Software
gregladen | September 10, 2016The history of what we call "OpenOffice" is complex and confusing. It started as a project of Sun corporation, to develop an office suit that was not Microsoft Office, to use internally. Later, a version became more generally available known as Star Office, but also, a version called "OpenOffice" soon became available as well. The current histories say that Star Office was commercial, but my memory is that it never cost money to regular users. I think the idea was that large corporations would pay, individuals not. This was all back around 2000, plus or minus a year or two.
In any event,…
aardvarchaeology | October 29, 2013Linux is a common operating system, not least in its Android version, and it is universally assumed that a PC (or whatever "IBM compatible" is called these days) will be able to run it. In fact, machines that can’t run Linux are extremely rare since aficionados keep porting the open-source operating system to even the most obscure and outdated machine families.
One of the PC makers who sell Linux compatible computers is Samsung. That is, almost all of their machines can run Linux, and when it was discovered last January that some recent laptops cannot, it was universally seen as a bug. Nobody…
aardvarchaeology | September 14, 2013This bug in OpenOffice / LibreOffice has been with me for years and years. You open a file, you delete it while open, you close LibreOffice -- and then LibreOffice will henceforth tell you eeeevery time you start the program that it tried and failed to recover that file. But I found a bug fix. Thank you "user177723"!
1. Open LibreOffice and create a new file with the same name as the lost one in the same directory. (Which directory this may have been, you have to remember/guess.)
2. Save it.
3. Close LibreOffice completely. (Yes, this is an essential step.)
4. Open the newly created file.…
stoat | May 15, 2012See here - all the Science Blogs type blogs are transitioning platform. This has been semi-secret or something, who knows, anyway clearly it isn't quite so secret anymore. I don't know any deadlines or suchlike, but it can't possibly make the comment system any worse.
Refs
* That value of English law thing again
gregladen | December 7, 2011The Linux Journal reader's choice awards have been announced. You'll recall that I suggested to you some time ago that you contribute your vote. Now, you can find out if you won!
The number one distro is Ubuntu, as I thought. Gnome won the best desktop, also as I thought, but now I am also thinking if this will be the last time that will happen for a while (assuming "Unity" and "Gnome" are not the same thing in a comparison like this). I had voted for "Enlightenment because it may be the best non-Gnome desktop that is not essentially Gnome with a screwdriver driven through it in a few…
stoat | September 6, 2011Just for once, a vaguely work-related post, but without any work.
What is wrong with this (its in C, of course):
switch (stoat)
{
bool goat = TRUE;
case weasel:
goat = FALSE
/* Fallthrough */
case ferret:
mustelid(goat);
break;
...
}
where you should assume that "mustelid" represents a block of code large enough to be worth not repeating. You should find this not very hard to solve, once I've presented it in this format.
For bonus points, what does the compiler say? What does your editor do?
[Update: OK, so the answer is that the…
stoat | June 18, 2010Via mt I find
too much of our scientific code base lacks solid numerical software engineering foundations. That potential weakness puts the correctness and performance of code at risk when major renovation of the code is required, such as the disruptive effect of multicore nodes, or very large degrees of parallelism on upcoming supercomputers [1]
The only code I knew even vaguely well was HadCM3. It wasn't amateurish, though it was written largely by "software amateurs". In the present state of the world, this is inevitable and bad (I'm sure I've said this before). However, the quote above is…
rallain | April 28, 2010You see in my experimental determination of the location of the accelerometer in an iPod, I used two different iPhone apps. Let me briefly mention some of the free iPhone apps that give you acceleration data.
AccelGraph: This is one of the apps I actually used. What do I like about it? Well, it can record x, y, and z acceleration data and then you can email it to yourself. What could make it better? How about a timed start to record (like start recording in t seconds) and a preset record time. This would allow you to set up your experiment and get your iPod set up before you start. As…
rallain | March 13, 2010Do you have an iPhone? I have an iPod Touch. Do you use vectors? Do you think RPN calculators are the bomb? Here is a RPN calculator for the iPhone that supports vector notation. VCalc by Silicon Prairie Ventures Inc. Oh - it is free. Here is a screen shot.
I played with it some, the only thing that would be cool would be a landscape mode.
grrlscientist | August 27, 2009tags: Grabs-U, Grabula, software, technology, optical illusion, offbeat, streaming video
Wow, here's two hot new Finnish software programs for your mac that you can use to allow the world to touch you (Grab-U) and that you can use to reach out and touch the world (Grabula) -- I can hardly wait to get these for my Powerbook!
Grabs-U software demo video (allows the world to touch you):
And here's the Grabula demo (you can touch the world);
Okay, you are saying, that's just not real. Well, you're right! Neither is real, both are an optical illusion. How did they do it? This video shows how (I…
sb admin | December 17, 2007 There are many brain fitness software products available these days so when I was offered a copy of Core Learning's program Mind Builder, I agreed to check it out. It offers a series of test questions similar to America's SAT, while Mind Builder Pro is a fuller package that also incorporates IQ, career and aptitude tests intended to be "fun mental exercises." Unlike some similarly-marketed software there were no unproven claims of preventing age-related cognitive decline or improving processing speed. There were vague promises like "get smart, stay smart" and "build brain power" - whatever…