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Digital Book-making Tools: A Roundup. For those of us who aren’t code slingers, what’s the easiest way to build a digital book? I’ve noticed a small but growing number of tools, ranging from big guns like those on offer from Adobe to iPad-based efforts that aim to make publishing a touch and drag affair. Below is a list I’ve been compiling over the past few weeks. Some of these solutions get you an iPad app, some get you ePub, some are for web-based books. I’ll try to keep the list current; if you know of tools worth adding, drop me a line (peter dot meyers at gmail). Active Reader. Delighted to see how useful this post seems to be, especially among Twitter fans. The Carbon Emitter | The blog of Carbon Five.

ReVerb - Open Information Extraction Software. Json Parser Online. Sharing intentions talk :: Zengestrom. Inspiration 9: Software. Using TextExpander to conquer email. Posted on 11 May 2011 • 34 comments Let me get this out there right away: I hate email. Seriously, I can’t stand it. It’s not that I have any particular problem with the medium; in fact, I’m not even one of those people that believes it should be replaced with a radical alternative. I despise it because it eats up so much of my time. So when a tool comes along to help me get email out of the way a lot quicker, I’m excited. TextExpander isn’t new. So, for the benefit of those who have never considered it — and for Sarah, for whom I promised to write this article — I’m going to explain why this is an essential app for anyone who receives a high volume of email, or regularly has to write similar responses, or makes dumb typos, or just wants to get a bit more time for the important things in life, like quaffing delicious Belgian beers.

Semi-canned responses But where it really comes into its own is with dynamic ‘fill in’ fields. We’re so winning at email. Better email signatures Beyond email. Micropayments - flattr.com. When judging visualizations, intent matters. The field of data visualization all too often is viewed as having the single role of attaching data to an image, regardless of whether it’s for analysis or journalism or entertainment. In a recent interview, Ben Fry, principal at Fathom, said this is a tendency that needs to be overcome. Visualizations have far more nuance, and varied intent, than many people realize: People evaluate stuff that’s, say, for journalism or for pure entertainment under the same rubric as the way that you look at analytic tools.

We need different ways of evaluating things. I hope we’ll develop a better understanding of the different roles [visualizations] can take given different audiences or the different contexts in which they will be used. Fry compared visualization to the field of writing, in which the roles of various genres and outcomes — and how they are perceived and consumed — are more clearly defined.

Related: Raspberry Pi Foundation.

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Software articles. Some semi-formal writings on a limited range of subjects Software development Software Architecture For A New Economic System A rough, high-level software description for a general economic system: an informational structure/means for organising cooperation. (Or an 'engineering fiction'.) (2000 words, 15 min read) Tractatus Computo-Philosophicus A brief philosophical expression of software development, in the style of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. (550 words, 5 min read) Understanding Software Engineering Design A brief description of what seem to be the abstract essentials of software engineering design. (3000 words, 20 min read) On Naur's ‘Programming As Theory Building’ A problem in Naur's ‘Programming As Theory Building’ and the improved philosophical model it prompted. (1500 words, 10 min read) Is 'Software Architecture' Really Architecture ?

The software world doesn't know what ‘architecture’ means. A Building Industry Model For Software Development Software Architecture And Engineering Definitions. Unboxed - Crowdsourcing Works, When It’s Focused. NodeXL - Release: NodeXL Excel Template, version 1.0.1.151. Crowdsource Is Not Open Source. Subscribe to this blog About Author With a focus on open source and digital rights, Simon is a director of the UK's Open Rights Group and president of the Open Source Initiative. He is also managing director of UK consulting firm Meshed Insights Ltd.

Contact Author Email Simon Twitter Profile Google+ Profile Linked-in Profile I've heard a few conversations in the last week treating open source interchangeably with crowdsourcing. Open source describes a pragmatic projection of the four software freedoms - to use, study, modify and distribute software for any purpose. Crowdsourcing describes the leveraging of the marginal interest and free time of a large group of people to complete a task that otherwise could not be economically completed.

The new US web phenomenon Kickstarter is a modern example of crowdsourcing. This is not to say I think crowdsourcing in general is a bad thing. Smartsheet and Google Apps: Crowdsourcing Made Easy - ReadWriteEnterprise. Let's say you want a list of every Fortune 1,000 CEO in the United States, along with a picture and contact information. You can look through Google. Top page results may help a bit. But to get the granularity you need, top page results can only go so far.

What's the best way to go about discovering and collecting information that is so often scattered and fragmented? Crowdsourcing works but you need a process and a way to organize the information. Smartsheet provides a way to use wikis and spreadsheets for crowdsourcing information from services like Mechanical Turk and Live Works. Smartsheet recently integrated with Google Apps.

Let's say you have a list of the startup companies from the top 10 metro areas in the United States. You may now make your request to have the work done for you. You can then import the spreadsheet back into Google Apps. Smartsheet integrates with a wiki environment. The cost savings alone makes Smartsheet an application worth giving a try.

Collaborative storytelling. The Open Source Analysis of Competing Hypotheses Project. Geospatial Analysis - spatial and GIS analysis techniques and GIS software. Technologies for Organizational Intelligence.

Collaboration Tools

Open Source. Analysis. Setting up a wireless network. Qwest Modem Configurator.