Find here a list of links to random sites on the Web. I use this page for my bookmarks, but also as a sort of showcase for sites I find cool. In this respect this page gives some insight on my personal interests as well.

Linux and other anti-social stuff

I like Free Software, consider the [Hacker] Jargon File as a world cultural heritage, the asr-manpages, Bruce Schneier Facts and xkcd make me smirk and I write this page in an editor that is older than me.

When working with Linux or BSD, it becomes apparent pretty quickly that knowing the shell better can improve one's productivity in a great way. The Advanced bash Scripting page is a good introduction to command line programming with the most popular shell on UNIX. Heiner Steven's shelldorado.com is a good source for shell tips.

Programming

I like smart algorithms like the ones described on Bit Twiddling Hacks or on the site of the excellent book Hacker's Delight.

Languages

A very good English-German online dictionary is LEO. Another good dictionary/translator is Google translate.

Some American universities used to publish online learning material, but unfortunately those pages are no longer available to the public. Fortunately other websites Russian Lessons, Russian for Free and Russian with Max fill this gap quite nicely. A fun way to learn a foreign language is with Duolingo. The Reverso Russian-English Dictionary is a good online English-Russian dictionary. The horrors of Russian Grammar can be seen e.g. on Alphadictionary.

Technical Writing

DocBook is an older but still very valid system to write technical documentation in. A DocBook document is made of one or more XML file(s) which get processed by an XSLT processor to generate HTML, PDF and a bunch of other formats. The language itself is described in the two online books DocBook: The Definitive Guide and DocBook XSL: The Complete Guide. The DocBook Frequently Asked Questions are a good source of information that don't get answered in the above books.

The Documentation Style Guide for OpenSolaris contains valuable tips on how to format the documentation and on how to (or not to) write the text. One of the best writing guides on English I came across is the 4th edition of Strunk and White, The Elements of Style. Not that it had any noticeable effect on my style though...

Hardware

The Curious Inventor Guides and the Tangent Tutorials are short introductions to technical stuff such as soldering, Eagle schematics and much more.