The H Factor » FOSS

Five happenings, December 2008

hiran — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 07:26:06 +0000

1.Free Software User Group Thrissur.

The Window to Freedom event conducted by FSUGTSR, become a grand success. I was there, as a speaker to provide an introduction to free software ethics. More details at here, here, here and here.

**2. A Trip to Vagamon. We Rocked.**

vagamon

3. Free Software, Free Society

Fsfs.in2008

4. Marathon Poster Designing. 30 posters in 10 hours

That was the best part for FSFS from my side. I was there at SPACE office a day before and in 10 hours I designed nearly 30 posters for the need of poster exhibition. Some posters were about the free software replacements of commonly used software and some were based on FCI’s If You Are Page. They are released here under CC BY-SA license. They are available here.

and 5. Laptop battery is dead. Lap now works on AC only

FSUG Thrissur’s A Window To Freedom Event

hiran — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 08:32:49 +0000

A one day event containing a collection of talks, pretty suited for beginner to intermediate level of free software users – Window to Freedom, conducted by FSUGTSR. On 4th of December 2008 at Sahithya Academy Hall, Thrissur. Details Here and here

When The program was planned, some one put the poster designing to my head. And it result to this. The idea is similar to the one I had designed for Banglore SFD 2008 Designed using Inkscape. Perizia is the font.

Note : One heavy designing is going on

Three Black Open Office Impress Templates

hiran — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:03:38 +0000

When some asks me the template of my slides (most of the audience asks ‘power point template’, and i corrects them telling about OOo) I showed the link to my slides source file and said them to use that for designing. Now, its on air – grab this zip which contains three similar Open Office Impress templates. I don’t really know its right to call so – in fact i just imported some pics to the slide, thats all! The template is under GNU General Public License version 3. The images are designed using Calligraphy Tool in Inkscape – in fact, they are just a lines.

Why Black?

Black is beautiful. My slide rarely contains sentences, instead it contains collection of words or phrases. For those cases, attention is the best thing required, and the black white contrast is able to make it. And, when background is black – it won’t matter what the screen/wall colour is

Download [Zip contains template, images in png, svg format along with license]

Make Money using FOSS

hiran — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:19:57 +0000

Its not about making money, but “money”. The link paths to blog of one who designed a 5 euro coin for Netherlands, only using free softwares – Python, SPE editor, PIL, pyCairo, Gimp, Inkscape, Phatch.

I would have loved to release the coin under the GPL, which could maybe solve the financial crisis. However for obvious reasons I was not allowed to do that.

Hats off to the wonderful designer!!

freedomwalk.in, it made me to walk

hiran — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:49:44 +0000

It was great. They the freedom walk team, reached my home by 9PM on Wednesday, after a walk of 30+ kilometers. For Thursday, the KSEB team of Palakkad had arranged three sessions of talk for them, at PMG School, Public Library and Mercy College. The walk at Palakkad town started by 9am in morning, to PMG School. The shortest route was selected, for walking from my home (mercy college jn) to PMG, through Palakkad Big Bazaar Market. Along with the market the route covered Town railway station, Municipal bus stand, Moyans School before reaching PMG, and a view of Victoria College. The session was for government staff , there Anoop made a small description on free software and freedom walk. After that the walk moved to Public Library and then to Mercy college in Sulthanpeta, Palakkad fort, Mission School, KSRTC, Nurani route. In Mercy college session, Anoop did introduction speech on ideas of freedom walk, Sooraj introduced free software ethics, Cheery described how to contribute and I did a minor intro to localization, Malayalam computing and SMC. It was really a great experience, BUT It made ME to walk 7km, that too through the most traveled routes in my life, which I am walking for the very first time!

Great Job, Hats off to Freedom walkers!