kernel .config file used in the kernel build.

Doing this will allow developers who are researching bugs to determine whether their code has been used on certain hardware, or to do boolean searches on both hardware and .config options to find out about interactions of kernel code with hardware.

I think bugzilla could be expanded to do this, or another bug database, but this is not a capability in any bug database I've used so far, either open source or proprietary ones at companies I've worked for.

The response I received from a number of kernel developers was that there wasn't such a thing really but it would be great if I did the work of organizing it.

SunSITE.dk seemed to be the best site of the many kind folks who offerred to host it, and so was born The Linux Quality Database.

What my plan was, and is, to organize serious QA efforts among people other than the normal kernel developers, in support of the developers, so they can get faster and more thorough feedback on their code.

Unfortunately, my consulting work has always been very hectic, and so I have not been able to do the work on this that I want to, at least not yet. Things are getting a little more rational in my business, so I have high hopes for resuming my work on it sometime soon.

There is something of value on the site that can help everyone though, I wrote a few articles on the topic of linux kernel and web application quality. The articles of interest to kernel testing are:

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel

I was happy to see that the Open Source Development Lab took advantage of the GFDL on the articles and reproduced them at its own site here.

Some might ask why I don't use an existing bug database such as bugzilla. I may well adapt bugzilla, I'm still trying to figure out what to do, but a central part of what I plan is a bug database optimized for tracking kernel bugs.

A database user will be able to enter in the configurations of the machines they have at their disposal, drawing on a database of known hardware, and give names to particular configurations.

When they report a bug, they can report the bug against selections from a list or menu of the configurations they have previously configured.

Also, they can upload the kernel .config file used in the kernel build.

Doing this will allow developers who are researching bugs to determine whether their code has been used on certain hardware, or to do boolean searches on both hardware and .config options to find out about interactions of kernel code with hardware.

I think bugzilla could be expanded to do this, or another bug database, but this is not a capability in any bug database I've used so far, either open source or proprietary ones at companies I've worked for.

The response I received from a number of kernel developers was that there wasn't such a thing really but it would be great if I did the work of organizing it.

SunSITE.dk seemed to be the best site of the many kind folks who offerred to host it, and so was born The Linux Quality Database.

What my plan was, and is, to organize serious QA efforts among people other than the normal kernel developers, in support of the developers, so they can get faster and more thorough feedback on their code.

Unfortunately, my consulting work has always been very hectic, and so I have not been able to do the work on this that I want to, at least not yet. Things are getting a little more rational in my business, so I have high hopes for resuming my work on it sometime soon.

There is something of value on the site that can help everyone though, I wrote a few articles on the topic of linux kernel and web application quality. The articles of interest to kernel testing are:

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel

I was happy to see that the Open Source Development Lab took advantage of the GFDL on the articles and reproduced them at its own site here.

Some might ask why I don't use an existing bug database such as bugzilla. I may well adapt bugzilla, I'm still trying to figure out what to do, but a central part of what I plan is a bug database optimized for tracking kernel bugs.

A database user will be able to enter in the configurations of the machines they have at their disposal, drawing on a database of known hardware, and give names to particular configurations.

When they report a bug, they can report the bug against selections from a list or menu of the configurations they have previously configured.

Also, they can upload the kernel .config file used in the kernel build.

Doing this will allow developers who are researching bugs to determine whether their code has been used on certain hardware, or to do boolean searches on both hardware and .config options to find out about interactions of kernel code with hardware.

I think bugzilla could be expanded to do this, or another bug database, but this is not a capability in any bug database I've used so far, either open source or proprietary ones at companies I've worked for.

...is muLinux. It's small. It's simple. It fits on a single floppy disk. In fact, there's nothing even to install, it can be run entirely in RAMdisks. The base install includes such wonderments as vim (elvis), built in networking, and even fortune.

And it has quite a lot of extra packages (for subsequent floppy disks), such as gcc, emacs, or even X11.

But when it comes to be stripped down, you can't be more stripped than 1.44mb. (Actually, it's a 1.7mb superformat, but who's counting.)

You can check it out here. For those who want to get to know the command line before installing Linux, it's something to consider.

(...raises hand)

Well the "Dillo" webbrowser launches faster than a gassy turd pulled by gravity! It launches fast! It's the best X11/GTK+ Webbrowser for slow computers! It can't download other files intelligently yet, but I gave the author a hint to use a way of downloading files like the Ximian GNOME's native webbrowser, with an external program called "gtransfter" or "gtop"... I can't remember the name. So, that if for some reason the browser were to crash, the files being downloaded would not be stopped. So far, Netscape and Microsoft Internet Expl(or|oit)er will take file downloads with them as they crash. I remember I once tried downloading the LinuxQuake3 demo from ftp.cdrom.com about 7 months ago and Netscape crashed in the middle of the download! AIEEEEEEEEE! It was a big loss, so I did it again, taking about 90 minutes to download, and I got it perfectly and the next webpage I visited caused Netscape to crash. Lucky I got it in time, I guess...

I know this is a little sick, but I actually prefer emacs (with JDE, which totally rocks). Has anyone used it (succesfully) on OS X?

The plain pack is for linux x86, the rest should be self-explanatory.

Because of the /pack system, I know that apache on a box, can always be restarted by doing /pack/apache/bin/apachectl restart, or even apachectl restart when I use /coll, and have /coll/local/bin and /coll/local/sbin first in my path.

Other than that, I set PATH and MANPATH (and some other stuff), differently with a case structure based on $OSNAME in .bashrc

Yeah, yeah. Always happens. Bookmark the page (it only just went up, so there's no Google cache of it yet), come back later, spend the intervening time sending me money so I can afford a phatter server :-).

> However, Digital Photography Review has this
> story with reams of specs and evaluation data.

Um... actually, that just looks like the reformatted press release to me. Phil Askey's camera reviews are superb, I agree, but that isn't one. I think I might have written the first real review of this widget to hit the Web. I'm not betting anything on that, though :-).

To assuage all your poor Server Not Found souls, here's the text of the review's conclusion:

Who's this camera for?

Well, if you want a super-ultra-tiny camera, the DCR-IP7 is pretty much where it's at. But there are Mini DV cameras that aren't a great deal bigger. Sony's own DCR-PC9, for instance, weighs less than 500 grams. JVC's GR-DVP3U weighs 350 grams, and is inconsequentially larger than the DCR-IP7.

Mini DV cameras have better video quality than Micro MV, they're cheaper, they've all got i.LINK ports, and their i.LINK ports actually work with normal DV gear.

So if you just want a minuscule travel-cam, this probably isn't the product for you.

What if you really dig the idea of e-mail from your camera, for some reason?

If you simply must have that feature, then this is the camera for you. Well, this or its bigger cousin, the DCR-PC120.

But seeing as all you can do with this thing's "networking" is connect to a dial-up Internet account, I'm uncertain what use it is for the vast majority of users.

No way are you going to be sending your intrepidly collected reportage from the field to the newspaper office over a mobile phone dial-up connection, even if there aren't any attachment file size limits. And if you're travelling the world, I doubt you want to phone home at great expense in order to send people grainy low-res video clips of your adventures.

Frankly, I found the DCR-IP7 rather frustrating. Not because of usability issues, so much as missed opportunities. Here's this thing with FireWire and USB and Bluetooth, and (alleged) standard file format still and video input and output. And there just aren't enough simple elementary connections between those things. The large print giveth, the small print taketh away.

You should be able to see this camera as a mass storage device via all three interfaces and just copy video from the tape without installing anything but a simple driver. You can't.

You should be able to use the camera as a Windows Video device. You can't.

Heck, you should be able to access the camera with a TWAIN driver. You can't.

And because the camera uses Micro MV, you can connect it via i.LINK/FireWire to a DV device if you like, but it won't bloody work. So everything's funnelled through MovieShaker. Which sucks.

Hey, Sony. Maybe MovieShaker is the talk of the town in Tokyo, or something, but would it kill you to put in an Expert Mode or something next time, and actually have six people test your software before you release it?

You wouldn't think it'd be that hard. Include basic functions. Verify actual operation of said basic functions. Then include happy smiling faces and integrated techno video clip generators, if you must.

If this camera cost a thousand Australian bucks, I'd cut it some slack, but it doesn't. It's stunningly expensive.

The next time I see a Sony device with "Network" and "IP" in its name, I want to be able to just plug it into freakin' Ethernet, OK? Include FireWire and Bluetooth and 802.11b and RS-232 and RFC 1217 if you want, but also put a simple RJ45 socket on the thing and give it a DHCP client and a basic HTTP interface. You can get those features in cheap and cheerful home Internet sharing boxes; I think you could manage to cram them into a camera.

I, for one, would love an instant home-LAN video server camera dingus, especially if it could work as an Internet image source as well, which it could, with that simple little Web server built in. Webcams that can do this exist already - they're expensive, but so's this camera.

Sony can make avant-garde bleeding-edge products that work really well. Their MVC-CD1000 digital still camera with its 77mm CD-R drive, for instance, is still almost as technologically impressive as it was when I reviewed it more than a year ago. But now you can buy new CD1000s for $US650 on eBay. That's half of the original list price.

If the MVC-IP7 can be had for a mere $AUD2250 or so in a year's time, it might be worth getting. Micro MV doesn't have annoyingly bad image quality, and there ought to be more Micro MV-aware software and hardware around in a year, so you won't be stuck with Pokemon-themed McSoftware when you want to edit stuff. Or artificially constrained by silly format barriers.

Right now, though, this camera's the video equivalent of a wild out-there impractical concept car that for some reason has made it into the dealerships. No sane person would want to drive it, but a fool and his money are welcome to try.

If I were you, though, I'd hand the DCR-IP7 back to the booth babe.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I use Emacs + JDEE. I like it. I like it a lot.

Adds java debugging, code completion, wizards, templates, instant javadoc in your favorite browser, and other stuff to all the other powerful features of Emacs.

Some people say emacs is hard to learn. I believe that only applies if one doesn't want to read, in which case perhaps one shouldn't be programming anyway.
Since emacs is the selfdocumenting editor, documentation for any feature is just a few key-presses away.

'C-h t' - The emacs tutorial
'C-h a' - Apropos (find the right function for what you want)
'C-h f function' - What does 'function' do?

'C-h k <key>' - What does <key> do?
'C-h w function' - Where is the key for 'function'?
'C-h ?' - What can i get help for besides this?
(C-h is Ctrl-h)

Emacs is a little unusual though. Since its default keybindings (among other things) are often unlike many other editors, it just takes a little while getting used to. (But then, any IDE takes a little while getting used to.) That is because emacs existed before many of those other editors.

Emacs contains syntax colouring, etc. for other programming languages as well, so if you want to do some scripting for example (as I do regularly), you don't need another editor for that.

Emacs doesn't have a very nice UI and learning all these bleedin' keyboard shortcuts may be a pain, but once you're past that, nothing can beat it. But this is my personal and humble opinion of course...

IDE's are crap, except when debugging. For editing, get the editor that lets you type quickly and accurately. Make certain your build system (ant) is set up to delete files because java compilers don't follow cross-file dependencies reliably.

JDEE is an Emacs IDE for Java. Emacs means that you rarely, if ever, have to remove your fingers from the keyboard. IMHO, this is a good thing.

Later,
Ross

Well, as always, the text editor itself is really up to you - I use the ubiquitous emacs along with the fantastic jdee IDE that installs inside emacs for syntax highlighting, quick toolbar access to your classes, and easy creation of class from templates.

If you are serious about writing good OO componentised java though, its almost essential now to use a decent UML tool during the design stages and further like rational rose / together.

One of the nice things about together is that it works by placing javadoc comments inside your java - so your design documentation is never out of step with your source. Invaluable.

I don't work for together - but I do find their tool helps me visualise the workings of complex systems without remembering all the methods and stuff.

So if I had to put a finger on it - let developers choose their editor/IDE themselves, but get all developers to use a UML tool independant of the IDE.

If you are new to installing your own kernel, or you want to get started on kernel programming, see http://www.kernelnewbies.org/ and join them on IRC in #kernelnewbies on the Open Projects Network.

Also helpful to newbies, or to convince you it's worthwhile to help with testing, is my other article Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel.

And finally there is the Kernel HOWTO.

If you'd like to program or debug the kernel, I recommend a couple of books:

• Kernel Projects for Linux by Gary Nutt, ISBN 0-201-61243-7 - this is a lab manual with hands-on kernel programming projects that address a variety of kernel components
• Understanding the Linux Kernel by Bovet, Cassetti, and Oram, ISBN 0596000022 - I bought a number of kernel programming books, and this seemed to be the best written of the books that covered recent kernels. It's mainly 2.2, with short addenda in each chapter for the changes that were expected at the time of writing for 2.4

If you are new to installing your own kernel, or you want to get started on kernel programming, see http://www.kernelnewbies.org/ and join them on IRC in #kernelnewbies on the Open Projects Network.

Also helpful to newbies, or to convince you it's worthwhile to help with testing, is my other article Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel.

And finally there is the Kernel HOWTO.

If you'd like to program or debug the kernel, I recommend a couple of books:

• Kernel Projects for Linux by Gary Nutt, ISBN 0-201-61243-7 - this is a lab manual with hands-on kernel programming projects that address a variety of kernel components
• Understanding the Linux Kernel by Bovet, Cassetti, and Oram, ISBN 0596000022 - I bought a number of kernel programming books, and this seemed to be the best written of the books that covered recent kernels. It's mainly 2.2, with short addenda in each chapter for the changes that were expected at the time of writing for 2.4

Get it here.

JDEE, the Java Development Environment for Emacs has auto-complete built-in to it.

Many other programming modes for Emacs have the same thing.

on the other hand, if you know what you're doing, you can almost get it to do what you want always. I edit latex, hit control-c a couple of times to process it, then the same to dvips or bibtex it, then the ggv window automatically updates itself.

I use emacs for programming, and it knows what language i am typing in and how to color the commands.

and so on. Of course, someone else wrote all that bloated featurism in there for me, all i gotta do is find and download the occasional .el file that is missing, like for XAE, the XML authoring environment for Emacs

but emacs sucks eggs when it comes to its gui. God how I wish someone would make emacs pretty, and make the gui do something other than spring up text that responds counter intuitively to mouse clicky clicky. especially that terribly unhelpful help stuff. The oreilly book is the only way I figured out anything in emacs.

• Opera
• Konqueror
• Mozilla
• Galeon
• Skipstone
• Netscape

The article did not review a number of browsers. Here are a some more that you may want to try:

• Arena
• Amaya
• Chimera
• MMM
• Emacs/W3
• Lynx (text based)
• Links (text based)
• Debris (text based)
• w3m (text based)
• Libwww (text/line based)
• HowJava
• Express
• Armadillo (was Gzilla)
• Mnemonic
• Kde (file manager with builtin browser)
• mMosaic
• QtMozilla
• QWeb
• Mosaic
• Arachne
• Beest
• Beonex
• BrowseX
• Grail
• Dillo
• NetRaider

And how the disclaimers: The list above by no means complete. The browers above were listed in j-random order. Some browsers are in early alpha stage, some in Beta and others are in full release. Some of the browsers may suck, some are OK and some are good. Your mileage may vary. Sorry If I left out your favorite browser. IE was left off the list for obvious reasons. Good while supply lasts or until Bill Gates takes over. I'm not a member of the FCIA. Void where cast as (void).

The form uses the GET method so you can encode a validation request in a URL. Let's try validating:

• http://slashdot.org/
• this article

For more information see Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications.

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel

• Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel
• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel

Reading the summary, and having a lot of respect for what the authors had to say on other topics convinced me it wasn't worth my while to bother with WAP.

The WAP Usability Report (available in PDF form for $26) reports on a study where 20 people were given WAP enabled phones for a week and asked to report back on their experiences. The study was done in London because of the advanced state of WAP services there. Read the summary here.

• 70% of users reported they would not use WAP within a year
• One user calculated it was cheaper to buy a newspaper and throw away everything but the TV listings rather than use WAP to check the BBC schedule

our basic conclusion is that WAP usability fails miserably; accomplishing even the simplest of tasks takes much too long to provide any user satisfaction. It simply should not take two minutes to find the current weather forecast or what will be showing on BBC1 at 8 p.m.

• Jakob Nielson
• Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things, Things that Make Us Smart and The Invisible Computer
• Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini, one of the original designers of the Macintosh UI and author of Tog on Interface. Check out Tog's Software Design Bookstore to learn how to write software that doesn't suck. Read Top 10 Reasons the Apple Dock Sucks.

I link these and a couple other useful sites in my brief section on Some Web Application Design Basics in Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications:

I'm not talking about pretty rollover buttons here, folks.

You need to understand that many web sites are developed with investments totalling many millions of dollars, only to have the effect of driving away any user who might have the misfortune to stumble across them, with much resulting heartbreak and the loss of fortunes.

Reading the summary, and having a lot of respect for what the authors had to say on other topics convinced me it wasn't worth my while to bother with WAP.

The WAP Usability Report (available in PDF form for $26) reports on a study where 20 people were given WAP enabled phones for a week and asked to report back on their experiences. The study was done in London because of the advanced state of WAP services there. Read the summary here.

• 70% of users reported they would not use WAP within a year
• One user calculated it was cheaper to buy a newspaper and throw away everything but the TV listings rather than use WAP to check the BBC schedule

our basic conclusion is that WAP usability fails miserably; accomplishing even the simplest of tasks takes much too long to provide any user satisfaction. It simply should not take two minutes to find the current weather forecast or what will be showing on BBC1 at 8 p.m.

• Jakob Nielson
• Don Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things, Things that Make Us Smart and The Invisible Computer
• Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini, one of the original designers of the Macintosh UI and author of Tog on Interface. Check out Tog's Software Design Bookstore to learn how to write software that doesn't suck. Read Top 10 Reasons the Apple Dock Sucks.

I link these and a couple other useful sites in my brief section on Some Web Application Design Basics in Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications:

I'm not talking about pretty rollover buttons here, folks.

You need to understand that many web sites are developed with investments totalling many millions of dollars, only to have the effect of driving away any user who might have the misfortune to stumble across them, with much resulting heartbreak and the loss of fortunes.

You should probably be able to use more or less any BSD VPN daemon. A quick search of FreeBSD's ports collection finds vpnd as an example. While it only officially supports linux and FreeBSD I don't expect you'd have much trouble porting it to OS X.

Using a validator during daily development of your website, whether static or dynamically generated pages, in the long run just makes it a lot easier because you catch a lot of careless errors. Imagine how hard it would be to write syntactically correct C code without using a compiler!

• Validate Your HTML here
• Validate your CSS here
• Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications

• http://slashdot.org
• http://www.debian.org/

I think you're referring to Info Dock and Hyperbole ? InfoDock has a some good features (the class browser is really nice), and I use it together with JDE when I'm programming Java.

here

If you're keen on building games, you ought to be hanging out on sites that deal with them, like the Linux Game Development Centre or Gamasutra and such.

• Using Test Suites to Validate the Linux Kernel

Suggestions for other test suites, strategies for testing the Linux kernel or other things I can write about on the general topic of quality assurance and better software practice are appreciated.

One test that's not mentioned in the article yet is memtester. It is a user-space program that will run on Linux or other Unix-like OS and will test as much of the memory as it can mlock; I found that I could test about half of my installed memory on a debian PPC macintosh.

Memtest86 is advantageous in that it will test all of the installed memory, but memtester will run on non-PC clone and non-x86 hardware.

Mike

From their site: Purdue, Sourceforge, CMU, Sunsite.dk. Purdue and dk's fast, CMU dead - YKMV.
--
mrBlond

If you can listen to a MP3 stream, you can record it. XMMS can save streaming audio or you can use downloading utilities like wget to directly download the stream.

The RIAA doesn't like MP3 at all because there's no real way to attach any copyright protection to it. They are currently turning a blind eye to MP3 broadcasters, but that position may later turn hostile. For now, all MP3 broadcasters should abstain from publishing playlists for future shows, and archiving high-quality copies of old shows to avoid future legal battles.

Let's hope that the DMCA will be overturned and our copyright laws will get back to a sane state.

The work I am doing with the Linux Quality Database is inspired in large part by a desire to bring this kind of quality to Open Source and Free Software systems. I use Linux on a daily basis in my own work now but honestly my experience of it wears me down and I fell so... refreshed whenever I restart into the BeOS.

But it is clear to me that Be, Inc.'s troubles are due to lack of wisdom and commitment among its management despite the best efforts of its engineers. From the start, Be made very little effort to market to the public, even though anyone who ever tried the BeOS immediately liked it and usually wanted to run it on their machine.

After a while it became clear that Be had problems keeping its commitments to its developers. I lost out on a lot of evenings and weekends spent developing a product that didn't sell well when I could have developed another product for the Mac OS - I was well into one for the Mac but gave it up for the BeOS. The investors who funded BeatWare and Adamation lost millions of dollars on their BeOS development efforts; the companies were only saved when they ported their products to the Mac OS and Windows.

Read about my observations about the difficulties that a number of companies have had surviving in the turbulent world of High-Tech, including my advice as to why business partnerships with Be are best avoided:

• The Valley is a Harsh Mistress

• Freeing the Developer from OS Vendor Shackles

• Some of Us Work for a Living

Be dug their own grave. If someone comes to their rescue with new funding, I'd like to suggest that the package include a new top-level management team with a mandate to shake things up. Firing the sales-prevention team would help.

I'll be sad if the BeOS dies and I hope they do open source it. It is likely that it uses licensed technology so that they could not legally open source the whole thing; let us hope they take the route netscape did and remove the proprietary parts and allow the open sourcing of the rest, rather than allowing it to die.

Mike