Sorry i've not updated recently but unfortunately real world work has kept me pretty busy, and if it's able to keep me too busy to make a simple website doesn't that remind us how important our donations are to people trying to find time to work on the important open source projects upon which we've all come to rely? 
  
If we all donate a few dollars to the important figures in FLOS then we can free them from the need to waste time by simply earning money to survive - the work they do will then save us all money in the long run by saving us from having to purchase a closed licensed software product or even by giving us a cost or labour saving option which simple wouldn't exist otherwise - so our donations are vital to the people whose work is vital to us.....  donate to someone important today!

oh and thanks for using the site, it's not hugely busy but people are using it so hopefully we're helping FLOS to grow :D

I finally got round to reading the most recent edition of the FSF Bulletin (issue 20) and noticed an interesting story, they've just replenished their stock of Emacs Reference Mugs (http://shop.fsf.org/product/gnu-emacs-reference-mugs/) because the original batch sold out so rapidly; what's note worthy here is that it states the first batch was donated by 'a generous person who decided to 'donate them to help us'  - this represents a wonderfully effective method of giving as it's allowing the giver to use his position and skills to multiply the value of his donation.   
  
The donation may have cost the giver say £50 for the run of a thousand cups and a few hours of work, let's say another £50's worth - they've then been able to donate something which is worth much more to the FSF both as a money raising item, an advertisement and in this case a useful tool for Emacs users.
  
I think it's worth considering when you think about how best to help your favourite projects how your own personal skills, abilities and position can make that donation as effective and as useful as possible.

I'm currently working on a new design and organization, the site will be split into two sections for greater clarity and ease of use these will be a 'Guide To Helping Open Source Save The World' (or more likely a better title) which will be a book styled introduction to forwarding the open source movement by getting involved and donating or earning money.  The second section will be an appendix like list of useful open resources and projects with information and links.  
  
The plan will be that people read the guide first, either as a whole document or by simply skim reading relevant sections - then then use the resources to discover more projects and book mark the page as a useful page to return to.  
  
The third section of the site will then be implemented, a community driven portal with news and info about freedom related projects and their needs; if GNU have a donation drive it'll be posted here, if Wikipedia have a call out for more translators it'll be posted here, etc, - this will hopefully attract people to use the site regularly and in turn allow for the organization of community events, maybe running projects to publicise something or make group-effort posters which can be added to the various resource libraries (linked in 'the appendix') 
  
The final aim of the community portal will be to run competitions and events which promote or help the open source and creative commons movements.
  

As you can see i've set up a blog page, thought it might help communicate what's going on with the site and what plans are being made.  Comments are open and you're very welcome to join in the debate, or start a new one.

I've been a bit busy with work recently so not much done to the site, i have had a bit of time to enjoy the Gutenberg proofreading tasks and am well on my way to progressing into the higher stages.  The graph on the left is from their site, if you enjoy graphs then you'll love PGDP.net :)

I think my favourite thing about the distributed proofreading project is the random insights the books give; I've learnt some fascinating things about late Victorian dinner parties, a few funny facts about masonic ring lore and gathered a few interesting perspectives on events of the past.  Dipping into a random book for a few pages has turned out to be surprisingly amusing at times.  Plus of course the work itself has a few interesting aspects about it, haha I think if I keep at this I'll probably end up being able to date a page of literature simply by the way they use em-dashes (--) and ellipses. . . . 

very busy with a dozen things but i'm slowly working through the masses of info I've collected and trying to get a good understanding of it all.  I will create a much more sensible layout for the site soon, add even more projects people can get involved in and start working through and finding more open-source posters.