Archive for the ‘FLOSS in Asia’ Category
Learning, teaching, learning… Free Software
Tags: software, GNU/Linux, ilug-goa, miramar, goa, india, software skills, learning models
The Froth Estate? Where is Goa’s media going?
Long-time journalist and Goa Union of Journalists’ chief Suhasini Prabhugaonkar (now with Gomantak, and who earlier wrote for Sunaparant under her maiden name of Sunita Dhempe) explains issues facing the media in Goa… She has been at the helm for two years in succession, and for four annual terms in all.
Museolog’ is a web-driven software system for cataloging museum information
‘Museolog’ is a web-driven software system for cataloging museum information. It is an advanced tool for museum records management, based on the international standards. It was developed by EUROCLID within UNESCO HeritageNet project, and localised by the non-governmental organisations Open Systems. Using this software, initial functions of input and editing of museum catalogues are provided what has been described as “a modern intuitive graphical interface using forms and menus.”
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[edit] Managing museum objects
Museolog allows creating a record across several interactive sessions. It is also possible to save non-validated, incomplete records for future completion.
Access to the database is regulated by a system of managing access rights, to various levels of functionaries in the museum.
It is also possible manage object movements (when an object is moved from one place to another within the museum, or on loan to an external place), and restoration work. To track movement, a ‘movement sheet’ is printed. This software allows th euse to print a list of all objects on loan, including details like origin and destination place.
When restoration work is undertaken, the type of work (e.g. cleaning), the physical method used, and digital photos taken before and after can be recorded.
[edit] Searching the museum
Searching and selecting records is also possible, from the catalogue, through the use of Boolean queries. Retrieved records are shown as a short-list of titles; clicking on any would show the full record. Selected records are printable, with any relevant images inserted in the document.
In keeping with current methods of photographing museum exhibits, digital images are indexed in the database. These images are archived, using recordable CD-roms. CDs are then numbered and indexed in the database, making retrival easy of all museum objects.
[edit] More functions
Users can save the current state of the database on a CD-R; there is the possibility of rebuilding this when needed due to any possible hardware or software crash. Data from the database can also be exported in XML format, making it transferable to other databases or website. This software also allows for managing thesauri and authority lists. Users can load, browse, edit and export thesauri and terminology resources, thus allowing for cooperative terminology definition and exchanges.
[edit] Versions available
As of July 7, 2007 the versions that were available were 4.5-6 for Linux and 4.6 for Windows, both released in mid-2005.
[edit] External links
Blogged with Flock
Mayank Sharma’s blog…
GeekyBodhi.net is my techie colleague Mayank Sharma’s blog. Check it out… found an interesting interview with the founder of distrowatch.com on it…
This is what Mayank writes:
Hello. Welcome to my little 50Meg corner on the web. I am Mayank Sharma, writer, programmer, student, and more
I have been writing on technology, especially free and open software,for the past five years. During this period I helped launch SouthAsia’s leading FLOSS monthly
LINUX For Youas its Assistant Editor. I am currently busy putting together aweb-based publication devoted to Localization, Education and FLOSSmigration. Besides writing, I love to hack also, my most recentcontribution — an installer for the Utkarsh Localization Project. Still struggling for a computer sciene degree, I love Formula one car racing.
Blogged with Flock
BOOK REVIEW: Building clouds… in cyberspace
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Building Tag Clouds in Perl and PHP
Jim Bumgardner
O’Reilly
Ebook in PDF format
2006
ISBN: 0596527942
Pp 48
$9.99 US, $12.99 CAN
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/tagclouds/
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Tag clouds? What are those?
O’Reilly’s new e-book ‘Building Tag Clouds in Perl and PHP’ by Jim Bumgardner explains a concept every serious user of cyberspace would have at least heard of.
Says Bumbardner: “Tag clouds are everywhere on the Web these days. First popularized by the web sites Flickr, Technorati, and del.icio.us, these amorphous clumps of words now appear on a slwe of web sites as visual evidence of their membership in the elite corps of ‘Web 2.0′.”
Wikipedia says: “A tag cloud (more traditionally known as a weighted list in the field of visual design) is a visual depiction of content tags used on a website. Often, more frequently used tags are depicted in a larger font or otherwise emphasized, while the displayed order is generally alphabetical. Thus both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity is possible. Selecting a
single tag within a tag cloud will generally lead to a collection of items that are associated with that tag.”
If you’re a content person like this reviewer, why bother at all about all this stuff? As long as I get my neatly-laid out keywords that give me a clue of what’s where, why worry?
But then, someone has to do the job of getting the tag clouds to work. And that’s where this book is born out of a need.
It may be a fad. But one which has “real merits” when used popularly, as Bumgardner explains. This e-book analyses what is and isn’t a tag cloud. It offers design tips for using them effectively, and also shows how to collect tags and display them in the tag cloud format.
Interesting background on issues like craiglist’s weighted cities list, and statistically improbable phrases (SIPs) or capitalized phrases (CAPs) lists provided by Amazon.com. SIP has word order corelating to the improbability of the phrase.
In the CAP list, the word order relates to the frequency with which the phrase appears in the book.
After some interesting history about tag clouds — which takes us to Flickr (who doesn’t know this photography-sharing web site?), tag roots in the blogging community, and Jim Flanagan’s Zeitgeist idea — things start to get technical.
There’s code, graphs and how-tos.Time for me to leave it to techies, who prefer raw coding to merely writing book reviews!
Digg.com & TOI: Delhi Government Adopts OOo and ODF in place of MS Office
Interesting story, which came up via Digg.com: Delhi Government Phases Out MS Office, Adopts Free ODF-Based Office Suites To Save Licence Fee.
Digg.com’s posts adds,”LIC (HUGE insurance co that moved to RHL from Windows), Delhi HC & Nirvachan Sadan (Election Commission Office) Set To Follow. It was costing Rs 24 Lac pa (US$ 52k, equal to 10x ave of annual salary of engg. Bachelors recruited by any top IT co. in India).”
Check the original story from the Times of India epaper.
Only regret: there could be better reasons for opting for Free Software!
