::Stuff for the multi-spec coder;

Coding, formats, standards, and other practical things.

Home // About guiStuff

<!-- About guiStuff.com

The Short Version...

guiStuff aims to provide you with information and tools about Open Standards, Free Software, and the tools you can use to get the most out of your coding and development time. It focuses on both development for the Web, and general-purpose development and productivity, and stays within the Free Software landscape, which means that not owning a particular software package will not hinder your progress -- you'll simply be able to go to that software's respective website and download it for free if you choose to. The content on guiStuff will always refer to Free and Open-Source languages, standards, formats, and end-user applications, that are all cross-platform. This means that it doesn't matter what computer you're using, it's not relevant -- the productivity and usability discussed here will apply to any operating system. There may be documents that address how to achieve something on a particular operating system, however whichever goal that document will discuss will be achievable on any platform.

The point is to find the right tools for the right job, and achieve your end goal using that which is Open and Free, and will remain so. That is purely pragmatic -- one need not subscribe to any particular paradigm to make use of this reasoning.

The long, tedious, boring, how-and-why of it all...

Ok, that paragraph above was my best attempt at a pitch for the idea of the content on this website. It's nice to have something to copy-and-paste if you need to describe a website to someone who is used to either marketing-speak, or lawyering-speak. So why is this website here, who's this "I" I'm referring to, and why is this person spending time on a website the likes of which there are several dozen online already? You should be warned, that when that heading said "long, tedious", and "boring", it was not at all joking. Just scroll down a bit, you'll see what I mean. Still, I find that I sometimes wonder about how a website came about, and the marketing pitch leaves a dry taste as far as being informative. So here I go...

Let's start with the egocentric "I": My name is Moran Goldstein. Pleased to meet you. My primary employment centers around gathering educational information pertaining to, mainly, software, and organizing that information for various persons/institutions as "supplementary data". I'll translate that last part: I take the technical elements from various specs, applications, and programming/scripting languages and turn them into things that humans can read and become more self-sufficient/productive as the result of which. I chose this job for myself because I found out early on that I liked learning about anything technical, and I liked teaching. I'm not sure how good I am at either of those, but I like these things, and so I chose to do them for a living (among other things, like web design, which aren't relevant to the plot...).

As such a gatherer-and-processor of information, I do not choose what to learn, document, or teach. These things are dictated by my employers, and so I "go" where they tell me to. Over the past several years, I saw the trends of what was considered to be "recommended knowledge" to be concerning. More and more I was required to prepare material about proprietary software and standards, and the "need" (by said employers) for information about Free, Open Software became scarce. It did not matter that I offered the latter form of information for less compensation, nor were my attempts to persuade said employers that, in the long run, it is more beneficial for them that they, and their employees be versed in that type of knowledge. Eventually, however, I found a more recipient audience for this content in learning institutions, that appreciated the financial element that was inherent in not requiring their attendees to purchase anything in order to benefit from this education. As time went by, I had decided to stop offering proprietary documentation to learning institutions, and offer documentation of Free Software and Open Standards at a much reduced price, so as to compel as many entities as I could to shift their interest to this type of content.

By this point, if you've actually kept reading this far, you have some idea of where I'm going with this. This website is the last link in a chain that follows a vector of thought (I really stretched the metaphor on that one...). It's my attempt to get more of this type of information out there, and possibly impress upon more people the fact (yes, fact) that Free, Open Source Software, and Open Standards are the way to go if you wish to have the same liberties in your digital life as you have in your physical one. This is not an evangelical effort to "convert" people's way of thinking, but rather a pragmatic one that attempts to expose an alternative to closed, proprietary technology. I simply use the tools that are available to me to do so. On a personal, selfish level, it is also my attempt to free myself from the reliance on documenting proprietary technology (so that should appease anyone who has doubts in the efforts of any person that claims to be doing something "simply and only for the benefit of others" -- now you have a perfectly selfish reason for my doing this).

In Conclusion, Finally...

This version of the website was launched on January 5th, 2007. It actually had a previous life, which may still be found here, although it's somewhat outdated, in numerous senses of the word.

I hope that you find this website informative and useful. I'm always open to suggestions, opinions, criticisms, and in fact any random thoughts -- check out the contact page.

Thank you for visiting,
-Moran Goldstein,
coder-in-chief, guiStuff.com

*Note: By "Any Platform" I'm referring to any personal computer that is capable of running a comparatively recent version of any of the popular versions of Linux Distros. This means that any computer running Windows2000/XP/Vista, and/or any Mac that's running any version of OS-X will be more than sufficient. Software discussed on guiStuff will be applicable to any of those operating systems, and naturally, any relatively recent Linux flavor.

Looking for the old guiStuff?

It's still here, the old content didn't go anywhere.