Open source software is amazing and it seems like there are always solutions that come in handy when I look hard enough. Today was one of those days when a internet search for a query I read on Mastodon netted another open source solution. Mastodon user, Bryan Mitchell asked “Are there any photo editing software … Read more
Open WebUI offers a robust, feature-packed, and intuitive self-hosted interface that operates seamlessly offline. It supports various large language models like Ollama and OpenAI-compatible APIs, Open WebUI is open source with an MIT license. It is easy to download and install and it has excellent documentation. I chose to install it on both my Linux computer and on the M2 MacBook Air. The software is written in Svelte, Python, and TypeScript and has a community … Read more
Our children gifted with a subscription to Storyworth for Father’s Day this year and each week a new writing prompt arrives in my email inbox. This week the prompt was what are some hobbies you have pursued or want to pursue in your retirement. It took me a while to think about that topic. I … Read more
As we welcome another academic year, the integration of creative arts within school curriculums remains vital. Among open source resources that empower students to engage with digital soundscapes is Audacity, a free and versatile audio recording and editing software cherished by educators for its simplicity and power in the classroom setting. Audacity’s capacity has only … Read more
Several weeks ago a person asked me to assist her with organizing her financial records to take them to a tax professional. This person does not use a financial program like GnuCash which could make that project much easier. Instead we downloaded a csv file from her bank and then she used Microsoft Excel to … Read more
Pandoc is a versatile command-line tool that facilitates seamless file conversions between different markup formats. It supports an extensive range of input and output formats, making it indispensable for writers, researchers, and developers. I have found it particularly useful when converting output from LLMs to to HTML or more common word processing formats. Pandoc’s strength … Read more
I have been experimenting a lot with Ollama and other artificial intelligence tools and the anwers to my prompts always are rendered in Markdown. I have Marktext on my Linux computer and MacDown on my MacBook Air so I can easily copy and paste the output into either of those editors and save it as … Read more
In today’s digital age, writers seek tools that enhance their craft and provide real-time feedback and assistance. Enter Ollama – an open-source machine learning system designed to democratize accessibility for natural language processing tasks across a wide range of languages and scripts with ease. Coupled with the Phi3 model, this powerful duo promises unparalleled benefits … Read more
In my previous article, I discussed using Ollama and the Llama3.1 model to assess my writing. Since I’m new to teaching writing, I was curious to see if Ollama could generate an evaluation rubric for grading student writing and then use that rubric to evaluate a sample of student writing. I am going to assume … Read more
Last year, a colleague shared with me how he used ChatGPT to evaluate content generated by his students at a local university. I was intrigued by the idea but also concerned about the ethical issues surrounding using publicly available LLMs to read student writing without their consent. This led me to look for locally hosted … Read more
