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Saugus uses open formats and open source. Perhaps Boston can learn a bit from its smaller (but older) neighbor to the North.

The Internet is littered with copycat sites. I don't doubt that everything of any value at all has been copied. Look at even a simple site like:

... and see how many times it's had its content copied without people even having the decency to give proper credit.

Googling on partial text of a few of the definitions will get you the copycats; there's no reason to advertise them here.

Saugus.net does some Zope hosting.

Lynn's equivalent of Saugus.net is Shore.net. Or I guess you could say "was". Some might say they sold out.

As the original poster of the mentioned article about Firefox in Saugus my point was that the New York Times article idea may not be the most effective because many of the New York Times readers are still reading newspapers because they haven't figured out the Internet yet.

I'd personally like to see the energy being spent to go into more effective advertising. The article promoting Firefox on Saugus.net is meant to be just one example... Saugus.net has a history of promoting free software, though; I'd like to see more local sites without such a history getting into the act.

As the original poster of the mentioned article about Firefox in Saugus my point was that the New York Times article idea may not be the most effective because many of the New York Times readers are still reading newspapers because they haven't figured out the Internet yet.

I'd personally like to see the energy being spent to go into more effective advertising. The article promoting Firefox on Saugus.net is meant to be just one example... Saugus.net has a history of promoting free software, though; I'd like to see more local sites without such a history getting into the act.

As the original poster of the mentioned article about Firefox in Saugus my point was that the New York Times article idea may not be the most effective because many of the New York Times readers are still reading newspapers because they haven't figured out the Internet yet.

I'd personally like to see the energy being spent to go into more effective advertising. The article promoting Firefox on Saugus.net is meant to be just one example... Saugus.net has a history of promoting free software, though; I'd like to see more local sites without such a history getting into the act.

Saugus.net has also opened up their annual Halloween Ghost Story Writing Contest to interactive fiction entries. So far though there haven't been any takers.

It's a fun medium and it's a shame more people don't try writing for it.

Saugus.net has also opened up their annual Halloween Ghost Story Writing Contest to interactive fiction entries. So far though there haven't been any takers.

It's a fun medium and it's a shame more people don't try writing for it.

You can check a few other high (and relatively high) profile sites that run on Zope:

• NASA's Maestro
• AARP
• Boston.com
• Saugus.net
• Many others that don't immediately come to mind...

Zope is also part of Massachusetts' "Open Source Trough" and will quite likely eventually power the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts' site at www.state.ma.us.

There's a lot more to Halloween than kids trick-or-treating. There's even more besides ghost stories and haunted houses, too. For some people it's a religious holiday, as Chistmas is for some. Saying that Halloween has passed its useful life because some parents are overreacting to bogus claims of tainted candy (there are no real cases reported of random tainted candy -- only things like Tylenol) is kind of like saying Christmas has passed its useful life because no one goes out caroling anymore.

Personally I like ghost stories for Halloween more than multiplayer online gaming events. There are a few online sources of stories including:

• Annual Saugus.net Ghost Story Contest
• Ghosts of Halloween Past
• American Folklore Ghost Stories

Even if one doesn't like ghost stories, there always seems to be quite a few interesting things going on around Halloween.

Thanksgiving is a better holiday for the multiplayer online gaming events as there's less nerd-centric stuff going on in the real world than there is on Halloween.

I think the two from back then were called the Seahorse and the Tarpon... there are pictures here.

It's also quite easy to convert plain text to the superior Newton book format; converters to do so are available here and there. There are also utilities out there to pull plain text back out of Newton books; locally Saugus.net uses such a utility to incorporate the text of Newton books into the site's search engine.

There are also still hundreds (actually probably over a thousand) Newton books freely available on the Internet. These days though they're somewhat scattered waiting for the return of Newton's Library (some of the original site can still be found on the Internet Archive) and other similar sites.

I was born in Massachusetts and am therefore somewhat biased, but having worked all over the country I always enjoy coming home. I've never lived directly in Boston and thus can't comment on life there, but living far enough out of the city to get some occasional quiet while still being close enough to it to enjoy its entertainment, schools, hospitals, etc. is a pretty good mix.

The Boston area has many strengths. It has one of the best local music scenes with some of the best local bands, some of the best pizza, good nightlife, decent public transportation, active special interest groups in any topic you care to name, and of course a really strong computer community.

As the original poster of one of the referenced articles, I have a couple thoughts on Open Source Software in Massachusetts.

First, the cited announcement of the Open Source Trough is really encouraging news. How can one find fault with the notion of having Apache, Zope, Linux, OpenLDAP, etc. all pre-packaged and distributed around to all the different state departments? Better still, this same package will be being made available to the various cities and towns of Massachusetts, too. The fact that other states may start working with Massachusetts to embrace / expand the Trough is icing on the cake.

Second, the question that immediately comes to mind is why it took so long? If GNU (along with Linux) is viewed as one of the parents of the Open Source Movement (or even just an important element), then the Boston / Cambridge / Rt. 128 area is arguably one of the most important sites worldwide for both the past and the present of the Open Source Movement. While it's true that some of the key Massachusetts regional sites like Saugus.net and Boston.com are (and have been for quite awhile) both users and advocates of open source software, there are many more regional sites that aren't. As for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts itself, it's great that it's sticking out against Microsoft even when so many others caved, and it's great that it's finally pushing open source software to its various departments, but it's amazing to me that they're only just starting to do so now.

If the Open Source Movement is taking so long to convince the governments right in its own backyard to switch, how long is it going to take to influence governments more distant? We can only hope that this Trough will have a positive impact and really serve to introduce open source software to those who otherwise would never have even looked.