September 2008 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Software Freedom Day
by Ron Dean 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

I'll be there and would be happy to demonstrate gimp basics -- Ron Dean 2 Shannon Place Nawton Hamilton Ph 8493904

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Stuff that'd be useful on Saturday
by Bryce Utting 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

Does anyone have: a) a USB steering wheel b) a MIDI keyboard (& a PC that'll talk to it) c) digital video cameras (the higher quality the better, and the more the better come to that; USB-capable ideally) the first'll be good for showing off Torcs, the second for keeping any musicians' attention, the third for recording Nandor's talk. (I'm entirely happy with editing say three roughly-synced video streams on the day while being shoulder-surfed then uploading to YouTube. I tried, work's are all in Sydney.) if there's *any* chance of any of these being there on Saturday, they'd be grand. as for other instruments, I'm thinking of packing a guitar + multi- effects and bringing them in if there's anything to attach them to (and anyone interested). can't commit to my laptop being any use: Audacity will record single tracks to an empty file, but then refuses to even recognise the microphone to record any more. (bizarre, that) (this... also means that the demo Audacity file on the poster -- which, yes, really *is* tracks from a Hammond through a Leslie, a guitar, another guitar, a Hammond through a plain speaker, and a piano, all recorded wild and independently, with a drum solo stolen from the web, all sliced up randomly based on what looked pretty -- is a *truly* hellish din, not helped at all by Audacity repeatedly crashing in horror while trying to make it. I'll try not to play it too much.) butting (mad science isn't just for Christmas, you know)

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Re: [wlug] [NZOSS-OpenChat] SFD Events
by Michael McDonald 16 Sep '08

16 Sep '08

2008/9/17 Don <don(a)catalyst.net.nz>: > Micheal > That looks like a great event and congrats on getting Nandar in. > Cheers > Don Don't thank me! I'm not on the committee. It has been others who have been doing the work. I'll post this to WLUG also so that those who did the organising can take the kudos. Michael >> 2008/9/17 Don <don(a)catalyst.net.nz>: >> > 95bFM in Auckland want to talk about SFD. I know a lot about the >> > Wellington event but would be keen to publicise details of events >> > elsewhere in NZ. The SFD website is sorely lacking in info this year. >> > So, if you have some details please pass them on to me before 1:40 this >> > afternoon. >> > On Wed, 2008-09-17 at 09:53 +1200, Michael McDonald wrote: >> WLUG's (Hamilton) plans are at http://wlug.org.nz/SoftwareFreedomDay2008

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ANNOUNCE: WLUG meeting is one week away
by Meeting Reminder Bot 14 Sep '08

14 Sep '08

The Waikato Linux Users Group have a meeting in one week from today: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 7:30pm MS4.G.02 (http://www.waikato.ac.nz/contacts/map?MS4) Topic to be announced.

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FLOSS Technology Feature in Waikato Times
by David Hallett 12 Sep '08

12 Sep '08

There is a quiet revolution going on among the world's computer users. One of the people at the heart of that revolution is New Zealand Open Source Society president Don Christie, who preached his revolutionary message to the New Zealand Computer Society at Wintec, in Hamilton. http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikatotimes/4690613a14335.html Regards, David Hallett, BSc, MNZCS Pulsar Computer Solutions Ltd P.O. Box 15-516 Hamilton, New Zealand Phone: +64-7-210 5520 Mobile: +64-21-802 256 Email: david(a)pulsar.net.nz

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Preparing for SFD
by Bryce Utting 11 Sep '08

11 Sep '08

Hi all, The publicity's up, the word's out, the gremlins have been beaten senseless with 4x2s and the usual appalling jokes, and now it's time to get ready for the day. A quick recap (since I've lost track of what's happened on which list): * we're putting on a bunch of (short, hourly) presentations at S Block on Saturday the 20th * Nandor Tanzcos is opening * we're hoping to see a whole bunch of people wanting to know more about F/OSS software * preparations are under way to kit the place out with PCs and have them doing hopefully-interesting stuff * there's also the -tiniest- suggestion of a hint that we might be implying that we're there to help answer questions, solve problems, and help out installing stuff. The only remaining worries now are: * nobody comes * EVERYBODY comes It's the latter I'm thinking about. We need to be sure of a core of people who'll be there on the day (it doesn't have to be the whole day), who can offer expertise in areas that people might come with questions about. Know how to painlessly burn CDs? How to walk a Windows user through what's different about Gnome or KDE desktops? How to build documents in OpenOffice? How to safely camp in Tremulous? Then you can help. You don't need to be an expert: if you know enough to be useful, and also know what your limitations are, then that's enough right there to get someone started on the basics and if you hit the wall to pass them on to the next person on the list. So, after a quick chat with Bruce I figure the best way to manage this is to sign up with what we're each willing to help with. This'll mean that, in the event of things getting overwelming, we all know who we can pass thorny questions on to and who can help with triage on queues. And if we keep copies handy, we can discreetly look it up rather than relying on some dim idea that what's-'s-name-'ve-met-twice-three-months- ago might be able to answer the question of how to create a DVD menu. If that's you, adding yourself to the list will help hugely. www.wlug.org.nz/SFD%202008%20Hosts (yeah, I know. but WikiWords don't LIKE acronyms, and it's really a use-once-and-forget page anyway.) And, further to that: we can keep the day flowing, and keep people's interest, if we can be sure of spot presentations during the day. If you're comfortable with getting up front and talking for three minutes about Gimp, Firefox extensions, something weird you've done in Perl, or how Mandrake keeps your cat fed, that'd be great: add that too. These are particularly useful because it means that we can keep the technical lot fed between user-level main presentations, and the users fed in between tech-level main presentations. (and if the day -is- quiet, you might get let off the hook.) sweet as. bryce

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SFD poster: need a photo gallery from a member URGENTLY
by butting＠ihug.co.nz 10 Sep '08

10 Sep '08

Hi all, We have the makings (I hope) of some great publicity for SFD. The banner I'm working on will hopefully be ready to print tomorrow, which you might guess is well past the original deadlines (and getting woefully close to the day itself). I've had some excellent stuff come in, but far far too late for our original plan of printing last Friday. I'd like to finish tonight, and there's one last thing I need: an online photo gallery that I can take a shot of. I don't need a screenshot, just a URL, of a gallery that you've created and own the rights to and are happy to have an image of the thumbnails of it released under creative commons with non-attrib. (the thumbnails, not the images themselves.) Something like: Something like http://softwarefreedomday.org/gallery/2007/newzealand/hamilton would be brilliant, only I've already used those images elsewhere. Can anyone help? Would be greatly appreciated. ta, Bryce

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Upcoming WLUG committee meeting (1 week today)
by Meeting Reminder bot 07 Sep '08

07 Sep '08

As per the WLUG charter, please note that there is a WLUG executive committee meeting one week from today. If you wish to get an item on the agenda for this meeting, please email it to secretary(a)wlug.org.nz. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- # Previous Minutes # Treasurers report # Correspondence # Matters # Server status # General business

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Re: [wlug] SFD library poster: still urgently need shots!
by Bryce Utting 07 Sep '08

07 Sep '08

I wrote: > CURRENT NEED-URGENTLY LIST: ... > CC photos of the Symphony cluster > (can anyone get me into the Symphony lab today or tomorrow?) does anyone have phone numbers for Jamie or for Donald Neal? (or anyone else with access to the lab) or for Rod or Nandor? contact me please ASAP thanks. Bryce

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gNewSense
by Bruce Kingsbury 06 Sep '08

06 Sep '08

I just installed gNewSense this morning on my laptop, and I am rather plesantly surprised how useable it actually is! I have no inbuilt wireless, of course. Broadcom chipsets require a non-free binar blob so I was expecting that. My USB wireless adapter (ZyDAS WLA-54L WiFi) also doesn't work, which surprised me. It worked OOTB in Ubuntu so I had assumed it was using only Free software, but perhaps not. I'm fairly sure my rt2400 card would work with entirely free software, but I an't seem to find it at the moment. Pity. I've installed swfdec and I'm very happy to find it plays both youtube videos and weebls stuff. At least all the ones I've tried so far, which isn't many.. I'll have to try some flash games next. I've also installed all of the 'Free but patent-threatened' codecs and libdvdcss2. Apart from not having wireless, I can do pretty much everything I was doing before in Ubuntu. This rocks! -- This email is for the intended recipient only. If you are not the intended recipient you must burn your computer, while standing on one foot and chanting the entire jabberwocky. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily the opinions of the person who expressed them.

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