Club Linux Coffs Harbour

My studious partner wants to listen to a Latin podcast on her audio player. She has a bit of catch up to do, there are hundred probably thousands of mp3 files to download. Now I know there are all kinds of graphical download plugins and managers I could use but I prefer something a bit quicker and more simple.

Hi,

I just wanted to introduce myself as I am staying in Coffs for a few weeks over Christmas and will be moving here later in the year when my daughter has finished vocal cord surgery at Sydney Children's Hospital.

I was actually just mucking around with a USB DVB-T twin tuner I bought ages ago, which I had just hooked onto my MSI Wind netbook to try and was happy when I fired up Kaffeine, a KDE video viewer that has good support for PC TV, and wanted a channel list to get it started.

A while ago we got this query via the contact form on the site, and as it's a question so often asked, I think it's worth putting the answer somewhere Google can see it.

I have loaded Ubuntu 8.04 and all is well except when I download other programs eg Banshee I have no idea how to install it or any other app. This is generally a very easy task in windows.

Those of you who have used GNU/Linux for a while are now doubtless spraying the screen with bikkie crumbs as you shout "It's EASIER than in Windows!!!", but there are good reasons why a new Ubuntu user wouldn't know that.

Happy New Year!

Whilst recovering from mixing my drinks I found an 'article' on some annoying website (via Slashdot) listing "The 10 Coolest Open Source Products Of 2008" to save you expending your time clicking through all 11 pages here is the list:

Earlier this month the Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced a "reboot" of it's High Priority list, a list of projects critical to allowing people to use their computers in freedom. I've finally had a look at the revised list, and think it's right on the money.

For those that missed Sundays meet-up here is a brief synopsis of of our nerdly chatterings;

• Mike Stanton was kind enough to show us around his expansive Customer Relations Manager Application, "DAM Suite CRM" which he has developed using PHP and MySQL. It is great to see a local developer using open source technology so effectively.
• We discussed, amongst other stuff:
  • the Australian Governments' disturbing plans for filtering the Internet. Now may well be a good time to join the EFA
  • The amazingly excellent Stellarium - A planetarium on your computer. I was very impressed with the slick interface and endless tweakabilty... (is that a real word?).
  • Again with the tweaking with gedit and nano two of my favourite text editors. Unlike Mike, my brain cannot handle vi.
  • Matthew kindly showed us a few holiday snaps which reminded me of an excellent hack I recently discovered for Canon Digital Cameras. CHDK can be installed on top of the existing camera firmware to unlock heaps of hidden functions.

Working as I do in a Microsoft Windows-centric IT department has its challenges. None of them technical. Many years of installing and reinstalling Microsoft operating systems and the multitude of other software, patches, updates, workarounds and fixes has become second nature. So much so that I often have waking nightmares involving Office 2007, docx, Eu-fu!*ing-dora, MS-SQL, MSDE, Visual Studio, Service Pack 3, Genuine Advantage and Outlookpst files. When I say not technical, I mean it, all this stuff is just knowledge. When to click, Next, OK or Cancel.

I didn't know it until about a month ago, but there's this thing called DVB-T, a standard for digital video broadcasts (the "DVB" bit) by terrestrial broadcasters (the "T" bit). You can get really cheap little USB devices to receive and decode these broadcasts, and Gary brought one of them in to the meeting before last.

We have submitted a team for Software Freedom Day 2008. Its going to be low key this year...not too taxing. We will obtain some Ubuntu CDs plus the Ubuntu Educational add-on to send out to secondary schools throughout the region. It will also be accompanied with other resources that can be used in the class room.

If you would like to get involve please contact me at paul[at]coffswifi[dot]net