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# 2/26/2010 05:29:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

Thinstall

Thinstall operates on binary data such as EXEs, DLLs, datafiles, and registry information to create self-contained applications that can be deployed and executed without installation. Thinstall does not require any source code changes. Click here for more details about How Thinstall fits into your software release process.

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Virtual Machine Technology (VM)

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Click here to enlarge

Thinstall's Virtual Machine Technology allows developers to package entire applications into a single file that can be run without an installation process. Thinstall's Virtual Machine Technology is extremely light weight in terms of the amount of disk space, RAM, and CPU it requires.

The Virtual Machine (VM) performs:



· Process Loading. The VM loads a starting EXE file from the Virtual Filesystem and allows it to execute any other EXE directly from the Virtual Filesystem or from the normal filesystem.

· DLL Loading. The VM loads any DLL dependencies your EXE/DLL/OCX files may have directly from archive when instructed. The VM can import and use DLLs located on the normal filesystem as well as the Virtual File System. The VM provides full control over which DLLs you want to use, making it possible to entirely eliminate "DLL Hell" problems without relying on Windows XP "Side-by-side" features.

· Thread & Process Management. The VM is responsible for keeping track of all threads created inside the virtual machine. The VM manages thread-local storage, notifies Dlls about new process threads, and manages memory for thread stacks.

· The VM runs on all versions of 32bit, Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT/2k/XP) without installation, drivers, reboots, or administrator access.








Virtual File System (VFS)

The Virtual File System (VFS) presents a "merged" view of package archive files and system files.



· VFS is always compressed on disk, meaning your installed disk footprint is the same as the pre-install footprint.

· VFS provides transparent decompression for files accessed inside the VFS.

· VFS provides transparent encryption/decryption for file writes/reads inside the VFS.

· VFS allows all processes and libraries loaded through the VM to access files from both the VFS and the normal filesystem.

· The VFS presents a "merged view" of the filesystem to applications run by the VM. Files from both systems can appear in the same directory.

· The VFS works with any underlying filesystem, including FAT32, NTFS, Network shares, and any future filesystem.




Virtual Registry / COM / ActiveX (VREG)

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The Virtual Registry presents predefined registry keys to all applications and libraries loaded through the VOS.



· Virtual registry allows COM/ActiveX based applications to run on systems where registry access has been restricted.

· Supports In-Process (DLL/OCX) and Out-of-process (EXE) servers.

· COM and ActiveX controls can be loaded directly from the VFS, eliminating all possibility of removal by another application's uninstall.

· Virtual Registry exists inside your EXE, so it cannot be misconfigured by another program's installer or uninstaller.

· Registry recording system allows you to record all registry keys a COM/ActiveX control would normally create during "Regsvr32". Recording occurs on the development computer, and is simulated in the runtime environment.

· The VREG system automatically tracks COM object lifetimes so that it can free DLL and EXE servers.




Integrated Installer





· Install/Uninstall remains integrated with your EXE

· Allow the user to chose the installation directory

· Add Startmenu shortcuts to launch or uninstall your program or link to websites

· Add a desktop shortcut to your program

· Add a control panel uninstall option in Add/Remove Programs




· Display a custom BMP file in the installation dialog

· Warn users when they try to run a different version from the one installed.

· Display a license agreement window before running the application

· Install options can be made automatic so no user interaction is required to install.




Program Security


· Packaged applications are protected from disassembly, reverse engineering, and disk patching to a high degree

· Packaged datafiles are protected from user inspection, and writes to datafiles can be cached with transparent encryption.








How Thinstall works, supported platforms, and performance effects



Virtual Machine, Virtual File System, Virtual Registry

EXE/DLL Resources


Icons, Version Information, and XP Styles



Program Installation


Adding Start Menu Shortcuts, Use with 3rd Party Installers, Use with Patching Software



Licensing & Trial Demos


License your software, generate license keys, and restrict access to your data & files.



Program Security


Stop debuggers and protect your application



Scripting


Perform additional actions during Install, etc, Script API Reference.



Language Localization


Displaying Thinstall strings in the user's native language (English, Chinese, etc).



Project files
How to transport your project files from one computer to another computer

Command-line version


Automate your build process



.NET


.NET Framework Linking, Service Apps, Updating, Common .NET Questions



Visual Basic


VB Specific features, Common VB Questions & Tips



Activity Logging
Find out what your application does and why it might fail



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# 6/11/2009 08:51:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

IBM

IBM WebSphere eXtreme Scale Image via Wikipedia

IBM

Once upon a time, the computer company most hackers loved to hate; today, the one they are most puzzled to find themselves liking.
From hackerdom's beginnings in the mid-1960s to the early 1990s, IBM was regarded with active loathing. Common expansions of the corporate name included: Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually; Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel Movement; and a near-{infinite} number of even less complimentary expansions (see also {fear and loathing}). What galled hackers about most IBM machines above the PC level wasn't so much that they were underpowered and overpriced (though that counted against them), but that the designs were incredibly archaic, {crufty}, and {elephantine} ... and you couldn't fix them -- source code was locked up tight, and programming tools were expensive, hard to find, and bletcherous to use once you had found them.
We didn't know how good we had it back then. In the 1980s IBM had its own troubles with Microsoft and lost its strategic way, receding from the hacker community's view. Then, in the 1990s, Microsoft became more noxious and omnipresent than IBM had ever been.
In the late 1990s IBM re-invented itself as a services company, began to release open-source software through its AlphaWorks group, and began shipping {Linux} systems and building ties to the Linux community. To the astonishment of all parties, IBM emerged as a staunch friend of the hacker community and {open source} development, with ironic consequences noted in the {FUD} entry.
This lexicon includes a number of entries attributed to `IBM'; these derive from some rampantly unofficial jargon lists circulated within IBM's formerly beleaguered hacker underground.
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# 5/31/2009 01:31:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

warez d00dz

warez, d00dz

A substantial subculture of {cracker}s refer to themselves as warez d00dz; there is evidently some connection with {B1FF} here. As `Ozone Pilot', one former warez d00d, wrote:

Warez d00dz get illegal copies of copyrighted software. If it has copy protection on it, they break the protection so the software can be copied. Then they distribute it around the world via several gateways. Warez d00dz form badass group names like RAZOR and the like. They put up boards that distribute the latest ware, or pirate program. The whole point of the Warez sub-culture is to get the pirate program released and distributed before any other group. I know, I know. But don't ask, and it won't hurt as much. This is how they prove their poweress [sic]. It gives them the right to say, "I released King's Quest IVXIX before you so obviously my testicles are larger." Again don't ask...

The studly thing to do if one is a warez d00d, it appears, is emit 0-day warez, that is copies of commercial software copied and cracked on the same day as its retail release. Warez d00ds also hoard software in a big way, collecting untold megabytes of arcade-style games, pornographic JPGs, and applications they'll never use onto their hard disks. As Ozone Pilot acutely observes:

[BELONG] is the only word you will need to know. Warez d00dz want to belong. They have been shunned by everyone, and thus turn to cyberspace for acceptance. That is why they always start groups like TGW, FLT, USA and the like. Structure makes them happy. [...] Warez d00dz will never have a handle like "Pink Daisy" because warez d00dz are insecure. Only someone who is very secure with a good dose of self-esteem can stand up to the cries of fag and girlie-man. More likely you will find warez d00dz with handles like: Doctor Death, Deranged Lunatic, Hellraiser, Mad Prince, Dreamdevil, The Unknown, Renegade Chemist, Terminator, and Twin Turbo. They like to sound badass when they can hide behind their terminals. More likely, if you were given a sample of 100 people, the person whose handle is Hellraiser is the last person you'd associate with the name.

The contrast with Internet hackers is stark and instructive. See {cracker}, {wannabee}, {handle}, {elite}, {courier}, {leech}; compare {weenie}, {spod}.

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# 5/28/2009 08:01:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

wetware

Cover of Rudy Rucker's Novel, Spaceland. Image via Wikipedia

wetware

[prob.: from the novels of Rudy Rucker]
  1. The human nervous system, as opposed to computer hardware or software. "Wetware has 7 plus or minus 2 temporary registers."
  2. Human beings (programmers, operators, administrators) attached to a computer system, as opposed to the system's hardware or software. See {liveware}, {meatware}.
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# 5/25/2009 02:31:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

(TM)

(TM)

[Usenet] ASCII rendition of the (TM) appended to phrases that the author feels should be recorded for posterity, perhaps in future editions of this lexicon. Sometimes used ironically as a form of protest against the recent spate of software and algorithm patents and look and feel lawsuits. See also {UN*X}.

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# 5/20/2009 11:31:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

ARMM

ARMM:

[acronym, `Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation'] A Usenet, cancelbot created by Dick Depew of Munroe Falls, Ohio. ARMM was intended to automatically cancel posts from anonymous-posting sites. Unfortunately, the robot's recognizer for anonymous postings triggered on its own automatically-generated control messages! Transformed by this stroke of programming ineptitude into a monster of Frankensteinian proportions, it broke loose on the night of March 30, 1993 and proceeded to spam news.admin.policy with a recursive explosion of over 200 messages. ARMM's bug produced a recursive {cascade} of messages each of which mechanically added text to the ID and Subject and some other headers of its parent. This produced a flood of messages in which each header took up several screens and each message ID and subject line got longer and longer and longer. Reactions varied from amusement to outrage. The pathological messages crashed at least one mail system, and upset people paying line charges for their Usenet feeds. One poster described the ARMM debacle as "instant Usenet history" (also establishing the term {despew}), and it has since been widely cited as a cautionary example of the havoc the combination of good intentions and incompetence can wreak on a network. The Usenet thread on the subject is archived here. Compare Great Worm; sorcerer's apprentice mode.





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# 5/20/2009 10:31:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

RFC

RFC

[Request For Comment] One of a long-established series of numbered Internet informational documents and standards widely followed by commercial software and freeware in the Internet and Unix communities. Perhaps the single most influential one has been RFC-822 (the Internet mail-format standard). The RFCs are unusual in that they are floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated through an institution such as ANSI. For this reason, they remain known as RFCs even once adopted as standards.
The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven, after-the-fact standard writing done by individuals or small working groups has important advantages over the more formal, committee-driven process typical of ANSI or ISO. Emblematic of some of these advantages is the existence of a flourishing tradition of `joke' RFCs; usually at least one a year is published, usually on April 1st. Well-known joke RFCs have included 527 ("ARPAWOCKY", R. Merryman, UCSD; 22 June 1973), 748 ("Telnet Randomly-Lose Option", Mark R. Crispin; 1 April 1978), and 1149 ("A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers", D. Waitzman, BBN STC; 1 April 1990). The first was a Lewis Carroll pastiche; the second a parody of the TCP-IP documentation style, and the third a deadpan skewering of standards-document legalese, describing protocols for transmitting Internet data packets by carrier pigeon (since actually implemented; see Appendix A). See also {Infinite-Monkey Theorem}.
The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work -- they frequently manage to have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife in informal specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated misfeatures that often haunt formal standards, and they define a network that has grown to truly worldwide proportions.

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# 5/19/2009 07:31:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

SEX

SEX

[Sun Users' Group & elsewhere] n.

  1. Software EXchange. A technique invented by the blue-green algae hundreds of millions of years ago to speed up their evolution, which had been terribly slow up until then. Today, SEX parties are popular among hackers and others (of course, these are no longer limited to exchanges of genetic software). In general, SEX parties are a {Good Thing}, but unprotected SEX can propagate a {virus}. See also {pubic directory}.
  2. The rather Freudian mnemonic often used for Sign EXtend, a machine instruction found in the {PDP-11} and many other architectures. The RCA 1802 chip used in the early Elf and SuperElf personal computers had a `SEt X register' SEX instruction, but this seems to have had little folkloric impact. The Data General, instruction set also had SEX.

    {DEC}'s engineers nearly got a {PDP-11} assembler that used the SEX mnemonic out the door at one time, but (for once) marketing wasn't asleep and forced a change. That wasn't the last time this happened, either. The author of The Intel 8086 Primer, who was one of the original designers of the 8086, noted that there was originally a SEX instruction on that processor, too. He says that Intel management got cold feet and decreed that it be changed, and thus the instruction was renamed CBW and CWD (depending on what was being extended). Amusingly, the Intel 8048 (the microcontroller used in IBM, PC, keyboards) is also missing straight SEX but has logical-or and logical-and instructions ORL and ANL.

    The Motorola 6809, used in the Radio Shack Color Computer and in U.K.'s `Dragon 32' personal computer, actually had an official SEX instruction; the 6502 in the Apple II with which it competed did not. British hackers thought this made perfect mythic sense; after all, it was commonly observed, you could (on some theoretical level) have sex with a dragon, but you can't have sex with an apple.

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# 5/19/2009 06:31:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

clock

clock

n.,v.

  1. [techspeak] The master oscillator that steps a CPU or other digital circuit through its paces. This has nothing to do with the time of day, although the software counter that keeps track of the latter may be derived from the former.
  2. vt. To run a CPU or other digital circuit at a particular rate. "If you clock it at 1000MHz, it gets warm.". See {overclock}.
  3. vt. To force a digital circuit from one state to the next by applying a single clock pulse. "The data must be stable 10ns before you clock the latch."
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# 5/19/2009 02:31:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

dike

Graph of typical Operating System placement on... Image via Wikipedia

dike

To remove or disable a portion of something, as a wire from a computer or a subroutine from a program. A standard slogan is "When in doubt, dike it out". (The implication is that it is usually more effective to attack software problems by reducing complexity than by increasing it.) The word `dikes' is widely used to mean `diagonal cutters', a kind of wire cutter. To `dike something out' means to use such cutters to remove something. Indeed, the TMRC Dictionary defined dike as "to attack with dikes". Among hackers this term has been metaphorically extended to informational objects such as sections of code.
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# 5/18/2009 07:31:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

dogwash

dogwash

[From a quip in the `urgency' field of a very optional software change request, ca.: 1982. It was something like "Urgency: Wash your dog first".]

  1. n. A project of minimal priority, undertaken as an escape from more serious work.
  2. v. To engage in such a project. Many games and much {freeware} get written this way.

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# 5/18/2009 06:31:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

fuck me harder

fuck me harder

Sometimes uttered in response to egregious misbehavior, esp. in software, and esp. of misbehaviors which seem unfairly persistent (as though designed in by the imp of the perverse). Often theatrically elaborated: "Aiighhh! Fuck me with a piledriver and 16 feet of curare-tipped wrought-iron fence and no lubricants!" The phrase is sometimes heard abbreviated FMH in polite company.

[This entry is an extreme example of the hackish habit of coining elaborate and evocative terms for lossage. Here we see a quite self-conscious parody of mainstream expletives that has become a running gag in part of the hacker culture; it illustrates the hackish tendency to turn any situation, even one of extreme frustration, into an intellectual game (the point being, in this case, to creatively produce a long-winded description of the most anatomically absurd mental image possible -- the short forms implicitly allude to all the ridiculous long forms ever spoken). Scatological language is actually relatively uncommon among hackers, and there was some controversy over whether this entry ought to be included at all. As it reflects a live usage recognizably peculiar to the hacker culture, we feel it is in the hackish spirit of truthfulness and opposition to all forms of censorship to record it here. --ESR & GLS]

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# 5/18/2009 10:31:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

golden

golden

[prob.: from folklore's `golden egg'] When used to describe a magnetic medium (e.g., golden disk, golden tape), describes one containing a tested, up-to-spec, ready-to-ship software version. Compare {platinum-iridium}. One may also "go gold", which is the act of releasing a golden version. The gold color of many CDROMs is a coincidence; this term was well established a decade before CDROM distribution become common in the mid-1990s.

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# 5/18/2009 08:31:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

hand-roll

hand-roll

[from obs. mainstream slang hand-rolled in opposition to ready-made, referring to cigarettes] To perform a normally automated software installation or configuration process {by hand}; implies that the normal process failed due to bugs in the configurator or was defeated by something exceptional in the local environment. "The worst thing about being a gateway between four different nets is having to hand-roll a new sendmail configuration every time any of them upgrades."

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# 5/18/2009 05:31:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

kit

kit

[Usenet; poss.: fr.: {DEC} slang for a full software distribution, as opposed to a patch or upgrade] A source software distribution that has been packaged in such a way that it can (theoretically) be unpacked and installed according to a series of steps using only standard Unix tools, and entirely documented by some reasonable chain of references from the top-level {README file}. The more general term {distribution} may imply that special tools or more stringent conditions on the host environment are required.

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# 5/18/2009 12:31:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

theology

theology

  1. Ironically or humorously used to refer to {religious issues}.
  2. Technical fine points of an abstruse nature, esp. those where the resolution is of theoretical interest but is relatively {marginal} with respect to actual use of a design or system. Used esp. around software issues with a heavy AI or language-design component, such as the smart-data vs. smart-programs dispute in AI.

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# 5/16/2009 05:31:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

virus

Estructura del virus de la Influenza / Structu... Image by Hector Aiza via Flickr

virus:

[from the obvious analogy with biological viruses, via SF] A cracker program that searches out other programs and `infects' them by embedding a copy of itself in them, so that they become {Trojan horse}s. When these programs are executed, the embedded virus is executed too, thus propagating the `infection'. This normally happens invisibly to the user. Unlike a {worm}, a virus cannot infect other computers without assistance. It is propagated by vectors such as humans trading programs with their friends (see {SEX}). The virus may do nothing but propagate itself and then allow the program to run normally. Usually, however, after propagating silently for a while, it starts doing things like writing cute messages on the terminal or playing strange tricks with the display (some viruses include nice {display hack}s). Many nasty viruses, written by particularly perversely minded {cracker}s, do irreversible damage, like nuking all the user's files.
In the 1990s, viruses became a serious problem, especially among Windows users; the lack of security on these machines enables viruses to spread easily, even infecting the operating system (Unix machines, by contrast, are immune to such attacks). The production of special anti-virus software has become an industry, and a number of exaggerated media reports have caused outbreaks of near hysteria among users; many {luser}s tend to blame everything that doesn't work as they had expected on virus attacks. Accordingly, this sense of virus has passed not only into techspeak but into also popular usage (where it is often incorrectly used to denote a {worm} or even a {Trojan horse}). See {phage}; compare {back door}; see also {Unix conspiracy}.
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# 5/16/2009 12:31:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

TANSTAAFL

TANSTAAFL

[acronym, from Robert Heinlein's classic SF novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.] "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch", often invoked when someone is balking at the prospect of using an unpleasantly {heavyweight} technique, or at the poor quality of some piece of software, or at the {signal-to-noise ratio} of unmoderated Usenet newsgroups. "What? Don't tell me I have to implement a database back end to get my address book program to work!" "Well, TANSTAAFL you know." This phrase owes some of its popularity to the high concentration of science-fiction fans and political libertarians in hackerdom (see Appendix B for discussion).

Outside hacker circles the variant TINSTAAFL ("There is No Such Thing...") is apparently more common, and can be traced back to 1952 in the writings of ethicist Alvin Hansen. TANSTAAFL may well have arisen from it by mutation.

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# 5/15/2009 01:31:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

airplane rule

airplane rule:

"Complexity increases the possibility of failure; a twin-engine airplane has twice as many engine problems as a single-engine airplane." By analogy, in both software and electronics, the rule that simplicity increases robustness. It is correspondingly argued that the right way to build reliable systems is to put all your eggs in one basket, after making sure that you've built a really good basket. See also {KISS Principle}, {elegant}.
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# 5/15/2009 09:31:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

bit

bit:

[from the mainstream meaning and "Binary digIT"]
  1. [techspeak] The unit of information; the amount of information obtained from knowing the answer to a yes-or-no question for which the two outcomes are equally probable.
  2. [techspeak] A computational quantity that can take on one of two values, such as true and false or 0 and 1.
  3. A mental flag: a reminder that something should be done eventually. "I have a bit set for you." (I haven't seen you for a while, and I'm supposed to tell or ask you something.)
  4. More generally, a (possibly incorrect) mental state of belief. "I have a bit set that says that you were the last guy to hack on EMACS." (Meaning "I think you were the last guy to hack on EMACS, and what I am about to say is predicated on this, so please stop me if this isn't true.") "I just need one bit from you" is a polite way of indicating that you intend only a short interruption for a question that can presumably be answered yes or no.
    A bit is said to be set if its value is true or 1, and reset or clear if its value is false or 0. One speaks of setting and clearing bits. To {toggle} or invert a bit is to change it, either from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 0. See also {flag}, {trit}, {mode bit}.
    The term bit first appeared in print in the computer-science sense in a 1948 paper by information theorist, Claude Shannon, and was there credited to the early computer scientist John Tukey (who also seems to have coined the term software). Tukey records that bit evolved over a lunch table as a handier alternative to bigit or binit, at a conference in the winter of 1943-44.
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# 5/15/2009 05:31:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

brain-damaged

brain-damaged

  1. [common; generalization of "Honeywell Brain Damage" (HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter cretinisms in Honeywell {Multics}] adj. Obviously wrong; {cretinous}; {demented}. There is an implication that the person responsible must have suffered brain damage, because he should have known better. Calling something brain-damaged is really bad; it also implies it is unusable, and that its failure to work is due to poor design rather than some accident. "Only six monocase characters per file name? Now that's brain-damaged!"
  2. [esp. in the Mac world] May refer to free demonstration software that has been deliberately crippled in some way so as not to compete with the product it is intended to sell. Syn. {crippleware}.

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# 5/15/2009 02:31:00 AM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

crufty

crufty

[very common; origin unknown; poss. from `crusty' or `cruddy']
  1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex. The {canonical} example is "This is standard old crufty {DEC} software". In fact, one fanciful theory of the origin of crufty holds that was originally a mutation of `crusty' applied to DEC software so old that the `s' characters were tall and skinny, looking more like `f' characters.
  2. Unpleasant, especially to the touch, often with encrusted junk. Like spilled coffee smeared with peanut butter and catsup.
  3. Generally unpleasant.
  4. (sometimes spelled cruftie) n. A small crufty object (see {frob}); often one that doesn't fit well into the scheme of things. "A LISP property list is a good place to store crufties (or, collectively, {random} cruft)."
    This term is one of the oldest in the jargon and no one is sure of its etymology, but it is suggestive that there is a Cruft Hall at Harvard University which is part of the old physics building; it's said to have been the physics department's radar lab during WWII. To this day (early 1993) the windows appear to be full of random techno-junk. MIT or Lincoln Labs people may well have coined the term as a knock on the competition.
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# 5/14/2009 06:31:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

dongle

dongle

  1. [now obs.] A security or {copy protection} device for proprietary software consisting of a serialized EPROM and some drivers in a D-25 connector shell, which must be connected to an I/O port of the computer while the program is run. Programs that use a dongle query the port at startup and at programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it does not respond with the dongle's programmed validation code. Thus, users can make as many copies of the program as they want but must pay for each dongle. The first sighting of a dongle was in 1984, associated with a software product called PaperClip. The idea was clever, but it was initially a failure, as users disliked tying up a serial port this way. By 1993, dongles would typically pass data through the port and monitor for {magic} codes (and combinations of status lines) with minimal if any interference with devices further down the line -- this innovation was necessary to allow daisy-chained dongles for multiple pieces of software. These devices have become rare as the industry has moved away from copy-protection schemes in general.
  2. By extension, any physical electronic key or transferable ID required for a program to function. Common variations on this theme have used parallel or even joystick ports. See {dongle-disk}.
  3. An adaptor cable mating a special edge-type connector on a PCMCIA or on-board Ethernet card to a standard 8p8c Ethernet jack. This usage seems to have surfaced in 1999 and is now dominant. Laptop owners curse these things because they're notoriously easy to lose and the vendors commonly charge extortionate prices for replacements.

    [Note: in early 1992, advertising copy from Rainbow Technologies (a manufacturer of dongles) included a claim that the word derived from "Don Gall", allegedly the inventor of the device. The company's receptionist will cheerfully tell you that the story is a myth invented for the ad copy. Nevertheless, I expect it to haunt my life as a lexicographer for at least the next ten years. :-( --ESR]

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# 5/14/2009 02:31:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,

epoch

epoch

[Unix: prob.: from astronomical timekeeping] The time and date corresponding to 0 in an operating system's clock and timestamp values. Under most Unix versions the epoch is 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970; under VMS, it's 00:00:00 of November 17, 1858 (base date of the U.S. Naval Observatory's ephemerides); on a Macintosh, it's the midnight beginning January 1 1904. System time is measured in seconds or {tick}s past the epoch. Weird problems may ensue when the clock wraps around (see {wrap around}), which is not necessarily a rare event; on systems counting 10 ticks per second, a signed 32-bit count of ticks is good only for 6.8 years. The 1-tick-per-second clock of Unix is good only until January 18, 2038, assuming at least some software continues to consider it signed and that word lengths don't increase by then. See also {wall time}. Microsoft Windows, on the other hand, has an epoch problem every 49.7 days -- but this is seldom noticed as Windows is almost incapable of staying up continuously for that long.

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# 5/14/2009 12:31:00 PM, Comentários, Links para esta postagem,