Even state-of-the-art computers need to use clever methods to process ever-increasing amounts of document data. The open source Lucene framework uses inverted indexing for fast searches of document collections.

We talk with Jean Hollis Weber, a volunteer with ODFAuthors, the LibreOffice Documentation team, and the Friends of OpenDocument Inc.

Occasional worries about the system status are part of the sys admin’s daily life, and admins usually keep a fat toolbox of top and stat tools to alleviate them. Charly says he can manage with just one multitool – for the time being, at least.

During the ongoing battle against spam, admins should inspect their troop’s battle lines from time to time. If you don’t relish the thought of counting the dinnerware, you can use the services of a logfile inspector like SendmailAnalyzer, which works surprisingly well with Postfix and the like.

in addition to its comprehensive tool set, Libreoffice packs a built-in Basic-like scripting language that can be used to automate repetitive tasks and extend the suite’s default functionality.

Managing email on an IMAP server is part of everyday business. The slim client Geary makes it as simple on the desktop as it is on many mobile devices – despite a few remaining shortcomings.

Most of the tools that show up in this column are small, smart, fast, and easily explained. This month is no exception; we feature a dynamic duo of tools.

The Sugar customer relationship management tool lets you import unstructured data from the cloud. We’ll show you how to use this feature to integrate instant messaging services.