Maybe you’ve seen many good Open Source projects that are no longer maintained. One of the many reasons for that may be lack of contribution. In fact, there are many one-man projects out there. Most of any program’s users are just that, users, not developers. Nevertheless, average users still can contribute to Open Source programs to make them better.

5 Ways to Contribute to Open Source Projects Without Coding - Nongeek perspective

A wonderfully useful article this, although I have done some programming (in Microsoft’s C# - so potentially a little limited for open source!) my skills are more in the writing side of things. Maybe (getting really ahead here) I should make a new years resolution to get involved in an open source project. Maybe Damn Small Linux

chordbook.com - interactive guitar chords

This is a great website for guitarists, ok not strictly speaking opensource, but it is free and is a great resource that I will be using in the future.

There are plenty of good ideas in the Web 2.0 world, and an even greater number of bad ones. In the interest of brevity, I’ve chosen five sites from each category. The web services industry certainly has more than five winners and five losers, so we’ve only highlighted the exemplars.

Wired News: Web 2.0 Winners and Losers

Today let’s take a look at how one goes about creating these magical extensions. The active ingredient is XUL, a markup language (the eXtensible [or “XML-Based”] User-interface Language, to be precise) that describes things like toolbars, menus, keyboard shortcuts. It’s what Firefox uses internally, in fact, to handle its own UI (what the developer types call “chrome”). XUL will provide the interface. JavaScript handles the functionality.

Your First Firefox Extension - Wired .com

I’m working on writing a Yahoo! widget for work at the moment and this shows the impact that XML is having. This might be an interesting next step. Of course, I could just use Opera to get all the bits and pieces that I want such as the RSS reader.

he TwinView feature is only supported on NVIDIA GPUs that supportdual-display functionality, such as the GeForce2 MX, GeForce2 Go,Quadro2 MXR, Quadro2 Go, and any of the GeForce4, Quadro4, GeForceFX, or Quadro FX GPUs. Please consult with your video card vendorto confirm that TwinView is supported on your card. (for a list of vendorsand their contact information, direct your browser to:http://www.nvidia.com/page/partner_support.htmlTwinView is a mode of operation where two display devices (digitalflat panels, CRTs, and TVs) can display the contents of a single X screenin any arbitrary configuration. This method of multiple monitor usehas several distinct advantages over other techniques (such as Xinerama):

The nVidia support pages

In t’ interests o’ celebratin this day, a rum lovin’ friend of mine emailed Google t’ see if they’d be willin’ to change their logo t’ a Piratey theme. While Google rejected t’ request, the merry crew responded in Pirate-themed parlance. That be swash-bucklin’ customer service, me hearties. Below be the letter in a bottle he recieved.

From: help@google.com

Subject: Re: [#73859603] Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 10:44:27 -0700

Ahoy mate,

Thank’ee fer th’ logo ye be suggestin’. We enjoy celebratin’ horlidays at Google. As ye may imagine, it be terrible difficult fer us t’ choose which events t’ be celebratin’ on our site. We be hav’in a long list o’ horlidays that we’d be liken’ ter celebrate in th’ future. We be hav’in ter balance this rotatin’ calendar with th’ need te be maintainin’ the likeness o’ the Google homepage. Some horlidays that we no’ been celebratin’ in the past will be rotatin’ into our horliday doodles fer future years. Please remember ye can be visitin’ any o’ our doodles at http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html Arrrrrrr, The Google Team

The New Marketing : Pirate-speakin’ Google not be celebratin’ no Pirate day

pirate.jpg (JPEG Image, 500×361 pixels)

Aaah

Linking to a story about writing good blogs! Still it’s well worth a read and as a professional writer most of what is said is relevant to all writing not just blogs.

5 ways to building a better blog

5 ways to building a better blog

Xandros Desktop Home Edition - Premium is a complete Linux desktop operating system that also includes the applications needed to work, communicate and play. Built on the stable and reliable Debian Linux platform, Xandros Desktop allows you to enjoy your digital lifestyle, the way you want to, without the hassles of viruses, spyware and other security threats. Xandros is fun and easy to use. It installs in just 4 clicks, and does not require any Linux or technical know-how. Discover how easily you will enjoy the benefits of Linux and bring security and stability you can count on to your PC with Xandros Desktop.

Introduction - Home Edition - Xandros Linux

I’ve often regretted not dabbling with Xandros in more detail and now here’s my chance! By their accounts they’ve made a real effort to make the switch from Windows as easy as possible.

I’ve been talking about them, complaining about what you CAN’T do, about the troubles with 3D cards… Personally I’m getting a bit lost with all this. So, I’ve decided to compile all the information I could find out about those pesky 3D desktops.

A “what is” guide to 3D desktops - put in a bowl, mix, add chips for topping | Free Software Magazine

Having been impressed with Dream Linux and its XGL effects, this is a very interesting read while I’m considering whether to make the switch for my main computer (Suse 10). I did try 10.1 but had a variety of problems so I couldn’t face trying to get XGL to work.