Tag Archives: software

Richard Stallman: Don’t use Facebook

Andrian Georgiev | 14 October 2011, 1:03 am | 3 comments | tags: , , , ,

An interview with the GNU founder about issues with user-generated content in social networks.

Autoguard app review

Andrian Georgiev | 10 October 2011, 9:56 am | tags: , , , , , ,

This is a free Android app that serves as a black box for a car.

Book review: Programmed Visions by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun

Eelke Hermens | 26 September 2011, 3:37 pm | 3 comments | tags: , ,

Wendy Chun’s Programmed Visions book is the third published in a software studies book series initiated by Matthew Fuller. Software studies is a relatively young discipine in digital humanities. Yet, it’s an emerging field, gaining momentum from the overall intrusion of software in our public spaces. As Fuller observes; “few parts of human culture remain untouched by software”, as…

I heart Illustrator

Lotte Woerde | 24 October 2010, 9:23 pm | tags: , , , , , ,

My first experience with Inkscape

Ever since I started Art Academy in 2000 I use Adobe’s vector graphics software program Illustrator to create logo’s, cards, brochures, posters and other kinds of hard-copy. But although I find it a great piece of software, Illustrator is an expensive product. It alone costs €855,61. Because of this, and also because of…

(Re)organizing NGOs: An Open Information System

ellen sluis | 07 March 2010, 10:33 am | 2 comments | tags: , , , , , ,

Projeto Alavanca is one of the many NGOs in Brazil that aim at social and digital inclusion of underprivileged people. What distinguishes them from other organizations is their current project; the development of a set of web-based applications that enables NGOs to administer, distribute and share information and knowledge with each other.

Clouded Software or Software in the Clouds

Jan Bajec | 15 October 2009, 11:29 pm | tags: , , , , ,

The Cloud is all in one; storage of data, software as a service, Web 2.0, and so much more. It is the network of computers that distribute processing power, applications, and large systems among many machines (we already use some cloud-based applications like YouTube or Amazon’s cloud). It is bigger than the sum of its pieces.

Google Takes Command: Shaping the Web

Harro Heijboer | 14 October 2009, 4:29 pm | tags: , , , , , , , ,

Even though the web doesn’t have a central point, sometimes Google, or search engines in general, seem to form the center of this universe. Bringing together all these different websites into one database, ready to be searched. Google’s software, the algorithm, seems to be a aggregator, carrying out contextual analysis and grouping similar websites together. But Google’s search results are…

The Multilingual Internet, or Where the Green Ants Dream

Nicola Bozzi | 14 September 2009, 7:52 pm | tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In one of the last scenes of Werner Herzog’s Where the Green Ants Dream (1984) an Aborigine stands up in a court room to speak up against some mineral excavations happening in a sacred tribal ground. The judge asks for a translation, but nobody can provide it. The man is called “the Mute”, being the last living…

FLIP SIDES OF PARTICIPATORY CULTURE (Book Review)

Simeona Petkova | 13 September 2009, 12:51 pm | tags: , , , , , ,

Has celebrating users’ generated content become a dominant ‘grand’ narrative of web entrepreneurs, scholars and online businesses? What is hidden behind the participatory buzz of Web 2.0? In Bastard Culture! User Participation and the extension of cultural industries Mirko Tobias Schaefer demystifies this framework by critically exploring the network of discourses that constitute ‘participatory culture’. Unlike other researches…

New Vision’s Vision Revealed

Ali Balunywa | 27 April 2009, 7:28 am | 1 comment | tags: , , , , , , , , ,

For the first time since travelled to Uganda for my research, I woke up with a purpose. I was invited to attend the editorial meeting at the New Vision Newspaper to meet all journalists. Editorial meetings take place every day at 8.30am. The meetings are meant to map out activities for the day, deploy journalists and to do…