Cool Stuff

• The programming language Objective Caml is a dialect of ML. It has first-class functions and closures, as found in Lisp, but it does type-checking at compile time. You get 95% of the power of Lisp with faster debugging, fewer run-time errors, and cleaner code. (Personally, I also get a certain warm fuzzy feeling from static type-checking.) The free compiler can generate small, fast, native code executables for lots of platforms, including Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. Many libraries and many interfaces to libraries written in other languages are also freely available. Compiled programs can be distributed without encumbrance - this makes it easy to give fast executable binaries to other people. OCaml is my current language of choice.

• The VNC remote viewing software lets one use a Unix X-windows session or a Windows computer remotely. (It is like GNU screen, but for graphical sessions.) This is handy if you want to access your office machine from home or while traveling, or if you are stuck with the wrong operating system on your desktop machine. It's better than a remote X session because you can switch displays in the middle of a session and the viewing software is free and available for many platforms. (There is even a viewer written in Java so you can connect to your X session from any web browser!)

• The Linux operating system is very robust and portable. If you like to program, you'll like Unix.

• I'm currently favoring the GNU Emacs editor over XEmacs, but they are both great programs.

• While we're talking about emacs, I'd like to recommend the VM package for reading email (see also here), especially in combination with the BBDB package for managing addresses.

• Speaking of email, if you are unfortunate enough to use the Thunderbird email client, you should know about the Nostalgy extension for quickly filing email.

• LinkTiger finds broken links on your site and WatchThatPage will tell you when a page (eg, www.jair.org) changes.

• The Unison file synchronizer is handy if you like taking part of your filesystem with you on a laptop.

• Car sharing services are very useful if you don't drive every day. You can save money and improve the use of urban space at the same time! I've happily used City CarShare in the San Francisco Bay area and ZipCar in the Northeast.

• I'm a big fan of farmer's markets. I've enjoyed the ones in Cambridge (River St), MA; Palo Alto, San Francisco (Ferry Plaza), Menlo Park, and Mountain View, CA; and Durham, NH. In Durham, be sure to check out the UNH Organic Garden Club stand!