Issue 22: Web Work: Tools and Tricks for Working Online

When Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the web back in the early 1990s, he wrote a protocol that is open and free to use and akin to the spirit of the Free Software movement itself. To this day, he conceives the web as a means to connect people more than just connecting machines.

When you think of CMS and blogs, names such as WordPress, Typo3, and Joomla come up. But often, much leaner solutions will suffice.

Web hosting providers usually give you FTP access when you need to upload data to their online storage. On Linux, a file manager is all you need to access network storage.

Whether it be themes and templates, JavaScript or regex, responsive design or typography, resourceful web designers make work easier for themselves with the many freely available tools on the web.

Ubuntu is working on an ambitious convergence strategy that spans phones, tablets, TVs, and desktops and will result in a single Ubuntu code base that will adapt to these different form factors automatically. At the core of this strategy is an entirely new Ubuntu Software Development Kit (SDK) to help you write applications for this platform.

Network plans, nested dependencies, or binary trees – with Graphviz, you can visualize complex relationships in a simple way.

The Obnam command-line tool allows backups and restores, even when the X server is on strike. Its many options will easily meet the needs of a SOHO environment.

Using LaTeX and the TikZ package, you can create high-quality vector graphics to improve your documents by making them more visually appealing.

Faulty unmounts can quickly lead to disaster with SD cards and USB sticks. Magic Rescue can get your data back.

Paperwork is a new attempt to create the paperless office using free software components. This article describes just how far it's come.

MakeHuman lets you create characters that you can integrate into Blender and other 3D applications or graphics programs.

PDF documents are widespread. The format, which is intended mainly for viewing and printing, can nonetheless also be edited with Linux and PDF-Shuffler.

Creating database applications with wizards and graphic editors – without SQL and programming – that's what the LibreOffice program Base, modeled after Microsoft Access, is all about.

Enough audio players exist under Linux to fulfill everyone's wishes. If you find Amarok is too complicated and Rhythmbox or Audacious too old-fashioned, then there's a newcomer, Musique, that's well worth looking at.

Typically, educational software programs cannot accommodate multi-disciplinary learning. However, developers of OpenTeacher are changing the rules with the use of some very interesting concepts.

GIMP by itself can already do a lot. With plugins, you can extend the free image editor with complex functions, most of which allow you to see the final results before you apply them.

Ubuntu 14.04 offers some changes to the installation process. We'll walk you through upgrading or installing the latest release.

With NetworkManager, you can access the Internet during the Ubuntu installation process. The first step is to download updates to make your system more secure.

Ubuntu's Software Center lets you install just about anything, including free software, purchased apps, and games.

Movies, music, and Internet telephony are easy to use in Ubuntu. You just have to load the right software packages onto the computer. We present some favorite multimedia apps.

With BOSS Linux, the Indian Ministry of Communication and Information has developed its own Linux distribution. The system is gradually establishing itself in the local public administration as the successor to Windows XP.