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I tend to care about screenshots mainly with graphical programs. Therefore, I look at the rendering capabilities (is it nicely shaded, or banded?), the layout (clean and unobtrusive, or a thousand cryptograms spread over the screen), and the quality of the icons (minimal care in drawing, or third-grade art project). I have to really need the functionality the app is offering if the interface looks like the controls of a 747 as reinterpreted by Sumerians.

This won't tell you how well the app really works, but it gives you some idea of the nature of the effort. It can indicate whether the team implementing the program has a coherent vision, or whether the project has attracted enough talent so that someone who can draw icons has come on board. It can also give a hint at a glance of whether the app can be convinced to perform the visualization I need.

Having said this, I tend to end up using programs such as GNUPlot, Octave, or Molden, which fail at least one of the tests above, but are highly functional. They, of course, also have a decade or more of development behind them, which is also critical information, but which doesn't show up in the screenshots.

Finally, may I recommend one of the best indictments of everyone having to have a screenshot of their project. The screenshots for GNU Fortran 95 at http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?gro up_id=5179/. For examples of good screenshots, then http://www.uku.fi/~thassine/ghemical/, which shows not only the basic modeling and interface, but also shows the ability to have custom spotlights and renderings.

What educational software packages are available for Linux?

I'm not sure what you're looking for exactly, but off the top of my head (and a little freshmeat help):

Primary school level: Gcompris is great, has a large bundle of games targetting everything from spelling to geography to math, and is easily extensible.

Astronomy: Both Celestia and Stellarium provide great tools for teaching kids of all levels about our universe.

Mathematics: You can use basic spreadsheets if you like, but there's also Octave for vector and matrix mathematics and Maxima (and several others that I can't recall right now) for symbolic algebra.

Chemistry: There's stuff like Ghemical and Gperiodic which aren't half bad for exploring various chemistry concepts. Then there's stuff like GenChemLab which is pretty neat.

Physics: There's physics simulation software like Physics3D , and there are others around if you care to look.

Computing: Well, you've got all the programming tools you want, but also things like DrPython to make it easier/fun for students (even at lower school levels).

General knowledge: Wikipedia is accessible from anywhere.

Okay, there's a science bias there, but it's not a bad start for what I can think of, or find in 2 minutes of freshmeat.

Jedidiah.

What educational software packages are available for Linux?

I'm not sure what you're looking for exactly, but off the top of my head (and a little freshmeat help):

Primary school level: Gcompris is great, has a large bundle of games targetting everything from spelling to geography to math, and is easily extensible.

Astronomy: Both Celestia and Stellarium provide great tools for teaching kids of all levels about our universe.

Mathematics: You can use basic spreadsheets if you like, but there's also Octave for vector and matrix mathematics and Maxima (and several others that I can't recall right now) for symbolic algebra.

Chemistry: There's stuff like Ghemical and Gperiodic which aren't half bad for exploring various chemistry concepts. Then there's stuff like GenChemLab which is pretty neat.

Physics: There's physics simulation software like Physics3D , and there are others around if you care to look.

Computing: Well, you've got all the programming tools you want, but also things like DrPython to make it easier/fun for students (even at lower school levels).

General knowledge: Wikipedia is accessible from anywhere.

Okay, there's a science bias there, but it's not a bad start for what I can think of, or find in 2 minutes of freshmeat.

Jedidiah.

• CKRename - Tool to mass rename files in a folder. Works very well for renaming MP3s.
• WinMerge (Use latest RC under beta builds) - Compare document, script, HTML, etc content versions (compares what has changed from revision to revision).
• XXCopy - Extended version of XCopy. This is a great utility for scripting file backups from one drive to another.
• ISOBuster - Open CD/DVD ISOs, BINs, IMGs, etc without having to burn them. Can extract files without burning as well.
• Vim - Improved version of the vi editor.
• IrfanView - Batch Image Processing and viewer (much like ACDSee, but FREE!).
• Diskeeper Lite - An updated version of the disk defragmenter that comes with Windows 2000 and Windows XP. This version does a better job of defragging the drive and shows you more information. The site isn't the manufacturer's, but the download does come directly from them. ExecSoft doesn't have this listed on their site anywhere anymore.
• Locate - Windows version of a linux utility. Creates a database of every file on your drives. You can then search and get instant results.
• xvi32 Hex Editor - Very nice hex editor.
• 7-Zip - A freeware file archiver. It supports all of the popular formats (ZIP, CAP, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB) as well as its own format, 7z.
• Max Lister - Create text lists of files in folders. For example, it's useful for an mp3 list.

Installation / Automation

• InnoSetup - Create your own EXE installers.
• ISTool - A GUI front-end for creating InnoSetup installer scripts.
• WinINSTALL LE 2003 - Create your own MSI installers. Also edit existing MSI installers (change options, add/remove components, etc).
• KiXtart - Advanced batch processing language. Commonly used for logon scripts but can be used to accomplish many tasks (comparable to using VBScript and WELL documented).
• AutoIt - Create scripts to send keys to applictions. Commonly used to "silently" install applictions that don't natively support silent install switches.

Multimedia Tools

This X1 stuff looks cool, but a bit expensive. I've been using a free Windows search tool, based on locate/updatedb with a nice GUI. Not perfect, and you can't search inside files, but still useful. You can check it out here.

In answer to your first and second question, Yes.

Not really what these search tools are about, but that's not what you asked.

Locate32 is

It also sounds like Copernic Desktop Search; I tried this briefly but wasn't overly impressed.
For just finding files in Windows try Locate. Works pretty well.

You can tell XP to use 2000's search interface, but I prefer the Windows "port" of locate.

Tsk, tsk...

This is Slashdot, we need a link somewhere.

Locate32 is a program that can replace your built in Windows FIND function, including indexed searches.

In 1628, the flagship of the Swedish navy, Wasa, sank within minutes of starting her maiden-voyage (the ship was top heavy due to extra gun-deck they added in the middle of the construction).

The ship was resurfaced in 1961 (it was discovered in 1956) . It took several days to accomplish. As it happens, there were some finnish techics-students (teekkarit) visiting Stockholm then. Teekkarit are famous for pulling pranks, and they though that this would be the perfect possibility for the ultimate prank. They went and bought a miniature copy of a statue of Paavo Nurmi (a famous finnish runner), sneaked past the guards, went in to the ship (that was still in the bottom of the sea) and placed the statue in the captains quarters. I bet the people who studied the sip after it was resurfaced were quite puzzled when they found that statue ;). The guys who pulled that off never revealed how they did it.

in the comic book, grendel, this is exactly what happenned. i remember reading it a few years back and thinking to myself, "this could really happen!". and if you listened to ralph nader's acceptance speech this weekend, you might believe it's already happenning!

--
J Perry Fecteau, 5-time Mr. Internet
Ejercisio Perfecto: from Geek to GOD in WEEKS!