Recent Software

htop

Currently maintained
In 2020 a team of developers took over htop, the default curses systems and process monitor from Hisham Muhammad. See the website and the repository.

Debian

Currently maintained
I package htop and cronic by for Debian. And sometimes help with the DebConf conference stack build around the upstream wafer Django app.

gpg and openssl keyfile cryptography

Scripts last updated: 13.09.13
With crypt_gpg [1kB] (and its openssl based sibling crypt_openssl [1kB]) you can encrypt and decrypt files with a keyfile stored on your local harddisk (or removable media like a USB stick). That keyfile can be transferred independently from the encrypted files. This is safer depending on circumstances and can be automated e.g. for transferring files through the Internet for synchronization. Read the blog entry to learn how to securely generate a keyfile.

BIND DNS master to slave configuration converter script

Script last updated: 23.01.13
The awk script bind_master2slave [2kB] allows for conversion of BIND master DNS zone configuration files (usually named named.conf.local) to the corresponding files needed on BIND slave servers. See the related blog entry for details and configuration tips.

Set local date via http from a web-server

Script last updated: 22.10.08
With the bash script httpdate [1kB] you can get (and if root set) the local computers' date from a web server. It's a very lightweight version of htpdate which requires either C or perl. I find setting the local time via http often more convenient than ntp and the rdate servers are sadly so slowly dying out. In an Intranet scenario without local timeservers using http may be your only option anyways. httpdate is written in bash and requires a few common utilities like grep, sed, ping and date. It's released under GPLv3.

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Old Software

I don't think that "old stuff" should be removed from the web because I found myself looking for old goodies a number of times.

So here you go:

Magellan GPS: "MagBack" version 1.00ß

Software last updated: 01.11.00
Documentation last updated: 15.06.03

MagBack is a DOS application that allows you to backup your Magellan GPS's Waypoints, Routes and the Track History to virtually any PC. It supports individual descriptions for your Waypoints and Routes either embedded in the NMEA files or in seperate Databases to help you keep a proper file of your locations for selective restore operations.
Warning: This software is for GPS AND PC professionals only. If you need something easy to use and/or configure check out the software section on www.magellangps.com. MagBack will also NOT work with units of other brands. For these (and lotsa Magellan stuff) check Joe Mehaffey and Jack Yeazel's GPS Information site.
MagBack works under anything from DOS 3.0 (including all flavours of Microsoft Windows up and until XP (Vista has no DOS Emulation mode AFAIK)) and will happily live on a floppy while you're travelling. (Tip: Also put a small Editor on the floppy so that you can edit MAGBACK.INI and your data files away from home.)

Download MagBack v1.00ß (40kB, Freeware, no legal liability accepted whatsoever).
For more information read MAGBACK.TXT from the zip.

M330 Users: MagBack v1.00ß will not work well with the M330 as this unit supports lowercase waypoint identifiers which break the NMEA 0183 standard. I have no clue how Magellan implemented this and their protocol docs had not been updated when I did MagBack in '99.

A sample database of 13449 waypoints (715kB) with Embedded Descriptions is available here too. There is also a seperate .db file included to show you the different alternatives of storing descriptions with waypoints and their pros and cons.
Warning: The source for the waypoint file came from the Internet (www.kingwoodcable.com/gpswaypoints/). The data is not acceptable for navigation purposes!

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Other people's software

Apparently my preference for not seeing things I use vanish off the internet gets me into hosting software which the original authors abandoned for one reason or the other.

ScrSlayer by Average Midget is a tool to prevent a Windows screensaver from activating in the middle of your Powerpoint presentation (or any other inappropriate time) even if the Group Policy regulation inposed on the machine prevents disabling the screensaver.

SyncPlaces, SortPlaces, CheckPlaces and SearchPlaces by Andy Halford are Firefox add-ons that allow synchronization of bookmarks via private FTP or WebDav shares, sorting and checking bookmarks and searching them with many more options than through Mozilla's native interface.

"Jive" filter by an unknown author, posted to Usenet by adamsd@crash.UUCP (Adams Douglas) on 1986-10-22. Also preserving other {fun|stupid} filters mangling written English text.

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Obsolete software

The code below has outlived its usefulness. Typically the sites / products targeted have gone away or I stopped using the functionality.

Internations Greasemonkey script

Script last updated: 07.10.11
Use this script to enlarge people's pictures as you mouse-over them. Download [2kB]. Here is the related blog entry with a screenshot and some further links.

Xing / OpenBC Greasemonkey script

Script last updated: 16.11.11
Use this script to enlarge people's pictures as you mouse-over them. See this blog entry for how it works and where it originally came from. Download [2kB].

Voice via ChanServ script for irssi

Script last updated: 01.10.08
As the Atheme IRC services version run at freenode is a bit stupid and can only take one argument (nick) at a time for /msg ChanServ voice nick, I wrote a irssi script csvoice.pl [1kB], based on work by tomaw, to work around that issue.

Use
/csv nick1 nick2 nick3 ... to voice multiple users
/csv -nick1 -nick2 -nick3 ... to devoice multiple users
/csva ... to voice all unvoiced users in a channel