How I’m celebrating Facebook’s IPO

I’m “celebrating” by offsetting my Facebook use with greater use of Diaspora, an alternative that let’s you keep strong control over your data. I don’t know many people there, but it’s more lively (about things I care about anyway) than I’ve heard described, and I’ve found some interesting people I wouldn’t have otherwise fonnd. Sign… Continue reading How I’m celebrating Facebook’s IPO

A good (humanistic?) “sermon” with fish and loaves

Software Freedom Law Center executive director Eben Moglen lays it down about the freedom of ideas and the stewardship of human minds and the free access those minds need to information. Also, a fascinating review of the development of United States copyright law with respect to early immigration and religious freedom. (Made me think about… Continue reading A good (humanistic?) “sermon” with fish and loaves

The language of faith cries to be free

In the open-source software world, advocates make a distinction between “free as in beer” and “free as in freedom.” While free (of cost) beer is nice, the freedom to share, modify, extract and even profit from (depending on the license) is truly precious, and has allowed an ecosystem to develop around not only software but… Continue reading The language of faith cries to be free

Liberate your documents by choosing a better format

Microsoft owns the ideas around word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. “I want it in a .doc” “Put it Excel” “Look, another PowerPoint!” But it need not and should not be that way. I’ll cut to the chase: if you create content in proprietary format, you will always depend upon the company that supplies the… Continue reading Liberate your documents by choosing a better format

What I’m reading; all nonfiction

I have four three-ring binders on my desk. Each with a print-out of a book in it. I shuttle them in turn between home and work, since peculiarly, they touch both on my work and personal — that is to say, church — life, and I thought you might be interested in these four nonfiction… Continue reading What I’m reading; all nonfiction

Hymnals should be open

Long-time readers will understand why I carp on hymnody, and why I return to the subject now. Hymnals have been practical works of theology in churches in the modern era; hymnals shape our religious vocabularies. Unitarian Universalists are theologically plural — in theory anyway. So why is there a lone denominational hymnal? Even the British… Continue reading Hymnals should be open

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Categorized as FOSS, Hymns

CiviCRM a try

I’ll be a bit quiet for a few days — busy time at Day Job, Thanksgiving, plus much of what I’m doing is behind the scenes. Planning and preparation. (Be sure to follow me at Twitter at 2udc; anything short and timely will come out there.) I want to start off right, so I think… Continue reading CiviCRM a try

Church Tool try-out

There aren’t that many church-focused free- and open-source content management systems. Perhaps I should be happy there are any, but each of them has its quirks. I found kOOL — even the name is a quirk — at churchtool.org. I found it because I was looking for church-related uses for the typesetting language LaTeX, which… Continue reading Church Tool try-out