I am currently in that level of hell reserved for people who upgrade their GNU/Linux system too quickly. I have for some time now been happily using KDE 4 with the plasma desktop enjoying the cute little animations and eye candy, and learning to use the task-bar and widgets. Then my bliss was interrupted by a simple mistake. I decided to upgrade. I forgot that my /etc/apt/sources.list was set to load experimental versions of the software, and now my X-server system is broken. It is only now that I am discovering that there is no apt-get undo.

As we follow the zig-zaggy quest of me trying to learn to program, I discover the next significant step, "Interest". I started with a goal: to learn to program. Next I came up with a plan: Learn Python by writing a program called PT (period tracker) but I lacked the last bit, interest.

You see, there was very little that period tracker did that a calendar didn't. Spending hours to make a program to do work that I could do in five minutes with a calendar and a pencil seemed like a waste of effort.

I know that Free software proponents love to hang out with each other. You go to a conference with free software folks talking about how great free software is, but that's just preaching to the choir. You can't forget to go out there in the world and show others what it feels like and looks like to use free software.

This week, May 25 - May 28, I'm going to attend the International Space Development conference that will be held at the Intercontinental Dallas Hotel at 15201 Dallas Parkway in Addison Texas.

As the Presidential election year in the USA is approaching, it's time to remind everyone again about election fraud and how important it is to push for free software in electronic voting machines. Voting machine software is primarily manufactured by private companies who use proprietary software. This immediately brings up the possibility that backdoors are built into the software to allow people "in the know" to change vote tallies and directly influence elections.

As we start a new year, it’s time to clear out last year’s baggage. Here are some tips on how to start the new year afresh.

1. Clean your computer desk

If you are like me, your computer desk is like a magnet for all sorts of stuff. Mugs, little pieces of note paper, receipts, books, DVDs, etc. Now is a time to clear all of the non-essentials off of your desk. You’ll be amazed at how much larger your desk will appear.

2. Clean out your bookmarks

I recently had my fourtieth birthday. When I announced it to a group, a woman came up to me to tell me how brave I was to admit to my age. I found it strange. I'm not ashamed to be this old. In fact, I'm glad about it. When I was a teenager, everyone said that the World War III would have happened by now, and I would be living in a post-apocalyptic anarchic civilization like in the movie Road Warrior. I really prefer how things turned out.

Last week I mentioned my decision to learn Python and write a free software program. I found some cool online tutorials. I found my Learning Python book, and I was ready to begin. So like many a programmer I sat down in my chair, opened my books... and watched "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" instead.

With all of the recent argument over the lack of women in the free software community, especially as relates to the reports from the Free/Libre/Open Source Software Group, which state that only 1.5% of the free software development community is female, and that women are actively discouraged from becoming free software developers. I decided to take a new approach and ask myself, "Why am I not a free software developer?"

Last time we talked about the phenomena that is Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects associated with it. In this blog I walk through my first steps as I try to contribute to a Wikimedia project.

I went to the Wikipedia main page, and registered to become a contributor. After searching for topics that interested me, I found an entry that could be improved by adding an image that I had made. So I decided to start by adding this image to the site.

In serious need of a word processor, I have finally looked at Mozilla Composer after ignoring it for years. Although it does have its problems, I am feeling the first blush of love.

So getting here was a long journey. I switched from Netscape to Mozilla long ago, and I remember that I was a bit annoyed by all the bells and whistles. The newsreader I didn’t like, though I did use Mozilla for my mail. Composer was there, I suppose, but I never used it.