open source software I use, part 2

[update 26-jun-2016
Thanks to Audrina W., I have now corrected the link to Smarty

Note that a lot of what is shown here was relevant in 2010 or so but is now out of date.]


Continuing on from part 1 of this series, here are some more open-source apps I use:


- jQuery. I have found this javascript library to be indispensable! It is a simple, non-imposing, yet deceptively powerful library. I will not write why or how it is so good here; there are lots and lots of articles on the web doing just that. I'd strongly suggest you have a look at it, if you do any kind of javascript work. It is not the only library out there nor the most all-encompassing but, to me, it is one of the most useful and fun to work with!


Web development:
I will bundle all the tools I use in one and see how it goes! Most of them do not need any explanation (but feel free to tell me otherwise!)


PHP: Server-side scripting language.
Reasonably popular. I believe there are a couple of apps written in it.
(cough cough! A couple of million apps maybe! I read somewhere that there are approx 50 million web-sites running on PHP!!!)


btw, if you are a strongly-typed language developer (say, C, C++, C#, C+1, D-1 whatever, Pascal etc), do remember that this is a scripting language!
It allows you to write apps, large and small, very quickly, with nothing more needed than a text editor.
However, it also allows you to create apps that suck and are full of bugs.
Since it has no type-checking nor any compile-time smarts, you are always running the risk of bugs in your source.
A small mis-type of a variable name could bring down a large app, long after you've moved onto greener pastures.


That said, see my point above about 50 million web sites. (Not that more is better!)


Smarty: Template engine for PHP. Allows separation of presentation logic from PHP code
(makes using MVC just that much easier)


XDebug: Debugger for PHP. Works well with Eclipse. Must-have


EclipsePDT: The mother of all IDEs. Initially written by IBM, later offer to the OSS community. Thank you Big Blue!
(The PDT version is tailored to PHP development)




SAJAX: This library will help you write ajax-enabled apps; it provides all that is needed to make calls from javascript to PHP and back, passing arguments to and fro.
I have found it very useful, however I am now using the jQuery ajax support for most of this work. It is not the same but achieves the same result.
(NOTE: Jul 2010: jQuery provides all that is needed to do AJAX easily, so there is no need for this)


Mantis: Bug-tracker, written in PHP.


XAMPP: If you need a LAMPP stack (Linux Apache MySQL PHP Perl) or a WAMPP (Windoze....) then your best shot at a simple, no-hassles installation is via the XAMPP installer.
Download and run it and, presto, your machine has all the essentials for web development.
[update 2015]I now prefer WAMP. One of the great things about it is that it allows you to easily switch between different versions of PHP, Mysql and Apache, all via a menu entry.


PHPMyAdmin: MySQL database administration tool. Simply extract into a web dir onto your LAMPP server, point your browser at it and there you are! You now have a web-based, browser-driven MySql administrator!


JasperReports: OSS's answer to Crystal Reports.
This is just the reporting engine and runs off XML report-definition files. Do not panic, there is a GUI designer Eclipse plugin for it that makes report design a breeze (screenshot). There is also a stand-alone GUI for it, called iReport.


Note: Eclipse also has a reporting tool, called BIRT. I haven't used it a lot, however you should have a look at it too.




And now, for some non-development-related OSS tools:
- KeePass: Password vault. There is also a PocketPC version of it. It has a smart 'find out what form I am in and paste out the correct credentials' way of doing things.


I use it to store all my passwords. Before I leave work, I export the password to KeePass's native format, upload it to gmail, go home and download from gmail. I then get KeePass to import it and update existing keys and add new ones. I then export the merged results, upload to gmail, go to work, download from gmail and repeat all over again.


Webmin: A web-based, browser-driven Linux management tool. Allows you to manage almost everything on your Linux box from just a browser. You can start/stop jobs, administer users, administer server apps (such as Apache, MySql, ProFTPD, Samba etc etc).
It pretty much does everything. All you need to do is extract the webmin source (PHP) files onto your web server, point your browser to https://myserver:10000 and you are in control!


If you do end up using any of the above, let their authors know; they'd appreciate acknowledgement.
more later...


ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

Boot from USB drive using multiple ISO images

Detailed information on how to create a multi-boot USB drive can be found in this article. Excellent work guys!

In brief, you format a USB stick using FAT32, make sure the PC can boot from a USB device and that the boot order will pick the USB device before the main hard disk.

The article lists all the tools needed for the job and it also lists a large number of downloadable ISO files that can be used with it, which I have copied below. Please visit the site for the full article.

• NEW BackTrack 4 Final Site | Download (Extract contents of ISO to root of USB). We used 7Zip
• NEW Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 Site | Download (rename the ISO to rescue.iso and copy it to rescue directory on your USB)
• NEW Mandriva Free 2010 Spring Site | Download (extract contents of ISO to the mandriva directory). We used 7Zip
  Mandriva is no longer around. Visit OpenMandriva instead or visit this for more info
• NEW Windows Vista/7 Install (Copy CD/DVD contents to root of USB)
• Redo Backup and Recovery Site | Download
• Peppermint Linux OS Site | Download
• DBAN 2.2.6 (Hard Drive Nuker) Site | Download
  
• RIP Linux Site | Download (rename the ISO RIPLinuX.iso)
• TinyCore  Site | Download
• GParted Site | Download (extract zip to the gparted folder)
• EEEBuntu 3.0.1 Site | Download
• Added Shutdown/Restart/Boot from first Hard Disk (HDD)
• Memtest86+ Site | Download (Get ISO from Zip)
• Clonezilla Site | Download (extract zip to the clonezilla folder)
• Linux Mint 9 (Gnome i386)  Site | Download
• Linux Mint 8 Site | Download
• Ubuntu 10.04 Site | Download
• Xubuntu 10.04 Site | Download
• Kubuntu 10.04 Site | Download
• Ubuntu Server Edition 10.04  Site | Download
• Lubuntu 10.04 Site | Download
• Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Remix Site | Download
• Ubuntu 9.10 Site | Download
• Xubuntu 9.10 Site | Download
• Kubuntu 9.10 Site | Download
• Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix Site | Download
• Ubuntu Server Edition Site | Download
• Parted Magic 4.11 Site | Download (get ISO from Zip)
• Partition Wizard 5 Site | Download
• Damn Small Linux Site | Download
• Ultimate Boot CD Site | Download
• SliTaz Linux 2.0  Site | Download
• SliTaz Linux 3.0  Site | Download
• Ophcrack XP Site | Download
• Ophcrack Vista Site | Download
• Offline NT Password + Reg Editor Site | Download (get ISO from Zip)
• Ylmf OS 3.0 Site | Download
• xPUD (Simple Netbook Distro) Site | Download
• FreeDOS Site | Download (put balder10.img on USB)
• BKO boot.kernel.org Site | Download (put gpxe.lkrn on USB)
• AVG Rescue CD Site | Download (rename the ISO avg.iso)
• Puppy Linux 4.3.1 Site | Download (Download initrd.gz, vmlinuz, and pup-431.sfs and put them in the puppy folder on your USB)
• OpenSUSE 11.2 DVD Site | Download (extract contents of ISO to the openSUSE directory). We used 7Zip
• Bitdefender Rescue CD – Site | Download (extract the contents of the ISO to the root of your USB). We used 7Zip!

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

New version of Subversion binaries

WANDisco, one of the Subversion project's earliest contributors, hosts the latest client and server binaries.

For a great Subversion client, visit the TortoiseSVN site

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

Related articles by Zemanta

• WANdisco to Play Key Role in TortoiseSVN Open Source Project (eon.businesswire.com)
• GitHub announces subversion support (github.com)

Lots of free PDF tools

This article has a great list of free PDF tools, that include editors, converters and many other PDF goodies.

There is also PDFCreator, which installs itself as a printer driver, so that any application can have its output sent to a PDF.

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

Make a multi-boot CD/DVD

For a few days now, I've been trying to find out how to make a boot DVD that contains a number of ISO images.
I wanted to put a number of anti-virus rescue CDs onto one DVD and have some kind of boot menu on it, so that when it boots it gives me a list of ISO images I can boot from.

You'd think it was easy, wouldn't you!

There is a lot on the web about MagicISO; it supposedly does just that.

I have no doubt that it does, I just haven't been able to find any info on how to do it.
I have seen a few references that talk about how to put a bunch of different versions of Windoze on a DVD.

That'd be about as usefull as getting a bunch of diseases, all in one cup.

Convenient, I am sure, but most undesirable.

However, I did find something that goes quite some way there!

It is called Sardu, which stands for Shardana Antivirus Rescue Disk Utility.

It allows you to build an ISO that is made up of a number of other ISOs.

It also allows you to make a bootable USB out of it.

It doesn't quite do everything I want, i.e. use any number of any type of ISO images.

Instead, it caters for the following specific ISO images:

(note that the filename in parenthesis is the exact name of the ISO image corresponding to that menu item)

1. Antivirus
1. Avira (rescue_system-common*.iso)
   
2. Bit defender (BitDefenderRescueCD*.iso)
   
3. Dr. Web (minDrWebLiveCD*.iso)
   
4. F-Secure (f-secure-rescue-cd*.iso)
   
5. GData (Gdata_*.iso)
   
6. Kaspersky (kav_rescue_2008.iso)
   
7. Panda Security (*safecd*.iso)
   
8. VirusBlokAda (vbarescue-beta.iso)
   
2. Utilties
   
1. Floppy Win98SE (Windows98_SE.img)
   
2. CloneZilla (clonezilla-live-*.iso)
   
3. GParted (gparted-live-*.iso)
   
4. NT Pwd (cd080*.iso)
   
5. Parted Magic (pmagic-*.iso)
   
6. System Rescue CD (systemrescuecd-x86*.iso)
   
7. Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD*.iso)
   
3. Linux
1. Austrumi (austrumi*.iso)
   
2. Damn Small Linux (dsl-*.iso)
   
3. NimbleX (NimbleX-2008.iso)
   
4. Puppy Linux (pup*.iso)
   
5. Slax (slax-*.iso)
   
4. Windows PE
1. Live XP (LiveXP.iso)
   
2. MegaLabCD (MegaLabCD.iso)
   
3. Windows PE (pebuilder.iso)
   
4. UBCD4Win (U_B_C_D_4_WIN.iso)
   
5. VistaPE  (VistaPE*.iso)
   

Here is how it works.

1. Download SARDU
2. Extract it into a dir. For this example, the dir is E:\dooda
3. You will end up with the following directory tree
1. e:\dooda                       (contains sardu.exe among others)
2. e:\dooda\ISO                 (this is where you need to copy your ISO images)
3. e:\dooda\ISO created      (this is where it will store the ISO it makes)
   

You can either download the ISOs you need by visiting the sites shown in the table above or start SARDU and click on the name of the ISO you want to download.

If you download the ISO, make sure you put it into the ISO directory, as shown above (cyan-coloured entry).

Also make sure the ISO name is exactly as specified above.

Once everything is in place, start SARDU. It will detect all the ISOs that are in the ISO dir (but will ignore any that are not in the list of supported ISOs).

It will place a check-mark next to the name of the corresponding app in the GUI. You can un-check it, if you wish.

Go through all the tabs in the SARDU GUI and select/deselect the ISOs you want in your final image.

When you've done that, simply click on the MAKE ISO button, wait a minute and, voila, you are now the proud owner of a multi-boot ISO, with all the goodies you selected!

I have not had a chance to test the bootable USB option yet. I'll be buying a 2GB USB stick tomorrow and will try it then.

I believe the author is Davide Costa.

Bravo ragazzo e mille grazie!

This utility is great!

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

HashCalc - calculate MD5, CRC32 and other hashes

HashCalc is a neat tool that, given a file or text string, can calculate quite a number of different digital signatures for it.

Among others, it does: CRC32, MD4, MD5, SHA1, SHA256 etc.

It is a free tool and the author is: Slavasoft

Well done guys!

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

FileMenu utility - handy Windows Explorer extension

This handy utility will add a number of useful functions to the Windows Explorer window, as shown in the image below.

Some of the functions I like are:

• Command line from here
• Copy to ...
• Move to ...
• Copy Path (very handy!)
• Change time
• Run with arguments
• and many more
  

Please visit the home site for more info.

30 useful open source apps

Jacob Gube has a great article on 30 useful open source apps, with links to web editors, graphics editors and other misc utilities.

Head over to his blog and look at http://sixrevisions.com/tools/30-useful-open-source-apps-for-web-designers/

Well done Jacob, I found some goodies in there myself!

Open source alternative to Visio

DIA is an open-source alternative to Visio. According to their web site,

• Dia is roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program 'Visio', though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!

Freeware utilities, programmer tools etc... lots!

I've just had a look at the NirSoft web site and found an amazing number of free and very useful utilities, programmer tools and all sorts of other goodies!
Here is a very small sample of what is there:

• Network Monitoring Tools
• SmartSniff: TCP/IP Sniffer - Capture TCP/IP packets on your network adapter and view the captured data as sequence of conversations between clients and servers.
• CurrPorts: TCP/IP Connections Viewer - Freeware tool that displays the list of all currently opened TCP and UDP ports on your local computer.
• AdapterWatch - displays useful information about your network adapters: IP addresses, Hardware address, WINS servers, DNS servers, MTU value, Number of bytes received or sent, The current transfer speed, and more...

• Internet Related Utilities
  
  • IPNetInfo - Find all available information about an IP address: The owner of the IP address, the country/state name, IP addresses range, contact information (address, phone, fax, and email), and more.
  • IECookiesView: Cookies Viewer/Manager for IE - View/Delete/Modify the cookies that Internet Explorer stores on your computer. Read More >>
  • IEHistoryView - View/Delete the URLs that you visited in the last few days.
  • HTMLAsText (HTML To Text Converter) - Freeware utility that converts HTML files to text files.
  • WhoisThisDomain - Get information about a registered domain.
  • SiteShoter - Take a screenshot of a Web site.
  • WebVideoCap - Capture Flash video (.flv) and RTSP/MMS streams from Video Web sites.

There is a lot more there, go and have a look!

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome! 

open source software I use, part 1

- Of all the open source software (OSS) I use, Firefox is at the top of the list.
It is more than just a browser; have a look in one of my earlier posts for a list of all the FF add-ins I use. Simply fantastic!

- Another OSS I use is Subversion.
No more SourceShaft, oops, SourceSafe for me.
SVN is a great tool and it has taken over from CVS, which is just a little too old nowadays.

In CVS's defence, it has been a great tool that helped a large number of developers manage their source code.
Since it too was OSS, it was available to anyone who wanted to manage his source, so I tip my hat to it!
Anyway, SVN it is for me now.

- If you are using SVN, you also need a GUI and what better than TortoiseSVN

- For telnet'ing, I use PuTTY.
It is simple, it works, it is OSS.

- For FTP server and client, I use FileZilla

- PHP/Smarty/XDebug/EclipsePDT/LAMPP
For web app development, the above acronyms say it all. I am leaving this here as a reminder. I will be writing more about them in a later post.

- Rockbox. Alternative firmware for a large nunber of MP3 players, including most iPods! Very configurable, very neat! I have been using it for over 2 years or so and have enjoyed every minute of it!

- If you carry a notebook with confidential data or want to safeguard data on your computer, TrueCrypt is a must-have!
It allows you to create an encrypted volume, which when mounted, appears as a norma hard disk. Everything you write in it is encrypted. In order to mount it (and thus be able to read/write from it) you need to supply a passphrase (i.e. something lengthy, not just a few characters).
What this means is that if your computer is stolen or lost, whoever gets it will not be able to get access to your critical data.

In addition to the encrypted volumes described above, it also supports encrypting entire disk-partitions!
Just get it and you will never have to worry about the bad guys getting your bank PIN numbers etc.
[Update 2016]. Alas, TrueCrypt is no more. 
Veracrypt has taken its place and, not only does it do all Truecrypt ever did (it is based on the same source) but it also has a partition resizer, as well as greatly enhanced security.

You can find more info on TrueCrypt alternatives here.

- Abiword for reading/writing Word documents
It is a great app and there is a portable version of it too! Copy it into a USB stick and, presto, a wordprocessor at your fingertips, anytime, anywhere!

Have a play with the above and let me know what you think of it.

Here is part 2

ps: Comments and/or links to this article are most welcome!