Posted 10/16/09 at 03:30:00 PM by Florence Ion

We’ve decided to add on to our “of the Week” series by featuring a resourceful and easy-to-use web application at the end of the week. This week, we’d like to introduce you to BackupURL, a web service that allows you to create a copy of any text-heavy website you desire and share it without the fear that it will go offline.

 BackupURL stores a cached copy of your webpage and its text  to a ready-to-share page, which is accessible from an already shortened link. This service is great for students who are afraid their research material and resources will go offline, or professionals who want to hold on to those important blocks of text.

Read on for more!

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Posted 07/16/09 at 02:34:27 PM by David Murphy

With a mighty "yehhh," the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, passed a motion to adopt open standards in its local government this past May.  I find it to be a wonderful development--not just because I write about open source.  Rather, I think that the move is a twofold triumph: It allows governments to free themselves of pricy, proprietary software burdens while simultaneously opening up more areas of government for access by conventional citizens. 

It's no secret that programs like HOST and CRADA are helping the U.S. bring new, open standards of communication and accessibility to the forefront of the discussion.  I'd nevertheless like to see more cities working the answer from a bottom-to-top approach, adopting motions like Vancouver's--or, for that matter, using Vancouver's exact template--to call for the integration of open-source ideas and programs wherever possible in local government.

It's not an idle dream, as various cities in the United States have already started to dip their toes into open waters.  If our brethren to the north can take the plunge into open source sans hesitation, why not us as well?

Click the jump to learn more about Vancouver's open initiative!

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