software

There are 26 posts tagged software (this is page 2 of 3).

Revenge of the non-nerds

The fediverse and blogosphere are full of super-intelligent people who write code using JavaScript runtimes and web application frameworks in trying to find alternatives to the proprietary platforms of surveillance capitalism. I’m not a programmer or a developer, but I have sometimes tried to implement their solutions, which invariably claim to be even faster than WordPress’s famous 5-minute install, and have mostly failed miserably. There are static blogs like Jekyll and Hugo and Pelican, and there are a bunch of alternative social media platforms out there. There are others who are attempting to ease the process of setting up home servers. With the latter, I tried to install YunoHost and FreedomBone (which now has a new name), but eventually found it easier to install a server “the hard way”.

The truth is, WordPress and Hubzilla were not too difficult to set up. But there is so much happening in the background with elaborate systems like these that I know that without the help of experts, when something goes wrong I’m at the mercy of the nerds. So I keep looking for the simplest possible solutions that even I can get my head around. HTML and simple CSS are within the range of my comprehension, and when I can’t solve a problem, there are others who have had the same problem and found a solution.

The static platforms that have worked for me have been the fairly simple ones, like Blazeblogger and org-static-blog. The other day I discovered the html collapsible text element and remembered that I had previously used a slightly more complicated CSS feature to produce a one-page blog: a single webpage that contains all the code and the blog itself, without JavaScript or anything complicated. Adding a new post can be as simple as using the html tags for details and summary. I’ve added an anchor link too, though that isn’t strictly necessary.

As for uploading the blog, I can edit the file via WebDav, so that by saving, it’s instantly online.

The result is an installation-free simple blogging system that doesn’t require any programming skills and is easy to maintain. It can be hosted at home or on my Fastmail file storage. To make it a bit prettier I have also stored a couple of fonts on the server, so it isn’t necessary to send people to a remote font server.

The elements that are missing from a traditional blog are an RSS/atom feed (I haven’t looked for a solution so far) and a discussion forum. I could use something like Discus for that, but don’t want to.

Organizing some news feeds under Vivaldi

I put some of my RSS Newsfeeds in order in Vivaldi. My idea is to use it for blogs, rather than busy news sources. For that reason I first added RMS’s political notes, and then removed it. Because if I want to use it as what Dave Winer calls “a river of news”, RMS dominates too much. But the links are good. It would be better if Vivaldi made it possible to use sub-folders for different areas (and hence sub-rivers – by being able to click on the top folder that includes each set of feeds).

It’s a little disappointing to see many of the bloggers whom I bookmarked falling silent for months on end. Many people invest a lot of time in producing a nice looking blog, and then forget to use it.

Paywalled systems

I had a look at Glenn Greenwald’s website (http://glenngreenwald.net). It’s an outdated mess, with stuff requiring Flash player. His website doesn’t mention that he is now on Substack, (greenwald.substack.com) of which I was already aware. I can’t afford to subscribe to him on Substack, any more than I can afford to pay for other news sources. For now, I support the Guardian with a monthly donation, but can’t afford to do that for every web journal I visit. Steve Winer, who is wealthier than I am, has written about this problem. If enough websites gang up on me and offer a subscription model that works more like the music streaming services, offering a monthly subscription that allows me to read, say, 50 or 100 articles a month, across different journals, maybe I would pay for it. I think that the only real solution to paywalls is a model similar to the music streaming services, with a flat monthly subscription similar to that of Medium. But Medium reminds me a little of the gig economy; there are a few top earners, but even they are not getting paid so much. For bloggers and independent writers, what would work best would be to get together and create a “writers guild” or cooperative, working as a non-profit, so that the writers themselves don’t get cheated.

I don’t mind the presence of ads, only the nasty ones and trackers.

Open Library

I was delighted, then disappointed, to find https://openlibrary.org, where one can “borrow” books for a limited time. The problem is that the presentation makes them not very readable. Might be okay for students, but not really for readers. Someone put in a considerable amount of work in making the books available, but didn’t go the full route. At minimum there should be a phone application enabling comfortable reading of the books. The project belongs to archive.org, the internet archive, and uses the same login for both.

Links

India hovers over the Pause button for Big Tech’s march onto one hundred million farms • The Register https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/22/india_agristack/

Fighting systems from the inside

There’s always a disagreement between those who think it’s better to fight the system from the inside and those who say it’s better to oppose it totally. Some are total conscientious objectors and others, in the Israeli context for example, say that it’s better for humane soldiers to control the checkpoints than racist bastards with no respect for Palestinian lives. The usual contra-argument is that the system corrupts; that it isn’t really possible to maintain humane values within a framework that is toxic.

I was thinking of this with my recent compromises around computers and phones.  I didn’t manage, till now, to buy a phone that runs on free software.  So, instead, when I purchased a new Samsung A10, I refrained from logging into Google (which means I can’t use the Google Play app store directly), or registering the phone and logging into Samsung’s systems for that matter.  Instead, all my apps are from F-Droid, and that’s fine with me.

Then, on my Kobo e-reader, I found some free open-source software that allows me to read without Kobo’s annoying home screen, interface and all the ads butting in.  The machine works a lot better like this.  All my books are pirated (the older ones de-DRMed), but, in the case of living authors, I buy printed versions of their books so that they get paid. That way, I can also share their books with friends.

Now, on my desktop, I have MS Windows installed – that’s because of an arrangement that I made with my son – I may end up giving him the computer back at some point.  But I don’t use any non-free programs other than XN-View sometimes, which is free but not Libre, and Google Drive, which I need for the office.  Everything else is free open-source.  I don’t like MS Windows, but I’ve managed to neutralize most of its annoyances.  I might get rid of it soon and install MX or Debian with Gnome.  I just need to see if Gnome manages Google Drive successfully – on my previous computer that was painfully slow.

Anyway, with all these options, I feel like I’m fighting the system from the inside.  Despite everything, I should probably be using a Fairphone with the Google-free option, an Onyx reader (perhaps) and a System76 computer running under Debian.  But even if I could afford all these options, I would probably fall down in other ways, because it is the toxic framework of our money-based capitalism that is the real operating system.

It may be hackable, but only to a certain degree.

The stuff I use

I’ve been using MX Linux the last couple of years; before that AntiX; before that Puppy Linux and a variety of other distributions.

I find MX to be quite stable and nice. I’m 63 years old, not a computer whizz, not a programmer and don’t spend a lot of money on computers. MX Linux isn’t too heavy for my aging computers: I currently use a 2012 Dell Vostro laptop and a slightly newer no-brand Pentium desktop.

Right now, I’m using the following on a regular basis:
Desktop environment: Xfce
Internet: Waterfox, Tor, Telegram Desktop, Torrent, NextCloud, Transmission, Filezilla
Office programs: Libre Office Writer and Calc, Scribus, gscan2pdf
Editors and note-takers: Featherpad, ReText, Bluefish, Cherrytree Notes
Email: webmail and Claws
Graphics: GIMP, XNView
Sound and Multimedia: Audacity, Clementine, Kodi, VLC,
Accessories: Galculator, Thunar, Catfish file search, Dictionary, Keepass XC password manager
Software management: Synaptic, MX updater
Book manager: Calibr
Stuff that runs in the background like CUPS, Alsa, seahorse, Clipit clipboard manager, and whatever performs the USB connection to my Samsung Android phone.
Games: only Mahjongg
Video editing: I don’t do this often – I think I’ve had most success with KDENLIVE

I also run a number of online programs: the office uses the Google Apps suite. I don’t have a Google Drive synchronizer that I like, so I mainly use Nextcloud to sync between my computers, and occasionally upload files and directories manually to Google Drive. Previously I used Insync.

I still read allegations that GNU Linux is hard, that Apple is easier and “just works”, etc.
I’ve never used an Apple computer – besides the ideological considerations, the hardware and the software would be too expensive for me. GNU-Linux is entirely adequate for my needs. When I tinker with my system and experiment with new things, it’s mainly because I sometimes like to do that – not because there is anything unstable or unreliable about what I’m using.

Simplification

Ghostwriter’s full-screen distraction free interface does actually create the closest experience to writing with pen on paper. I wasn’t thinking of this as a need when looking at plain text processors. Writing is useful to me as a process for developing thoughts and ideas, for self-questioning, for looking at what’s important. Not every developed flow of thought constitutes something that is eventually meaningful, or is necessarily a call to action. Sometimes, one can write down something that seems completely true and self-evident, and the process helps one to discover the fallacy of it. Just as if one would go to a psychologist and s/he might allow one to flow with a certain fantasy in order to then look at it critically and discover that this thing is not what one really wants… is that something that psychologists do? I’ve no idea. But they might. Following a thought process to a logical conclusion is sometimes better than nursing it while thinking one shouldn’t.

The journey towards simplicity is sometimes a circuitous route. One of my early heroes was Swami Sivananda, who gave up a fairly well-to-do life and went to live in Rishikesh, at a time when it was mainly just a pilgrim stop and dharamshala on the way up to Gangotri. Gandhi describes the place as a fairly squalid collection of tin roofed huts, or something similar. Sivananda used to string together bits of scrap paper in order to create notebooks, where he would write spiritual instructions to himself. One of these injunctions of his that I have always liked most is “Simplify your life, purify your heart.”

It is often difficult through external means to actually simplify even when the desire is there. I’m sure that Maria Konto’s students ditch the majority of their possessions eventually only to reacquire them. People who are natural managers or leaders may head off for the caves, in order to leave behind their business empires but eventually will turn these into large ashrams, carry their ambitions with them into a new sphere of interest, and end up building an empire of a different kind. In such a way, Mira Alfassa ended up buying most of the property in Pondicherry, while the French authorities looked on in a growing alarm, and then she went on to begin a new project in Auroville, which aimed to be a community of 50,000.

With the majority of us, these tendencies do not go so far, but do end up stymieing our simple ambition to simplify life. I see it in myself, but do occasionally have some successes.

Plain Text

I’m thinking that the best organization of any written material, from simple notes, to journals, to emails, to blogs and articles, is individual files in plain text or markdown format, stored locally and in the cloud. Databases and systems complicate things. For example, for notes I use Cherrytree, which is really excellent but, by keeping it in Nextcloud, I end up with conflicting versions for my desktop and laptop computer. Individual files would solve this problem. With email systems, the formats that do not rely on a single file, as does Thunderbird, are less corruptible. CMS systems also create a layer between oneself and the individual articles.

For browsing files there is a whole slew of software, and I can take my pick. Nextcloud’s browser lets me view and edit individual files. When they are in Markdown format, I can view the code and the presentation side by side in the browser. In the terminal, Midnight Commander lets one scroll through a directory and see the files simultaneously, without having to click to open them. I need to check the optimal solution for searching. A long time ago I hit on the perfect file name format for myself, which is the ISO date followed by the file name, as in 2019-04-25-file-name-like-so.md . At the office I do the same but sometimes add an abbreviation for a department, as in 2019-04-25-PS-file-name-like-so.md . This system helps to keep the files in order, on sorting them by name.

I’m thinking that a variation on this might be the best solution for writing fediverse posts too – retaining the original copy then pasting into Hubzilla, for example.

How writers can get work done better with Git

Link

On the editing side, though I use and really prefer text editors and markdown, I had never thought to place every sentence on its own line (sentence = line). That simple idea in itself is kind of revolutionary and could do wonders for writing structure. Imagine if school children could be taught to write like that. It makes paragraph structure so much more transparent.

Have used pandoc, except that when you are working on a document with others who only know MS Word, early on in the process, it’s already gone into Word, and you aren’t going to keep converting it back.

I still need to read more carefully about using git. Since I’m not a programmer, I have only ever used it in installing or updating software (like hubzilla).

 

Got Mutt set up again

Got a working setup for Mutt configured for my Disroot mail account.

I’ve played with Mutt before, and at one stage set it up in quite a sophisticated way.  Nowadays it’s easier – you can actually get away with just the program itself for sending and receiving. But the .muttrc file is still tricky.

Setting up Dave Winer’s River5 RSS aggregator in MX Linux (Debian Stretch)

Setting up Dave Winer’s River5 RSS aggregator in MX Linux (Debian Stretch)
[summary]Setting up Dave Winer’s River5 RSS aggregator in MX Linux (Debian Stretch)[/summary]

git clone https://github.com/scripting/river5.git
get node and npm
followed instructions at https://linuxhint.com/install_npm_debian/
go to river5 directory
npm install
node river5.js
go to http://localhost:1337/

From his file FORPOETS.md :

Okay now you have River5 up and running, but it’s only reading the feeds I told it to read. Things get more interesting when you create your own list of feeds.

For this part you need a plain text editor, like Notepad on Windows or TextEdit on the Mac.

  • FInd the URL of a feed you want to subscribe to and copy it to the clipboard.
  • Open your text editor and create a new file.
  • Paste the URL into the text file at the beginning of the file.
  • For each new URL add it on its own line.
  • Save the file into the lists folder at the top level of the RIver5 app folder. Call the file myRiver.txt or something else that ends with .txt.
  • Make sure River5 is running. At the top of the minute it will read the new file, along with all the others in the lists folder, and add it to the feeds it checks.
  • There will be a new river named myRiver.js in the rivers folder.