Computer Stuff
For years I've used PC's running MS Windows (required for CAD work, mostly
SolidWorks these days). Back in 2003, I picked up a Mac, which opened a window
to the world of UNIX & Open Source software. This led me to Linux, where I
settled on Grml, a Debian based distro. I typically use the framebuffer
console running applications like Mutt, Vim, Irssi, ELinks,
w3m and VFU inside a Screen session. I've found this to be a rather
fast, resource-efficient and usable setup. When the need arises for graphical
applications, X-windows running a light-weight window manager like Fluxbox,
or xmonad does the job.
Below is a smattering of computer & software related links. My configuration
files and shell scripts are currently up on Github: http://github.com/b79
Internet / Web
An organization charged with developing common protocols for the World Wide Web.
Check out the specifications for HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.0, HTML 5
(in progress), CSS 2.1, and CSS3 selectors (proposed). Tip: download
these documents for handy, comprehensive off-line HTML & CSS references.
Concise guide for looking up the correct forms of tags when creating Web pages.
Lots of information on HTML and CSS
Character code issues, special characters in HTML, character problems in web
authoring, ascii control codes, ISO 8859 character sets, guide to the unicode
standard, characters in SI notations
Articles, FAQ's and other resources on a range of internet related
technologies.
"...explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a
special focus on techniques and benefits of designing with web standards."
Online book covering many aspects of website design
What the DNS is and the importance of universal resolvability.
A list of international top-level domains by country, including liks to
sponsoring organization's name, and technical and administrative contacts.
Organization home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure
standards "...provides leadership in addressing issues that confront the future
of the Internet...to assure the open development, evolution and use of the
Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world."
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers "...responsible for IP
address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic and country
code Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management
functions."
Links to hundreds of different points of access for the traceroute utility,
probe the paths data packets take through the Internet.
An essay on the global net of cables and wires spanning the continents and
oceans, connecting the world wide web.
Free/Open-Source Software
Explanation of free and open source software, comparison of various licenses
(groklaw).
A chart comparing the major attributes of the most popular Free and Open Source
Software licenses.
...How to Make the Source Free or Open
O'Reilly Open Book -- full text freely available on line (in PDF)
The Two Seminal Licenses, Their Roots, Consequences and Repercussions
GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)
GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF)
Philosophy of the Free Software Movement ("free" pertains to freedom, not price).
A book that "interweaves biographical snapshots of GNU project founder Richard
Stallman with the political, social and economic history of the free software
movement."
A book by Eric Steven Raymond about the implications of the Open Source
software revolution.
"dedicated to managing and promoting the Open Source Definition for the good of
the community"
Interactive forum for dissemination and discussion of legal news concerning
information technology, a production of the Berkman Center for Internet &
Society at Harvard Law School.
Electronic Frontier Foundation - "lawyers, volunteers, and visionaries working
to protect your digital rights."
An initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
From IBM's website, for developers making the transition to Linux
Fonts, Typography
A lot of info & links about typography and fonts on this site!
An outline font editor, allows you to create and modify PostScript, TrueType
and OpenType fonts, save fonts in many different outline formats, and generate
bitmaps. Open source, runs in the X Window System (X11), under Linux, OS X,
and MS-windows (via cygwin).
A listing and review of available fixed-width or monospaced fonts.
Free multilingual serifed font, a typeface family covering a wide range of
Latin-based alphabets, includes glyphs that correspond to all the Latin ranges
of Unicode. Archaic Greek symbols and full Cyrillic script support.
"This project aims to provide a set of free outline (PostScript Type0,
TrueType, OpenType...) fonts covering the ISO 10646/Unicode UCS (Universal
Character Set)...released under GNU GPL."
"The Open Laboratory for exchanging information about electronic fonts. We also
develop electronic fonts and related programs."
"How to improve X Window fonts. Various tips for improving font handling for
XFree86, including sections on TrueType fonts, Mozilla, font servers and
related topics."
"Unicode and Multilingual Support in HTML, Fonts, Web Browsers and Other
Applications" Includes lists of characters to test the Unicode support of your
Web browser and fonts.
Software Repositories
Provides an easy way to participate in the collaborative development of
software using Git, the fast, efficient, distributed version control system.
For hosting open source projects that use Git. Similar to Github, but more
project-based, and built on an open source (AGPL licensed) infrastructure.
"The goal of BerliOS is to provide support for different interest groups in
the area of Open Source Software (OSS)...the developers and users...commercial
manufacturers...as well as support companies."
"...Open Source software development web site. SourceForge.net provides free
hosting to Open Source software development projects with a centralized
resource for managing projects, issues, communications, and code."
"...index of Unix and cross-platform software... Thousands of applications,
which are preferably released under an open source license, are meticulously
cataloged in the freshmeat database..."
Software, Misc
Highly configurable, efficient text editor, evolved from the vi editor.
Great community, open source & free. Check out the documentation and the
wiki. Available for Unix, Linux, Macintosh, MS-DOS, MS-Windows, Amiga,
OS/2, and other platforms. Mac OS X 10.3 and later comes with a terminal
version of Vim, and a carbon GUI version is available here: Mac Vim. My
decision to settle on using the Vim editor was largly influenced by reading
My life with text editors.
Text-mode web-browser, an excellent alternative to browsers like lynx or links.
"supports a robust set of features including: frame and table rendering,
Japanese language support, locally run cgi scripts to test html output
(requires no webserver), small memory footprint...quite fast, colour :), SSL
support thru the openssl library, cookie support..." Also supports viewing
inline images. Fast, lightweight.
A macro package for TeX, an alternative to LaTeX, providing the advantage of
being compatible with Plain TeX, ie, you can write a document mixing ConTeXt
and TeX syntax (LaTeX isn't compatible in this way). Here's a Help Page
for ConTeXt beginners.
Text-to-HTML formatting syntax and Perl Script that converts an easy to read
& write plain text formatting syntax to XHTML or HTML. Also, SmartyPants
translates plain ASCII punctuation characters into "smart" typographic
punctuation HTML entities. Plug-ins available for BBEdit, Movable Type, and
Blosxom. Free.
A general markup converter, converts files from one markup format to another.
It can read markdown and (subsets of) reStructuredText, HTML, and LaTeX, and
it can write markdown, reStructuredText, HTML, LaTeX, ConTeXt, groff man, RTF,
DocBook XML, and S5 HTML slide shows.
A structured text syntax and conversion utility "...combines the benefits of
structured markup (mid-level semantic markup such as DocBook or HTML) with
the ease and readability of plaintext...a distribution of software tools
for...(converting Stx) into HTML, man, LaTeX and DocBook XML formats"
Image processing and analysis, Open Source Java application, Mac OS X & OS 9,
Linux and Windows.
Open source mapping software for generating maps, UNIX application requiring
command line input. A gui option is provided by iGMT, with an X11 window
interface. Online Map Creation is a web based application of GMT running on
a server.
Real-time space simulation of a 3-D universe, travel throughout the solar
system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or beyond the galaxy... Free, General
Public License (GPL), available for Windows, UNIX and OS X.
The software used by the Wikipedia free content encyclopedia and
others, released under the GPL.
Plans and software for do-it-yourself EEG biofeedback devices, available for
free (GPL).
Spam
Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email
Wikipedia entry on the what, why, where & how of spam...lots of detailed
information.
When posting an email address on a webpage, this application helps foil email
harvesting robots by converting the address into encrypted JavaScript code.
(view the source html of my contact page to see an application of this)
Misc
Discussion of ways to use Linux computers as a means to protect our
environment, using its features to save power or paper, and making use of old
computers.
Discussion of how to make more efficient use of computer resources, advocating
the environmental advantages of using light, small, efficient software over
'heavier' software.
Discussion of the need to develop software more attuned to the long-term needs
of society.
What grid is and how it's different from other technologies such as Clusters
and P2P. A directory of applications using Grid computing can be found at
EnterTheGrid.
Scientists control a single electron's spin in an ordinary commercial
transistor chip "With 100 transistors, each containing one of these electrons,
you could have the implicit information storage that corresponds to all of the
hard disks made in the world this year, multiplied by the number of years the
universe has been around" Evidently it has something to do with a qubit.
Publisher of quality computer reference books.
Saturn's C and B Rings From the Inside Out, a recent image from the Cassini
mission. Try the 200.4 kB jpeg.
A computer keyboard with excellent ergonomics. Takes a little while to get used
to, but very comfortable to use.
"We gave access to state-of-the-art personal computers to several thousand
children in urban and rural India. The computers were placed outdoors, usually
mounted on walls and, hence, often referred to as 'Hole-in-the-wall'".
Minimally invasive education experiments conducted by NIIT.
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