January 28, 2006

You are currently browsing the daily archive for January 28, 2006.

Mozilla Extensions Anyone and Linux Applications Roundup

January 28, 2006 in Linux | No comments

Lets go over how the browser is our world, class. Repeat after me,

The browser is the world
The browser is not the world but with extensions…

I’ve been looking at a number of very powerful extensions like adblock, performancing, and a really nice weather one of late. This gets me to the point of being able to extend GNU/Linux on the desktop to areas that were lacking. Running things in browsers like RSS alligators are cool. Sage as an extension is very cool. But after a few posts on Linux applications and a lack here or lots there, I’ve come up with a few that we all just need. Lets start with Mozilla Extensions that work perfectly on Linux:

  • Performancing - try this one out if you post to a wordpress-powered weblog. It does so much and it runs in a window in the browser.
  • Sage - if you like RSS crocodiles and alligators; you’ll like Sage. It tucks away RSS into a panel and you can have all the power of the browser at the same time. Very nice
  • ForecastFox - weather when you need it! This is a nice weather alerter, forecast finder, etc.

There are so many more these days that you can definitely find the ways/means of extending your Firefox experience. You say you use IE? What in heck is IE? Is that one of them legacy web browsers? :-) But how to find them? Launch Firefox and go to “extensions” and find more. Simple. I won’t link to each one because you will definitely want to go shopping.

Now for some Linux applications that I’ve found do things which I need:

  • OODraw - I blogged this one before and got a nice comment about using it. OODraw does the wild and wooly connectors that make flowcharting fun and profitable. It runs on Linux very nicely but if you need it on other platforms, you got it! Its part of the openoffice.org projectand one of the nice things with the 2.x release is that one can launch it independently. I don’t recall this feature with the 1.x releases.
  • JBlogEditor - Well, you know if you blog, you don’t want to always have performancing open because it means running Firefox all the time. Its nice to find a multi-platform blog editor and JBlogEditor is it.
  • Freemind - Well, this one is common-sensical sort of. If you do flowcharting, you probably want to do mind-mapping. If you do mindmapping you may want to do outlining too. I think there is a continuum of use with these kinds of things. So I’ll link to a few outliners next… Anyways Freemind does wondrous things and its free and it installs nicely, and it does mindmaps. What’s a mindmap you may ask? Imagine a graphical representation of a project and links to tasks, ideas, requirements.
  • Along with mindmappers we need outliners and there are bunches. Some nice ones that are free that run on Windows are like Keynote. Nice, very nice! We have a few on Linux too. I’ve been using one called outliner which runs on Linux nicely. Its a basic thing but it can handle multiple files at the same time. Tuxcards is another one that you may like.

The last topical area on outliners is kinda weak when you compare it to things like KeyNotes. There are bunches on Windows out there now and we need more on Linux. An outliner is a wondrous thing to me because its situated inbetween a flat wordprocessor and a more graphical editor.

Well, there you have a few and some are java-based which make it nice. Others are based on a browser model and there are some that are just glue. OpenOffice is glue basically and it makes computing on Linux that much nicer. Thanks to all the folks that produce quality software. I use and like commercial and free stuff and I appreciate them all. Great work!!

Gathering the Table of Elements

January 28, 2006 in Anthropology, Subterfuge | No comments

Its come to me more than a few times that the world is made up of elements of various kinds and there is this table of periodic elements which are the maps and illustrations of our world. Some of the crystalline structures I’ve seen of silica, quartz, dolomitic cherts; are simply breathtaking in their elegance. Geologists have a wondrous world to work on and I think their tablet is the world-at-large and all its structure. I’ve envied them for more than a few reasons in the past because they take on time and space in a very interesting, provocative and wondrous way. As an archeologist at one time, we took on features, symmetry, logistics, space, and time as well. I was limited to 40k years though and geologists go on and back and even out into space. Wondrous! But prehistoric peoples touching their lives is also full of wonder…

It brings me to the periodic table of elements for people. We all seem to have shares of these common elements like truthfulness, honesty, equity, wonder and all the negative poles. In fact, in many people, most people, all people one can observe what element rules. We all want people to ascribe to higher moral, ethical, and other elements; but our makeup while cosmic in nature is human in composition. So we all have to share all of our elements and be just human but fly to the stars. Its what makes us the best and worst and other ways at things we do. But the real mystery is when you introduce others and their elements to the mix. As solitary human beings we sense out our own elemental lives; but people add a mix and complexity.

Its an interesting set of hypotheses to consider, fellow humans. As you blog out and in, consider what elements you are presenting for the rest of us. We all are made up of the materials that made the universe but we cull them all down to sets of principles, ethics, ideas, philosophies. Don’t tell me measurement of the way doesn’t matter and that results only do. Without measurements of effort, results don’t ever happen. So get honest with yourself in your periodic table of elements.

Lets all be good geologists, anthropologists, and scientists and redo our own particular table of elements.