Category Archives: Software

Semantic Web Searching

Posted on by
Reply

Powerset is another semantic web search engine – ie. it searches by meaning instead of by words and phrases. It’s a total new way to look at information retrieval and is useful in that it can (should be able to) answer questions and make relevant conclusions. This becomes more and more important as the size of the web increases. This one is in open beta and only has few sources and a small index, but it’s worth keeping in mind as it will grow.

Star Control II

Posted on by
Reply

This game – quite possibly one of the best sci-fi games of all time: with an awesome 2 player mode behind one computer and storyline

is NOT DEAD!

The Sourcecode was released some time ago and The Ur-Quan Masters have gotten to a re-released version 0.6.2 which has been ported to all OSses out there almost. They’re now working on releasing it for PSP! And it’s free! AND it’s moddable, so there are loads of user extra’s, such as newly balanced ships, sound tracks, etc.

The fansites are huge and active:

The Pages of Now and Forever are a fairly sane sample of the gaming population

The Frungy Championships are a manga crazy on on speed type cult following the game.

Surprisingly, both sites are updated almost daily!

Finally, Toys for Bob (the creators of SC 1 and 2) have a petition going on asking for support to build a new Star Control game! Go sign it!

Harmony

Posted on by
Reply

Harmony is framework for defining, updating, and synchronizing views over strings, trees, and relations. It can be used, for example, to synchronize the bookmark files of several different web browsers, to convert address books represented in vCard to CSV, and to map between BiBTeX and RIS-formatted bibliographic databases.

Harmony Project home page

Lifehacker Windows Applications

Posted on by
Reply

Lifehacker has some of its own productivity software on their page:

Windows Applications

Texter (text substitution)
Save countless keystrokes by automatically replacing abbreviations with commonly used phrases you define, like email signatures and common acronyms.

Swept Away (automatic window minimizer)
A simple system tray utility that automatically minimizes applications that you aren’t using.

ClickWhen (timed mouse clicks)
Set up an automated mouse click to run on a window after a user-defined period of time.

Rocker (navigation utility)
A mouse navigation tool that lets you perform common tasks, like moving forward and backward in your browser, by simply rocking your fingers across your left and right mouse buttons.

Dropcloth (desktop background)
Instantly blank out your desktop and all of your running apps with Dropcloth, a Windows copy of previously mentioned Mac-only app Backdrop.

Belvedere (rules-based file processor)
Automatically runs user-defined actions on folders and files (like deleting files X weeks old from your Downloads folder.)

Firefox Extensions

Better Gmail
Enhance Gmail with some of the best available Greasemonkey scripts which add over 30 additional features like keyboard shortcuts, saved searches, secure access, conversation previews, attachment icons and more. Translated into over 25 languages.

Better Gmail 2
Enhance Gmail’s new interface with a collection of the best Greasemonkey user scripts available, which add keyboard shortcuts, secure access, attachment icons and more.

Better GCal
Enhances Google Calendar with a collection of the best Greasemonkey user scripts available in a single interface.

Better GReader
Enhances Google Reader with a collection of the best Greasemonkey user scripts available in a single interface.

Better Flickr
Enhances Flickr with a collection of the best Greasemonkey user scripts available in a single interface.

Better YouTube
Enhances YouTube with a collection of the best Greasemonkey user scripts for YouTube available in a single interface.

About This Site Bookmarks (dynamic, page-based bookmarks)
Quick access meta lookups about the web page you’re viewing. (Featured in PC Magazine)

Command Line Tools

todotxt_sm.jpgTodo.sh (shell script to-do list manager)
Manage that todo.txt file sitting on your desktop with a simple shell script that makes adding, prioritizing, editing, and marking tasks as complete simple from the command line.

Shimmer

Posted on by
Reply

This is a method to hide your application ports

shimmer works by cryptographically changing a set of 16 ports (one of which forwards to the real service, and 15 others that lead to a trap to blacklist attackers). The 16 ports change every minute frustrating an attacker, but a legimitate user with access to a secret shared between the client and server can determine the real port, avoid blacklisting, and get a connection.