E-Scribe News : a programmer’s blog

About Me

PBX My name is Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using as much open source software as possible. From September to June I teach web design and other important non-photographic professional skills to photographers. In the '90s I wrote technology commentary and reviews for magazines, newspapers, and web publications, including Wired, Salon.com, FamilyPC, the late lamented Web Review, and the Chicago Tribune. Feel free to email me.

Book Project

I'm co-authoring a book, "Python Web Development with Django", with Jeff Forcier and Wesley Chun. It will be published by Prentice Hall in July 2008, but is available for pre-ordering on Amazon now.

Colophon

This site is built on a fresh trunk checkout of Django, running on Python 2.5.1, served by Apache and mod_python. The database is SQLite. The operating system is FreeBSD, on a VPS hosted at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet. Vintage topo imagery from the Maptech archive.

Pile o'Tags

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Stuff I Use

Akismet, del.icio.us, Django, dpaste.com, Emacs, FreeBSD, Freenode, jQuery, LaunchBar, MacPorts, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, SQLite, Subversion, TextMate, Trac, Ubuntu Linux, wmii

A Django site.
(Finally!)

Copyright 2008
by Paul Bissex
and E-Scribe New Media

Great open source apps for the Mac

The Open Source Mac site is a great thing. I don't even care if they're just doing it for the Adsense clicks -- though I'm pretty sure they're not. They've built a simple site devoted to "the best, most important, and easiest to use" open source desktop applications for OS X. These are popular, and popularizable, apps like Camino, Adium, VLC, and Cyberduck.

They understand the subtle wisdom that, besides being useful and OSI-compliant, a successful open source desktop application needs two things: a cool icon and a big obvious download button. (And you know I like big obvious download buttons.)

Their choices are generally excellent. I regularly use at least eight of the apps they list, and I've even contributed a little code to one or two.

This is the kind of site you can share with someone who is a Mac enthusiast but doesn't necessarily have the Developer Tools or X11 installed. It gently evangelizes everyday, nontechnical, useful-right-now open source software.

(In case their two pages aren't enough for you, here are two bonus links: Apple's Unix & Open Source Downloads and FreeSMUG.)

Monday, January 23rd, 2006
+ +

Some related posts: Mac OS Forge • DarwinPorts 1.1 • Gruber on AppleScript • Mining Monday: FreeBSD, KDE and Me • Cyberduck, cyberdoc • Mac troubleshooting tips + bonus rant • PyObjC in, Cocoa-Java out • Palm/Mac sync woes • Camino • Sourcemorgue

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