Software

A student wanted a Linux laptop so that he could run Bibus, a F/OSS reference management tool that talks to OpenOffice.org. It's not part of Ubuntu, but there's a Debian version, so it installs with a couple of clicks. It took me a minute to figure out how to insert citations, but I did. It looks pretty easy. And it created what appears to be a correctly formatted bibliography. I can't get the BibTeX import to work (I keep my stuff in BibTeX), and the export that JabRef did of my database (of some 2000+ references) didn't seem to include the journals. This may still be a decent tool for me when I'm forced to create word processing documents, and it's likely a worthwhile tool for you if you don't already have 2000 items in a database using another tool that you really, really like.

The FreeSMUG peoplenow have portable apps. See portableapps.com for Portable apps for Windows.

eSchool News has an article called A paradigm shift for school software?I told you so.

I just stumbled on this piece about how word processors are stupid tools. I agree wholeheartedly. I have been saying this for years. Most people don't know that there is a way to produce text OTHER than a word processor.

A couple places have stories about Indiana moving not only to OSS applications, but even to Linux. That's crazy. See School CIO and this piece. I mostly added this because some time ago I posted something about Linux in Indian schools and when I saw it just now I thought it was a typo.

It's not OSS, but Far Manager purports to be a way to keep sets of files in multiple locations synchronized. The WinSCP site claims that it's "shareware." I don't see that they're charging for it, but I don't see that source code is available, either. If I used Windows and hadn't figured out how to make rsync work, I'd definitely give this a shot. Oh, someone has made a newer, and presumable better packaging rsync for windows called cwRsync. I'd check that out too.

So I'm writing this chapter for a handbook. The editor sends back a draft using MS Word's "Track changes" and "comments" features. "Dandy," I think, "this should be a good way to see what he wants." Read on to find out that the process required two operating systems to accept the suggested changes to be able to actually start work the substantive stuff.

Tech-savvy Profgrrl opines that the Chronicle of Higher Education is running a story called Toss Out the Index Cards that describes these magic programs that you can use to keep up with --- and even format --- your citations. To her, it seems silly to have such an article when she's known about EndNote for a decade.

Webliographer is, to the best of my knowledge, the first web-based application for managing and sharing bookmarks. The first usable version was in use in October of 1998. It replaced my home page, which consisted primarily as a set of categorized links. I was especially proud of the fact that it tracked the use of URLs, so when you clicked on a link a counter was updated in the database and links that got more hits were promoted to the front page of Webliographer's display. Though I used, and still use, Webliographer primarily for my own purposes an individual, my target audience for Webliographer was primarily teachers who wanted kids to use the web in their classrooms.

OK, so I'm starting to gush about Google. I have long known not to be a crazy zealot about Linux, in spite of how good I think it is and how I think it may be easier to run one Windows machine than one Linux box but that it's much easier to run 10 Linux boxes than 10 Windows boxes. (And you can replace "Windows" with Mac OS X in the previous sentence.) But Google keeps doing stuff that is incredibly useful. At some point I'll be worried about them having everyone's data, but I I choose not to worry about that right now.