URGENT for users who import large data files into MS ACCESS 2007 data base.

Microsoft admits a problem, "Access 2007 takes more time to import large [30 megabyte] .csv files than Access 2003 does," but claims slow import is fixed in MS Office 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1).   Read More »

Well I know everyone listens to iPods these days ;) but back in the day, when we listened to stereo systems with loudspeakers, sometimes one speaker would work, but the other did not.

Well the lopsided effect of having only one speaker playing is what the Nevada Caucuses and the South Carolina Primary were like. Senator Hillary Clinton is said to have won Nevada because of the Women and Latino vote, while Senator Barack Obama is said to have won South Carolina because of the Black vote.

While that is an improvement over Iowa and New Hampshire, where neither Blacks nor Latinos were represented; why can't we have a primary state that sounds like the nation?

We do; it is called Florida.

Unfortunately, the DNC Chair and the "gang of 4" are going deaf (guess we shouldn't pick on the handicapped).

The four self interested state chairs put their states' advantage above the national interest and so we have four states primaries yielding noise or at best distorted sound with at least one stereo channel missing.

Perhaps the gang of 4 are going deaf because the have been listening to the chairman's scream at high volume through a bad sound system.

Can you hear me now?

Don't tase me bro!

Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL

Wesley Snipes' attorney, in change of venue motion, claims racial bias in Ocala...
Link   Read More »

Get Out The Vote (GOTV) or more precisely Get Out OUR Vote becomes THE crucial operation of the last 72 hours of the campaign. By now, the campaign should have identified a large number of voters who have said they will vote for our candidate. You've got the list, now what? The clock is ticking...   Read More »

If you read my, "Why FREE Software?" you might wonder, why Windows?

Microsoft Windows on the desktop or notebook computer is a special case.

Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL   Read More »

Why use FREE Software? Why use OpenOffice.org instead of just "making a copy" of Microsoft Office?

Legal Reasons -- the $1,000,000 reward

BSA - Official Site
www.BSA.org/reportpiracy Earn up to $1 million for Reporting Pirated Software - All Confidential
Link

The Business Software Alliance (www.bsa.org) * * * operates approximately 65 hotlines around the world for callers who seek information about piracy or who wish to report suspected incidents of software piracy. * * * Our ultimate goal is to demonstrate to organizations and consumers the legal and practical risks associated with software piracy. * * * BSA takes action against software resellers and end-user organizations that make unauthorized copies of software and works closely with law enforcement agencies to coordinate enforcement of criminal copyright laws.

Link
Note: $1,000,000 reward for turning you in and you may still face criminal prosecution.

All your opposition has to do is guess that you have pirated software (is it on your in-kind contribution or expenditure reports?) and drop a dime or visit the above web site.

BSA�¢ï¿½ï¿½s enforcement program has been instrumental in bringing thousands of organizations into software compliance with software copyright compliance, closing down pirate Internet sites, stopping the illegal sale of pirated software through Internet auction sites and pirated software retail outlets, and seizing illegal CD presses.

Philosophical Reasons -- Richard M Stallman (RMS)
Link

Practical Reasons
Why pay $100-$500 for each licensed copy of Microsoft Office when you can download a licensed copy of OpenOffice.org or StarOffice for free? For each copy of Microsoft Office wouldn't you rather pay the postage on another 100 copies of your direct mail piece? Reward your volunteers, buy a radio adv, pay postage; if you can't think of 100 better ways to spend a couple of hundred bucks (than licensing software) in a campaign, then why are you in politics? Perhaps you should look for another line of work!

As a consultant, I have used Microsoft software and I have trained on Microsoft software (MCSE, MCDBA). But, I ultimately decided I didn't like the Microsoft business model. Sure, it was great that they were giving you a cut of the revenue from selling their software, but ultimately it is like a financial adviser selling you a mutual fund on commission; wouldn't you be better off with a "no load" mutual fund and an unbiased financial adviser. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is like a "no-load" mutual fund and a consultant that recommends FOSS is not on commission from Microsoft or any other software vendor.

Jim Callahan, MBA, (& Microsoft Certified MCSE, MCDBA)
Orlando, FL

Web sites, data bases, polling, statistical analysis, and redistricting are all software intensive and ripe for free software and community building.

This is just a raw dump of some things I have been looking at. Almost every program listed will run in Windows, Apple Mac OS/X and Linux.   Read More »

Ethics, Freedom and Computers an address by Richard M. Stallman on receiving an honorary degree by The University of Pavia, in Italy on October 15, 2007.

"All the forms of freedom that we hold dear are transformed when we carry out the relevant activities through computers."

"Not everyone wants to be a programmer, not everyone will learn personally how to study the source code and change it. But, in a world where your software is free you can, if you feel it necessary, hire someone else to change it for you. You can persuade your cousin programmer to change it for you if you say it's really important. You can join together with other users and pool your funds to hire a programmer. And the simple fact that there are millions of programmers who can study and change the software will mean that if the software is malicious, almost certainly somebody else, who has the requisite skills, will find that and correct it, and you will get the corrected version without any special effort of your own."

"So we all benefit, programmers and non-programmers alike, from the freedoms that free software grants to us. The freedom to cooperate and the freedom to control our own lives personally. They go together because both of them are the opposite of being under the power of the dictatorial software developer that unilaterally make decisions that nobody else can change."

"Schools should teach their students to be citizens of a strong, capable, independent and free society. And this means teaching them to use Free Software, not proprietary software. So none of the classes in this University should teach proprietary software."

FULL TRANSCRIPT
Thanks to Linux Weekly News lwn.org for this link.
Link

FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION
http://www.fsf.org/

What should be the role of free software in a democratic political party?

The idea of the Free Software movement is that computer users deserve the freedom to form a community. You should have the freedom to help yourself, by changing the source code to do whatever you need to do. And the freedom to help your neighbor, by redistributing copies of programs to other people. Also the freedom to help build your community, by publishing improved versions so that other people can use them.

Link

I admire the ideals of Richard Stallman, though I still run Microsoft Windows and use Google mail (although with Firefox and Openoffice.org), just as I admire the ideals of vegetarians and still eat some meat.

Richard Stallman's ideas and ideals are as profound deep and searching as in the areas of economics and politics as those of Ghandi or Martin Luther King. We as democrats (small d), should examine our conscience and actions in light of the ideals that Richard M. Stallman has set forth.

Web sites, data bases, polling, statistical analysis, and redistricting are all software intensive and ripe for free software and community building.

Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL

Two great web sites:

Visualizing Economics
Link
1. Has poverty maps (and says they are from "Social Explorer")
2. Has link to hilarious spoof on Onion about rivalry between rich and super rich (George Bush's haves and have mores).

Social Explorer
Link
Has easy to use maps of population, income and poverty variables by US Congressional District or Census Tract.

Including a map showing the proportion of people with less than 2X the poverty line (relevant for SCHIP debate).

Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL

Better Automated ReDistricting (BARD)
Good News: Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)
Bad News: Too complex to use in practice (written for PhD dissertation)
GNU General Public License (GPL)
Written as "R" package to run in "R."

"A package for better automated redistricting. Description. BARD will automatically generate redistricting plans using multi-criteria optimization algorithms ..."
Link

Project on SourceForge
Link
"This package for Better Automated ReDistricting will automatically draw district maps to meet goals chosen by the user. BARD is an R module and is downloadable through CRAN (http://cran.r-project.org)."

If you can agree on a common criteria, has good automated scoring. Written by Harvard PhD. Reads and writes SHAPE map files. Uses statistical program to display district outline map -- although it can import SHAPE files does not have GIS (or even Google Map) capabilities.

Have time to improve user interface before April 1, 2011 (when data gathered on April 1, 2010 will be start being released).

Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL