http://www.freesoftwhere.org All the blog you can read Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:38:42 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This is a follow-up to my post from a few months ago about mapping GTD concepts to iCalendar. Six months on, I owe the world a report on my attempts to implement GTD methodology in a standard calendaring application.  I chose Thunderbird with the Lightning extension,  because it's cross-platform and because ... http://www.freesoftwhere.org/2010/02/08/getting-things-bird/ Just an update to my painfully slow learning process about Radio Data System (RDS), the FM-broadcast system for side-channel data.  As a recap, RDS can be used to send a variety of different data types, including FM channel niceties like the currently playing song (or the next song), station call-letters, ... http://www.freesoftwhere.org/2010/01/27/slightly-more-on-rds-tmc-and-open-source/ I really like the fact that Ubuntu is revamping the GNOME "notification area" because as it stands now, it is a trough that accumulates interface debris.  But aside from the inconsistency, the one use case I don't understand is minimize-to-tray, in which an application disappears from the window list (ie, ... http://www.freesoftwhere.org/2010/01/11/status/ So I've finally figured out what bothers me about 3-D entertainment (and no, it's not that all of it sucks post-Captain Eo ... although that is true....).  It's focus.  In 2-D photography and cinematography, depth-of-field creates a sense of depth, naturally, by having the foreground in focus and the background ... http://www.freesoftwhere.org/2010/01/06/dimensions/ Dear Interwebs, Is this possible?  I'd like to create a mouse-deformable elastic SVG image.  In other words, the user can click anywhere inside the image and drag the mouse around, and in response the object(s) underneath the cursor would be stretched in the direction of mouse movement, as if they were ... http://www.freesoftwhere.org/2009/08/12/animated-svg-bleg/ Are you a satisfied OpenStreetMap user? You should be; OSM has user-generated and user-maintained data, and provides a service equal to that proprietary software companies have been charging exorbitant rates for ... based solely on the scarcity of the free, public information at the service's core. Which got me to thinking ... http://www.freesoftwhere.org/2009/07/09/traffic/ I'm busy. And like everyone and his brother (although not my brother), I've read David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) and thought about how his organizational theories might line up with the way I work.  If you're uninitiated, GTD is a collection of methods and tidbits that Allen says are ... http://www.freesoftwhere.org/2009/07/08/tcb-w-gtd-via-vtodo/ Way, way back in aught 7, I wrote this rarely-read piece about the trials of converting the legacy PhotoCD (.pcd) format into something useful on a modern day computing machine.  The principle problem was that since no new files were being produced in .pcd format, the knowledge of how to ... http://www.freesoftwhere.org/2009/06/01/photocd-conversion-ii-photometric-boogaloo/ If you haven't already, please go over to this Pledgie campaign page and make a modest donation to help support the best volunteer-driven event for people who use free software and love graphics: Libre Graphics Meeting 2009. LGM is half-workshop and half-conference; developers that work on all sorts of graphics programs ... http://www.freesoftwhere.org/2009/03/02/only-you-can-prevent-lame-free-graphics-software/  From the XFM Web site: Salient points, in order of increasing importance*: (1) XFM's browser detection is correct (2) XFM understands that codecs are the stumbling block in streaming media, not browsers or operating systems (3) XFM understands that a variety of apps are available and that I could have one that works :.  XFM ... http://www.freesoftwhere.org/2008/11/24/xfm-not-smarter-than-you/