My first post for the website of Linux Journal magazine is an op-ed about the initially rocky history of KDE4.

[update: It's been posted around a bit on Redit, LXer, Raiden and Linux Today amongst others.]

[update #2: I'm not going to blog about every post that I make on the site now as it would quickly fill up the site and push other stories off the bottom. There is now a sidebar about my LJ posts. I'm my third month of working for them, and so far, everything's going great.]

Expect to see about four posts from me each month for the site. It’s a bit of extra cash and a chance to work with a great team. I’m looking forward to having a platform to discuss Linux, and the magazine has a great community surrounding it. Check out the site if you’re not already familiar with the magazine. It reminds me of Micro Mart in a way because the content is fairly eclectic and the target group is more hobbyist and end-user orientated than the other Linux mags. This makes it a perfect fit for me, as I’m more of a desktop user than a corporate admin sort of guy.

I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into this new position. I might cobble together some sort of side bar keep people informed about my posts to the site.

I’ve just had an article published over on Men’s News Daily. It’s a great publication for people interested in gender politics and the growing men’s rights movement. Some of you will know that I have been working on a book on gender politics (see the gender equivalence subsite site for more info)for the past few years. It’s also the first time that I’ve written for a website rather than a print mag in over a year, and it’s a funny feeling to get back into the fast paced dynamic of web publishing. I hope that I’ll be working with MND a lot in the future.

[update: a bit of discussion about the article here on the antimisandry.com]

The subject  of the article is the rather unpleasant practice of rich middle aged women travelling to third world countries in order to have paid-for sex with young men. In case you’re wondering, yes, Haiti is a top destination for these women, or was until recently. The most infuriating aspect? Feminist writers have long condoned this in newspaper articles that spin things around so that the women are the victims in the situation.

Excerpts:

…consider the growing number of middle-class young women in places like the UK and Japan who are reportedly paying their way through college by doing sex work. Most people would agree that there is a qualitative difference between that and the lot of a crack-addicted street hooker.

…

However, astonishingly, there are sympathetic voices to be found, and in mainstream publications too. Try it yourself, do a search for “female sexual tourism” and prepare for some Olympic-class mental gymnastics.

…

The hypocrisy of this double standard is aggravated by the fact that the group that write the articles, feminist journalists, typically espouse a disparaging and zero tolerance view of prostitution.

The excellent site Self Publishing Review is now hosting my interview with self published author Darryl Sloan, a writer that I’ve been following for a couple of years. The article is entitled Chionophobia and Other Sticky Problems: The Darryl Sloan Interview. The focus of the interview is his current project, the post apocalyptic short novel Chion, but we get into all kinds of interesting stuff about both the author’s inspirations and views on life.

I only discovered SPR recently and I heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest in self publishing or writing in general. I’m gradually working through the articles on subjects such as using merchandise for personal brand building and putting a DIY book tour.

Linux.com have published my latest article. It’s an overview of the latest version of LyX, the document editor that I use for most of my writing. As 1.6 is such a bumper release, I decided to focus on the new features, rather than introducing LyX. There are plenty of other articles that do that. Hope people enjoy it.

In other news, I’m just about to send off for the final proof copy of Tech Book 1. I’ll spend a week or so going over that with a pencil, and then it’s time to purchase the ISBN numbers and send it off to the printer.

Free Software Magazine have published my DOSBox review. DOSBox is an PC emulator that is optimsed for accurately running vintage games. From the article:

“Let’s be clear: not every old game is worth revisiting. As a general rule, about eighty percent of everything, in all media, is rubbish. If not actually rubbish, entertainment media can be so tied to the time in which it was made that it cannot survive the transition into a later era.

An old game might employ a gameplay style that has no modern equivalent, or a much-loved old game might have a nostalgic attachment for a gamer. Sometimes, the gamer wishes to try out a game that they passed over at the time of release. Finally, some old games are simply great games and are worth playing in their own right.”

Click here to go the article on the FSM website.

I’ve just finished another article for OS News. This one is entitled “I’m glad that IBM declined to release the OS/2 source”. I’m just calling things as I see them but I’m going to end up with a reputation as a miserable git with the OS News readership I’m just the doctor, I didn’t make the needle sharp. I’ll link to it on the side bar when it’s posted. [update click here to read it online]

I should have some more announcements about a couple of other completed writing assignments for Linux.com and Free Software Magazine. I’ve hit a bit of lull at the moment as I need to wait until some more of my finished assignments are live before I can start pitching again. Not to worry, I’ve got some other irons in the fire that should soon bear fruit, to mix a metaphor.

I’ve taken advantage of the extra time to concentrate on progressing the Gender Equivalence book. In addition, I’m toying with the idea of collating and extending some of my old articles into a rather geeky, self-published book. If nothing else, it would serve as a dry run for the proper book.

I’ve finished an article for Linux.com called “Moving my mother over to Linux“. This is the first article that I have had professionally edited, and it’s a weird experience, having someone alter my words. Not to worry, the editor, Lee Schlesinger, seems to know what he’s doing

It’s a bit brief at 1,700 words but better concise than flabby.

Breezy 1000 word article about the iPhone. I’ve sent it to OSNews.com and if they want it, I’ll add add it here as usual. [Published now. Click here to read it online]

Stylistically, it’s a bit of departure for me: short, conversational tone, and not very techy. To keep things streamlined, I forced myself to be brutal at the editing stage. It finished up at just over 1,500 words and I managed to cut it down to about 1,000. The result is closer to the type of writing style that you would see in a newspaper. I’ll leave it for the reader to judge whether or not I have gone too far and cut out too much.

In other news, I may have got a lead into some possible paying writing work. I’m going to spend the rest of this year pitching articles as a freelance I’ll let you know when something develops.

BTW, I’m afraid that I had to delete the comments to the previous posts as I got spammed. I have now installed a new comments system and you can comment with confidence once more.

I’m formatting and putting the finishing touches on a tech article before sending it off to OS News. I’d been away from it for a while, but I hope to get back into monthly article writing. I’ve got lots of other ideas in the pipeline.

Rather than the usual lumbering, five or six thousand word essay I’ve kept the length down to around 2,000 words. Click here to read it.

The first half of the article explores some of the issues surrounding thin clients in general and then, for the second half, I focus on a specific thin client solution called the Ndiyo . My interest in the Nivo was sparked when I met one of the developers in a RISC OS IRC channel while thin clients and third world IT issues have been issues that have interested me for a while.

Another month, another tech article. Actually, I think that I missed last month’s. I’ll try and run off another quick article in order to maintain the one article per month goal. I’m about to submit this one to OSNews.com and when (if) it’s published, I’ll link to it in the side menu.

Here is the teaser paragraph:

In this article, I’m going to explore the idea that the 8 bit home computer not only had a great deal to offer the prehistoric early-humans of 1985 but that it may also have a place in the modern world; perhaps, there is something that we can learn from it. Having identified the laudable, worthwhile elements of this class of machine, I’m going to make some suggestions towards a scheme that would embody these characteristics in the form of a machine that would have a place within the modern world.

Before long, osnews.com will have published another one of my articles. When they post it on the site, I’ll link to it on the side menu as usual. The subject this time is the RISCOS operating system. It’s an OS that I have some emotional attachment to as the machine that I geeked my way through the middle part of my teens on was a RISC OS workstation. It’s also an OS with a fanatical set of followers so, let the flaming begin!

Finishing the article ended up being quite a lot of work; having just woken up, the next day, it is an effort to even write this news entry. In that spirit, I’m going to take the day off from doing any more writing and get out of the house instead. Time to do some Christmas shopping.

Hello to all people who have surfed over from OSNews. I hope you all like the article. By the way, the names Rhyder/Michael Reed/Robin Hyder are all synonymous. Click here to read it.