Moving to Open Source Software in Schools

I am glad I’m not an accountant or bookkeeper. Details can’t slip your mind. Every transaction, in or out, needs an accurate record.

Image Credit: juliocesarf (openclipart.org)

Keeping the books is important to many of the non-profit organizations I support.  MassCUE, for example, is recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 organization. All the money that passes through is tax exempt. That does mean that the organization has to pay attention to the financial details.

A free software accounting package that served the needs of NPOs is a worthy cause.

The Software Freedom Conservancy (itself an NPO) has started a campaign to fund the first year of development for a free software (AKA “open source”) accounting package.

I read about the effort here: http://www.linuxpromagazine.com/Online/Features/Wanted-A-Free-Accounting-Application-for-Non-Profits

I read some more at the campaign itself: http://sfconservancy.org/campaign/

This sounds like a good cause for readers of the MOSS SIG blog.

Will you consider a donation?

I’ve been hearing rumors about software that creates books from scratch in minutes. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/feb/05/highereducation.research1

I think I might have just gotten a SPAM comment which links back to a fake blog. That blog has just one post and no “About” text. To me, that indicates the blog and the person behind it are trying to spam this blog. Spam happens all the time and WordPress has a filter called Askimet that does a great job of catching the obvious spam.

Spam catching is a see-saw operation. Some always gets through and we who blog need to read those marginal comments to judge them. Fine.

Tell me what you think. Is this following a machine-written post?

If a woman is constantly scouring beauty aisles or reading up on the trendiest makeup tricks of the season, then this combination of cosmetics is just what she needs. Previously on Pretty Little Liars Season 1 Episode 12: Salt Meets Wound Hanna is released from the hospital, but confined to a wheelchair. When he brushes her off she asks him if it’s because he isn’t attracted to her. Moreover, make sure that you are choosing super entertainment facilities to watch this show. Finally, we get to the Homecoming dance and the Pretty Little Liars don’t really have an easy time of it right from the start. From the very beginning, Pretty Little Liars was a splashing success not to mention those who watched the episodes again and again online or any other means that allows us to watch the previous episodes. Someone to Watch Over Me is the title of episode 20 airing next week. Although she was very polite, there is something about her that sends a shiver down my spine.

I’m not going to tell you the address of the blog. I don’t want to support it. I didn’t quote the whole post. This is a transformative commentary whose intent is not to try to infringe on someone’s copyright.

The big question is: Will the machine writing improve to the point that it is hard to tell that it isn’t a human putting the whole composition together?

And, if it is that good, should we care?

For the record, the comment was:

Hello, i read your blog from time to time and i own a similar one and i was just wondering if you get a lot of spam feedback?
If so how do you prevent it, any plugin or anything you can recommend?
I get so much lately it’s driving me insane so any help is very much appreciated.

Now, tell me, has this person used WordPress for long?

NASA launched some small satellites in the test launch of the Antares rocket last month. The satellites are the least expensive and maybe the easiest to build, ever.

They are a few thousand dollars of space shielding and amplifiers running on top of Android (Linux) Nexus One cell phones.

http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/small_spacecraft/phonesat.html

How cool is that?

I think Robert Goddard would approve.