Open Source Pixels

This software adds Octave support to SWIG. Octave
code can use C/C++ functions, variables, constants
and enums, classes (member variables, methods,
single/multiple inheritance, etc), and templates.
Argument/result translation is completely
extensible via %typemap and other declarations in
interface files. Octave operators map to C++
operators, methods, or global functions. Octave
code can subclass C++ types and implement their
virtual methods (i.e., C++ code transparently
calls Octave code). There is some support for STL
containers. There are many automated tests and
examples.

After a slow start, add-ons for OpenOffice.org are finally starting to reach a critical mass. When I last wrote about add-ons for OpenOffice.org in September 2004, the examples were relatively limited, with extendedPDF the outstanding example. Today, extendedPDF remains a must-have — so much so that Debian versions of OpenOffice.org include it as part of the basic packages — but the choices have expanded dramatically. There is even a web page that is slowly beginning to rival the Firefox extension page.

I haven’t hooked up my OpenBSD 4.2 drive and booted it for about a week. The last time I left the box, I was playing around with Apache, and I thought all was well. Today I hook up the drive and boot OpenBSD. First of all, instead of a console login, I get an XDM login. That’s strange. I don’t remember XDM ever showing up before. Then Internet networking doesn’t work. I check all the networking settings. Everything is correct. I can ping IP addresses on the local network, but nothing is working outside of that. Pinging google.com yields nothing. Since I can get local machines, I know it’s not a bad cable.

An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) will allow your computer to continue to function for a period of time when mains power is lost. This can help you to smooth over short-term (1-5 minute) loss of power by running from the UPS battery. When the UPS battery is running low, the UPS can signal your computer to shut down cleanly. With a UPS you can avoid lengthly filesystem or RAID checks due to abrupt power loss. Here are some tips on UPSes in general and how to set one up to protect a Linux machine, even if the model you have lacks explicit Linux support.

Four months after being announced, the End Software Patents project (ESP) is launching a new Web site with arguments for economists, computer scientists, lawyers, and lay peoplemen about why they should support the project. Prominent on the site is the publication of a report on the state of patents in the United States during 2006-07, and a scholarship contest that will award $10,000 for "for the best paper on the effects of the patentability of software and business methods under US law."

Restlet is a REST framework for Java. It natively supports all REST concepts (Resource, Representation, Connector, Component, etc.) and is suitable for both client and server Web applications. It supports major Web standards like HTTP, SMTP, XML, JSON, WADL, and Atom. Many extensions are also available to integrate with Servlet, Spring, Jetty, Grizzly, Simple, JAXB, JiBX, Velocity, or FreeMarker.

Cleverbox provides an interactive command line
shell dedicated to the deployment and maintenance
of Trac and Subversion instances. It can handle
multiple configuration profiles, enabling the
deployment of differently flavored types of
projects (Trac configuration and permissions,
Apache configuration templates, etc). The
project’s main objective is to make your life as
simple as possible. Thus, it comes with easy
installation, easy upgrades, and a comprehensive
documentation.

Tofu provides an easy and very lightweight way to
manage your todo list(s). It stores each of your
todo lists in a directory where tasks are
individually detailed in plain text files. Then
you can assign these tasks a level of priority and
some markers to retrieve and manipulate (list,
view, edit, delete, etc.) them easily.

Ariadne is a multi-language Web Application Server and Content
Management System built with PHP. It has a rich user interface which
includes wizards, pulldown menus, and a WYSIWYG HTML editor. Data is
stored in a structured object store and can be accessed via
filesystem-like calls (ls, find, get). It supports MySQL, PostgreSQL,
and MSSQL.

MG4J is a highly customizable, high-performance, full-text Java search engine for large document collections providing state-of-the-art features (such as BM25 scoring) and new research algorithms.