I do not know about all mentioned software, but GIMP is definitely the best image editing software. I use GIMP daily. Even thought I have got from the company other expensive soft, but GIMP is ( www.gimp.org ) just high above anything else.
I use GIMP on Windows, both XP and Vista.
From GIMP images do not come out "dull", as from other popular image editing software.
It makes life for software engineers more difficult, systems more complicated and less reliable.
What is really bad is that countries begin and end DST almost randomly without any standard.
People do not use approaches which could really save energy, like: drying clothing on the sun, instead ineffective expensive solar panels, energy saving lamps, instead DST, light aluminum cars, instead heavy electric cars with toxic batteries, etc.
Is not a battery is heavy and contains the whole table of Mendeleev in it? Why not make small light aluminum but comfortable computerized cars with the normal engine?
I have got an idea on how to fight a spam. It is often difficult to prove in court that an individual controls a bot-net of thousand computers. Because to lock up a person for years one needs strong evidence, or because of absence of laws in a particular country.
The FBI or the likes could create an international task force. When they track down the culprit and are sure that he/she does harm by sending spam and spreading malware around the globe, but when for some reason there is no way to prosecute him/her due to, say, local laws of the country. What if a special agent just enters the apartment or house clandestinely, when the spam king is absent, and spray a special liquid in his/her computers. It could be just a salted water, or something more sophisticated could be developed.
A spam king still must own the computers to control bot-nets. He could be knocked off the business for weeks, trying first in vain to repair the hardware, then to buy and set up new.
If an agent does not forget to emerge in a salted water his back-up HDs and flash-sticks, he may even lose control of bot-net irrevocably.
This special agent could spray different liquids in different spammer's computers. So that they go offline not simultaneously but one by one. This could be possible if a layer of dried spray gains ability to work via the electrical isolation and become conductive gradually. It seems to be possible from chemistry point of view.
What we have now is that a mentally unstable spammer & malware king sends trillions of messages from some exotic corner of the Earth and nobody can do anything. But if they can fire a guided missile into a suspected terrorist house, why not to send a trained agent to knock off computers which cause a harm to the world economy in billions?
Burglaries, murders, etc. also do go on. Does it mean that those people who try to protect the society from it are naive?
A medical doctor, an aviation dispatcher, a police officer, all of us, are overwhelmed by spam. Let alone malware. The harm to the global and local economy is difficult to overestimate. Because these people ARE the economy. And all of them, 100%, have got their work disrupted by spam.
What do you suggest? Do nothing? Or punish severely at least some spam and malware kings to show others that it is not always has a happy ending.
Anti-spam filters, anti-virus software, etc. are the shield. But there should be a sword too. The politicians who begin to realize it and act on it do deserve my respect.
There are illegal activities, which may seem to generate money for local economies. Drugs production, slaves trade, piracy, etc.
But the local communities should realize that spam destroys local economies, because people are overwhelmed with it. They spend the valuable working time to delete spam, install and adjust filters, clean computers, etc. Instead of doing their valuable work for the community.
And here is where the organized force of the society, the law, should interfere and correct the greed of some individuals who profit via doing the great harm to the whole society.
Our life is digitized and computerized more and more. And it is only the beginning. Networks of computerized devices will be playing all the more significant part.
The laws protecting this digital infrastructure should be changed. Individuals who spam, who distribute malware, viruses, etc. should be locked up for many years. The recidivists should be locked up for good.
Anti virus software, secure OS, etc. are not the answer. It is like a bulletproof vest and a helmet. They are useful things in a dangerous area, but they are not a security panacea. Or it's like a reinforced entrance door. Such a door still can be broken with a sledgehammer in minutes. It is not the door it is the law which protects.
The door just shows the border, after which the moral and written laws begin to function. We should as a global society change our mind set, and look at spam and malware distribution not as at pranks, but as an brutal and effective attack on our infrastructure, on our way of life.
It is not only e-mail spam. I, for instance, stopped answering mobile phone calls, if a caller is not in my address book, or if he/she did not sent first an SMS explaining the reason of the intended telephone conversation.
I avoid meetings without first knowing exactly the reason behind, because sometimes people just try to sell me an idea or a product, which does not interest me at all.
A waste of time on spam is enormous. It is not only the wasted working time on deleting, setting spam filters, lost messages, etc. It is above all the broken work flow. And it's for everyone in the world.
The loss of productivity due to spam is about 30 - 40% by my calculations.
At least now they try to do something. There is a difference between a freedom of speech and sending out billions of commercial messages about body parts enlargement products. And this difference is not subtle, so that it cannot be distinguished by law.
Spam should be treated for what it is: stealing, stealing the working time from companies, from individuals. And should be punished accordingly. Life in prison should be an appropriate punishment for e-mail and phone spam kings, as the damage to the world economy is in trillions.
I administer the PC of my father-in-law, who is almost 80 years. From time to time he does a mess with his PC, because he cannot understand why the icons disappear from the screen (unused icons feature and the likes). He thinks that they should be stable like buttons and dials on a good old phone.
Trying to "repair" his desktop he creates a mess. But since he communicates via this PC, via Skype, with his daughter, I have to keep this PC serviceable.
Anyway, he has got the DHCP ADSL modem, his PC is behind this modem.
All I want is to be able to have a look at his screen. It would be good to be able to administer too.
ISP provider makes it impossible to reach the ADSL modem by IP address. But there should be a software which sends me like an e-mail the screeenshots.
I can install and setup this program on his PC. No problem. But does such program exist?
I mean a program for administration without good solid visible IP addresses? We can exchange e-mails, Skype, but why I cannot administer a PC without IP address?
It would be better if this is an open source free software, as I would not pay just to see that it does not work in this situation either.
I am not so sure about "alcoholics". My best code was written after 5 - 10 km of running at the seaside or at a stadium. I think like with any activity good physical shape and clear mind are essential.
If you need a course to become a programmer you are not a programmer and never will be.
Did Robert Frost need a course to become a poet? Albert Einstein to be a scientist?
I have nothing against courses. They are quite useful. But if a course is all you need to become a programmer than I can tell you that you will be part of a problem, not part of a solution. A programming course should answer the questions which you already have.
You sleep a programmer, think as a programmer, born and die as a programmer. Programming is a philosophy to make the world much better place. It is about being a part of a technical revolution.
I know, that wind and solar can produce some electricity.
The combined power of all household appliances is 4 - 5 kWt. The power of the car engine is much higher, about 100 kWt.
Solar and wind are the part of complicated propaganda dance around the price of oil. As a real solution to energy demand they are the scam. More than that they are a dangerous scam. That is why millions and millions of cars are being fueled by the hi-tech petrol, gas, benzine.
More realistic is to spare the energy. Not building the cars which weigh 3 tons, but 0,7 ton. Building houses with more modest air-conditioned area. Etc.
Russia is the biggest country in the world by territory (17 mln. sq. km) and by energy resources. It should, no, it must realize these advantages, use them up to the limit for competing in the world economy. In this respect it is interesting that Russian Federation plans to become the agriculture super power by 2020.
It would be a nice dream for Russia to be able to compete with Japan in the car producing industry, but nothing more than a nice dream. But the Energy and Agriculture are the areas where Russia can be a tough competitor.
But for this Russia needs a government which can end schemes by which the resources of a country are being taken practically free of charge, without benefits to its population. Putin answered to this social demand of Russian society.
It explains his popularity in Russia, and also why he is hated in the West. Because the West is to pay for oil, gas and other resources nowadays (it was done via political puppets in the past). Yes, it is difficult. But for people in Siberia, where these oil and gas are produced, it is the only possible source of income. They began nowadays live better. Salaries are decent even by the Western standards.
I do not see anything bad in it. People in Siberia live better, people in the West are a bit more modest in the energy consumption. Everybody is happy, the planet is safer. Or is it better to eat chocolate under the blanket while people around you are hungry?
Solar and wind are scams. One will not be able to fuel a vehicle with them, or with electricity. A battery is worse to the environment than a fossil engine.
Allowing people to dry linen on ropes is the best ad most effective "solar" and "wind".
You do not like Putin because he started to tax and control properly oil companies, and oil costs not 7 USD as it used to be, but times higher, but people in Russia like him exactly for this. Because they build road, schools, etc. on this money. They even started to build autobahn from Pacific ocean to the Baltic sea.
Putin became PM because foreign countries tend to interfere into elections. They are interested in someone who will let them to pump without taxation. You can not imagine how many western spies work now in Russia. There was a moment that they even stopped hiding it, were discussing in newspapers and web-forums, which service pays what. What free election can be in such conditions?
In 2007 1,600,000 were killed in traffic accidents and more than 5,000,000 wounded. Some researches say it is sort of a 3rd World War. So it IS the mass traffic violence. But you see you do not even know of it.
I well agree with you that the West has played the important role in the human civilization. I realize it probably better than you, because I am not idealizing it but I am using its philosophy of freedom of speech, of freedom to criticize what is not good in my oprinion. In this I am more pro-western than you.
As for Russia you are flat wrong. Russia is developing quickly. Russia owns most of the world's territory and energy resources, which cannot be reproduced by humans. If you ever have been at the oil-refinery or saw "Druzhba" pipeline you would not say that it is low-tech, it is as high-tech as it gets.
At the same time the USA lags behind. It is in urgent need of its "perestroika". They still use the imperial measurement system, believe it or not. All those medieval feet, stones, miles, inches, arrow flights, etc. But when it starts the whole world will be shaken. The US internal changes and accompanying social struggle will affect the whole world. We saw it already in Georgia and South Ossethia. That war was part of the US election campaign. But what will happen when the pushes will come to shoves in the USA?
You may say nothing happens and all is OK there. The same was the French king Louis wrote in his diary on the day when the French revolution began: "Rien." It means - nothing. Still when people want change, it happens. My point is that a social change in such a big and complex place like the USA will bring the whole world in a turmoil.
It was the usual trick of colonization too - present how awful the target countries are and bring them the light and kindness of Christianity. Only now it is the "human rights", which are not bad in itself, when they are not misused this way.
The reality though is that Atlanta and Washington D.C. have much worse murder statistics than, say, Kabul and Baghdad, hundreds of thousands killed and wounded in the traffic mass violence, and so on and so worth.
Absolutely. You (the West, USA) deluded yourself that you "won" the cold war. The cold war just ended.
There are complicated internal processes in Eurasia, in the FSU, but you keep your delusion that it is you who calls the shots.
Eurasia is more than twice bigger than the North America by territory and more than 8 times by population.
"The West", the Western Europe against the whole Eurasia is like Vermont and Maryland against the whole USA.
Globalization is turning Eurasia in one giant market, 54 million square kilometers, 4,6 billion population.
A lot of work is still to be done: autobahns, tunnels, speed railways, etc. "The West" has a role in it, like Vermont has the role in the USA. But forget 18th century, your colonial glory.
You are on among others, not the "master of the world" anymore. It's over. Get over it.
Slashdot Mirror
I hope President Obama will be able to force IE and FF to handle ALT and TITLE tags in a standardized manner.
I am not against a market and innovation, but why such a simple thing could not be standardized?
I use GIMP on Windows, both XP and Vista.
From GIMP images do not come out "dull", as from other popular image editing software.
And yes, I like this 5 euro coin.
I would agree. Why not watch and read instead news that matter?
As if one cannot download it via Limewire in a non-Russia.
I just read on this page http://linux.armd.ru/ that the president of Russian Federation ordered to create a robust reliable open source OS by 2010.
It is the top priority task for the security of Russian Federation. The school project is just a part of it.
It makes life for software engineers more difficult, systems more complicated and less reliable.
What is really bad is that countries begin and end DST almost randomly without any standard.
People do not use approaches which could really save energy, like: drying clothing on the sun, instead ineffective expensive solar panels, energy saving lamps, instead DST, light aluminum cars, instead heavy electric cars with toxic batteries, etc.
Is not a battery is heavy and contains the whole table of Mendeleev in it? Why not make small light aluminum but comfortable computerized cars with the normal engine?
I have got an idea on how to fight a spam. It is often difficult to prove in court that an individual controls a bot-net of thousand computers. Because to lock up a person for years one needs strong evidence, or because of absence of laws in a particular country.
The FBI or the likes could create an international task force. When they track down the culprit and are sure that he/she does harm by sending spam and spreading malware around the globe, but when for some reason there is no way to prosecute him/her due to, say, local laws of the country. What if a special agent just enters the apartment or house clandestinely, when the spam king is absent, and spray a special liquid in his/her computers. It could be just a salted water, or something more sophisticated could be developed.
A spam king still must own the computers to control bot-nets. He could be knocked off the business for weeks, trying first in vain to repair the hardware, then to buy and set up new.
If an agent does not forget to emerge in a salted water his back-up HDs and flash-sticks, he may even lose control of bot-net irrevocably.
This special agent could spray different liquids in different spammer's computers. So that they go offline not simultaneously but one by one. This could be possible if a layer of dried spray gains ability to work via the electrical isolation and become conductive gradually. It seems to be possible from chemistry point of view.
What we have now is that a mentally unstable spammer & malware king sends trillions of messages from some exotic corner of the Earth and nobody can do anything. But if they can fire a guided missile into a suspected terrorist house, why not to send a trained agent to knock off computers which cause a harm to the world economy in billions?
Burglaries, murders, etc. also do go on. Does it mean that those people who try to protect the society from it are naive?
A medical doctor, an aviation dispatcher, a police officer, all of us, are overwhelmed by spam. Let alone malware. The harm to the global and local economy is difficult to overestimate. Because these people ARE the economy. And all of them, 100%, have got their work disrupted by spam.
What do you suggest? Do nothing? Or punish severely at least some spam and malware kings to show others that it is not always has a happy ending.
Anti-spam filters, anti-virus software, etc. are the shield. But there should be a sword too. The politicians who begin to realize it and act on it do deserve my respect.
There are illegal activities, which may seem to generate money for local economies. Drugs production, slaves trade, piracy, etc.
But the local communities should realize that spam destroys local economies, because people are overwhelmed with it. They spend the valuable working time to delete spam, install and adjust filters, clean computers, etc. Instead of doing their valuable work for the community.
And here is where the organized force of the society, the law, should interfere and correct the greed of some individuals who profit via doing the great harm to the whole society.
Our life is digitized and computerized more and more. And it is only the beginning. Networks of computerized devices will be playing all the more significant part.
The laws protecting this digital infrastructure should be changed. Individuals who spam, who distribute malware, viruses, etc. should be locked up for many years. The recidivists should be locked up for good.
Anti virus software, secure OS, etc. are not the answer. It is like a bulletproof vest and a helmet. They are useful things in a dangerous area, but they are not a security panacea. Or it's like a reinforced entrance door. Such a door still can be broken with a sledgehammer in minutes. It is not the door it is the law which protects.
The door just shows the border, after which the moral and written laws begin to function. We should as a global society change our mind set, and look at spam and malware distribution not as at pranks, but as an brutal and effective attack on our infrastructure, on our way of life.
And there should be an appropriate answer.
It is not only e-mail spam. I, for instance, stopped answering mobile phone calls, if a caller is not in my address book, or if he/she did not sent first an SMS explaining the reason of the intended telephone conversation.
I avoid meetings without first knowing exactly the reason behind, because sometimes people just try to sell me an idea or a product, which does not interest me at all.
A waste of time on spam is enormous. It is not only the wasted working time on deleting, setting spam filters, lost messages, etc. It is above all the broken work flow. And it's for everyone in the world.
The loss of productivity due to spam is about 30 - 40% by my calculations.
At least now they try to do something. There is a difference between a freedom of speech and sending out billions of commercial messages about body parts enlargement products. And this difference is not subtle, so that it cannot be distinguished by law.
Spam should be treated for what it is: stealing, stealing the working time from companies, from individuals. And should be punished accordingly. Life in prison should be an appropriate punishment for e-mail and phone spam kings, as the damage to the world economy is in trillions.
I tried logmein. It works fine.
It was so simple after all (I can imagine how much work it was for the developers). Thanks.
Does anyone knows a software to do such a task?
I administer the PC of my father-in-law, who is almost 80 years. From time to time he does a mess with his PC, because he cannot understand why the icons disappear from the screen (unused icons feature and the likes). He thinks that they should be stable like buttons and dials on a good old phone.
Trying to "repair" his desktop he creates a mess. But since he communicates via this PC, via Skype, with his daughter, I have to keep this PC serviceable.
Anyway, he has got the DHCP ADSL modem, his PC is behind this modem.
All I want is to be able to have a look at his screen. It would be good to be able to administer too.
ISP provider makes it impossible to reach the ADSL modem by IP address. But there should be a software which sends me like an e-mail the screeenshots.
I can install and setup this program on his PC. No problem. But does such program exist?
I mean a program for administration without good solid visible IP addresses? We can exchange e-mails, Skype, but why I cannot administer a PC without IP address?
It would be better if this is an open source free software, as I would not pay just to see that it does not work in this situation either.
I use remote access, but I have to type in the IP address to connect. How could he knew the I address?
I read this story several times but nowhere the software name is mentioned.
Special thanks to Jernej Simoni for the Windows installers.
Keep up the good work!
I use GIMP to handle 300 - 500 photos a week. You will start realize the advantages of GIMP after first 20 000 of photos.
Coffee is more realistic though.
Did Robert Frost need a course to become a poet? Albert Einstein to be a scientist?
I have nothing against courses. They are quite useful. But if a course is all you need to become a programmer than I can tell you that you will be part of a problem, not part of a solution. A programming course should answer the questions which you already have.
You sleep a programmer, think as a programmer, born and die as a programmer. Programming is a philosophy to make the world much better place. It is about being a part of a technical revolution.
Certainly if one has to wear a "formal" clothing from 19th century than 78F is too hot.
The combined power of all household appliances is 4 - 5 kWt. The power of the car engine is much higher, about 100 kWt.
Solar and wind are the part of complicated propaganda dance around the price of oil. As a real solution to energy demand they are the scam. More than that they are a dangerous scam. That is why millions and millions of cars are being fueled by the hi-tech petrol, gas, benzine.
More realistic is to spare the energy. Not building the cars which weigh 3 tons, but 0,7 ton. Building houses with more modest air-conditioned area. Etc.
Russia is the biggest country in the world by territory (17 mln. sq. km) and by energy resources. It should, no, it must realize these advantages, use them up to the limit for competing in the world economy. In this respect it is interesting that Russian Federation plans to become the agriculture super power by 2020.
It would be a nice dream for Russia to be able to compete with Japan in the car producing industry, but nothing more than a nice dream. But the Energy and Agriculture are the areas where Russia can be a tough competitor.
But for this Russia needs a government which can end schemes by which the resources of a country are being taken practically free of charge, without benefits to its population. Putin answered to this social demand of Russian society.
It explains his popularity in Russia, and also why he is hated in the West. Because the West is to pay for oil, gas and other resources nowadays (it was done via political puppets in the past). Yes, it is difficult. But for people in Siberia, where these oil and gas are produced, it is the only possible source of income. They began nowadays live better. Salaries are decent even by the Western standards.
I do not see anything bad in it. People in Siberia live better, people in the West are a bit more modest in the energy consumption. Everybody is happy, the planet is safer. Or is it better to eat chocolate under the blanket while people around you are hungry?
Allowing people to dry linen on ropes is the best ad most effective "solar" and "wind".
You do not like Putin because he started to tax and control properly oil companies, and oil costs not 7 USD as it used to be, but times higher, but people in Russia like him exactly for this. Because they build road, schools, etc. on this money. They even started to build autobahn from Pacific ocean to the Baltic sea.
Putin became PM because foreign countries tend to interfere into elections. They are interested in someone who will let them to pump without taxation. You can not imagine how many western spies work now in Russia. There was a moment that they even stopped hiding it, were discussing in newspapers and web-forums, which service pays what. What free election can be in such conditions?
I well agree with you that the West has played the important role in the human civilization. I realize it probably better than you, because I am not idealizing it but I am using its philosophy of freedom of speech, of freedom to criticize what is not good in my oprinion. In this I am more pro-western than you.
As for Russia you are flat wrong. Russia is developing quickly. Russia owns most of the world's territory and energy resources, which cannot be reproduced by humans. If you ever have been at the oil-refinery or saw "Druzhba" pipeline you would not say that it is low-tech, it is as high-tech as it gets.
At the same time the USA lags behind. It is in urgent need of its "perestroika". They still use the imperial measurement system, believe it or not. All those medieval feet, stones, miles, inches, arrow flights, etc. But when it starts the whole world will be shaken. The US internal changes and accompanying social struggle will affect the whole world. We saw it already in Georgia and South Ossethia. That war was part of the US election campaign. But what will happen when the pushes will come to shoves in the USA?
You may say nothing happens and all is OK there. The same was the French king Louis wrote in his diary on the day when the French revolution began: "Rien." It means - nothing. Still when people want change, it happens. My point is that a social change in such a big and complex place like the USA will bring the whole world in a turmoil.
The reality though is that Atlanta and Washington D.C. have much worse murder statistics than, say, Kabul and Baghdad, hundreds of thousands killed and wounded in the traffic mass violence, and so on and so worth.
There are complicated internal processes in Eurasia, in the FSU, but you keep your delusion that it is you who calls the shots.
Eurasia is more than twice bigger than the North America by territory and more than 8 times by population.
"The West", the Western Europe against the whole Eurasia is like Vermont and Maryland against the whole USA.
Globalization is turning Eurasia in one giant market, 54 million square kilometers, 4,6 billion population.
A lot of work is still to be done: autobahns, tunnels, speed railways, etc. "The West" has a role in it, like Vermont has the role in the USA. But forget 18th century, your colonial glory.
You are on among others, not the "master of the world" anymore. It's over. Get over it.