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Open-Source Software

For your friends still using Windows: Open SSH on Windows and FileZilla – The open source FTP client… I wish FileZilla, or some other nice, graphical, open-source ftp client was available for Mac OS X… I’ve yet to find one…

Of course for Mac OS X geeks check out Marc Liyanage’s Software section…

And for the Fink users out there, we have FinkCommander, a GUI for Fink.

Weblog-related: Memento is a lightweight knowledge management system based on the principles of memetics, the theory of memes. Naturally, to facilitate distribution of the Memento meme itself, this project is entirely open source.

Has anyone used stumbleupon?

I heard from Mike Chubbuck (of Silent Scream fame) last week, he says he’s got lots of neat stuff to tell me… Stay tuned!

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RCS explained, MySQL

I tried to explain RCS to someone today. They said it sounded great and asked how much it costs. I said it was free. They asked if it was any good. I said yes, and that it had been in use for probably 10 or 15 years. They wondered how it could be free if was so good when you often pay so much for other (crappy) software. At this point I tried to explain the concept of open-source software. I did explain that using RCS is not the easiest thing in the world. (Usually powerful tools are not extremely easy to use.) I demonstrated how to check in a file. At this point the person became slightly agitated, and walked away making a comment about having to be ‘checked in’ somewhere if they had to do that everytime they modified a file…

Actually RCS is 20 years old according to the rcsintro man page…

I finally got around to getting MySQL and perl talking to each other properly on my OS X box, what with the proper modules and so on… It’s something I should have done last year, ah well… Let the fun begin…

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blogchalk, 7-11

blogChalking is a neat idea. Of course syndic8 had their meta-data thingy for location long ago… I wish the syndic8 way of doing things caught on, as it would probably open up more possibilities in the future… oh well… here it goes (with appropriate tweaks): Google! DayPop! Etc! This is my blogchalk: English, Perl, United States, Wisconsin, Oconomowoc, Fowler Park!

It’s Big Gulp Day! Do you know why?

I started to draw up plans for the MacKiosk, I’m a little worried about portability and the size/weight aspects of it. Ah, no one said designing and building a kiosk would be easy…

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Web standards and browsers, MacKiosk

In A few valid points, they ask if developers really do develop for Windows/IE only. I can say that yes, they do. The lazy developers, and the ones that just don’t care about the web. I’ve worked with a company where the head cheese said that they should develop everything for Windows/IE since that is what most people used. I pointed out that he was doing work for a publishing company with many Macs, and many users who did not use IE. He didn’t get it. One of his employess wrote code, tested it on Windows/IE and declared it good to go. I then would test it under Netscape, Mozilla, etc. on the Mac, and on Windows, and find the problems. Argh… It’s lazy people who don’t care about the web who are ruining it for the rest of us…

Oh, as for me, I use Mozilla 98% of the time nowadays. I happen to like it very much. I like it better than IE without a doubt. One of the IS guys at work was amazed at the control Mozilla gave him when he first started using it. I’m sure most other IE users would feel the same.

I’ve been working on my MacKiosk thing. It’s an Apple Workgroup Server 80 that will be used for slide shows of digital photos, and possibly as a CD player (sorry, no MP3’s on this box) as well. I think I’ve got the software figured out, and I might build some sort of case for it. I hope to have it ready to go in the next two weeks. More details to come… Want more? try Finding New Uses For Old Macs, or if you have a business, there’s other uses…

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July 4th Activities

Whew, well, the last week has been chaotic. We spent July 4th at Naga-Waukee Park on Nagawicka Lake, and I spent most of that time on a boat, getting terribly sunburned, attempting to waterski, and being flung off of an innertube at high speeds. Yes, we have some photos… We had visitors from Michigan there, my female’s half-brother and half-sister, and all of their kids. I’ve never met them, and the female hasn’t seen them in more than 10 years. It was a nice reunion thing. It’s a shame we can’t see them more often.

Anyway, as stated, I burned myself beyond any sunburn I can remember getting. My arms are still sore. I did put on sunscreen, but I think once I hit the water and got dragged behind the boat, it wore off… My advice to you is: wear sunscreen, and re-apply it frequently. Especially if you sit in an office 95% of the summer…

After we beat the heck out of ourselves on the lake, we headed out to Hartford for the fireworks. I looked for the dork but had no luck. I attempted to take photos of the fireworks, as did Emma…

We also saw a (small) parade near our house Saturday. I got photos of that too of course…

And if that wasn’t enough, I took the kids to Bender Beach yesterday. I kept expecting a robot to sneak up behind me and say “Bite my shiny metal ass!” but it didn’t happen…

P.S. Open source software is good…