Dorset

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
====== 2007-07-03 The Royal Oak, Dorchester ======

Present, clockwise: Terry Coles, Ralph Corderoy, Andrew Morgan, Marti Settle, Toby, Roy.

Roy was looking for a Linux replacement for MS Publisher.  Scribus was the consensus.  http://www.scribus.net/

There's a recently-launched, so-so magazine on Ubuntu, called Full Circle, that's published as a PDF download.  It's improving on each issue.  It happens to be running a series on Scribus.  http://www.fullcirclemagazine.org/

VMWare was mentioned again as a way of keeping a foot in both camps.  http://www.vmware.com/

Marti pointed out that Qemu, as well as being a Free Software machine emulator, and an alternative to VMWare, can also be used to create VMWare disk images.  http://www.qemu.org/about.html

WINE, the re-implementation of the Windows API, got a mention but people thought it tended to have problems unless someone had spent time getting the particular program you're interested in working, e.g. TaxCalc for Terry.  http://www.winehq.com/

Browsershots will show how a URL appears in a variety of browsers.  http://browsershots.org/

allofmp3.com closed and seemingly re-opened as mp3sparks.com.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/technology/6264266.stm

Using a Sony PS3 for Linux and in turn using it as a home media centre.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3

That brought up MythTV, the PVR-and-more software.  Ralph wished it would let you use friends' tuners to record if yours were busy and theirs weren't, and vice versa.  http://www.mythtv.org/

Andrew has a shiny new MP3 player, a Sandisk Sansa e260 with FM tuner (because it's the USA model) and microphone.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SanDisk_Sansa

He's installed Rockbox on it, it's replacement or addition firmware for MP3 players.  http://www.rockbox.org/

Slingbox relays your home TV signal across the Internet to your location.  http://uk.slingmedia.com/page/home

Desktop Ubuntu 7.04 AMD64 failing to install on dual-core SATA system: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/123732

The iPhone needs to be "activated" on a PC.  32-bit Windows is supported but not 64-bit.  Should have read the small print.  http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/01/0240224

Oh, and as well as the $600 price-tag there's a minimum two year contract:  $600 + $60 * 24 = $2,040.  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32052

"Universal Music Group has refused to renew a deal with Apple's iTunes Music Store that guarantees the online music seller exclusive access to all Universal content." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/business/6260618.stm

Toby finds always having to sudo a pain;  there's "sudo -i".  https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/private/dorset/2007-June/006358.html

Toby's USB hard drive doesn't let him write to its ext3 filesystem on one machine unless he's root.  It's probably normal directory ownership issues and mis-matched user ids between machines.  stat(1), id(1), chown(1), chgrp(1).

Execute permission on directories is effectively a "search permission".  path_resolution(2)

Since block devices like USB drives can be assigned different device names when plugged in, it's sometimes useful to mount it by its filesystem's volume label or UUID (universal unique ID, e.g.  1fa35d14-016b-44ab-8f22-8be48386a801).  mount(8).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uuid

dumpe2fs will show the "Filesystem UUID" of a block device.  "sudo dumpe2fs -h /dev/hda1".

The OLPC got a mention again, now called the XO-1.  In particular, its wireless mesh networking, that it can remain part of the mesh with most of the motherboard powered off, its quick suspend and resume times, and requiring less than 1 watt in mono mode.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XO-1_%28laptop%29 http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/Hardware_specification

We were the first to ask the pub for wi-fi coupons and since they'd had them a while they couldn't find them.  :-(  Hopefully, they'll have received more by next time.

The pub didn't die down after 8pm like normal.  Whether this was because the smoke-free atmosphere attracted more punters, or Wetherspoons giving households for miles around leaflets with money off beer coupons I don't know.  I do know we were inside because the terrace tables were hogged by the death-stick brigade.

The ION vinyl record turntable that's a USB sound device.  http://www.ion-audio.com/ittusb.php

It bundles Audacity for Windows as the recording software, as apparently do some USB microphones aimed at Apple Mac users.  http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Canada's big, even without Alaska.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada

NTFS-3G is a stable read *and write* filesystem for Window NTFS filesystems under Linux using FUSE.  http://www.ntfs-3g.org/

173 email addresses are subscribed to Dorset LUG mailing list.  Lots of those may be "suspended" or people outside Dorset.

Wetherspoon sell breakfast until noon.  Opening times vary depending on the pub.  http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/food/viewcategory.php?CurrentCategory=149 http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/pubfinder/

--- //Ralph Corderoy//