DAEMON Tools is a virtual cd/dvd-rom emulator. It is able to emulate nearly all known copy protections on the market today. !! THIS VERSION SUPPORTS 32BIT OS (Windows XP, Windows2003, Windows 2000, VISTA) ONLY !! This version has an option to install client-side software applications (DAEMON Tools Searchbar and Save Now) that deliver a limited number of behaviorally targeted and contextually relevant coupons, ads and comparative shopping results directly to consumers desktops - without compromising the privacy, security or smooth functioning of peoples computers! No URL hijacking or redirects! In order to support FREE distribution of DAEMON Tools we highly encourage you at least to try out this optional software! (you can remove it anytime later when you wish: via Control Panel-> Add/Remove Programs)

Most of the blurb is at least dedicated to the included Adware. At least they're honest. And apparently it is a very comprehensive tool. For a closed source solution.

- THE DAEMONS HOME

You don’t really understand the importance of backups until your hard drive crashes. With most backups, you’ll need to reinstall the operating system and then restore all of your data. OS X comes with a handy tool that will let you create a live copy of your hard drive that can be started up and run just like it is your computer.

www.digital501.com » Keeping a Hot Backup of Your Mac Hard Drive

"Fit to Command", Garrison Keillor

The way to put military service back in the picture is to pass a constitutional amendment requiring that a candidate for president have at least two years of full-time military service. It would be a boon to the country, to the military and to the young. It would confirm the importance of service. The 42-year-old governor who discovers that he wants to be president would need to go down to the recruiting office and enlist. It'd be a big moment, like when Elvis went off to basic training. Think of Newt Gingrich climbing on a bus and going off to have his head shaved and his individuality taken away and rebuilt.

The Constitution requires the president to be at least 35 and a native-born American. The current president certainly casts doubt on the worth of that native-born requirement, but never mind -- amend the Constitution and let the boys and girls of Harvard and Stanford and Yale ponder their future. You will see the Army become more representative of the country, more middle-class and educated, and when it is, it will not likely be sent so casually off to war as the blue-collar Army has been.

Salon.com | Fit to command

"I believe what will really determine the success or failure of commercial firms purchasing open source vendors is the extent to which they can keep the key developers," says Barry Strasnick, CIO at CitiStreet, a benefits management company in Quincy, Mass. "One of the main reasons that CitiStreet likes to deal with vendors such as JBoss is that our senior technical staff can deal with their technical staff, instead of having to deal with useless layers in between," he says. "We don't buy software because of fancy brochures or well-dressed sales staff. We buy software to gain benefit from great programmers."

Will major vendors dilute open source?

SPOTSYLVANIA, Va. (AP) - The sheriff said Friday he will no longer allow detectives to receive sexual services while investigating suspected prostitution after they spent $1,200 at massage parlors last month and sparked a public outcry.

Spotsylvania County Sheriff Howard Smith defended the practice as necessary to obtain a conviction but told his department he was suspending it.

My Way News

These are all symptomatic of the growing “experience economy”, which has evolved out of a culture of mass affluence. With our basic needs satisfied — the disposable income of Britons is double what it was in 1980 — we are becoming increasingly choosy about how we spend our money.

Rather than upgrading our car or television, we’ll spend the cash in coffee shops, hotels, restaurants, sports clubs and theme parks. We’ll splash out on European city breaks or walking the Inca trail. Experiences, in other words.

Are you experienced? - Times 2 - Times Online

Sources close to the company have confirmed to The Enterprise Software Observer that recent outage problems at Salesforce.com are being caused by the on-demand company pushing its Oracle database to its limits. This raises a number of questions about the company’s future direction that investors are likely ask at tomorrow’s 5:00 pm eastern quarterly earning conference call.

No one gets fired for buying Oracle?

esofto: Database Problems behind Salesforce’s Woes

Want to learn how to use some of the best Python programming tools out there, including the supercharged IPython interpreter and the great free editor SPE? Or maybe you want to see how easy it is to create great-looking, powerful graphical user interfaces using wxPython. If so, follow the snake...

Welcome to ShowMeDo

I first heard of Benford's Law in connection with the IRS using it to detect tax fraud. If you're cheating on your taxes, you might fill in amounts of money somewhat at random, the distribution of which would not match that of actual financial data. So if the digit "1" shows up on Al Capone's tax return about 15% of the time (as opposed to the expected 30%), the IRS can reasonably assume they should take a closer look at Mr. Capone's return.
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That got me thinking...can I use the distribution of numbers in these post timestamps to detect my cheating?

Catching cheaters with Benford's Law (kottke.org)

I should really buckle down and try writing a PHP app because, at the moment, I have an attitude problem. I know that IBM now officially loves it, and Tim O’Reilly’s been charting the upcurve in PHP book sales, and everyone’s saying that Oracle’s going to buy Zend. If you want your ears bent back, have a listen to Zend CEO Doron Gerstel; he’ll tell you that half the websites in the world are powered by PHP and that there are 2� million developers and that the war is over and PHP won. So here’s my problem, based on my limited experience with PHP (deploying a couple of free apps to do this and that, and debugging a site for a non-technical friend here and there): all the PHP code I’ve seen in that experience has been messy, unmaintainable crap.

ongoing · On PHP