Announcing Writer's Jobs Project
May 30, 2009 GMT
As part of my Writer's Tools project, I've started working on a new OpenOffice.org database application designed to keep track of projects and jobs. It's a single-user solution geared towards freelancers and self-employed. It's still at a very early stage of development, but I thought it would be a good time to invite you to give it a try and submit your comments, suggestions, and ideas.
Create a DIY Planner with Dynamic Templates
May 30, 2009 GMT
The D*I*Y Planner Web site is a real treasure trove for fans of DIY paper-based personal organizers like Hipster PDA. Among other things, it offers a wealth of ready-to-print templates, an excellent handbook of how to build your own D*I*Y planner, and even an OpenOffice.org-based widget kit for creating custom planner templates. But that's not all. Somewhere on the Web site hides a nifty little application called more »
Extension Watch: Access Statistics for DokuWiki
May 29, 2009 GMT
There are quite a few open source Web tracking solutions out there, but if you are running DokuWiki, there is no need to install and configure a third-party tool to gather stats on your visitors. Instead, you can let the Access Statistics plugin collect and analyze data about your visitors.
The plugin stores the collected data in a MySQL database, so your first order of business is to create a separate database for use with Access Statistics (or use an existing database) and populate it with the... more »
Pin 'em up: No-frills sticky notes tool
May 21, 2009 GMT
Sticky notes utilities for Linux are a dime a dozen these days, so what makes Pin 'em up so special? For starters, it's written in Java, so it runs happily on different platforms -- a boon for users who have to deal with different operating systems on a daily basis. Pin 'em up also lets you categorize your notes, and you can define as many categories as you need. To edit the default list of categories, right-click on the Pin 'em up icon and choose category actions -> Manage categories. You can then specify the... more »
Track Your Software Usage with Wakoopa
May 16, 2009 GMT
It took Wakoopa a while, but the company has finally released a Linux version of its tracking client. For those not familiar with the strangely named service, Wakoopa generates a so-called software profile using a small tracking utility running on your desktop. Once installed, the Wakoopa tracker collects information about the applications you are running on your machine and uploads the collected data to Wakoopa's Web site. You can then share your software profile with other users in a variety of ways. For example, Wakoopa lets you... more »
Monitor Bandwidth Usage with vnStat
May 13, 2009 GMT
In these days of bandwidth caps and pay-per-kilobyte rates, keeping an eye on your bandwidth usage makes a lot of sense. While there is no lack of bandwidth monitoring utilities, vnStat stands out from the crowd thanks to its ability to store monitoring data in a database and resume monitoring automatically on reboot. This means that once installed and configured, vnStat quietly monitors a specified network interface and saves the collected data. You can then use vnStat's command parameters to view detailed reports of your bandwidth... more »
Kick-start Your Brain with Scribble
May 08, 2009 GMT
Sometimes your brain needs a gentle push to get into gear. For some a good cup of coffee does the trick, while others prefer to use a good word game to kick-start their gray cells. If you belong to the latter category, you might appreciate Scribble, a command line-based version of the popular Scrabble game. Scribble is available in the software repositories of many mainstream Linux distributions, including Debian and Ubuntu. To install Scribble on the latter, run the sudo apt-get install scribble command and you are good to go. Run the scribble command to start a new game.... more »