LyX is, quite simply, the single finest piece of document-editing software to be found anywhere, at any price.

Not only is it free, Open-Source software, it produces the highest-quality PDF output available anywhere, and includes excellent support for mathematics, indices, and bibliographies, not to mention the support for tables, floats, and high-quality images in a number of popular formats. LyX is a “document authoring system”, meaning that, rather than forcing the user to concentrate on laying out his or her document, it enables the user to concentrate on what really matters: the content. Using LyX, people have written their thesis, authored entire textbooks, and created documents that would choke lesser programs to death. LyX is a front-end to LaTeX, a powerful and flexible computer typesetting system used for decades in several industries, including academia, research, and technical documentation. The down-side, unfortunately, is the fact that the usage methods that must be used within LyX are completely and utterly unfamiliar to most long-time users of so-called word processors. The learning curve for LyX is practically vertical; however, if you have a week or two to learn its idiosyncrasies, you’ll find it’s well worth it. If you’re in the market for an all-in-one text document authoring system, and are willing to learn a new way of processing documents, LyX just might be for you.

Microsoft’s OneNote application – part of the Office suite – is often thought of only in conjunction with tablet PCs, but there are a variety of uses for this software, and you don’t need a tablet PC to get a lot of value from the program.

OneNote has wonderful organization. You can create any number of folders and any number of sub-folders. As a student, it can be useful to have a large folder for each class and smaller folders for things such as grades, papers, homework, or class notes. For the businessperson, OneNote makes it easier to keep track of what has been said in a meeting, and its integration with Outlook it wonderful as you can easily add appointments and tasks from OneNote. For both students and businesspeople, the audio recording feature is amazing. With this, you can type notes while recording whoever is speaking. OneNote automatically inserts a bookmark into the end of each line for the corresponding segment of audio. There are so many features in OneNote, many of them I’ve yet to come across, but this program is essential for anyone with a laptop or tablet PC.

Most people have shows on TV that they can’t miss, and thanks to TiVo and other PVR devices you don’t have to worry about that much. SlingBox is a nice addition to a TV and any PVR device.

It’s a box you buy that hooks up to a TV or a PVR and puts it on the internet. Then you use the slingplayer to watch that particular TV from anywhere in the world over the net. You can watch your TV on your cell phone, work computer, a friends house, a different country, etc. The software is free, and the hardware is one time buy, no subscription. It like being in the same room as your TV, remote and all. A more apt analogy would be it’s like Remote Desktop Connection for your TV. You can even let your friends watch what you are watching. The software is great and very easy to use, the quality is excellent if you have high speed internet. The few downsides are that it’s really like you are sitting in your room so if someone else changes the channel at your house then it changes on your computer screen as well, of course you could get into a remote war if you want. Also each TV can be watched remotely by only one location, so you couldn’t have five of your friends watching your TV at the same time. The best thing to do is hook it up to a cable that is not plugged in to a regular TV so it becomes a dedicated line. The remotes on screen match the remotes in real life so a TiVo remote looks exactly like a TiVo remote, you don’t have to learn anything new. A lot of my friends have a box and they let their friends overseas use it, that way they can get American TV anywhere, also some of my friends, hook it up to a local area and that way if they travel or move for a short period of time they can still watch their own local news and local sports through the SlingBox. Its a cool piece of technology, I’d recommend getting it with some friends because you probably won’t want to use it exclusively. This product can only get better as it grows.

What is IPSec? IPSec is a short form for Internet Protocol Security – A framework of protocols to ensure secure private communication over public networks like Internet.

With the increase of Internet usage, the threat of information leakage to wrong hands have also increased due to lack of secure ways of communication over the public networks. Any secure communication network should provide the following functionality: Data Integrity – Indicates whether the data is corrupted or changed by third party who is un-authorized to do so. Confidentiality of data – Should not allow un-authorized entities to examine the data being carried over the network. Authentication – Should ensure that the identity of entities in communication are indeed what they claim to be IPSec is a framework of protocols operating at Network Layer of OSI protocol stack, provides the functionality needed by a secure communication channel.

This framework consists of the following protocols:
1. Authentication Header (AH) Protocol AH Provides integrity protection for packet headers and data, but it cannot provide confidentiality of data.
2. Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) protocol ESP provides integrity protection of packets and also confidentiality of data through encryption of the data to be protected.
3. Internet Key Exchange (IKE) protocol IKE enables secure exchange of security keys involved in establishing a secure communication, manages the keys exchanged and provides the authentication of the entities.

XML Publisher is a Java-based tool to develop the Oracle Reports in printable aesthetic formats like Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Word.

The tool is very effective and can easily be integrated with the Oracle database. The report development using XML is a three step process. Step-1: Develop the reports using Reports Builder. All the query is to be written as it is done in legacy reports. Step-2: Create a Template using MS Word skills. Even pictures can be pasted onto the MS Word Template. Attach the XML Tags to various fields in the template using Form-fields in MS Word. Save the document as Rich Text Format Step-3: Create Data Definition for the report and define the Template using XML Publisher responsibility in Oracle Applications. Attach the RTF template to the Template define in XML Publisher. The report is ready to be executed. The output can directly be printed and issued to third party (e.. Sales Order, Invoice, Purchase Order etc.)

Emeditor has 3 versions, free, standard and professional (only $39.99).

The free version is good enough for average users, but for serious programmers I suggest an upgrade to the professional version because the of the features designed for coders. Emeditor has built in syntax highlighting for PHP, C, Java and other popular scripts and programming languages, so it’s possible to write your own highlighted code. The outline features could be the most important reason Emeditor is popular because most other editors don’t have the power to separate the code into different segments and (un)collapse them. The popularity has allowed Emeditor to become the only editor with 5 stars for both editor review and user vote at CNET Download.com.