Giving back
This semester we are using mostly online texts, as well as quite a bit of free software. I hope that you will use some of the money you would have spent on books to support the authors and programmers whose efforts have benefitted us immensely.
Texts we’re using which you can buy
The links here are taken from creators’ websites, and often help them by paying a commission. I’ve heard that sometimes these commissions are bigger than royalties from publishers!
- Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Rules of Cyberspace
- Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture
- Kembrew McLeod, Freedom of Expression
- Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton, Web Style Guide
Software
Help these projects by donating cash or your time as a writer, programmer, or promoter.
- MediaWiki Wiki platform | Donate to the WikiMedia Foundation
- The Mozilla Project, makers of the Firefox browser and other fine software. | Donate or help.
- PuTTY SSH client for Windows | Donate
- Web design from scratch online tutorials | Donate
- WinSCP SFTP/SCP client for Windows | Donate
- WordPress weblog software | Donate
Advocacy
Donate funds or your talents to the following organizations, or help promote the causes they advocate:
- Creative Commons
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Free Software Foundation
- Web Standards Project
- World Wide Web Consortium
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
If you are interested in web accessibility, talk to me about helping WIU web managers build accessible web sites.
Internet hosting
If you decide to purchase your own domain with Dreamhost, use this link which earns me Dreamhost rewards. I will donate them to charities Dreamhost supports.