More from France: La Vierge de Monton

Here's 19 more photos from my trip to France.

La Vierge de Monton sets atop the Puy de Monton in the commune of Veyre-Monton, Auvergne, France. The statue depicts the Virgin Mary holding a young Jesus, standing on top of a snake, and overlooking the valley. The statue was constructed in 1869, and there is an altar inside for believers to leave offerings and prayers.

Photos from Paris

I've returned from my month of archaeology in the Auvergne region of France. We ended up excavating two historical sites, one from the Medieval era and one from the Modern era. None of us besides our French colleagues, since we normally do prehistoric work, had any idea what was going on! It was still a great experience though, and some aspects of the finds were very interesting even for those of us that prefer periods before the invention of writing.

I'll have photos from both sites up in a few days, but since I've got back in the country my focus has been getting the 100+ photos I took during my three day stay in Paris I set aside prior to hopping on the train to Clermont-Ferrand processed.

The iconic Eiffel Tower from the top of the Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile

Gone travelin'

Hello folks!  I've slipped out of the country to France for an archaeological field school.  I've been in Paris for a few days sightseeing, but I'm heading out to more rural climes tomorrow.

Open source apps that help students save money.

Edited on 15 September, 2013. Updated with more photography tools, a map program, and some more notes on open source operating systems.

I've always been a big advocate of open source software, especially as a broke college student.  This list provides some of the open source software I have personally used over the years that can be utilized by students or hobbyists instead of expensive proprietary software.  Many of these will be familiar with people, but I still find myself running into people at school who have no idea that these programs are out there.  I have tried to list programs that work on both Windows and Mac OSX, and I've included a special section on Linux at the end.  I'll start off by giving a brief overview of what open source means and then I'll jump into some categories that students are likely to encounter.