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Open Source Survey tool


Recently we were looking for a service to conduct a survey. We checked out a bunch of different services, including Survey Monkey, and Zoomerang. Each had limitations: memberships that run into hundreds of dollars per year, free versions with limited number of questions or analysis tools, etc.

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Centenarians, Freedom, and Innovation


Requiem

One hundred years and four days. That's how long a remarkable guy named Norman Vaughn lived, I recently heard on the radio. Norm was an Alaskan adventurer I've met several times. When I first met him, he was in his 80s, taking a sea kayaking navigation class. He was taking up a new sport.

Norm had visited the South Pole with Admiral Byrd, on the first expedition to make it to the pole. Norm had raced in the Iditarod many times, most often winning the Red Lantern award for the last racer to finish each year. Norm was an irrepressible optimist, living his dreams every day, and an inspiration. He died two days before Christmas.

One hundred years ago, there were no computers, no IBM, let alone Microsoft, and certainly no open source software. It would be interesting to compare common attitudes and platitudes from then and now.

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Why Linux is more secure


Windows flaws keep causing trouble for most Internet users. Earlier this week I was at a meeting of a group of tech professionals in the Seattle area, all of whom work with small businesses.

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BackupPC: Open Source Backup to disk


Just stumbled upon a pretty cool web interface to a centralized backup system. You can manage a series of snapshot backups of all the computers on your network. It can automatically send a user an email if there's a repeated problem of missed backups.

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