7 open source control-panel

We have collection of more than 1 Million open source products ranging from Enterprise product to small libraries in all platforms. We aggregate information from all open source repositories. Search and find the best for your needs.

via 7 open source control-panel.

This site looks like an interesting resource to find useful open source packages.  Webmin is listed as second in this list of 7 control panels.  I have been using Webmin forever but might try out ISPConfig.  Although something is listed on this site I always download packages from sourceforge.net.

Open source physics engines

Graphics give games a visual appeal, but it’s the internal physics engine that gives the game’s world life. A physics engine is a software component that provides a simulation of a physical system. This simulation can include soft- and rigid-body dynamics, fluid dynamics, and collision detection. The open source community has a number of useful physics engines operating in the 2D and 3D domains targeted to games and simulations. This article introduces the use and basics of a physics engine and explores two options that exist: Box2D and Bullet.

via Open source physics engines.

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tc: Linux HTTP Outgoing Traffic Shaping (Port 80 Traffic Shaping)

I‘ve 10Mbps server port dedicated to our small business server. The server also act as a backup DNS server and I’d like to slow down outbound traffic on port 80. How do I limit bandwidth allocation to http service 5Mbps (burst to 8Mbps) at peak times so that DNS and other service will not go down due to heavy activity under Linux operating systems?

You need use the tc command which can slow down traffic for given port and services on servers and it is called traffic shaping:

via tc: Linux HTTP Outgoing Traffic Shaping (Port 80 Traffic Shaping).

What Hard Drive Should I Buy?

At the end of 2013, we had 27,134 consumer-grade drives spinning in Backblaze Storage Pods. The breakdown by brand looks like this:

Hard Drives by Manufacturer
Brand Number
of Drives
Terabytes Average
Age in Years
Seagate 12,765 39,576 1.4
Hitachi 12,956 36,078 2.0
Western Digital 2,838 2,581 2.5
Toshiba 58 174 0.7
Samsung 18 18 3.7

via Backblaze Blog » What Hard Drive Should I Buy?.

Why do we have the drives we have? Basically, we buy the least expensive drives that will work

There are a lot of numbers tossed around in this article that are difficult to summarize.  The above table shows the data set they worked from.

How Is Reactive Different from Procedural Programming?

A recent post on Reactive Programming triggered discussions about what is and isn’t considered Reactive Logic. In fact, many have already discovered that Reactive Programming can help improve quality and transparency, reduce programming time and decrease maintenance. But for others, it raises questions like:

  • How does Reactive differ from conventional event-oriented programming?
  • Isn’t Reactive just another form of triggers?
  • What kind of an improvement in coding can you expect using Reactive and why?

So to help clear things up, here is a real-life example that will show the power and long-term advantages Reactive offers. In this scenario, we’ll compare what it takes to implement business logic using Reactive Programming versus two different conventional procedural Programming models: Java with Hibernate and MySQL triggers.

via How Is Reactive Different from Procedural Programming?.

Reverse engineering my bank’s security token

The toolset


Reverse engineering Android apps requires a few software tools. Here’s what I used for this project:

  • Android SDKProvides the adb command-line tool, which can pull APKs, data files and settings from the phone.
  • dex2jarConverts Android’s Dalvik executables into JARs, which are easier to reverse engineer.
  • JD, JD-GUIAn excellent Java bytecode decompiler.
  • EclipseA Java IDE to validate discoveries during the reverse engineering process.

via Reverse engineering my bank’s security token | Thiago Valverde.

How the Bitcoin protocol actually works

It may seem surprising that Bitcoin’s basis is cryptography. Isn’t Bitcoin a currency, not a way of sending secret messages? In fact, the problems Bitcoin needs to solve are largely about securing transactions — making sure people can’t steal from one another, or impersonate one another, and so on. In the world of atoms we achieve security with devices such as locks, safes, signatures, and bank vaults. In the world of bits we achieve this kind of security with cryptography. And that’s why Bitcoin is at heart a cryptographic protocol.

via How the Bitcoin protocol actually works | DDI.

Choosing a Journaling File System

A journaling file system is a special type of file system that maintains a tracking file, called a journal. The journal enables the system to repair any inconsistencies that may arise as a result of a system halted abnormally. It does this by keeping track of changes that are made before committing them to the main file system. In the event that the computer is not shut down properly, any data loss can be recreated. This type of file system is therefore less likely to suffer from corruption, and brings file systems back online quickly.

via Choosing a Journaling File System – Linux Links – The Linux Portal Site.