Computing, GIS and Archaeology in the UK

You might have seen the new google talk chatback gadget, which allows you to embed a chat icon in your blog/website so guests can chat with you, if you’re available. The cool thing is that they don’t have to have a google account to chat with you.

The code from google comes in an iframe, which wordpress doesn’t like very much for security reasons. However, if you’re game, you can get it to work with a text widget (assuming you use widgets). Paste the code into a new text widget, surrounding it with <ul></ul> tags to space it out a bit if you like.

Having had some fun getting php and javascript code to work in a sidebar widget, I expected this to be a lot more difficult!

First impressions: actually responding to someone takes a few steps. You get notification in a web page which wants to open a new chat window, rather than integrating with whatever form of google chat you already use. It’s slower too. Despite that, and notwithstanding the increasing need to control IM status, without getting overwhelmed by offers to chat, I like it!

February’s quick links:

• Via my new colleague (Hi Ben), some tutorials for using QGIS and GRASS as opposed to (or in conjunction with) ArcGIS on an archaeological project
• Andlinux- a different way of accessing linux-based programmes without going through cygwin.  I’ve managed to get GRASS installed, though I haven’t tried it out in anger yet.
• A n00bs guide to installing linux programmes from source. Don’t be scared, it’s not that bad, though I’d add in how to get the command line to send it’s output to a log file for those times when it all goes wrong and you didn’t happen to catch the error as it scrolled past really fast…

Just when I thought I was either going to have to write a tip about configuring Grandstream VOIP phone extension modules (which I can do, if there’s enough interest…) along comes this article from Web Worker Daily full of useful tips for Microsoft Word. No news yet as to how many of them work in Open Office as well…

Paste Your Formats. If you want to apply your formatting and styles for a given paragraph or document to a new paragraph or document, hit Ctrl+Shift+C to copy, select the text you want to apply the formatting to, then hit Ctrl+Shift+V. Colors, fonts, styles and all other formatting will be applied.

Take me Back. If you need to step away from a document but want to have your cursor sitting right where you left it in the middle of an editing session when you return, you don’t have to leave your document open. Go ahead and close it. When you reopen it to resume editing, hit Shift+F5 to take your cursor back to precisely where you were.

Select a Whole Document. To select an entire document for copying or deletion, hit Ctrl+A.

Experiment with Paragraph Placement. Often, one paragraph or another in a document might work better above or below its current location. You don’t have to cut and paste to move paragraphs around. Just hold down the Shift and Alt keys together, then use the up and down arrow keys to move the paragraph around in the document.

More Paragraph Shuffling. Hit CTRL+E, CTRL+L, or CTRL+R to center, left-align or right-align a paragraph.

Create a Line. To create a horizontal line across the width of a document, as you might do to separate one part of a document from another, hit the hyphen key three times and then hit Enter.

Save Many Documents at Once. Do you have eight Word documents open and need to take a break? To rapidly save all open documents, hold down the Shift key and go to Word’s File menu. The usual Save menu choice will show up as Save All.

Rapid-Fire Sentence Jettison. Hold down the Ctrl key when you click on any sentence to highlight the whole sentence, then hit Delete. While you’re at it, click three times in rapid succession in any paragraph to select the whole thing, then hit delete if you want it gone.

Rapid-Fire Word Jettison. Double click your mouse on any word in a document to select it, then hit Delete.

Rapid-Fire Table Jettison. To quickly get rid of a table, select it and hit backspace.

Beginnings and Endings. Hit Ctrl+Home or Ctrl+End to go to the beginning or end of a document.

Subscript or Superscript? Hit Ctrl+ when you have a word, sentence or paragraph selected for subscript. Hit Ctrl, Shift+ for superscript.

I’ve been following the “Timmy’s Telethon” debate with great interest, as, I’m sure, a lot of people have. I’m a little surprised that there hasn’t been more comment from different blogs about it, but there we go.

The whole debate struck a chord with me though, for the simple reason that I am involved in the process of trying to change the mindset of an organisation from a reliance on closed source software to one where open source alternatives are used, where possible and appropriate. The trouble is, some people don’t care about the difference as long as they have the tools to do their job, or they don’t understand the fundamental philosophical difference between free beer and free speech, or both. Furthermore, a number of people have asked me what the business model for open source is and why it matters to us as an organisation whether we embrace an open philosophy or not.

Both Timmy’s original comment, and Paul’s spirited responses are really useful to me as a way of highlighting the contrasting points of view, and articulating the reasons why we (particularly as archaeologists with our remit of preservation by record) should embrace the open source philosophy. However, from my point of view, this article (via my colleague Lucian) shows exactly why we should be avoiding the big guns at all costs. It’s old news now, but I’m going to show it to all my doubting colleagues who are wondering why we make so much of a fuss about it all!