In an effort to wean myself from proprietary file formats and closed source programs I’ve been playing with Linux of late. In fact, I started with free BSD back in the ’90s, but have been a bit more focused recently. I’ve gotten tired of being forced into updates and of having my favorite programs fade away through bankruptcy or being bought out by uncaring players in the market. My latest foray has been learning how to use the GIMP for image editing, and I’ve been very happy with it so far.

To share the love, in October sys admin Steve and I will be running a ‘Software Freedom Day’ at Bathurst TAFE, when we hope to have people bring in their PCs so we can help them install Linux and open source software on them. My current distro of choice is Ubuntu and we’ll also be installing EasyUbuntu, which is a python script that adds the most commonly requested apps, codecs, and tweaks not found in the base distribution.

Bathurst TAFE, Panorama Av.

(tags: ubuntu easyubuntu utilities Video apps apt-get codec drivers debian dvd fonts flash foss install linux mp3 multimedia music opensource Script todo)

In other links…

In the same spirit of freedom, I’ve been looking into Google Apps for Your Domain, which is a collaboration service that ties together Gmail, Gtalk, Calendar and Google Page Creator. I wonder what would happen if we used this tor create a nation-wide community of students for each module or course that we teach?

(tags: talotools google web2.0 apps office calendar collaboration gmail mashup wysiwyg editor online)

On the teaching front, I looked at Metacafe – Producer Rewards, which offers financial rewards for creating and submitting popular videos, thinking that it could be a good incentive for the digital media students. Imagine if funtwo had picked up a couple of cents for every viewing?

(tags: video digitalmedia metacafe)

arc90 lab : tools : Link Thumbnail

some JavaScript/CSS that shows users a small image of the destination page when they hover over external links – I’m not sure I’ll be using this one, but tagged it for my web development students to have a look at

(tags: ajax DHTML javascript css arc90 thumbnails links external)

Writer Zone: Windows Live Writer

a free microsoft app for WYSIWYG blog authoring with some nice features for manipulating images. I know, this goes right against my FOSS initiative, but its so goddamn alluring – I get spell checking (much needed), the ability to keep draft copies (i.e. a backup of my postings), and some pretty handy image manipulation and upload features which work transparently with both my blogspot and wordpress blogs. I’ve never looked much into local editing packages for blogging, but this just might spur me to look on sourceforge for something in the FOSS range.

(tags: blogging Windows tools microsoft wysiwyg wordpress todo)

Google AJAX Search API

a Javascript library that allows you to embed Google Search in your web pages and other web applications – another one on the to-do list for the web dev students

(tags: ajax google api search plugin mashup JavaScript web2.0 webdev)

The Elements of Style for Designers

use it for writing or designing web sites, this is an interesting post either way. It might even be good for a nascent blogger to pour over…

(tags: architecture article blogging communication creativity guidelines inspiration publishing toread writing style copywriting)