More Open

Open Source

is a logo I use which I designed with Open Source Gimp, see below.

This is new, recently moved as an addition to this site, mainly about Open Source.  Still being added to ….

Designing web sites is one interest, using Open Source software, these are some of mine

Accrington Movie Makers.  A site built using WordPress.
Ribble Valley Remembrance  A site built using Joomla.
Clitheroe Youth Forum. A site built initally using Joomla, now WordPress.
Stemster. This site you are on, one of my first Joomla sites.
Tandem Touring. Another site, about our tandem tours, initially hand built, thenJoomla, now WordPress.
IVCA Rally 2019. one of my recent sites, but now expired, using WordPress.

Open Source software is a big topic but this page should give a few pointers. If you are using a tablet, the web setting may be better. There are lots of links to more Open Source matters.

I like the background picture which suggests open spaces, appropriate for discussing Open Source software. I may even enlarge on my designing a bit more.


Design

Designing a web site can be done in a variety of ways from paying a commercial designer , through using companies who provide such a service, but what if you would like to design your own?

Again there are many ways to do so with much software available that will build a site for you, once you have mastered the essential basics. Some such software is mention elsewhere in these pages.

Young people are fortunate in that a program was specially built for them called Scratch. This has become very popular with its own online community across the world. It is now used by older people as a medium to learn the basics and to get into coding, so that must be a plus in itself. Click here to know more about Scratch. 

When I started it was a case of opening up a text editor and writing all the code manually. Progression occurred, first with Joomla and now I use WordPress, as here, with other Open Source software.

Also there is the internet where you can learn much about the subject.


Open source

 

There are many changes taking place affecting computing and the internet. Open source is becoming more popular.
Open source is quite a big subject and possibly the best way to finding out more is by using the links below, or watch the animated video from the Free Software Foundation.

The reason for my interest is that I have been using Open source software for several years, and all my serious computing is done with it. My current operating system is Linux Mint, but I do have other flavours of Linux installed alongside.

Open Source Links –

Discover Opensource
Opensource Initiative
Open source software on Wikipedia
Linux and open-source
Free Software Foundation
A video on the FSF site

 


Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi

A much more recent development has been the dramatic increase in interest in the Raspberry Pi, an extremely powerful but small computer.

It is an amazing small computer, not much larger that a credit card, that is now being used in many ways, so many it is too much to describe here.

Extract from their site

The Making of Pi The idea behind a tiny and affordable computer for kids came in 2006, when Eben Upton, Rob Mullins, Jack Lang and Alan Mycroft, based at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory, became concerned about the year-on-year decline in the numbers and skills levels of the A Level students applying to read Computer Science. From a situation in the 1990s where most of the kids applying were coming to interview as experienced hobbyist programmers, the landscape in the 2000s was very different; a typical applicant might only have done a little web design.

The web site is here. http://www.raspberrypi.org/
Wikipedia is here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pie

Every day I read of new things they are doing with the Raspberry and here is an article about building a super computer with 32 of these.

https://www.latesthackingnews.com/how-to-build-a-cheap-super-computer/

In addition there are other small and cheap computers out there with a resemblance to Raspberry Pi which I will include details of, within these pages shortly.


School coding

Coding in School

Computer science has been added to the curriculum in schools in England.there are many supporting this but also many opposing.
News item here.

Previously there had been facilities run by volunteers
such as CoderDojo (World) and Code Club (UK).
Another item in the recent news, March 2015, is that an astronaut has volunteered to take a couple of RaspberryPi’s and leave them in a satalite so that children can communicate using the satalite.

To be added to…



Content Management Systems

Content management systems are widely used on the internet as a presentation of interactive web sites.

Some of the popular ones are WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Xoops, and Plone but there are many others including lightweight ones.

Some samples of content management systems.

Samples of Joomla sites. http://community.joomla.org/showcase/sites.html
Samples of Drupal sites are her. http://www.drupal.com/showcases
WordPress themes are here. https://wordpress.org/themes/

To be added to..


Open Source Software samples

Just a few samples of open source software….

Libre Office

Libreoffice  A powerful office suite.
Picasa or Shotwell to organise or share photographs.
Scratch was mentioned above.
Gimp  A very powerful image manipulation application.
Gramps  Powerful genealogy application.
Blender  as used to make the Big Buck Bunny film.
Demo film from 2014
Demo film from 2016

The list just goes on and on...

2020 A new article about Open Source what-is-open-source-software , thanks to Fabiola Castro

There is quite a bit more on the first site I did about Open Source, with lots of links as well to other aspects of Open Source. Here designBeathan