RE: what's the going price

["Janoff, Steve" <Steve -dot- Janoff -at- Teradata -dot- com>]

Thanks, Dick.  That's quite a portfolio of tools! :)

Steve 

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard L Hamilton [mailto:dick -at- rlhamilton -dot- net] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 12:17 PM
To: Janoff, Steve; 'Techwr-l'
Subject: RE: what's the going price

Steve,

I use:

- emacs (nxml mode) to edit xml (I also sometimes use oXygen,
  a commercial product, so I'm not 100% pure:). Incidentally,
  for what I normally do, emacs is fine, but if you're not an
  expert with some of the other XML/XSL tools, oXygen does a
  really nice job of integrating them, and it makes editing
  XML really easy.

- saxon and xsltproc to process xsl stylesheets.

- The DocBook xsl stylesheets to process DocBook instances and
  generate HTML, fo (input to fop), ePub, and various help formats.

- fop to generate pdf. Here's another case where I also use a
  commercial product, RenderX. fop is useful, and getting better
  all the time, but RenderX gives me some features that are a
  must for book publication (esp. extensions, without which I
  could not do an acceptable index). If you're not doing books,
  or your indexes are simple, you may be able to get away with fop.

- Open Office for everything I used to use Microsoft Office for.

- Inkscape for tasks you might use Illustrator for.

- Gimp for tasks you might use Photoshop for.

  Neither one of the last two is as fully capable as its Adobe
  counterpart, but then I'm not as capable, nor do I have the
  same needs, as the artists who use those tools. To touch up
  graphics, create flyers, etc., they work very well. When I
  need professional artwork, I go to pros.

- Calibre to work with eBooks. I use it to convert ePub to mobi,
  but it will do all sorts of eBook conversions.

While I still use Windows for some things, I also use Linux, Evolution
(mailer), Audacity (for audio), and gnucash (quicken/ quickbooks).

Not all of these are as capable or as well-documented as their
commercial counterparts, but they are all functional and help me keep my
expenses down.

Best Regards,
Dick Hamilton
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