osalt.com

Simply one of the most useful websites I have come across in recent time. It is a resource to find the open source alternatives to commercial software.

about time - Chrome for Linux

Google announced Chrome for Linux (and Mac today).
In the true Google tradition, it's a beta version.

I have been waiting for this since Firefox 3.0. The frustrations with Firefox 3.0 and later have been well documented by many. Personally, I would really appreciate if my browser does not use more than 75% of memory on my system. This is regardless of if I have 512MB or 4 gigs.

The challenge for Chrome is to get the quality and number of extensions that Firefox has. With this version of Chrome, there is support for extensions and the market place claims to have over 300 extensions. How well this works on Linux needs to be seen.

The first thing I will need however is the ability to import and manage my bookmarks. I have been using Xmarks in Firefox and can't believe how I would manage without this tool. Hopefully there is something equivalent with Chrome.

On a relevant note, a while back I saw a commercial or a video where random people in New York were asked if they knew what Chrome was. As expected, it was interesting to see that most people did not know. In the bay area, we are blind-sighted by the access to new technology and information and we rarely think in terms of what real consumers experience, know and think. Google seemed to understand that and hopefully that understanding shows in Chrome's usability.

In terms of product development, Seth Godin had an interesting post a while back regarding what Firefox should be/could be doing to be a better product. Let's hope the world is relieved from the curse of Internet Explorer soon.

openproj

I recently tried out OpenProj and it worked well for some minimal stuff. It seems to be feature rich and useful to open MSProject files as well.

Check it out at http://openproj.org/ or on sourceforge.

OpenProj by Serena Software is a desktop replacement of Microsoft Project. OpenProj has equivalent functionality, a familiar user interface and even opens existing MSProject files. OpenProj is interoperable with Project, with a Gantt Chart and PERT chart.

once you go penguin, you don't go back

I was having a conversation with a colleague today who switched to Ubuntu a few months back and has not had to "boot into Windows since". Good deal, very much the kind of experience most people have once they start using Ubuntu. I have not yet switched to 8.10, but my experience with 8.04 has been exceptional. I still dual boot, but don't remember the last time I booted Windows.

And since I am Windows b*tching, I can't believe that Dell charges something close to $160 if you are purchasing and customizing your spanking new system and want XP instead of Vista. Because nothing says freedom of choice like having to pay extra for an older version of a software.

Not necessarily on topic, but had this link bookmarked about best free (not open source) software to try out.

saving PDF forms

I have needed to save PDF forms after filling them with data instead of just having the option to print them. Obviously Adobe Acrobat Professional would do the trick, but in the world of free software, Linux and Ubuntu, it would be criminal to use that.

Found a very good software (free ware) called CABAReT Stage..."

... is a flexible software for your daily work with PDF-Documents. With it you may open and view PDF-Documents, complete and save PDF-Forms, as well as send them."

The Ubuntu install was just a download, untar and then running the ./cabaretstage.sh script.