Bonus: Z is for zapped

There it is, ladies and gentlemen: The end of The List, as it was handed down to me years ago, from the elders of the Internet. It’s been a long haul, but it’s been worth it.

As with every section (except for the Y section), there are some leftovers that I omitted or skipped, because of technical or other reasons. I have some specific categories that I don’t include, for reasons which are listed here.

Please take one last look and see if there’s anything you might be interested in. …

• zcip: The home page for zcip is completely foreign to me. It has something to do with zero configuration networking, but I’m not even convinced it’s an actual application. 😕
• zip: zip (but oddly, not unzip) is on my list, but I’ll be stepping over it since it’s just a tool for a compression routine. I know, I can sense your disappointment from here. 🙄
• zoo: This was apparently a very old compression tool that predates a lot of the formats we use today. If I understand things correctly, that is. Apparently it will still work, but I don’t know what’s compatible with what.
• zorp: zorp is in Debian as a firewall tool, which means I won’t be tinkering with it. I learned my lesson with firewall utilities. 😯
• zracer: A mini racing game that looked promising, but wouldn’t compile for me. 😦
• zsh: The famous shell. I have tried it once or twice but always went back to bash. In any case, I’m omitting shells.
• zssh: Despite what you might think, this is not a shell. It’s a network file transfer protocol that claims to work alongside ssh but not scp. I believe it dates back to 2003, and didn’t build properly for me.
• zypper: I believe OpenSuse fans know zypper is a package manager — something like pacman or aptitude. I know I’ve given those two center stage before, but I have a little more experience with them, whereas zypper would be all new ground. If you can contribute, feel free.

And there it is. The End. A list that began with 400+ administration tools and at one point had crested over 1000 titles, finally distilled down to a list of six or eight omissions. WordPress.com says that works out to more than 890 blog posts, with the obvious caveat that some of those posts included more than one title.

I suppose you might wonder if that means the blog is done, and the answer is no. I still collect titles where I see them, and of course mentioning one or two programs usually leads to three or four more.

So yes, the original 1000 titles are done, but I still have a shorter list of about 100 programs — this time most of them with proper links and descriptions 🙄 — that will need investigation. In the name of science, of course.

So don’t give up just yet. Between that list and a string of bookmarks to other software collections, I have a feeling you and I will be doing this for a long time to come. 😉

But first … a short yet well-deserved break. Check in again next week. …