A helpful Perl script gives you an immediate overview of your financial status, adding the balances of multiple accounts and share depots. It even allows users to add their own plugins.

Perl gives you better shell scripts. Sysadm::Install, a new module from CPAN, helps shell addicts let go of Bash.

To get past a firewall and into a LAN,you need either a secret backdoor or a cooperative agent on the inside. A Jabber client on the LAN contacts a public Jabber server and wait for instructions trickling in as instant messages from its Internet buddies.