Recent Posts

10576

General Software Discussion / Re: Phoronix benchmarking suite is now included in Ubuntu 9.04 repositories

« Last post by 40hz on February 18, 2009, 02:50 PM »

Aw man, this is going to open some floodgates...

-Edvard (February 18, 2009, 11:27 AM)

Count on it.

10577

General Software Discussion / Phoronix benchmarking suite is now included in Ubuntu 9.04 repositories

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2009, 03:26 PM »

Ubuntu Jaunty users (who are fans of benchmarking) can now rejoice. The Phoronix Test Suite is now available in the Ubuntu 9.04 distribution's Universe repository, for easy installation via apt-get or Synaptic.

Benchmarking On Ubuntu Just Became Easier
Posted by Michael Larabel on February 17, 2009

The Phoronix Test Suite was accepted into the Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) universe repository this morning. What this means is that it's now drop-dead simple to benchmark your system running Ubuntu 9.04 or later. The step of having to go to the Phoronix Test Suite web-site to download the source or Debian package is no more (well, unless you want to grab the latest snapshot). To start benchmarking on Ubuntu it is as easy as running:

    $ sudo apt-get install phoronix-test-suite
    $ phoronix-test-suite benchmark unigine



It's that easy to have the Phoronix Test Suite installed followed by running Unigine tests, which is a great way to check on your system's OpenGL performance. The Phoronix Test Suite will automatically download the needed test files, locally install the test files, and then carry out the testing in an automated and reproducible manner.

Additionally, there is about 90 other test profiles shipping with Phoronix Test Suite 1.6. Just run phoronix-test-suite list-tests or phoronix-test-suite list-suites to see some of what's available. You can even just use the Phoronix Test Suite for a consolidated view of your system's key hardware and software components.

Link: http://www.phoronix....s_item&px=NzA3Mg

 

10578

Living Room / Re: DC should be Twittering its new topic posts!

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2009, 03:10 PM »

I'm just hoping DC's presence on Twitter doesn't open the floodgates for the clueless and the spammers.

Fingers crossed.

10579

General Software Discussion / Re: Postbox - a new Mozilla-based email client

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2009, 12:56 PM »

Take a look at Spicebird. A very promising newcomer to the email scene.

I started a separate thread over here:

https://www.donation....msg151414#msg151414

10580

General Software Discussion / Spicebird - an open source e-mail collaboration application for Linux or Windows

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2009, 12:54 PM »

I've been looking for a good Outlook-like replacement that supports IMAP under Linux for a while now. And although TBird can gain a lot of capabilities courtesy of plug-ins, it's still a little heavy on its feet for my tastes. Evolution seemed like the ideal candidate, until I discovered you can't automatically save a copy of a transmitted message in your Sent folder like you can in every other e-mail client I've ever used.

A recent issue of LinuxFormat ran a write-up of a new e-mail/collaboration client that looked very promising. It's called Spicebird.

Spicebird provides e-mail, calendaring, contact management, instant messaging, task lists, and a host of other features (current or planned).

I'm running it under Ubuntu 8.04LTS, and so far, it does everything they claim it can do.

Windows binaries are also available for those of you who haven't been "given the bird" yet.

Spicebird Beta 0.7 Released!

Spicebird is a collaboration client that provides integrated access to email, contacts, calendaring and instant messaging in a single application. It provides easy access to various web services while retaining all the advantages of a desktop application. The application is based on projects like Thunderbird, Lightning and Telepathy and adds more functionality and integration among its components.

This release of Spicebird adds the following functionality:

    * Chat with friends on services like Yahoo, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ and Jabber
    * Add iGoogle Gadgets to Spicebird
    * Disable the applications that are unused
    * Access Google calendar
    * Experimental support for managing blogs
    * Available in more than 10 languages
    * Basic set of add-ons
    * Import data from Thunderbird, Outlook and Outlook Express

For a detailed description of this release, see the release notes.

Get Spicebird!

Now available in 27 languages with more planned. Why not give it a try?

Homepage: http://www.spicebird.com

Downloads: http://www.spicebird.com/download

10581

General Software Discussion / Re: Two in-depth articles for developers and open source enthusiasts

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2009, 12:00 PM »

You probably refer to the fact that unreadable code can be created with it, right?

-bgd77 (February 17, 2009, 08:30 AM)

You've read me corrrectly.

Of course if you really want to write unreadable code you could always use what I cut my coding teeth on - APL

APL was once promoted as yet another "last language you'll ever need to learn." It used a bizarre set of symbols for commands, some of which were typed by backspacing and overstriking a previously typed symbol. (What further proof do we need that aliens are living among us?)

http://en.wikipedia....programming_language)

APL made several breakthroughs as a programming language. One of them was that you no longer had to wait a week before you had trouble remembering how your program worked. With APL, you forgot about 20 minutes after you wrote it.

Many times, if you found an error in an APL program, it was easier to write the whole thing over rather than try to edit it.

Here's an example:



The above is one of the clearer examples in that it is broken out line by line, and is commented. Most APL programmers did neither.

10582

General Software Discussion / Re: Overcoming the Cloud’s limits

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2009, 08:10 AM »

it still can't beat the classics like plain text, RTF (a standard developed by that "M" company that you hate),

-app103 (February 17, 2009, 05:26 AM)

"There are no honest sailors aboard this ship."

Microsoft originally developed and promoted Rich Text Format as an alternative to WordPerfect's proprietary format. Back then, Microsoft was arguing for "open" cross-platform file formats as part of a strategy to unseat the nigh ubiquitous WP as reigning king of wordprocessing. Once MS Word attained a dominant position, MS pushed RTF to the background and started promulgating the virtues of the DOC format.

Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

10583

General Software Discussion / Re: Two in-depth articles for developers and open source enthusiasts

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2009, 07:56 AM »

Thanks, 40Hz! So I haven't learned Perl for nothing. 

-bgd77 (February 17, 2009, 01:31 AM)

Hope not. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with Perl. It's a rather elegant tool in the right hands.

Much like "tequila and handguns," it's the way it sometimes gets used that people take issue with.

10584

General Software Discussion / Re: How much trouble is a 64-bit OS right now?

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2009, 07:52 AM »

urlwolf:  http://tech.slashdot...2259257&from=rss

Draconian DRM Revealed In Windows 7
Posted by kdawson on Monday February 16, @09:18PM

from the just-who-did-you-think-owns-your-machine dept.

TechForensics writes "A few days' testing of Windows 7 has already disclosed some draconian DRM, some of it unrelated to media files.

10585

General Software Discussion / Re: The ultimate piece of retro-computing

« Last post by 40hz on February 16, 2009, 11:04 PM »

Hey 40hz, check out these babies.
Good to know my soft spot for old tech is not alone... 

-Edvard (February 16, 2009, 07:16 PM)

Thank you thank you thank you!

What an awesome link.

10586

Living Room / Re: Please tallk me off the ledge... Intervention needed!

« Last post by 40hz on February 16, 2009, 05:37 PM »

Yea, its a Compaq NC6000 Business Laptop... I'll eBay it and see what comes up. Might get lucky. The warranty ran out so if I have to take it down to the local repair shop its all out of (my dad's) pocket... trying to avoid that.

-wreckedcarzz (February 15, 2009, 09:41 PM)

Shouldn’t be necessary - I’ve had mine completely disassembled and put it back together myself with no ill effect. Try to find a downloadable (pdf) copy of the service manual (DON'T pay someone for it - Compaq/HP provide them free of charge, you just have  to FIND it - I suggest checking out the notebook review forums. Someone there can probably send you a pdf version.

-Darwin (February 15, 2009, 09:51 PM)

Manuals for the NC6000 can be found at this link:

http://h20000.www2.h...;prodSeriesId=367367


Direct link for Maintenance & Service Guide:

http://h20000.www2.h...5201%2Fc00725201.pdf


Luck

10587

Living Room / Re: Meme time! Five Things People Don't Know About Me

« Last post by 40hz on February 16, 2009, 05:33 PM »

dwbrant: +1 with Mouser. Your IR photos are stunning.

10588

General Software Discussion / Re: The ultimate piece of retro-computing

« Last post by 40hz on February 16, 2009, 12:00 PM »

The Graphoplex slide rule I used in physics classes in France in the 1960's (and which I still have, although I haven't used it in decades) had a magnification attachment that allowed you to interpolate an extra digit of precision, as well as scales for squares, cubes, natural logs, trigonometric functions and more.

-xtabber (February 16, 2009, 08:53 AM)

Same as the K&E I inherited from my father, which I also haven't used in decades.

I've also have a circular slide rule he gave me, which got a lot of use when I first went to college.

It was soon replaced by a Texas Instruments SR-10 "slide rule" calculator. It cost about $150 dollars at the time, which would translate out to about 600 of today's dollars. I loved it because it had a square root key and I was taking statistics when I got it.



Unfortunately, I pretty much forgot how to efficiently calculate square roots manually after that.

10589

General Software Discussion / Re: Angry shareholders say Microsoft squanders billions on pointless R&D projects

« Last post by 40hz on February 15, 2009, 11:48 PM »

My point is that shareholders have a responsibility to curb management when it becomes necessary as well as the right to question management when they see fit.

-cranioscopical (February 15, 2009, 03:01 PM)

That's an excellent point you're making. I am 100% with you on that.

10590

General Software Discussion / Re: The ultimate piece of retro-computing

« Last post by 40hz on February 15, 2009, 03:55 PM »

Actually, the old guy was largely self-educated (like many of his generation) and only had about five or so years of what we would call formal schooling. That said, 'Grandpa Roy' was one of the most educated and intelligent individuals I ever knew.

He was also a bit of a savant. He could do rapid mental arithmetic, speed read a book in under an hour, and had damn near total recall of everything he read. He was also ambidextrous. He could (and often did) write with either hand using an elegant longhand script.

He had no use for what he called "idiot gadgets." He felt things like slide rules just encouraged your brain to be lazy. He used to use logarithms when he was doing heavy math. And as was typical with him, he had apparently memorized a good chunk of the Base-10 tables to save himself the need to look them up.

None of his mental talents rubbed off on me.

Roy was well-liked and respected inside and outside the family circle. He made it to three days short of his 102nd birthday, and was healthy, mentally aware, and physically spry right up until his last day. He died peacefully in his sleep.

Roy never lived to see the advent of personal computing. I sometimes wonder what he would have thought of the Internet?

I'm guessing the crusty old Gent would have thought it another great idea that got spoiled by idiots.

10591

General Software Discussion / Re: "National" operating systems; what's up with that?

« Last post by 40hz on February 15, 2009, 03:32 PM »

Pardus has always been one of the more elegant distros,

-zridling (February 15, 2009, 03:11 PM)

+1 on that Zaine!


Pardus is an excellent piece of work. The now nearly defunct Linux.com website did a nice review on the 2008 release back in August 2008. It can be found here:

http://www.linux.com/feature/144002

I had it running on a test machine for a while. It was one of the better non-mainstream distros I've tried. And having DVD playback work right out of the box was a real plus. All in all, a rather pretty looking distro that worked exceptionally well.

10592

General Software Discussion / The ultimate piece of retro-computing

« Last post by 40hz on February 15, 2009, 02:53 PM »

Quiz:

1. Are you like my great-grandfather? He believed human technology reached it's peak with the introduction of the Model-T Ford and went steadily downhill ever since.

2. Do you miss the days of JFK when men were "real men"; women were "real women"; and the geeks with pocket protectors were "real geeks with pocket protectors"?

3. Do you remember how to use a slide rule? (Assuming you  know what one is.)

4. Do you always have a perverse desire to do things the hard way, even if better alternatives are readily available?

If you answered yes to any of the above, take a minute to check out this link:

http://www.stacken.k...h.se/~foo/sliderule/

This is easily the most pointless exercise in Python programming ever conceived.

And also a great deal of fun for all us retro fans.

SlideRule

Tired of having to perform tedious arithmetic without aid? Never having the pen and paper necessary for doing long division? Then SlideRule might be the product for you! Good slide rules are expensive and hard to come by these days, but with SlideRule you can always have a state-of-the-art mathematics aid on your desktop. And best of all: it is completely free! (BSD license)
Features

    * Smooth sliding action
    * Multiplication and division
    * Two-digit precision or less
    * Twin scales: A small scale for range and a large scale for precision
    * A sliding cursor for storing intermediate results
    * Stay-on-top technology
    * A friendly yellow color

A very cool piece of coding. Utterly pointless...but still very cool.

10593

General Software Discussion / Re: Organize your desktop icons with Stardock Fence

« Last post by 40hz on February 15, 2009, 02:25 PM »

I'm using it without too much of a hassle. I suspect it's updating itself in the background because it seems to have stopped sporadically crashing Explorer after a few days on my system.

It does have some anomalies, but for a beta it's not that  bad.

-----

this is software that should have been part of the Windows system (years ago, actually...).

-Shades (February 14, 2009, 06:11 PM)

Yeah. I agree with Shades 100% on that point.

 

10594

General Software Discussion / Re: Angry shareholders say Microsoft squanders billions on pointless R&D projects

« Last post by 40hz on February 15, 2009, 02:13 PM »

They see only one side: how much money did you make for me today?

-zridling (February 15, 2009, 04:09 AM)

As for the rest, damn right, we're shareholders not philanthropists!

-cranioscopical (February 15, 2009, 11:32 AM)

Sounds more like you're a speculator rather than investor with a comment like that.

It's very dangerous to make the old 19th-century capitalist argument that a business's activities must be divorced from any consideration of social responsibility beyond what furthers it's own profitability.

That path always leads to war.

(BTW: I'm a shareholder, but I have no problem with philanthropic endeavors on the part of the companies I invest in. I view it as a reflection on character and integrity of its management.)

10595

General Software Discussion / Re: "National" operating systems; what's up with that?

« Last post by 40hz on February 15, 2009, 02:01 PM »

There's good arguments to be made for standardizing on a distro that has complete support for your local language. But I think there's a bit more behind it than that in some of these places.

Linux is only as free as you're willing to let it be. And the best way to control it is by creating your very own distro.

One very obvious step would be to lock the distro into certain "approved" national software repositories, and also hard code it not to allow the addition of any others. Such repositories could contain modified versions of popular applications and utilities such as a web browser that checks for certain key search terms, or a torrent client that always reports what it is doing to a central monitoring database. This wouldn't be done to restrict freedoms, but rather to prevent media "piracy" - and the distribution of "kiddie porn."

It's an argument would play well even in the so-called Free World. It's an argument that already has played well in the UK and Australia.

And in those countries where the government rules with a free hand, it wouldn't even be subject to discussion.

Maybe we'll eventually start seeing FOSS give way to FORCE (Free and Open Regulated Community Edition) software.

Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force. - Darth Vader

Hmm..guess even George Lucas saw it coming. 

10596

Living Room / Re: Please help me build my new computer, DC!

« Last post by 40hz on February 15, 2009, 11:24 AM »

Now, they get to turn their engines off and use electrical power.  Sounds good, right?  But where is the electrical power being generated?  Some plant off in nevada or something.  Now, instead of LA getting polluted, nevada is getting polluted.

-superboyac (February 14, 2009, 02:26 PM)

Yeah, I see what you mean. That's the problem with living in a closed system. There isn't really an 'anywhere' to send anything to since all there is - is 'here.'

I remember a poster from way back when. It showed a goldfish sitting in a bowl that was etched to look like a  globe.

The caption read: When will we realize that nothing that gets burned, flushed, diluted, or buried in a landfill, ever truly goes away?

 

PS. Politics or not, I still think you Dad sounds like a great guy.

10597

Living Room / Re: Windows Secrets jumps shark

« Last post by 40hz on February 14, 2009, 03:34 PM »

Thanks Dar!

You can respond for me anytime you like.

(You write better than I do anyway)

@#$#. gotta shutdown...just lost power here

10598

Living Room / Re: Why do so many micropayment systems fail?

« Last post by 40hz on February 14, 2009, 03:27 PM »

netflix is another example of how appealing and how much people love the idea of being able to decide how much they want to spend for a subscription, and then not have to worry about how much they use, view, etc.

-mouser (February 14, 2009, 03:06 PM)

We subscribed to Netflix for exactly that reason.

10599

Living Room / Re: Windows Secrets jumps shark

« Last post by 40hz on February 14, 2009, 03:18 PM »

What do you mean with "short of", 40hz?

-bgd77 (February 14, 2009, 02:33 PM)

Short of = 'Besides'

Sorry. Trying to cleverly say that IMHO there aren't any newsletters currently out there that can compare to Gizmo Richard's old Tech Support Alert.

So if we do anything less than start our very own newsletter, we're stuck with what's out there.

Hmmm...maybe we should. There's enough talent at Donation Coder to do that.

---

BTW: Typos or not, Windows Secrets still leaves much to be desired for many other reasons.

10600

Living Room / Re: Why do so many micropayment systems fail?

« Last post by 40hz on February 14, 2009, 02:57 PM »

It might be useful to look at why subscription systems seem to work where micropayment systems don't.

First, a little theory...

Disneyworld/Epcot is a very popular vacation spot in the US. It is not cheap to go to, but it experiences some of the best bookings of any "family vacation" offering. One of the key factors that makes this happen is Disney's deliberate policy of "divorcing pleasure from pain" whenever possible.

Here's how it works:

Thanks to some clever marketing and discount incentives, most Disney vacations get booked (and paid for) months in advance. By the time the family shows up in Orlando FL (usually after school gets out) the pain of shelling out a few thousand dollars for the trip has receded into the background of Mom and Dad's psyche. And in the meantime, the anticipation of a 'dream vacation' has continued to build.

So the concept of 'expense' has been effectively removed from the family's experience of Disneyworld. All the family remembers is how much fun they had, thereby minimizing any second thoughts or "buyer's remorse."

Subscriptions (even though they may be more expensive) divorce the pain from the pleasure. Micropayments (no matter how small) keep shoving it in your face.

Add in Mouser's observation about the inconvenience of using micropayments, and it's small wonder (to me anyway) that they're not popular enough to be workable..


Just my
 

BTW: the subscription/divy-up system is how ASCAP and BMI handle music royalties for many web sites.