Vault

This article by the AP scares the holy crap out of me. Evidently the Department of Homeland Security (DoHS) feels the part of its job mandate is to enforce patent and trademark rules on US citizens. Can anyone say “night watch?” Can someone please tell the DoHS that the US economy can take care of itself just fine. If a company is worried about a trademark infringement, they can do the same thing the rest of us would do; go to the courts to have it resolved. Unfortunately the focus of the article is on the fact that the patent had expired (making the DoHS look stupid) but the real focus of the article should be; exactly what business does the DoHS have pursuing trademark enforcement?

SMTM is a perl/Tk stock ticker and chart display application for tracking stocks.  The stock information is downloaded via Yahoo Finance.

Found an amazing document published by Connectiva on their revision control infrastructure an how they manage it.  Open Source projects have very few developers for the number of applications and the size of code-base they use.  Reuse and efficiency is required if a project of any size is to be managed.  CVS and Subversion (SVN) are two of the tools use to manage these projects; and their scriptability, flexability, functionality, and manageability are paramount to making this work. 

Also, here is a list of KDE CVS keywords for bugzilla management.  They allow you to open bug reports, close bug reports, add features, mark GUI changes, and cc bug reports based on keywords in you CVS commit comments.  These entries also effect changelog entires for packages when they are released.

Couple quick tutorials that I have been looking at:

• Genetic Algorithms – A tutorial in Perl on how to create a simulated multi-celled organism using Genetic algorithms. 
• Installing Debian – A modified way of installing Debian Linux using a live CD based distribution like Knoppix and then manually bootstrapping Debian.  Good way to get Linux installed (and easily managed) on old hardware systems.

The software industry is in a state of rapid change.  The global connectivity provided by the Internet has put a damper on the ever archaic distribution and licensing methods of commercial software vendors.  This article by David Adams give a spectacular overview of the history of the software industry and the direction it is going.

A common rant of my concerns the mind numbing understanding the most tech writers (actually this applies to most periodical writers in general) have about the concept of system security.  This “everything I ever needed to know about computer security I learned from watching Hackers” is frustrating when so much good information is available about computer security.

The problem is only exacerbated by the fact that some organizations actively work to change the definition of security to their suite own benefit.  That is why I point out this article from the Register.  It is one of the best “general understanding” security papers on Linux I have read in a while.  The concepts it covers can generally be applied to all Unix-type OS’s, but the article talks about Linux (as well as Apache) in particular.  Read it and you will know more about software security for Linux than many in the computer business.

Physics Web reports the results of their questionnaire for greatest equations ever.  My picks would predictively have been Euler’s equation (e^iπ + 1 = 0) or Einstein’s (E = mc² ).  Also popular was the first equation almost everyone learns, 1 + 1 = 2.

Found a great article on the Cassini missions to Titan and how a single ESA engineer probably saved the entire mission.  With the impact that the Titan missions may have on our understanding of the universe we all owe Boris Smeds a debt of gratitude.

Most of you have probably already been emailed the “Bill of non-Rights” (BNR) before; but it makes for some good reading on Monday morning. The BNR is commonly attributed to Mitchell Kaye, a Georgia state representative. In reality the original author is one Lewis Napper a 2000 Libertarian Senate candidate. In my years with an email account I have seen several different versions (the one below is the original) including such issues and English as the national language and Christianity as a core American belief. Overall, its something more Americans probably need to read.

KDE Automated Test Report is a series of scripts that can be run against C++/QT/KDE applications to test for known problems before package release.  Not only are things like memory allocation bugs found but many tests find optimization bugs through the use of less-then-idea function calls for known object types.  The kind of bug testing and optimization scripts (along with uber powerful tools like KCachegrind and Kdexecutor) make for more secure, faster, more consistent, and more dependable applications.  The vast majority of application “shortcomings” can be found simply by using some or all of the above listed tools.

kconfigure is a KDE build tool for the autoconfig build environment.  It allows you to perform build configurations, compile, and install capabilities from inside of a GUI.  I have been working on it as a side project for the last 3 months or so and have finally completed work on Version 2.0 .  If you get a chance, come and check it out.  It’s my first “hard core” contribution to KDE; and it even got me a free iPod mini.  Who says that Open Source doesn’t pay.

Heather needed to post some pictures for school, so I present to you Kessler’s Farm

kdexecutor is a record and playback tool for Qt and KDE applications.  It allows for “pre-scripted” automation of GUI applications by remembering the events that are executed within your application.  Its a wonderfully useful tool for developing and testing Qt and KDE programs.  There is even a free version for GPL’ed KDE development; and it works on all platforms Qt works on.

It looks like Wal-Mart and the top 3 record labels are in a battle over the price of CD’s.  All I can say is GOOD!  Its about time that someone point out that CD’s (which are much cheaper to produce than cassette tapes, but cost more) are way overpriced for what you get.  I can buy a new DVD for less than the cost of the latest 50 cent album.  Think of it this way: DVD’s cost more to make, the content costs more to make, the amount of content is significantly more… so which “product” costs more on the store shelves?  CD’s.  It will be nice to see one monopoly take care of another monopoly.

Substitute President and Vice President with Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner; and you have my life. 

I have been looking for a fairly full featured, modern, OS that I could put on an old 386 router/gateway/firewall. The solution I am currently trying is Damn Small Linux. Its a Knoppix based Linux OS with apt support. The install disk can fit on a credit card sized CD ROM and can be run either from the CD or install locally to disk. Its only about 50 meg is size, so it cannot have a huge software library; but who give a shit as long as it has apt support. 

A Short History of the Future is book designed to give form to the utopia ideal of every liberal college professor I have ever had.  I bought the book on the dollar table at my college almost four years ago on a recommendation of one of my friends.  You would think I would know better. Some of the more interesting (ok, maybe not) concepts covered in the book are “Democratic Communism” (yes, the author was attempting to be serious) and “Absolute Relativism.”

The book covers in earnest a 210 year period starting in 1990 or so.  The version I read was actually the second edition.  The first addition was written, went to press, and was so ridiculously wrong in its predictions that they had to come out with a new addition (who’d a guessed the USSR would loose the cold war.)  Basic plot goes like this.  Take Marxist revolutionary theory, give it a 200 year time line, remove everything professors always ignore about communism (darn it, why is it that censorship, oppression, and removal of individual liberties always gets in the way of a good communist government.) That’s is the entire book.  It lacked originality, vision, and was overall just a bad book.

I am writing this review as nothing more than a warning.  It is not the worst collegiate literature I have ever read, but it can definitely claim its place with some of them.