drostan.org http://www.drostan.org Internet trailblazer. Weaving the web to help humanity. Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:52:25 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/http://www.drostan.org/http://www.drostan.org/rolf-30x30.pngRolfrolfkleefhttp://feedburner.google.comSubscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with PageflakesSubscribe with Live.com Pivotal Tracker overview http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rolfkleef/~3/8JHo2Vj39bE/ http://www.drostan.org/2013/04/pivotal-tracker-overview/#comments Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:20:23 +0000 Rolf http://www.drostan.org/?p=2229 Pivotal Tracker is a great agile planning tool for “projects with issues”. But checking the various projects I participate in, just to see what we’re all working on, was a hassle. I wanted to have a quick overview: a list of the projects I’m involved in, and the current “stories” we’re working on in each [...]

Pivotal Tracker is a great agile planning tool for “projects with issues”. But checking the various projects I participate in, just to see what we’re all working on, was a hassle.

Pivotal overviewI wanted to have a quick overview: a list of the projects I’m involved in, and the current “stories” we’re working on in each of them. Sitting nicely next to similar other “to do” lists on my dashboard page.

I found a PHP library that allowed me to quickly put together a script that does that.

And not just that: since the script downloads the data from Pivotal Tracker, it also was quite easy to store that data and have a copy that I can include in my own backup scheme, to reduce the risk of loosing it all.

Quick walk-through

The script runs regularly (with cron) on my laptop, and generates a local HTML file that I can include in my dashboard page. It shows my projects, and the unfinished stories in the current iteration of each project:

Overview with one project and one current story

When I hover over the project title or the end date of the current iteration, I see more details:

Details of the current iteration in a project

When I hover over a story in the current iteration, I can see more details about that story:

Details of the story in the list

It shows the description, and a list of the open tasks in the story as well.

Projects and stories are also links, clicking them opens (the project or the story) in a new tab.

If you think it might be useful for you too: the code is on github.

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]]> http://www.drostan.org/2013/04/pivotal-tracker-overview/feed/ 0 http://www.drostan.org/2013/04/pivotal-tracker-overview/ Around the web in recent months http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rolfkleef/~3/d-HvKF7Kr7U/ http://www.drostan.org/2013/03/around-the-web-in-recent-months/#comments Sun, 10 Mar 2013 23:00:00 +0000 Rolf Kleef http://www.drostan.org/?guid=9c62f3c0a32091c904bba6ba49c2a229 <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/photofarmer/3948508165/in/photostream/"><img title='photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)' src="http://www.drostan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/3948508165_fe05941053_q.jpg" alt='photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)' width="150" height="150"/></a><a href="http://drostan.org/fundstucke">Fundst&#252;cke</a> published this week:</p> <ul><li><a href="http://piwik.org/blog/2013/03/new-v1-11-new-features-design-changes-overview-w-screenshots/">New Piwik Release v1.11: New Features &#38; Design Changes! [+ Screenshots]</a><span>8 Mar 2013, Piwik team</span><p>We are very excited to announce the immediate availability of Piwik v1.11! Download Link How to upd...</p> </li> </ul>

photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)Been a bit too busy to write, but still “pushing” interesting items in the news feeds I follow. Here are some highlights from recent months:

Now that the first Dutch NGOs are embracing IATI, the International Aid Transparency Initiative, Partos is starting a programme to help all of them get on board:

CKAN is an open data registry (and by now, repository) that is available as open source, and quickly is becoming the de facto standard: governments of the UK and The Netherlands already use it, and new ones are joining:

And in terms of using open data for transparency and development:

Piwik is an open source web analytics platform that you can host yourself. A great tool to replace Google Analytics, with a steady stream of updates and improvements.

And in “other news”

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]]> http://www.drostan.org/2013/03/around-the-web-in-recent-months/feed/ 0 http://www.drostan.org/2013/03/around-the-web-in-recent-months/ Around the web in week 48, 2012 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rolfkleef/~3/zW9bJ9bTkmU/ http://www.drostan.org/2012/12/around-the-web-in-week-48-2012/#comments Sun, 02 Dec 2012 23:00:00 +0000 Rolf Kleef http://www.drostan.org/?guid=6128f892e7dca4bd3363922455178a40 <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/photofarmer/3948508165/in/photostream/"><img title='photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)' src="http://www.drostan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/3948508165_fe05941053_q.jpg" alt='photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)' width="150" height="150"/></a><a href="http://drostan.org/fundstucke">Fundst&#252;cke</a> published this week:</p> <ul><li><a href="http://unctad.org/en/pages/PressRelease.aspx?OriginalVersionID=109&#38;Product_x0020_Taxonomy=1566;#Press%20Release">UNCTAD sees expanding opportunity for developing countries to engage in local software development</a><span>30 Nov 2012</span><p>Information Economy Report 2012</p> </li><li><a href="http://www.concordeurope.org/187-aidwatch-special-report-2012">Concord Aidwatch 2012</a><span>30 Nov 2012</span><p>The AidWatch Special Report assesses the process of the Busan Partnership Agreement and the quality ...</p> </li> </ul>

photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)Fundstücke published this week:

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]]> http://www.drostan.org/2012/12/around-the-web-in-week-48-2012/feed/ 0 http://www.drostan.org/2012/12/around-the-web-in-week-48-2012/ Around the web in week 47, 2012 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rolfkleef/~3/n02Tk59pnSc/ http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-47-2012/#comments Sun, 25 Nov 2012 23:00:00 +0000 Rolf Kleef http://www.drostan.org/?guid=ad9edc065d5c6caf36e53f736a3ac4fe <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/photofarmer/3948508165/in/photostream/"><img title='photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)' src="http://www.drostan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/3948508165_fe05941053_q.jpg" alt='photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)' width="150" height="150"/></a><a href="http://drostan.org/fundstucke">Fundst&#252;cke</a> published this week:</p> <ul><li><a href="http://www.un.org/democracyfund/Applicants/applicants_index.html">UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) call for proposals</a><span>25 Nov 2012</span><p>The United Nations Democracy Fund invites civil society organizations to submit proposals for fundin...</p> </li><li><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/20/makerbot-introduces-3d-photo-booth-in-its-new-york-store-print-your-face-in-3d/">MakerBot store in New York now officially open (TechCrunch)</a><span>24 Nov 2012</span><p>MakerBot Introduces 3D Photo Booth In Its New York Store, Print Your Face In 3D</p> </li><li><a href="http://qz.com/29783/this-is-what-the-publishing-industry-will-look-like-if-the-big-six-become-the-big-four/">Spotify&#8217;s plan for rescuing the music industry: let it fall apart first - Quartz</a><span>21 Nov 2012</span><p>A business model based on giving access to, rather than owning rights of music.</p> </li><li><a href="https://mobiledevelopmentintelligence.com/">Mobile and Development Intelligence</a><span>19 Nov 2012</span><p>Info and data on organisations, providers, projects working on 'mobile for good'</p> </li><li><a href="http://www.akvo.org/blog/?p=7768">Akvo FLOW and the Text to Change SMS service, in one short film.</a><span>21 Nov 2012, Luuk Diphoorn</span><p> If you&#8217;ve ever wanted to know how Akvo FLOW and the Text to Change SMS service can work along...</p> </li> </ul>

photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)Fundstücke published this week:

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]]> http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-47-2012/feed/ 0 http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-47-2012/ Around the web in week 46, 2012 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rolfkleef/~3/OMD0Uvs6fDk/ http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-46-2012/#comments Sun, 18 Nov 2012 23:00:00 +0000 Rolf Kleef http://www.drostan.org/?guid=93bb1021bac3b9214215561e82076660 <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/photofarmer/3948508165/in/photostream/"><img title='photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)' src="http://www.drostan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/3948508165_fe05941053_q.jpg" alt='photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)' width="150" height="150"/></a><a href="http://drostan.org/fundstucke">Fundst&#252;cke</a> published this week:</p> <ul><li><a href="http://www.crispplatform.nl/">SELEMCA welcomes Alice</a><span>18 Nov 2012</span><p>An expressive robot that will have an 'artifical moral reasoner'... (part of CRISP, Creative Industr...</p> </li><li><a href="http://slashopen.net/2012/11/deadline-extended-to-nov-30-applications-open-for-testing123-innovation-fund-at-global-integrity/">Deadline extended to Nov 30! Applications open for TESTING123 Innovation Fund at Global Integrity</a><span>14 Nov 2012, Tobias Eigen</span><p> If you were planning to submit an application to the Global Integrity TESTING123 Innovation Fund, i...</p> </li> </ul>

photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)Fundstücke published this week:

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]]> http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-46-2012/feed/ 0 http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-46-2012/ Engineering 1984 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rolfkleef/~3/_4eL06IJuSg/ http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/engineering-1984/#comments Tue, 13 Nov 2012 14:03:20 +0000 Rolf http://www.drostan.org/?p=2010 While catching up with the nettime mailing list, I came across two articles that give me the creeps. Microsoft filed patents for a &#8216;consumer detector&#8217;, to let your Xbox or TV decoder detect who is watching, and if the audience is not deemed suitable, to stop playback. Apple received a patent that lets the police [...]

While catching up with the nettime mailing list, I came across two articles that give me the creeps.

Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, said: ‘It’s been a fact that modern phones are in reality tracking devices that let us make calls, but the idea that awkward citizens might find their phone shut down at the behest of a Government agency is a very worrying thought and not one that fits with democratic principles.’

It fits in with Google’s earlier desire to provide “targeted TV ads” based on a profile of you. Put together, this is not too far from your TV presenting you a government-issued “Personal Service Announcement” about your opinions or behaviours.

Dear engineers, if you’re developing something, ask yourself: would this sell well to dictators like Syria’s Bashar al Assad? Is this a gadget that could feature in 1984? Who is benefiting or gaining power with this?

Maybe pause for a moment, and ask yourself if you want to help build the circumstances for a totalitarian regime (government, corporate). One day, our own government might turn into such a dictatorship…

Or…

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]]> http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/engineering-1984/feed/ 0 http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/engineering-1984/ Around the web in week 45, 2012 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rolfkleef/~3/k7uppii90Vc/ http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-45-2012/#comments Sun, 11 Nov 2012 23:00:00 +0000 Rolf Kleef http://www.drostan.org/?guid=4662970940df33afe936dcf2d8c7ebed <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/photofarmer/3948508165/in/photostream/"><img title='photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)' src="http://www.drostan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/3948508165_fe05941053_q.jpg" alt='photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)' width="150" height="150"/></a><a href="http://drostan.org/fundstucke">Fundst&#252;cke</a> published this week:</p> <ul><li><a href="http://www.roeicentrumberlagebrug.nl/en/component/content/article/1-articles/186-roei-cursussen-in-2013">Roei cursussen in 2013</a><span>7 Nov 2012, laetitia.siegelaar@toprow.nl (Laetitia)</span><p>Wilt u roeien in het nieuwe jaar?&#160;Nu online: de nieuwe overzichten voor 2013! Ga naar:&#160;cu...</p> </li> </ul>

photo: "Spider and web", Dwight Sipler (cc-by 2009)Fundstücke published this week:

  • Roei cursussen in 20137 Nov 2012, laetitia.siegelaar@toprow.nl (Laetitia)

    Wilt u roeien in het nieuwe jaar? Nu online: de nieuwe overzichten voor 2013!
    Ga naar: cu…

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]]> http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-45-2012/feed/ 0 http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-45-2012/ Around the web in week 44 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rolfkleef/~3/oHUvNDRk5lo/ http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-44/#comments Sun, 04 Nov 2012 22:50:17 +0000 Rolf http://www.drostan.org/?p=1773 Early 2009, I started using Friendfeed as a way to aggregate various sources of web links to share. August that year, Facebook bought FriendFeed, ripped out the innovators, and left the site to bleed to death. (I&#8217;m sure it felt less dramatic to the fine folks who built it.) I&#8217;ve had a nagging feeling since, [...]

Early 2009, I started using Friendfeed as a way to aggregate various sources of web links to share. August that year, Facebook bought FriendFeed, ripped out the innovators, and left the site to bleed to death. (I’m sure it felt less dramatic to the fine folks who built it.)

I’ve had a nagging feeling since, wanting to move away, but (luckily) the great features of their service stayed on air, and (sadly) no real open alternative showed up.  But with the 1.6.0 release of tt-rss, my current news reader, came a “share…” bookmarklet, with the lacking piece of the puzzle: a way to inject any web page into a feed of web links to share.

When I suggested what I still missed, the developer almost instantaneously responded, completing the feature for my use case.

(By the way, you may notice communications on the tt-rss forum isn’t quite according to “customer care guidelines” – we don’t have a client-vendor relation anyway – but please also note the speed of delivery. Of course, if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen, and enjoy your cheap happy meals or expensive restaurant dinners.)

So: now I can plug RSS feeds into my feed reader (just when Facebook and Twitter are replacing open standards with closed APIs). Share individual pages too. And publish feeds to my own website and other locations.

You can see my “stream of links” on the right as its own feed. But to take the experiment a little further, I’m working on a weekly (automatic) update of my blog too. Here’s a first (alpha) version bulletin.

My selection of updates from around the web, published last week:

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]]> http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-44/feed/ 0 http://www.drostan.org/2012/11/around-the-web-in-week-44/ A sea change in international development http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rolfkleef/~3/ctNEOaUyMbU/ http://www.drostan.org/2012/10/a-sea-change-in-international-development/#comments Tue, 30 Oct 2012 21:30:56 +0000 Rolf http://www.drostan.org/?p=1759 A few years ago, I could not have imagined myself ever considering the World Bank a shining light on what needs to happen in international development. But today&#8217;s TED talk by Sanjay Pradhan, vice president of the World Bank Institute, is such a shining example. We come to this crossroads from very different directions, but [...]

A few years ago, I could not have imagined myself ever considering the World Bank a shining light on what needs to happen in international development. But today’s TED talk by Sanjay Pradhan, vice president of the World Bank Institute, is such a shining example.

We come to this crossroads from very different directions, but in choosing where to go next, I find myself more and more in the company of organisations I never thought would go “my way”, while some of the more radically progressive friends from the past are hesitating.

Do they still want to be the antagonist? Am I changing? With other progressive friends going the same way, keeping a close eye on our core principles and values, it feels like the former. And it really looks like some big ships are taking sharp turns into “our” direction.

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]]> http://www.drostan.org/2012/10/a-sea-change-in-international-development/feed/ 0 http://www.drostan.org/2012/10/a-sea-change-in-international-development/ Ay caramba, Ubuntu 12.10: Get it right on Amazon! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rolfkleef/~3/I1vGXP7fdhA/ http://www.drostan.org/2012/10/ay-caramba-ubuntu-12-10-get-it-right-on-amazon/#comments Mon, 22 Oct 2012 20:21:01 +0000 Rolf http://rolfkleef.tumblr.com/post/34114601940 Ay caramba, Ubuntu 12.10: Get it right on Amazon!: Another glimpse at the new Ubuntu, and at what makes it awkward. Mr. Shuttleworth has already declared that all your data belong to him… “Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with ...

Ay caramba, Ubuntu 12.10: Get it right on Amazon!:

Another glimpse at the new Ubuntu, and at what makes it awkward. Mr. Shuttleworth has already declared that all your data belong to him…

“Don’t trust us? Erm, we have root. You do trust us with your data already.”

Silly me, I was thinking I had root over my own computer, and noone else, but apparently I should check the code. And 12.10 includes data-leaking features you need to switch off yourself.

This very well might be my last Ubuntu upgrade… I am looking around at the other options.

UPDATE (30 Oct):

The Electronic Frontier Foundation had a critical look at how Ubuntu is starting to leak data and is way too vague on their privacy policies, including a list of demands to Ubuntu:

Windows and Mac users are used to having their data sent to third parties without their express consent by software companies that are trying to maximize profits for their shareholders. Let’s make sure Ubuntu, like the GNU/Linux operating system at its heart, remains an exception to this.

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