programmer humor

You've reached the website for Arch Linux, a lightweight and flexible Linux® distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.

Vimium is a Google Chrome extension which provides keyboard shortcuts for navigation and control in the spirit of the Vim editor. Watch this video to get a feel for how it works:

Pretty cool...
A commercial-grade wireless pentesting drop box.

Windows/Mac/Linux: Wildly popular open-source media player VLC has updated to version 2.0 and brought a mountain of new and upgraded features with it–including enhanced codec support, hardware decoding, and experimental Blu-ray support.

The new release is a substantial overhaul of the VLC platform that includes a rewritten video output core, half a dozen new video filter algorithms to clean up video and provide a smoother viewing experience, audio resamplers, faster audio processing, multi-thread processor support for popular video formats like H.264, enhanced hardware support for CrystalHD cards and other hardware decoders, and even experimental support of Blu-ray playback.

The security of your account is determined by the strength of your passphrase. Please use a passphrase that is much longer than an ordinary password. For advice on generating a strong passphrase, see http://www.diceware.com.

The last 20 years of Internet policy have been dominated by the copyright war, but the war turns out only to have been a skirmish. The coming century will be dominated by war against the general purpose computer, and the stakes are the freedom, fortune and privacy of the entire human race.

Furthermore — and this is what makes C-Path so accurate — by looking at a large number of human-diagnosed samples, the system learns. For example, one of the features that human doctors look for is the speed at which tumor cells divide by mitosis — through learning, C-Path might’ve discovered that mitosis isn’t actually the most accurate indicator

Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Scripts, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Symbol Blocks of the Unicode Standard, Fonts based on Early Editions of Greek Texts, Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform, Musical Symbols, Maya Hieroglyphs, et al.

Terra Nova is an interdisciplinary weblog about the intersection of society, simulation, and play. We have been posting since September of 2003. Authors include scholars and practitioners from a variety of disciplines. In its early years, Terra Nova focused on the phenomena of "virtual worlds," including MMORPGs, MUDs, and other forms of ludic and non-ludic avatar-based social software. Currently, we post about whatever topics we find interesting.

The ThinkPad X201 is the newest 12-inch ultra-portable business notebook from Lenovo. As a refresh to the X200-series, the X201 showcases Intel's latest Calpella platform. One of the most interesting new processor options included in the X201 is the new 32nm Core i7-640LM dual-core CPU clocked in at 2.13GHz. In this review we take a look at the entire X201-lineup including the X201, X201s, and X201 Tablet and see how well they stack up against previous models.

The compact, business-oriented Lenovo ThinkPad X200 just got a serious hardware upgrade. Lenovo did away with Intel’s Centrino platform and built the X201 around Intel’s heavy-duty Core i5 processor. This new PC is a performance powerhouse with excellent battery life and a sturdy, compact form factor that reflects the X200. The new X201 is pricier than the recent wave of budget ultraportables, but it offers speed and power superior to any 12.1-inch laptop we’ve seen in the past year.

...So in the end, I switched to VirtualBox, an open source software from Oracle. It was wicked fast and easy to configure (make sure to enable IO APIC for Windows machines). Shared Folders even seemed to work better because when I created a sym link to my host OS development folder, Visual Studio didn't seem to have the issues it did on VMWare.

Decided to return/exchange the Apple Airport Extreme router for this one: Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router WNDR3700

Decided to return/exchange the Apple Airport Extreme router for this one: Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router WNDR3700

anonymizer

Excellent list of articles, many Scientific America.
...The following is a list of great readings in computer science, with a focus on algorithms and theory topics:

Keyboard shortcuts for Windows

WinPcap is the industry-standard tool for link-layer network access in Windows environments: it allows applications to capture and transmit network packets bypassing the protocol stack, and has additional useful features, including kernel-level packet filtering, a network statistics engine and support for remote packet capture.

VimTextEditor users might want to remap caps lock to escape, to give them a more natural way to jump between modes. At any rate, there are few times when having caps lock on the home row is useful. Definitely a ZombieTechnology?.

Those looking to move up to more serious video tricks should get our midrange Editor's Choice, Adobe Premiere Elements 8. But for entry-level video editing, Windows Live Movie Maker is my Editors' Choice.

Obvious, but useful list of rues...the secrets of successful consultants I’ve come in contact with over the years. These can make or break your career as an independent contractor. Ignore them at your own peril.

The Engadget Podcast. You know it, you love it... you subscribe to it. Now you're able to get all that podcasty goodness in one place, unfettered by the restraints of multiple clicks, confusing scroll bars, or space-hogging "applications." Below you'll find the aural masterworks of Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, and Nilay Patel (plus guests), as well as our archive of past podcasts.

About Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Brief Description - Connect with up to 15 people in different locations and get your point across by showing them what's on your screen. Share, review, and update documents with multiple people in real time. A Windows Live ID (Passport, Hotmail, or MSN) is required to start sessions, but not to join sessions. New in version 1.0: we have added a web based join experience to make SharedView even easier.

Trying this out as a troubleshooting tool for cts.

Looks promising...The DemocraKey X (Version 4.0) is now available for immediate download. The DemocraKey now includes a launcher which runs upon key insertion. It brings up a window allowing you to build Truecrypt Volumes, Mount Encrypted Drives, Surf anonymous, Send Encryted Email, Run a Virus Scan, and more.

Nice...Enigmail is a security extension to Mozilla Thunderbird and Seamonkey. It enables you to write and receive email messages signed and/or encrypted with the OpenPGP standard.

Sending and receiving encrypted and digitally signed email is simple using Enigmail.

Rather than dive into a full history of Usenet, let's talk about how it's relevant to you. Usenet was originally designed as a bulletin-board service, and so there's a ton of text content available on Usenet, but once binary newsgroups made their way into Usenet, it quickly became a popular place to find any sort of files that interest you. A site called Newzbin started indexing the binaries available on Usenet and creating the NZB file format. An NZB file is basically the Usenet equivalent of BitTorrent's torrent file, in that when you download an NZB, you're simply downloading a file that points to files available on Usenet. Applications supporting the NZB format can use them to make downloading Usenet binaries a piece of cake. In this guide, we're going walk through how to set up Usenet access, configure a newsreader, and then find NZB files so you can get the content you want.

NEW RECORD by computer, with 145 moves by Haruhiko Akiyama Feb 4th 2010, one more move than the previous record done by computer.... Even if it is an excellent result, the old record of 170 moves done without computer by C.-H. Bruneau in 1976 remains far from beaten

UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions from Windows or Linux, without requiring you to burn a CD. You can either let it download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply your own Linux .iso file if you've already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn't on the list.

Upgrading ScrewTurn Wiki from version 2.0 to version 3.0 is easy.

The Application Directory lists free open source software and freeware portable apps. As always, the PortableApps.com Platform, menu, backup utility, launchers, installer, format and other utilities are open source.

According to TrueCrypt FAQ if you use your USB drive safely as you would for any other data storage, things will work fine.

My Passport Essential Ultra-portable Hard Drive User Manual
Note: Should you decide not to install the WD SmartWare software, you must have an SES
driver installed on computers running Windows to keep the hardware popup wizard from
displaying every time you connect your My Passport drive to your computer.

The VCD is necessary if you wish to install WD SmartWare or if you want to use the encryption and password protection features on the drive.

If you don't wish to run WD SmartWare or use the security features, you can disable the VCD following the steps below. The VCD can be re-enabled by running the VCD manager.

Abstract. Object-oriented languages dominate procedural languages in certain software-engineering categories, but not in others. Further progress may involve adapting and reintroducing principles that are already well understood and widely exploited in procedural languages

The Ten Commandments for C Programmers
(Annotated Edition)

Apparently people decided to call this “God Mode” because to enable this “trick” you make a folder called GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} and double-click on it. Now you can see… the control panel. With a slightly different view than you normally see it in.

Inside - Out Discussions about Microsoft's Software Development Technology

...Designed in part by inventor Ray Kurzweil, the Blio is a free piece of software that you can download for your Windows machine, and that opens up and displays eBooks in full-color with options such as 3D page turning, text only mode for smaller displays, read aloud (text-to-speech), and note annotation. The Blio reader also supports audio, video and interactive media when embedded eBooks.

...One of our great readers sent in this set of 7 pieces of free software that you can, and in most cases should, use to protect your PC laptop. Most of these also apply to your desktop as well.

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

We've put together a list of what we think are the most essential PC apps for every Maximum PC reader. These are all free programs (except one) that should be immediately installed after a fresh build or reformat; 32 indispensable programs and utilities that we couldn't imagine computing without. From the best IM client to FTP browser and Notepad replacement, these essentials truly enhance the Windows experience (much more so than Microsoft's own Windows LIVE Essentials). We're not saying you'd use all 32 entries in our list on a daily basis, but if you are at all serious about utilizing your PC, we promise our picks will not go unused.

A developer key is a file containing cryptographic information tied to a specific XO laptop.

Installation onto the XO's build-in NAND flash memory

Microchip’s PICkit 3 In-Circuit Debugger/Programmer uses in-circuit debugging logic incorporated into each chip with Flash memory to provide a low-cost hardware debugger and programmer. In-circuit debugging offers these benefits:

Excellent windows tips...I'm sure everyone knows that the Windows key brings up the Start Menu, but there are also a bunch of standard Windows key shortcuts built into Windows:

Here's a complete list of Windows XP/2000 environment variables the system can populate for you (eg, %date%)...

It's been 10 years since the SETI @ Home online project sparked a revolution in the search for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. Over the past decade, more than 5 million people around the world have signed up to look for aliens, and now astronomers are enlisting the Internet masses for a new task: deciding what we should tell them.

VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

...ccrypt is a utility for encrypting and decrypting files and streams. It was designed as a replacement for the standard unix crypt utility, which is notorious for using a very weak encryption algorithm. ccrypt is based on the Rijndael cipher, which is the U.S. government's chosen candidate for the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES, see http://www.nist.gov/aes). This cipher is believed to provide very strong security.

Yes, yes, yes!...It's frustrating when people who are presumably smart (or who are at least pretending to be) have a problem and are satisfied to receive the magic phrase they need to type with no interest at all in understanding why the magic phrase works.

UBCD4Win is a bootable recovery CD that contains software used for repairing, restoring, or diagnosing almost any computer problem. Our goal is to be the most complete and easy to use free computer diagnostic tool. Almost all software included in UBCD4Win are freeware utilities for Windows®.

Lots of tech podcasts.

...I know this is a bit of old news for some, but I was showing a friend the New York Times Reader this weekend and realized I had never mentioned that they have gone back to having a free version

Hanselman's Super Karate Death Car List of .NET and Software Podcasts

Looks like a good series on a boring topic...On my way to the American continent I was pondering over the issue of process, of views, of strategies and of challenges in the software engineering world. Having been involved with bits and bytes since the early 80’s I have been involved in many different project environments, ranging from terrifying and at times exciting chaos, to clear-cut and at times restrictive order … the software development lifecycle has become second nature, yet it is important to take a step back, invent a new blog post category SDLC, and dedicate a bit of time

Genetic algorithms in computing.

...Unless you are telepathic, it is difficult to find out what's happening on the other side of the earth without technology aiding you. Instead of telepathy, you and your audience can now broadcast and tune into the live feeds over the Internet. Kulvir Bhogal shows you how to set up a live web camera feed with some free software.

..If you have a spare computer, a wireless network, and a web cam you can build your own BabyCam!

The THUM USB Temperature/Humidity can monitor the temperature and humidity

John Lam just got one of these (1/9/2009)...The 12.1-inch screen Lenovo ThinkPad X200s ultraportable notebook is a lighter and slightly less powerful version of the ThinkPad X200. The three major advantages the X200s offers over the X200 is a lighter weight, higher resolution LED backlit screen and better battery life. The better battery life comes as a result of using a lower voltage processor in the X200s, so that does leave you with a less powerful processor. If you're a user that values battery life and lower weight over performance then the X200s could fit your needs better than the X200 -- so long as you can justify the extra $500 price tag for those needs.

Let me teach you how to work efficiently with command line history in bash.

...This article explains what to do if you have problems using Skype with your QuickCam Pro 9000.

This article explains what to do if you have audio or microphone problems with your QuickCam Pro 9000.

...This article contains links to all relevant support FAQs for the QuickCam Pro 9000.

Purchased in 12/2008, (xmas)...Monitor the temperature and humidity in your server room, equipment closet, or work area using a simple and reliable device. The THUM USB Temperature/Humidity Sensor connects to your PC through an available USB port, delivering accurate real-time temperature and humidity data without any required interaction. The included software stores all readings to an Access database and can be set up to email you if your designated alarm point is reached, so if your server room becomes too hot or if the humidity exceeds a safe point in your equipment rack, you'll be notified immediately. You can also access this information by logging in remotely from any Internet-connected computer.

...Extends home networks by using existing electrical wires

I found this via this scary one (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/30/ms_forensics_usb/)...BackTrack is a Live Linux distribution based on SLAX that is focused purely on penetration testing. Distributed by remote-exploit.org, BackTrack is the successor

...so we decided to make Copilot absolutely free on weekends. Yep, that's right... free as in zero dollars, free, no cost, no credit card, no email address, nothing.

MailStore Home keeps all your valuable e-mail messages in one persistent and safe place. Lightning-fast search, one-click backup, powerful export - all information from your e-mail is at your fingertips anytime. Never lose important e-mail again!

-inurl:(kelkoo|bizrate|pixmania|dealtime|pricerunner|dooyoo|pricegrabber|pricewatch|resellerratings|ebay|shopbot|comparestoreprices|ciao|unbeatable|shopping|epinions|nextag|buy|bestwebbuys)

You've taken the leap into Windows Vista, but once in awhile, your heart yearns for the classic features and functionality of XP. Maybe you've got software that doesn't yet work in Vista, or maybe you just want to see how a web site looks in Internet Expl

provide a brief how-to here, so the rest of you can see just how simple it really can be. I’m sure some of you wonder why it would be a cool thing to do this. My reasons were many, but I’m going to just list a few of the cool things that I’ve found

GDS Dump utility makes XML dump of Google Desktop Search by favorite keywords or keyphrases. This software makes data receiving. XML format is more useful for work.

Excellent reads available here...Links to articles describing how the major players have architected their websites.

Good ol' IBM keyboards.