Checking it out a bit further, looks like Dearbook is the name of an online IT community or something similar. I found some relation between Dearbook and this CSDN thing so maybe it's like somebody using the password "Geeknet" for Slashdot? Something in that vein, anyway.

>1- do not serve ads from remote servers

Not everyone needs to do this, but many rely on ad revenue in order to keep running their websites. So good luck with that.

>2- do not associate with external sites like facebook, etc

Shouldn't this depend on your marketing plan and target audience, and the sites they like to use? Oh, I guess you just dislike it on principle? Good luck with that.

>3- do not use web bugs, beacons or other trackers

Rule out Analytics software? OK, so far you've whittled out an ideal strategy to create one of the worst-run websites on the web.

"Responsive Web Design" is not even mostly about making websites faster. It's about the way the entire experience scales on different types of devices. Is your website fixed-width or elastic? In either case you're not being Responsive. Does your website serve different imagery depending on the size of the visitor's screen (iPhone vs. 24" Dell monitor)? If not, then you're not being Responsive.

Book editors, journalists, video store clerks, musicians, novelists without tenure — they’re among the many groups struggling

Video store clerks. Go figure. Who really thought these types would be thriving in the new economy? They're failing and going back to school or pairing up with friends / family and trying again. Because they're mostly entry-level employees. Give them some time, they know how to enrich themselves and indeed have a natural instinct for it.

It would be cool if they had a job opening for like, a janitor. I'll bet there would be some incredibly bright programmers applying for that janitor position. :-)

(Only annoyance: Manual garbage collection)

P.S. your logo is straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon

Flightgear's weak point was always its usability. Weird proprietary interfaces, be it menus, keyboard inputs, or control system, with little help or even information scent to help you take off or let you explore common options. For example it has always been easier to adjust HUD configuration than it has been to even change to a different aircraft. Lots of tempting screenshots and videos around the net, but very little in the way of guidance as to how to get there.

instead of instructions about how to “Make a bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom” by “The AQ Chef” they were greeted with garbled computer code. The code, which had been inserted into the original magazine by the British intelligence hackers, was actually a web page of recipes

So it sounds like this was an attempt at inserting recipes, and the result was actually raw HTML. Still accomplishes the DELETE PIPE BOMBS mission, but probably didn't get much more than an eyebrow-raise from the readership...

Along with the missing Drupal 7 module, I see no mention of the DataZombies jQTouch fork, which has been a really popular alternative to jQTouch. Not to bash the book, but the mobile web story is being revised a bit every day. I purchased a mobile theme from a major theme vendor recently, and I was amazed at how obsolete it was, having only been put on the market a year ago. I stuck with it because I liked the stock graphics, but ended up wondering how long it'll be relevant.

Also I find it pretty funny that people are using Drupal, Wordpress, and Joomla! to power mobile sites. It's like using nuclear fuel to power a Mini. Drupal is probably the best match of the three, but then it sounds like 7 is missing some technology that could be helpful. I have a client who is in the middle of a move away from Joomla! (and Wordpress 2 years ago) because they realized that their business workflow can be very simply expressed within a web application, and the front end for that ideal application looks nothing like what you see when you log into Joomla! or Wordpress. For many, the budget just isn't there to afford something nicer than an off-the-shelf CMS though, so they get one of these monstrosities that was designed for someone else's workflow.

However, websites such as “”Operation Yashima ” (the power conservation strategy depicted in the popular Japan Anime “Next Generation of Evangelion”) spread out the idea of power conservation and helped to keep the rolling blackout to a minimum.

Well, if that isn't the coolest thing I've read all day.

"Can I use this to create an animation of, say, a 3D car jumping off a ramp through a ring of fire? If not, can somebody explain what this software is good for???"

Shuttleworth suggests that building development around FreeDesktop.org specs (as suggested by Aaron Seigo) is probably a good route to take, especially since Ubuntu is NOT just GNOME, but also KDE (Kubuntu), etc.

I heartily agree with that. I want to see Unity come out and kick butt, and it sounds like as good as GNOME Shell might be, GNOME people are forcing this into a you-vs.-us fight.

(It doesn't help to see Jeff Waugh being all complainy on Mark's blog, either.)

Of course there's not. Kepler wasn't launched until almost 2000 years after the last book of the Bible was wrapped up.

If you want more on Kepler ST, but want it blended with bible-believing religious types, you already missed one event but you can probably still join the conversation now from the comfort of your armchair...

As far as full web interactivity goes, you'd probably call it just a mockup tool. But then, you'd have to say the same for Photoshop or Illustrator; even though it provides lots of web export options, you'd have to be a moron to plan a website around their exported HTML.

So, most designers who use tools like these aren't thinking of them as "just for mockups." They're thinking "this is really how I want it to look, now let's slice this up into its component images and put together the HTML/CSS in a proper editor."

It's probably most common for Inkscape web designers to export as PNG and then do slicing or other edits in GIMP, although Inkscape does have some helpful tools for web export.

I've used Inkscape for web design work as well as general design/illustration tasks. I use it alongside other tools like Photoshop and Illustrator, though I end up using Inkscape more often when I'm working in Linux; it's a bit of a pain to start up a Virtualbox instance of Windows just to use Illustrator.

The first site I used it for turned out pretty well, but after that I decided it'd be best to combine it with GIMP, doing a sort of "detailed mockup" in Inkscape and finishing up in GIMP for slicing up imagery and more advanced/controllable texture effects. I got funny looks from my Photoshop students when I told them which website I made in Inkscape/GIMP but I explained that my workflow varies from project to project and it's not wise to thoughtlessly rivet yourself to someone else's technology before embarking on a career in design. They got the point.

So Inkscape is great! I appreciate the review, as I've been known to buy up books on FOSS just for the novelty factor, but I am curious about working more with its XML output. Getting at whatever maths are involved is fascinating, as I've learned with 3D graphics (and GIMP's procedural tools as well).

Can't wait for the upcoming book for illustrators.

...from the elephantine Drupal to a use-as-you-need-it framework like Zend. So, "use the right tool for the job" is a huge part of this. Personally I err on the side of "less is more" and look at my local Drupal community and see people who are picking a kitchen sink tool because they have limited time and resources. Not the sort of example I race to follow.

My experience with another large CMS/CMF taught me that maintenance costs (which have to be passed on to clients) really start to add up quickly with the behemoth-sized packages, if you have a very active client. And if you're developing a small site with Drupal, and think of yourself as a moderately technical person, I sincerely ask you why you're not using something like Processwire instead. The last three people I saw do this did it because Drupal was "what they knew." That's uh...interesting. Why not just learn several tools that can fit into a more flexible toolchain? Drupal has one heck of a footprint!

The summary mentions a GUI, so it's probably worth bringing up Django -- an otherwise all-code framework that comes with its own admin panel GUI already built.

And undoubtedly it's also the easiest alphabet with which to spell "cyrillic?"