This trip was a big deal. The last time I was in the UK was 1988, where I’d just finished primary school. In the intervening twenty years or so, some of my aunts and uncles had been out here, and Mum, Dad and my sister had been back there. Time waits for no man, and it became apparent that as the years went by the opportunities to catch up with family were slipping by. Logistically I found a value airfare with Malaysia Airlines, made sure it was OK to stay with my Aunt and Uncle, organised my passport and a suitcase, and most importantly booked two whole months of leave from work. Yay!

Getting there

One of the things that had put me off travelling previously was economy class. My backside is artistically described as ‘Rubenesque’, and the thought of squeezing into a tiny seat and remaining in situ for 23 hours was not particularly appealling. Enter Malaysia Airlines and their cheap business class fare – fantastic! Having some extra room would also help the Dodgy Leg.  Apart from the bigger seat, there were a number of other advantages to travelling this way;

• The food: Malaysia Airlines food was superb. Yes, it was business, but I’ve been in four star restaurants that have served up dishes inferior to these. Warm, tasty satays, gourmet coffee, and on the return journey a perfectly spiced plum pudding topped with brandy custard! One of my favourites was salmon with a dill and cream sauce – absolute perfection. One observation was that Malaysia Airlines weren’t very big on dairy – there was very little milk, cheese or ice cream etc in the menu.
• The lounge: With a business class ticket comes the airline lounge. Some travellers swear by this for the food and beverages (which were lovely), but for me the lounge came with bundles of peace and quiet! No screaming infants, incessant boarding calls and general noise pollution found in airports.
• Being fast tracked everywhere: A priority pass is worth its weight in gold. Business class comes with a priority pass, so you can ease your way through passport control and get to board early. Not that I was in a hurry, but hey who wants to hang around in a queue?

The service was fantastic, and speaking Indonesian I was able to pick up  most of the announcements, which came around first time in Malay then in English. In short, business class on Malaysia Airlines is worth every penny!

First impressions

The first thing that struck me by the UK was how small everything is. In Australia we have the luxury of space – wide, open roads, large 6-cylinder cars to fill them, urban sprawl in every direction, large houses and acres of back yard. In contrast in the UK, a 6-cylinder is considered a massive car and most of the vehicles on the road are tiny Micras, Kas etc that can fit into the narrow, windy roads and compact car parking spaces. Homes are built along a similar principle – terraced and semi detached dwellings are the norm, with detached houses considered a luxury for the wealthy. Gardens are well kempt – with a few roses or small shrubs  – which are snowed over in winter. It is perhaps this environment that has given rise to the sense of community I felt in the UK – neighbours know each other, and often ‘pop round’ frequently. Everybody is connected, and news is shared readily. Here we’re perhaps more isolated from each other.

A trip up north

One of my Aunts kindly offered to take me ‘up north’ from Morpeth to Alnwick and Berwick upon Tweed. How could I resist? First stop on the way was Berwick upon Tweed – a town very close to the Scottish border. This town has a long history of war – being torn between England and Scotland, and the walls built to keep invaders out can still be seen to this day.

On the way back from Berwick we passed close the the Cheviot, a range of hills which have traditionally separated England from Scotland. I’d love to go back on a day it wasn’t raining and see if I could snap some better photographs – the rain not only altered the light, but managed to fog out the lens…

Alnwick is one of the jewels in Northumberland’s crown. It is considered to be an ideal holiday destination and today still sports a number of coffee shops, boutiques and generally has a lovely atmosphere. Alnwick castle to this day is still a stately home, and is run as a tourist attraction. Unfortunatley it was raining when we visited, but I did manage to get a shot or two;

My favourite stop in Alnwick though has to be Barter Books – one of the largest second hand bookstores in Great Britain. My great finds here were a copy of ‘The Human Mind’ by Robert Winston, and a pack of ‘Keep calm and carry on‘ postcards. You could browse through this shop for hours – it’s built on an old railway station.

Any mention of Alnwick would be incomplete without a paragraph on the Alnwick Garden. A brainchild of the Duchess of Northumberland, the Garden is set on several hectares and features a large treehouse restaurant, cascading fountain, water features and even a poison garden! Again, this is an attraction I’d love to see in summer time.

Learning the lingo

As with any destination, it did take a little while to learn some of the lingo. Most people in Northumberland speak with a Geordie accent, however my Uncle speaks a much broader dialect, known as Pitmatic. It’s mainly the vowel sounds which are different – for instance instead of saying ‘yoga’ (spoken in an Aussie accent as ‘yoe-gga’) it sounds more like ‘yorrga’. There’s also different words for things – like throwing something out is ‘hoying oot’, and instead of ‘yes, I’m good thanks’ it’s ‘aye, ahreet champion hinney’!

Widdrington (aka ‘Widders’)

My Aunt and Uncle live in a village called Widdrington, near Morpeth. It’s quite picturesque, even if prone to flooding.

The Toon

Newcastle upon Tyne, affectionately known as ‘The Toon’ by locals, is the largest city in the region. Technically it’s not located in the county of Northumberland, but in Tyne and Wear. Significant investment has occurred into the city in recent years; there is a strong push to make it a hub of scientific research and arts and culture. This is evident by The Sage music complex and The Baltic contemporary art museum. I can’t comment on The Sage, but The Baltic was well worth a visit.

Off to Bonnie Scotland

A trip to Great Britain wouldn’t be complete without a trip to Scotland, and I chose the highlands as my first foray into rebel territory. On the way we went through a lovely place called Moffat, which although is reknowned for knitwear didn’t have a single skein of yarn for sale!

Unfortunately the coach trip was also home to Moaning Moira, a middle aged lady with a very nervous (and annoying) disposition. In hindsight she was probably had some sort of anxiety disorder, but for the duration of the trip she clung to me and was constantly asking questions about what time it was, and stressing over the smallest of details – like a button on a dress. She’s also frequently check her watch and once burst into tears because the coach hadn’t arrived 20 minutes before it was supposed to! Well, at least she was character building!

We got to stay in a small village near Inverness called Strathpeffer. The whole setup was quite amusing, as the proprieter, Lin, was Chinese by birth. The haggis however was absolutely delicious – something I hadn’t really anticipated enjoying!

The next stop was Drumnadrochit and Inverness, in search of the evasive Nessie. Unfortunately she must have been on holidays for the winter! To be honest, Loch Ness was a little disappointing – it’s nothing more than a large lake and surrounding scrubland. Although the lake is quite large, the ecosystem of the area is such that it’s highly unlikely to have ever supported a mammal or large fish.

Inverness was wonderful – and of course would have been better if it hadn’t rained! One thing I did notice in Inverness was the large number of Polish immigrants – there were many signs in Polish and shops selling Polish smallgoods.

The next day I got to the northernmost point in the trip – the village of Ullapool, on Scotland’s northwest coast. There was a fabulous knitting shop there, but being a Sunday (and very limited Sunday trading in Scotland) the shop was closed!

York

Luckily, I also had the opportunity to go to York, ostensibly to catch up with a cousin, but also to see the wonderful Christmas Market they have – absolutely amazing!

Edinburgh

After the highlands, it wasn’t long before I again had the urge to head northwards. This time I stayed in Edinburgh for a few days – an amazing experience (and yes, it rained!). The Edinburgh Pass was a worthwhile investment, as it worked out a lot cheaper than paying for the tourist attractions individually. The highlight of my time in Edinburgh was a visit to Dynamic Earth – similar to Melbourne’s ScienceWorks but with a focus on geology and earth sciences. It was absolutely amazing! Coming a close second was Camera Obscura, an attraction which focused on optical illusions (and one of the few which actively encouraged visitors to bring their cameras with them!)

The Edinburgh Zoo and Edinburgh Botanic Gardens also get a noteworthy mention. To be honest though, the Melbourne (and in the case of the Botanic Gardens, Geelong) are just as good, if not better. It was quite ironic that the star attraction at the Edinburgh Zoo were koalas!

The Edinburgh Castle was a big disappointment to be honest – the cover charge was not included in the cost of the Edinburgh Pass, and I found the staff to be quite pushy. They took a photograph of you when you first went into the castle, and made it look like an entry requirement. In reality it was just a ploy so they could sell you photos at the end of the tour – very dodgy indeed. The other factor which detracted from the Castle was that the Scottish War memorial was located inside – and you had to pay an entrance fee to visit the memorial. Pretty low if you ask me. Oh, and the Scottish crown jewels weren’t worth writing home about!

Off to the continent

My great Aunt and I took a coach tour along the Rhine in Germany, where I also have more relatives (we all tend to travel a fair bit!). Our first stop was Wiesbaden, where there was a German Christmas market (similar to the ones in York and Edinburgh – to be honest by the end of the trip I’d seen just about enough German Christmas Markets) but the chocolate goodies in this one were superb. Of course it was important that I pick up the language, so that I could distinguish between dark chocolate (zarkbitterschokolade) and not so preferred white chocolate (weissschokolade). Zarkbitterschokolade, bitte!!!!

We stayed in a place called Assmanshausen which was delightful.

We toured markets in Rudesheim, Boppard and Kobblenz, but Rudesheim was the best  – and it had the biggest chocolate shop. The return journey went through Belgium, where I thought it was my patriotic duty to sample the chocolate

I’m proud of Geelong. We have a lovely city – wonderful beaches, friendly people and great facilities. Like any metropolis though, we have problems with Trash, and today I got to meet her face to face. After having spent a very pleasant morning photographing the flora of the Geelong Botanical Garden, Mum and I were meandering back to the car when we noticed a steady stream of well dressed doyennes arriving at the Garden, ostensibly for some sort of function. “Lovely”, we thought, “wonderful place to get married!”.

As I was dismantling  the lenses, the carpark began to get full. Unlike most Trash, this piece arrived not on the wind but in a beige-gold Ford Falcon – the same colour as a fake Rolex. Ms Trash alighted from the vehicle, intent on being able to use the carpark we were obviously about to vacate. “I’ll be two  minutes,” I said, noting the large sunglasses and too-short-for-this-weather skirt, “just packing up”. I continued to clean the lenses and pack them away. Pouting, Ms Trash was not to be fobbed off. “Could you do me a favour?”, she whined in one of those used-to-getting-my-own-way-because-I’m-up-myself voices, “we’re running late for a wedding. Could you just back our your car so that we can get in?”

Principle Number #1: Your failure to plan does not make it my problem

No, we can’t. You are late for a wedding because you’ve failed to plan. Your tardiness (and hideous outfit) are testament to this. At this point Mr Trash, for whom patience is not a strong suit, began to beep his horn. His very small horn. The intent of this unashamedly alpha male behaviour of course was to intimidate us. Wrong move.

Principle Number #2: Be nice. It will get you better results than being nasty.

Mum and I are reasonable people. We’re generous and friendly. We talk to strangers, and we let people into traffic. But neither of us tolerates fools, and in particular detest arrogant swine who think their God’s gift to creation. Now, had Ms Trash been somewhat humble (heaven forbid, friendly!) and asked courteously we probably would have been pleasant and calmly reversed out of the car park. Mr Trash continued to beep. Ms Trash continued to pout. Smoke began to waft from Mum’s ears.

Principle Number #3: Don’t piss off my Mum!

Mum sat firm, keys in ignition, with no intent to turn them. “I don’t think so!” she bellowed. More smoke emanated from her ears. More beeping. More pouting. Finally, I instructed Mr and Ms Trash to find an alternate car park. And as we drove past, around two minutes later after gently and calming reversing out of the park, we noticed the Fake Rolex-mobile…. 100 metres away in a large alternate car park.

So, if you see a Ford Falcon in a fake Rolex beige gold, number plate RGR 170, please don’t do anything – including giving them your car park. They’re obviously not from Geelong

Software Freedom Day 2009 was held at the Melbourne PC User Group rooms at Chadstone shopping centre on 19th September 09. Organised by Brianna Laugher, President of WikiMedia Australia, and Donna Benjamin, President of Linux Users’ Victoria, the event aimed to showcase the numerous free and open source software and hardware tools available for use.

The day saw numerous presentations, including;

• Wen Lin presented on how to use alternative operating systems such as Ubuntu on your netbook, and how to use Clonezilla for backup up and restoring your system
• Ben Sturmfels presented on the basic freedoms that open source software embodies
• Simon Hobbs provided an overview of using Drupal for building websites
• Minh Nguyen presented on programming with Python
• Daniel Jitnah presented on how to make the move to open source

During the day Andy Gelme, who’s heavily into open hardware and is involved with the Community Connected Hackerspace in Melbourne gave an hour and a half workshop on Arduinos, where we all got to program an Arduino. This was much easier than I had anticipated, as it only required a bsic knowledge of electronics, and some experience in C.

I ran two workshops during the day on WordPress;

• Introduction to WordPress
• Advanced WordPress

A very big thank you to Multimedia Victoria, who generously supported the event, allowing hundreds of Open CDs containing free and open source software to be produced and distrubted.

BarCampMelbourne 2009 was, in a nutshell, awesome!

The event generated ideas, promoted discussion and got people thinking about what’s possible with technology, why it’s possible and how to make things happen.

BarCampMelbourne was held at UrbanCamp, a facility designed primarily for school groups located in Parkville, next to the State Hockey and Netball Centre. UrbanCamp was chosen for the presentation spaces it offered, along with its close proximity to public transport, and the fact that it offered hostel-style accommodation.

Around 50-60 people participated in BarCampMelbourne – from all facets of the technology industry. There was  strong representation from the open source community, and several attendees were heavily into Arduino, many of whom attend the Community Connected Hackerspace group.

The presentations ranged from entertaining and comedic, to downright scary. My personal favourites included;

Paul Fenwick’s talk on Facebook privacy: Paul demonstrated, using the Perl Facebook API, how you could ‘dark stalk’ someone even if their privacy settings were set very strictly – by following the activity of their friends to find gaps in information. He used a number of Facebook Query Language examples to illustrate the incredible amount of information held on individuals within Facebook. Incredibly informative and incredibly scary – and if you haven’t tightened up your Facebook privacy settings – do it now!

Tara’s talk on what technology means to her: One of the most inspiring talks was from Tara – at just thirteen she was by far the youngest presenter at BarCamp. Her presentation was on what technology means to her – how it is now an embedded, expected part of everything she does – her hobbies, education and relationships. While listening to Tara, I imagined her in 15 years, running her own BarCamp (or whatever BarCamp evolves into in the future), and wondered whether she would have a generally positive or negative view of technology; whether she would simply accept the value that it adds to everyday life or wonder about the implications of humankind becoming so dependent upon it.

Donna’s talk on Zing collaboration: Donna Benjamin, executive director of Creative Contingencies, showcased the Zing collaboration software, and facilitated a discussion on how technology could be harnessed to aid journalistic reporting of natural disasters such as bushfires. This allowed us to elaborate on a number of the themes raised in Wolf Cocklin’s presentation. Everyone contributed to Zing through the use of wirelessly connected keyboards, so the collaboration occurred in real-time.

Wolf’s talk on Social Media for Disasters: Wolf Cocklin, from the ABC, shared with us his experience in using social media such as Twitter with the ABC to provide coverage of natural disasters, such as the Black Saturday bushfires. He illustrated the ethical dilemma of broadcasters such as the ABC receiving information from listeners, and being torn between re-broadcasting the info via tweets, thus helping people to make evacuation decisions, and finding a method to verify the information.

Josh Stewart’s discussion on home automation: Josh Stewart led a discussion on home automation – a topic close to my heart at the moment because I’m doing a lot of work with the Audio-Visual and Videoconferencing team at work, and part of their responsibility includes automation through things such as room control panels. Josh demonstrated some of the available equipment for home automation, such as Arduino. The key hold up to this taking off is the lack of available standards, and the lack of compliance to existing standards from manufacturers. I would love to be able to control my air conditioning remotely, or send an SMS signal to the garden to water the plants during a hot summer day. My assessment at this stage is that home automation is in its infancy; however there exists a strong set of requirements that will only grow stronger as more electronic devices are added to homes – this is definitely a growth area.

Many of the talks (those given in the main presentation hall) were recorded on video and are available (with many thanks to the champion efforts of Avi Miller) here:
http://barcampmelbourne.blip.tv/

BarCampMelbourne would not have been made possible without these kind sponsors. Their generous assistance meant that BarCampMelbourne was free for all attendees.

• Linux Australia: http://www.linux.org.au
• SitePoint: http://www.sitepoint.com.au
• Open Start: [URL is top secret! Stay tuned!]
• OSDC: http://www.osdc.com.au
• Open Query: http://www.openquery.com
• Perl Training Australia: http://perltraining.com.au
• Creative Contingencies: http://www.cc.com.au
• Strategic Data: http://www.strategicdata.com.au
• MD Web Hosting: http://www.mdwebhosting.com.au (Awesome hosting deal at http://www.mdwebhosting.com.au/web-hosting-special.html)
• James Turnbull: http://james-turnbull.net/books.htm
• LUV: http://www.luv.asn.au
• Sputnik Agency: http://sputnikagency.com

My own talks were on;

• Why ITIL Problem Management is your friend (a reworked version of the StixCamp talk)
• Introduction to CiviCRM for donor and volunteer management

We also managed to capture a number of photos of both BarCampMelbourne and the UrbanCamp venue – they’re mostly up on Flickr;

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/barcampmelbourne/
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/urbancamp

So, when will the next BarCamp be? It’s likely to be a StixCamp style event, but the location has not yet been decided.

BarCampMelbourne 2009 is nearly upon us, and Ben and I have been madly getting stuff organised for 12th-13th September. We have an amazing venue at UrbanCamp Royal Park, with photos thanks to Donna Benjamin. The sponsorship has been a little slow in coming but we’re hoping to source some addiional funding to ensure the event is as affordable as possible for participants. The ideas are coming in thick and fast for presentation topics, and there are even some spots left – so register now!

The BarCampMelbourne organisers have been hard at it again – this time putting together an event at Royal Park, Melbourne at UrbanCamp, set to take place over the weekend of 12th-13th September. So, we’re putting out the call for sponsors to help support the event. So, if you know a company who might be willing to offer financial or in kind assistance to help support a group of enthusiastic people passionate about technology, let us know!

It’s been cold and frosty, so obviously wonderful knitting weather! I’m bored to tears with the Lift and Separate, so have been doing a miriad of side projects  such as the Stolen Moments wrap. This looks deceptively simple – a drop stitch / increase openwork pattern. However, I had to rip it back a marathon 7 times as my mind wandered and drops and increases were put in the wrong spot – one wrong stitch and the whole pattern is messed up. The yarn choice for the Stolen Moments was ‘Mousse’ by Moda Vera – a soy / wool blend. Mousse is lovely – the only drawback is that it’s quite felty – not exactly what I wanted for this project – but incredibly warm. Surprise surprise the chosen colour was a lovely warm beige

To show off the lace pattern, the finished article was blocked (on a foam pilates mat using dressmakers’ pins!) and left to dry. It opened up a little, but it may need to be blocked again as it’s quickly closed up again.

So, this means I’d get straight back to the Lift and Separate, right…. sadly no

Tikki’s Oriental Lily pattern is absolutely gorgeous – but not having smellyannoying stinky whingy adorable children myself, chose to knit it for a friend’s daughter – 4 year old Ruby. Ruby is much taller than most 4 year olds, and the pattern only goes up to 2 year old sizing, so the following alterations were made to the pattenr;

• The chosen yarn was a 10 ply yarn – Panda Zoomy. The pattern was sized using 8 ply and when I swatched the 10 ply knitted almost double the 10 ply. That worked out well because the newborn pattern size when doubled is exactly the measurements for a large four year old!
• The arms in the Oriental Lily pattern have increases to flare the sleeves. After chatting with Ruby’s Mum, we both decided that flared sleeves on a boisterous four year old were a bad idea, so I did tapered ones instead
• I used the contrast yarn to do a cuff on both the sleeves and the hem of the skirt, which itself was much longer than the pattern, and the cuff helped it to drop
• With the leftover yarn I whipped up a simple stockingette scarf (a very useful accessory for a four year old who is interested in fairy princesses)!

CeBIT is a 3-day conference which focuses on business technology and IT solutions, and is held every year in Australia. Companies exhibit at CeBIT, hoping to build brand awareness and promote their service offerings. This year, Australian domain name registration and web hosting company Netregistry tried a slightly different marketing tactic – and it’s one that’s making me sick.

Using a ‘medical’ theme to promote their web site health check service, Netregistry dressed female staff in quasi-nurse uniforms, and had them ask CeBIT attendees about the health of their websites. According to this article by ZDNet, Netregistry CEO Larry Bloch (@larrybloch on Twitter) has stated that

“There would have been female doctors if any of our sales people were female — but they’re not”

This is appalling on three levels;

Representation of women in ICT: Instead of having female consultants and sales staff with (presumably) the technical and interpersonal skills to analyse the health of a client’s website, instead models (employed for their looks, not for their intellectual capital) are used engage the (predominantly male) attendees of CeBIT.

Representation of the nursing profession: The nursing profession has worked long and hard to build an image of nurses built on trust, integrity and professional deportment. Placing women in nurses’ uniforms to sell website ‘health checks’ detracts not only from the image of women, but also from the image of nurses and the nursing profession.

Lack of female representation in sales roles: The question everyone is forgetting to ask is why there are no female sales staff at Netregistry? Oh woops, my bad – as a female why would I want to work for an organisation that so obviously doesn’t see women as professional and intelligent, but as eye candy to sell a service. Recruit me now.

No wonder I moved away from Netregistry for my web hosting some time ago. They were appalling then and things it seems haven’t changed.

If you’re as angry as I am about this, send @larrybloch or @Netregistry a Tweet.

Disclaimer: I wasn’t at CeBIT, I didn’t see the ‘nurses’ in question. But I didn’t have to…

Ada Lovelace Day celebrates inspirational women in technology. This post is dedicated to Quinn Norton, a journalist who specialises in covering the fields of body hacking and functional body modification. Unusual choice? You bet! Inspirational? Definitely

Body hacking is, like all other forms of volition: the freedom to enact your will upon a system

Quinn embodies (no pun intended) freedom. Her viewpoint is that in our society we often have less control over our own bodies than we do over other objects such as hardware. Medical procedures are tightly regulated and governed not from the perspective of individual freedom, but societal need. She is an advocate of something called functional body modification – implanting devices, taking drugs and having surgery that enhances our abilities.

This has particular importance to me. I have a distance vision of less than 10 inches, am morbidly obese and have a 3 generational family history of premature death due to cardiac failure. My father was one of the first people in Australia to have an implantable defibrillator – a machine which regulated his heartbeat and actively restarted his heart on a number of occasions when it went into nonviable rhythm. Without life there is no technology. I can’t code when I’m dead.

That said, I’m conservative. I won’t get laser eye surgery to restore my vision to 20/20, yet happily underwent gastric banding to reduce obesity. Without Quinn’s view of body modification – that it is an expression of freedom – it would have taken me a lot longer to reach this decision and take a positive step. Would I take Provigil to make myself more alert? I’m not sure, but thanks to Quinn Norton  now I think about body enhancement in a different way and am more open to freeing my body from the constraints that have been imposed upon it by nature.

Using technology to alter the body is nothing new. Surgery has been around for over 100 years. However for the most part it has been mechanical – amputation via hacksaw, bloodletting and debridement via scalpel, relocation of joints with brute force. Technology has only entered mainstream medicine in the last 40-50 years – with lasers for surgery, neurosurgery via telescope, better monitoring through machines. It is a matter of time before the body and technology will merge, perhaps in unexpected ways. Will the next generation be part man, part machine? Will becoming part machine be an evolutionary requirement due to the pace of change – the sheer amount of information that has to be absorbed to be productive? How will social status be changed by the ability to enhance bodies? Thin people are better than fat people!

What it means to be female is also changing. As a female, I can control reproduction and choose to have a baby – only when I want to. If I don’t want children, I can still use my body for the benefit of others and act as a surrogate for a friend or colleague who can’t carry to term – an expression not just of freedom but of altruism. Functional body modification also brings with it new challenges – such as the ability to subscribe to changing societal norms – enormous perky breasts that seem to defy gravity, faces that never sag and bums that never droop.

Quinn Norton is a pioneer – using her own body as a platform with which to experiment, push boundaries and continually question what it means to be human.

Watch Quinn Norton’s presentation on Body Hacking

Donna Benjamin is President of Linux Users’ Victoria and is quite influential in the open source community. Her talk at StixCampNewstead was on the open source product ‘Inkscape‘ – which provides a free alternative to programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Fireworks.

Most people at the presentation had had some exposure to Inkscape which made Donna’s presentation all the more interesting. She demonstrated a number of the features of Inkscape including:

• Bezier curves
• Stroke and fill options

Inkscape produces scalable vector graphics – as opposed to the raster images produced by the likes of Photoshop. This makes it quite a useful tool for large format printing, such as for banners. It can also be scripted, for instance by taking XML input and using it to have dynamic text represented in an image.

Inkscape provides very fine grained controlled over stroke and fill options – I was very impressed by the stroke options available. Often in graphics programs the stroke options go to a minimum of .5pt for stroke – but Inkscape can go much finer which is useful for line art based designs.

The creation above is my first attempt at using Inkscape (keep in mind I’m fluent with Illustrator, Fireworks and Photoshop) and generally it is very easy to use. The interfaces are a little foreign at first, but then any graphics application that’s reasonably mature usually is. The only real difficulty I had was that it does not output PNG natively – it has to first be converted to a raster image. When importing between Inkscape and GIMP, there were also some parts of the image that were not correctly converted.