Archive 3.1.2004 - 7.1.2004

ACEROLA Fruit Facts - What all can be found in my buttermilk ...

Aduna - Full-text search software with cluster maps

AsciiDoc Home Page - Possible alternative to DocUtils?

Bizarre Twin Reveals His Secret

So black holes can also overeat ...

At Spiegel Online: Wissenschaft you can find the original article.

Hearing and Seeing Only for the Wealthy?

Bad eyes? Bad teeth? Bad ears? Out of luck - the state doesn't like you. So that only wealthy, healthy, strong, blonde and blue-eyed citizens may be gainfully employed...

At Hexentanz you can find the original article.

HP-12C for Mac OS X - Another emulation of an HP calculator

Mambo at the Yard - Mamblog Homepage - Blogs for Mambo Open Source

Movitz: A Common Lisp OS development platform

A very interesting project: a minimal system with a cross-compiler and Common Lisp as the programming language. Not quite a Lisp machine, more like a platform for embedded Common Lisp - so a minimal runtime for the target system, while development takes place on the PC. The target code runs directly on standard PCs, for example via a boot disk.

Here's the original article.

OpenVPN - An Open Source VPN Solution by James Yonan - VPN solution for heterogeneous networks, also Mac OS X

Photo.net Reviews HP Photosmart 7960

Interesting for Jutta since she is considering whether this might be a usable photo printer - so far she has a Deskjet 840c, which is not really optimal for the purpose.

At PhotographyBLOG there is the original article.

What is Mac OS X? - Interesting report on Mac OS X from a hacker perspective

Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide - Guide for scripting in Bash

One Tenth of the Practice Fee for Bureaucracy

That the practice fee is outrageous nonsense hardly needs discussion. But why allegedly the administrative costs are so high, especially for dunning notices, someone needs to explain that to me. Every retail business deals with far more complicated payment methods and dunning procedures than doctors do. This is elementary software and the dunning system can also be well centralized. The actual effort is quite comparable to that of a typical newspaper kiosk, except that the kiosk operator doesn't have the advantage that he gets the address from his customers for later dunning and collection procedures right away...

It seems to me that the real problem here is that the rip-off artists in the doctor software industry and the chronic complainers in the medical associations are working hand in hand.

At tagesschau im Internet there's the original article.

Mambo Open Source

Mambo Open Source advertises itself with bold claims:

Mambo Open Source is the finest open source Web Content Management System available today.
The easiest to use CMS there is.

Does it live up to these self-imposed expectations? I installed it and tested it a bit. Here are my first impressions:

Installation via the web installer is very easy - however, you won't find any instructions on the homepage about how to do it. You have to switch to the documentation server for that.
Mambo supports various languages. The basic package only contains English though. If you want additional languages, you search the homepage in vain for hints or links. Only Google unearths the Mamboportal, where you can finally find what you're looking for.
There is plenty of documentation for Mambo. It's worth taking a look at beforehand. Unfortunately, there isn't a single link to the documentation from the homepage - it's on a different server.
The standard layout is surprisingly good for a standard template. However, it has some nasty display errors with Mozilla (text wrapping issues, graphics overlapping). Especially from an open source project, I would expect it to at least properly support the open source browser par excellence (Mozilla)!
Mambo has WYSIWYG HTML editing fields. Unfortunately, in a variant that only works with IE. I'd like someone to explain to me why a Mozilla-compatible variant isn't used instead (especially since they exist)!
Search engine-friendly links (i.e., those without query strings) are optionally supported, which is good. However, they're not used as standard, and modules often use normal links instead. These naturally won't be converted. Links are hardcoded, not generated programmatically, so such an implementation only works if the template creator remembers to add the function calls themselves. However, this feature is still very new, so it will probably spread.
Mambo strictly requires MySQL. I always find it a shame when software locks itself into a single database. For PHP there is PEAR for database access, so you don't have to restrict yourself like that.
Mambo is incompatible with PHP's Safe Mode! Completely incompatible: if Safe Mode is active, you can't install components. Error messages point to errors with mkdir.
Mambo basically needs write permissions on its entire tree. So either you have to set everything under owner www-data, or make it world-writable. Combined with the missing Safe Mode support, this means secure operation is only possible in a chroot jail!
Additional modules (I looked at, for example, yopsFM and Mamblog) are of very varying quality, especially regarding layout integration and consideration of search engine-friendly links.
The administration interface sometimes uses confusing terminology - what is a module, what is a component?
Mambo is a plug-and-play-possible package. After installation, you have a finished system with a finished layout to play with. This can be a decisive advantage!
There are lots of ready-made modules that you can pull in when building a new site.

Generally speaking: Mambo is an absolutely impressive tool, there's no question about that. Of all the PHP-based CMS I've looked at so far, it's definitely the most convincing (Typo3, for example, was much more confusing and harder to access - and I have CMS experience with Zope and various custom developments). So this isn't about dissing Mambo - anyone looking for a powerful CMS, already using PHP+MySQL as a base and comfortable with it, and willing to read the documentation, will definitely be well served by Mambo. What is absolutely bullshit, however, is the hype that the Mambo programmers are creating around their product. It's only as simple as they claim if you just edit content and don't do anything more advanced with it. Otherwise, you'll also spend time at Mambo digging through the documentation (at least it exists!) and if necessary looking at source code. However, to be fair, the same can be said of Plone: there's also a lot of hype there that unfortunately also misses reality. Put your code where your mouth is! When you look at Mambo's source code, that's where the crux of the matter lies: anyone who is a PHP guru will certainly be able to dig through the PHP sources. But modules with thousands of lines of source code aren't everyone's cup of tea - searching for bugs and features becomes quite laborious. I don't see a major advantage of Mambo over Zope or Plone here. Mambo is not small! You always have to keep that in mind - getting into Mambo is similar to getting into Zope. Mountains of source code, but well-structured extensibility. A clear gain compared to Zope is Mambo's plug-and-play approach. The first working page comes together much faster. In principle, you shouldn't really compare Mambo with Zope, but rather with Plone, since Mambo - like Plone - already offers completely finished content tools.

Another advantage is Mambo's rather modest server requirements: Linux+Apache+MySQL+PHP = LAMP. You can get that on any street corner. Zope hosting is harder to find (or you get a root server, then you won't have any problems with Zope or Plone).

Here is the original article.

MamboOS Documentation : Home Page - Documentation server for Mambo Open Source

Mamboportal.com - Mambo Open Source CMS Portal - Mambo Open Source Modules and Languages

MOS - Homepage of Mambo - Open Source CMS

mt-daapd - Home Page

Nice: an MP3 streaming server that is Rendezvous compatible and cooperates with iTunes. You can use it to build a central jukebox that can feed multiple computers. Ideal for training rooms and computer pools at universities

Here's the original article.

NASA: The ISS may have a leak

A hole is in the bucket, Karl Otto, Karl Otto, a hole is in the bucket, in the bucket a hole! At RP-Online: Wissenschaft I found the the original article.

Registrar Network Solutions unsettles Strato customers

Cool methods that Network Solutions is showing off again. They really never learn ...

At heise online news there's the original article.

RWE asks private customers to pay up

The goal of RWE boss Harry Roels, who has been in office since February 2003, is to build closer contact with customers. - but if angry customers visit him with clubs, is the contact close enough then?

I found the original article at tagesschau im Internet.

SCG / Stéphane Ducasse / Free Books - Free books about Smalltalk

Does coffee protect against diabetes?

Couldn't it have been something other than coffee, of all things? Ok, Jutta will be happy about it, and the Schockwellenreiter probably too, but I just don't like that brown stuff.

At RP-Online: Science I found the original article.

UADE - Unix Amiga Delitracker Emulator - an amiga music file player for unix - UAE-based player for old Amiga sound formats

Webgres - Web interface for PostgreSQL

WhatOS: Free Real-time Operating System (RTOS) Solution - Complete real-time operating system for control computers with all necessary tools

yops.de ::: what are you waiting for? - More downloads for Mambo Open Source (e.g. file manager)

Commerzbank terminates occupational pensions

Isn't that just great? The bank executives mess up and the employees are supposed to pay for it with their retirement benefits. That's how business bosses imagine life: take no responsibility, because you have employees you can squeeze when customers no longer cover the costs. :-(

Update: As I just heard in the news, of course the board of directors is exempt from this.

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.

CVS Module for Apache - An Apache module that serves files from a CVS repository and performs a checkout when needed

Data from the Socket - Garbage in the Radio

And here we learn how once again something useful (shortwave radio) is being sold off for something useless (Internet over power lines), simply because economic interests have changed.

At Telepolis News you can find the original article.

The Unbearable Lightness of Stone, Part 2

Here we learn how physics solves the fundamental questions of life and engages in active problem-solving.

At Telepolis News you can find the original article.

mailman-discard home - Batch processing of Mailman administrative requests

NeoOffice/J Home - Porting of Open Office to Mac OS X Native via Java

News: GPL Violation by KISS-Technology

Once again a company that believes licenses are only for them but not for others. I'd wager if someone were to copy their products and use them to create their own products, they'd scream bloody murder. But licenses for free software can simply be ignored, apparently that's what they think.

Here's the original article.

Seven See Offending SCO Code (LinuxWorld Feedback)

So so. SCO shows the allegedly stolen code to various people under their NDA. And what kind of people? Employees of analyst groups and reporters. Very competent people, especially at assessing code origin in an operating system kernel. So again just hot air from SCO.

Here's the original article.

The Best Page In The Universe.

This page is about me and why everything I like is great. If you disagree with anything you find on this page, you are wrong. - is there a better motto for a blog?

Here's the original article.

www.alscher.ch > podboard - A completely pointless stainless steel stand holder for the iPod

Canonware Onyx - Perl meets Forth and creates a bastard child

Cooperating Systems HelloWorld Overview - P2P platform with interesting approaches

[Gd-hackers] XCode and Dylan - XCode had Dylan support for syntax highlighting

Healthy thanks to chocolate

It just keeps getting better. Red wine against cancer and heart attacks, chocolate against depression, against cellular aging and against harmful blood fats. Life can be so beautiful when you live healthily ...

I found the original article at Spiegel Online: Wissenschaft.

House arrest for all children under 14 years old

The CSU has gone crazy again. To tackle juvenile delinquency, they don't want to investigate and address the root causes—no. The CSU won't make it that simple for itself. Instead, all children under 14 years old are to be generally criminalized and should only be allowed outside after 8:00 PM if accompanied by adults. And just to add insult to injury: if children become neglected in the CSU's opinion, their parents' financial assistance should be cut (so they slide into crime even faster?) and if necessary, custody should be taken away from them more quickly (because children in care homes never become criminals, right?). In return, schools are supposed to teach values like politeness, respect, morality, and consideration.

Well, the next step will surely be a Söder Youth, re-education camps, and a snappy greeting with a raised hand?

At RP-Online: Politik I found the original article.

OmniWeb 5 Preview

Yeah, everyone else has already written about it, but I think the features really sound useful, so it's worth linking to. Of course, I'd prefer it if Apple would build some of them (especially the Workspaces!) into Safari.

For Jutta, however, the Site Preferences feature is certainly interesting: website-dependent settings. If that includes JavaScript activation, I think it could really appeal to her.

Here's the original article.

Original Manual Yashica FX 103 Program - Manual for the Yashica FX 103 Program

Snakelets - simple Python web app server

Seems like quite an interesting alternative to heavier web servers - perhaps for small control systems with web interfaces, or for management servers or similar.

Here's the original article.

Adapters: Leica R or Nikon F to EOS - Adapters for the Canon EOS system to attach other lenses. Also Contax MM!

Germans Should Work Longer

Certainly the ideal remedy for unemployment...

At RP-Online: Politik I found the original article.