Using GIMP: Kindle Edition

It bothered me that all of my other books were available through Amazon except this one. Amazon is a nice place to point folks when they want to get a quick idea of my professionally published works. Finally, Amazon released the Kindle Edition of Using GIMP (July 2010). Now all the Amazon page lacks are a few reviews (sigh).

GIMP 2.6.9 Available for Linux..sort of

I was perusing the open source software related news this morning trying to wake up and came across an item at Tech Drive-in called Install New GIMP 2.6.9 in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. I know that GIMP 2.7.0 is the next stable version to be released and understood that it wasn't going to become available until the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011. What's GIMP 2.6.9 have to offer?

According to the GIMP.org website:

It's been a while since the last release. Quite a few bug-fixes have piled up in the stable branch, so here's another release in the stable GIMP 2.6 series.

There are just a ton of bug fixes included in 2.6.9 for a wide variety of languages. The full details are at developer.gimp.org. Should you be concerned? Probably not. I haven't found GIMP 2.4.6 to be in such a condition that I've been dying for an upgrade. Also, the option to use synaptic (and thus apt-get) to perform such an upgrade on my Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) computer doesn't exist (no, I haven't gotten around to upgrading to Lynx, yet).

Even for the Lucid Lynx, you have to jump through a few minor hoops to install GIMP 2.6.9 and unless you really need the bug fixes listed, it's probably not going to change your GIMP experience appreciably if at all.

Not sure if I could make the 2.6.9 upgrade option available for my current version of Ubuntu or if I should care. I know I could download the 2.6.9 tarball and install that way, but I prefer to use apt-get/synaptic to manage my applications.

I checked and for Windows using the Windows installer, the latest version of GIMP available for immediate download is 2.6.8...close, but no cigar.

The interesting news is that 2.6.9 was released on June 23rd, making it the first release of any version of GIMP since last December. Looking forward to GIMP 2.7.0 in another six months.

Using GIMP

This is jumping the gun slightly, but look for this eBook, written by yours truly, to become available sometime in early Summer. I'll blog more details about the book in a bit.

Sourceforge Denies Site Access to Comply with US Law

Is open source all that open anymore? That's probably an unfair question. By definition, open source products are available to everyone without discrimination...at least from the open source community's point of view. But what about the U.S. Government's?

I was inspired to write this little missive by reading the Dana Blankenhorn and Paula Rooney blog at ZDNet.com. This morning, I took a look at their article Obama enforces trade embargo against open source. This means, among other things, that people from certain countries visiting Sourceforge will not gain immediate access to the open source projects contained therein, but rather, will receive a "nastygram" in the form of a 403 forbidden message.

Why would President Obama, the "transparent" President, do this? I thought he was reaching out to all the communities of the world, including nuclear weapon building Iran. Turns out there are certain countries the U.S. just doesn't do business with. They include Cuba, North Korea, the Sudan, Syria and yes, Iran.

You can have a look at the Bureau of Industry and Security U.S. Department of Commerce Entity List and Denied Persons List to discover the details, or just visit Sourceforge's explanation regarding how it is complying with U.S. law by denying access to their site from these countries. In other words, we don't do business with terrorists or other like "entities".

Is Sourceforge happy to comply with the Obama administration and federal restrictions? Heck, no. This flies in the face of everything open source is supposed to stand for. Reader comments at Sourceforge pretty much reflect this attitude. For instance, someone named pyalot commented:

Sourceforge, you suck! You suck so badly, I’ll hereby guarantee you that I’ll not only recommend *anybody* stay the heck away from you scumbags, I’ll actively let everybody know that you’re the scum of the earth. Shame on you! Shame!

Another, more measured response, from dutchuncle states:

SF is between a rock and a hard place on this. Law on many subjects tries to spread the responsibility around to involve more people in enforcement, whether they wanted to be or not. For example, think about how many people in business wind up collecting government taxes. Even though SF is “just” a file cabinet, not a creator, they become the first point of contact in any trail of export-controlled information, and so would be the first ones in line to get in trouble. SF is trying to make the best of bad choices, and I agree with their choice while being unhappy that they had to make it.

Bottom line is that Sourceforge must comply or break the law, but as some of the commenters at Sourceforge have noted, maybe it's a law worth breaking in order to uphold an ideal.

That said, we don't live in ideal world and no body of laws, no matter how just the intent of the lawmakers, is completely perfect or fair. Another thing to consider is whether preventing people from these countries from accessing Sourceforge is punishing the governments who are "evil" or the citizens who likely are not (at least some of them)? A person may live in Iran, North Korea, or Syria, but that doesn't make them automatically bad. Plenty of people around the world don't think much of America, but that doesn't mean every citizen of our country supports our nation's policies. Your country of origin does not automatically dictate your intention or behavior.

Who is the Federal Government punishing in compelling Sourceforge to comply with the law; totalitarian regimes who are working to promote violence and oppression in their nations and around the world, or innocent men and women who, like those of us in freer nations, just want to enjoy the work and benefits of the open source world?

Joomla! 1.5: A User's Guide plus Fundamentals of Joomla! Video

Author: Barrie M. North
Format: Paperback, 480 pages plus DVD edition
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 2nd edition (June 1, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0137012314
ISBN-13: 978-0137012312

Update: I just got a heads up from Heather Fox at Prentice saying that Fundamentals of Joomla Video Training & Users Guide Package (which includes the subsequently mentioned book and DVD training video) is still available exclusively at Barnes and Noble. After January 1, 2010, the bundle will become generally available. Please disregard any contrary bits of information in the original review. Thanks.

I think this bundle (the book and DVD) was a limited offer and unfortunately, it's taken me just a bit too long get to my review to take advantage of the package. Nevertheless, the products are still available individually, and are both written and presented by Barrie North. But let's back up a bit.

According to joomla.org, "Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone." Between those two links, if you didn't have an idea of what Joomla was before, you do now.

Like a number of other Joomla books on the market, Prentice Hall's offering is tailored for the novice, but promises enough sophistication to take the reader up to at least a "quasi-professional" level. The Preface of the book states in part, that the reader isn't assumed to have any programming or even CSS experience. It's "easy to read" and "low on technical jargon", telling me that North wrote the book for the non-web designing business professional who wants to take advantage of CMS in general and Joomla in specific, to further their business purposes and goals.

That said, the book does teach the technical aspects of how to create a Joomla site from scratch but you start out at ground zero by being introduced to the concepts of web pages, CSS, and Joomla itself. Depending on your level of experience, the first chapter may be something you want to bypass, or at least just skim through. If you have web experience but no Joomla experience, Chapter 2 will tell you where to go to find and download Joomla, then how to install it. You are wisely directed to the XAMPP site to take care of the Apache, MySQL, and PHP side of things, but other options are also presented. Of course, you are also provided with links to acquire the required Joomla installation software.

While I don't consider the Chapter 2 instructions to be outside of a reasonably intelligent person's ability to comprehend, if you really are a completely non-technical person, you might want to take some time to read through the chapter and make sure you have all the steps down, before going through the installation process for both XAMPP and Joomla. This should save you a bit of time and frustration. However, for those with "power user" and up skill sets relative to web design or development, this shouldn't be too much of a chore.

Beyond this point, the book is fairly linear as far as assisting the reader in building the various skills required to create and manage a Joomla site, from basic administration, to organizing content, to creating menus, and so forth. Chapter 10 pulls together all that you should have learned in the prior chapters by letting you build a trial site. In this case, it's a school site, complete with content for students, parents, teachers, other staff, and so on. I suppose this would be the cherry on the cake if you're a school administrator in need of a website, but if you're not, the practice you gain can be applied to just about any organization with a bit of tweaking. If you really need another example, Chapter 11 teaches you how to build a restaurant site. The appendixes offer additional resources, including where to get help, case studies of actual commercial sites powered by Joomla, and more.

The Fundamentals of Joomla! video training DVD and 128 page study guide is based on North's Joomla! 1.5: A User's Guide so, if you have the book, you have all the content the DVD and accompanying booklet contains, just in a different form. On the one hand, this can seem redundant, but if you learn best by accessing more than one learning mode (text and video, for example) using them together will be especially handy. This method could be used either by the individual, or in a school classroom or business training venue. The video content itself might seem a little "light", especially if you have no familiarity with Joomla at all, but coupled with the 480 page primary text, it is a golden learning opportunity.

Review: The Official Ubuntu Book, 4th Edition

Authors: Benjamin Mako Hill, Matthew Helmke, and Corey Burger Paperback: 512 pages Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 4th edition (July 9, 2009) ISBN-10: 0137021208 ISBN-13: 978-0137021208 Reviewing a book in its Fourth Edition is both easy and hard. It's easy in the sense that, unless the book has completely changed, it is still essentially the same as prior editions. If it has done well up until now, chances are it will still do well. Of course the idea for the publisher (assuming the book has done well) is to at least make sure that the book maintains its reputation and hopefully get even better. For me, that translates into, once a good review, always a good review...maybe. The hard part is to pick out the bits that may have changed and evaluate them as part of the current mix. If the book hasn't changed at all and assuming Ubuntu has, then my review changes and not for the better. If the book has changed, how does it stack up to Ubuntu's changes? Does the book still meet the needs of the audience? The Official Ubuntu Book has done well since it was first published. I've reviewed each edition since the first one back in 2006, including my 3rd edition review, written for the linux-tutorial.info site just last year. As I recall for that edition, while the book was well written for the newbie Ubuntu user, it didn't really address those of us who are veteran Ubuntu users who just want to get up to speed on the changes. Let's see how the 4th edition fares. I suppose I should mention that there have been some author changes between the 3rd and 4th editions. Jonathan Jesse and Jono Bacon have apparently dropped off the radar, while Matthew Helmke has joined the team. At least that's what's reflected on the book's cover. On the inside cover page, the book states it was written "with" Ivan Krstic, Jonathan Jesse, Richard A. Johnson, and Jono Bacon, which probably means some of the material they contributed to prior editions is in the current one, but they didn't actively write for the 4th edition (yes, crediting authors in downstream editions can get complicated). I almost wonder why the Foreword to the 1st edition was included, except that it was written by Mark Shuttleworth. The Preface promises that the book has matured as Ubuntu has, so maybe some of my past concerns have been addressed. Keep in mind that at some point, if a book publishes sufficient number of subsequent editions, it begins to look like a patchwork quilt. Eventually, the oldest patches need to be removed completely to keep the book from becoming archaic. As the Preface also says, the book is supposed to represent the maturing state of the Ubuntu community, so hopefully, we seasoned users will be represented along with newer adopters. At 512 pages, you can't call this book a tome (some Ubuntu books are so large that you almost need help just to lift them) so as the authors state, a "pick-and-choose" process was used to select which topics "made the cut" and which did not. That automatically limits the scope of the audience. I've been critical of how that scope has been selected in the past. In the current book, the scope includes topics such as the installation, a desktop tour, and advanced management, but also includes different aspects of the "Ubuntu community". This is a good reflection of the ideals behind FOSS and, like it or not, chooses the audience this book best serves, which seems to be an interesting but not all-inclusive combination of readers. The first chapter is a snooze if you know what Ubuntu is, what Canonical is, and what Linux is, or you're not particularly interested in a history lesson. These topics will be more interesting for the newer user who wants to absorb as much about the idea of Ubuntu as possible (as well as how to use it, of course). The book comes with an installation DVD for Ubuntu 9.04, nevertheless Chapter 2 covers how to get different versions of Ubuntu, downloading and burning an ISO, and so on. The installation instructions are again more useful for the less experienced user, particularly since Ubuntu is pretty much a snap to install, at least using the default options. Nice touch adding how to install from a USB Key, though. Chapter 3 is a tour of the desktop and the commonly used applications available. This section could almost be a book unto itself (and in some cases, entire books do exist for individual apps such as GIMP and OpenOffice), but most users don't go that much into how each application works. If you didn't know, and wanted to understand what app to use for which task, this chapter will tell you. I don't consider setting up a printer as an "advanced" task (since everyone needs to print), but it's included in Chapter 4, Advanced Usage and Managing Ubuntu. Curiously, the chapter includes a brief task about using floppy disks, and floppy drives are all but gone from the modern computing landscape. It was interesting that the backup options mentioned only include burning files to a CD/DVD or backing up to an external USB drive, since applications like Zmanda support 9.04, at least according to Joe Panettieri's article. Some command-line goodness is also provided for good measure since, for my money, the real power of Linux still exists in the shell. A single chapter in the book is dedicated to the Ubuntu Server. This chapter was introduced in the last edition and, depending on your philosophy for an "official" Ubuntu book, is a good thing to keep around. Of course, it's a departure from "lets-tell-the-newbie-how-to-use-Ubuntu", but it's as much an introduction to advanced computing and beginning server management, as it is the Ubuntu server. If you want to go beyond the desktop user experience, it's a good chapter to read. If not, you can skip it (though I'd recommend it just for the introduction to apt-get and apt-cache). If things go wrong (and they invariably do), you'll likely spend some time in Chapter 6, which is all about troubleshooting. I'd like to think that with each new version of Ubuntu, errors will become less and functionality of applications will become smoother. I'm sure that's true, but nothing will ever be perfect. It's good to have a chapter that recognizes this reality. I was however, a tad disappointed to see that the My Wireless Card Is Not Working section of Networking was only about a page or so long. While I've never had a problem with wireless networking on my Ubuntu computers, not everyone can make that claim. If you end up with a wireless problem and need additional "magic", you'll have to look elseware. For many of the troubleshooting and repair tasks, keep in mind that they involve using the sudo and other commands in a bash shell. This means it's helpful to know a little about how the command-line works. To learn these skills, it's a good idea to not gloss over the Advanced and Server chapters presented earlier in the book. Chapter 7 introduces the Ubuntu community. If all you want is a desktop that lets you work and play the way you want, this chapter won't mean anything to you. However, since the book also includes a chapter on the Ubuntu server, some of this text's readers are assumed to want to go "the extra mile". Chapters 10 and 11 also discuss how to become involved in Ubuntu projects and connecting to ubuntuforums.org, respectively. While you may never participate in the development of an Ubuntu-related project, sooner or later, most Ubuntu users will have a question that's best answered in a discussion forum venue. If you think you do want to become involved in a project, you can see how to accomplish this. Chapters 8 and 9 discuss the Kubuntu and Edbuntu derivatives, if you either prefer the KDE desktop or are interested in Ubuntu optimized for the educational setting. Since you will probably need to access the shell at some point, Appendix A takes a little of the anxiety out of this, by giving the reader the command-line basics. If you are used to using Windows (and the vast majority of the PC-using world is), Appendix B provides a list of mappings from Windows to Ubuntu (Linux/Open Source) applications (Microsoft Word to OpenOffice.org Writer, for example). All-in-all, the Fourth Edition is a worthy update to the The Official Ubuntu Book. Still no information on version update options (alas), but I suppose that's what ubuntuforums.org is for. As I mentioned previously, 512 pages won't tell you everything there is to know about Ubuntu. It is enough to get you started though, and to take you into some interesting areas other books might not touch on.

Front End Drupal: Designing, Theming, Scripting

Authors: Konstantin Käfer and Emma Hogbin Format: Paperback, 456 pages Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 1st edition (April 15, 2009) ISBN-10: 0137136692 ISBN-13: 978-0137136698 The Käfer and Hogbin book isn't just a "how to use Drupal" book. There are a number of books that introduce Drupal in general (I put in the link just in case you need to know what Drupal is), including Using Drupal (O'Reilly) which I previously reviewed. According to this book's back cover blurb, "Drupal is now the world's number one content management system...As Web Designers and developers adopt Drupal, they need ways to quickly customize the visuals and interactivity with their sites." Is Front End Drupal then a book with just a focus on designing and managing themes, or is there more "under the hood"? Let's find out. As always, my first question for a book is "who is it written for?" The back cover invokes "web designers and developers", which presupposes a certain skill set. The authors have backgrounds in both web development and Drupal, so that should also be a clue. That said, I didn't find a section in the front matter of the book saying "this is the book's audience" or similar text. The context of the book will have to do, but who the book is created for should become fairly obvious early on. The first page of the Forward states the basic problem and thus, the reason this book was written. Apparently, Drupal sites "out-of-the-box" are "ugly". Further, Dries Buytaert (Drupal founder and project lead) says "...creating a Drupal theme isn't always easy. It's a crosscutting experience that requires a lot of diverse skills and utilizes expertise in XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP..." That should be enough to define the target reader of this book, at least as far as what you have to know to utilize this text. Chapter 10 is an introduction to jQuery, further narrowing the focus, at least as far as JavaScript libraries are concerned. Chapter 1 starts out with a lesson on how basic web design integrates with Drupal. No, it's not an XHTML/CSS primer. You are supposed to know that stuff already to be able to utilize this book, but the authors do suggest here that you access those skills when mapping out the design of your future Drupal site. They do include resources such as Zen Garden and W3Schools.com's CSS Tutorial for those who might need to brush up in that area, so it's not like you have to be a total guru. I found this interesting because, as I moved through the book, I found that being a guru helps a lot, but more on that in a minute. Theming tools and strategies are added onto this "gentle introduction" and the more formal introduction to Drupal begins, including JavaScript, PHP, and the Drupal API. The mechanics of creating a Drupal theme are presented as early as Chapter 3, including more online tutorials and code examples in the book. This is where your coding experience starts to be needed. A basic understanding of at least XHTML, CSS, and PHP is required from here on in. I say "at least", because the book will not hold your hand as far as learning these technologies is concerned and even then, I don't think just "basic" skills are quite sufficient. The way the topics are presented doesn't seem to be quite "even" and I really think a lot of prior web design/development, and even some prior Drupal experience helps in having a good reader experience. In fact, if this book was my introduction to Drupal and I had no other experience with this platform or with other Drupal books, (even if I was well versed in the underlying technologies), I can see myself getting lost somewhere in the first third of this text's pages. If I was expecting a "total newbie's" book, I'd probably write a review slamming the authors for getting me in too far over my head. Do not, repeat, do not use this book if you have no experience with Drupal at all. Even more, do not use this book if you have little or no experience in web development. This book is best used by people who are (despite the resources presented in Chapter 1) well versed in how to design websites. If you work in a content management firm, you are probably ideally positioned to use Front End Drupal. The book's Appendix describes how to install Drupal, if you don't know, briefly discusses LAMP/XAMPP, and provides equal time for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X as OS platforms. A "value added" piece is the book's support website which has the sample code included in the book available for download. There's also an errata page for the first printing of this book, so you can check if any issues or errors you come across have already been dealt with. Contact the authors if you come across something new. I'd suggest downloading and configuring Drupal up front and learning basic Drupal from a book like O'Reilly's Using Drupal before digging into Käfer and Hogbin's Front End Drupal. Save yourself the aggravation (or the temptation of writing a "negative" review on this book) of trying to follow along with this book if you don't have a Drupal background already. Those of you who do know Drupal and know web development, have fun.