Hippo, birdie, two ewes

... to victorthecook!!! Have a great one!!

Fifty ways to leave your vendor

The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy — and Their Open Source Alternatives | WHDb

The following fifty proprietary programs are listed in no particular order within broad categories along with their open source alternatives. In some cases you could probably write your own book on frustrations with the proprietary programs shown here. In other cases, you’ll discover that the open source alternative isn’t quite up to snuff yet. And, in other cases still, you’ll learn that some proprietary programs are real gems, but that the open source advocate can replace those gems with equally shiny objects from the open source repertoire.

I don't necessarily agree with everything in this list, but it's a good place to start if you're wondering whether your critical needs will be covered if you switch to Linux, or if you just want to try something different on Windows. Many of my favorites are on the list.

(From InfoWorld.)

Being productive

Just put up the next-to-last set of living room curtains. (The last set is the bay window; they're less critical because the window is already well-screened by the rose trellis, and because nobody is ever going to want to sleep in that section of the living room, so it doesn't have to be dark there.)

The general idea was to be able to curtain off the small section of the L-shaped living room that used to be the master bedroom, so that guests could sleep there if we had a huge crowd. As it turns out, we're unlikely to have that many people before Consonance, but we didn't know that when we planned it. It'll come in handy sometime, I've no doubt.

Going back in time again, I had a productive day at work: I was able to take a break from writing tech reports (I'm almost done) and do a little bit of actual coding on one of the two major projects I'm involved in. (They're not actually major from a programming point of view, but they'll be very high visibility in perhaps as little as a few months.)

Going still further back, I had a good practice session with Joyce last night. We worked out the chords (Rise Up Singing's chords didn't work for me) and arrangement for Kisses Sweeter Than Wine, which we'll sing at the wedding. Also sang her Ferret Went A-Courtin' and The River, which she liked.

There's still way too much to do.