Jun 26, 2011 4:36am GMT
When I was growing up, I used to dream about magic shops -- stores filled with wonderful and precious objects. Since then, I've occasionally found close analogies in a craft or antique store and happily wandered about, not spending but simply enjoying the strangeness and diversity. But I don't think I ever found an experience as close to my childhood dreams as meandering through the Vancouver M... more »
KBookOCR 2.0: Baseline OCR at LastJun 23, 2011 11:33pm GMT
Every year or so, I need to convert a printed page to text. It's not oftener, because, while I do have a collected letters project that would benefit from optical character recognition (OCR), I only work on it sporadically. When I have to sign a publisher's agreement or some similar document, I can generally just send a scanned image. But every year or so, only OCR will do for one need or other... more »
The Decline and Fall of OpenOffice.orgJun 11, 2011 12:32am GMT
When LibreOffice first forked from OpenOffice.org, I was unsure how to respond to it. Many of its founders were members of Go-OO, the sometimes controversial not-quite-fork, so LibreOffice looked like simply a continuation of GO-OO under another name. However, since last week, when Oracle donated OpenOffice.org to the Apache Software Foundation, LibreOffice.org is looking more and more like the... more »
Google Web Fonts prove free fonts are flourishingMay 27, 2011 9:06pm GMT
Historically, fonts have been a weak point in free software. There were probably two reasons: first, programmers were mostly indifferent to fonts, and, second, font designers were concerned about how their work might be used. However, in the last five years, the problem has been largely corrected, as a look at the Google Web Fonts page shows.This change seems to have been brought about largely... more »
Mono founder launches new startup in a hurryMay 18, 2011 1:24am GMT
To outsiders, the recent layoffs at what used to be Novell appeared to be a major blow to Mono, the free software implementation of .NET, with many of its developers among those who lost their positions. Yesterday, however, Mono's founder Miguel de Icaza revealed in his blog that the layoffs only accelerated plans to spin off of Mono into an independent company. Called Xamarin, the new company... more »
GNOME Outreach Program for Women ReincarnatesMay 13, 2011 8:29pm GMT
"It's not rocket science," says Marina Zhurakhinskaya, the organizer of the GNOME Outreach Program for Women, talking about efforts to get more women involved in free software. "You just need to say that women are welcome in your project, because that in itself sends a signal. Also, you want specific people they can get in touch with to do their first patch and to ask questions.&... more »
PR basics for free software projectsMay 05, 2011 8:00pm GMT
A handful of free software projects, such as the Apache Software Foundation, market themselves as professionally as any corporation. However, the marketing of most projects could be greatly improved with a few common-sense practices.Why bother? Several reasons spring to mind, even if your project isn't commercial. To start with, marketing is a way to give credit, and receiving credit remains a... more »
