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Posts published by “Phil Shapiro”

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

2016 Women in Open Source Award Winners

By Phil Shapiro on September 30, 2016 |

Community and Video

2016 Women in Open Source Award Winners2016 Red Hat Women in Open Source Award winners

We hope you enjoy and are inspired by this short video celebrating Preeti Murthy and Jessica McKellar, the winners of this year’s Red Hat Women in Open Source Awards.

The Video Screening Room

This short video packs a lot of punch. Inspiring and hopeful.

“Learning how to program does this really important, weird thing in your brain and you realize you have this power now. This mindset that if you see something that could be better, you have the power to change it, is a mindset that I want as many people as possible to have on this planet. It can start with open source, but the really exciting part for me is when you can apply that mindset to other domains.” – Jessica McKellar, Director of Engineering at Dropbox

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Contributing to an Open Source ProjectJavaOne logo - open source

Contributing to an Open Source Project

By Phil Shapiro on September 27, 2016 |

Community, Software and Video

There are many ways to contribute to an open source project. There are also many reasons for doing so. But before jumping in, you might want to know how things generally work within these projects.

The Video Screening Room

If you’re interested gaining some tips and insights into how to contribute to open source, this video of a presentation given on September 19 at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco by Gunnar Wagenknecht, a software engineer at Salesforce, and Wayne Beaton, director at the Eclipse Foundation, might be useful to you.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

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Blender: An Introduction for Final Cut Pro UsersBlender video editing

Blender: An Introduction for Final Cut Pro Users

By Phil Shapiro on September 23, 2016 |

Software, Tutorial and Video

Have you often considered quitting your day job to begin an exciting career as a filmmaker? You don’t need the resources of a Hollywood studio anymore. In fact, you can do it all with free and open source software.

The Video Screening Room

Blender is a very popular 3D animation program, but not many people know that this open source, cross platform software also works well as a video editor. Some people consider Blender to be the best open source video editor available. (See the comments at the end of this article on Opensource.com).

To quickly get you up to speed, this well-done 23-minute video explains Blender to people who are already familiar with Final Cut Pro video editor — as well as with others.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue readingBlender: An Introduction for Final Cut Pro Users
Just Because It Says ‘Open Source Hardware’ Doesn’t Mean It Really IsOpen Source Hardware logo

Just Because It Says ‘Open Source Hardware’ Doesn’t Mean It Really Is

By Phil Shapiro on September 13, 2016 |

Community, Copyright, Hardware, Maker Movement, Patents and Video

Is it “organic,” or just merely “natural?” Is it really “open source hardware,” or merely hardware with a degree of openess? David Jones explains the problem in identifying which is which and who is whom.

The Video Screening Room

David L. Jones, an electronics design engineer based in Sydney Australia, explains his pragmatic solution to the use of the open source hardware logo — inspired by the varying gradations of the Creative Commons licenses.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue readingJust Because It Says ‘Open Source Hardware’ Doesn’t Mean It Really Is
Krita 3.01 Beta ReleasedKrita logo

Krita 3.01 Beta Released

By Phil Shapiro on September 9, 2016 |

Software, Tutorial and Video

Around since 2005, and with its Kiki the Cyber Squirrel mascot since 2012, Krita is a free and open source raster graphics editor designed to be a digital painting application similar to Corel Painter.

The Video Screening Room

The popular Krita painting program keeps getting even better. This new beta release of 3.01 includes features added from Google Summer of Code programmers. This screencast does a very good job explaining the new features, including new animation tools.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue readingKrita 3.01 Beta Released
Getting Ready for VLC 3.0VLC logo

Getting Ready for VLC 3.0

By Phil Shapiro on September 6, 2016 |

Software and Video

Everything you ever wanted to know about VLC but were afraid to ask.

The Video Screening Room

VideoLAN (also called VLC) is a very popular media player available for all major technology platforms. Work is progressing towards a 3.0 release and in this new video you can meet some of the developers working to make that happen.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

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David Beazley’s Keynote Talk at PyData Chicago 2016David Beazley

David Beazley’s Keynote Talk at PyData Chicago 2016

By Phil Shapiro on September 2, 2016 |

Software and Video

One of the things we’ve noticed over the years is how enthusiastic people are about Python, which shows in this keynote address by David Beazley.

The Video Screening Room

This post-lunch screencast presentation by David Beazley is so entertaining, you can enjoy it without knowing any Python programming whatsoever. The aside comments alone are worth the price of admission. I won’t tell you the topic of the presentation. Suffice it to say — plenty funny.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue readingDavid Beazley’s Keynote Talk at PyData Chicago 2016

A Webinar on Big Data

By Phil Shapiro on August 30, 2016 |

Business

Big data is all the rage these days in the enterprise. If you’re trying to wrap your head around exactly what big data is, our contributing video editor has found this video from AWS.

The Video Screening Room

For all you open source data scientists out there, this hour-long recorded webinar explains the big data tools and services you can use on Amazon. I learned a lot of data science lingo watching this video.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue readingA Webinar on Big Data
‘Show-and-Tell’ Cool Maker Projects on HangoutsShow-and-Tell Maker Movement

‘Show-and-Tell’ Cool Maker Projects on Hangouts

By Phil Shapiro on August 26, 2016 |

Community, Hardware, Maker Movement and Video

Wow! This live Hangout show looks a lot like a DIY version of one of the morning shows on over-the-air TV — and if there’s any doubt that the maker movement thrives on open source, the first guest’s project is all about Python and Arduino. Be sure to check out the cool Star Trek combadge. Beam us up, Mr. Shapiro!

The Video Screening Room

Lady Ada and Philip Torrone are both legendary makers and exemplary sharers of hacks and tips. Their weekly “Show-And-Tell” Google Hangout is always fascinating. These Hangouts are archived to YouTube.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue reading‘Show-and-Tell’ Cool Maker Projects on Hangouts
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