Mokka mit Schlag » Tech

I am seeking tools (especially GUI tools) that will perform regular expression, grep like search and replaces. Ideally the tool would be open source, multiplatform and would provide the functionality of BBEdit:

Requirements include:

• Transparent handling of line endings
• Able to recursively descend through various directories
• File filters to determine what to search
• Autodetection of character encodings

I could write this myself in Java, but not by my deadline. Any suggestions?

Game over. Sony has forfeited and Blu-Ray has lost.
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Woody Leonhard notes that:

with Windows Vista and potentially Office 2007 that changes – the activation system will occasionally check if the product key is still ‘legal’. If Microsoft decides that the product key for your software has been stolen and misused then your copy of Vista or possibly Office 2007 can be disabled remotely (after a warning period).

He’s worried about piracy. I.e. what happens if somebody else “borrows” your key, so Microsoft cuts you off through no fault of your own. I’m wondering what happens when the U.S. Government leans on Microsoft to cut off the keys to the latest alleged seeker of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
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While reviewing an upcoming article of mine, a friend mentioned that some of his students are having trouble creating root directories in Windows; for example a directory such as C:\project. This certainly isn’t the case on any Windows system I own, but they’re all running Windows 2000.

Has anyone heard of anything like this? Do recent versions of XP or Vista require that all user created files be placed in C:\Documents and Settings\Username or some such? Can anyone confirm or deny this? Maybe it depends on whether or not you’re running as Administrator?

If only we could remove the cable connecting our monitor to a computer, then we’d really be in a wireless world. The necessary bandwidth and speed hasn’t been there to support this yet, but some people are trying. TeqGear has released the Wid 101. It’s a big chunky box, it costs $995, and its maximum resolution is 1366 by 768 pixels, below what I’ve been using on my monitors for half a decade or more. However, it’s the first product of its type I’ve seen. Wait a couple of years and maybe we’ll finally be ready to break the wired chains that bind us.

What Kelley L. Ross and Captain Ed have is a failure of the imagination when examining the economics of Star Trek:

Politically and economically, it operates outside of the realm of science fiction and into fantasy. Nothing in its universe explains how human society manages to build the massive ships that comprise Star Fleet, nor the brilliant technology that enables them. Who builds these things — and how and why? It’s all well and good to say that money no longer exists, but people have to be compensated in some manner — otherwise, the Star Trek society is based on benevolent slavery. The reference to “Imagine” is particularly appropriate; this view of human nature seems particularly flaccid, where all creative impulses have been subordinated and all enterprise has been discouraged, pun particularly intended.

Nonetheless, I think a little thought about the implications of the technologies that exist in the Star Trek universe indicates that the economy doesn’t have to be anything like the fascist state Ross envisions. In fact, it seems likely to be far superior to our own.
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