circle.ch :: Content Management

circle.ch weblog by Urs Gehrig

A weblog about libre software, law, technology, politics and the like.

2010-03-13T14:26:16

Academic, Apache, Apple, Art, Best Of, Biotech, Civil Society, Content Management, Cooking, Copyright, Creative Commons, Crosspost, Culture, Database, Deutsch, DRM, Economy, Education, Event, Gadget, General, Geodata, Government, Health, Howto, Humor, Innovation, Intellectual Property, Java, Language, LaTeX, Law, Linux, Media, Moblog, Mozilla, Music, Office, Open Content, Open Source, P2P, PHP, Podcast, Politics, Privacy, Projects, Random Thought, Rant, Science, Search, Social Network, Software, Sport, Talks, Technology, Technology Transfer, Travelling, Weblog, Wiki, Wireless and Mobile, XML

22. April 2008

How to OCR multipage PDF files
Open Source (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 16:46:53

The OCR applied here only serves for reasons of indexing PDF files. The page layout will get lost. Nevertheless, the following three steps help you to convert multipage PDF files to a single text file:


 $ convert -density 150 foo.pdf ./tesseract/tmp/p%02d.tif
 $ montage.exe ./tesseract/tmp/*.tif -tile 1x -mode concatenate ./tesseract/tmp/foo.tif
 $ tesseract.exe ./tesseract/tmp/foo.tif output -l eng

For reasons of simplicity the TIF files p00.tif to pXY.tif will get concatenated together to a single TIF file, that has the width of a single page and the height of XY pages. In such a way at least the order of the text or the text flow respectively will be preserved. But one could also concatenate a mosaic of all the TIF files. The density of 150 (dpi) gives reasonable results with tesseract.

Related post(s):

Adding header or footer information to existing PDF (10.2)
phpChannel to handle RSS files (3.87)
Personalizing PDF files (3.70)
Getting all installation files for IE6 SP1 (3.61)
Fulltext search in PHP files on Windows (3.48)

Related tags(s):

apple, software, media, random_thought, drm

Comments (4) Permalink del.icio.us

06. April 2005

Freeflux - Content Management at its best
Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 09:39:05

Good news from Bitflux [1]:

You can now preregister for your free BxCMS. Go to
http://free.bitflux.org/register/ and fill in the simple form.

We will inform you, as soon as it's ready for you.

[Updated on: Tue, 05 April 2005 10:31]

[1] http://freeflux.org/

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PHPope - content management (8.76)
Wyona XPS Content Management (7.71)
Midgard ::: Content Management with PHP (5.76)
Phase - PHP Content Management System (5.58)
CMS based on XML, XSL, PHP and SQL (5.40)

Related tags(s):

database, software, media, talks

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

08. February 2005

Wikipedia auf CD-ROM
Wiki (wiki) | Deutsch (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) | Open Content (wiki) - urs @ 23:45:20

Heute habe ich mich mal der Version von Wikipedia auf CD-ROM - auch etwa "offline" Version genannt - angenommen [1]. Die CD wird bereits nicht mehr neu aufgelegt, da am 17. März 2005 die Wikipedia-DVD erscheint. Dennoch lohnt sich der Blick in die freie Enzyklopädie, die dann direkt ab der Harddisk läuft. Der Reader für Windows (Digigbib4), MaxOS X (MacDigibib) und Linux (Digibux) ist zum Offline-Genuss Voraussetzung.

Unter Windows lässt sich das ISO auch mittels den Daemontools [2] direkt mounten, so dass sich ein vorübergehendes Brennen auf eine CD-ROM erübrigt.

Parallel laufen auch Projekte, Wikipedia mittels eines Knoppix-ähnlichen Systems direkt ab CD-ROM laufen zu lassen (e.g. via Morphix oder Lamppix) [3,4].

[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia-CD
[2] http://www.daemon-tools.cc
[3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_on_CD/DVD
[4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_on_CD/DVD

Related post(s):

Wikipedia plugin for Mozilla (7.34)
Tschubby's Karten der Schweiz (5.85)
Searching Wikipedia content à la LiveSearch (5.41)
How to tie a tie (3.79)
LiveJournal backend presentation (3.65)

Related tags(s):

mozilla, wiki, civil_society, culture, technology

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

Upcoming DRM-less music store
Intellectual Property (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) | DRM (wiki) - urs @ 16:16:51

[via Steve, 1] Michael Robertson - founder of Lin~~dows~~spire - is going to announce a new, DRM-less online music store next week called MP3tunes [2].

[1] http://fooworks.com/node/122
[2] http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050202-4576.html

Related post(s):

iTunes als Business Modell für CC Musik? (6.78)
amaroK LiveCD - Open Music Player (6.43)
Upcoming - collaborative event calendar (6.18)
Music Library in Bern (5.71)
Start-up application with PHP-XML database (5.60)

Related tags(s):

creative_commons, linux, open_content, social_network, government

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

31. January 2005

Why does the web work?
Technology (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) | Rant (wiki) - urs @ 22:52:15

Tell me if I am wrong, but wasn't it one of the key features of HTML at the time of its introduction to have pages linked by <a href=''>link</a>? Linking from inside of page A.html to a page B.html. But if one renames page B.html to C.html and does not rewire it by hand or use rewrite tricks, one gets what currently the NZZ online is playing with. Is it intention or are they just not aware of? Please give us the web back. ;)

Unfortunately [2] is not a working substitute to [1] as one would expect:

[1] http://nzz.ch/2004/11/05/il/page-newzzE16BRTPJ-12.html
[2] http://nzz.ch/2004/11/05/il/newzzE16BRTPJ-12.html

Addon: Really positive is the new redirection to the print-edition of a certain page [3]:

[3] http://nzz.ch/2005/02/01/wi/newzzE4NR89LK-12.print.html

Update: Cool URIs don't change - just refound that link again [4] ;)

[4] http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html

Related post(s):

back at work (4.19)
pizza work-out kit (4.16)
young drummers at work (4.10)
DRM bridged by contract (3.58)
vcf import problem on Thunderbird (3.51)

Related tags(s):

moblog, java, copyright, deutsch, office

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

24. January 2005

s9y podcast plugin by Hannes
PHP (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 11:09:31

Hannes [1] hacked a PodCasting plugin for s9y and has it up and running on his test blog [2]. There are on the other hand some good arguments, why PodCasting is not always cool [3].

[1] http://hannes.kaywa.com
[2] http://s9y.lebureau.mediagonal.ch/archives/200501.html
[3] http://blog.koehntopp.de/archives/649-Warum-podcasting-nervt.html

Related post(s):

WYSIWYG Plugin for Wordpress (6.95)
iTunes with podcast (6.85)
RSS Reader Plugin for jEdit (5.89)
Wikipedia plugin for Mozilla (5.83)
Firefox search plugin für Bundesgerichtsentscheide (5.47)

Related tags(s):

open_source, mozilla, deutsch, random_thought, intellectual_property

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

24. November 2004

University of Bern with Apache Lenya
Apache (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 09:57:38

To motivate all faculties of a University to change their websites [e.g. 1] to a corporate style is quite a bit of work. The University of Bern has chosen a two-step program towards a CMS handled solution. Firstly, all the pages have been redesigned to the new style; most of that part is already realized. Secondly, they intend to move those pages to the CMS, which is said to be Apache Lenya [2]. My first idea was, that this is some kind of Sysiphus-work but while redesigning the wiso page, I recognized that I rather like the two-step concept ;)

[1] http://www.wiso.unibe.ch
[2] http://cmsub3.unibe.ch/lenya/administration/live/index_en.html

Related post(s):

Apache Cocoon and Lenya Workshops (7.83)
WiFi at the University of Bern (6.57)
Cygwin - Apache - MySQL - PHP Installation (6.49)
new trees at the university (6.33)
apt-get install lic. iur. (6.20)

Related tags(s):

wireless_and_mobile, academic, apache, biotech

Comments (2) Permalink del.icio.us

16. November 2004

Outlook calendar to RSS
Software (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 23:22:31

Yet another way to share Outlook calendar events is to have a look at Blogwave [1] in conjunction with a calendar adapter [2]:

BlogWave is an "RSS Generator": a tool which can pull information from a variety of sources and publish it as RSS. This process is very easy to configure and can be scheduled to run automatically. For example, using BlogWave you can create an RSS feed from Sharepoint announcements on your company's internal site. Or you can publish event logs as RSS.

Other approaches are outlined in CalendarTools.

[1] http://weblogs.asp.net/asanto/archive/2004/09/26/234512.aspx
[2] http://blogs.msdn.com/tristank/articles/Outlook_Calendar_for_Blogwave.aspx

Related post(s):

Outlook to iCal export (12.5)
Import Outlook calendar items into iCal (10.9)
Lightning - Thunderbird now with Calendar (9.59)
Open Source Outlook MAPI connecter available (9.30)
Sunbird Mozilla calendar (7.52)

Related tags(s):

apple, office, howto, xml, wiki

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

12. November 2004

New EditThisPagePHP Micro-CMS version
Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 14:25:27

EditThisPagePHP got released as Version 0.5b3 [1].

[1] http://editthispagephp.sourceforge.net

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Minimalistic CMS (7.17)
NeoOffice Version 0.0 (3.82)
Easypay by Swisscom for micro content (3.67)
PHP-GTK Version 0.5.2 is out (3.55)
QEMU version 0.6.1 (3.47)

Related tags(s):

moblog, economy, content_management, wiki, intellectual_property

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

11. November 2004

Click-fix a PDF with Shimbun
Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 18:12:01

Shimbun offers a pretty simple way to create PDF files [1]. If you rather like to convert HTML tables to PDF have a look at this project [2].

[1] http://www.tplsystems.co.uk/shimbun/
[2] http://www.freepgs.com/vietcom/tool/pdftable/

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Real men don't click! (3.50)
polo in the sun (3.12)
Postkantine (3.06)
view-source Protocol by Microsoft (2.99)
bundeshaus at latenite (2.98)

Related tags(s):

economy, technology, xml, moblog

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

05. November 2004

Bitflux is hiring
PHP (wiki) | Open Source (wiki) | Economy (wiki) | XML (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 10:09:49

chregu [1] of Bitflux GmbH is looking for a developer with strong skills in XSLT and PHP. Bitflux has strong competences in realizing custom client projects while mostly using their own Bitflux CMS (BxCMS). An other interesting product is their Bitflux Editor, a Wysiwyg XML Editor. Most if not all of their tools are Open Source.

[1] http://blog.bitflux.ch/archive/work-at-bitflux.html

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Liip is hiring - again, again, more and more (8.17)
DeLaRue is hiring (7.62)
Donate! - to get an exciting WYSIWYG editor GPLd (6.66)
Bitflux CMS is said to run on Windws (6.37)
Google in Zürich is hiring (6.34)

Related tags(s):

economy, xml, best_of, deutsch, technology_transfer

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

22. October 2004

Googles Desktop Search privacy policy
Software (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) | Privacy (wiki) - urs @ 12:09:57

Read at [1]

What information does Google receive?

By default, Google Desktop Search collects a limited amount of non-personal information from your computer and sends it to Google. This includes summary information, such as the number of searches you do and the time it takes for you to see your results, and application reports we'll use to make the program better. You can opt out of sending this information during the installation process or from the application preferences at any time.

Personally identifying information, such as your name or address, will not be sent to Google without your explicit permission.

The last paragraph seems the tricky one. From reading that sentence it looks as if Google has access or is able to access or/and collect address information on your computer. The term "without your explicit permission" looks like the enduser is only a click away from letting Google effectively use that information. We will probably see/read more in the blogosphere sooner or later. ;)

Update: http://www.kso.co.uk/de/blog/2004/2004.10.18.html has just another view of the circumstances; on an OS that only pretends security, there is nothing really protected.

[1] http://desktop.google.com/privacypolicy.html

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Beagle - Open Source Desktop Search (12.7)
Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) Project (10.5)
Google Desktop Search going for Thunderbird (10.5)
Anonymous domain name registry? (7.36)
Access to Desktop Search results (6.97)

Related tags(s):

privacy, art, technology_transfer, linux, creative_commons

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

26. August 2004

Book on Demand
Content Management (wiki) | Random Thought (wiki) - urs @ 10:33:17

I am dropping this link here as a reminder for myself: Book on Demand [1]. If this is the way of straighter bookmaking for authors, why not. There is another service in Germany as far as I know, called bod.de [2].

[1] http://www.meinbu.ch/html/Idee.shtml
[2] http://bod.de

Related post(s):

Navigating the Maze of Free and NonFree Licenses (5.62)
Subversion Version Control to replace CVS (5.26)
Bob DuCharme's new XSLT book (4.95)
Migros offers Music Download (3.69)
Waiting at the airport (3.64)

Related tags(s):

creative_commons, open_source, civil_society, culture

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

12. August 2004

GMX with 1GB of Mailbox size
Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 14:20:59

Amazing; while having a look at my GMX mail account I found indicated:

1,6 MB von 1 GB in Mailbox und MediaCenter belegt...

Nice gesture of GMX for a free mail account. I just found out that I can file this post under "Content Management" now ;-)

Related post(s):

Working out a category cloud (5.19)
IBM Millipede - Trillion-Bit Data Storage Density (4.72)
FreePOPs to work with Gmail (3.91)
Describing and retrieving photos using RDF and HTTP (3.83)
GPRS upload transmission performance (3.58)

Related tags(s):

open_source, linux, wireless_and_mobile, technology

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

09. August 2004

Minimalistic CMS
PHP (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 14:40:13

Edit This Page PHP [1] is a PHP script that can be uploaded to any webhost that supports PHP. It allows for the HTML content of a page to be edited by a link on that page. Only two files are required: the core PHP script (editthispage.php) and a data file for each page. The core file can support as many pages as desired. Get more background information on that lightweight Wiki from Christopher Allen [2], one of its authors.

[1] http://editthispagephp.sourceforge.net
[2] http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2003/12/editthispagephp.html

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

29. June 2004

Easypay by Swisscom for micro content
Economy (wiki) | Wireless and Mobile (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 22:04:09

Swisscom has a cool product called Easypay [1]. You buy a prepayed card with denominations of CHF 25.00, 50.00 and 75.00 at local stores, Kiosks, Post Offices etc. If you like to buy a product via an online store or like to use an online service you simply enter the Easypay number in the window on the provider’s website and press "buy". The Easypay service is also available in combination with mobile phones.

This is very very practical for providers of microcontent such as blogging services with MMS or mp3 music shops. I have no idea how simple it is to implement that service on the provider's side; but it is worth a try.

[1] http://www.swisscom-fixnet.ch/fx/content/products/easypay/index_EN.html

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Swisscom at ITU (7.50)
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Related tags(s):

moblog, random_thought, linux, economy, php

Comments (2) Permalink del.icio.us

10. March 2004

CSS by monorom
Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 19:30:28

monorom [1] launched her CSS knowledge site intensivstation; cool and clear designs with a lot of resources about CSS.

[1] http://intensivstation.ch

Related post(s):

Related tags(s):

moblog, weblog, civil_society

Comments (0) Permalink del.icio.us

09. March 2004

Zulu - a website assembler
XML (wiki) | Content Management (wiki) - urs @ 23:33:26

The Zulu [1] web generator implementation consists of an Excel table and some Visual Basic code. The layout and structure of the website is adjusted by editing the Excel table. Zulu's main idea is the separation of layout, structure and content of a website. By processing them the Zulu web generator creates static websites which can be sent to the web server.

[1] http://www.positron.ch/zulu