What I miss about open source conferences
A typical work year would involve my attending maybe six to eight conferences in person and speaking at quite a few of them. A few years ago, I stopped raiding random booths at the exhibitions usually associated with these for t-shirts for the simple reason that I had too many of them. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t accept one here or there if it was particularly nice, or an open source project which I esteemed...
Play with model trains in OpenTTD
My father has always been fond of model trains, and I remember watching him building a track around the Christmas tree when I was young. When Lego train sets were released, he and I transitioned to them for their convenience and inherent extensibility. We built and operated Lego trains and monorail tracks over the course of many years. I’ve often imagined a possible future in which I have a garage or a basement dedicated to...
Building an open source community health analytics platform
Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) has made considerable strides in increasing its presence in the open source world lately. RIT’s Free and Open Source Software and Free Culture minor is the first of its kind in academia. For example, its open source programs office, Open @ RIT, has begun helping RIT faculty and staff fellows build and maintain communities for their open source projects. read more Powered by...
5 tips for recruiting an open source job candidate
This is one of those more open-ended posts in that I don’t have any good answers, but I’ve got a bunch of questions. I’d love to have feedback, comments, and thoughts if you have any. read more Powered by...
Find files and directories on Linux with the find command
Regardless of how organized I resolve to be, it seems there are always times when I just can’t locate a file. Sometimes it’s because I can’t remember the name of the file in the first place. Other times, I know the name, but I can’t recall where I decided to save it. There are even times when I need a file that I didn’t create in the first place. No matter what the quandary, though, I know that on a POSIX...
A guide to simplifying invoicing with this open source tool
Many IT projects are late, over budget, and subject to dramatic changes during development. This makes invoicing for them one of the most taxing activities in IT. It’s stressful—it involves dealing with ambiguities, conflicting interests, and human error. Worse, every single decision made during the project affects how much you can bill for. When a sales guy brags—incorrectly—that your software “includes this...
