circle.ch weblog by Urs Gehrig

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A weblog about libre software, law, technology, politics and the like.
2010-03-18T18:07:32
Academic, Apache, Apple, Art, Best Of, Biotech, Civil Society, Content Management, Cooking, Copyright, Creative Commons, Crosspost, Culture, Database, Deutsch, DRM, Economy, Education, Event, Gadget, General, Geodata, Government, Health, Howto, Humor, Innovation, Intellectual Property, Java, Language, LaTeX, Law, Linux, Media, Moblog, Mozilla, Music, Office, Open Content, Open Source, P2P, PHP, Podcast, Politics, Privacy, Projects, Random Thought, Rant, Science, Search, Social Network, Software, Sport, Talks, Technology, Technology Transfer, Travelling, Weblog, Wiki, Wireless and Mobile, XML

22. April 2008

How to OCR multipage PDF files
Open Source (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 16:46:53

The OCR applied here only serves for reasons of indexing PDF files. The page layout will get lost. Nevertheless, the following three steps help you to convert multipage PDF files to a single text file:

$ convert -density 150 foo.pdf ./tesseract/tmp/p%02d.tif
$ montage.exe ./tesseract/tmp/*.tif -tile 1x -mode concatenate ./tesseract/tmp/foo.tif
$ tesseract.exe ./tesseract/tmp/foo.tif output -l eng
For reasons of simplicity the TIF files p00.tif to pXY.tif will get concatenated together to a single TIF file, that has the width of a single page and the height of XY pages. In such a way at least the order of the text or the text flow respectively will be preserved. But one could also concatenate a mosaic of all the TIF files. The density of 150 (dpi) gives reasonable results with tesseract.

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03. October 2007

Adding header or footer information to existing PDF
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 08:03:11

Recently we had to deal with PDF manipulation, respectively the need to add header information to an existing PDF file. First thing I tried was using LaTeX as outlined by Stefan Lagotzki [1]. But a solution to apply more easy was needed. Imagemagick's "composite" does now the job quite well. Multipage PDF files have first to be split up and then being treated with composite as outlined below:
$ pdftk A=multipage.pdf cat A1 output multipage.1.pdf
 $ pdftk A=multipage.pdf cat A2 output multipage.2.pdf

The commandline below takes the singlepage PDF at a resolution of 300dpi and resizes it to a percentage and then glues it to the header page, which is of the size A4. Resizing ensures, that the header information is always visible above the included singlepage:
$ composite -density 300 multipage.1.pdf -resize 93% header.ps -compose bumpmap -gravity south out.pdf

The header page could look like shown below:
%!PS-Adobe-1.0
 %%DocumentMedia: A4 595 842 0 () ()
 %%Orientation: Portrait
 %%Pages: (atend)
 %%DocumentFonts: Times-Roman Helvetica
 %%EndComments
 %%EndProlog
 %%Page: 1 1
 50 760 moveto
 /Courier findfont 14 scalefont setfont
 (Add your text right here...) show    
 showpage
 %%Trailer
 %%Pages: 1

[1] http://www.lagotzki.de/pdftk/index.html#FAQ

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02. March 2007

adfinis is hiring
PHP (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) | Economy (wiki) - urs @ 21:37:33

adfinis GmbH in Bern is looking for a web developer
Zur Unterstützung unseres jungen Teams bei Neuprojekten und Wartung/Erweiterung von bestehenden Lösungen suchen wir per sofort eine/n PHP Entwickler/in mit Pensum nach Vereinbarung, ca. 80-100%.
More details can be found on their blog [1].

[1] http://www.adfinis.com/node/177

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07. December 2005

Open Hardware - SUN opens up UltraSPARC processors
Open Source (wiki) | Innovation (wiki) - urs @ 18:12:38

Just recently I played with the open hardware idea when blogging about the $100 laptop. Now, SUN has opened up their UltraSPARC T1 processor design [1,2]. Of course, it is a long way from Verilog to the final chip. But at least for Universities it is an intersting opportunity.

At the Ingenieurschule Biel we used to work with Verilog and VHDL [3] and then implemented alorightms and microprocessor cores etc. in FPGA chips, as it has e.g. been done for the the so called "Gecko" project [4]. Verilog and FPGA are quite perfect for rapid prototyping and therefore of interest for research and development industries.

[1] http://news.google.ch/news?q=open+sparc+sun
[2] http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2005-12/sunflash.20051206.4.html
[3] http://www.hta-bi.bfh.ch/E/Laboratories/Microelectronics/courses/vlsi/VLSIsystem.pdf
[4] http://www.microlab.ch/pdf/Papers/soc01.pdf

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22. November 2005

Attorney General of Texas takes action against Sony BMG
Law (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) | DRM (wiki) - urs @ 11:00:22

The Attorney General Abbott brings first enforcement action in US against Sony Bmg for spyware violations [1]. Some commentors in Jon Johnsons weblog motivated him to take action against Sony BMG as well [2], but due to copyright infringement. Jon Johnson is the author of FairPlay code that he wrote for VLC. It is said, that Sony took some of that code to run their Sony DRM rootkit. Some more reading about copyright issues related to Sony BMG is available on Samuel Hocevars blog [3].

[1] http://www.oag.state.tx.us/oagNews/release.php?id=1266
[2] http://nanocrew.net/2005/11/16/sony-drm-rootkit-saga/
[3] http://sam.zoy.org/blog/2005-11-18-the-fuss-about-sony-s-drm

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31. October 2005

WW2D - Explore Earth the Open Source Way
Open Source (wiki) | Geodata (wiki) - urs @ 13:38:38

WW2D [1] is cross-platform, free and open-source application similar to NASA World Wind or Google Earth software. WW2D allows you to explore Earth using satellite imagery, topographic maps and image from other data sources also providing large placenames and boundaries database and allowing you to install community-made add-ons for even more information about our planet.

[1] http://ww2d.berlios.de/?Introduction

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21. September 2005

OpenLaszlo Open Source development platform
Open Source (wiki) | Technology (wiki) - urs @ 19:39:26

OpenLaszlo is the leading open source platform for the development and delivery of rich Internet applications on the World Wide Web.
Although I read the first time of it today, it looks promising, at least if I have a look at the demo applications [1] and the "Laszlo-in-10-minutes" introduction [2].

[1] http://www.laszlosystems.com/demos/
[2] http://www.laszlosystems.com/lps/laszlo-in-ten-minutes/

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12. September 2005

Engagement bei LOTS/fossdays
Open Source (wiki) | Deutsch (wiki) | Event (wiki) - urs @ 23:43:09

Letztlich wurde ich in Zusammenhang mit LOTS bzw. fossdays [1] angesprochen. Ich musste leider mein Engagement als OK Mitglied für fossdays auf Null reduzieren (per Ende Juni), da es mir zeitlich, wegen beruflicher Weiterbildung, einfach nicht mehr möglich war, mich an der Organisation kommender Events zu beteiligen. Bei allfälligen Fragen bitte ich den geneigten Leser oder die Leserin, sich an Andreas, Michael oder Toni zu werden. Letzteren und auch Bertrand und Matthias danke ich für die guten Erfahrungen, die ich mit ihnen machen konnte. Mein Dank geht auch an die vielen Aussteller, Speaker und Besucher, die LOTS/fossdays letztlich möglich machten.

[1] http://fossdays.org/blog/

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12. August 2005

Fenice - Open Media Streaming Server
Open Source (wiki) | Creative Commons (wiki) - urs @ 15:27:25

Fenice is a multimedia streaming server compliant with the IETF's standards for real-time streaming of multimedia contents over Internet. It is the world's first streaming server supporting Creative Commons licensing meta-data for audio/video streaming. The Streaming Client ist called NeMeSI. There are various other clients suggested too [2].

[1] http://streaming.polito.it/server
[2] http://streaming.polito.it/node/488

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22. June 2005

fossdays logo - public voting
Open Source (wiki) | Event (wiki) - urs @ 09:51:03

fossdays started a public voting for three logos. You are kindly invited to vote [1] for your favourite logo.

[1] http://www.fossdays.org/blog/2005/06/20/fossdays-logo-public-voting

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19. May 2005

Freedom-Party in Berne
Open Source (wiki) | Culture (wiki) - urs @ 16:33:19

Wilhelm Tux, as an associate of the FSFE, is organizing a Freedom-Party [1] in Switzerland on Saturday, May 21, in Bern. Andreas [2] and Alex [3] are part of the team of organizers and sponsors ;)

[1] http://www.wilhelmtux.ch/cgi-bin/wiki/Freedom_Party
[2] http://www.delicate.ch
[3] http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/alex

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Logo- und Design-Contest für fossdays
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 16:11:19

Noch bis Ende Mai läuft ein Logo- und Design-Contest für die Website der LOTS-Nachfolgeorganisation fossdays.org. Gerne sind kreative Köpfe dazu eingeladen, ihren Vorschlag abzugeben [1]. Auf den Gewinner oder die Gewinnerin wartet ein Preisgeld von Fr. 500.-.

[1] http://www.fossdays.org/blog/2005/05/01/logo-und-design-contest

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06. May 2005

Beagle - Open Source Desktop Search
Open Source (wiki) | Privacy (wiki) - urs @ 09:45:44

I have been working with Google and Copernic Desktop Search, as well as with the beta version of the MSN toolbar. Though, I have not yet used the Yahoo Desktop Search. Anyway. As long as there is a gray area (mostly fuzzy privacy policies), what data is exchanged between my the local machine and the Desktop Search service provider on the other side, I wish to have a custom solution. Beagle [1] seems to be an alternative. It is a Lucene based Open Source Desktop Search implementation originally coded for Gnome. Today I found a Windows implementation written by Fredrik Hedberg [2]. You will hear from me, if Beagle works here on Windows ;)

[1] http://www.gnome.org/projects/beagle/
[2] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/dashboard-hackers/2005-January/msg00045.html

Update - Nat Friedman's post on Beagle [3]:
[3] http://www.nat.org/2005/january/#17-January-2005

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12. April 2005

Linux Konferenca Slovenia 2005 - Call for Papers
Open Source (wiki) | Economy (wiki) | Talks (wiki) - urs @ 17:24:34

Brian King fame asked me to spread those news and of course I will no hesitate to do so. Brian is part of the organizing team of the 4th annual International Business Linux Conference in Slovenia [1,2] and was speaker at the LOTS 2005.

[1] http://brian.kingsonline.net/talk/index.php/archives/41
[2] http://www.linux-konferenca.org

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05. April 2005

Access to Desktop Search results
PHP (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) | Technology (wiki) | Privacy (wiki) - urs @ 22:16:07

Today I run across DNKA [1]:
DNKA is a search tool for remote computers. It acts as a web server by interacting as a layer between Google Desktop Search (GDS) and the user. It allows other users to search, view and download your files, emails, chats and web history.
Basically it is wonderful; you get a full search access to the indexed content of a remote computer. IMHO this application should be filed under "As long as You know what You are doing.". I tried it out in an intranet and got full access to the root drive C:\.

Then later on I found Baagle [2]. The principle is similar to the above but the tools are different. Baagle is a set of Perl scripts wrapped around the search engine Swish-e. Baagle provides a standalone webserver and an indexer. But compared to GDS it is up to you to configure and restrict the indexing to the data directories of your desire.

If you like to figure out a similar solution with PHP have a look at the earlier mentioned nanoweb or nanoserv webserver built with PHP [3] and a Swish-e wrapper written in PHP [4]. Once decided to go for Swish-e (on Windows) you need a couple of tools to handle various file mime types, among others pdftotext, ps2ascii, antiword and one that I found today to convert Excel files to text, called xlhtml. Just search.ch for them ;)

Well, now the only thing I could not find is a few lines of code to get a configurable search field to be integrated in the Windows task bar as we know it from GDS. Anyone up with a solution?

[1] http://dnka.com
[2] http://floatingsheep.com/baagle.html
[3] http://nanoweb.si.kz
[4] http://www.neokraft.net/articles/swish-e/

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29. March 2005

1. OpenGovernment Sprint Bern
Government (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 14:38:54

The first OpenGovernment Sprint in Bern and probably Switzerland is taking place by Thursday March 31st. It is organized by 4teamwork GmbH [1].

[1] http://www.opengovernment.ch/veranstaltungen/sprint1

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16. March 2005

Jahrbuch zu Open Source und Open Content
Open Source (wiki) | Deutsch (wiki) | Open Content (wiki) - urs @ 08:26:18

Zahlreiche Artikel zu Open Source und Open Content sind im sog. "Open Source Jahrbuch 2005" [1] zu finden. Die Themen werden in deutscher Sprache behandelt.

[1] http://www.opensourcejahrbuch.de/2005/

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15. March 2005

Maguma Open Studio
PHP (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 22:12:13

Stumbled over that piece of information today:
A PHP IDE that includes features for class browsing, ftp support, snippets, debugging and project management. The Open Source version of Maguma Studio.
[1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/openstudio/

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16. February 2005

Tägliche Ration Open Source
Open Source (wiki) | Deutsch (wiki) - urs @ 07:41:56

Die Zeitung "Der Bund" beehrt LOTS, Bucher & Suter sowie 4teamwork mit je einem Beitrag zum Thema Open Source.
  • Linux-Tage an der Uni Bern
    Open-Source-Anlass Lots vom 17. bis 19. Februar 2005 [1]
  • Open Source auch beim Telefon [2]
  • Hinter Berns Internetseite steckt offene Software [3]
[1,2,3] http://194.209.226.170/pdfarchiv/bund/2005/02/16/03935Multimedia20050216_1.pdf

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10. February 2005

Dev-Cpp - a C/C++ programming language IDE
Open Source (wiki) | Software (wiki) - urs @ 23:09:33

Magnus Manske [1] hat mich auf Dev-C++ aufmerksam gemacht:
Bloodshed Dev-C++ is a full-featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for the C/C++ programming language. It uses Mingw port of GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) as it's compiler. Dev-C++ can also be used in combination with Cygwin or any other GCC based compiler.
Wirklich beeindruckend. Eine FAQ dazu gibt es hier [3].

[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Magnus_Manske
[2] http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html
[3] http://www14.brinkster.com/aditsu/dev-cpp-faq.html

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Keinen Rappen für die Software
Open Source (wiki) | Deutsch (wiki) - urs @ 08:47:39

Unter diesem Titel findet sich heute ein Artikel in der Berner Zeitung [1]. Andreas Halter und Markus Wernig geben Auskunft über Open Source und weisen auf den kommenden LOTS Event () vom 17.-19. Februar hin [2].

[1] http://www.espace.ch/artikel_60343.html
[2] http://www.lots.ch/2005/

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08. February 2005

OSDir.com about LOTS
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 16:45:00

Steve just mentioned us on OSDir.com [1]. I just placed a simple request - and here we go. ThanQ.

[1] http://osdir.com/Article4035.phtml

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07. February 2005

LOTS event catalog online
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 13:56:03

The event catalog for the upcoming LOTS 2005 () [1] is now also available online [2]. Feel free to spread the good vibes ;)

[1] http://www.technorati.com/tag/lots.ch
[2] http://www.lots.ch/2005/Veranstaltungskatalog.html

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27. January 2005

The agenda for the LOTS Event 2005
Open Source (wiki) | Travelling (wiki) | Technology Transfer (wiki) - urs @ 17:23:49

The LOTS agenda [1] is now online and You are kindly invited to register yourself ;)

[1] http://www.lots.ch/2005/ProfessionalDay.html

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03. January 2005

More Plone for Bern
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 09:03:10

The city of Bern(e) got a new website. The CMS behind that site is the Open Source project Plone and has been implemented by 4teamwork et. al. [2]. 4teamwork will also attend the next LOTS Event [3].

[1] http://www.bern.ch
[2] http://www.bern.ch/impressum
[3] http://www.lots.ch/2005/LOTS2005_Firmenaussteller.html?id=316

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16. December 2004

Media Portal vs. Media Center Edition 2005
Open Source (wiki) | Media (wiki) - urs @ 07:40:49

To make it short. I haven't tried both of them ;) The current hardware is not yet trimmed to fulfill all those media needs. But I was wondering where the Open Source solution Media Portal [1] would differ from Microsoft Media Center Edition 2005 [2] - if they are at all comparable.

From the Microsoft page:
Windows XP Media Center Edition offers the best Windows experience in any room in your home, whether you’re looking for a family computer or to enhance your home theater. Enjoy integrated home entertainment experiences including photos, music, TV, and more. Connect with devices around the home and on the go that extend your entertainment.
From the Media Portal page:
Media Portal turns your PC in a very advanced Multi MediaCenter / HTPC. It allows you to listen to your favorite music & radio, watch your video's and DVD's, view, schedule and record live TV and much more. You get Media Portal for free/nothing/nada/noppes and best of all it is opensource. This means anyone can help developing Media Portal or tweak it for their own needs!
Well, yes. They seem to be comparable from a users perspective. It is mostly about computer based entertainment. Mostly your eyes and ears are addressed ;) For further commenting those tools I will need to upgrade my whole PC hardware... which will last months I guess. ;)

[1] http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net
[2] http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/

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05. December 2004

Open Source Outlook MAPI connecter available
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 20:47:54

Although in pre-alpha stage, there has been a first package of the Outlook MAPI connector been released [1].
The OpenConnector.Org Project aims to develop extensions for Microsoft Outlook® email and groupware client. These open-source extensions allow Microsoft Outlook®'s full functionality with email and calendar servers; including groupware servers other than Microsoft Exchange®.
Otlkcon has been tested with Sapimapi [1].

The fun part of this project is that it (will/should) connect Outlook to the groupware server provided by OpenGroupware [3].

[1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/otlkcon/
[2] http://sourceforge.net/projects/sapimapi/
[3] http://opengroupware.org

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02. December 2004

German Firefox Campaign
Mozilla (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) | Economy (wiki) - urs @ 23:15:59

German Firefox fans have fundraised a campaign for the Version 1.0 of Firefox to appear in major German newspapers [1].

Firefox kommt!


[1] http://www.firefox-kommt.de/?q=node/40

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29. November 2004

Wyona Pictures presents FUD
Open Source (wiki) | Culture (wiki) - urs @ 23:59:47

Wow. Michi [1] has a cool project running:
The documentary movie is not finished yet, but we are working hard to do so (We are currently transcribing the interviews which we have recorded during OSCOM 4 and ApacheCon 2004).
I've observed problems while attempting to run the AVI file [2]. But mplayer for Windows solved them. Chregu offers a torrent file [3].

[1] http://wyonapictures.com
[2] http://deje.uw.hu/getfile.php?file=mplayer_setup_0-18-0_fullcodecs.exe
[3] http://trash.chregu.tv/fud_trailer.avi.torrent

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27. November 2004

Open Source in der Stadt Bern
Government (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) | Deutsch (wiki) - urs @ 12:11:29

Stadt Bern orientiert sich an der Open Source Strategie der Bundesverwaltung [1]. Dabei erstaunt etwa die eine Aussage in der Antwort des Gemeinderats:
Neben diesen positiven Aspekten ist allerdings zu beachten, dass die OpenSource Bewegung bis jetzt relativ wenig Innovationen hervorgebracht hat, die dem Nutzer/der Nutzerin neue Funktionalität bereitstellt.
Insgesamt ist die Antwort aber sachlich fundiert und als ausgeglichen zu werten. Der Beschluss lautete wie folgt:
Mit 51 : 0 Stimmen wird das Postulat überwiesen und gleichzeitig der Prüfungsbericht genehmigt.
Das Postulat geht zurück auf Natalie Imboden und Martina Dvoracek vom Grünen Bündnis.

[1] http://bern.ch/upload/sktp/protokolle/archive/20040311.pdf

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19. November 2004

QEMU version 0.6.1
Open Source (wiki) | Software (wiki) - urs @ 14:28:42

QEMU version 0.6.1 is out [1]. Many bugs have been fixed and new disk image formats have been introduced.

[1] http://www.qemu.org

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11. November 2004

HTML to PDF
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 17:56:37

Yet another HTML to PDF conversion script [1].

[1] http://html2fpdf.sourceforge.net

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05. November 2004

Bitflux is hiring
PHP (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) | Economy (wiki) | XML (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 10:09:49

chregu [1] of Bitflux GmbH is looking for a developer with strong skills in XSLT and PHP. Bitflux has strong competences in realizing custom client projects while mostly using their own Bitflux CMS (BxCMS). An other interesting product is their Bitflux Editor, a Wysiwyg XML Editor. Most if not all of their tools are Open Source.

[1] http://blog.bitflux.ch/archive/work-at-bitflux.html

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29. October 2004

Sunbird Mozilla calendar
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 10:46:41

Mozilla found a name for its calendar application (yet another bird): Sunbird [1]. Sunbird is available as cross-platform fully standards based calendar client based on the open iCal standard.

[1] http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/

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25. October 2004

Enscript on Windows
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 20:54:16

Haven't used enscript ever but found it recently on the web and tried out some examples. Enscript is an ASCII to Postscript converter.
Examples [1]:

enscript -Plapis foo.txt
Print file foo.txt to printer lapis.

enscript -pfoo.ps foo.txt
Print file foo.txt, but leave PostScript output to file foo.ps.

enscript -Plapis -2 foo.txt
Print file foo.txt to two columns.

enscript -Plapis -2r foo.txt
Print file to two columns and rotate output 90 degrees (landscape).

enscript -Plapisd -DDuplex:true foo.txt
Print file in duplex (two side) mode (printer dependant).

enscript -E --color -Whtml --toc -pfoo.html *.h *.c
A nice HTML report of your project's C source files.
If no input files are given, enscript processes standard input. Enscript can be extended to handle different output media such as PostScript, HTML, RTF, ANSI, and overstrikes and it has many options which can be used to customize printouts. The GNU implementation of enscript is called genscript [2]. The example [1] using the -Whtml option did not work with my local enscript version though. But just make sure you get the most recent Windows binary [5].

[1] http://webinfo.ime.usp.br/util/enscript.html
[2] http://people.ssh.com/mtr/genscript/

Update: Scott Young [3] found a way to highlight PHP using enscript. Try "enscript --help-pretty-print" to get an idea what languages are supported in your version of enscript. Find other examples on linuxdevcenter.com [4]. You might also have a look at a2ps [6].

[3] http://scott.yang.id.au/2003/01/source-code-syntax-highlighting-in-php/
[4] http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/lpt/a/142
[5] http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/enscript.htm
[6] http://www.inf.enst.fr/~demaille/a2ps

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16. September 2004

LOTS 2005 - Call for Participation
Open Source (wiki) | Deutsch (wiki) - urs @ 22:26:17

Call for Participation für den LOTS Event 2005 ist eröffnet und dauert bis am 1. November 2004. Ab sofort können Software-Projekte, Firmenaussteller, Organisationen, Referate und Workshops für den vom 17. bis 19. Februar 2005 stattfindenden 2. LOTS Event angemeldet werden. Weitere Informationen unter Call for Participation [1].

[1] http://lots.ch/2005

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12. September 2004

Open Database Transport Protocol
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 22:55:08

Open Database Transport Protocol (ODBTP) is a TCP/IP protocol for connecting to Win32-based databases from any platform [1]. It is ideal for remotely accessing MS SQL Server, MS Access, and Visual FoxPro database from Linux or Unix machines. ODBTP is fast, efficient, and has many features that make it a quality Open Source solution for database connectivity.

[1] http://odbtp.sourceforge.net

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FreePOPs to work with Gmail
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 21:56:10

FreePOPs [1] is a POP3 daemon plus a LUA [2] interpreter and some extra libraries for HTTP and HTML parsing. Its main purpose is translating local POP3 requests to remote HTTP actions on the supported web-mails, but it is really more flexible. For example there is a plugin to read news from a website as if they were mails in a mailbox. You can easily extend FreePOPs on the fly, without even restarting it. FreePOPs 0.0.14 also offers a Gmail [3] plugin.

[1] http://freepops.sourceforge.net
[2] http://www.lua.org
[3] http://www.circle.ch/wiki/GmailFS

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05. September 2004

Open Source Strategie beim Bund
Government (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) | Deutsch (wiki) - urs @ 13:06:12

[via sozialinformatik.ch] An der Open Source Tagung organisiert durch das Informatikstrategieorgan Bund (ISB) und der Privaten Hochschule für Wirtschaft. Bezüglich OSS wurden folgende Stossrichtungen festgehalten:

- das Sicherstellen der Gleichbehandlung von OSS und Closed Source Software (CSS)
- das Anstreben der Wiederverwendbarkeit von eigenentwickelter Software
- das Schaffen der Voraussetzungen für den Einsatz von Open Source Software

Für die Bundesverwaltung soll erreicht werden, dass die Abhängigkeit von einzelnen Lieferanten verringert werden kann. Zudem bestehe dank der Gleichstellung von OSS und CSS eine größere Auswahl an Software. Zwischen den Zeilen gelesen bedeutet die Feststellung der Stossrichtung sowie die Zielsetzung des ISB, dass im Bereich OSS noch einiges an Lobby- und Überzeugungsarbeit geleistet werden muss [3], um schon nur die Gleichstellung sicherzustellen. Bezüglich der Wiederverwendbarkeit von eigenentwickelter Software wäre ein vom Bund gecoachtes CVS allenfalls prüfenswert; Software, die in der Bundesverwaltung eingesetzt wird, sei offenzulegen.

[1] http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/50640
[2] http://www.heise.de/newsticker/foren/go.shtml?list=1&forum_id=63973
[3] http://blog.li/mosi/2004/09/01/679.html

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04. September 2004

ASF rejecting Sender ID
Open Source (wiki) | Intellectual Property (wiki) - urs @ 10:25:08

[via slashdot, 1]
"The Apache Software Foundation [2] has rejected the patent-encumbered Sender ID specification. This means no Sender ID support for SpamAssassin, Apache JAMES, etc. They state that the current license is generally incompatible with open source, and contrary to the practice of open Internet standards."
Add-on: Debate on trust regarding Microsofts' Open Source plans [3].

[1] http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/02/1446229
[2] http://apache.org/foundation/docs/sender-id-position.html
[3] http://weblogs.asp.net/jledgard/archive/2004/08/24/220028.aspx

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15. August 2004

Designing labels with SVG and convert them to PDF with PHP
PHP (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) | XML (wiki) - urs @ 13:36:20

Alan Knowles [1] described the process of designing labels with SVG and the conversion to PDF with PHP last December. There he points to an SVG editor called Sodipodi [2]. Inkscape [3] is yet another SVG editor running on various platforms [3]. Designing labes with SVG seems a reasonable approach. As Alan states correctly, the
FPDF [http://fpdf.org ] is quite a nice library for creating PDFs, however, the thought of hardcoding up all the locations in PHP, for all the text on both applications horrified me.
That is how we implemented our label printing system for LOTS 2004. Positioning a few lines of text and an image is easily done with FDPF for "design once, use many" labels.

[1] http://blog.akbkhome.com/blog/archives/26_PHP_SVG_and_PDFs.html
[2] http://www.sodipodi.com
[3] http://www.circle.ch/blog/p1396.html

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11. August 2004

Nvu Web Authoring for Linux
Open Source (wiki) | Software (wiki) - urs @ 10:10:05

Nvu is a complete Web Authoring System for Linux Desktop users to design Webpages comparable to FrontPage or Dreamweaver [1]. Nvu is built on top of the Mozilla Composer.

[1] http://www.nvudev.org

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28. July 2004

Lookout for Outlook content
Open Source (wiki) | Intellectual Property (wiki) - urs @ 00:14:52

A friend [1] of mine mentioned Lookout [2]. An indexing search engine working as plug-in for Microsoft Outlook. The company has recently been bought by Microsoft. So the license agreement looks a bit strange to me (here just the beginning):
License, Limited Warranty and Copyright

IMPORTANT-READ CAREFULLY: This is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or a single entity) and Microsoft Corporation (The Company) for Lookout (The Software). If you do not agree to all of the terms of this License, then do not use, copy or install The Software.

This Software is protected by copyright laws and international treaty provisions. All rights reserved. Please read the license terms below. Portions of this software are Copyright (c) 2001 The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved. Please read the Apache Software License included in this document. For more information on the Apache Software Foundation, please see http://www.apache.org. [...]
This seems like the first Microsoft software licensed under an Apach license.

[1] http://blog.li/trash/2004/07/27/564.html
[2] http://www.lookoutsoft.com

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15. July 2004

SQLite running as Client/Server
Database (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 16:09:04

An unofficial release of SQLite Client/Server, called SQLite_On_Sockets is available for Windows [1]. Get more background information from the SQLite site [2].

[1] http://www.it77.de/sqlite/sqlite.htm
[2] http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=ClientServer

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17. May 2004

WiX - a Microsoft Open Source project on sourceforge.net
Open Source (wiki) | Intellectual Property (wiki) - urs @ 14:29:47

[via M. de Icaza, 1] Rob Mensching [2] has written the Windows Installer XML (WiX) [3]; a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. The project, originally developed internal to Microsoft, was released under the Common Public License [4]. For more information on that license you may also refer to the IBM CPL FAQ [5].

[1] http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/archive/2004/Apr-05.html
[2] http://blogs.msdn.com/robmen/archive/2004/04/05/107709.aspx
[3] http://sourceforge.net/projects/wix/
[4] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cpl.php
[5] http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-cplfaq.html

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PearPC to rund OS X on Windows
Apple (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 14:04:15

PearPC [1] is an Open Source project to emulate PowerPC architecture. It will enable you to run e.g. OS X on Windows or Linux - also have a look at MOL [2] in the latter case.

[1] http://pearpc.sourceforge.net
[2] http://maconlinux.org

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01. May 2004

SpamPal, ASK et. al.
Open Source (wiki) | Technology (wiki) - urs @ 22:10:19

I just come from configuring SpamPal on my local Windows machine. The amount of unsolicited mails is tremendous on my main address these days. My hosting service reported me of something like a thousand mails in ten hours. To rise the filter level once more would not make sense, they said and proposed to install SpamPal [1] which taggs spam and makes filtering more easy.

On the other hand you could change your mail policy and make use of a tool like Active Spam Killer [2]. ASK sends a confirmation message back to the unknown sender and keeps the mail pending until the (human) sender confirms the request. ASK is an Open Source solution. A similar service is available through Mailblocks [3].

[1] http://www.spampal.org/usermanual/clients/outlook2000/outlook2000.html
[2] http://www.paganini.net/ask/
[3] http://www.mailblocks.com

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27. March 2004

Inkscape - Open Source SVG Editor
Open Source (wiki) | XML (wiki) - urs @ 18:03:07

Quite often I come across search results in Google, that I would not have found or even searched for, for what ever reason; so today I "found" an Open Source Scalable Vector Graphics Editor called Inkscape. It already runs in X on the iBook and there are also other binaries available [1]. The project is very well documented [2].

[1] http://inkscape.sourceforge.net
[2] http://inkscape.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl

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20. March 2004

Ganttproject - Open source project management
Open Source (wiki) | XML (wiki) | Software (wiki) - urs @ 16:46:31

Ganttproject [1] is a project management tool written in Java. This enables crossplatform compatibility and eliminates such arguments for not choosing that tool; The project and user information is stored in XML files which offers all the possibilities to transform that data in any other convenient format such as PDF or XHTML. If your werbserver has web_dav enabled, you can directly manipulate project files on the sever and work as a group on the same sources. As far as I can see, a version control is missing and I guess that this could alternatively implemented on the server side with a simple backup or a revision control system.

[1] http://ganttproject.sourceforge.net

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18. March 2004

Rhythmbox - iTunes for Linux
Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 18:53:38

Rhythmbox [1] is an integrated music management application, originally inspired by Apple's iTunes.

[1] http://www.rhythmbox.org

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15. March 2004

1st OPCOSO Thinkathon
Open Source (wiki) | Social Network (wiki) - urs @ 23:59:22

Did not manage to post something earlier; so here is a short summary on the 1st OPCOSO Thinkathon: Sandro Zic and others organized an Event to be held in the library of the Tübingen University to discuss mainly Open Source Business Models [1]. There were about 80 attendees - Journalists, Programmers, Open Source Evangelists and a lot more, such as Patrick Lemoine, VP Enterprise Business EMEA from MySQL AB. The keynote has been given by Prof. Dr. Herbert Klaeren from the University of Tübingen [2]. He gave us a good starting point with his review on the Open Source "history". The discussion before lunch was meant to gather topics on Open Source Business Models, Open Content, proprietary software, Licenses etc. to dig deeper into them after 1:30 p.m.

The Organizing Team did a very good job on glue all the different discussions from people with variuos backgrounds together. While discussing, Gregor [3] wrote down the statements to the IRC channel, which was shown in realtime in the plenum. Sometimes this gave like two "parallel" discussions; I like that idea a lot. Please visit the OPCOSO website for a final summary. Unfortunately I could not stay later that 6 p.m. since my train took five hours back to Bern.

Just to finish up; if you ever get the chance to attend such a Thinkathon [4]; go there!

[1] http://www.opcoso.org/OpensourceGeschaeftsmodelle
[2] http://www.opcoso.org/EventsThinkathonTuebingen2004Experten
[3] http://greg.abstrakt.ch
[4] http://www.circle.ch/blog/p1368.html

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08. March 2004

OSS-Strategie der Bundesverwaltung
Government (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) | Deutsch (wiki) - urs @ 18:12:26

Der Informatikrat Bund hat die OSS-Strategie der Bundesverwaltung Version 1.0 verabschiedet. Sie ist einsehbar unter:

[1] http://www.isb.admin.ch/internet/strategien/00665/01491/index.html?lang=de

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04. March 2004

Japha - expandable implementation of Java in PHP
PHP (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) - urs @ 10:37:34

Java to be used within PHP often is painful. So, Japha [1] is an attempt to bring the main classes in the Java 1.4.1 (soon to be 1.4.2, time allowing) to PHP for use in everyday programs. Japha refers to PHP 5. This allows us to easily implement interface, abstract classes, and more inheritance capabilities, not to mention excellent error handling and the ability to better conform with user-created data types.

[1] http://japha.xzon.net

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