• Kindle: Web Browsing Experience Is Horrible
• No,.. just no. If this was 1995 and there was no dynamic content on pages this browser would have fit perfectly.
• Wow. The Kindle 2's browser really sucks. Granted, it's "experimental", but still. Awful.

• View all of your RSS/Atom feeds as a single HTML page with SimplePie
• Visit Google Mobile to access Kindle-friendly versions of Reader, Calendar, News, Docs, Blogger, and more.
• Browse FreeKindleBooks.org
• Surf the web with fewer distractions (goodbye annoying popups, advertisements, Flash, etc.)
• Roll your own or use free simple server-side apps for email, FTP, etc. (Just checked Mail2Web and Net2FTP on the Kindle 2 - both work great.)
• Check out the default bookmarks, like Wikipedia, BBC, CNET, Lonely Planet, etc.

• The e-ink screen is a joy to read, like a pillow for tired eyes. Yes, that sounds like really bad advertising copy, but it's true.
• The Kindle simply blows away the iPhone (and all backlit LCDs) for reading electronic text with minimal eyestrain (Photo of an iPod Touch and Kindle)
• Worst. Keyboard. Ever. It's hard to overstate just how mushy and unresponsive the keyboard is. In short, it makes the Treo 755P thumbboard feel like an IBM Model M. (Photo of the Treo and Kindle side-by-side)
• Touch screen desperately needed for better navigation, especially on the web. At the very least, allow scrolling to loop so that you can (for example) jump from the first link to the bottom by pressing up once.
• Replace "Home" button with "Prev Page". Virtually all right-handed people will understand this in a few seconds. Even better: make all of the buttons programmable.
• Text-to-speech still so poor that the recent fuss over Amazon caving to publishers is rather puzzling.
• Two free apps for converting PDF, HTML, DOC, etc to Kindle-friendly formats:
  • Mobipocket Creator (Windows)
  • calibre (Linux, OS X, Windows)

/misc | Apr 30, 2009

/mac | Apr 27, 2009

/windows | Apr 22, 2009

/windows | Apr 20, 2009

• John-Paul kindly informs us of his fledgling apps, all of which run under Windows 98 - Vista, require no installation, and do not write to the registry. Current offerings include: Favorites Menu, Process Killer, Random Memory Tester, and Quick File Catalog-UE.
• MESS is a free emulator which emulates a large variety of different systems, including the Apple ][, Atari 2600, BeBox Dual603-133, and Commodore 64 among many more.
• 8086 Microprocessor Emulator - "The interactive system to study assembly language, computer architecture and reverse engineering."
• SecurityTube - Like YouTube for computer security / programming videos. Creator Vivek Ramachandra has produced many excellent tutorials, including an entire series on assembly programming.
• DOS debug & assembly
  • A Guide to DEBUG
  • Writing .com files with DOS debug
  • Debug/Assembly tutorial
  • "Hello world!" in old school assembly
  • Computer debug routines
  • Learning Assembly

/misc | Apr 19, 2009

• Reversing ROL-1 Malware
• YACoSTO ("Yet Another Case of Security Through Obscurity")
• Playing With Authenticode and MD5 Collisions

/misc | Apr 19, 2009

• Dupseek - Open source deduper written in Perl. "It starts by grouping files by size. Then it starts reading small chunks of the files of the same size and comparing them. It creates smaller groups depending on these comparisons. It goes on with bigger and bigger chunks (of size up to a hard-coded limit). It stops reading from files as soon as they form a single-element group or they are read completely (which only happens when they have a very high probability of having duplicates). This algorithm is much more efficient than competitors when dealing with large files of the same size. When files differ, reading usually stops after very few reads."
  $ dupseek -b delete /directory will delete all duplicates recursively (while preserving one original).
• DataRescue's DD (DrDD) - Freeware "graphical disk imager intended for data recovery and backup of partially corrupted storage devices... The creation of the copy can be done by reading the device forward or backward... Copying backward may be interesting because, in some cases - typically hard drives - it disables the look ahead buffer and therefore reduces the risk of lock up on a full track." Windows and OS X versions available.
• Greenshot - Open source screenshot tool for Windows. Capture windows, regions, or full screen; apply text and shapes to screenshots; more. Installer-free download available; .NET required. (Thanks to Angela for sending this in)
• Easy Code - Visual assembly programming environment for building 32-bit Windows applications. Video
• Data analysis in WinHex - "Recognize the type of unknown data... by sole use of visual representations"
• Comparison table of hex editors
•  FindAll [21k] + Find files that contain (or don't contain) a given search string.  

/misc | Apr 17, 2009

/palm | Apr 12, 2009

/windows | Apr 12, 2009

Computer Science 50: Introduction to Computer Science I is a first course in computer science at Harvard College for concentrators and non-concentrators alike. More than just teach you how to program, this course teaches you how to think more methodically and how to solve problems more effectively. As such, its lessons are applicable well beyond the boundaries of computer science itself. That the course does teach you how to program, though, is perhaps its most empowering return. With this skill comes the ability to solve real-world problems in ways and at speeds beyond the abilities of most humans.

/misc | Apr 12, 2009

1. Open image in SnagIt
2. Colors > Color Substitution...
3. Use the dropper next to "Old color:" to select watermark color
4. Click box next to "New color:" to select replacement color (generally this would be the background color)
5. Goodbye watermark!

UPDATE: CyberDoc and Mike Mills kindly recommended the freeware PhotoFiltre (installer-free version available), which worked every bit as well as SnagIt. It's as simple as clicking Adjust > Replace color and using the droppers to select. Initially, most menu items were grayed out for the GIF I had opened, but Mike informed me of the solution: Image > Mode > RGB color. Thanks to you both!

/windows | Apr 12, 2009

/misc | Apr 04, 2009

After leaving the University, he joined his brother in teaching a private school, which he soon renounced. His father was a manufacturer of lead-pencils, and Henry applied himself for a time to this craft, believing he could make a better pencil than was then in use. After completing his experiments, he exhibited his work to chemists and artists in Boston, and having obtained their certificates to its excellence and to its equality with the best London manufacture, he returned home contented. His friends congratulated him that he had now opened his way to fortune. But he replied that he should never make another pencil. "Why should I? I would not do again what I have done once." He resumed his endless walks and miscellaneous studies, making every day some new acquaintance with Nature, though as yet never speaking of zoology or botany, since, though very studious of natural facts, he was incurious of technical and textual science.

/misc | Apr 04, 2009

Edge has been developed with speed and optimization in mind. The entire program of Edge consists of one executable and one driver. All of the cleanup, realtime protection, self protection, rootkit detection, malware detection, and high-color user interface are tightly integrated into these files, requiring only about 800kb on disk. In the system, Edge only requires one service and one driver to be registered - no other registry keys are required and no other libraries need to be installed, and all user accounts on the local computer are fully supported and protected automatically, even under UAC, with the GUI process of Edge switching between users as they log in.

Installation and un-installation of Edge require only seconds and can take place without rebooting the system and there is no need to uninstall any other security software when installing or using Edge.

/windows | Apr 03, 2009

$ nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24

Starting Nmap 4.68 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2009-04-03 07:05 HST
Host 192.168.1.1 appears to be up.
Host 192.168.1.3 appears to be up.
Host 192.168.1.6 appears to be up.
...
Nmap done: 256 IP addresses (10 hosts up) scanned in 1.373 seconds

The -sP option sends an ICMP echo request and a TCP ACK packet to port 80 by default. When executed by an unprivileged user, only a SYN packet is sent (using a connect call) to port 80 on the target. When a privileged user tries to scan targets on a local ethernet network, ARP requests are used unless --send-ip was specified.

$ sudo nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24
Password:

Starting Nmap 4.68 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2009-04-03 07:12 HST
Host 192.168.1.1 appears to be up.
MAC Address: 00:18:39:xx:xx:xx (Cisco-Linksys)
Host 192.168.1.3 appears to be up.
MAC Address: 00:0D:0B:xx:xx:xx (Buffalo)
Host 192.168.1.6 appears to be up.
MAC Address: 00:1F:F3:xx:xx:xx (Apple)
...
Nmap done: 256 IP addresses (10 hosts up) scanned in 4.809 seconds

/nix | Apr 03, 2009

/mac | Apr 01, 2009