Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom

April 18, 2018

Unlike the output of our old editor, the output of a text editor built on ProseMirror can ultimately be rendered as a DOM tree, Markdown text or any other number of other formats that can express the concepts it encodes, making it very versatile and solving many of the problems we run into with our legacy text editor.

An interesting look at the text editor The New York Times developed. There are no plans to make it all open source, which is disappointing since it’s built upon the open source ProseMirror.

I imagine a lot of news organizations would find this kind of tool useful.

Building a Text Editor for a Digital-First Newsroom | Times Open

The Linux Setup – Chris O’Donnell, Promet Source

April 10, 2018

Chris’ interview is short and sweet. Like Chris, I’m constantly impressed by LibreOffice. In the past, I tried to work around Word issues by saving files as RTFs and trying to keep files simple, but LibreOffice handles things, like track changes, like a pro. I haven’t used Cinnamon in quite a while, but similarly to Chris, I have a fondness for its old-school GNOME 2 look.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow Linux Rig on Google+ here and follow me on Twitter here.

  1. Who are you, and what do you do?

    I’m Chris O’Donnell. I do business development for Promet Source, which is an open source consulting firm.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    Originally, it was just curiosity and learning something new. Over time I became a true believer in open source and got involved with my local Linux user group. Now open source is my career as well as my passion.

  3. What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?

    Linux Mint 17.3.

  4. What desktop environment do you use and why do you use it?

    Cinnamon. Mostly because it was the Mint default, but it does remind me of Gnome 2.x, which is nice.

  5. What one piece of Linux software do you depend upon? Why is it so important?

    My employer is primarily a Drupal shop, so I pay my bills with Drupal. On the personal side, I’ve been a Firefox fan since it was called Netscape, and Audacious is running on my desktop pretty much anytime I’m on my personal desktop box. Also, I haven’t owned an MS Office license in over 15 years. LibreOffice, and previously OpenOffice, have always handled what I needed to do.

  6. What kind of hardware do you run this setup on?

    It’s a refurbished Dell Optiplex 7010 that I bought on eBay cheap last year.

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

    It’s attached.

Interview conducted May 24, 2018

The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.

You can follow Linux Rig on Google+ here, follow me on Twitter here, and subscribe to the feed here.

Slack’s bait and switch

March 21, 2018

I use Slack for work and like it. I used to use it via IRC but the experience is much better in the browser.

I agree that open tools are preferable to closed ones. However, it’s tough to get people to use IRC and XMPP. Slack took off because it created a pleasant, easy-to-use user experience. It’s not ideal, but it’s often better than email.

I think chat is a tough sell for many users. I grew up with it but I that experience is specific to people of my generation. For older and younger users, I think chat is still sort of a weird thing.

Still, I’d love a really good chat solution, that supports file uploads, built on XMPP so people can move when companies make choices all of its users don’t necessarily agree with.

Slack’s bait and switch | Opkode

The Linux Setup – Justin W. Flory, Student

March 13, 2018

Justin is a person of varied interests, which makes Linux a great option. Fedora, Justin’s distro of choice, can handle writing and photography like a champ. It’s also interesting how Justin came to Linux from the server side but fell in love with the desktop. It’s not an uncommon trajectory by any means, but it’s still nice to read about.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow Linux Rig on Google+ here and follow me on Twitter here.

  1. Who are you, and what do you do?

My name is Justin W. Flory. I’m a university student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, an active contributor to the Fedora Project, a former staff member of the SpigotMC project, a community moderator for Opensource.com, and more. I mostly contribute to non-technical areas like the community operations, marketing, and Fedora Magazine teams in the Fedora community. You can read some of my writing on my blog!

Did I mention that I’m also a hobbyist photographer?

  1. Why do you use Linux?

I first started using Linux when I was 15. I have run a Minecraft server called CrystalCraftMC for almost five years now. Originally, I was running it with a shared host, and my monthly bills were becoming too expensive. I found dedicated servers running Linux to be much cheaper and more affordable, so I began doing research. I remember figuring out how to SSH into my-then-CentOS-6 machine so I could begin learning how to run my Minecraft server on it. In retrospect, many mistakes were likely made, but it jump started my interest in Linux. Using it on a server motivated me to install and use Linux on a personal computer too, so I could better learn.

Later on, I learned more about the free and open source background behind Linux and became introduced to many of the ethical questions surrounding the world of software. This added and expanded on my interest, locking it in.

In short, you could summarize why I use Linux to two ways: freedom and to learn!

  1. What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?

Given my role in the Fedora Project, it probably comes as no surprise that I’m running Fedora 25 both on my desktop and laptop.

  1. What desktop environment do you use and why do you use it?

I started using GNOME when I installed my first distro, Fedora 20, in December 2013. It felt natural and easy to use for me, although it did take some getting used to, as I was coming from macOS. Nowadays, I’m in the process of migrating to i3wm for a more minimal and organized workflow, but I’m still working out a few kinks that are preventing me from going all-in.

  1. What one piece of Linux software do you depend upon? Why is it so important?

There’s a lot of software I use and depend on daily, from Firefox to Hexchat to LibreOffice to Thunderbird. However, one of the most interesting programs I am an active user of is MusicBrainz Picard. Picard is an interface you can use to add and edit metadata in local music files on your system. It uses the MusicBrainz database to get this information, and it can even use acoustic IDs to identify and categorize songs on your system. If you’re a music lover, it’s especially handy to keep your large library of albums and artists sorted in whatever music player you use.

The MusicBrainz project is a fantastic project and if you’re looking for small, easy ways to contribute to open source software, consider checking for some of your favorite artists to see if their entries are accurate! Services like Last.fm, Spotify, Amazon, Google, the BBC, SiruisXM, and more all use MusicBrainz, so your contributions have the potential to make a huge impact. Here is a quick demo of it.

  1. What kind of hardware do you run this setup on?

My desktop is a homemade machine! I built it in November 2014 to replace my aging 2007 iMac desktop. It has an AMD FX-6300 @ 3.5GHz, 8GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti, and dual SSD/HDD hard drives. You can see my full build on PCPartPicker! I named it “FOSS Fighter,” which might make more sense when you see the stickers that cover it on all sides.

Additionally, I also use a Toshiba Satellite C55-A laptop, which was upgraded to an SSD and 16GB RAM, with an Intel i3 processor. It’s my primary machine while I’m studying abroad. I’ve given it the nickname “FOSSbook.” It’s nothing too fancy, but it’s lasted for a fair bit of time. I also have the top of it covered in stickers, similar to my desktop.

  1. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

Interview conducted March 11, 2017

The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.

You can follow Linux Rig on Google+ here, follow me on Twitter here, and subscribe to the feed here.

When distributions get it wrong

March 8, 2018

This is a fascinating post from Patrick Griffis, who maintains the HexChat IRC client.

HexChat is a fork of XChat. XChat hasn’t been updated in eight years. Debian switched back to XChat as its default IRC client, because someone on the project has fond memories of XChat.

Obviously, users can install whatever software they want. But many users, especially new ones, depend upon distributions to choose the best software for the most users. This feels very irresponsible to me.

Also, I get HexChat and XChat confused a lot. I’m hoping my writing this post will not only express my displeasure with Debian’s choice, but also help me to remember that HexChat is the IRC client I want when I’m on a system without one.

When distributions get it wrong | TingPing’s blog

My computer froze every hour on the hour

March 6, 2018

My MacBook Air is a five-year-old terror.

He freezes when I have too many applications open, screams every 15 minutes that my storage space is full, and spins the beach ball when I press “save” on a story, which crashes Pages and, in fact, does not save anything at all.

This madness has gone on for years.

When I went home to California, my pragmatic Dad said, “Have you tried updating your software?”

A nice reminder that all operating systems need to be updated regularly. And that any software that says it “just works” is probably lying.

My computer froze every hour on the hour | Brass Ring Daily