Webdesign, Coding, Blogging & Internet Culture
Culture / Media
Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman’s Crusade for Free Software
Mar 16th
First published in 2002, Free as in Freedom is the story of free software activist Richard Stallman. Stallman is best know for created the Free Software movement that led to the General Public License (GPL) which today under-pins today’s open-source movement. While his rigid stance on issues and use of wording related to free software have certainly earned him his share of detractors both inside and outside the community, without him, the modern software industry might be a lot different.
The book goes back and forth between his present work and Stallman’s life growing up in New York, later working at More >
Connect! A Guide to a New Way of Working
Mar 2nd
“Digital Bedouin” was one of the new styles of Internet company that grew up after the DotCom crash in 2000, it grew out of the availability then-new of mobile technologies like smart-phones, powerful laptops and wireless high-speed Internet as well as changes in work culture, and a growing host of businesses designed to service the mobile worker. Taken together, these advances made it unnecessary for many people to operate out of a traditional office space. Fast forward to 2008 and the term itself might not have caught on- but the ideas have. This book then looks at how to apply More >
Dreaming in Code
Dec 6th
The story basically starts off with Mich Kapor, the man who started Lotus Software (best known for Lotus 1-2-3, the spreadsheet everyone used between VisiCalc and Excel). Just before leaving, he created Agenda, a personal information manager that inspired the development of Chandler, the open source project that is the focus of this book.
While the story of Chandler (which at the time of writing is nearing its 0.7 release) is the main thread, Rosenberg also tells the story of how software is written; Keeping in mind, this involves quotes from Apocalypse Now and the re-telling of an ill-conceived Stonehenge recreation More >
Dispatches From Blogistan
Oct 24th
Perhaps best described as a collection of interviews, lists and history, Dispatches is a quick read clocking in at just over 230 pages.
Starting with newspapers in ancient China and Rome then on to Greek bloggers of a sort, moving through pamphlets, British diarists and early newspapers, the author traces how the recording of events led first to the modern newspaper and finally into the age of blogs. Through-out this story, there is a theme of early innovators gradually being moved aside as larger players dominate new inventions- a fact that shouldn’t been forgotten by today’s bloggers dreaming of overthrowing the old More >
