The...

U.S. Open Government Initiative Dashboard

...provides an openness rating for each federal agency. But, more importantly, it provides a link to open information (data) available from each agency.

From jkOnTheRun...

Free Office 2010 E-Book Available From Microsoft

Microsoft Press/MSDN page with free ebook (PDF) download link...

Free e-book: “First Look: Microsoft Office 2010”

I freely admit to "not getting" what Google Wave is about. Fortunately, there is a new book on the topic co-written by LifeHacker founder Gina Trapani...

The Complete Guide to Google Wave

FYI: The link above is to the URL...

http://completewaveguide.com/

Here's something you don't see as part of the weekly Free on iTunes giveaway list: An unabridged audiobook...

FREE: The Future of a Radical Price (Unabridged)

Note that this is probably only free until July 20, 2009 (next week Monday).

The U.S. Government's...

Data.gov

...is up and running.

The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.

I'm looking forward to dipping into it to see what is there and hope to see a bunch of cool web-data mashups resultings from its availability.

Interesting item from eaves.ca...

vancouver enters the age of the open city

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the City of Vancouver endorses the principles of:

- Open and Accessible Data - the City of Vancouver will freely share with citizens, businesses and other jurisdictions the greatest amount of data possible while respecting privacy and security concerns;

This should be an interesting government site...

Data.gov

The description on the current teaser home page reads: This site will make a broad array of U.S. Government data available in downloadable formats.

I'm not exactly sure how all the science fiction and fantasy titles list at...

Free Speculative Fiction Online

...get around copyright issues although that is what the site claims. Some titles like Cory Doctorow's which are copyrighted under Creative Commons are legit, of course. But, there are some other big name authors that surprise me - like Ursula K. Le Guin.

If you are looking for a good free podsafe Christmas song, look no further than...

Podsafe Christmas Song

...by the great Jonathan Coulton (Code Monkey and Still Alive are my Coulton favorites). This oldie but a goodie was posted on his blog back on Nov. 30, 2005. The song was sung/recorded Chipmunk style and is great fun to listen to.

BTW, Coulton has a more recent posting about his...

JoCo Looks Back

Interesting news item from Network World

Open source could fix e-voting flaws, California secretary of state says

Having a reviewable source code set for e-voting machines would make me feel more comfortable with them.

Despite the Master Plan's statement that the online videos would be shut down on July 20...

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

...Acts 1, 2, and 3 are still viewable (and extremely entertaining) online. My only caveat is that it is sort-a-kind-a PG-13, but just barely. If you are a Joss Whedon fan who missed his latest production and first web-production, wander over to the site linked above.

The Internet Archive hosts the...

NASA Images

...images site. There's some spectacular images with text descriptions there. Great time waster (but educational :-).

Smashing Magazine, a web design focused magazine, has a bunch of free stuff at...

Smashing Freebies

The free items includes RSS icons, typefaces, Wordpress themes, wall papers and more. Very cool stuff.

I posted my second podcast to Blogr. I have commentaries on 10 items as well as the podcast and app of the week. You can find and listen to the podcast at:

OgasaWalrus Podcast #2

Here's the show notes:

Podcast #2 (11min 44sec)
NEWS
1. iPhone 3G/iPod touch 2.0.
Freeware for...

2. TechOnABudget.com/blog

MAIN
1. Adobe Buzzword imports Word 2007/Word 2008 file formats

2. MOST VIEWED blog entry for the past two weeks (425)
Alternative to LifeHacker's 5 best windows maintenance tools
- CCleaner (same)

My first OgasaWalrus Podcast (under 8 minutes) is posted to Blogr.com. Click on the link below...

OgasaWalrus Podcast 20080701

...to get to browser based podcast player to listen to it. You don't need to download it or subscribe to it to give it a try.

Here's a list links to items I mentioned in the podcast...

Tools Mentioned:
Apple iLife Garageband
Audacity Sound Editor

The IMSLP Petrucci Music Library provides free PDF downloads of public domain music scores. It apparently shut down a while ago but has just been revived.

Feedbooks.com takes public domain books and provides them for free for a variety of electronic book readers (including Windows Mobile mobile phones and the Kindle). Windows Mobile smartphones can use either the Mobipocket or ePub formats provided by Feedbooks. I've installed Mobipocket (also free) on a Windows Mobile Professional Edition (Pocket PC) device and will be looking at it closer on my MobileViews.com blog.

In 1941 the National Park Service commissioned noted photographer Ansel Adams to create a photo mural for the Department of the Interior Building in Washington, DC. The theme was to be nature as exemplified and protected in the U.S. National Parks. The project was halted because of World War II and never resumed. That's the opening paragraph from the web page of the...

Records of the National Park Service: Ansel Adams Photographs

OK, this is amazing. Cory Doctorow's book Little Brother is on the New York Times' bestseller list AND is also available as a free download in multiple e-formats. Check it out at...

Little Brother - Download for Free