I got home this evening from the Utah Open Source Conference that was held last Thursday, Friday and today. The conference dealt with a particular class of computer software programs which are distributed for free (that is, no up-front or ongoing licensing fees). The three days were filled with presentations on various open source programs, how to use them, and why someone might choose to use those programs over proprietary programs.

Essentially, the Internet runs pretty much on open source software while most people are using proprietary software on their own personal computers. For instance, Microsoft Office is an example of proprietary software and Microsoft charges a fairly significant license fee for people to use these programs. There is an open source alternative called OpenOffice which has a small but growing following.

One of the sessions I attended was about an open source picture image management and manipulation software called The Gimp. I had played around with it a few years ago and gave up as how to use it wasn’t particularly intuitive. I have generally been using proprietary software from Adobe called Photoshop Elements. The Elements program is a scaled-down version of Adobe’s premium software simply called Photoshop. Elements costs about $100 while Photoshop costs about $500 or more. The Gimp has most of the functionality of Photoshop and it is free.

So, at the conference I downloaded and installed The Gimp on my Macbook computer. The presenter went through a number of examples of using the program to manipulate a picture. One of the examples was to take a picture, turn it to black and white, except for a certain part of the picture which would be in color. I was singularly surprised at how easy that was to do. So much so, that I did that to a picture I had taken last week out near American Falls, Idaho of an abandoned phone booth. I think the result isn’t bad for a first attempt! I might become dangerous with this new tool!

It is good to be back home. However, I really enjoyed the three days being with a large group of computer geeks. I met some people in person whom I’ve only known through Twitter. I met some other people who are now in my Twitter community. I learned a lot about what the LDS Church is doing with all of their genealogical resources, and that is quite mind boggling. I’ll definitely have more to say about that in the future.

But, tonight I get to sleep once again (and in a very few minutes) in my own bed. That is quite enticing at the moment. I’ve got an early morning tomorrow for some Stake meetings. After that I’ll be going up to the womens prison with Nina where I’ll be speaking in their meetings. Life is returning to normal once again.

Today I’ve spent most of the afternoon in the basement of the Science and Industry building on the Salt Lake Community College at the Utah Open Source Conference. There’s no cell service down here so I’m pretty much out of touch with Nina. We use text messaging often as it works so well on our iPhones. No cell service = no text messaging. Dang!

The conference is very good. I’ve attended several excellent sessions. It’s been worth my time. The conference goes through Saturday when I’ll go back home the Pocatello.

Garland, Aug 27, 2008

Originally uploaded by Roland K Smith.

Farmers burning their fields. Forest fires in the hillsides. Lousy air quality. The Salt Lake valley actually looks like it’s on fire!

I’m at our daughter’s place in North Salt Lake and appreciating being indoors. There has been a big fire (probably human caused) burning in the south end of the Salt Lake valley. In the north end of the valley, the farmers are burning the stubble in their fields. The combination is air that is almost unbreathable here.

I’m here for the Utah Open Source Conference being held tomorrow through Saturday at the Salt Lake Community College campus. It looks to be three days of good sessions and a lot of networking, and at $35, a great deal.

So, I’m here, enjoying visiting with the family, and getting Very Angry at my father. That’s a story for a different time, though.

Nina made it home safe and sound! Hurrah!!

Not breathing, though, is difficult. Glad I don’t have asthma….

Nina flies back to Utah tomorrow evening, but gets in late enough that she’ll spend the night at Heather’s before driving back home Tuesday morning. I think she’s had a great time but will also be happy to be home. It’s been mighty quiet around here!

The Twin Falls Temple was dedicated today. Our Stake had the opportunity to participate in the dedication via live satellite TV at 4:30 p.m. Consequently, each ward in the Stake only had Sacrament Meeting. Normally that would mean a light Sunday, since our ward meets at 9 a.m. However, I was invited to meet with the Stake President at 12:15 p.m. More on that next week when everything comes together.

I was at the Stake Center at 3 p.m. for the Temple Dedication. The doors were supposed to be opened at 3:30, but at the entrance where I was seventh in line, someone opened the door at 3 p.m. and let all of us waiting there come in. They quickly found the mistake and closed the door, but those of us who were already seated were allowed to stay. It was much nicer sitting inside the air conditioned building than standing outside in 90+ temperatures. The ceremony itself was very moving and inspiring. I suspect this will be the last temple dedication in this area for many years to come. We’ve had two this year … Rexburg and Twin Falls … making now four temples in Idaho.

Tonight marked the end of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. What a show the past two weeks have been and tonight’s closing ceremonies really sucked me in. I’ve read some criticism of NBC’s lineup of Olympic events being shown in prime time. There’s only a limited amount of broadcast time available and if people rely only on what’s being shown in prime time, they’ve missed an important part of the experience. Almost every event was available online, and I watched a number of events online, including some that I’ve never seen before, such as judo, taekwando, and handball. Even the equestrian events (which were held in Hong Kong … almost a continent away from Beijing) were interesting to watch. NBC, in my opinion, has done a first rate, bang up job of bringing us the Olympics.

I’ve enjoyed Bob Costas‘s commentary. Bela Karolyi was incredibly entertaining. Chris Collinsworth‘s reporting was excellent (he annointed Michael Phelps’ mother as “disappearing Debby” after she almost fainted following her son’s fingernail victory). Mary Carillo‘s vignettes from around the country were excellent and she seemed game for anything, including eating grilled scorpions. I have to admit: They have dominated my evenings for the past couple of weeks. I’ll now have to find something else to do with my evenings. Fortunately, Thursday night football begins this week!

A bit ago I got a tweet from a guy passing through Pocatello needing a fix on a tire. Shortly afterwards he was on his way again. Meanwhile I sent him my phone number if there was anything more I could do (he had already found a tire place). That was a connection that wouldn’t have been possible without Twitter.

Nina is flying to Philadelphia later today. A few minutes ago she was notified by email, cell phone, and landline that her flight had been rescheduled from 4:45 to 6:00 pm. Not all that long ago she would only have learned about the change after getting to the airport.

I’m writing this on my iPhone on an amazing WordPress app that makes posting from my cell phone incredibly easy.

I’m loving all this great technology, including a pretty dang good type-ahead and spell checker on this iPhone. Life is good!!

Here it is another night when I’ll be up until the last dog howls. Fortunately, the Beijing Olympics will be over in a five more days and life can return to a more normal pace. This has been a fantastic Olympics. For the first time ever, just about every event in the Olympics is available online. Microsoft’s Silverlight video player has worked very well, even on my Macbook laptop. Considering that the first time the Olympics were on TV was in 1960, where over a two week period fewer than 20 hours were broadcast, we’ve sure come a long ways. Some analysts have been predicted that the viewership will tail off this second week with Michael Phelps no longer dominating the screen. I certainly hope not. I’d like for NBC to finish up the series feeling very good about what they’ve produced.

Meanwhile, both Nina and I are really enjoying our iPhones. The capability is simply amazing. We were in a (incredibly dirty) Wendy’s Hamburger Joint in Idaho Falls yesterday, surfing the net, watching Associated Press videos, and checking out different iPhone applications. The phone has a GPS with Google Maps as a standard application. I’ve also installed an application called “gpsCompass” which provides a nice readout of the data available from the phone’s GPS data. It also has the ability to email my current location. So, while we were driving to Idaho Falls, I emailed my current location to my blog (it’s in the entry before this). Unfortunately, it doesn’t come through as a link (you have to cut and paste into the browser). I’ll try to work on that as it’d be fun to be able to click on the link and get a Google map with my precise location.

Another capability is to take a photo and send it directly to Flickr. I’m using an application called “AirMe” which tags the photo with excellent location data from the GPS and sends it to Flickr. I took four pictures at the mall in Idaho Falls while Nina was shopping for shoes.

I’m watching the women’s individual balance beam medal award ceremony where the US took Gold and Silver. The US women have done incredibly well in gymnastics. Visa has been one of the sponsors of the games with a lot of very good commercials. For instance, within minutes of Michael Phelps winning his eighth gold medal, Visa showed a commercial congratulating him on eight wins. They must have put a couple dozen versions of these commercials in their pocket for the games and they’re worth watching. One talks about going into the family business … winning gold medals in the Olympics, referring specifically to Nastia Liukin, whose father was an Olympic gymnastic medal winner for the Soviet Union. In the individual balance beam, Nastia took the Silver and surpassed her father in Olympic medals. She’s done well in the family business … particularly considering that her father, after immigrating to the United States, built a gymnasium so his daughter had a place to prepare.

Oh, I love the Olympics!