Aug 21, 2011 11:32pm GMT
Recently, I wrote an article about the lack of acceptance of GNOME 3. I received a private email from Aaron Seigo of KDE in which he took me to task, politely, thoughtfully, and with his usual thoroughness, for focusing on negative news. Since I often debate this issue with myself, with Seigo's permission, I'm summarizing the discussion here.Seigo begins by asking, "Is it useful to spend t... more »
Seven Points About Ereaders You Should Know Before BuyingAug 16, 2011 10:49pm GMT
Last week, I finally got around to buying an ereader. I might have bought before, except for a vague feeling that I should wait for the technology to improve, but the whim hadn't struck me before. Nothing I might read has ever been published exclusively as an ebook, and the price of ebooks isn't usually compelling, especially since I frequent used bookstores. But the stars aligned (or, more exa... more »
High-calibre ebook managementAug 12, 2011 10:20pm GMT
One of the delights of free software are the applications that do everything I can ever imagine in their general category. Sometimes I may long for leaner or simpler apps, but I know, for example, that K3B will give me everything I need for burning DVDs, or digiKam for managing and editing photos. Now, as I start getting into ebooks, I'm looking at calibre as potentially another of these ultima... more »
From LibreOffice to ePubAug 04, 2011 11:04pm GMT
As someone contemplating ebook publishing, I found the LibreOffice / OpenOffice.org extension Writer2ePub worth investigating. After all, while GNU/Linux has a couple of apps that can read the popular ePub format -- Calibre and Lucidor -- about the only way to actually produce ePub content is to export from DocBook. However, I'll have to wait a version or two before relying on Writer2ePub.Write... more »
Google+ and the right to use an aliasJul 25, 2011 4:02am GMT
Until a few weeks ago, I hadn't thought much about the use of pseudonyms online. At times, I use "nanday" -- the species of parrots I live with -- but a pseudonym has never really been an option for most of my online presence, because, rightly or wrongly, editors assume that my name has some value on an article. So far as I had thought, pseudonyms seemed a childish remnant from the ea... more »
Free software isn't a single school of thoughtJul 20, 2011 10:48pm GMT
"Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, You don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for your selves! You're ALL individuals!The Crowd: Yes! We're all individuals!"- Monty Python, "The Life of Brian""Would it be immoral for me to write a program and then to sell it without providing the source code?" Someone asked in response to... more »
Where Did All the Idealism Go?Jul 13, 2011 10:45pm GMT
"You say the little efforts that I make will do no good; they never will prevail to tip the hovering scale where justice hangs in balance. I don’t think I ever thought they would, but I am prejudiced beyond debate in favor of my right to choose which side shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight."- Tommy DouglasAs a writer, I am more comfortable reporting the news than making the n... more »
