It is about two and a half months since I started kosherdev.com. And I’d like to share some interesting statistics with you. Sure, “Big brother is watching you” and I know about every click on this site. Google analytics helps me a lot.
Today, I want to show visitors’ browser trends.
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Popularity: 100% [?]

analytics, chrome, firefox, google, internet explorer, linux, site, windows Hide

Surfing Internet I found an interesting project Zmanim for Unix systems.
This tool is not that easy to use, but still reports correct information about zmanim according to Vilna Gaon rules.
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Popularity: 19% [?]

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Searching for various windows/linux/mobile programs, I found a really interesting resource http://www.tichnut.de/jewish.

Unfortunately, most of programs are not updated for several years (some for more than 4-5 years). But still, User can find something interesting there.
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Popularity: 15% [?]

calendar, linux, tichnut, win32, zmanim Hide

Sometimes, I have a serious problem at home because no MS Windows is there.
But fortunately, there is WINE. Which sometimes can solve my problem.
Kaluach.com provides only win32 and mobile versions of their calendar. So, I decided to try double-click on Kaluach_3_2_41_24.exe.

Installation past smoothly. In ~/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/Kaluach3 there is Kaluach3.exe executable. Again double-click on it and voila:

the only problem I got was with the tree in Options and Preferences:

Some words about the system:
OS: Ubuntu 9.10
WINE: 1.1.31

Popularity: 41% [?]

linux, luach, win32, wine, zmanim Hide

To write this post I was inspired by this e-mail thread. It is really funny to hear from adepts of free software religious intolerant speeches. And I have got a question: is it kosher enough to write open-source programs?
In addition, I was thinking for a long time about halakhic aspects of Open-source in general. My rabbi told me once an example of halakhic issue:
If a rabbi opens a synagogue on a street and earns money for lending it to study Torah, then no one can open another on that street and especially for free.
In our case free software takes earnings from those, who live for that.
I propose to talk not about opposition Windows vs Linux, but about our, Jewish software.
There are a lot of closed source applications, which are provided for money, or supported by donations. Is there a problem to create open-source alternative software? Don’t we steel money from those, who live on it?

as an example, Kaluach.com distributes synagogue wall display program for a pretty big amount of money. Me personally, I don’t see any problem with earning money for programming (I cannot agree with Stallman to free absolutely all software). But the question is: can I create free-of-charge program, which will concur with Kaluach’s program?

Popularity: 77% [?]

halakha, linux, open-source, win32 Hide

At this time, I found two different versions of Linux command line utilities to get Jewish date and chalahic time.
Hebcal.
Pretty simple to use tool. Supports a variety of possibilities to get Jewish date and time.

$ hebcal -L 59,22 -l 24,48 -TSca
3rd of Kislev, 5770
Parshas Toldos
Candle lighting:  3:51

Notable features:
- Omer count support
- Reads a table of yahrtzeit dates from file.
The only minus, to my mind, is that help output is too long for UNIX-way application.
Installation on Ubuntu 9.10:

$ sudo apt-get install hebcal

LibHdate.
This library and hdate application is more popular, then hebcal. But actually it has less features.

$ hdate -l 59,22 -L 24,48 -z 2 -c
Friday, 20 November 2009, 3 Kislev 5770
(18:45)

Actually Shabbat start time is incorrect with hdate.
Hdate has similar to hebcal set of features, but lacks listed above notable ones.
Big plus is that this library is widely used in Linux Jewish software development. About Gnome hdate-applet I have written already.
Installation on Ubuntu 9.10:

$ sudo apt-get install libhdate1

Popularity: 27% [?]

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Kosherdev.com advised me a program for Desktop to see zmanim time and calendar.
The program is called simply luach and can be obtained from here.

Using Ubuntu at home, I downloaded firstly deb package. On my Ubuntu 9.10 it got installed without any problems.
After installation, there appears a nice icon in menu:

clicking the program’s menu shows actually the program:

What I have to say about this program. There a some really good points and some which I don’t like.
I will start with critics:
1. Window can be resized only to minimum width 1050px. With my laptop maximum width 1024px – it cuts the edges.
2. Only Hebrew. There is no other localizations for this program. Hope it is only temporary problem, which will be solved in future.

Now, good points:
1. The best thing is such program exists.
2. Simplicity of usage. As for me One-Button-interface is the best thing you can design for User Interface. So, the developers of Luach did their best to make UI simple and light.
3. Wow-effect is not fully obtained, but still program is pretty and smart. All these clicking on dates – look nice.

Linux program version is lower that Win32 one. So, in other review I am going to install Win32 version.

Popularity: 20% [?]

calendar, linux, ubuntu, zmanim Hide

Using Linux as a computer OS, I looker for a simple and user-friendly program for displaying Jewish dates.
Google helps as usual and I found HDate applet for Gnome.

Ubuntu has it in main repositories.

$ sudo apt-get install hdate-applet

After installation just add applet to panel. In my Gnome with Ubuntu 9.10 it looks like this.

Unfortunately, not everything is so good as we want. Seems that development finished in February 2008. So, some issue still persist in the program.

Leave Time Zone setting value 0.00. Otherwise it will plus to current time timezone difference.

Popularity: 34% [?]

gnome, linux, zmanim Hide