I use Speak Freely, because it is a great cross-platform application for for audio conferencing.
It has a lot of cool features, such as an enhanced answering machine, ICQ interoperability and it supports about a dozen compression algorithms, including GSM and 128-bit Blowfish.
SF is a very fine product, and it's available on Windows and Unix
It's very cool because it's licensed under the GPL, it's source code is available. And it has a cool name:)
...and recommend it! MOSIX is great for general-purpose clustering. Processes are scattered across a cluster automatically without having to modify the programs. No API is needed other than usual Unix-level process use and it allows parallel execution of any program, although full use requires a parallel program design.
I just wish that it would go in the official linux kernel, something like
CONFIG_MOSIX=y
It's a great chance that Linux doesn't only play catch up with other flavors of Unix - it can take the leadership and give us the ability to create clusters using the tools in the standard distribution!
One more thing... Last time I used Motif (about 2 years ago, on Irix) was that it had a working and fairly powerful drag and drop. Granted, they changed the API right in the middle of things, which sucked, but I could (and did) write an application where any user could drag "film rolls" (an object in our system) onto the desktop, and then drag them from the desktop into other programs that knew something about "film rolls" and that program could process the film roll. Programs that didn't know anything about film roll object just got the file name where the film roll was stored, but applications that knew about film rolls got all sorts of other characteristics of the film roll in the drop message without opening the file.
I haven't figured out how to do similar dragging and dropping on the desktop or between applications with KDE or Gnome. I'm pretty sure it's there, but it doesn't seem as integrated as it did on Irix.
Is this news? We all know that Windows is reliable, secure and easy to use. My MCSE friend told me that, so it must be true!
On a more serious note, there might have been more reported Linux vulnerabilities, but the Windows vulnerabilities were much more serious. Also, you can't compare the number of vulnerabilities discovered in the code of open-source software with the number of vulnerabilities discovered in closed-source, not-allowed-to-be-reverse-engineered software. aka... It's much harder to find a Windows vulnerability than it is to find a Linux one.
A lot of people are very hesitant to install a whole set of libraries to run only one application -- almost no matter how good the app is -- when there are 'good enough' alternatives for the standard libs they already have.
Do you feel that NEdit has suffered from not using more popular libraries, and does it matter to you?
All games released by ID have been great. Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Medal of Honor:Allied Assault are also superb games based on the Quake 3 engine. ID Software is as strong as ever, and so is John Carmack. Thank you for everything, John!
For the ones that want to know more about John, here are some links:
Take some load off kernel.org by mirroring them. Considering the problems they have had lately, this will be very useful
Compile farms are another good idea, I love the Sourceforge implementation
Host as many open source projects as you can. Beware, very few will turn out to be useful & important projects for us
Design and advertise a site that explains the open-source phenomenon and shows success stories of open source implementations. ... well, that's all I could think of. Also, please keep in mind that the security risks are very high. Keep your software up-to date and read bugtraq daily:)
GNUstep is an attempt to provide an Object-Oriented application development framework and tool set for use on a wide variety of computer platforms. GNUstep is based on the original OpenStep specification provided by NeXT, Inc. (now Apple).
GNUstep is written in Objective-C, the language from which the Signal/Slot concept of Qt was borrowed. Objective-C is basically standard C with one single syntax addition and a dozen or so additional keywords. That is all that is needed to implement an object system that is more powerful than that of that other language. In Objective-C all method calls are done via a mechanism that is similar to, but slighly more efficient than, the signal/slot mechanism of Qt. This has some interesting implications for the implementation of remote method invocation, on object serialization and some other things that are very hip in a Corba context.
Like Nextstep, GNUstep has a record of technical excellence that even today is unmatched by any other object framework, and of abysmal PR performance (also unmatched:-). A current commercial implementation of the same API (same API, different code) is the foundation of MacOS X.
The WorldForge project is a very interesting site. They have all the sources to their clients/servers available. You should find some useful information there.
This is not new stuff. Product placements in computer software go back to the late 1980s, when Sega was putting Marlboro banners in its arcade auto racing games. If the developers place the ads wisely, I don't mind, and I'm sure nobody does. But if they go over the edge, a lot of people will get upset and won't buy their products anymore. So I think it's the developers' job to keep the balance and to give us quality entertainment:) btw... here are some articles regarding the subject that you should read:
The At-Large Membership Study Committee was recently formed to forge a consensus on the best method for representing the world's Internet users as individuals ("At-Large Members") within ICANN.
I think that the best way to choos the right people is to vote the representatives from a list of nominees.
The nominees should be decided by the Committee, by an online survey, or by both.
And I think that the members shouldn't pay for what they are doing, instead they should be paid by ICANN for doing a great service to all of us.
The site is awfully slow now and I think that the wise thing to do is to bookmark the page and try to visit it sometime next week. Also, I would like to note that this will surely not last, as the long arm of MPAA will reach them, sooner rather than later. Anyway, this is a great idea, but we all know what happens to great ideas if the BIG companies don't approve them...
Packet switching refers to protocols in which messages are divided into packets before they are sent. Each packet is then transmitted individually and can even follow different routes to its destination. Once all the packets forming a message arrive at the destination, they are recompiled into the original message.
Most modern Wide Area Network (WAN) protocols, including TCP/IP, X.25, and Frame Relay, are based on packet-switching technologies. In contrast, normal telephone service is based on a circuit-switching technology, in which a dedicated line is allocated for transmission between two parties. Circuit-switching is ideal when data must be transmitted quickly and must arrive in the same order in which it's sent. This is the case with most real-time data, such as live audio and video. Packet switching is more efficient and robust for data that can withstand some delays in transmission, such as e-mail messages and Web pages.
A new technology, ATM, attempts to combine the best of both worlds -- the guaranteed delivery of circuit-switched networks and the robustness and efficiency of packet-switching networks. ...courtesy of Webopedia
If you're interested in nanoscience generally, like I am, or in nano-sized microchips especially, you can find some cool info and news at the nanoscience.ch site.
Linux is great for what it is. Linux is a swiss army knife. It is most things to most people. There's nothing it wont do if you're willing to put forth the effort to use what's there. In itself that's a wonderful design philosophy. I've been using Linux for a long time and it amazes me what it can do when people put their minds to it. Gearheads love this sort of OS, and love to demonstrate it's ability to perform any function no matter how arcane or bizarre the procedure to get there is. The people who build Linux are pragmatists. Soured by years of lofty goals, but failed implementations, they work to make a system that solves all the problems, even if they have to compromise usability, simplicity, or advanced design. Efficiency is stressed at the system level. I've never encountered a general purpose computing task that could not be solved by Linux.
MacOS X on the other hand is more like a perfectly ergonomic, intuitivley simple yet surprisingly flexible single bladed knife. It doesn't have a corkscrew or scissors, But the handle grip doubles as a file and it is perfectly balanced along every axis. Ninjas use it for throwing, Butchers use it for cutting meat. Carpenters use it to score material and Master chefs use it to prepare dishes, but you wont be able to open a wine bottle, it wont loosen most phillips screws and you'll just make a mess if you try to open a can of peas or bottle of beer with it. It also wont fit in your pocket. However, if there was ever a knife that was a perfect balance of asthetics, utility, and well executed engineering, this is it. Again, a wonderful design philosophy.
I hope this separation will give the software team some time to address some of the design limits of
the current Palm OS, such as:
The 4k Memo limit
The lack of a standard interface to link data points from the basic apps together
(such as linking the note fields from datebook and todo lists with the notebook app)
I really like my Palm device, and I admire its simplicity, but even without
comparing against other PDAs I think Palm Inc is overdue on making the underlying
OS a little more powerful and flexible. Particularly in light of the remaining
challenges of PocketPC and PSION, and the new designs of Linux-based PDAs.
Why wouldn't I want to give up on mp3s?
on
Non-MP3 Codecs?
·
· Score: 1
In most cases, a 60kbps OGG file sounds as good as an 128k mp3. An 80k OGG is as good as 160k mp3 and half the size.
If you are serving audio streams, you can actually strip away parts of the files to make lower bitrate streams--without re-coding. (wow!) MP3 can't.
You can have more than 2 audio channels. MP3 can't.
The comment fields are well defined and you can have whatever attributes you want, with strings as long as necessary. ID3 for mp3s is a hack; string lengths are limited and you can't add easily add your own fields.
If you have a portable player, you would appreciate the smaller size with high quality.
In the future, you can select how you want stereo coupling done (not in this release). (Mp3 can.)
If you make computer games, you have a high quality free way of adding a lot of music to your games. (possibly patents for mp3)
You can do 44.1khz and 48 khz audio.
You can concatenate multiple streams together to make one file, and it will play correctly. You can also cut portions out and paste them together without re-encoding.
Ogg's are exactly the same length as the original WAVs--something MP3 lacks--so that when you make recordings of live shows, gaps don't appear in you r audio.
The encoder sounds good by default, so music traded on file sharing systems sounds good (unlike all those terrible 128k mp3s encoded by anything that isn't LAME).
Re:WMA 8 is the way
on
Non-MP3 Codecs?
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It still doesn't matter to me. If I could listen to WMA on my linux system(s) I would. If I could use WMA on my car mp3-cd player, I would.
I can't though, so it doesn't matter. I'm not a musician by any means, nor can I detect the difference between 160 and 192 mp3 compression. So I'll continue using my inferior, yet cross platform, non-license restricted, used-everwhere, mp3 format.
And, by the way, here's how to build your own computer water cooler.
Great news for laptop users!
on
Xfree86 4.2.0 Out
·
· Score: 4, Informative
One of the major problems I had running XFree86 on my laptop was having to switch between a port replicator (aka docking station) and using the laptop's display. For those of you that don't know, a port replicator lets you use a standard monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. Switching between various XF86Config files got to be a royal pain in the arse.
So... those with laptops give this option a try in XF86Config: Option "UseBIOSDisplay"
Slashdot Mirror
Yep... just turn on APM this way:
:)
make menuconfig
General Setup -> Power Management support -> Advanced Power Management BIOS support -> Use real mode APM BIOS call to power off
This should fix it
I use Speak Freely, because it is a great cross-platform application for for audio conferencing.
:)
It has a lot of cool features, such as an enhanced answering machine, ICQ interoperability and it supports about a dozen compression algorithms, including GSM and 128-bit Blowfish.
SF is a very fine product, and it's available on Windows and Unix
It's very cool because it's licensed under the GPL, it's source code is available. And it has a cool name
What is Hitachi WIA?
Portable Internet Appliance Powered By
SVGA Full Color Wearable Display
Small but Powerful Control Unit
Wearable display
View Angle: 30 deg (Equivalent to 13"monitor at 2 feet)
SVGA(800 x 600), 18bits Color
Weight Less than 80g (2.8 Oz)
Hands-free viewing of screen
Forehead-support achieves safety and image stability
Wearable with eye glasses
Control unit
Fit into pockets
Light Weight
Instant Power ON
Without HDD - reliable
Type II CompactFlash(TM) Slot
USB Port
Additional external battery achieves longer
Battery life: About 5.5" x 3.5" x 1.0"(preliminary)
Weight: This prototype weighs about 10.9 Oz (310g).
Devices insideCPU,Memory,etc.): Hitachi SH-4 32bit RISC processor, 128MHz, 230MIPS.ROM:32MB, RAM:32MB, VRAM:2MB.
Interfaces: Direct I/F to Wearable Display x 1, CompactFlash Type II x 1, USB x 1, Stereo Audio Headphones jack x 1, Cellular phone data port I/F x 1
...and recommend it!
MOSIX is great for general-purpose clustering. Processes are scattered across a cluster automatically without having to modify the programs. No API is needed other than usual Unix-level process use and it allows parallel execution of any program, although full use requires a parallel program design.
I just wish that it would go in the official linux kernel, something like
CONFIG_MOSIX=y
It's a great chance that Linux doesn't only play catch up with other flavors of Unix - it can take the leadership and give us the ability to create clusters using the tools in the standard distribution!
One more thing...
Last time I used Motif (about 2 years ago, on Irix) was that it had a working and fairly powerful drag and drop. Granted, they changed the API right in the middle of things, which sucked, but I could (and did) write an application where any user could drag "film rolls" (an object in our system) onto the desktop, and then drag them from the desktop into other programs that knew something about "film rolls" and that program could process the film roll. Programs that didn't know anything about film roll object just got the file name where the film roll was stored, but applications that knew about film rolls got all sorts of other characteristics of the film roll in the drop message without opening the file.
I haven't figured out how to do similar dragging and dropping on the desktop or between applications with KDE or Gnome. I'm pretty sure it's there, but it doesn't seem as integrated as it did on Irix.
Is this news? We all know that Windows is reliable, secure and easy to use. My MCSE friend told me that, so it must be true!
On a more serious note, there might have been more reported Linux vulnerabilities, but the Windows vulnerabilities were much more serious. Also, you can't compare the number of vulnerabilities discovered in the code of open-source software with the number of vulnerabilities discovered in closed-source, not-allowed-to-be-reverse-engineered software.
aka... It's much harder to find a Windows vulnerability than it is to find a Linux one.
A lot of people are very hesitant to install a whole set of libraries to run only one application -- almost no matter how good the app is -- when there are 'good enough' alternatives for the standard libs they already have.
Do you feel that NEdit has suffered from not using more popular libraries, and does it matter to you?
Disaster Recovery Resources - it contains a lot of useful articles about disaster recovery.
I wish you luck!
ID Software is as strong as ever, and so is John Carmack. Thank you for everything, John!
For the ones that want to know more about John, here are some links:
John's .plan
John's biography @ ID Software
John Carmack Answers @ Slashdot
Take some load off kernel.org by mirroring them. Considering the problems they have had lately, this will be very useful
Compile farms are another good idea, I love the Sourceforge implementation
Host as many open source projects as you can. Beware, very few will turn out to be useful & important projects for us
Design and advertise a site that explains the open-source phenomenon and shows success stories of open source implementations. :)
... well, that's all I could think of. Also, please keep in mind that the security risks are very high. Keep your software up-to date and read bugtraq daily
There are a few mirrors of the GNUstep pages. Choose the one that is closest to you:
:-). A current commercial implementation of the same API (same API, different code) is the foundation of MacOS X.
Georgia, USA, France, Europe, Germany, Europe.
GNUstep is an attempt to provide an Object-Oriented application development framework and tool set for use on a wide variety of computer platforms. GNUstep is based on the original OpenStep specification provided by NeXT, Inc. (now Apple).
GNUstep is written in Objective-C, the language from which the Signal/Slot concept of Qt was borrowed. Objective-C is basically standard C with one single syntax addition and a dozen or so additional keywords. That is all that is needed to implement an object system that is more powerful than that of that other language. In Objective-C all method calls are done via a mechanism that is similar to, but slighly more efficient than, the signal/slot mechanism of Qt. This has some interesting implications for the implementation of remote method invocation, on object serialization and some other things that are very hip in a Corba context.
Like Nextstep, GNUstep has a record of technical excellence that even today is unmatched by any other object framework, and of abysmal PR performance (also unmatched
The WorldForge project is a very interesting site. They have all the sources to their clients/servers available. You should find some useful information there.
btw... here are some articles regarding the subject that you should read:
Product placement in games
Placing Product Before Art
I think that the best way to choos the right people is to vote the representatives from a list of nominees.
The nominees should be decided by the Committee, by an online survey, or by both.
And I think that the members shouldn't pay for what they are doing, instead they should be paid by ICANN for doing a great service to all of us.
The site is awfully slow now and I think that the wise thing to do is to bookmark the page and try to visit it sometime next week.
Also, I would like to note that this will surely not last, as the long arm of MPAA will reach them, sooner rather than later.
Anyway, this is a great idea, but we all know what happens to great ideas if the BIG companies don't approve them...
Packet switching refers to protocols in which messages are divided into packets before they are sent. Each packet is then transmitted individually and can even follow different routes to its destination. Once all the packets forming a message arrive at the destination, they are recompiled into the original message.
Most modern Wide Area Network (WAN) protocols, including TCP/IP, X.25, and Frame Relay, are based on packet-switching technologies. In contrast, normal telephone service is based on a circuit-switching technology, in which a dedicated line is allocated for transmission between two parties. Circuit-switching is ideal when data must be transmitted quickly and must arrive in the same order in which it's sent. This is the case with most real-time data, such as live audio and video. Packet switching is more efficient and robust for data that can withstand some delays in transmission, such as e-mail messages and Web pages.
A new technology, ATM, attempts to combine the best of both worlds -- the guaranteed delivery of circuit-switched networks and the robustness and efficiency of packet-switching networks.
...courtesy of Webopedia
If you're interested in nanoscience generally, like I am, or in nano-sized microchips especially, you can find some cool info and news at the nanoscience.ch site.
http://www.utexas.edu/admin/opa/discovery/disc1998 v15n1/disc-diller.html
Quote: "A bright future surrounds bioengineering and the contributions and impact the discipline will have on life and the medical sciences."
Linux is great for what it is. Linux is a swiss army knife. It is most things to most people. There's nothing it wont do if you're willing to put forth the effort to use what's there. In itself that's a wonderful design philosophy. I've been using Linux for a long time and it amazes me what it can do when people put their minds to it. Gearheads love this sort of OS, and love to demonstrate it's ability to perform any function no matter how arcane or bizarre the procedure to get there is. The people who build Linux are pragmatists. Soured by years of lofty goals, but failed implementations, they work to make a system that solves all the problems, even if they have to compromise usability, simplicity, or advanced design. Efficiency is stressed at the system level. I've never encountered a general purpose computing task that could not be solved by Linux.
MacOS X on the other hand is more like a perfectly ergonomic, intuitivley simple yet surprisingly flexible single bladed knife. It doesn't have a corkscrew or scissors, But the handle grip doubles as a file and it is perfectly balanced along every axis. Ninjas use it for throwing, Butchers use it for cutting meat. Carpenters use it to score material and Master chefs use it to prepare dishes, but you wont be able to open a wine bottle, it wont loosen most phillips screws and you'll just make a mess if you try to open a can of peas or bottle of beer with it. It also wont fit in your pocket. However, if there was ever a knife that was a perfect balance of asthetics, utility, and well executed engineering, this is it. Again, a wonderful design philosophy.
The 4k Memo limit
The lack of a standard interface to link data points from the basic apps together (such as linking the note fields from datebook and todo lists with the notebook app)
I really like my Palm device, and I admire its simplicity, but even without comparing against other PDAs I think Palm Inc is overdue on making the underlying OS a little more powerful and flexible. Particularly in light of the remaining challenges of PocketPC and PSION, and the new designs of Linux-based PDAs.
In most cases, a 60kbps OGG file sounds as good as an 128k mp3. An 80k OGG is as good as 160k mp3 and half the size.
If you are serving audio streams, you can actually strip away parts of the files to make lower bitrate streams--without re-coding. (wow!) MP3 can't.
You can have more than 2 audio channels. MP3 can't.
The comment fields are well defined and you can have whatever attributes you want, with strings as long as necessary. ID3 for mp3s is a hack; string lengths are limited and you can't add easily add your own fields.
If you have a portable player, you would appreciate the smaller size with high quality.
In the future, you can select how you want stereo coupling done (not in this release). (Mp3 can.)
If you make computer games, you have a high quality free way of adding a lot of music to your games. (possibly patents for mp3)
You can do 44.1khz and 48 khz audio.
You can concatenate multiple streams together to make one file, and it will play correctly. You can also cut portions out and paste them together without re-encoding.
Ogg's are exactly the same length as the original WAVs--something MP3 lacks--so that when you make recordings of live shows, gaps don't appear in you r audio.
The encoder sounds good by default, so music traded on file sharing systems sounds good (unlike all those terrible 128k mp3s encoded by anything that isn't LAME).
It still doesn't matter to me. If I could listen to WMA on my linux system(s) I would. If I could use WMA on my car mp3-cd player, I would.
I can't though, so it doesn't matter. I'm not a musician by any means, nor can I detect the difference between 160 and 192 mp3 compression. So I'll continue using my inferior, yet cross platform, non-license restricted, used-everwhere, mp3 format.
Liquid-cooled PC cases have been around for a while.
Here are some links to other companies that sell them:
Koolance
Ioport
PC Case Gear
And, by the way, here's how to build your own computer water cooler.
One of the major problems I had running XFree86 on my laptop was having to switch between a port replicator (aka docking station) and using the laptop's display. For those of you that don't know, a port replicator lets you use a standard monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. Switching between various XF86Config files got to be a royal pain in the arse.
So... those with laptops give this option a try in XF86Config:
Option "UseBIOSDisplay"
Here's a nicely formatted list of mirrors for you lazy bastards ;) :)6
Let's make the slashdot effect on xfree86.org a little more bearable
ftp://ftp.calderasystems.com/pub/mirrors/xfree86
ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/XFree86
ftp://ftp.cs.umn.edu/pub/XFree86
ftp://download.sourceforge.net/pub/mirrors/XFree8
ftp://ftp.freesoftware.com/pub/XFree86
ftp://ftp.infomagic.com/pub/mirrors/XFree86
ftp://mirror.sftw.com/pub/XFree86
ftp://phyppro1.phy.bnl.gov/pub/XFree86
ftp://ftp.rge.com/pub/X/XFree86
ftp://ftp.valinux.com/pub/mirrors/xfree86