the law of averages » open source http://yergler.net/blog ...because eventually i'll be right... Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:49:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/ This is the best we can do? http://yergler.net/blog/2008/02/09/this-is-the-best-we-can-do/ http://yergler.net/blog/2008/02/09/this-is-the-best-we-can-do/#comments Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:19:38 +0000 Nathan Y. http://yergler.net/blog/2008/02/09/this-is-the-best-we-can-do/ Still working on my slides for SCALE, decided to further delay productivity by putting together a brief set of steps on how to use OpenOffice.org Impress to get really pissed off.

  1. Start up OOo Impress and create a new presentation.
  2. Open up the master slide view and create two new masters; make them somewhat visually distinct so that its easy to experience the pure frustration later.
  3. Return to the slide view and make sure you can see the Master Pages area of the Tasks page; note that both your master slides are listed as “used in this presentation”, but not “available for use”.
  4. Click the first master, which should re-apply the master to the slide you’re looking at.
  5. Click the second master to apply it to the slide.
  6. Note that the first master has now disappeared.
  7. Think to yourself, “well surely it’s not gone and return to the master view.
  1. Realize that no, the slide really has disappeared.

    Is it any surprise that you see a proliferation of Macs and Keynote at tech conferences, that people think slide-ware generally sucks, or that people still equate PowerPoint with presentations?

    I think this is the same as Issue #43354, reported in February, 2005. Sigh.

    ]]> http://yergler.net/blog/2008/02/09/this-is-the-best-we-can-do/feed/ Open Source is my day job http://yergler.net/blog/2007/03/22/open-source-is-my-day-job/ http://yergler.net/blog/2007/03/22/open-source-is-my-day-job/#comments Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:30:28 +0000 Nathan Y. http://yergler.net/blog/2007/03/22/open-source-is-my-day-job/ On Monday I gave a talk at the University of Michigan School of Information on what it’s like to run an open source project and things to think about it you’re going to do it as part of a business. They sort of got the shaft—Jon Phillips is CC’s resident expert on community building and open source management. But Jon doesn’t like “in the middle”. So they got me.

    I thought the talk went well. For once even though I talked too fast I had enough content to fill the time. Usually I talk too fast and run way under. And it felt like I had a good idea what the “story” was I was trying to tell, so that made it easier to put everything together. Putting the talk together reminded me that I’ve been really insanely lucky; for the past six years of my life, I’ve been at jobs where I’m paid to either consume or develop (or both) open source software. That beats the hell out of MCSE bullshit1.

    Slides, links, etc available here.

    1 In my humble opinion, of course.

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