The CSS Filter Property

Internet Explorer supports a filter:command style CSS property that can add some style to HTML elements on your pages. For example you can create a fade effect on any block element on your pages with:

ELEMENT {filter: Chroma(Color=#C1DEFF) Alpha(Opacity=200, FinishOpacity=0, Style=2, StartX=gradient start X position, StartY=gradient starting Y position, FinishX=gradient finishing X position, FinishY=gradient finishing Y position)
}

where “ELEMENT” is any block element. You can use the above code to transform this image:

to something like this:

You can also create gradient div elements with the same trick. Another great method of the filter property is “filter:gray” which, when used on images, the images will be gray-scaled. So by doing this:

img{
filter:gray;
}

will display the image like this:

while by using the “filter:fliph” or “filter:flipv” methods, the images will be flipped horizontally and vertically accordingly. The next cool filter method is “filter:invert” which when used on images, would display the image like this:

Another image transformation can be achieved with “filter:wave“. You might have guessed what this method does but if you didn’t, put this code in your page:

img{
filter:wave(Strength=5,lightstrength=15)
}

and you should get an image with a wave effect like this:

A method similar to the “filter:invert” method is “filter:xray” which produces the following effect:

wait.. There’s some more.

You can pixelate any image with this code:

img{
 filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Pixelate(maxsquare=6)
}

eg:

add some blur with “filter:blur(strength=VALUE)“:

img{
blur(Strength="50")
}

or add some glowing effects to some text and keep the text selectable as shown here:

with this code:

p{
filter: glow(Color="#000eee",Strength="6");
 width:200px;
 font-size:30px;
}

and adding shadows to text can be done with this code:

p{
filter: dropShadow(color="#ddd0d0",offX="2",offY="2");
 width:200px;
 font-size:40px;
}

The result is not 100% what we expected though since the transformation sharpens our text:

The MSDN site has a lot of info about the filter property and some other IE specific CSS properties in case you are interested in it.

We do not advise you to use any of these CSS properties on your pages here. We are just trying to show that some of these properties could be added to other browsers too, since most of them have to do with presentation and style. For example why use a heavy JS library to add some effects like fade or gray-scale when you can do it with 1 line of text?

For flame lovers:

We use Opera (70%) and FireFox (30%). So, no IE lovers here…

This is where Handy Backup™ comes in to play. Handy Backup is a different kind of backup application. It’s fully extensible, featuring free plug-ins that are designed to completely backup not only data, but also the settings, playlists, skins, and other specifics of the individual applications that you’ve tweaked to perfection.
Handy Backup includes plug-ins for all of the popular programs (such as Outlook and Windows Mail), and if you don’t see what you need, you can actually create your own plug-in (as an XML specification) for that special app.

Get a Full Licenced copy of Handy Backup.

Novosoft LLC kindly provided to us a full version of Handy Backup for review. We also managed to get 3 more Handy Backup Professional licences for our readers. Winners also get free unlimited support. So, if you want to get a full registered copy of this awesome tool, you can post a comment on this article using this pattern (Follow this pattern to help us easily identify your participation. Every comment will be in the lottery):

“For Handy Backup Pro Licenced Copy”

Don’t forget to fill in a valid email in order to contact you if you are a winner. The winners will be announced at October 25 and the lottery will be held using the random number generator at www.random.org.

Features

Besides files, folders and HDD images, the program features plug-ins for backing up MS Exchange, MS SQL, DB2 databases and Lotus Notes/Domino data stored on the central server. Also, you can back up Oracle database and ODBC-compatible databases that can be located on both local server and remote workstations.

Data transferred to the central server can be stored on the widest range of backup media: you can backup to FTP, SFTP, Network, FireWire and USB hard/flash drives, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, HD DVD and much more. Detailed online help is available.

Comprehensible user interface provides easy step-by-step adjustment of network backup, with options of compression, encryption and flexible task scheduling. E-mail notifications, command line interface and log file generation ease task management by system administrator.

Centralized workstation backup and an ability of fast system recovery distinguish Handy Backup Server from other network backup software. The utility proudly carries the “Certified for Windows Vista” and “Works with Windows Server 2008″ logos and is acknowledged as one of the best tools for backup and recovery of the entire office network or a local server.

Plugins Creation

Creating a plugin for Handy Backup requires only some basic XML knowledge. Say for example that you need to keep a backup of your custom application files and settings. Then, the best thing to do, is to create an XML file with your application’s path and special settings and you are ready to go. The best part of the process, is that if you submit the plugin to Novosoft and, it works correctly, you will get a full licence of “Handy Backup Full”. So in other words, you can win $199 by just creating a plugin!

So, lets see how you can create one. Each plug-in represents a well-formed XML document written according to XML 1.0 specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/xml). The plugin must contain the following essential parts – Prolog and only one root element (which looks like <root></root>). The root element must contain only one Description and several Backup elements. Prolog is the xml specification:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

The root part consists of two elements. These are:

• The Description element and,
• the Backup element.

The Description Element

The description element is used to provide information about the plugin. There are four child elements available:

• Name – application name, for which plug-in is created.
• Group – category name that contains this application.
• Version – compatible application versions, for which plug-in is created.
• Author – plug-in author name.

Here is an example Description element for an imaginary application:

<Description>
<Name>Fractals Creator Pro</Name>
<Group>Drawing</Group>
<Version>2.0.1</Version>
<Author>Joe Doe</Author>
</Description>

The Backup Element

This element contains the information about the data, that this plugin backups. There may be several elements. It is obligatory to indicate the attribute id, which identifies the element unambiguously, even if there is only 1 Backup element.This element also consists of child elements:

• Path
  It contains the information for determining full path to the folder, where the application which we backup is installed. This path may be used with the help of the expression “$PATH$” within the limits of the element. There may be several Path elements; the real application path is determined by the first correct element. Available child elements within the Path element include:
  • Type – the type of a search algorithm. The possible values 1,2,3 (The types are explained in detail later in this article)
  • KeyPath – the relative registry path.
  • KeyValue – the name of a registry value.
  • FileName – the name of a file.
  • IncludeSub – the registry search optimization parameter (to include subdirectories or not). The possible values are true and false and, can only be used if the type is set to 3.
• File – Contains the path to the file, which must be backed up.
• Folder – Contains the path to the folder, which must be backed up. All the subdirectories of the stated directory are always backed up.
• Registry – Contains the path to the registry key, which must be backed up. The subkeys of the stated key are always backed up.

Here is an example Backup element for an imaginary application:

<Backup id="Main">
<Path>
<Type>1</Type>
<FileName>fractalspro.exe</FileName>
<KeyPath>fractalspro.exe</KeyPath>
<KeyValue/>
</Path>
<Folder>$PATH$\</Folder>
<Folder>$APPDATA$\fractalspro\</Folder>
<Path>
<Type>3</Type>
<KeyPath>HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\fractals\fractalspro\</KeyPath>
<KeyValue/>
<FileName/>
<IncludeSub>TRUE</IncludeSub>
</Path>
<Folder>$PATH$\</Folder>
<Registry>HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\fractals\fractalspro\</Registry>
<IncludeSub>TRUE</IncludeSub>
</Backup>

So putting the two elements together we get the full plugin file:

<root>
<Description>
<Name>Fractals Creator Pro</Name>
<Group>Drawing</Group>
<Version>2.0.1</Version>
<Author>Joe Doe</Author>
</Description>
<Backup id="Main">
<Path>
<Type>1</Type>
<FileName>fractalspro.exe</FileName>
<KeyPath>fractalspro.exe</KeyPath>
<KeyValue/>
</Path>
<Folder>$PATH$\</Folder>
<Folder>$APPDATA$\fractalspro\</Folder>
<Path>
<Type>3</Type>
<KeyPath>HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\fractals\fractalspro\</KeyPath>
<KeyValue/>
<FileName/>
<IncludeSub>TRUE</IncludeSub>
</Path>
<Folder>$PATH$\</Folder>
<Registry>HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\fractals\fractalspro\</Registry>
<IncludeSub>TRUE</IncludeSub>
</Backup>
</root>

Enviromental Variables and Types

In the plugin’s creation process, you will need to know what types of search algorithms are available and which variables you can use to create it. The algorithm types are:

1. There is a key search in the path of the Registry “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\<KeyPath>”. If the key is found, we look for the variable <KeyValue> in this key. If there is the variable, we read it. There must be the path to the folder where the program is located. We look for the file <FileName> on this path. If this file exists, it means this is the needed path. Hence, the search is unzipped.
2. There is a search of the key, containing the information about the file extension associated with the program, in the path of the Registry “HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\<KeyPath>”. If the key is found, we look for the variable <KeyValue> in this key. If there is the variable, we read it. There must be the path to the folder, where it is the program, in the following format: <the path to the folred>, <identifier >. We look for file <FileName> on this path. If this file exists, it means that this is the needed path. Hence, the search is unzipped.
3. There is a key search in the path of the Registry “<KeyPath>”. If the key is found, we look for the variable <KeyValue> in this key. If there is the variable, we read it. There must be the path to the folder, where it is the program. We look for the file <FileName> on this path. If this file exists, it means this is the needed path. Hence, the search is unzipped. If the value<IncludeSub>=TRUE, then, if the search fails, there is the search of values of all keys included in <KeyPath>.

And some Windows enviromental variables:

• $PATH$ – path to the folder, where the program is installed. It is determined in the element <Path>.
• $ADMINTOOLS$ – File system directory that is used to store administrative tools for an individual user
• $ALTSTARTUP$ – File system directory that corresponds to the user’s nonlocalized Startup program group.
• $APPDATA$ – File system directory that serves as a common repository for application-specific data. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data
• $CDBURN_AREA$ – File system folder used to hold data for burning to a CD. Typically [User Profile Folder]\Local Settings\Applications Data\Microsoft\CD Burning.
• $COMMON_ADMINTOOLS$ – File system directory containing administrative tools for all users of the computer.
• $COMMON_ALTSTARTUP$ – File system directory that corresponds to the nonlocalized Startup program group for all users. Valid only for Windows NT® systems.
• $COMMON_APPDATA$ – Application data for all users. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data.
• $COMMON_DESKTOPDIRECTORY$ – File system directory that contains files and folders that appear on the desktop for all users. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop. Valid only for Windows NT® systems.
• $COMMON_DOCUMENTS$ – File system directory that contains documents that are common to all users. Typical paths are C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents.
• $COMMON_FAVORITES$ – File system directory that serves as a common repository for all users’ favorite items. Valid only for Windows NT® systems.
• $ COMMON_MUSIC$ – My Music folder for all users.
• $COMMON_PICTURES$ – My Pictures folder for all users.
• $COMMON_PROGRAMS$ – File system directory that contains the directories for the common program groups that appear in the Start Menu for all users. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs. Valid only for Windows NT systems.
• $COMMON_STARTMENU$ – File system directory that contains the programs and folders that appear on the Start Menu for all users. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu. Valid only for Windows NT systems.
• $COMMON_STARTUP$ – File system directory that contains the programs that appear in the Startup folder for all users. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup. Valid only for Windows NT systems.
• $DESKTOP$ – Windows desktop-virtual folder that is the root of the name space.
• $FAVORITES$ – File system directory that serves as a common repository for the user’s favorite items. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Favorites.
• $FONTS$ – Virtual folder that contains fonts. A typical path is C:\WINNT\Fonts.
• $HISTORY$ – File system directory that serves as a common repository for Internet history items.
• $INTERNET_CACHE$ – File system directory that serves as a common repository for temporary Internet files. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Temporary Internet Files.
• $LOCAL_APPDATA$ – File system directory that serves as a data repository for local (nonroaming) applications. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data.
• $MYMUSIC$ – File system directory that serves as a common repository for music files. A typical path is C:\My Music.
• $MYPICTURES$ – My Pictures folder. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Pictures.
• $MYVIDEO$ – File system directory that serves as a common repository for video files.
• $NETHOOD$ – A file system folder that contains the link objects that can exist in the My Network Places virtual folder. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\username\NetHood.
• $STARTMENU$ – File system directory that contains Start Menu items. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Start Menu.
• $STARTUP$ – File system directory that corresponds to the user’s Startup program group. The system starts these programs whenever any user logs onto Microsoft® Windows NT® or starts Microsoft® Windows® 98. A typical path is C:\Documents and Settings\username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.
• $SYSTEM$ – System folder. A typical path is C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32
• $WINDOWS$ – Windows directory or SYSROOT. This corresponds to the %windir% or %SYSTEMROOT% environment variables. A typical path is C:\WINNT.

If you want to test Handy Backup, you can download a full-featured 30-days trial and share your impressions with us.

AppPuncher – Client/server debugging system for Flex, Flash and Silverlight

The architectural complexity of RIAs calls for special approaches in running tests and achieving quality assurance. For instance, an application may support different workflows based on the role of the user working with the application.

Key Features are:

• Support for AMF, RTMP, HTTP and XML/REST protocols
• Intuitive and intelligent native and browser-based interfaces
• Test Repository facilitates collaboration and test coordination
• Play-and-Record facilitates recreation of events for troubleshooting
• Test Scheduler for automated testing
• Load Testing Engine coordinates thousands of concurrent client
• connections for realistic load testing
• Server Monitor facilitates isolation of performance problems
• Report Manager provides flexible reporting options

DBG

DBG is a a full-featured php debugger, an interactive tool that helps you debugging php scripts. It works on a production and/or development WEB server and allows you debug your scripts locally or remotely, from an IDE or console. It is the debugger used in NuSphere’s PhpED (a commercial IDE for PHP).

Features:

• steping
• breakpoints
• conditional breakpoints
• watches
• call-stack
• error tracing
• just-in-time debugging
• profiler
• global breakpoints
• change execution point

DDD – Data Display Debugger

GNU DDD is a graphical front-end for command-line debuggers such as GDB, DBX, WDB, Ladebug, JDB, XDB, the Perl debugger, the bash debugger bashdb, the GNU Make debugger remake, or the Python debugger pydb. Besides “usual” front-end features such as viewing source texts, DDD has become famous through its interactive graphical data display, where data structures are displayed as graphs.

Allinea – Distributed Debugging Tool

DDT, the Distributed Debugging Tool is a comprehensive graphical debugger for scalar, multi-threaded and large-scale parallel applications that are written in C, C++ and Fortran. A programmable STL Wizard enables you to view C++ Standard Template Library variables like the abstract data they represent, viewing lists, maps, sets, multimaps, pairs, deques and strings easily. It is also extensible to let you visualize your own complex classes as you would like.

Opera Dragonfly

In version 9.5, Opera introduced Dragonfly, a full-fledged online debugging tool, that allows debugging of the HTML DOM, Javascript, CSS and much more. For example, a user can set breakpoints, alter scripts on-the-fly and execute statements in the current environment from a console. Opera’s implementation of the developer tools allows remote debugging, which is the ability to debug, from a desktop Opera instance, a webpage running anywhere, like a mobile device or another computer. Opera Dragonfly is included in versions 9.5 and up.

Features:

• JavaScript debugger
• DOM inspector
• CSS inspector
• Command Line to allow commands to be inputed
• Error Console that outputs validation errors and warnings exhibited by the CSS and JavaScript connected with the page
• Proxy to allow debugging directly on mobile devices

FusionDebug

FusionDebug an interactive step debugger for Adobe ColdFusion and Railo CFML Engine. Step through code line-by-line, step into, step over or out of code to better understand how CFML code is running. FusionDebug can be used as an alternative to using CFOUTPUT/CFDUMP statements.

Features:

• Support for CF frameworks and Adobe Flex Builder 2
• Comes with a full installer which includes a complete IDE containing CFEclipse
• Step through code line-by-line (where needed)
• Drill into variables and scopes
• Run to line functionality
• Associate custom file extensions with FusionDebug
• Set breaks on runtime custom exceptions
• View stack traces

TotalView – Parallel and Thread Debugger

TotalView is a GUI-based source code defect analysis tool that gives you unprecedented control over processes and thread execution and visibility into program state and variables.
It allows you to debug one or many processes and/or threads with complete control over program execution.  You can reproduce and troubleshoot difficult problems that can occur in concurrent programs that take advantage of threads, OpenMP, MPI, or computational accelerators.

GDB

GDB, the GNU Project debugger, allows you to see what is going on `inside’ another program while it executes — or what another program was doing at the moment it crashed.
GDB can do four main kinds of things (plus other things in support of these) to help you catch bugs in the act:

• Start your program, specifying anything that might affect its behavior.
• Make your program stop on specified conditions.
• Examine what has happened, when your program has stopped.
• Change things in your program, so you can experiment with correcting the effects of one bug and go on to learn about another.

The program being debugged can be written in Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, Pascal (and many other languages). Those programs might be executing on the same machine as GDB (native) or on another machine (remote). GDB can run on most popular UNIX and Microsoft Windows variants.

Insure++

Insure++ is a memory debugger computer program, used by software developers to detect various errors in programs written in C and C++. It is made by Parasoft, and is functionally similar to other memory debuggers, such as Purify and Valgrind.

Features:

• Corrupted heap and stack memory
• Use of uninitialized variables and objects
• Array and string bounds errors on heap and stack
• Use of dangling, NULL, and uninitialized pointers
• All types of memory allocation and free errors or mismatches
• All types of memory leaks
• Type mismatches in global declarations, pointers, and function calls
• Some varieties of dead code (compile-time)

IDA – Interactive Disassembler

The Interactive Disassembler, more commonly known as simply IDA, is a disassembler widely used for reverse engineering. It supports a variety of executable formats for different processors and operating systems. It also can be used as a debugger for Windows PE, Mac OS X Mach-O, and Linux ELF executables. A decompiler plugin for programs compiled with a C/C++ compiler is available at extra cost. The latest full version of Ida Pro is commercial software; an earlier and less capable version is available for download free of charge.

IDA performs much automatic code analysis, using cross-references between code sections, knowledge of parameters of API calls, and other information. However the nature of disassembly precludes total accuracy, and a great deal of human intervention is necessarily required; IDA has interactive functionality to aid in improving the disassembly. A typical IDA user will begin with an automatically generated disassembly listing and then convert sections from code to data and viceversa, rename, annotate, and otherwise add information to the listing, until it becomes clear what it does.

JSwat

JSwat is a graphical Java debugger front-end, written to use the Java Platform Debugger Architecture and based on the NetBeans Platform. JSwat is open-source software and is freely available in both binary and source code form. Its features include sophisticated breakpoints; colorized source code display with code navigator; byte code viewer; movable display panels showing threads, call stack, visible variables, and loaded classes; command interface for more advanced features; and Java-like expression evaluation, including method invocation.

Features:

• breakpoints with conditionals and monitors
• colorized source code display
• graphical display panels showing threads, stack frames, visible variables, and loaded classes
• command interface for more advanced features
• Java-like expression evaluation, including method invocation.

Nevimer

Nemiver is a standalone graphical C and C++ debugger that integrates well in the GNOME desktop environment. It currently features a backend which uses the well known GNU Debugger GDB.

OllyDBG

OllyDbg is a debugger that emphasizes binary code analysis, which is useful when source code is not available. It traces registers, recognizes procedures, API calls, switches, tables, constants and strings, as well as locates routines from object files and libraries. According to the program’s help file, version 1.10 is the final 1.x release. Version 2.0 is in development and is being written from the ground up. The software is free of cost, but the shareware license requires users to register with the author.[2] The current version of OllyDbg cannot disassemble binaries compiled for 64 bit processors.

Features:

• Allows for user-defined labels, comments and function descriptions
• Understands debugging information in Borland® format
• Saves patches between sessions, writes them back to executable file and updates fixups
• Open architecture – many third-party plugins are available
• No installation – no trash in registry or system directories
• Debugs multithread applications
• Attaches to running programs
• Configurable disassembler, supports both MASM and IDEAL formats
• MMX, 3DNow! and SSE data types and instructions, including Athlon extensions
• Full UNICODE support
• Dynamically recognizes ASCII and UNICODE strings – also in Delphi format!
• Recognizes complex code constructs, like call to jump to procedure
• Decodes calls to more than 1900 standard API and 400 C functions
• Gives context-sensitive help on API functions from external help file
• Sets conditional, logging, memory and hardware breakpoints
• Traces program execution, logs arguments of known functions
• Shows fixups
• Dynamically traces stack frames
• Searches for imprecise commands and masked binary sequences
• Searches whole allocated memory
• Finds references to constant or address range
• Examines and modifies memory, sets breakpoints and pauses program on-the-fly
• Assembles commands into the shortest binary form
• Starts from the floppy disk

SoftICE (Tribute)

SoftICE is a kernel mode debugger for Microsoft Windows. Crucially, it is designed to run underneath Windows such that the operating system is unaware of its presence. Unlike an application debugger, SoftICE is capable of suspending all operations in Windows when instructed. For driver debugging this is critical due to how hardware is accessed and the kernel of the operating system functions. Because of its low-level capabilities.

Valgrind

Valgrind is an award-winning instrumentation framework for building dynamic analysis tools. There are Valgrind tools that can automatically detect many memory management and threading bugs, and profile your programs in detail. You can also use Valgrind to build new tools.
The Valgrind distribution currently includes six production-quality tools: a memory error detector, two thread error detectors, a cache and branch-prediction profiler, a call-graph generating cache profiler, and a heap profiler. It also includes two experimental tools: a heap/stack/global array overrun detector, and a SimPoint basic block vector generator. It runs on the following platforms: X86/Linux, AMD64/Linux, PPC32/Linux, PPC64/Linux, and X86/Darwin (Mac OS X).

Xdebug

Xdebug is a php extension which provides debugging and profiling capabilities. It uses the DBGp debugging protocol.
The debug information that Xdebug can provide includes the following:

• stack and function traces in error messages with:
• full parameter display for user defined functions
• function name, file name and line indications
• support for member functions
• memory allocation
• protection for infinite recursions

Xdebug also provides:

• profiling information for PHP scripts.
• code coverage analysis
• capabilities to debug your scripts interactively with a debugger front-end.

Xdebug is also available via the PECL library

Actually it is not a trick. It is a logical “file format” hack that allows you to add a zip file inside a JPEG image and use both of the formats by just renaming the file. It works 100% on Windows systems, hence these systems tend to identify the file format from the extension.

What we will create is a big image with 4 thumbnailed images that when renamed to main.zip it will include the thumbnail’s original images. For those that just want to see the final file, here it is:

If you download this image (706kb) and rename it, you will be able to open the zip file and find the images included.

Now, if you want to see how this can happen, read on.

What is going on?

Plain simple explanation: The JPEG file format stores data on first bytes of the file and the ZIP file format stores data on the last ones. So you can add any info you want at the last bytes of a JPEG image and any info you want on the first bytes of a ZIP file.

How ?

Lets get 4 or more images, files, icons or any other file you want and zip them. Lets name the zip file as collection.zip . Then all you have to do is grab a JPEG image like this one and open it up with a hex editor.

Create a new file in the hex editor and copy and paste the image data in it:

Do the same for the collection.zip file but paste the data on the bottom of the image data you pasted before. Now save the file from the File menu as landscape1.jpg

As you can see, the image can still be opened and viewed with no problems (except the filesize is bigger now). If you rename the file to landscape.zip, the image turns into a zip file that contains your images.

Credits

This trick originates from +mala back in 2003! If you like to learn more about file formats and other extremelly old but great stuff you can try and earn your passage to +mala’s site.

Visual Nunit

Visual Nunit is NUnit integration for Visual Studio 2008. Provides convenient view to test cases and enables debugging tests easily inside development environment. Implemented as Visual Studio Integration Package.

Download | Screenshots | Homepage

GIMPVS

GIMPVS is Gimp Latest trunk compiled using Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 Editions. Entirely Compiled using Microsoft(TM) Compilers and linked against Microsoft(TM) Dynamic runtime libraries, GIMPVS is packaged for both Artists and Developers.

Download | Screenshots | Homepage

VisEmacs

VisEmacs is a Visual Studio Add-In that allows Emacs to be integratedas the default text editor. It will be used instead of (or in addition to) the Visual Studio built-in editor.

Download

PHP IDE / Editor : dotView Visual Studio

dotView Visual Studio is an open source IDE for dotView PHP framework. Main Functions : syntax highlight, break point and debug, integrating WAMP environement, and RAD tools. Support : PHP5, JS, CSS, HTML, XML, DOJO, JQUERY, SVN, FTP…

Download | Screenshots

.Net Scripting Control

Features of MS Script control (Functions like AddObject) and some features of VSA/Visual Studio editor .Mini visual studio IDE build in single control with feature like AddObject from MS Script Control.

Download

VisualDDK

The VisualDDK is a plugin for Microsoft Visual Studio allowing debugging device drivers right from the IDE. Additionally, a simple Driver Project Wizard is provided.

Download | Screenshots | Homepage

PhatStudio

PhatStudio is a Visual Studio plugin which lets you quickly navigate to any file in your project in just a few keystrokes, even for very large projects.

Download | Screenshots | Homepage

Toolbar Editor

A toolbar editor for Visual Studio. It can modify, add and create buttons, images and all that is needed for a toolbar.

Download | Screenshots | Homepage

Some of the OS mentioned, require that you register an account, while others require that you have a beta invitation.

Windows4all

Windows4all is a Microsoft Silverlight based online virtual operating system. Windows4all.com replicates the desktop environment of a modern operating system. The user can launch applications right away without installation.
Application runs in Silverlight’s security sandbox. By default code is restricted from accessing user’s file system or doing anything that could hurt user’s machine. Besides desktop, taskbar, start menu and sidebar, currently it includes applications like:

• File Explorer
• Internet Explorer
• Video Player
• Rich text editor
• RSS reader
• Chat
• Notepad
• Paint
• Calculator
• Games like Chess, Solitaire, Spider etc.

The system also supports installing program functionality. But this program should be developed in Silverlight and be available in Internet or local file system.

G.ho.st

The G.ho.st service provides, over the Internet, a working environment that mimics the classic desktop provided by personal computer operating systems. As an internet based service, users are able to create, save and return to a working environment from different physical computers and mobile phones. G.ho.st calls itself a Virtual Computer. In July 2009 the software entered beta stage development, and as of now it remains in this stage. The beta launch near Jerusalem was attended by Quartet Representative and former UK prime minister Tony Blair. The Company’s primary investor is Benchmark Capital.
Such services are not considered operating systems in the traditional sense although they are sometimes referred to as Web Operating Systems. Whilst they can include a GUI (e.g. a desktop), a (virtual) file system, application management and security, they do not contain a kernel to interface with physical hardware. Therefore, to use the service an operating system is required, supporting at least a Web browser from which the service can be run.
The G.ho.st Virtual Computer is hosted on Amazon Web Services and can be seen as utilizing Cloud computing on the backend and delivering a consumer version of cloud computing.

eyeOS

eyeOS is an open source web desktop following the cloud computing concept that leverages collaboration and communication among users. It is mainly written in PHP, XML, and JavaScript. It acts as a platform for web applications written using the eyeOS Toolkit. It includes a Desktop environment with 67 applications and system utilities. It is accessible by portable devices via its mobile front end.
For developers, eyeOS provides the eyeOS Toolkit, a set of libraries and functions to develop applications for eyeOS. Using the integrated Portage-based eyeSoft system, one can create their own repository for eyeOS and distribute applications through it.
Each core part of the desktop is its own application, using javascript to send server commands as the user interacts. As actions are performed using ajax (such as launching an application), it sends event information to the server. The server then sends back tasks for the client to do in XML format, such as drawing a widget.
On the server, eyeOS uses XML files to store information. This makes it simple for a user to set up on the server, as it requires zero configuration other than the account information for the first user, making it simple to deploy. To avoid bottlenecks that flat files present, each user’s information and settings are stored in different files, preventing resource starvation from occurring.

Glide OS

Glide OS is a Flash-based web desktop developed by Transmedia. It is notable for operating on both desktop operating systems and mobile operating systems. Glide OS is compatible with a variety of web browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.
Glide features a desktop-like interface which displays the Desktop, Glide HD, and Web Portal. Glide includes several web-based applications, including an integrated office suite, media player, photo editor, calendar software and webmail.

amoebaOS

This project requires that you have a beta invitation.

Once you’ve logged in, amoebaOS is 100% customizable. Every color, shape, button and window is generated using style information from a few Cascading Style Sheets. Applications that adhere to the styling guidelines are styled entirely by the System, and are thus configurable within System Preferences.
Like the standard desktop Operating Systems, amoebaOS includes a suite of productivity applications as well as some other useful and interesting programs pre-installed.These default apps can be replaced with any alternatives provided by the community or other developers, or even with equivalent web-based applications that expose data APIs for integration into the OS. Since none of the included suite of programs require Adobe Flash to be installed, users can easily replace these with Flash-based alternatives if they feel that technology is better suited to their work flow.
A lot of inspiration was drawn from the way Apple’s desktop Operating System manages applications, documents, windows, data and work flows. The primary areas where amoebaOS “shares common ground” with OS X are the application launcher, consistent unified menu, and the “A window is not an entire application” paradigm.
amoebaOS opens up absolutely every detail of the Operating System through various JavaScript interfaces. Without going into too much detail, you are able to control and modify your Operating System with a level of access similar to using GreaseMonkey or browser add-ons.

Online Operating System (oos)

My favorite. This web os is in my humble opinion the easiest to work with.
Every activated OOS account comes with 1 GB of disc space for your online photo album and your public homepage. Both are easily accessible for everyone via your personal domain http://<username>.oos.cc.

myGoya

MyGOYA is a free online operating system. Your own personal desktop can be accessed from any Internet PC in the world and includes e-mail, chat, filesharing, calendar and an instant messenger. Manage your contacts from anywhere in the world.

Nivio

Nivio is somehow a remote desktop powered by Java. So it is not so Web operating system as the others, but it is worth mentioning it here.
Access your very own customized desktop from anywhere. Nivio gives you an online version of windows which can be accessed from any web browser.

Jeez Tech uses Notepad++ all the time, from programming to text writing and even for more things you can’t imagine… How? By using some of Notepad++’s plugins.

This is a list of the plugins we use:

• Color Picker
  A colour picker which translates your selected colour in hexadecimal.
• Compare Plugin
  A very useful diff plugin to show the difference between 2 files (side by side).
• DBGP
  This is a php debugger (XDebug) which talks DBGP protocol. Use this plugin to transform your Notepad++ to a php IDE.
• Explorer
  Explorer plugin is a file browser. You can open whatever you want from it in Notepad++, just double click!
• FTP Synchronize
  A FTP client which is integrated in Notepad++ seamlessly. Open a php file from a server of distance, modify it, save it and try it on your browser directly just like you work locally.
• Hex Editor
  It’s a damn good Hex Editor – works seamlessly with Notepad++
• LanguageHelp
  LanguageHelp allows to run a language specific help file (CHM, HLP, PDF) and search for the keyword under the cursor. The latest versions allow also to show the help file as menu entries for quick launch.
• MultiClipboard
  MultiClipboard plugin implements multiple (10) text buffers that is filled up via copying and/or cutting of text.
• NppExport
  It allows you not only to save your source code as a html/rtf file, but also to copy your source code in the clipboard in RTF/HTML format, so you can paste it into your word processor (MS Word, Abiword, openoffice.org Writer) to get the same visual effect.
• Window Manager
  What if you can have a short overview of your open documents in Notepad++.This overview is dockable and gave you the full capability as the tabs have.
• XML Tools
  This plugin is a small set of useful tools for editing XML with Notepad++. The plugin is libXML2-based.

Do you use any of these plugins? Do you use other plugins we might not be aware of? Please let us know.

• GNOME
• Enlightenment
• Xfce
• OpenWindows and 
• KDE

KDE or the K Desktop Environment, is a network transparent contemporary desktop environment for UNIX workstations. KDE seeks to fulfill the need for an easy to use desktop for UNIX workstations, similar to desktop environments found on Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The UNIX operating system is according to us the best available today. When it comes to stability, scalability and openness UNIX has no competition. In fact UNIX has been the undisputed choice of information technology professionals for many years. The lack of an easy to use contemporary desktop environment, however, has prevented UNIX from finding its way onto desktops of typical computer users in offices and homes. UNIX today dominates the server market and is the preferred computing platform for computing professionals and scientists alike. The Internet, a household name traces its heritage to UNIX. In spite of such ubiquitous creations from the UNIX community, average computer users still expect it to be difficult to use and often stay away. This fact is particularly unfortunate since a number of implementations of UNIX, all of which are of exceptional quality and stability (Debian GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD etc.) are freely available off the Internet.

KDE looks great but I use MS Windows…

No problem at all. You can use KDE on MS Windows too!!
At http://windows.kde.org the KDE team tries to port the KDE enviroment to the Windows system.The KDE on Windows Project is aimed at native porting of the KDE applications to MS Windows. Currently Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista are supported.
We tried it, and it works great. You can also try it by downloading the KDE-Installer and follow the on screen instructions as you would with any other MS Windows app.

This is how we did it:

Running the Installer

Choosing Applications to install

Dependencies

Downloading Packages

Installation Completed

Now all the packages you selected are available from the Windows Start Menu:

Awesome Utilities:

Now you are ready to run applications like:

Konqueror (Web Browser)

Dolphin (File Manager. MS Explorer like):

and one of our favorite KDE Apps… Kate: