Softpanorama (slightly skeptical) Open Source Software Educational Society

May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-) Softpanorama Search

Selected Russian Software
 Developers Resources

As far as I can recall conditions of writing software in Russia, Ukraine and the whole xUSSR region always were bad. Exceptionally bad under communists. Poverty, very bad hardware, stupid and arrogant managers (such IS managers can probably be found only in the largest US corporations :-), again horrible poverty, bad telecommunication infrastructure or very bad telecommunication infrastructure or no telecommunication infrastructure at all ;-(. See also Tribute to Dmitry Gurtyak.

But something, probably it's a cultural thing (BTW intelligentsia is a Russian word) this area of the planet nevertheless provides a lot of gifted programmers :-).  In 90th due to economic turmoil the brain-drain  from this region was substantial. But nevertheless there are still a lot of  talented programmers (as well as talented mathematicians) in this region. And what is really amazing, despite huge economical problems and poverty Russian/Ukrainian mathematical and programming education is still on a decent level.  But that 's becoming more and more difficult as no due attention is paid to the secondary social functions of science. Scientists are needed not only to do research but also to teach -- in particular, to maintain the system of higher education -- and to preserve an intellectual atmosphere in society at large...

By Russian developers I will mean programmers that can speak Russian language -- it's a cultural, not ethnic definition (there is a special gender of computer humor that I can call "Russians are coming" see, for example, this story). Recently USA and other developed countries (Israel, Australia, Canada, Germany, UK, to name a few) were the major beneficiaries of the brain-drain from the xUSSR region (Israel alone benefited on the scale 6 billions a year -- as Israeli officials admit themselves, USA probably benefited at least twice as much). BBS quoted a Russian trade union official who said that "more than half a million scientists and computer programmers have left the country since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991"  Anyway a lot of first-class programmers left xUSSR region for economic and political reasons and settled in other countries. One can be surprised by how much code in mainstream software products were written by programmers of Russian descent. Let's do not assume that the brain drain was a totally negative phenomenon. due to suppression of business is Soviet times, science was a magnet for intelligent people. Some redistribution of society's intellectual resources away from science and technology is therefore a necessary part of the post-Soviet transition.

Below is a very small personal selection of products by Russian programmers that can a little bit widen horizons of the people who can attribute to Russian programmers Tetris and STL library only.  It's very eclectic, based on my personal preferences and in no way complete. I collected this just from purely educational standpoint -- in no way I claim any regional or cultural superiority of Russian speaking programmers (preferences and programming style can be a little bit different -- see for example The Orthodox File Manager(OFM) Paradigm; also some languages were much more used in xUSSR region than elsewhere -- for example PL/1 dominated on mainframes and managed almost completely eliminate Cobol; Pascal, especially, Turbo Pascal and Delphi also seems to be used more widely than in the USA).

Generally I just want to pay a small tribute to people who in immensely difficult conditions managed to became first class programmers and despite all odds finish products that other can benefit from. Many nice programs were written for Microsoft platform (see for example Far and Rar). First of all Microsoft software is very popular in this region. Contrary to primitive understanding of this complex issue, software piracy is actually a positive marketing tool. People will make an illegal copy of a friend's favorite program and often (especially if the program is used for business purposes) like it enough to eventually buy it for the price three-five times exceeding the price of the same program in the USA (Just look on the Web how much Microsoft charges for the for the localized version of the Office). Or maybe the person doesn't buy it, because its too expensive, but they will never buy a competitor's product either. This is largely how Microsoft Office became the standard in former USSR countries. Before Star Office it just did not have any really dangerous competitors.

The selection below contains both open source and shareware products. Most of shareware products described below are not crippled. The "share" in shareware should imply a sense of altruism that is much lacking in the products that provide only subset of features to unregistered users. I consider such software  a demoware,  not shareware.

Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

P.S. To save bandwidth for people (as opposite to robots) the page was split in several sections: Old News   and  Selected Russian software.  See links in the header of the page for details.

Old News ;-)

[Nov 18, 2009] nginx by Igor Sysoev

nginx [engine x] is a HTTP server and mail proxy server written by me (Igor Sysoev).

nginx has been running for more than five years on many heavily loaded Russian sites including Rambler (RamblerMedia.com).
In March 2007 about 20% of all Russian virtual hosts were served or proxied by nginx.
According to Google Online Security Blog in June 2007 ago nginx served or proxied about 4% of all Internet virtual hosts.
2 of Alexa US Top100 sites use nginx in March 2008.
According to Netcraft in December 2008 nginx served or proxied 3.5 millions virtual hosts. And now it is on 3rd place (not counting in-house Google server) and ahead of lighttpd.
According to Netcraft in March 2009 nginx served or proxied 3.06% busiest sites.
According to Netcraft in May 2009 nginx served or proxied 3.25% busiest sites.
Here are some of success stories: FastMail.FM, Wordpress.com.

Security patches:

• A patch to fix VU#180065 vulnerability in 0.1.0-0.8.14.
  The patch is not required for versions 0.8.15+, 0.7.62+, 0.6.39+, 0.5.38+.
• A patch to fix a null pointer dereference vulnerability in 0.1.0-0.8.13.
  The patch is not required for versions 0.8.14+, 0.7.62+, 0.6.39+, 0.5.38+.
• An updated patch to fix a renegotiation vulnerability in SSL protocol in 0.1.0-0.8.22.
  The patch is not required for versions 0.8.23+ and 0.7.64+.

 

Development versions are nginx-0.8.27, nginx/Windows-0.8.27, the change log.
The latest stable versions are nginx-0.7.64, nginx/Windows-0.7.64, the change log.
The latest legacy stable version is nginx-0.6.39, the change log.
The latest legacy version is nginx-0.5.38, the change log.
The sources are licensed under 2-clause BSD-like license.

English Resources:

• Wiki: wiki.nginx.org.
• Mailing list: subscribe, MARC archive, Gmane archive;
• Forums: forum.nginx.org (with mailing list integration), Ruby Forum (with mailing list integration);

The Russian documentation.

Basic HTTP features:

• Handling of static files, index files, and autoindexing; open file descriptor cache;
• Accelerated reverse proxying with caching; simple load balancing and fault tolerance;
• Accelerated support with caching of remote FastCGI servers; simple load balancing and fault tolerance;
• Modular architecture. Filters include gzipping, byte ranges, chunked responses, XSLT, SSI, and image resizing filter. Multiple SSI inclusions within a single page can be processed in parallel if they are handled by FastCGI or proxied servers.
• SSL and TLS SNI support.

 

Mail proxy server features:

• User redirection to IMAP/POP3 backend using an external HTTP authentication server;
• User authentication using an external HTTP authentication server and connection redirection to internal SMTP backend;
• Authentication methods:
  • POP3: USER/PASS, APOP, AUTH LOGIN/PLAIN/CRAM-MD5;
  • IMAP: LOGIN, AUTH LOGIN/PLAIN/CRAM-MD5;
  • SMTP: AUTH LOGIN/PLAIN/CRAM-MD5;
• SSL support;
• STARTTLS and STLS support.

 

Tested OS and platforms:

• FreeBSD 3 — 7 / i386; FreeBSD 5 — 7 / amd64;
• Linux 2.2 — 2.6 / i386; Linux 2.6 / amd64;
• Solaris 9 / i386, sun4u; Solaris 10 / i386, amd64, sun4v;
• MacOS X / ppc, i386;
• Windows XP, Windows Server 2003.

Architecture and scalability:

• one master process and several workers processes. The workers run as unprivileged user;
• kqueue (FreeBSD 4.1+), epoll (Linux 2.6+), rt signals (Linux 2.2.19+), /dev/poll (Solaris 7 11/99+), event ports (Solaris 10), select, and poll support;
• various kqueue features support including EV_CLEAR, EV_DISABLE (to disable event temporalily), NOTE_LOWAT, EV_EOF, number of available data, error codes;
• sendfile (FreeBSD 3.1+, Linux 2.2+, Mac OS X 10.5), sendfile64 (Linux 2.4.21+), and sendfilev (Solaris 8 7/01+) support;
• file AIO (FreeBSD 4.3+, Linux 2.6.22+);
• accept-filter (FreeBSD 4.1+) and TCP_DEFER_ACCEPT (Linux 2.4+) support;
• 10,000 inactive HTTP keep-alive connections take about 2.5M memory;
• data copy operations are kept to a minimum.

Other HTTP features:

• name- and IP-based virtual servers;
• keep-alive and pipelined connections support;
• flexible configuration;
• reconfiguration and online upgrade without interruption of the client processing;
• access log formats, bufferred log writing, and quick log rotation;
• 4xx-5xx error codes redirection;
• rewrite module;
• access control based on client IP address and HTTP Basic authentication;
• PUT, DELETE, MKCOL, COPY and MOVE methods;
• FLV streaming;
• speed limitation;
• limitation of simultaneous connections or requests from one address.

Experimental features:

• embedded perl.

[June 6, 2009] Tetris From Russia With Fun! - TIME

Sputnik burned up in the atmosphere, Berlin is now one city, but 25 years later, the Soviet-designed Tetris remains one of the most popular and ubiquitous video games ever created. It has sold over 125 million copies, been released for nearly every video-game platform of the past two decades and even been played on the side of a skyscraper.

[Jan 24, 2009] 25 years ago today, this man saved my life. And yours

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal

On 26th September, 1983, at the nadir of the Cold War, this man — Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov — made a judgment call that saved my life. (I was then living five miles from the Vickers Tank Factory in Leeds and about ten miles from the M1/M62 intersection — both major strategic targets.) If you're over 25 years old and live in the UK, he saved your life, too.

If you're over 25 years old and lived in the USA, there's about a 70% probability that he saved you. And so on. Iterate for everyone in every NATO and Warsaw Pact country, all 750 million of us.

He lost his job for it, and suffered a nervous breakdown. He doesn't consider himself to be a hero. Nevertheless, he bent the regulations and risked punishment to prevent a disaster from overwhelming us all.

I'm going to raise a glass to him tonight. How about you?

[Dec 13, 2008] Anna Matveeva The western media must not spoil the vital relationship between Russia and the west

guardian.co.uk

A Russophobia virus has infected the air. What is it? It is when an English literature teacher in a good school, explaining how to answer an exam question on comedy, tells your daughter: "Don't worry, simply write – I am Russian, I do not have a sense of humour." Or the ease with which jokes like "You are Russian, you must know all about corruption," are made. A BBC documentary presenter asks his Russian interpreter in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad: "Do you feel Russian or European?" What does he expect the woman to say?

When a fashionable detective writer wants to write a thriller with a foreign twist, guess who will be the nemesis? An al-Qaida plot in Hackney runs the risk of being politically incorrect. But Russian dissidents and oligarchs chased by Scottish police fit the bill perfectly. The British media, mindful of inter-race relations, seeks to avoid hurting the feelings of Muslims, but the idea that Russians can feel hurt does not occur to them. For Russians in the west, if one is not an oligarch, pop star or secret assassin, and does not think that "Putin's regime" is second-worst to that of Ivan the Terrible, treading these waters is problematic.

This is not to say that Russians in Britain are discriminated against in the workplace, or that my neighbours suspect me of dumping polonium when I throw rubbish away. Rather, it is possible to say things without thinking of what it might be like on the receiving end. Stereotypes promoted by the media are now entrenched: Russian companies are corrupt and are puppets of the state, minorities are not allowed to speak their languages and males are chauvinist machos. The economy survives on pumping gas, while the leadership dreams of conquering half of the world. News from Russia is bad news. It is hard to blame journalists for reporting what is newsworthy: saying that Russians go to supermarkets and buy the same food as their western counterparts is boring, while writing that Moscow hosts the first ever all-male strip joint is "sexy".

The Russia-Georgia debacle brought these attitudes to the fore. The reaction of the media and the politicians was overwhelmingly anti-Russian, because their gut feeling told them who was in the wrong. More objective reports appeared much later. Why was the conflict in South Ossetia so important? Because Russia was a party to it. Readers were led to believe that minuscule South Ossetia is a proto-state like Kosovo, while no parallels were drawn with Nato action in ex-Yugoslavia in support of Albanians.

The question is: can Russia do anything good? In Russophobes' eyes, it should (1) surrender and apologise, (2) give western companies control over natural reserves because Russians mismanage them anyhow, (3) limit their ambitions to culture and (4) award Boris Berezovsky a medal for democracy-promotion.

What feeds Russophobia? Moscow's own actions are only part of the story. In the last few years several constituencies came together to create a new momentum. The cold warriors found a mission again. The existence of a familiar enemy who plays by the rules is more comfortable than the "enemy amongst us" who may work in a corner chip shop. Western liberals who passionately believed in Russia's democratic transformation to their own recipe became disillusioned, turning the energy of embittered idealism into exposing the evils of "Putin's KGB regime". They were joined by immigrants who made their way in the new country by "unveiling the truth" about Russia.

What are the effects of Russophobia? Economically, as BP and Shell found out, it is harder to do business. Politically, it is impossible to conduct a frank dialogue on issues of common concern, as trust has gone out of the relationship. In the security field, it has resulted in militarisation on both sides, undermining the achievements of disarmament. Finally, polarising language flourishes. Unlike in the 1990s, the Russian elite reads English-language media, getting from it the idea that "the west is against us".

Why should we care? Attitudes matter as Russia is at a crossroads. It can go either towards increased modernisation or militarisation. It can build pragmatic, but solid relations with the west, or it can indulge in spoiling the international game and setting up anti-western alliances. It is the responsibility of the western intelligentsia to see that stereotypes create enemies and not to miss their chance to prevent a new division of Europe.

Anna Matveeva is a visiting fellow with the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics.

[Mar 18, 2008] Sir Arthur C. Clarke passed away today. He was 90 years old and his writings inspired millions of Russians.
 

[Mar 11, 2008] Let the Russians sort out Russia By Rodric Braithwaite

FT.com

Now that we have endured all the speculation about how Dmitry Medvedev, the new Russian president, will turn out (we will know soon enough, won’t we?), we should look more closely at a much contested question: are the Russians even capable of democracy?

Many people – both here and there – argue that the Russians have no democratic tradition, that they prefer the iron hand of the autocrat, that the place is too big, too heterogeneous and too disorderly to be ruled any other way. Vladimir Putin is more subtle: he believes that the Russians are not yet ready for democracy, that they need to be brought to it by a managed process, lest everything collapse in chaos. He reminds one of the British, who argued that Indian independence must be postponed until the natives were capable of governing themselves.

Given the chance, the Russians – like the Afghans, the Iraqis, the Pakistanis and others – turn out in large numbers to express their views through the ballot box. That is not enough, of course, to establish a working democracy in any country. But the result may well be a genuine expression of the popular view. Most ordinary Russians, thoroughly inoculated against the western model by the chaos, humiliation, poverty and corruption of the Yeltsin years and angered by endless hectoring and ill-conceived advice from the west, are willing to pay a price in democracy for the stability and growing prosperity that have accompanied the Putin years. So in the recent parliamentary and presidential elections they twice voted heavily for a continuation of the “Putin system”. In the circumstances, that was a rational choice.

The Russian government manipulated the electoral process – out­rageously – to get the right result: a curious sign of Putin’s weakness, not his strength, since no one doubted that most people would vote the way the government wanted, for their own good reasons. Nevertheless both elections had a certain legitimacy despite the obvious flaws. The voters were offered a choice on March 2 and many of them took it. One in five voted for Gennady Zyuganov, the veteran Communist – nearly twice as many as predicted. One in 10 voted for Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the rightwing political showman. We may not like these results – it is always disconcerting when people fail to vote the way you think they should. But it is very different from what happened in Kazakhstan in 2006, when President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who had been in power for 17 years, was re-elected for another seven by 95 per cent of the voters.

Democracy is about throwing the rascals out and most Russians are reconciled to their current rascals. It was different in March 1989, when Mikhail Gorbachev organised the first contested elections in any Warsaw Pact country, under an electoral system of mind-boggling complexity designed to preserve the Communist party’s monopoly of power. But the voters recognised the rascals all right. They voted tactically and with great sophistication to throw out the bosses of Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev, a quarter of the regional party secretaries, a heap of generals and a large number of unpleasant people throughout Russia.

This remarkable democratic experiment then went wrong for a number of reasons: the sense of national humiliation that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ensuing poverty, the inability of the liberal intelligentsia (the self-styled “conscience of the nation”) to agree on any effective course of action, the determination of the hard men in the army and the party to get their own back.

That does not mean the Russians are “genetically” incapable of democracy. Their history and their culture are not propitious: Russia has indeed for most of its history been a closed and imperial autocracy. But here, too, the Indian example is instructive. A country with a far larger population, an even more heterogeneous culture and an un­broken history of autocratic and imperial rule has run a remarkably successful democracy for the past 60 years.

Although Russians today do not enjoy our kind of democracy, they do enjoy an unprecedented, if precarious, degree of personal prosperity, of access to information, of freedom to travel and even – within limits – to express their views. To argue that they cannot go on to construct their own version of democracy is a kind of racism. It may take decades, even generations; the construction of democracy always does. But if the Indians can do it, so can the Russians.

George Kennan, that great Russia-watcher, got it right when he wrote in 1951, at the height of the cold war: “When Soviet power has run its course . . . let us not hover nervously over the people who come after, applying litmus papers daily to their political complexions to find out whether they answer to our concept of ‘democrats’. Give them time; let them be Russians; let them work out their internal problems in their own manner. The ways by which people advance towards dignity and enlightenment in government are things that constitute the deepest and most intimate processes of national life. There is nothing less understand­able to foreigners, nothing in which foreign influence can do less good.”

It is the wisest advice – blissfully ignored by our policymakers who, like latter-day Christian missionaries, believe that we have a duty to spread the gospel of democracy, if necessary by military force (for which they are unwilling to pay). Not only Russians find that proposition distinctly suspect.

Sir Rodric was British Ambassador in Moscow during the fall of the Soviet Union. His latest book is Moscow 1941: A City and its People at War (Profile Books, 2006)

[Feb 15, 2008] nginx 0.5.35 (Stable)  by nuut

About: nginx is an HTTP server and mail proxy server. It has been running for more than two years on many heavily loaded Russian sites, including Rambler (RamblerMedia.com). In March 2007, about 20% of all Russian virtual hosts were served or proxied by nginx.

Changes: The STARTTLS in SMTP mode is now working. In HTTPS mode, some requests fail with a "bad write retry" error. The "If-Range" request header line is now supported. uname(2) is now used on Linux systems instead of procfs.

[Feb 12, 2008] Richard Stallman scared of Russia

webplanet.ru

The visit of the Free Software Foundation leader Richard Stallman to Russia in March 2008 could be canceled because of the problems with too-late visa application. A part of the trouble appeared to be Stallman's rejection to get help from Victor Alksnis, the State Duma member and the only Russian politician who helps Free Software and Open Source movements in Russia. Alksnis promoted Stallman's upcoming visit thru his blog posts, and said he could help with "administrative issues" as well.

However, the moderator of linux.org.ru Sergey Udaltsov (who lives in Ireland not Russia) wrote a letter to Stallman saying Alksnis is a bad guy for Free Software, because of "his fight against the independence of the Baltic countries" in late 80s. Udaltsov also says Alksnis wants to use GNU/Linux for his own political goals including the creation of Russian "National OS" (independent from Microsoft). After this letter, Richard Stallman said he didn't want Alksnis to organize his visit to Russia. Perhaps, Stallman won't come at all. We at Webplanet.ru think the rout of this problem in not politics but the "language barrier" we already described. Western folks don't know much about Russian IT situation 'cos they don't read Russian.

The only information channel for them is "former Russians" who live abroad and speak English - like Irelander Sergey Udaltsov who controls linux.org.ru. But these "foreign Russians" usually get pretty paranoid about their "former motherland" calling it a dictatorship daily (perhaps as an excuse for their departure). So we hope Russian linuxoids find some sane local leaders. No need to marry free software and politicians, it's true. Yet we don't see why Free Software activity in Russia should be killed by some old-fashioned Cold War rhetoric from Ireland.

[Jan 17, 2007] Outsourcing The Russian Revelation by Stan Gibson

June 12, 2006 (eWeek) When Daniel Marovitz sought an offshore partner, he scanned the globe. "We talked about Canada, Ireland and low-cost locations in the United Kingdom. But it really came down to India and Russia," said Marovitz, chief technology officer for global banking at Deutsche Bank's investment banking unit, in London.

Marovitz soon found the approaches of companies in those two countries could not be more different—and that a Russian outsourcing provider would best satisfy Deutsche Bank's needs in maintaining and enhancing its 5,000-user "client-first" CRM (customer relationship management) system for investment bankers.

Want to have applications built in Russia?

As Marovitz learned, the thing to remember is that you're not in India, where you may become accustomed to seeing hundreds of workers assigned to a project that they will dutifully attempt to execute according to instructions, cheerfully saying "yes," even when they have doubts about the methodology or the deadlines.

In Russia, it's the opposite: You won't find big companies with big teams willing to say "yes" to your every whim.

Instead, you're likely to find a small team of experts ready to grill you with tough questions. It may be jarring at first, but for certain projects, it can be just what the doctor ordered.

[Dec 31, 2006] Twenty-five Signs of a Completely Americanized Russian Programmer

S novyim Godom !!!

[Sept 5, 2006] SWsoft, the company that is sponsoring the OpenVZ and that sells a fuller-featured commercial version called Virtuozzo announced that its container management tools will also be able to manage Xen virtual machines, said Chief Executive Serguei Beloussov.

[Sept 4, 2006] Scientists aim to take the heat off computers UW engineer uses ionic wind to create cooling chip

By TOM PAULSON
P-I REPORTER

Alexander Mamishev believes he has just the thing for the hottest new computer chip.

A microscopic air conditioner.

"It's based on a phenomenon that's been known for hundreds of years," said Mamishev, an electrical engineer at the University of Washington. "But for the first several hundred years, nobody put it to much use. We are putting it to use."

The phenomenon he and his colleagues are exploiting is variously known as corona discharge, ionic wind or electrostatic fluid acceleration. (There's a good reason most engineers don't moonlight as song lyricists.)

They are using it to cool down microchips. The digit-crunching work done by computers produces a significant amount of heat. Efforts to increase computing chip power and capacity continually run up against this limiting factor of excess heat production.

"Their speed is often limited by how hot they get," said the Ukrainian-born director of the UW's Sensors, Energy and Automation Laboratory.

Heat is why desktop PCs have fans and why Apple's Power Mac G5 incorporated the time-proven method of using water as a coolant. The problem with fans is they are noisy and not too efficient. The risk of using water, or any liquid, as a coolant is that liquids and electronics tend not to play well together.

Many researchers are working on the problem and have come up with a number of potential solutions. Most represent a more sophisticated and miniaturized twist on standard approaches to cooling and thermal management.

Mamishev, a high-voltage physicist in Ukraine before coming to the U.S., is taking a different approach. As someone who also dabbles in robotics and is writing a book on "fringing electric sensors" (the kind of sensor at work in those stud finders -- for locating wood behind plasterboard walls), he might be expected to do so.

"I came at this from my high-voltage physics background," he said.

A corona discharge is basically the product of some seriously electrified (or more accurately, "ionized") air molecules, also known as a plasma. St. Elmo's fire, which electrical storms sometimes create around wires or poles, is a form of corona discharge or plasma -- one that sailors have witnessed for as long as there have been boats with masts.

Besides sometimes creating visible light and wreaking electrical havoc, corona discharges make the ionized air molecules move. A popular high-tech air cleaner made by Sharper Image uses this phenomenon in a fan-filter combination sold on late-night TV.

"It's very simple in concept," Mamishev said. "The ions push the air."

A few years ago, he and UW doctoral students Nels Jewell-Larsen and Chi-Peng Hsu began looking around for financial support to pursue this at the microchip level.

Nobody wanted anything to do with it. But Mamishev, as a new UW professor, was able to cobble some funds together and, later, get support from the UW's Royalty Research Fund -- a pot of money created by the university's patent income typically used to "advance new directions" in UW research.

"They fund the crazy stuff," Mamishev said.

That was in 2001. With the new money, he and his team began working on the microchip air conditioner. Earlier this summer, after years of work, they presented findings at a major meeting. Now, the funders were listening. Mamishev and his UW team received part of a $100,000 grant from the Washington Technology Center to further their work in collaboration with Intel Corp.

So far, the UW chip coolers have only developed a prototype. But they have proved that it's possible to create an incredibly small "ionic air pump" that works by electrically inducing a corona discharge.

"We should be able to integrate this right into the chip," Mamishev said.

Such an integrated and tiny cooling system should allow for much more efficiency in cooling, he said, and for applications not previously considered feasible.

The UW's "cooling chip" has two parts, an emitter and a collector. The emitter, which is one-three-hundredth of the width of a human hair, creates the ionic air flow. The collector captures the ions at the other end of the chip. This ionic motion carries away heat and cools the chip. The level of cooling can be controlled by how much voltage is applied to the system.

All this is still in the experimental stage, Mamishev emphasized, and there is much more to be done before they can claim to have accomplished their goal. "At this point, we have just demonstrated the physics and our ability to manufacture it."

The next step will be to test their cooling chip after it is incorporated into functioning microchips in a computer. It's still not clear, Mamishev said, how best to manage all of the different cooling chips that would be operating at the same time in a computer. He and his colleagues are working on the mathematics of that one.

[Apr 14, 2006] The ACM-ICPC International Collegiate Programming Contest Web Site

The 30th Annual ACM-ICPC World Finals sponsored by IBM will be hosted by Baylor University at the Hilton Placio del Rio in San Antiono Texas, April 9-13, 2006. Participating teams consist of three contestants sharing a single computer for five grueling hours. Only eighty (80) teams will advance the the World Finals from nearly 1,500 universities in over 70 countries who fielded over 3,800 teams at over 130 sites during regional competition. In addition to the actual contest, there will be many novel and challenging activities including the ICPC Java Challenge, festivities, and cultural activities. Please browse through this website for more information about the World Finals, San Antiono, and Baylor University .See also the 2006 World Finals Problem Set (PDF). If you are interested in practicing ACM problems please check out the Spanish ACM Archives. (http://acm.uva.es/ [acm.uva.es] Pick a problem and submit it to the online judge and see how it is. The trick to a lot of these problems is the mathematics of the solution--not necessarily any 'computation'. Why compute something recursively, when there's a theorem that can provide the answer immediately? The problems are designed to capitalize on 'tricks' like this.

Rank	Name	Solved	Time
1	Saratov State University	6	917
2	Jagiellonian University - Krakow	6	1258
3	Altai State Technical University	5	681
4	University of Twente	5	744
5	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	5	766
6	St. Petersburg State University	5	815
7	Warsaw University	5	820
8	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	5	831
9	Moscow State University	5	870
10	Ufa State Technical University of Aviation	5	980
11	University of Alberta	4	479
12	University of Waterloo	4	636
13	Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica	4
13	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology	4
13	Peking University	4
13	Sharif University of Technology	4
13	University of British Columbia	4
13	Zhejiang University	4
19	Information & Communications University	3
19	KTH - Royal Institute of Technology	3
19	Kyoto University	3
19	Lund University	3
19	National Taiwan University	3
19	Petrozavodsk State University	3
19	Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro	3
19	Seoul National University	3
19	Simon Fraser University	3
19	Sofia University	3
19	South Ural State University	3
19	St Petersburg Institute of Fine Mechanics & Optics	3
19	Taras Shevchenko Kyiv University	3
19	Technische Universität München	3
19	The University of Hong Kong	3
19	Tsinghua University	3
19	University of Science and Technology of China	3
19	University of Tokyo	3
19	University of Toronto	3
19	Zhongshan (Sun Yat-sen) University	3
39	Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology	2
39	California Institute of Technology	2
39	DePaul University	2
39	Fudan University	2
39	Fuzhou University	2
39	Princeton University	2
39	Renmin University of China	2
39	The Chinese University of Hong Kong	2
39	Universidad Nacional de Colombia	2
39	Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya	2
39	University of Adelaide	2
39	University of Cape Town	2
39	University of Maryland - College Park	2
39	Vinnytsia National Technical University	2
39	Washington University in St. Louis	2
39	Yaroslavl Demidov State University	2
39	École Nationale Supérieure des Télécom Paris	2

2006 ACM Programming Contest Complete

Dartmouth College engineering professor Victor Petrenko, not to be confused with one of the Champions on Ice, has devised a way to use a burst of electricity to remove ice caked on walls or windows. For surfaces coated with a special film, the jolt gets rid of ice in less than a second, far less time than it takes to hack at it with an ice scraper.

While drivers might find easy-cleaning windshields convenient, the technology--called thin-film pulse electrothermal de-icing, or PETD--could have significant economic impact if widely deployed. It could, for example, cut the costs of repairing power lines downed by ice storms and keep plane windshields frost-free, decreasing fuel consumption.

In Sweden, civil engineers have tested PETD and decided to cover the Uddevalla Bridge in a 12-millimeter-thick PETD foil to keep it from icing over.

"Frost-free refrigerators can approximately reduce energy consumption by a factor of two. Billions of dollars are spent each year on running refrigerators and air conditioners. If you can cut that, it's great," Petrenko said. "In ice makers, we can cut the ice-harvesting cycle and increase the productivity of ice makers by 30 (percent) to 40 percent."

A refrigerator for the residential market sporting PETD will likely come out soon. The technology will also be incorporated into the windshield of an upcoming commercial jet, according to Petrenko. Aerospace parts supplier Goodrich, an investor in and one of the seven licensees of Petrenko's Ice Engineering company, is also promoting the concept among utilities as a way to keep wind turbines de-iced.

PETD can go in reverse, too. By varying the electric pulse, the technology can cause ice to stick better to surfaces. That could help snowboarders and skiers better manage the friction with the slope, for greater or lesser traction, as needed.

The technology essentially takes advantages of the inherent properties of ice. Ice, it turns out, is a semiconductor, meaning that it conducts an electrical charge under certain circumstances. Unlike silicon, which conducts negatively charged electrons, ice conducts protons, the core of hydrogen atoms that are part of the water molecules.

Video: Ice control technology
Dartmouth professor Victor Petrenko and team have developed new ways to control or alter ice, making it sticky or slippery. Here, a look at the technology. 

"(An) ice surface has an enormously high electric charge," Petrenko said.

As a result, ice doesn't simply cake onto surfaces--it bonds to them in three ways: via the hydrogen atoms themselves, via an electrostatic bond caused by the current, and via comparatively weak van der Waals forces.

PETD works by breaking the first two bonds. An electric charge lasting a few milliseconds heats the surface buried in ice just long enough to melt about a micron or two of the surface of the ice. Once the ice is melted, the hydrogen and electrical bonds break. The resulting water then acts as a lubricant, allowing the mass of ice to slide away.

"With short pulses, the heat doesn't have time to diffuse. It is all released on the interface," Petrenko said.

To get ice to stick to a surface, the pulse is shortened--first the ice melts, then refreezes. The resulting bond between the material and the ice is even stronger than before.

Why hasn't anyone already come up with this?

"I don't know," he said. "It is a very common story: People for centuries miss a very simple principle. When it's found, people say, 'How could we miss it?'"

Traditional ice removal methods don't address how to reverse the electrical bonds, which explains why they don't work that well. Ice scrapers essentially tear away ice from the outside. Material to repel ice also fails because ice will invariably bond. Companies have thrown money at trying to develop ice-resistant surfaces, but the results have been mediocre.

Petrenko himself worked on a project funded by a generous federal grant. "We concluded that it is against the laws of nature to have an ice-phobic material," he said. "Ice is very strong glue. It is a universal adhesive."

The difficulty with PETD lies in power delivery. The surface only has to be heated to about 1 to 2 degrees Celsius, but a broad surface has to be heated simultaneously.

Still, an ordinary car, while running, could provide enough energy to remove the ice. It also takes less energy than heating the windshield.

The intellectual property at Ice Engineering mostly concerns developing power distribution systems and thin films, which coat the surface and conduct heat to the ice material interface. The composition of the films varies. In the case of windshields, Ice Engineering employs a layer of clear indium oxide. "It is the same thing on laptop displays," Petrenko said.

Ice machines and refrigerators, meanwhile, can rely on titanium or carbon fiber composites, which are more durable, because transparency isn't an issue.

The research, so far, has yielded 14 U.S. patents, and several more are pending. Dartmouth owns the patents but markets them through Ice Engineering.

Petrenko came to studying ice by accident. For years, he worked as a semiconductor researcher at Moscow's Institute of Physics and Technology. While on an exchange at Britain's University of Birmingham, he happened upon that school's ice research department. His life changed after that.

"We built a solar cell made of ice," he recalled. "While it is not as efficient as a silicon solar cell, it costs a penny a square mile."

Slashdot Knowledge Overload or Internet Lazy

Luria, A. R. (Aleksandr Romanovich) The Mind of a Mnemonist A Little Book about a Vast Memory

Luria, A. R. (Aleksandr Romanovich) The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory Case Study (160 pp.)

Keywords Communication, Disability, Doctor-Patient Relationship, Memory, Patient Experience, Psycho-social Medicine, Psychosomatic Medicine,

Summary

One day in the 1920's, a newspaper reporter walked into the laboratory of Russian psychologist A. R. Luria and asked him to test his memory, which he recently had been told was unusual. It was not unusual. It was uniquely and astoundingly retentive. Luria gave him very long strings of numbers, words, nonsense syllables and could not detect any limit to his ability to recall them, generally without mistake, even years later. (Luria studied S., as he identifies him, for thirty years.)

Luria discovers that the man had some interesting characteristics to his memory. He experienced synesthesia, i.e., the blending of sensations: a voice was a "crumbly, yellow voice." (p.24) S.'s memory was highly eidetic, i.e., visual, a characteristic not unique to him but which he used as a technique to memorize lists and details. (He had become a performing mnemonist.) It was also auditory. He had trouble remembering a word if its sound did not fit its meaning. The remainder of the section on his memory involves fascinating aspects of his having to learn how to forget and his methods of problem solving.

 

The remainder of the book is equally interesting since it relates the epiphenomena of S.'s prodigious memory: how he mentally saw everything in his past memory; how he was virtually paralyzed when it came to understanding poetry since metaphorical thinking was almost impossible for him, a mnemonist who lived in a world of unique particulars! As Luria wrote, "S. found that when he tried to read poetry the obstacles to his understanding were overwhelming: each expression gave rise to an image; this, in turn, would conflict with another image that had been evoked." (p. 120)

 

S. could control his vital signs by his memory and, last but not least, this human experiment of nature had such a vivid imagination that, probably more than the most creative of us, he engaged in "magical thinking": "To me there's no great difference between the things I imagine and what exists in reality. Often, if I imagine something is going to happen, it does. Take the time I began arguing with a friend that the cashier in the store was sure to give me too much change. I imagined it to myself in detail, and she actually did give me too much--change of 20 rubles instead of 10. Of course I realize it's just chance, coincidence, but deep down I also think it's because I saw it that way." (p. 146)

Commentary An international giant in clinical neuropsychology and an inspiration for Oliver Sacks's narratives, Luria helped pioneer the study of the individual patient as interesting bridge between normal and abnormal psychological processes rather than studying animals in a maze, or groups of humans in an experimental setting. His "N of 1" close readings remain fascinating reading today, including The Man with a Shattered World (see this database).

S.'s incredible memory and all its attendant advantages and detriments recall Borges's short story, "Funes the Memorious (Funes el Memorioso)".

Publisher Basic Books (New York)

Edition 1968

Miscellaneous Translated from the Russian by Lynn Solotaroff.

Alternate Editors Foreword by Jerome Bruner

Alternate Publisher Harvard Univ. Press (Cambridge, Mass.)

Alternate Edition 1987

Annotated by Ratzan, Richard M.

Date of Entry 6/30/04

Last Modified 10/12/04

Humorix/Russia Donates Cyrillic Characters To Alleviate Acronym Shortage Fake News written by James Baughn on January 29, 2005 from the esr-and-rms-unavailable-for-comment dept.

In an international gesture of goodwill, the Russian government announced last week that it will help fight the worsening SAS (Severe Acronym Shortage) by donating several Cyrillic characters, with more on the way.

"The acronym shortage could devastate the world economy if action is not taken soon," said a Russian government official. "The only solution is to increase the size of the alphabet available for acronyms."

The Blartner Group has been warning about the impending ASC (Acronym Shortage Crisis) since 2002. "Most acronyms are written by English speakers limited to a paltry 26-letter alphabet," Blort Blartner explained. "It's no surprise that ANCs (Acronym Namespace Collisions) are occuring at a rapidly increasing rate. This will place a huge burden on the IT industry by hindering communication, potentially leading to a rupture of the very fabric of the entire GE (Global Econony, not General Electric)."

In a recent survey by the American Association Against Acronym Abuse (AAAAA), 73% of people in computer-related fields admitted that they "had created an acronym within the last year that wasn't really necessary." Shockingly, 5% of participants acknowledged that they "might suffer an addiction to stringing new acronyms together as a form of entertainment."

Said the AAAAA chairwoman, "Russia's bold move will help to disambiguate some acronyms, but it doesn't solve the root problem: the AN (Acronym Namespace) is simply too polluted by UACs (Unnecessary Acronym Creators). IMHO, this situation will require drastic measures, such as the creation of an AEPB (Acronym Environmental Protection Bureau)."

However, the founder of the rival CNP (Coalition for Namespace Purity) argued, "Adding another bureaucracy never works. The new office will simply create a whole new regime of acronyms, such as requiring companies to submit an ACRF (Acronym Creation Request Form) and an EISFAC (Environment Impact Study For Acronym Creation) in the hopes of receiving an AACP (Approved Acronym Creation Permit)."

Last month, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) formally adopted RFC 10523, which will require all future RFCs to limit new acronyms to one per document. "If a namespace collision in unavoidable," the RFC states, "then an attempt must be made to recycle obsolete acronyms first. If that fails, then the new acronym must undergo NSD (Numeric Suffix Disambiguation). For instance, Xtreme Programming should be called 'XP-1' in order to avoid confusion with Microsoft's Xceptionally Pathetic operating system (Windows XP)."

"The IETF needs to take full responsibility for the entire zoo of questionable acronyms that have been created by RFCs over the last decades," said one IETF participant. "It is imperative that we reuse archaic acronyms like 'UUCP' and 'ARCHIE' and assign them more productive meanings."

It isn't just the computer industry that faces a threat from the acronym shortage. The USAF (United States Air Force) has probably created more new acronyms than another other institution in history.

"This is no laughing matter," said a USAF PAO (Public Affairs Officer). "Last year we nearly suffered an SSS (Significant Security Situation) when an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) was mistaken for an MRE (Massive Radioactive Explosive). This kind of problem could prove catastrophic in a combat situation."

The PAO added, "The Pentagon has already launched an ARC (Acronym Review Committee) to weed out ORAs (Obsolete or Redundant Acronyms). In addition, the entire US military will now encourage of the use of abbreviations instead of acronyms for CritOps (Critical Operations) and StratInts (Strategic Initiatives). While we appreciate the help offered by the Russian government, we believe we can solve this problem without the need to outsource our language."

[Jun 16, 2005] Ten Commandments of the Softpanorama Software Cult

[Jun 14, 2005] Bulletin/Humor/russian_programmers

[May 25, 2005] Actor Prolog, an object-oriented Prolog by Alexei Morozov's. See also his site  techref - Prolog

[Mar 26, 2005] Project Frenzy - FreeBSD-based LiveCD

Frenzy is a "portable system administrator toolkit," LiveCD based on FreeBSD. It generally contains software for hardware tests, file system check, security check and network setup and analysis. Size of ISO-image is 200 MBytes (3" CD)

System requirements

• Pentium processor or higher.
• 32MB RAM.
• CD-ROM, which supports booting from a CD and can read a mini-CD.
• HDD is not required.

Current version of Frenzy is based on FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE. Compressed file system (geom_ugz) used, so there is almost 600 MB of data on 200 MB CD. Loading speed also improved.

When Frenzy boots, it creates required memory disks, automatically detects and mounts HDD partitions (UFS, FAT16/32, NTFS, EXT2FS are supported). It also mounts FreeBSD swap space as Frenzy swap, if found. If you wish you can create a swap file on mounted partitions. There is also an automatical mouse type detection (PS/2, serial, USB).

There are almost 400 applications in Frenzy 0.3:

• C and nasm compilers, Perl and Python interpreters
• File managers: deco, mc, xnc
• Text editors (among them joe, ViM and AbiWord)
• Viewers and convertors of text files, logfile analyzers
• Archivers, system and file utilities
• File recovery utilities
• Tools for HDD
• Hardware information and setup
• Benchmarks and hardware testing utilities
• Antiviruses (clamav, drweb) and rootkit detection utilities
• Password and crypto tools
• Network tools (LAN, modem, dial-up, VPN, Wireless)
• Web-browsers, main and news clients, ICQ and IRC clients
• Network calculation tools
• Traffic monitors
• Proxy, redirect
• Remote control (telnet, ssh, RDP, VNC)
• MySQL and PostgreSQL clients
• Samba server and clients
• Tools for DNS, LDAP, SNMP, DHCP, ICMP, ARP, IP packets
• Port scanners, network scanners, service detection tools
• Security scanners, sniffers, intrusion detection tools
• Picture viewer (gqview), DjVu, CHM, PDF-viewers

• Distribution contains essential FreeBSD documentation and Frenzy-specific help system.

  Software listing for Frenzy 0.3 is here.

See also Slashdot Frenzy - FreeBSD-based LiveCD for sysadmins

An admin's savior :-) (Score:5, Interesting) by JamesTRexx (675890) on Monday February 28, @08:43AM (#11801777) (Last Journal: Saturday April 24, @06:55AM)

Cd's like these are very useful, even in our Windows-centric company. One laptop had a fried harddrive, Windows crashed upon starting. First I tried the recovery console which was no help because the disk was beyond repair, then I tried a BartPE [nu2.nu] XP cd but that wouldn't recognize neither the nic in the docking nor a USB nic (no, I didn't want to have to add all sorts of drivers etc. to it first). Downloaded a FreeSBIE [freesbie.org] cd and it worked perfectly. The guy was very happy about his saved data, the shmuck. *goes off to browse the site*

Re:FreeSBIE clone? by Mozhaisky_Sergei (Score:1) Thursday March 10, @05:47PM

excellent toolkit (Score:5, Informative) by Ragica (552891) on Tuesday March 01, @02:08PM (#11814841) (http://www.vex.net/)

This is a really great collection of software for admins and hackers (in the good sense of the word). In my opinion it is the most useful bootable kit i've yet seen. I booted the GUI once briefly, but didn't have a mouse hooked up so it was useless. I don't really care about the GUI. The focus of this kit is mostly command line tools (though there are some gui-only tools). The system boots to a prompt; you have to start X from the command line if you want it. It's pretty annoying the way it defaults to Russian if you don't press e within three seconds during boot up. But hey, it was made by Russians who are probably pretty annoyed by all the English they are forced to endure. The BSD kernel is very nice for detecting hardware. They're method of automounting drives seems to work pretty well. The little help system they have included which categorises and lists all of the installed utilities to help you find your way around is indeed very helpful (it would be better still if it was searchable). Anyhow, i love this disk. It's so useful. I tend to us it more than Knoppix now in many situations. All of the more admin-oriented linux boot disks i've tried tend to have gotten stale, not updated, and be hard to find out what tools are on them after booting. Maybe Frenzy will stagnate as well. But for now it is my favourite. Also having a lot of BSD boxes of course I am biased. Most of the linux boot disks don't give much attention to UFS/FFS file systems.

[Nov 27, 2004] Twenty-five Signs of a Completely Americanized Russian Programmer Translated from Russian by Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

[Nov 2, 2004] jEdit - Programmer's Text Editor Version 4.2 is now available. jEdit won the Resource Centre UK -- Shareware of the Month award in September 2004

• Combines the best functionality of Unix, Windows and MacOS text editors.
• Runs on any operating system with a Java 2 version 1.3 or higher virtual machine - this includes MacOS X, OS/2, Unix, VMS and Windows.
• Efficient keyboard shortcuts for everything
• Comprehensive online help
• Unlimited undo/redo
• Copy and paste with an unlimited number of clipboards (known as "registers")
• Register contents are saved across editing sessions (4.2)
• "Kill ring" automatically remembers previously deleted text (4.2)
• Rich set of keyboard commands for manipulating entire words, lines and paragraphs at a time
• "Markers" for remembering positions in files to return to later
• Marker locations are saved across editing sessions
• Any number of editor windows may be open, each window may be split into several areas, each area can view a different file. Alternatively, different locations in one file can be viewed in more than one area
• Multiple open windows and split windows are remembered between editing sessions (4.2)
• Rectangular selection
• Multiple selection (sometimes known as "discontinuous" or "additive" selection) for manipulating several chunks of text at once
• Word wrap

Syntax Highlighting

jEdit supports syntax highlighting for more than 130 file types:

ActionScript	Ada 95	ANTLR	Apache HTTPD	APDL	AppleScript	ASP
Aspect-J	Assembly	AWK	B formal method	Batch	BBj	BCEL
BibTeX	C	C++	C#	CHILL	CIL	COBOL
ColdFusion	CSS	CVS Commit	D	DOxygen	DSSSL	Eiffel
EmbPerl	Erlang	Factor	Fortran	Foxpro	FreeMarker	Fortran
Gettext	Groovy	Haskell	HTML	Icon	IDL	Inform
INI	Inno Setup	Informix 4GL	Interlis	Io	Java	JavaScript
JCL	JHTML	JMK	JSP	Latex	Lilypond	Lisp
LOTOS	Lua	Makefile	Maple	ML	Modula-3	MoinMoin
MQSC	NetRexx	NQC	NSIS2	Objective C	ObjectRexx	Occam
Omnimark	Parrot	Pascal	Patch	Perl	PHP	Pike
PL-SQL	PL/I	Pop11	PostScript	Povray	PowerDynamo	Progress 4GL
Prolog	Properties	PSP	PV-WAVE	Pyrex	Python	REBOL
Redcode	Relax-NG	RelationalView	Rest	Rib	RPM spec	RTF
Ruby	Ruby-HTML	RView	S+	S#	SAS	Scheme
SDL/PL	SGML	Shell Script	SHTML	Smalltalk	SMI MIB	SQR
Squidconf	SVN Commit	Swig	TCL	TeX	Texinfo	TPL
Transact-SQL	UnrealScript	VBScript	Velocity	Verilog	VHDL	XML
XSL	ZPT

There are even more contributed syntax highlighting modes at the jEdit community web site.

Source Code Editing

• Intelligent bracket matching skips quoted literals and comments
• Auto indent
• Commands for shifting the indent left and right
• Commands for commenting out code
• Soft tabs option
• Abbreviations
• Folding, with two fold modes: indent-based, and explicit (where the buffer is parsed for "{{{" and "}}}")

Search and Replace

• Both literal and regular expression search and replace supported
• Multiple file search and replace; search in either the current file, all open files, or all files in a directory
• "HyperSearch" option to show all found matches in a list
• Reverse search supported
• Incremental search supported
• Option to replace occurrences of a regular expression with the return value of a BeanShell script. As far as I know, no other text editor offers comparable functionality!

File Management

• Any number of files can be opened at once
• Supports a large number of character encodings including UTF8 and UTF16
• Automatic detection of several character encodings (4.2)
• Automatic compression and decompression of GZipped (.gz) files
• Any character encoding supported by Java can be used to load and save files
• Multi-threaded I/O system supports pluggable "virtual file systems" for listing directories and loading files:
  • FTP plugin adds support for loading and saving files on FTP servers
  • Archive plugin adds read-only support for loading files from ZIP and TAR archives
• Custom file system browser component used in open and save dialog boxes
• Powerful keyboard navigation in the file system browser (4.2)
• Files can be deleted and renamed, and new directories can be created from the file system browser

Customization

• Syntax highlighting modes are defined in XML files and new ones are very easy to write
• Many editor settings can be set on a global, per-mode, or per-file basis
• Fully customizable keyboard shortcuts
• Fully customizable tool bar and right-click context menu
• Macros to automate complex editing tasks can be written in the BeanShell scripting language
• Macros can be recorded from user actions

Extensibility

• Plugins can turn jEdit into a full-fledged IDE, with compiler, code completion, context-sensitive help, debugging, visual diff, and much more
• More than 80 plugins are already available that add a variety of features to jEdit
• "Plugin manager" feature downloads and installs plugins from within jEdit
• Plugin windows can either be shown as separate, top-level frames, or as "docked windows" inside the jEdit editor window

[Nov 1, 2004] WinRAR archiver Version 3.42

Version 3.41 Bugs corrected in this version:

      a) when adding new files to already existing RAR solid archive,   RAR 3.40 compression ratio was lower than in RAR 3.30;

      b) WinRAR "Repair" command could crash when repairing  a corrupt ZIP archive.

   2. If archived Unicode name is invalid, RAR 'l' and 'v' commands  display ASCII file name instead of corrupt Unicode.


   Version 3.40

1. "Fastest" (-m1) RAR compression method has been modified  to provide much higher compression speed and lower ratio.
         It may be useful for tasks requiring the high speed like
   You may increase "Fastest" speed even more selecting 64KB compression dictionary instead of default 4MB.
   
   
2. WinRAR is able to decompress archives created by Unix 'compress'
         tool (.Z files). Like GZIP and BZIP2 archives, WinRAR opens tar.Z and .taz files in one step, so users do not need to unpack .tar manually.
   
3. WinRAR is able to decompress archives created by 7-Zip  (.7z files). "Find" command is not supported for this archive type.
   
4. New "Security" dialog in WinRAR settings:
   • "File types to exclude from extracting" option to prevent extracting of potentially dangerous files like .exe, .scr and .pif;
     
   • "Propose to select virus scanner" option modifies behavior of "Scan archive for viruses" command. You may turn it off if you wish to skip the virus scanner selection dialog.
     
5. New command line switch -ep3 allows to save and restore full file paths including the drive letter. WinRAR shell equivalent of -ep3 switch are options Store full paths including drive letter" in "Files/File paths" page of archiving dialog and "Extract absolute paths" in "Advanced/File paths" page of extracting dialog.
   
6. You may select and compress disks directly in "My Computer" view in WinRAR shell. Just choose "My Computer" in WinRAR address bar, select disks to compress and press "Add". If you selected more than one item, WinRAR will automatically set "Store full paths including drive letter" archiving mode.
   
7. If you selected several disks in Windows Explorer "My Computer" view and started archiving from context menu, WinRAR will automatically set "Store full paths including drive letter" mode when compressing them.
   
8. New command line switch -oc to restore NTFS "Compressed" attribute when extracting files. RAR always saves "Compressed" attribute when creating an archive, but does not restore it unless -oc switch has been specified. WinRAR shell equivalent of -oc switch is "Set attribute Compressed" option in "Advanced" part of extracting dialog.
   
   
9. Starting from this version RAR volumes contain the volume number field. If archive was created by WinRAR 3.40 or newer, you may view the volume number in the top line of "Info" dialog and in the address bar. In the command line mode the volume number is displayed by 'L' and 'V' commands in the line with the total volume information. This feature may be useful if original volume names are lost and you need to rename volumes to correct names.
   
   
10. Commands 'L' and 'V' display NTFS "Compressed" attribute  in archive listing.
    
11. Switch -ag may include an optional text enclosed in '{' and '}'characters. This text is inserted into archive name. For example: -agHH{hours}MM{minutes}
    Same feature is supported in "Generate archive name by mask" field of WinRAR archiving dialog.
    
    
12. If switch -ac is specified, RAR will not reset "Archive" attribute of those files, which size or modification time was changed after starting the archiving operation. So files modified after placing them to archive and before clearing "Archive" attribute, will be included to next incremental backup. The same is true for WinRAR "Clear attribute "Archive"  after compressing" GUI option.
    
    
13. If you use "Add to favorites" command inside of archive subfolder, WinRAR will save the subfolder and restore it when accessing to this favorite item. Previous versions were able to restore only the root archive folder.
    
    
14. When editing archived files, WinRAR proposes to update them immediately after detecting that file was changed. Previous versions waited until an external editor terminates before updating a changed file.
    
    
15. If you drop an archive to WinRAR address bar or toolbar, WinRAR will display its contents even if other archive is opened now. Previous versions proposed to add a dropped archive to browsing one. You may still drop an archive to WinRAR file list if you need to add it to browsing archive.
    
    
16. Corrected processing of corrupt LZH archives to exclude a possible crash when reading corrupt LZH file headers.
    
17. RAR and WinRAR display the operation progress while repairing an archive containing the recovery record.

Process Viewer for Windows NT and 95-98 by Igor Nys Download free process viewer for Window NT/2000/XP and 95/98/Me Version 3.6.2.1 (90K)

Introduction

PrcView is a process viewer utility that displays detailed information about processes running under Windows. For each process it displays memory, threads and module usage. For each DLL  it shows full path and version information. PrcView comes with a command line version that allows you to write scripts to check if a process is running, kill it, etc.

What’s new

• Minor bug fixes
• Fixed bug that causes process environment appear corrupted on Win 9x
• Shows process startup directory
• Shows/sets process affinity (UI version only)
• Command line and window title filters in command-line version

What’s new in 3.0

• DLL usage summary - displays all DLL’s currently in use, shows processes which use selected DLL
• Displays complete task tree – parent/child relationships for all processes in the system
• Displays Task list like the standard task manager
• PrcView distribution now includes PV.EXE - a new utility that provides PrcView functionality from the command-line. Use pv –h for more information about available options.

What’s new in 2.0

• Get the full list of DLL’s for each running process including FULL PATH for each loaded module - discover what DLL’s your process really uses and where they are located.
• Double click on any module or process to get the full version information
• Save any view as a tab-separated text file by just pressing F2
• Process Finder Tool - just drag the finder icon and drop it to the process Window to select the desired process
• Smooth update - you don’t need to press the refresh "button" to get the updated list of all processes, PrcView periodically updates the process list for you
• New look and nice icons

Installation

No special installation is required on Windows 95/98. Create a new, empty folder and place the files PRCVIEW.EXE and PRCVIEW.HLP there. For Windows NT4 you will also need a PSAPI.DLL that is part of the PrcView archive.

Main Window

The main window shows you a list of running processes including information process Id, priority, and full path to the process module. You can sort columns by clicking on the column header.

Note that although you don’t need to have administrative privilege on Windows NT to run PrcView, list of task PrcView can access depends on your set of privileges.

Show modules

Information about each loaded module including the module name, the module base address in process space, the module size and full to the loaded module path.

Show version

You can display comprehensive version information by double-clicking the appropriate line in the main or module window

Show threads

Information about all process threads including threads Id and priority. Note that if PrcView uses Performance Data Helper to enumerate threads under Windows NT, it can take a few seconds at the first time to open the list of threads while Windows is loading all necessary libraries.

Show Memory

Information about all memory blocks belonging to the selected process. Contains information about base address, protection, size and state for each memory block.

Show Heaps

Information about all heaps allocated by the selected process. You can display heap memory blocks by double clicking on the appropriate heap in the list box

Show Version

Displays version information about selected module. You can display version information by double-clicking the appropriate line in the main or module window

Kill process

Just another way to kill a selected process. Note that killing a process can cause undesired results including loss of data and system instability. The process will not be given a chance to save its state or data before it is terminated. It is advisable to try the "Notify" button in the "Kill" dialog to close a GUI-based application first (via WM_SYSCOMMAND)

Debug process

Nice way to attach a debugger to a running application. PrcView reads the "AeDebug" key and starts a registered debug application. PrcView allows you not only to select a process to debug but also to associate a particular project with it. This is especially useful while debugging an DLL that has a separate project. Associations are stored in the registry.

Set priority class

Allows you to specify a new priority class for the selected process.

The Process Finder Tool

With the Process Finder Tool you can find the process corresponding to a selected window. To find a process:

• Arrange your windows so that PrcView and the window of the desired process are visible.
• Press the Find Process button on the toolbar.
• Keep left mouse button pressed while dragging the Finder Tool to the desired window.
• Release mouse button. PrcView will select the corresponding process in the main view.

Process Tree

Shows you the process hierarchy for all running processes. You can select the desired task by clicking on the process item in the Process Tree window.

Module Usage

Information about all loaded modules in the system including the module name, the module base address in process space, the module size and full to the loaded module path. Selecting a module from the module list shows only processes witch use a selected module. Selecting "Module Usage" again returns the main window to the original process list. You can display comprehensive version information by double-clicking the appropriate line in the window.

Show Application

Shows all top-level window titles. You can select the desired task by clicking on the process item in this window. Double-click sends the selected application to the front.

Configuration option

• Start Minimized – PrcView starts minimized. This option is useful in combination with the "Use System Tray" option if you plan to place PrcView in the "Startup" folder
• Use System Tray – PrcView places a small icon In the System Tray, hiding itself when minimized
• Allow Multiply Instances – If turned "on", PrcView allows to start more than one instance of the program. If turned "off" the instance of PrcView that is already running will be activated.
• Set Refresh Times – Allows to specify refresh times for main/thread/module windows. If specified time is greater than zero, PrcView will refresh windows cyclically.

Refreshing Information

Use Menu/Toolbar in the main view or F5 in any view to refresh information in the corresponding window

Save Current View

Use Menu/Toolbar in the main view or  F2 in any view to save information in the corresponding window

Reporting Bugs and Feedback

If you encounter a problem while running PrcView, please visit http://www.prcview.com to obtain the latest version. If you still have problems, please send a description of your problem to

support@prcview.com

[Jan 25, 2004] NYT Dr. Olga Ladyzhenskaya, 81, Mathematician, Dies By JEREMY PEARCE

Dr. Olga Ladyzhenskaya, a mathematician whose work with differential equations contributed to advances in the study of fluid dynamics in areas like weather forecasting, oceanography, aerodynamics and cardiovascular science, died on Jan. 12 in St. Petersburg, Russia. She was 81.

The cause of death had not been determined, according to a spokeswoman for the Association for Women in Mathematics, in College Park, Md. Dr. Ladyzhenskaya was a member of the organization.

Her primary work was on calculations that were developed in the 19th century to explain the behavior of fluids and known as Navier-Stokes equations. As a researcher first at St. Petersburg University and later at the Steklov Institute of Mathematics, also in St. Petersburg, she worked through the solutions for the equations, which show how a number of variables relate in time and space.

Among other practical uses, the equations enable meteorologists to predict the movement of storm clouds.

In the 1960's, Dr. Ladyzhenskaya published her observations in a text that is still cited in the field. "Ladyzhenskaya did not describe the basic equations, but she contributed significantly to their solutions," said Dr. Peter D. Lax of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. "She was also always a rebel and treated as one by the Soviet government."

Olga Aleksandrovna Ladyzhenskaya graduated from Moscow State University and received a doctorate from Leningrad State University before earning another doctorate from Moscow State in 1953. After teaching in the physics department at St. Petersburg University, she joined the Steklov Institute, which is affiliated with the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Marshall Slemrod, a mathematician with the University of Wisconsin, said Dr. Ladyzhenskaya had an American counterpart in John Nash, the Princeton mathematician and Nobel laureate whose life is depicted in the film "A Beautiful Mind," and who also studied partial differential equations.

"She was perhaps the premier worker on the Russian side," Dr. Slemrod said. "If you believe your weather forecast, you have to solve the exact equations that she studied."

Her later work involved the study of elliptical and parabolic equations that are used in probability theory.

Dr. Ladyzhenskaya's reputation as an independent spirit was furthered by her friendship with Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, the author and dissident, and by reports that her father had been killed by Soviet officials, Dr. Lax said.

She was head of the Steklov Institute's laboratory of mathematical physics and was made a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1981, before becoming a full member in 1990.

Earlier in her life, Dr. Ladyzhenskaya was briefly married. She has no immediate survivors

Continue

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History

• Back in the U.S.S.R.
• BESM-6 Nostalgia Page
• The history of demos   -- Unix in USSR. Very good (in Russian)
• Russian Crypto
  • russ1
  • russ2
  • russ3.kript
  • russ4.kript

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Recommended Links

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In case of broken links please try to use Google search. If you find the page please notify us about new location

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• **** PREF NEWS -- very good bulletin by Aleks Farber. [Aug 22, 2000]
• Russian America Award
• BESM-6 Nostalgia Page
• BESM - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Sergei Alekseyevich Lebedev - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Valery Shchedrin's Home Page  -- mmalloc is a heap manager. It is written from a scratch. Main goals were accurate RAM consuming and performance. Goals achieved using relatively new virtual memory mapping techniques (known in UNIX world as mmap ;-) and AVL trees.
•  Sher's Russian Index[June 9, 2000]
• The OpenNet Project Links -- a nice site created by Maxim Chirkov[June 2, 1999]
• Brandeis University Russian Language Program Links on the Web
• LINUX Information Links Links.  -- Great site by Maxim Chirkov. Highly recommended...[March 9, 1999]
• O Unixe'e na russkom [russian]
• LETI Unofficial Web-server
  • PHP3 with Russian Apache miniHOWTO (in Russian)
  • The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
• The OpenNet Project Links -- nice russian site
• GNU SQL Server Home Page
• http://www.kiarchive.ru/ - Public Access File Archive of the Relcom-Moscow Network Centre
• Russian indifferent software
• RTFM - VinNest Documentation Home -- Dmitry Semenov
• Welcome to Minsk Linux Users Group!
• Network Security Page
• Top100 Rambler Sites (Common sites)
• AO UrbanSoft -- News and resources for the free software market. Includes the 'UrbanSoft Bulletin' and Russian translations of standard Linux documentation.

  • Brokgauz Encyclopedia  n-line

• BARSIC development group home page -- Vadim V. Monakhov homepage
• AGAMA ON THE WEB
• WWW servers in CIS countries  -- list of Russian WEB servers
• Linux-Chainik
• Most Popular Russian Servers
• Oleg Broytmann's Bookmarks -- a lot of interesting links (some in Russian KOI codepage)
• The Wizards Guild is a noncommercial union of several Russian  software developers.
• Eugene Bobin Solaris homepage

Etc.

• Russian Resources on the Nets outside Russia
• Sher's Russian Index

• Computers -- Arsenal -- Producers of "Russian Office"
• Computers -- Computer Business Russia (ROL)
• Computers -- Computing Centre of Russian Academy of Sciences (CCRAS)
• Computers -- Demos Company - Internet Communication
• Computers -- Elektronika Calculators
• Computers -- Journals Online -- Computer Weekly
• Computers -- Journals Online -- Computerworld Rossiia
• Computers -- Journals Online -- Intel (select "Russia" under "Countries")
• Computers -- Journals Online -- Journal of the Assoc. for Computing & History

• Computers -- MediaLingua -- Linguistic and Search Technologies
• Computers -- News, Programming, Software -- in Russian -- Online Digest
• Computers -- News, Programming, Software -- in Russian -- ZDNet Russia
• Computers -- Robotics and Technical Cybernetics -- Research Centre -- St. Petersburg
• Computers -- Rocit-Info
• Computers -- Russian Computer Union (RKS)
• Computers -- Russian-English Online Dictionary of Computer Terms
• Computers -- UDT Occasional Papers
• Computers -- Wizards Guild: Russian software designers

• Chertovy Kulichki na Ramblere
• Chertovy Kulichki - Computer Center
• kulichki.rambler computer programming
• Russian Software Related Homepage -- assorted list of links. Some are useful
• Garbo Anonymous FTP Archive -- contains some  programs from xUSSR region in MS-DOS section

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Books and e-books

• Welcome To The SymPad Deep Repository Of Public Domain Files -- big collection
• ZDNet Software Library - 10 Minute Guide To Practical Unix by Eugene Khmelevsky

10 Minute Guide To Practical Unix was written for people who are not hard-core programmers, but who need to work on different Unix systems every day. It behaves exactly like a book. Select the chapter you want to read, click on the Go Button, and you will access that chapter. System Requirements Windows 95, 98, or NT.  Shareware: Free to try, $15 if you decide to keep it.

• Lib.Ru Library of Michail Moshkov

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Translation and spell checking software

• PROMT's Online Translator
• Russian Software Catalog
• Complexsystems-- Russian to English
• Prompt

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E-mail messages decoding

• Automatic Cyrillic Converter by Stefan Mashkevich
• KOI8-R References (Russian Net Character Set)
• decoder.design
• Automatic russian text decoder on Javascript
• List SOFT. EType Mail Decoder
• WIN<->KOI online decoder
• Computer and Internet in Russia and Central Eastern Europe -- has coverters subsection
•  
• Russophilia! Russification Software Resources

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Etc

Russian correspondents ratings:

• Andrew Osborn  80% dezo, 20% truth. Samples News

• Elisabeth Bumiller 50% dezo, 50% truth. Samples The New York Times International Europe Bush and Putin Exhibit Tension Over Democracy

• STROBE TALBOTT  100% dezo; extremly narrow-mined understanding of US interests. Samples: To Russia, With Tough Love

• STEVEN R. WEISMAN 50% dezo, 50% truth. The New York Times International Europe Diplomacy Bush May Feel Chilly Blast From Russians, Envoy Says
  

Unix in Russian:

• Version 1.1 of Anatoly Ivasyuk's Unofficial Unix Administration Horror Story Summary
• Valery's fractals gallery Fractals by Valery Kritchallo
• Russian Software Digest
• Adding Security to Common Linux Distributions by Michael Jastremski (LinuxFocus)
• http://binocle.atlant.ru/ -- net news (in Russian; Codepage windows 1251)

General

• Russian Speaking America - Everything Russian in America. (english)
• User Friendly the Comic Strip Main Page

Cyrillizarion

• Cyrillic fonts Russian homophonic keyboard; Russify browsers; Mail and News Russification -- an excellent page for Windows users
• Cyrillic HOWTO, by Alexander L. Belikoff <abel@bfr.co.il>. How to configure Linux for use with the Cyrillic character set. Updated 23 January 1998.
• Cyrillization of   Netscape(Windows)
• Truetype fonts: http://king.ccrc.wustl.edu/~zubin/fonts.html

• [12 July 1998] Cyrillic mail problem solution -- Add to the file preference the line
  user_pref("mail.strictly_mime_headers", false);

• KOI8-R References -- Russian Net Character Set (Chernov's site)
• Backman
• Cyrillic Central
• Fedorov
• Funet Russian Archive
• S.I.B.
• Universal Cyrillic Converter
• Victor

Russian music, MP3 (non-maintained, just staring pointers)

• Little Russia page -- contains some interesting material. Not all songs have valid links :-(.
• Russian and NIS Music
• Russian Musical Treasures Collection at Maitreya Sangha
  • 71BestSongs2.rm
  • AlexanderMalinin.rm
  • AnnaGerman.rm
  • Laima Vaikule The Best (a couple of old Brazhnev's era hits like Vernisazh, Etche ne vecher)
  • DavidTuhmanov.rm
  • IrinaPonarovskaya.rm
  • Pugacheva.rm
  • Solovianenko2.rm
  • Shainsky.rm
• Welcome To Music Library www.muslib.com
• http://www.musiccdworld.com
• SOUVENIR - The Largest Retail Store For Sale Russian CD'sAudio TapesCD-ROMVideo TapeBooks
• Russian MIDI Web site -- nice collection
• 1st Russian Midi Site
• Vladimir Vysotsij
  • Little Russia in San Antonio, TX. Visotsky's songs
  • Links to the Visotsky related Internet sites
  • Dimon's Vysotsky Page
• Selected songs
  • Steppe all around (Step da step krugom).. ( 2.5 Mb .AU file ) -- Nadezhda Obuhova
  • Great Russian Voices - Alexandorov's Red Army Choir
  • Russian Romantic Songs
• Russian MIDI (new files)
• Great songs from the soviet past
• Adelaida - Music Navigator
• Russian and Soviet music on the Internet
• Music During the Soviet Regime
• "Music under Soviet rule"
• Onno van Rijen
• Russian Music(http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/music.html)
• Kulichiki.rambler.ru Songs Homepage

Shostakovich

• The DSCH JOURNAL Web Site -- reviews including

  Suite for Variety Orchestra [misidentifed as Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2], extracts[a]; Dance[b]; Spanish Dance[c]; The Young Lady and the Hooligan, extracts[d]; Child's Notebook, Op. 69, extracts[e]; Ballet Suite No. 1[f].
  Arnold Katz, Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra[a]; Rimma Bobritskaya (piano)[b,c,e]; Mark Gorenstein, Symphonic Orchestra of Russia[d,f].
  Recorded Novosibirsk Philharmonie, June 1997[a]; Moscow Conservatory, February 1991[b,c,e]; Mosfilm Studios, June 1994[d] and December 1996[f]. Includes previously released material.
  Saison Russe RUS 788164. DDD. TT 58:24.

  If you need one good reason to acquire this disc, it would be the cover photo. Saison Russe's latest Shostakovich release features the composer in a rare moment of frivolity, a photo taken in 1943 at Ivanovo with Shostakovich posing with a couple of piglets. It would be tempting to read the artwork as a subtle poke in the direction of Animal Farm if it weren't for the programme, which might best be summed up as a representative sampling of what critics call Shostakovich's "bad music". [Reviewer refers to cover art from original issue; currently available reissue has new cover, shown at left, but includes portion of original image on back.] This is Dance Hall Days Shostakovich, the sort of music that made him famous at home and infamous abroad and which probably saved his skin more than once. If at first go this programme seems a bit of an overkill, owing in no small part to the repetition of quite a few numbers, taken in small portions it can be loads of fun.

  The Suite for Variety Orchestra (which is commonly mistaken for the lost 1938 Jazz Suite No. 2, as is the case in Saison Russe's annotation) is more like tea-room entertainment composed for the sideshow orchestra, and consists of easy-listening waltzes and polkas. The opening Dance is none other than the Spanish Dance from The Gadfly, given a fireman-band treatment that borders on annoying, although the rest of the music is happily more laid back. "Jazz" instrumentation includes a seedy saxophone section and an accordion.

  The Young Lady and the Hooligan is basically a theatre revue comprising Shostakovich's music from the 30s. Prime beef is The Limpid Stream's Gallop, a truly banal piece of work that almost smacks of contempt, and the Dance of the Coachmen from The Bolt, famous for its trombone raspberries. It might be a stroke of mischief that Shostakovich uses the latter to portray the hooligan, but generally these twenty-five minutes of highlights, including a snippet from the Cello Sonata, are pretty innocuous though quite entertaining. The Ballet Suite No. 1 is compiled again from The Limpid Stream, and probably represents as much of the ballet as one can stomach at one sitting. The Suite also includes an item from The Bolt that was never published, the Playful Waltz, and it is not hard to figure out why.

  There is a wonderful mixture of irreverence, wicked fun and even moments of deliberate crudeness in these scores, all served up with Shostakovich's trademark sense of humour. Included are two piano arrangements of Dances from, again, The Limpid Stream and The Gadfly, as well as the charming diversion Child's Notebook [excerpts only; read review of complete work in DSCH No. 11]. Mark Gorenstein delivers far more characterful accounts in the later tracks with the polished and responsive Symphonic Orchestra of Russia than Arnold Katz does with his somewhat stiff Novosibirsk forces on the Jazz Suite.

   

• Rob Ainsley's site
• Simon Hawkin (Ovod)

Russian poetry

• Boyan Collections
• Russian Lyrics (Texts)
• Little Russia in San Antonio, TX. Visotsky's songs -- contains text of most songs.
• Text of Russian Romantic Songs
  • S. Esenin. I don't regret, don't call, don't cry. (with audio)
  • S. Esenin. The scarlet light of dawn weaved on the lake.
  • Why are you looking at the road so eagerly.
  • E.P. Grebenka. Dark Eyes
  • V.P. Tchuevsky. Twinkle, twinkle my star.
  • Fragrant bunches of white acacia.
  • Charming eyes.
  • M. Zvezdinsky. Leutenant Golitsin

  sovmus.html

Dictionaries

From Sher's Russian Index

• Freeware -- DDP Bilingual Russian-English Dictionary
• Freeware -- Yxo Bilingual Russian-English Dictionary
• Online -- Alternative Russian Dictionary
• Online -- Brockhaus Generative Grammar
• Online -- Dictionaries and Translators -- General Resources
• Online -- Dictionary of Period Russian Names -- Wickenden
• Online -- Elvis Bilingual Russian-English Dictionary
• Online -- English-Russian Computer Acronyms Dictionary
• Online -- English-Russian phrasebook
• Online -- Kautz's Online Russian Sign Language
• Online -- Mueller's English-Russian Dictionary
• Online -- Multilex Apresian English-Russian Dictionary -- Site I   Site II
• Online -- Ozhegov Russian-Russian Dictionary
• Online -- PROMT's Online Translator
• Online -- Science Fiction and Fantasy Dictionary -- in Russian
• Online -- Sinyagin's English-Russian Dictionary
• Online -- Slavica's Russian-English Dictionary of the Human Body

Last modified:  November 20, 2009