I love to code, and I'd like to make a contribution. HP had a project (SourceXchange) for commercial match-making between developers and their sponsors, my dream is one that matches charities with their programming benefactors. I asked the manager of HP's effort if they'd expand it to include work "gratis," but they declined.

It makes a lot of sense to me, but maybe I'm just dense.

I don't like the idea of giving away something I've done to just any angst-ridden prick that happens upon it. Hence my refusal to participate in the open source movement.

I am charitable. I make gifts of money where it is needed, and will continue to do so. But Giving money feels very hollow. I want to give something substatntive, but all I know is engineering. I insist on continuing to work the private sector because I'm very productive, and that productivity (I hope) trickles down to the rest of the world over time.

I have seen the struggles that charities endure for sake of cause. Good, purpose-designed software can help them, even the smallest of them, to do what they do better. It can help them spend more time on the cause, and less time administering. That would be a worthwhile contribution, and is something that really excites me.

So, over the next few days I'm going to hash out my ideas on the subject here and hope some like-minded people read them, agree and join me. Or, maybe less ambitiously, help me refine my thoughts to form a plausable argument.

Let's leave the world a better place.

Do you have OnStar? It can read email, you know. That got me thinking...

My computer has a modem and so can act as an answering machine. Thanks to Microsoft, said PC also has a voice recognition API. So, it can record a message and convert it to text, text that can be emailed and read aloud by OnStar.

Something is lost in the translation, and I become bored.

Free language translation services abound on the 'net. So now OnStar reads french, poorly. :)

Yes, I have a job.

No, voice technology isn't practical. Not yet.

Open source developers are their own best fans. Where is the external support? Bumeer, eh?

Must code. Must... exercise... brain...

Yikes, it's been a while. That pesky software bug is biting again, nagging and pulling at me. Sooner than later I will capitulate.

First needs object libraries. I'm almost there, so it isn't a matter of design as much as implementation. Maybe that's why I haven't been excited about it. Combined with templates, user-defined objects in custom libraries will make it a generally useful tool.

Useful tools are even more useful when they are accessible, which means building a reasonable installer that combines the applet with the desktop components. I hate dealing with installers. None of them are good. If you build an installer builder, read this and are offended, I appologize. But, like it or not, your application sucks. Make it easier to use.

Lubricate the mind.