[Leaplist] Putting my time where my mouth is, give me the applications you use -- WAS: Free alternatives

[Steve Litt]

On Wednesday 03 December 2008 09:10:10 am Patrick wrote:
> Bryan J Smith wrote:
> > On Mon, 2008-12-01 at 21:57 -0500, Bryan J Smith wrote:
> >> Sorry to continue in another post here, but I think this proves several
> >> things I've said over the years ... I'll list my biggest three (3) ...
> >> 1.  Reference things by technologies, not product names.  It will force
> >> you to understand what you're doing, not marketing.  ;)

[clip]

> Why re-invent the wheel?  Could this project accept the hundreds, nay,
> thousands, of man hours already invested in the huge area of FOSS vs
> Proprietary products?
>
> such as:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_software_packages

There's another wrinkle to this whole thing. Unix being Unix (every program 
does one thing and does it well), "power users" like me often cobble things 
together to do the task exactly how they want it to be done. No listing of 
open source apps would be complete without listing known, tested components 
from which custom apps can quickly be assembled.

One example is my text based music playlist player:

http://www.troubleshooters.cxm/lpm/200801/200801.htm

Probably nobody else would like it -- the pickers use VI keystrokes, for 
heaven's sake. But it works for me.

Or my backup system. Nobody else would want it, but I just make one UMENU 
selection, type in two ssh key passwords, and bang, I get backed up to my 
daughters machine. When the time comes to burn the backups to DVD, my 
daughter's (Linux) machine has a best fit program whose informational output 
gets piped into a program to convert it to a script that constructs the .iso 
files.

When I fill an Ebook order, I run a script that personalizes and watermarks 
the Ebook. When I get a courseware order, I run a script that personalizes 
and watermarks the Powerpoint and PDF portions. The Powerpoint is a C program 
that binary writes the customer name into the file.

Check out my Troubleshooters.Com Linux subsite's front page:

http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/index.htm

It's a nice, quick hierarchy of perhaps 100 links. Its source is an outline, 
and I run a Ruby script to turn it into that page, which I then FTP up to the 
server. Theoretically I could have used that Ruby program as CGI on the 
server, but all other things being equal I prefer my online content static.

My computer's menu system is UMENU. The menu system's hierarchy runs over 600 
programs, and has menus 6 deep. The menu system's structure and content is 
kept in an Easy Menu Definition Language (EMDL) file, and converted to menus 
via a Ruby program. The EMDL itself is maintained via VimOutliner, because 
EMDL is a specialized subset of tab indented outlines.

All of these one-offs are accessed through my UMENU system, so when I use my 
computer, I can be a dumb user. 99% of the time I'm as computer literate as 
your Great Aunt Mildred -- only when I have a new functionality to accomplish 
do I put on my IT hat and make a new one-off.

Like I say -- these are all one-offs that appeal to nobody else, but everyone 
has their own one-offs. I find time and time again, my one-offs are 
constructed from the same usual suspects: Umenu, VimOutliner, awk, sed, ruby, 
tr, cut, grep Postgres/psql, latex, tex, wc, bash and the like. No listing of 
apps would be complete without a list of known, tested components with which 
to quickly assemble your own apps.

SteveT


Steve Litt
Recession Relief Package
http://www.recession-relief.US


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