Hello everybody, and welcome once again to the fortnightly newsletter of Free Software Magazine: keeping you well informed about the realm of free software! Happy reading!
General announcements
Okay. We’ve been promising features with the roll out of our new and improved Drupal 5 website, and this fortnight, we are making good on our promise! And this is just the beginning!
1) Invite a Friend. We have a strong community now, but we need to make it even stronger... and don’t you think your friends and relatives deserve to be part of the free software community as well? You can access this feature from the navigation panel on the left. For more information, see the “Invite a friend” section at the bottom of the newsletter. Get your friends into the free software spirit today!
2) Subscriptions. Ever wanted to follow that story and keep up to date on any new comments? Now you can! Our new subscriptions feature means you can subscribe to page or blog—this allows you to receive an email update every time a page or blog is updated. This will keep your finger on the pulse!
3) Forums. That’s right, we now have forums here. We have four free software topics to start with: Proprietary software alternatives, What application do I need?, Where do I get help?, and Making the switch. Come along, be part of the community, and get involved in the discussion!
That might be all for this fortnight but that’s not it by a long shot. Keep a look out for more new features, coming soon!
Latest content
Burning CDs in GNOME—Robin Monks provides some GNOME applications that make CD burning easy. Read more...
The perfect network server—So, you need a file server, print server, intranet, mail server and more. Can Ryan Cartwright help you with free software? Of course he can! Read more...
My massive quantitative study on free software gets an update—David A Wheeler has updated his study on free software with lots of additions and new info. Read more...
How to print more than one record on a sheet of paper in OpenOffice—Solveig Haugland talks about how to make an effective mail merge with Open Office. Read more...
Latest content continued
A week with Windows—Steven Goodwin checks out how the other half live... and he doesn’t like it much! Read more...
The seven sins of programmers—Ever stop to think it’s not the code, it’s you? Steven Goodwin lists the seven sins... Read more...
Windows by necessity: TheOpenCD—So you have to run Windows, but you don’t have to like it: Anthony Taylor shows you TheOpenCD—helping to make you Windows use that little more bearable.Read more...
A new front?—Jonathan Roberts poses the question: where are all the free web apps?Read more...
Latest book reviews released
Wicked Cool Java by Brian D. Eubanks Alan Berg checks out the wicked coolness that is Java... read more...
Open Source Security Tools: Practical Guide to Security by Tony Howlett Frank Conley considers the issue of security for System Administrators. read more...
Book competition announcement for this fortnight
This week we are giving away a copy ofMapping Hacks by Schuyler Erle, Rich Gibson & Jo Walsh and a copy of Wicked Cool Java by Brian D. Eubanks.
All you need to do to enter is check out the latest book competition announcement on our blogs page.
GOOD LUCK!
Thanks go to No Starch Press and O’Reilly for providing these fantastic prizes.
Winner of the book competition from last fortnight
Thanks to all those who entered. Unfortunately, there can only be one winner...
Congratulations Laurie Langham of NSW in Australia!
Laurie has won copies of Beginning GIMP—From Novice To Professional and Design Concepts with Code: An Approach for Developers.
Thanks to all who entered.
Thanks also go to Apress for providing these great prizes.
Please comment wherever possible and don’t forget to log in so that you’ll be in the running to win the latest book competition
Poll Results—Would you install GNU/Linux on your grandmother’s computer?
It looks like granny’s in luck; 63% of you chose the option “Definitely yes. In fact, that’s already the case/it will soon be the case/it would be the case if I had a choice”. This was followed by 19% of you voting for “Probably, yes. But I am not 100% sure just yet”. 9% of you went with the “No, I would much rather buy her a Mac with OS X” option. Then, right at the end, was 5% of “No, I would much rather install Windows XP or Windows Vista for her” (well there’re always a couple aren’t there!). However, most of the comments were overwhelmingly positive with regards to installing GNU/Linux for a novice. Read more here and stay tuned for...
This fortnight’s poll
Would you pay for access to an ad free version of Free Software Magazine?
If we made an ad free version of FSM available that you had to pay a reasonable price to access, would you a) pay for the ad free version, or b) pay nothing and put up with the ads?
Don’t be alarmed we will never take away your ability to access our content for free. The ad free version will only be optional.
Also, let us know what you think a reasonable yearly rate would be (don’t forget it goes to keeping this project going and paying for more great content) and why you voted the way you did.
Reminders
Comments
Your comments on articles, issues, and blog entries are very welcome. They provide other readers with insightful suggestions, further information, and the feeling that they are not alone. They also provide our authors with the feeling that they are being heard. Please comment wherever possible and don’t forget to log in so that you’ll be in the running to win the latest book competition.
Avatars
Avatars are a great way of expressing your personal identity, whether it be a photo or an image that you feel represents the you you want to be. Read more about avatars here. To add an avatar: log in, go to “my account” in the menu on the left, go to the “edit” tab and scroll down to where it says “Upload picture”. Now, hit the browse button, find the image on your computer that you want to upload and go to the bottom of the page and hit the submit button. That’s it; you now have an avatar image.
Invite a friend
Share Free Software Magazine with your friends! We have a really strong community and we want it to grow and grow, and with your help, it can! When you are logged in to Free Software Magazine, you should have a feature called “Invite Your Friends” showing on the left hand side in your navigation menu. If you click on this feature, you will be taken to a page where you can insert your friends’ email addresses and a personal message, and they will receive an invitation from you! You can also keep track of which of your friends have accepted your invitations. Go on, spread the free software word today!
Subscriptions
Ever wanted to follow that story, or blogger, or be informed when a change appears to some content that you want to keep up with? Now you can. Using our new “Subscribe” feature, you can receive an email update every time a blog or page is updated or when a comment is added, so you can keep up with all the latest changes. You can manage your subscriptions by logging in and going here.
Donate
As you might know already FSM is a low profit project with all funds raised going back into producing the fine magazine you can read for free.
Think about how much you would normally have to spend buying a magazine of this quality. We provide it for free!
Your donations will help us to continue spreading the word about free software and producing more fantastic issues.
Contacting us
If you’d like to contribute to FSM: read our Write for us page. Then send your proposal to proposals@...
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Thanks
Thank you for subscribing to Free Software Magazine. You are a part of a growing community who help to raise the awareness of, and educate new users in, the joys of free software. Without you we would not have this community and without you we would not have a magazine. Happy reading!