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To continue my look at how non-profits and the free software community can engage, I've decided to look at some popular free software products and see how well they fit the need of an average charity--namely my employer. I'll start with OpenOffice.org.
I've been using OpenOffice.org since it was called StarOffice 5 and have used it exclusively at home since before OpenOffice.org 1. Currently at my workplace we use Microsoft Office XP (well, except for the IT team who mostly use OpenOffice.org!) but we are looking to upgrade to OpenOffice.org sometime in the near future. We have over 120 users split across the UK in offices of differing sizes. Primarily--at present and with the exception of the IT dept--we use Windows XP on the desktop/laptop and exclusively GNU/Linux on the servers. For future reference this post is based on using OpenOffice.org 2.3.1 on Debian.
So what needs does a charity like ours have with regards an office productivity suite? It'll come as no surprise to hear that they are nothing out of the ordinary. All users need a word processor, about ten per-cent need a spreadsheet and an increasing number "need" a presentation program. By the way I feel that perhaps Impress will have the hardest job infiltrating the users' psyche because "PowerPoint" is now a ubiquitous noun for both the application type and the documents produced on it. Our users have no need of something like Access because we do our database properly (!)--see my post on bespoke databases for more details.
Word processing
I would say that most of our users' word processing needs will be perfectly met by Writer. The interface has a familiar feel and you can get up and typing within seconds. Opening documents sent by other organisations will probably not be any bigger an issue than it is now. We often get sent MS Works documents (ugh) which Word cannot open--and for which there is no plugin--or an OpenXML/Word 2007 file. In those cases it's fairly trivial to ask the sender to send it Word 2002 format or--if they can--in ODT.
Our users' word processing needs will be perfectly met by Writer
There are one or two bits that I am less confident my users' will accept on first glance:
- Styles
- Tables
- Mail merging
The first two are purely educational issues. I am confident that given proper tuition they will soon adapt to the--in my opinion better--way of working with styles within documents. I've taught various people how to use OpenOffice.org and moving from the Word format-each-item-individually method to Openoffice.org's greater dependency on styles is one of the first stumbling blocks. Once they get it though (and it doesn't take long) they report that it does make life easier.
With regards tables, the main issue is the way in which you can drag them around in Word and nest them to a deeper level. OpenOffice.org does have an advantage in that its tables seem little more stable, but again the real issue will just be educating the users in the slightly different way of working.
Mail merging
I can see what the OpenOffice.org team have done here. They've tried to do it properly. This is something I see a lot in free software and in the long run it makes for more stable documents. Another example is Writer's greater usage of styles in place of Word's change everything individually method. The problem here is that the mail merge method for Writer is nightmarishly long. Here's how you would create a mail merge letter from a comma separated value (CSV) file of contacts:
- First add the CSV file as a data-source using the 12-step "Address Data Source" wizard - this creates an ODB file within your filesystem.
- Now the data-source will be available to use so create your basic letter without the mail merge fields
- Now view the data-sources (press F4)
- Navigate to the data-source you just created and then to the "table" within it (e.g. The CSV file)
- Drag the fields you need from the data-source viewer into your letter and format them.
After all that you'd expect to be close to finishing, and you are. Just finish the 8 step Mail Merge Wizard first
So after all that you would probably think you are close to finishing, and you are. All you have to do now is go through the 8 step Mail Merge Wizard and you are done. True, some of those steps could replace the ones you did above so generally you end up clicking "next" a lot.
It should be said that the Word 2002 wizard is not much better, but it does have fewer steps. The advantage of the Writer approach is that the data-source need only be added once. This is fine when you have a single Database as the source: if your CSV file is sent to you by a third party on a regular basis then you either have to instruct your users to overwrite the old CSV file or create a new ODB data-source every time. Having dug around I have found that you can use the Edit->Exchange Database option to changing the data-source used in your mail-merge document so the latter of those two is an option. It's still a 12-step process to create a new ODB though.
So here's why the OpenOffice.org approach is good and bad:
- It's good if you have a consistent connection to the source of the data (a database for example)
- It's bad if you have data-sources which are good for a single use.
As you would expect the majority of our spreadsheet use takes place in the Finance team. Whilst I am confident Calc can take what most users throw at it I am less sure about the--frankly--huge and complex documents used by our Finance team.
The fact that Calc recently had the maximum number of rows increased is a help (although in the bragging stakes Excel 2007 boats a million row maximum now) but I am less confident about bringing all the macros across.
Still the macros themselves are not that complex and can probably be rewritten for Calc if needed. The problem there again is time and Calc's ability to handle large size files with multiple lookups and references (although, to be fair, Excel 2002 is not great with its own memory handling).
The only real issue here is probably embedded video--not that my users make much use of it when creating presentations. Often we are sent presentations by others to use or create derivative works from. These can have embedded video and it must be said that they often bring new ways of death-by-powerpoint. This is likely to be a minor issue but it's one of those things on the "would be nice" list.
So what do we really need?
So looking back at all that, I'd say the prognosis is good. Which probably explains why we're now looking at OpenOffice.org as a serious upgrade from MS Office XP. Undoubtedly education is needed but it would be if we went to MS Office 2007 just as it was when we went from MS Office 97 to 2002.
Mail merging is a big issue and it needs attention from the OpenOffice.org team
Mail merging--particularly from a single-usage data-source--is a big issue though and if you ask me it needs attention from the OpenOffice.org team. The mail merge process needs to be more intuitive, less obstructive, a bit more explanatory and a lot shorter. That's not to say that the Word 2002 one is any better but in the world of IT usage at work: change will often breed contempt for the new product so I'd rather not give the dissenters too much ammunition.
What we really need is a fluid-flow, step-by-step, hand-holding wizard which walks the user through using a single-use data source, inserting the mail merge fields and producing the final merged documents. I don't want this to hold back the migration to an otherwise perfectly excellent piece of software, so perhaps the answer will lie in some Basic scripting. We shall see and if you have any ideas, post them here I'd be glad of the advice.
I plan to raise this as an issue/enhancement request on the OpenOffice.org website but I'll wait to see if there's someone more knowledgeable here who can show me what I've missed (if anything) first.
Well done
Well done on getting some FOSS into the office of a UK charity. When I volunteered for one of the big charities, I had difficulty getting computers into the office ;-)
You make good points about styles and their use. It's no fun deciphering someone's else's micro-formating after the fact.
I would have thought that the main problem with replacing MS Office with Open Office in most charity setups is that the OO needs a fairly powerful machine.
http://www.unmusic.co.uk/ - music, writing and other geekdom.
Well done on getting some
Well done on getting some FOSS into the office of a UK charity. When I volunteered for one of the big charities, I had difficulty getting computers into the office ;-)
It gives you a bit of an advantage if you're the IT Manager. :o)
We've been using Free software for a while now - see here for more http://www.cafamily.org.uk/oss
I would have thought that the main problem with replacing MS Office with Open Office in most charity setups is that the OO needs a fairly powerful machine.
Actually the later versions of MS Office need a higher spec than OOo. e.g. Office 2007 requires Windows XP-SP2 with a published min of 256MB Ram. OOo 2 will run on Win98 and up and 128MB Ram.
Of course the truth is neither will actually run very fast on those minimum specs but MS Office 2007 has a higher spec to start with. Older versions of MS Office ( we use 2002 for example) pretty much crawl on 128MB Ram so OOo is probably a good replacement.
Also don't fall into the trap of thinking that charity automatically means low spec kit. Our lowest spec machine is Win 2000 running on PIII 800 with 256 MB Ram - that'll run OOo quite happily.
I had a portfolio
I had a portfolio spreadsheet in Excel for doing some investment performance analysis. It was fairly simple, although had a lot of VBA macro code. I've moved this to Calc and OO.o Basic with pretty good results. There were a few things I couldn't figure out how to do. I think they are possible, but I didn't want to invest a lot of time figuring them out when they weren't showstoppers. I think it's easier to write code in Excel since the editor has "hinting" -- you type a dot and it shows you what is available. Much quicker to figure out what is available and muddle your way through. But OO.o Basic does the job, and we can hope the editor improves. (I'm still using 2.2, so don't know what the latest editor is like.)
I read on a forum once where someone complained about Calc's performance with charts on large datasets, giving the example of a 2000 row spreadsheet with 2 data sets. (Let's say dates in col A, and the data sets in col B and C. You could just put random numbers or incrementing numbers in there.) I tried -- in 2.2 -- to make a chart for this, and it is abysmally slow, where in Excel it is instantaneous. I also tried in Gnumeric, which handled it fine. But the problem for a business of just about any size is that you're not going to want to support multiple solutions depending on the situation.
For me at least, OO.o is fine for home use. I think it would also be good for 96.3% of my work needs, if my company allowed it.
I've been using OO.o for the last year on a laptop running XP Pro.
The reason is that i was recommended to me, (And also MS Office XP Pro is over priced and over rated)
I have found that that it is a lot easier to use for day to day work,(Writer & Impress) I will admit that I still save 90% of my work in either MS .Doc or .PPS .PPT formats as most of my fellow colleagues still use MS Office.
The one draw back is that OO.o haven't developed the equivalent of MS Visio, which I have to use for producing plans of the buildings (I know that i could use a CAD package, but haven't got either the money or time to learn AutoCAD).
If asked to give either MS Office or OO.o marks out of 10 I'd give OO.o 9.5 and Office 2.
The one draw back is that OO.o haven't developed the equivalent of MS Visio
You're right in that you should probably be looking at a CAD program rather than an office suite for complex drawings but for simpler stuff OOo does provide an answer in Draw.
It doesn't have all the objects that Visio has but pretty much any image can be inserted into a Draw document and you can then add connectors to its handles.
As a simple example figure 1 in my article on server setups was created in the way I've just described.
cheers Ryan
Visio replacement
Did you have a look at Dia? You can find it here: http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/
Does most what Visio does. The only problem is that you cannot exchange your results properly with Visio users (the Visio document format being completely closed, so impossible for the developers to create a converter).
Another problem with Mail Merge
You've hit on what I've found to be the single missing feature from OpenOffice: mail merge. However, what's really missing here is the ability to send all the merged output to a single document.
Mail merges of the type Word calls "catalog" were one of the biggest tricks I used to use to manage data. It's a simple, non-programming way to generate all sorts of repeating data.
For example, say you're migrating data from one database to another that has a completely different schema. You export the original data as a CSV file, import it as a spreadsheet, do any manipulation/cleanup you need to do.
Then, open up Word, create a simple template for what to do with the data: insert this column in one table, insert the next column in a different table. Create a template of SQL statements that represent what you need to do to convert to the new schema. Run the merge, outputting to a catalog, and presto! You've got a script you can feed straight into the new database.
Or, make a template of HTML for a quick way of building a web page list of items in your spreadsheet. In fact, this is what I was doing when I came up with the technique--building lists of new record albums and artists for a music web site, back in the days of IE 2 and Netscape 2, long before I knew anything about server-side programming. I was actually working at a temp job for Microsoft on their Music Central web site (anybody remember that?), and cutting and pasting artists and albums was supposed to be about 6 hours of my job every week. The first week I spent an hour figuring out how to make mail merge do the trick, and from then on it was 10 minutes a week.
Sure, there's lots of other ways you can do this, writing simple programs or macros. But for me this was a very fast technique I used all the time to convert data. And you can't do it in OpenOffice--it insists on creating a new document for every record.
John Locke
Freelock Computing, http://www.freelock.com
The Open Source for Business Solutions
Can be done - if I understand you correctly.
I'm not sure I've ever heard of somebody actually using a word processor to create SQL injection scripts! Sounds a little over the top to me but if it works for you then who am I to stop you.
Anyway as mecrider says you can insert a Next Record field in a document as OOo does for labels. Once you've done that you can save the merged document as a single document rather than individual ones. If you follow the mail merge wizard the final step gives you this option.
Actually this brings me to an advantage that Writer has over Word (at least over 2002). When you merge to a single document and save it. Word creates separate sections for each letter so you can't print pages 3 - 5 without using the print mail merge options. Writer produces a new page for each letter so you can open a saved merged document and print pages 3 - 5 in the same way you would anything else. Whilst the Word way is not hard is does break from the convention it uses to print page ranges on multi-page documents and IME most users have no clue what a section is anyway.
Again another example of the Writer way doing it "properly".
cheers Ryan
Hmm... can't seem to get
Hmm... can't seem to get this to work properly. I just tried, and found the Next Record field but couldn't seem to insert it. Strange. And when I generate the document, I am getting a single document output, but each record on its own page--a bit of a pain for later using elsewhere.
In any case, these days I just use xslt, phpMyAdmin, or a simple PHP script to do equivalent tasks. Or if I feel like a challenge I try to get awk to do it... (I started as a writer, not a Unix admin!)
I've used OpenOffice.org for years, wrote a book in it in 2003. I'm much more comfortable in it than Office, haven't touched Office in years. But since I had used Word for over a decade, that was one trick I really missed being able to do when I switched to Linux. The other thing I really liked in Word was its Outline view. The little outline in the Navigation panel just isn't the same.
But I love OOo's styles, and the Draw program is close enough to Visio to meet my needs--not quite as easy, but using connectors you can get the job done. I agree that tables are much better done--it's pretty cool to be able to insert a formula into a normal table cell and have it calculate for you.
Freelock Computing, http://www.freelock.com
The Open Source for Business Solutions
Errr... what?
"You've hit on what I've found to be the single missing feature from OpenOffice: mail merge. However, what's really missing here is the ability to send all the merged output to a single document." - eeexcuse me? Once you reach the end of the wizard, you have a choice: save modified template, save as independent documents, save as one big document - I guess the latter is the one you're looking for.
No, what I find annoying with OOo's mail merge, is how slow it is as soon as you go past 30 generated documents: sometimes I have to generate 2000 merged documents, and while OOo doesn't crash it really takes its sweet time (like, hours). Word is slightly better in this area, as it'll either generate the document quite rapidly - or crash right away.
The wizard's interface could also get a face lift so as to be slightly easier to understand. It is logical, flexible and powerful (something a MS wizard usually isn't), but it's a bit hard to read sometimes.
In short, it is indeed done right from the start but needs some polish.
A computer is like air conditioning: it becomes useless when you open windows.
Errr... this.
"You've hit on what I've found to be the single missing feature from OpenOffice: mail merge. However, what's really missing here is the ability to send all the merged output to a single document." - eeexcuse me? Once you reach the end of the wizard, you have a choice: save modified template, save as independent documents, save as one big document - I guess the latter is the one you're looking for
I think what they were looking for was the ability to put all the records on one page rather than one per page - which is what you are referring to. As already suggested the solution is to insert a Next Record field.
No, what I find annoying with OOo's mail merge, is how slow it is
Agreed - the limit varies for me - depending upon system resources - but it still gets slow on reasonably low numbers of records.
cheers Ryan
Mail merge tips
Our office migrated to OOo at 1.1, so I have helped our receptionist work through many mail merge tricks. I believe the wizards in 2.x are totally useless. The best route I have found is to save your data in dbf (dBase) format. If you won't use very many databases, or will rarely use one twice, save them all in a single folder. Create a database manually that points to the folder for the dBase files. From this point on you can add, remove and replace files in that folder, and they will automatically update in the tables list for that data source.
After trying both methods, our receptionist prefers "Insert -> Fields -> Other -> Database -> Mail merge fields" to "F4 -> drag and drop". She can put her cursor where she wants the field, then click on it and click Insert. She can also format the way the data will appear (currency, dates, etc.) At this point the letter can be printed normally, and OOo will ask if you want to include the data or just print the letter with field names.
Bypassing the wizard does mean a little more complexity when it comes to hiding empty lines (there are lots of howtos about doing it manually - but it would be nice if OOo could do this the way Word 97 did), but you have a lot more control over the finished project.
John Locke, I am not sure I followed everything you said, but if it helps I know that you can use "Insert -> Fields -> Other -> Database -> Next record" to start a new record within a single document. This is how OOo does labels.
I'd be happy to answer any other questions about mail merge that I can, especially if they don't involve the wizards. I am always happy to help somebody overcome hurdles to upgrading to the best and cheapest office suite around.
The best route I have found is to save your data in dbf (dBase) format. If you won't use very many databases, or will rarely use one twice, save them all in a single folder. Create a database manually that points to the folder for the dBase files. From this point on you can add, remove and replace files in that folder, and they will automatically update in the tables list for that data source.
You know that occurred to me when I was trying something the other day but I hadn't fully tried it yet. Our data will nearly always be as CSV but - having just tried it - this method works equally well with that format as well. I hadn't realised about the printing bit either. So many thanks - you've saved me a few headaches!
CSV vs dBASE
I had never tried using CSV files as a data source. One potential advantage to using dBASE files is that CSV files are opened read-only, while dBASE files you can edit live from the merge document (View Data Sources). Of course, if you aren't supposed to be editing the data for any reason, that can be a disadvantage. Also, it is pretty simple to open the CSV in OOo Calc and save it as a dBASE file if that is the route you decide to go.
You are right most users
You are right most users need will be met by OpenOffice.org writer. I have been using it with last five years and never considered using any other word processor.
OOO developers need to fix mail merge
I think you are absolutely right. Mail merge should be easy and straight forward. I've had my own unpleasant experiences with exactly that. I even filed a bug report/feature request years ago, which I believe is still sitting there untouched.
In my view a good mail merge function would let you point the wizard to any reasonably formatted table (html table, csv table, a range in a spreadsheet, or even a table in your active writer document) The table would then automatically and transparently be converted into a temporary table and used for the merge. The program could in the end ask if you want to save it for later or discard it.
I've used OOO since 0.9x and am especially pleased with its stability with large documents containing lots of illustrations and tables. I have lost 1 (one) document since 2002 from real document errors. This has been a frequent ocurrens with Word.
Related: pdf slides from presentations
Just come to think of another irritant you may want to check out:
I make presentations once in a while that has to be printed together with other material. The only practical way is to export as pdf and have the relevant office or customer print the material.
The problem is that Presentation will not let you export the 'print' format (for example 3 slides per page for attendees to write down notes) as pdf file.
You can choose between various print formats and print but not export to pdf.
You can export the Presentation as pdf-presentation which is not what I want or need.
To me it seems so simple that when you've chosen the right print format you simply press the pdf button and get the current view rather than the presentation version.
Open Office Training Website
Hi, have just read the above post and noted your last comments:
I plan to raise this as an issue/enhancement request on the OpenOffice.org website but I'll wait to see if there's someone more knowledgeable here who can show me what I've missed (if anything) first.
Have you by any chance come across the following website:
Its run by a lady called Solveig Haugland, an OpenOffice trainer. She gives lots of helpful tips and solutions in her blog.
Dave Le Huray


text:
Product Description
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Height 9 1/2 " Width 7" Total Volume Filled Completely to Top: 50oz
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subset: commoncrawl


text: I think this is a problem for most writers in general given that there are no living truly matriarchal cultures if ever there were any.Though some evidence seems to suggest the Amazons were real. However, even in this case, their true nature has been obscured by centuries of myth and speculation and slander by their enemies. The only true matriarchies that exist only appear in the animal world at present, but these are not human societies so only a limited amount of information might be gleaned from them about how a matriarchal human/humanoid society might function. Perhaps the best known and fully described matriarchy in fiction is that of the Drow in the Forgotten Realms and closely tied role playing game Dungeons and dragons. While it gives us an idea of how one might work, there is a substantial problem. It is largely portrayed as nigh irredeemably evil. Now while I feel that any gender based social control system is inherently evil, things are seldom so cut and dry. For example, in viking society, much inheritance, political power, and military might was controlled by men. However it was considered a grave offense to strike a woman (at least a viking woman) even in jest, women could own property, they could divorce their husbands if necessary, and on occasion joined up with the men in war. Women were also believed to be privy to certain magical powers that men did not have and the only other deity allowed to sit in their chief God's throne according to myth was his wife Frigga. I will not call Viking society a perfect or egalitarian one. I would be a moron selectively ignoring facts if I did. However this illustrates my point when I say such things are not always cut and dry. Still there are societies I would call violently misogynistic which could be compared to the Drow based on the level of brutality and cruelty leveled against their fellow human beings in general, though much of their worst tendencies are directed upon women. The catalog of these offenses is so terrible and vast that I feel a certain rage rising up within me just thinking about it. I may be a man, but rage against injustice is something that crosses over gender lines and transcends them all together. The scale of the oppression of women that remains despite over a century of women's rights movements the world over is appalling. Any at all is truly appalling, but when one thinks about how much still remains, it is especially so. Men can indeed be cruel, but so can women. From what I have observed, the capability for cruelty in either sex is equal, however the way this cruelty manifests is dependent on a number of cultural factors, what opportunities exist which are effected by cultural factors, and the person in question. Certainly we can say that Caligula was cruel, but we can also say Elizabeth Bathory was cruel. It seems to me that cruelty is dependent on social status and is almost seen as a sort of privilege for those of "higher" status (both Caligula and Bathory were high born people of privilege)! Which it should not be seen as no matter who holds the reigns of power if anyone at all. All talk of the world's evils and the horrors of misogyny aside, the patriarchal system seems to stand on a particular institution of patrilineality. To clarify, patrilineality is the social institution by which people trace their lineage down their father's lines which for much of history not only included surnames, but material inheritance, titles, and status. From this we can infer that matrilineality would be a catalyst for a matriarchal society. Though neither always leads to one gender power structure all the time, it is likely that a matriarchal society would also be matrilineal. What we also need to remember as I have been saying, is that these things are not cut and dry and exist on a spectrum. This is true of many things in human society from economics,religion, and government. For example, let's say we have a scale of monarchy which ranges from the least strict end with a constitutional government to the strictest form in which the monarch has nigh absolute power. We could also say this for monotheism. Let's say you have Christianity which believes in the strictest sense of the term that there is a singular deity of one gender (though some monotheists only use pronouns as a matter of linguistic convenience) while Hindus believe in a singular Godhead with many forms male and female. This can also be said of gender roles and gender based hierarchies in our world. Personally when I write, one thing I hold to strictly is that in any culture there are noble people male and female. People who hold strictly to these structures and those who actively work to undermine them. That humans in general are capable of terrible things not matter what ethnic group, gender identity group, or religion they belong to. Therefore while we she should not be to willing to hold a matriarchal societies in fiction up on pedestals, we should also be careful not to demonize them in their entirety or make them seem inhumanly evil. There is a reason cultural relativism is a driving force in the study of society regardless of how we as individuals may feel about them. So my only question is whether there is any additional advice one could use, or anything I forgot to mention as a result of this deities awful headache I've been having for the past few days.


text:
Notae is a full-featured and lightweight notebook with instant full-text searching of notes and complete import and export functionality. It can even read your notes out to iTunes, and thus your iPod. It includes a Mac OS X Service to grab any text or file selection and keep it as a note. Its open document format (XML or SQLite) allows for other creative uses. Really, it's TextEdit on performance-enhancing code.
You can also drag in PDF or WebArchive files and Notae will keep those, too. In fact, you can import URLs and create Web notes to keep pages around as they were, not as they are. Drag in URL clippings or URLs on the clipboard and Notae will make a Web note.
Drag in a folder of text, PDF, Web Archive, HTML, Word, text, and/or text/URL clipping files and Notae will do the right thing with each one.
Notae both imports and exports to plain text, MS Word, Word ML, XHTML, RTF, and RTFD.
Required OS: not specified
Tags: notes , notepad , notebook , productivity , organize , pdf
8 Opinions
This programme totally gets out of your way and is very responsive even with huge texts and tons of data in the database.
While I do like Yojimbo, I have to say Notae is just quicker and smoother for people who use LaunchBar and tend not to like "mousing" around much.
The decision of Journler, Yojimbo, or Notae (or even xPad & Mori) simply comes down to features. What do you expect to do with your notes? Do you expect them to be text or graphical, and what kind of graphical? Do you want a scrapbook (Journler, Yojimbo) or a notebook (Notae, xPad, Mori)?
When you've made that decision, then you look at what each one does...
arundel, if you're considering Yojimbo, you might want to look at Journler (http://osx.iusethis.com/app/journler). It's a donation-ware alternative that has many, many more features. I bought Yojimbo and then a month later found Journler. I wish it were the other way around. I could've saved myself $40. :-(
arundel, would you rather have too many good choices or too few? :)
Arg, another reason to delay buying Yojimbo. Why is there so much choice?!? :)
Douglas Adams is right... program features should ALL be module, then we can pick the best features from everything and roll our own.
Notae is the first notebook-type program that I've used that has an interface that is pleasant to use and pleasant to look at. xPad is visually unappealing to me, and Mori seems convoluted if I actually try to use it. Even though I got Mori for free, I decided to pay for Notae because it's the only notebook program so far that I can actually see myself using.
It's a replacement for TextEdit and Stickies, but without the clutter and interference of other solutions. Sometimes you just want something centered around keeping text clippings together and don't need the extraneous stuff that comes with something like SOHO.
And, frankly, Sidenote just annoys me on so many levels.
Really, it's more a competitor to xPad and Mori and similar than to the "clip and stash" style of "note" program.
Not sure what this brings on top of Soho Notes or Sidenote. It sort of falls in between the two and, well, falls between two stools basically. Might make sense as a replacement for TextEdit????


text:
MARTINEZ -- Ann and George "Matt" Matthews go by the adage "Rockhounds never die, they just slowly petrify."
In the couple's front yard sits a large blue rock with a story. In fact, the Martinez residents who have been collecting rocks for nearly 40 years say that every rock tells a different story. The Dumortierite in the front yard weighing 832 pounds takes the couple back to Arizona in the 1970s, the time they first began gathering rocks.
"It was a trick getting that in the back of the truck," said Matt Matthews. "We couldn't break it so we brought the whole thing home."
The Matthews' were on a field trip with members of the Contra Costa Mineral and Gem Society, known to members as the "Rock Club." It took a group of men to haul the huge mineral and one of the men got caught in a cactus while carrying it to the truck.
"It's not just a hobby," said Ann Matthews. "It's a disease -- but a good one."
The couple, married for 57 years, took camping trips with their children and other rockhounds to sites such as Black Rock Desert. Besides Quartzsite, Ariz., "the Rock Capital of the World," the Matthews have been on rock hunting trips to Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Utah. Visitors to the Matthews' home are at once greeted by the "oddball" rocks -- a Tufa, a type of limestone, shaped like a poodle's head and a river rock found in Arizona that resembles a panda's face.
The couple has also created art from the rocks they collected. Ann Matthews formed flowers out of pieces of rocks and crystals and artfully glued them on picture frames while her husband shaped several varieties of rocks into smooth spheres using a rocksaw and a machine he built himself. Most rocks are organic pieces of artwork; thin pieces of mahogany obsidians are considered to be "nature's glass," said Ann Matthews.
When their children were very young, Ann Matthews said a cousin encouraged them to visit Patrick's Point State Park north of Eureka.
"She said, 'There's agate over there,' " said Matt Matthews.
"We'd never heard of agate," Ann Matthews said.
Since then, the couple has amassed countless agates, obsidians and petrified wood found in various "hot spots" in Northern California and beyond. They said they wouldn't have known about these sites had it not been for the Rock Club.
"The rocks are souvenirs -- the bonus part of our trips. But the real gems are the nicest people you'll ever meet," said Ann Matthews.
One of the members, Harry Nichandros of Concord, who always loved collecting rocks since childhood, once had a hard time identifying them. He took geology courses in college then joined the Rock Club.
"There are people in the club with different specialties," said Nichandros, the rock show's chairman. "One who can identify crystals like a master."
Members gather on the second Monday every month to listen to speakers such as geologists and mineralogists talk about various topics.
"By being in the club talking to people, I learned a lot about rocks," Nichandros said. "It's enhanced my knowledge about geology as well as precious stones, agates, jaspers, beautiful pieces to be used in jewelry."
The work of lapidary artists, who form mineral and stones to make jewelry and other decorative items, is a facet of the gem world that's quite fascinating, Nichandros said.
Like the Matthews, Nichandros said as far as local sites, he's enjoyed going up to Davis Creek in Northern California, although there aren't too many locations that are open to the public like before as property owners have closed out areas formerly explored by rockhounds. The Rock Club helps its members find places that are accessible to the public or where rockhounds may pay a fee to explore and gather rocks.
Nichandros said he believes rocks and minerals are still abundant and there are still plenty of treasures for rockhounds to discover.
"As the earth changes, there are new sources of rocks being formed all the time," he said.
While on a trip to Diamond Peak in Arizona, Nichandros said a helpful ranger guided him toward various gem trails where he discovered some geode, spherical masses of mineral matter, which sometimes have crystals in the center. He's also found fossilized clam shells in Orinda that lead him to learn about the geological history of the Bay Area.
Nichandros has also looked for rocks in Grass Valley and Wall Canyon, Nevada. He once picked up Serpentine along the side of a Cloverdale road in Sonoma County. He remembers while on one of his first field trips years ago to Valley Springs, he found people were collecting buckets full of agates, a kind of quartz. He eventually bought a rare World War II ammo bag to gather rocks in.
"There's a story in just about every rock and how it formed," Nichandros said. "If you study a rock, it will tell you where it came from."
As a sixth-grade science teacher at Pleasant Hill Middle School, Mary Hanjes likes to collect rocks to share with her students.
"I teach Earth Science so they can learn how amazing the earth is," said Hanjes, a Walnut Creek resident.
She joined the Rock Club a few years ago to learn more about the different specimens as well as discover places to collect rocks. She visited Pala, near San Diego, on her own where she found some tourmaline along the ocean view mines.
At the Contra Costa Mineral and Gem Society's rock show, Hanjes will display her students' favorite rocks along with information about each rock written by the students.
"Kids have so little interaction with things outside these days," Hanjes said. "It's nice to tie this back to the earth. My students love rocks. They're amazed by these rocks that came from the earth. They would bring in their own rocks to show me. The rocks represent something good to them. For them, they're more than just rocks, but good memories."
Contra Costa Mineral and Gem Society
For more information about this Concord-based group that attracts members from a wide area, go to http://ccmgs.org


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This indoor outdoor rug has a unique texture and displays stunning modern colors. This handwoven rug is made from recycled plastic bottles and resistant to mold, mildew, sun, water and other elements. Thom Filicia places his stamp on the classic chevron design, reworking it with a geometry that is retro-graphic and yet totally fresh and new. Ackerman is rooted in the simple woven forms of Native American crafts found in the rural upstate towns Thom loved to visit throughout his childhood. Due to the difference of monitor colors, some rug colors may vary slightly. Overstock.com tries to represent all rug colors accurately. Please refer to the text above for a description of the colors shown in the photo.
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Open source and SMBs. New funding for Lucid Imagination. And more.
Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory
On open source and SMBs
Savio Rodrigues contrasted Dell's plans to target SMBs with bundles of hardware and open source with research from Forrester that indicated that SMBs are still wary of open source, while Matt Asay noted that there are significant opportunities for open source vendors if they can work out how to crack the SMB market and suggested that the …


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NEW: For a prettier blog interface, see the Wordpress version!
|Download and read Bell, T., "A Low-Cost High-Impact Computer Science Show for Family Audiences," Australasian Computer Science Conference 2000 {{Tasks:24}} (2004.04.15)
|Figure out why Apache refuses to run {{Tasks:49}} (LinuxLaptop)
|Think about stuff I noted for NextSemester {{Tasks:46}} (NextSemester)
|Prepare the CS21A website {{Tasks:47}} (TeachingWork)
|Prepare for CS21A: copies of syllabus, BlueJ exercise, homework - install {{Tasks:41}}
|Install an instant messenger - AIM through GAIM? {{Tasks:40}} (LinuxLaptop)
|Prepare for CS161: colored markers, tape. I already have the big paper and I can cut up scratch. {{Tasks:42}}
|Check out http://directory.umich.edu for an interesting use of LDAP {{Tasks:29}}
|Install submit2.5 (CoursesSubmission)
|Change the templates (CoursesSubmission)
|Back up old system (CoursesSubmission)
|Refresh database (CoursesSubmission)
|Partition the golden client {{Tasks:38}} (LabSetup)
|Request evaluation copy of 3rd edition of Horstmann book, as it uses BlueJ {{Tasks:16}}
|Fix my swap file {{Tasks:33}} (LinuxLaptop)
|planner-create-link-from-buffer - now remember-to-planner-from-buffer (E-Mail from [email protected] Thomas Gehrlein)
|Get mozilla to work again {{Tasks:14}}
8. w00t! : 11:05
7 gb for main, 2 gb for data, 512m for swap, and everything else for backup of the above? We'll leave it unpartitioned for now.
Installing base Debian system. I hope the network works.
Decisions, decisions... I think we'll run on unstable. <evil grin>
7. CookOrDie! : 17:48
I was thinking of making baked potatoes today, but the supermarket is out of large potatoes and only has regular-sized ones. I suppose, if absolutely desperate, I could just cook and eat them.
Think. I have a toaster. I have a microwave oven. I _should_ be able to get something that resembles food.
Brilliant idea. Buy food before dinner. _Must_ do something with it or starve. This looks promising:
- whole wheat pita bread - grated cheese - tomato - lettuce
SOUP: Boil water in a medium-size saucepan. Add chopped vegetables of choice (such as onion, a carrot, a potato, parsley; frozen veggies are OK). A bouillon cube is optional. Let soup return to boil. Add a small handful of spaghetti (about 1/4 cup) that you have broken into 1-inch or smaller bits.
(Do we even have a saucepan?)
6. CookOrDie: Day 1 : 20:06
Passed by the supermarket before going to the dorm. Still no large potatoes.
|6 pita pockets
|5 native tomatoes
|4 Hungarian cocktail sausages
|Cheese lying around ref
|have no idea, but I know I must have bought it before
- Put cocktail sausage into toaster and set for four minutes. - While the sausage is cooking, wash and chop a tomato. - Slice some cheese into thin strips, too. - Slice sausage. - Distribute tomato, cheese and sausage over the surface of one pita, concentrating on an axis. - Heat the pita for a minute or two in the toaster.
Couldn't buy just one sausage - minimum is 100g, which is approximately 4 cocktail sausages. This may have been a good thing, though. Hungarian sausage made concoction pleasantly spicy.
Experimented with leaving the cocktail sausage whole. Less work, but sausage taste overwhelming and somewhat monotonous because you know where it is.
Approximate cost of one pita: (+ (/ 39.99 6) (/ 7.65 5) (/ 36.40 4)) ~ PHP 17.25 Two pitas made me somewhat full. Actually, I had three pitas and two sausages, so that's ~ 42.75. If I had only two pitas, (* 2 (+ (/ 39.99 6) (/ 7.65 5) (/ 36.40 4))) ~ 34.50 isn't too bad. KFC's original-recipe 1-pc chicken is 49, though, and it comes with water. Still, KFC's original-recipe 1-pc chicken is _not_ going to help me Learn How To Cook, and it won't satisfy my CookOrDie constraint.
Possible next step:
- Bacon, mushroom and cheese pita
Future recommendations:
- Match the number of ingredients. Then again, this could be the
coding practice of leaving something broken, as mismatched ingredients + CookOrDie constraint spurs creativity.
- Heat pita while slicing sausage? This requires too much
back-and-forth, though, so it might not be worth it.
- Move chopping board to kitchen table.
- Should experiment with non-pita bread to see if it is worth the
5. A Low-Cost High-Impact Computer Science Show for Family Audiences : 20:15
Wow. This is _so_ cool! Google it and be enlightened. ;) I _definitely_ want to pull this off at the next science fair. Brilliant examples!
4. LabSetup : 20:42
First of all, it's a serial mouse, not a PS/2 mouse. Second, gpm and X both freeze. It's weird! X displays happily. No keyboard input, no mouse motion, nothing - not even Ctrl-Alt-Backspace! I have to ssh in to kill the offending process.
The mouse name is "
3. EClass, a cross-platform, open source software toolkit for authoring, managing and delivering e-learning via computer or the Internet : 20:47
E-Mail from Federico Sevilla III
2. Data structures to the rescue! : 20:47
John Hunter is looking for a data structure to identify the closest neighbor in 2D to new points as they are added to the structure. Brute force works, but is there something better? http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=mailman.356.1067832883.702.pyt[email protected]
I vaguely remember Voronoi diagrams, although I've never used them.
E-Mail from Federico Sevilla III
1. Summary : 21:59
Pleased to see Dominique had written an article on school laboratory management blues. Prefer rsync-based solutions over dd ones because of uncertain partition sizes. Should check out if lab computers can netboot, or will just make bootdisks that will repartition and rsync. (w00t.) Solution of X problem optional, as can mirror Windows FAT32 partitions easily. apt-move also very cool.
He says I should write it up. Soon, soon. Would very much like to sneak Linux into the labs.
Am looking forward to meeting with PLmar (Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Marikina). They want help in improving their curriculum. Teacher training, finding creative examples... challenge!
Maybe can get students to prepare learning materials like that study I read recently...
Have plans for tomorrow. No projector, no computer, no problem! Will do class-wide mind-map and sneak operating systems concepts into the thing too. Looking forward to bouncing ideas off Jerome as recently had chat with him about real-world relevance of operating systems. Walking around, had brilliant-but-completely-obvious-to-everyone-else insight that operating systems is not just about managing programs - many of the principles can be applied to everyday life. Find self specializing in drawing far-out but semi-plausible connections between computer science and "real life."
Have amazing amount of time. Don't know where it came from. Perhaps coming home to cook forces me away from distractions. Must continue if so.
I'd love to hear about any questions, comments, suggestions or links that you might have. Your comments will not be posted on this website immediately, but will be e-mailed to me first. You can use this form to get in touch with me, or e-mail me at [email protected] .


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Louise W. Smith, 84, formerly of Mercersburg, died at 12:51 a.m. Tuesday, April 23, 2013.� Services will be held at 2 p.m. Friday in the Presbyterian Church of Mercersburg. Burial will be in Fairview Cemetery, Mercersburg. There will be no public viewing; however the family will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday in Lininger-Fries Funeral Home Inc., Mercersburg, and one hour prior to services Friday in the church.
Location, ST | website.com


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Three Children Killed in Bronx Fire Started by Candle
By Carrie Melago and Laura Kusisto
A Bronx fire that left three boys dead Friday was sparked by a candle in an apartment where power had been shut off, officials said.
Fire marshals determined that the blaze at 64 W. 165th St. near Yankee Stadium was accidental and caused by a candle in the kitchen area, a Fire Department of New York spokesman said.
Power had been shut off to the apartment because there was "a significant amount of money owed on that account," said Allan Drury, a spokesman for Con Edison.
Authorities responded to the blaze just before 8 p.m. Friday. Emergency workers transported six people to Lincoln Hospital, where the three children were declared dead.
Killed in the blaze were Elijah Artis, 5 years old, Jeremiah Artis, 2, and four-month-old Michael Turner. A 25-year-old woman, 4-year-old girl and four-month-old girl were being treated for smoke inhalation.
The fire was brought under control at 9:10 p.m.
Mr. Drury said the utility tries to find ways to help customers before turning off power. "You're not quick to shut customers off. You try to work with customers to avoid shut off," he said.


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Details revealed for special Whelen Mod Tour shootout event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway
According to sources close to the Whelen Modified Tour, NASCAR is expected to announce within the next two weeks that Whelen Engineering of Chester will be the title sponsor for the special Whelen Modified Tour invitation-only non-points event for the division at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on July 11.
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[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: The CVE-10K Problem
On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, pmeunier wrote: > From all the replies, it seems that most of this board stopped reading > after your list of 4 options and missed your additional request for > thoughts regarding funding and related issues. I suggest you resend > that as a separate message. I wanted to raise the latter point as a consideration. This year, probably sooner rather than later, Dave Mann and I expect to be raising the larger funding issues, and considering strategies for coping. The Board seems fairly united on the numbering scheme, so we'll make an announcement and see if general CVE consumers have any major issues. - Steve


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What does 'easy to recycle' mean?
July 25, 2016, 7:03 a.m. by Robin Shreeves
If you can't throw it in the curbside recycling bin, is it really 'easy?'
Iconic IKEA reusable carrier bag gets new look
June 13, 2016, 8 a.m. by Matt Hickman
The game-changing blue shopping bag will be joined by a stylish new tote in — gasp! — white and dark green.
New York City passes 5-cent bag fee
May 6, 2016, 12:22 p.m. by Robin Shreeves
Want paper or plastic? Plan on sharing a nickel for the convenience.
10 creative ways to upcycle your plastic bottles
May 2, 2016, 3:45 p.m. by Kelly Ladd
These DIY projects will have you see plastic bottles in completely new ways.
How to make a greenhouse out of windows
April 27, 2016, 2:14 p.m. by Kelly Ladd
Garden gurus share an excerpt from their new DIY garden book.
8 'expired' foods to use in your beauty routine
April 18, 2016, 12:34 p.m. by Lambeth Hochwald
These leftovers will improve your hair and skin and cut down on food waste.
9 ways to use an avocado pit
March 28, 2016, 4:39 p.m. by Robin Shreeves
You can do more than compost the pits from avocados. Much more.
How to grow seedlings in eggshells
March 22, 2016, 12:59 p.m. by Kelly Ladd
Jump start your spring garden by starting seedlings in eggshells before planting them in the ground.
Are there good wines that aren't in glass?
March 14, 2016, 2:03 p.m. by Robin Shreeves
Here are some choices if you're worried your wine bottles aren't being recycled.
Bacteria that devours plastic discovered near Japanese recycling facility
March 11, 2016, 4:02 p.m. by Michael Graham Richard
300 million tons of plastics are made yearly, but we only recycle about 14%.
How to make cool stuff out of wooden pallets
March 9, 2016, 3:36 p.m. by Kelly Ladd
Don't let those pallets go to waste in a landfill! Upcycle and reuse them in these crafty DIY projects.
How to make a bird feeder with citrus peels
February 25, 2016, 2:51 p.m. by Kelly Ladd
After you've eaten your orange or made your favorite recipe using your citrus fruit, keep your peel and recycle it into a bird feeder.


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This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter.
August 04, 2010
Nine Cars Advance in $10 Million Automotive X Prize Test
The Very Light Car is one of Edison2's mainstream class entries still in the Progressive Automotive X Prize hunt.
The Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize organizers announced on July 27 that nine vehicles—from what began as a field of 136 super-efficient vehicles—are finalists for $10 million in prizes following on-track competition at Michigan International Speedway. The innovative cars, representing seven teams from the United States, Switzerland, Finland, and Germany, now move into the validation stage at DOE's Argonne National Laboratory. Argonne will perform dynamometer testing before prize money is awarded at a ceremony on September 16 in Washington, D.C.
Surviving competitors have proven their vehicles could meet the prize requirements, including getting 90 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe) on the way to the final threshold of 100 MPGe, as well as passing dynamic safety and range tests. For the final on-track event, cars had to navigate 50 laps as fast as possible without exceeding 70 mph or slowing to less than 45 mph. The finalists include two internal combustion engine cars from the Edison2 team in the mainstream class; two battery electric cars from the X-Tracer team in the tandem class; and five battery electric cars in the side-by-side category from five teams: Aptera, Li-ion Motors, RaceAbout Association, TW4XP, and Zap. See the X Prize press release and the X Prize standings Web site.


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HIV positive
Please keep my son in your prayers - He has had many issues growing up he is now 24 and with a family - he has HIV and works so hard to take care of his children and wife. This disease bares down on him and causes depression and other problems. I pray for a total healing and that God will get the glory in his life and his family and all around him. God Bless


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18 Apr That Peace Group Presents Global "Day of Silence"
That Peace Group Presents Global "Day of Silence"
The Denver Waldorf School Social Justice committee "That Peace Group" is inviting everyone to participate in the global Day Of Silence, tomorrow, April 19th.
What we are doing:
~ Be silent from at least from 8-3, many will do the entire day. (We have agreed that participants should opt into an academic exception and speak in class to support their teachers and their learning.)
~ Wearing black shirts to raise further awareness
~ Wearing rainbow pins (hopefully) to show our unity and support (stop by Renata's office to pick up a pin)
Why we are doing it:
~ This day is to raise awareness of the millions of youth whose gender identity and or sexual orientation cannot be categorized within the heterosexual/straight "norm" including but not limited to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender individuals.
~ This day represents the silence that millions of youth are forced into daily as they live in a world often hostile and exclusive of their very identity. Although we have seen great progress throughout the 20th century into the 21st century, youth across our nation face the risk of being kicked out of their homes, having their family ties severed and broken, being told over and over again that there is something wrong with them, being sent to camps to get "cured," being ostracized and relentlessly teased at school and so much more if they are not silent about their identity.
The potential consequences of not being silent vary from community to community, state to state and country to country with some countries still enforcing the death penalty for being gay. This climate lends itself not only to the silence of youth throughout the world, but the experience of excruciating loneliness, isolation and self-doubt that comes from this silence.
"That Peace Group," the social justice committee begun by Denver Waldorf School High School students. encourage everyone to join use in this day of action!
For more information about the movement please visit:
Please see High School Coordinator Renata Heberton at firstname.lastname@example.com for more information.


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Wild Rice Casserole
Vanita T. Walker, Lakeland FL
Ingredients 1 package (6 ounces) long grain and wild rice mix 1/4 pound pork sausage 1/2 cup chopped onion 1 cup chopped celery 1 teaspoon sage leaves 1 teaspoon salt (optional) 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
Cooking InstructionsPrepare wild rice mix according to package directions; set aside. Brown sausage in small skillet, breaking up with spoon as it cooks. Remove sausage and pour off all but 2 tablespoons sausage drippings from skillet. Saute onion and celery in drippings until crisp tender, about 5 minutes. In a bowl, combine cooked rice, sausage, sauteed vegetables and remaining ingredients. Bake in casserole dish in preheated 350-degree oven for 30 minutes.


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The Oregon Legislature approved a series of bills on pensions, taxes and genetically modified crops, then adjourned a special session after three days of work.
The decision delivered a hard-fought victory to Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber, who has been working for a year to convince lawmakers to stem the growing costs of public-employee pensions. To gather support in the Legislature, the pension cuts were packaged with changes to the tax code and a bill prohibiting local governments from banning genetically modified crops.
Five bills cleared the House and Senate, most of them by the narrowest of margins.
The Oregon Senate approved the final two pieces of the "Grand Bargain" special session, meaning all five pieces of legislation have passed both houses and are on their way to Gov. John Kitzhaber for his signature.
The measures reduce some of the costs of public employee pension funds, raise taxes on some high income individuals and businesses and reduce taxes on some smaller businesses. One measure prohibits local regulation of genetically modified plants, but does not affect a planned vote in May 2014 on banning GMOs in Jackson County.
Kitzhaber said he would sign the measures only if all five passed.
— Staff and wire reports
Location, ST | website.com


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Please answer a few questions to help us find your product easy and fast.
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Lincoln Precision TIG 225 Ready Pak With Cart (K2535-2)The torch parts storage compartment is a great feature. Learn More$2,590.00
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Lincoln Precision TIG 225 Ready Pak (K2535-1)5-230 amps is the widest welding range in its class. Learn More$2,420.00


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Long-time performer and songwriter, Jenna Bilyeu (Baker) of Dixon has advanced in one of the nation's largest and most prestigious songwriting competitions, the Texaco Country Showdown Songwriters Contest.
Bilyeu was up against over 40 other songwriters from across the nation whose material had made it past the initial judges and allowed to enter the competition.
Jenna's song "Rollin' Stone" made the Top 5 of the months contest. From there, a panel of judges in Nashville made up of professional songwriters picked the winner, which was Bilyeu's original song. From here "Rollin' Stone" will be placed in the national finals this fall against other winners from throughout the year.
When asked about winning this round of competition and moving on to the finals Bilyeu said "It's such an honor to make it this far and to know that some of the professionals in Nashville appreciated my work. From here, who knows what will happen. I will just keep performing and writing and wherever God takes me with it is where I will go."
Currently Jenna is playing music across Missouri with her band Jenna Bilyeu & The Back Roads Band. Their next local performance will be at The Barn in Dixon, MO on June 22 where Jenna and her band, along with Miles from Nowhere will be entertaining. You can learn more about Jenna and her band, hear her music, and find ticket information for the show at The Barn in Dixon on her website located at www.JennaBilyeu.com.
Location, ST | website.com


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Hello, I am Becky Carlberg, gardening enthusiast from Southeast Oklahoma. I have degrees in Biology from Eastern Oklahoma State College and Oklahoma State University. Teaching, research work, and competing in art shows then followed. I earned my Master�s Degree in Plant Pathology from OSU and continued graduate work on a Doctorate of Botany at the University of Oklahoma.
With my family, we twice had an opportunity to live in Europe. We were in England for five years and then later in Germany for seven years. It was an excellent education for our sons. I returned to gardening, writing and art, became a Master Gardener, as well as an Oklahoma certified Master Naturalist. I am the gardener in charge of the Shawnee Japanese Peace Garden, a member of the Deep Fork Audubon Society, and now call my five acre Backyard Wildlife Habitat and Oklahoma Wildscape outside Shawnee home.
My name is Linda Workman Smith. The first step of my gardening journey began in the hills northwest of Van Buren, Arkansas, where my parents�both from farming families�raised seven children.
This is not to say that I�ve always had a love for gardening although over the years I�ve managed to keep my hands in the dirt. In 2000, my husband�s employment brought us to Shawnee where we settled on two acres west of town. Being unemployed for the first time in many years�and planning to stay that way�I started gardening on a small scale.
I have been a member of the Multi-County Master Gardener Association for several years and thoroughly enjoy being in the organization. I now have many flower beds and I�ve expanded my gardens to include lots of vegetable varieties, several fruit trees, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and grapes. Every year I try to plant something different. I don�t grow a lot of any one thing, but a little bit of lots of things!
5 January Blog 2013
The New Year rolled in with quiet fanfare where I was sleeping…except for some fireworks that rat-a-tatted in the distance, interspersed with a few booms. My stay in the southeastern part of the state was enhanced by a 5 inch snowfall that hung around for days. I would clump around in snow covered shoes filling the birdfeeder or taking the dogs out for a run. Coffee grounds and tea bags were relegated to the azaleas out in front. First I moved away the pine needles and snow, then the beans and leaves were carefully spread around the base of each plant. Back the insulating cover went to assure the azaleas would survive the rest of the winter. This is a good place to remind you that your plants would like some tender loving care right now in the form of some ground cover mulch, water, or your own coffee or tea remains.
Thirteen state parks invited Oklahomans to participate on First Day Hikes January first of 2013. Last year 6 state parks took part. I love the way Keli Clark recommended the hikes as a sure cure for the aftereffects we suffer from our turkey-induced coma, eggnog fog and fruitcake overload (people actually eat fruitcake?). The Oklahoma State Parks Director Kris Merek encouraged visitors to start a healthy New Year's tradition and get outdoors.
The hikes ranged from a half-mile at Lake Murray and Grand Lake-Bernice area, one mile at Beaver's Bend, Lake Wister, Arrowhead, and Greenleaf, to assorted moderate hikes at Lake Thunderbird, Foss State Park, Roman Nose, Sequoyah, Osage Hills, Tenkiller and Robbers Cave.
Good shoes are a must, plus a walking stick might come in handy. We hiked at Lake Wister with Harold, a good natured state park guide usually employed at Talimena State Park. Did we know the Poteau River that flowed into Lake Wister was the only river in Oklahoma that goes north? Or the Ouachita Mountains have the distinction of being the only mountain range east of the Rocky Mountains that go east-west? Wister is the entrance to the Ouachita Mountains. Our path was the Lone Star Trail. Carl and Mary Heflin have done some interesting research on the Lone Star area. It was one of the places partially covered by Lake Wister. Lone Star was within 2 miles of Lone Pine, another place long gone.
Lone Star School was built in 1909, a one room building with grades one through eight. The multi-purpose school was used as a church on Sundays. People would bring dinner and stay until the evening services. Kids had to often walk miles to school, which accommodated the farming schedule of crops grown in the Poteau River Valley.
Mr. Polk Babb was the first teacher who started in 1909 working for $50 a month. Bonnie Goodwin was the last teacher in 1947, as the school was annexed to Wister and the building moved to Wister Schools. About this time Lake Wister was being created where Lone Star school stood. An Army Corps flood control project, construction of Lake Wister was begun 1946 and completed by 1949. The water that filled it came from Poteau and Fourche Maline Rivers, as well as numerous creeks and runoff. The lake is 7,300 acres of shallow water that now supplies drinking water to the Poteau Valley communities. That in itself is interesting.
The Fourche Maline Woodland culture, forerunner of the Caddo culture, lived in the Wister area about 2,000 years ago. A WPA project in the 1930's studied various sites of occupation. Arrowheads and artifacts were discovered along several creek banks, all now flooded. Apparently, Lone Star was not the only place to be affected by the new lake. We met for our hike at Ward's Landing, another area somewhat inundated by water. An old hotel stood at the spot, but only foundations now remain, plus the story of a ghost that lurks around here and there. Pocohontas school and vicinity to the west were also buried under water.
But I digress. The Lone Star walk was well-marked (by Harold) and meandered along the side of one hill. It was close to Buzzard's Roost, a rocky outcropping inhabited by dozens of Turkey vultures that periodically spew out from behind the rocks in search of dead things.
Short-needle pine and post oak tree canopies covered our heads as we threaded our way over and around thousands of lichen-covered rocks. Because of all those rocks, walking was slow and careful. A fire had burned through the area, evidenced by scorched tree trunks and some blackened debris. Eroded, exposed large sandstone and limestone rocks topped the hill. I would like to talk about all the vibrant plant life, but in early January, many plants are gone or asleep. Green brier vines stood proudly straight up, and some withered sumacs were in attendance. I did notice some rabbit and bobcat scat along our trail, and we spotted one small deer, so wildlife is evidently there. It was a cold raw day, but our little group had a good time.
So mark your calendars next January the first. Find your nearest state park and take a hike. Better yet, begin your explorations early and visit one this spring. You might be surprised what you find. I found some facts are better researched than others. While checking out Lake Wister, I stumbled across some realtor's promotion claiming the Ponderosa pines and spruce at Lake Wister were beautiful?! OK man. Are you sure you weren't dreaming about somewhere in Colorado, a place these trees actually do grow.
Check out the state parks: http://www.stateparks.com/ok.html


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First Energy has cut dividends to 36 cents per share, down from the 55 cent dividend that has been in place since 2008, the company announced Tuesday.
The revised divided rate equals an annual dividend of $1.44 per share, down from an annual rate of $2.20 per share.
The dividend will be payable March 1 to shareholders of record on Feb. 7.
"The dividend change is expected to preserve a solid and sustainable payment for our shareholders," said President and CEO Anthony J. Alexander in a news release. "The revised dividend also provides our company with additional financial flexibility to pursue regulated growth opportunities over the next several years."
The new divided rate is supported by expected earnings from the company's regulated distribution and transmission businesses and reflects a 58 percent payout of expected regulated operating earnings, according to the release.
FirstEnergy announced operating earnings guidance of $2.45 to $2.85 per share for 2014. The company narrowed 2013 operating earnings guidance to $2.95 to $3.05 per share from $2.90 to $3.10 pre share.
The company will report fourth quarter and annual results Feb. 25.
Location, ST | website.com


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Sergei Filin, swathed in a large black scarf and knitted hat to cover his burns, spoke at a news conference at a German hospital, where doctors said one of his badly damaged eyes had shown some improvement and that they remained hopeful he would recover useful vision.
"I am full of strength and faith that I will recover what has been unjustly taken from me," Filin said as he thanked doctors in Germany for their help treating his eyes and burned skin.
He said he was in daily contact with his deputy at the theater by telephone and had no fear about going back to work. "As soon as I can see ... I will go back and do the same work. ... I am not afraid."
Dressed head to toe in black and wearing large dark glasses, Filin walked into the auditorium at the Aachen University Clinic with an interpreter close at his side, and sat quietly as doctors discussed his treatment. He was led out by hospital staff afterward.
Dr. Martin Hermel, an eye specialist, said that Filin suffered damage to the surface and inner parts of both eyes and had undergone several surgeries.
Hermel said that he held out hope that Filin would "recover useable vision" to allow him to return to his professional duties.
His left eye had shown some improvement, Hermel said. As for the right, which suffered more severe damage, "we cannot at this point make a statement about the prognosis for vision in this eye.
Filin was attacked in January by a masked man who splashed sulfuric acid onto his face, leaving him with severe burns on his eyes and skin.
Bolshoi dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko, who has been arrested on suspicion of organizing the attack, told a Moscow court that he gave his blessing for the Jan. 17 attack but never expected the perpetrator to use acid and cause such harm to Filin.
The Bolshoi Theater's general director, Anatoly Iksanov, has accused veteran principal dancer Nikolai Tsiskaridze of inciting tensions in the theater that led to the attack. Tsiskaridze, a long-time fierce critic of Iksanov who is reported to aspire to his job, has rejected the allegation.
Vasilyeva contributed from Moscow.


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Sparkle fades in and is just Sparkle. Guelah is fine. Divided Sky starts the sloppiness off, Trey and Mike all night long. Mound, sloppy Mike. Stash is ok, but also has some slop. Suzy is ok.
Glide also has some noise in it, and includes evil laughing in the bridge part. Rift has more slop. The only thing remotely interesting about this show is the language explanation during a subsequently sloppy Wilson. It's like it took so long Mike forgot the song! Sounds like a tape flip into YEM which is good considering the rest of the show. Poor Heart is pretty standard. Hell, even Rosie is sloppy tonight! And Harpua, which has a great Fish motivated story, is not very tight either. Jim is a good closer just like a few nights ago.
Encores are good tonight. A-Train has a nice Mike solo, Rocky Top is standard.
All in all a very sloppy show this night. Not sure if I would have been as turned on by them if this was my first show. We'll see if they recover tommorrow!


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On 28 February 2008, Elonex launched the Elonex ONE--the first sub-£100 laptop in the UK. Clearly competing against the much in-demand Asus EeePC [2], Elonex say they are aiming at the school-student market. The thing is, I just can't stop asking: isn't £99 too cheap for a laptop?
Family ties
Elonex have denied that the ONE is a re-badged Fontastic A-view
Elonex kept the specifications very close to their chest until the announcement at the Education show--a conference in Birmingham. Some tech sites had managed to speculate based upon the apparent similarities between the ONE and the Taiwanese-made Fontastic A-view. Elonex have denied rumours that the ONE is a re-badged A-view. As shown below there are certainly similarities between the two though.
|Elonex ONE
|Fontastic A-view
|LNX Code8 300MHz
|Aday5F-300 Mhz
|RAM (fitted/max)
|Flash Storage
|10/100 & 802.11b/g (Bluetooth option)
|10/100 (802.11b/g & Bluetooth options)
|800x480 7" TFT
|800x480 7" TFT
|2xUSB, Mic, Headphone
|2xUSB, Mic, Headphone
|22x15x3 cm
|230x146x33 mm
You can add to those the fact that both come with LinOS Linux 2.6.21, sport the same "mouse emulator" (two each in fact), have a similar 3-cell battery (which Elonex claim will last for four hours). The same rugged hardware design is in both. Finally both have a removable keyboard, enabling the screen section to be used tablet style. If the ONE is not a re-badged A-view then they appear to be very close cousins.
Cutting costs
The specifications show how Elonex can put the ONE out at £99. I can't remember when I last saw a new PC product with a 300MHz processor and it is the hardware specs which make me question whether this product will fly. Like the EeePC the 7 inch screen will bring its own cost (and power) savings. Of course using free software gives a whole host of advantages, including in this case cost.
Elonex have nailed their colours firmly to the free software mast on this--er--ONE. From their website:
The ONE's ground breaking price point has been achieved by using the open source software Linux. This operating system has gained popularity in recent rears as it brings back the freedom of software development back to the individual, rather than the reliance on the monopoly of large corporations. It is hoped that the children learning computing on the ONE nowadays, will have the skills to design the software we will all be using in the future.
Note the use of the words freedom and monopoly there and they should be congratulated for the recognition that using free software will introduce skills not always gained from using proprietary software. This kind of statement is one of the reasons I really want this product to succeed.
Some of the included applications are not named but we can work out what they are. The office applications can import and export Microsoft Office documents (the spreadsheet screenshot looks like Gnumeric to me). A "cross platform instant messenger" compatible with MSN, Yahoo, AIM & ICQ sounded like pidgin even before the A-view specs gave the game away. Multimedia (although no mention of codecs offered), web browsing and e-mail also get a look in and there are 11 games (coincidentally the same number as on the A-view).
Is it good enough?
I have to be honest: I like the concept of the ONE a lot more than I trust my instincts on its long-term survival. I am worried that 300MHz and 128Mb is not really going to be enough to be editing a text document whilst listening to some music. Additional storage is handled by an associated range of USB wrist bands: ranging from 1Gb to 16Gb.
The graphics and audio chips are not mentioned anywhere but the ONE is unlikely to be requiring 3D acceleration or 5-speaker surround sound. Perhaps this product will succeed because of the marketing strategy. Elonex have really aimed this at schools--not just school kids--and it's possible that will pay off: if schools see the potential of the ONE. Certainly its price could well be attractive schools fitting out classrooms with them and the tablet feature gives it an extended scope over an average PC. I just worry that the resources will struggle if (when?) someone throws something big at it.
Uses outside of schools
Ever since I saw the EeePC--and now the ONE--I have tried to envisage uses for it beyond the promotional material. The immediate one I can think of for either is as a cheap loan laptop for users who travel. I often have colleagues asking to borrow a laptop for a long train journey. The size and weight of the unit will make this an ideal candidate. Considering this loan would be for a short few hours, the 7inch screen might just be tolerable. Another option is for it to be loaned with a data-projector to colleagues giving presentations.
I have to confess, I like the ONE and Elonex have done a lot to pitch it just right at their chosen market. I do have reservations about some of the hardware involved; having said that I doubt a proprietary-based machine could be sold at that price without a huge loss.
If you are in the mood for a ONE, you can reserve it for ready for delivery in June. It comes in four colours too.
So come on Elonex, prove my doubting conscience wrong. Prove that a sub--£100 laptop is possible and that free software can actually help our kids learn to use computers and not just some proprietary software which happens to have a monopoly at the moment.
[1] Elonex ONE
[2] Asus EeePC
It can work...
"I am worried that 300MHz and 128Mb is not really going to be enough to be editing a text document whilst listening to some music."
Don't be. I know for a fact that these specs are adequate for those tasks. I have run LyX and XMMS on a 150MHz processor with 64MB of memory, so I'm not worried.
Of course, don't even try to open OpenOffice.org on such a system, but you don't need to.
I was using fvwm, not KDE, but nothing says you have to run KDE or Gnome on one of these. There's a number of lightweight window managers available. Some of them even approach the look and feel of something like KDE (Puppy Linux shipped with one such, IIRC, but I've forgotten it's name. I think it was "Joe's Window Manager" or something similar).
I have no doubt that experienced computer users used to more modern computers will find the ONE pokey, but then they can say to themselves "Hey, I only paid £99 for it!"
Kids of course, are more likely to not even notice, if this is their first computer. They'll just notice how fast the bigger systems are when they get onto one.
Personally, I am thrilled to see OLPC-style computers appearing for the developed world marketplace.
I think the manufacturers took notice of just how many "first world" geeks were drooling over the XO, and decided there must be a market for these things.
I think you are right
Actually I know you are right. I too have run several desktop boxes with a similar spec but I've also seen the way some of my users will have seven or eight MS Word documents open "just in case" as well as browser, databases and audio players. I know the intended audience probably wont do this but as I said I've been thinking of this in a working environment.
Kids of course, are more likely to not even notice, if this is their first computer. They'll just notice how fast the bigger systems are when they get onto one.
I agree and--if I can persuade my wife to let me-- I would like to get one of these for my kids in the next year or so (heck at this price even two!). They are both under 5 but already love GCompris and Tux Paint.
PS - you get the prize for what is probably the shortest time between a post being published and somebody commenting on it :o)
Actually, the system I'm writing this on (a few years out of date) has only 256MB RAM, and I run 20 virtual desktops in KDE.
When writing an article, I usually have Gimp with between 3 and 4 documents open, Inkscape with 2 or 3 windows open, Mozilla with 3 or 4 windows (and up to 50 tabs) open, 3 or 4 gVim windows, 3 or 4 Gnome Terminal windows, a half dozen or so KNotes, one Mozilla Thunderbird instance, and XMMS playing music (I used to play "Run Rabbit Junk" from the GITS TV soundtrack every time I edited the news, it really helped me focus. I usually play calmer music when writing columns).
I do just start to see a slow down with that kind of load, but it's well within my tolerance.
I think the CPU on this machine is in the 500-1000MHz range, but really, that isn't the big limit on running simultaneous apps.
Which leaves me to wonder what you have to be doing to actually need modern computer hardware. :-)
I can think of some examples of resource-hungry software: Blender 3D modelling, CAD, video editing, video streaming, some games. Also, if you're running a lot of servers on the same system, that can really weigh it down (Zope is kind of fierce on RAM requirements, for example).
The thing is that free software apps are really that much more efficient. Even though KDE is relatively "resource hungry" among GNU/Linux software, it's still nothing compared to MS Windows. You can do a lot more with a lot less hardware.
I used to have a laptop that I ran FVWM on, which I think had 16MB RAM, 150MHz Pentium processor, and a 2GB hard drive. Which was pretty usable (I couldn't really run multiple large apps at once on it, but it was fine for word processing and I did presentations with K Presenter or Mozilla on it). When I compare these tiny computers to that, I realize that either the ONE or the Eee would actually be an upgrade from the last laptop I owned.
Which leaves me to wonder what you have to be doing to actually need modern computer hardware. :-)
Run the latest offerings from Microsoft? :o)
Do bear in mind that the ONE has 128MB RAM as standard and it is probably that which makes the difference. This will never be a machine for doing serious image editing or handling large documents (or .ppt files ;o) ) but I suppose it will handle most things--only time (and getting my hands on one) will tell.
Gents I think we are really seeing the change of our linux culture always... I think these UMPC's will obviously give us the edge to develop more embedded OS/App and port to Mips/Arm processors/Alternative Arch's.
I think a few things could be addressed:
RAM/SWAP: make another Swap Partition on a USB 1GB.
Space: 8GB USB stick for storage.
Lets face it tech is getting extremely cheap and it probably wouldnt take much to find out the max ram the board can support and open it up and max it for 15 to 20$ more.
I do agree that this would be ideal for children or actually businesses as a way of putting a PDA like device on your with out shelling alot of cash.
If it uses Bluetooth likely you could find some one who could hack a PAN interface for it for cells and actually use this thing with out having to connect to a public network over say Edge or 3G.
Just a food for thought.
nice article
It does have some novel features (wrist strap, memory strap) that do set it out from the competition (EeePC) as far as I can see. Of course, it could be that in 2 months time we're all coo'ing over the next great UMPC offering that's cheaper/larger/faster/flashier.
Without having seen one, I do wonder how well they will take to the typical child battering - if they are only 100 quid - will they be durable to last more than a few months or years (i.e. how good is the build quality)?
My personal inclination would be to buy a 9" EeePC as it would have a large enough screen to be 'usable' (by my standards). Having said that, my 10 year old niece is thinking of buying a laptop and I said to her yesterday "Wait a few months, and you'll be able to buy a new one for 100 quid".
(As a side point - Elonex appear to be based in my home town, Bromsgrove, so perhaps I should get them involved in our LUG!)
Without having seen one, I do wonder how well they will take to the typical child battering - if they are only 100 quid - will they be durable to last more than a few months or years (i.e. how good is the build quality)?
Well their site mentions a "splash-proof" keyboard a few times and the A-view site mentions rugged design. It would be foolhardy of Elonex to target that market and not build some kind of toughness into it. Still it does only weigh 1kg>
(As a side point - Elonex appear to be based in my home town, Bromsgrove, so perhaps I should get them involved in our LUG!)
Absolutely - I would have thought a ONE talk--not a sales pitch--from someone at Elonex would go down a storm at most LUGs :o)
£99 versus $300
I should like to point out that with the exchange rates as they are, the £99 ONE isn't that much cheaper than the $299 "Eee 2G Surf". Based on today's exchange rate of about US$2.01/GB£, that's about US$199 versus $299.
IOW, it's about 2/3rds of the price of the Eee.
Given that the ONE is indeed slightly lower spec than the Eee, and is being released several months later, there's no need to look for more reasons to explain the price difference.
I do wonder if the ONE will be available in North America (and for how much).
Which raises another question -- how much is the A-view, and where can you get one? I've seen this comparison before, and it's probably true that it's a rebadge, whatever Elonex says, but if you can't get the original, it's not really so much of a "rebadge" as it is a "badge". ;-)
For you maybe :o)
I should like to point out that with the exchange rates as they are, the £99 ONE isn't that much cheaper than the $299 "Eee 2G Surf". Based on today's exchange rate of about US$2.01/GB£, that's about US$199 versus $299.
Well as a UK resident I can buy the Eee 2G Surf for £249--there's a well known history of manufacturers simply using a 1:1 exchange rate when selling products that launched in the US. So much so that most Brits (in my circle anyway) seem to automatically assume a USD price will be the same in GBP. So for me the ONE is 40% of the price of the Eee. Also the sub-£100 price tag will be a key marketing factor methinks.
Which raises another question — how much is the A-view, and where can you get one? I've seen this comparison before, and it's probably true that it's a rebadge, whatever Elonex says, but if you can't get the original, it's not really so much of a "rebadge" as it is a "badge". ;-)
True but Elonex are a manufacturer so I guess they don't want to be seen as merely an importer. I assume/hope that they also put a British keyboard on it as well.
Before writing this post I could have pointed you at the Fontastic site where it was possible to import one for around $120 (I think) but the product seems to have been removed from the site now.


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