Blog Entries

Mozilla is including support natively in Firefox with Version 3.1.
This means that when a user encounters a sound or video file on the
web, Firefox will automatically play it as the CODECS to do this are
built in.

This is a major step forward. In the past, in order to play files
created with Ogg or Theora, we would have to configure our browswers
to do so -- creating another step for the average user to go through
before it would be possible to enjoy multi-media content created with
free and open source software.

With the Mozilla browsers holding 20 percent of the browser market, and
with Ogg and Theora support built in, content providers such as television
networks, record companies, newspaper websites, and radio stations will
have greater incentive to create content in this format.

There are FLOSS supporters making the case for the open source CODECS.
Now it makes more sense to include content in this format and to publicise
the availability of it.

Ogg Vorbis and Theora enables the delivery of sound and video content on
the Internet to be truely free and democratic. Musicians and film makers
are no longer forced to use proprietary formats.

Internet Explorer is not the only browser that has built in
support for sound and video. Another brick in the wall is gone.

Please see the Play Ogg website at:

http://www.fsf.org/resources/formats/playogg

The Ogg website is at:

http://www.xiph.org/

(pnijjar: The donation page is http://www.xiph.org/donate . They take PayPal )

http://gwalsh.notw.ca

Hello

I have been blogging, but at another site. You may be interested in my latest blog entry which is a swipe at Bill 61 without mentioning Bill 61.

http://www.cookingwithlinux.com/blog/11

I would encourage everyone to speak out against the DRM aspects of this Bill.

This Bill may have been tabled before Summer Break so that we can make our thoughts known about it.

I also have a comment on the Globe and Mail website.

DRM is useless because most of us are spending money in different ways instead of records (CDs). Recent trips to the gas station alone has devoured a lot of discretionary spending dollars.

Cheers

John

What are the current minimum requirements for the computer donations to The Working Centre and/or KWLUG?

Should one contact a person in charge before bringing an older computer?

Using a combination of open source software you can go from your digital video camera to a DVD, complete with titles, fading between scenes, and a variety of video and audio effects.

I was asked by an employment agent if I know any embedded Linux people willing to work in Kitchener. Here is the list of required skills:

* Ethernet Stacks

* TCP/IP Network

* Embedded Linux (Low Level-Kernel)

* C++

* C

The agent wrote that experience with Video Equipment/Image Processing (projectors,
displays, etc) would be a great addition.

The agent's address is ruth_flores@oxfordcorp.com.

I've decided to start creating a log of my troubles, tribulations and successes with Linux.

In this blog I'll try to keep a history of what I've done to make something work under Linux. I'm expecting that sometimes those exercises will be simple, some other times It may take some tweaking.

I saw this link to a job ad on an IRC channel, followed by the words, Please pass this around, if you know people who (a) are junior Unixheads and (b) like cake.

Unix Pipefitter: Montreal, QC

I noticed a photo of the computer recycling shop at The Working Centre in a February 23, 2008 issue of The Record.

New Life for Record Computers by Peter Lee, Record staff

The whole page.

I found the people at this facility knowledgeable. I could purchase a refurbished computer with a pre-installed Linux for my friend.

I am trying to update the meeting location page. Here is a picture!

Here is a map!

No??

What are you waiting for?

http://www.noooxml.org/petition

Just say no to ooxml.

Let's get the number up to over 100,000 by February 14.

Pass it on!!

John

I've uploaded the talk Ian F. Darwin gave on OpenMoko and the FIC Neo1973 phone at Ontario Linux Fest 2007 to archive.org. The video can be found here:

http://www.archive.org/details/OntarioLinuxFest2007-OpenmokoIanF.Darwin

I finally finished downloading and editing the talk given by Angela Byron on Women In Open Source at Ontario Linux Fest. The video is rather large, 928MB, but a high quality MPEG2.

Download it at archive.org:

http://www.archive.org/details/onlinux_womeninopensource

Currently downloading the net geubuntu distro from http://linuxtracker.org. This distro combines Gnome and Enlightenment, their mainsite can be found at http://geubuntu.intilinux.com > There are also screenshots on their site so you can see what this distro looks like, would personally recommend the moonlite edition it has a nice dark theme to it, there is also a sunshine edition of this distro as well. I would also recommend that you use a bittorrent client to download this file!

Cheers ;-)
Eric

I couldn't figure out how to configure the Notification module to send out better subject headings, so I changed the module code. The file to change is in modules/notify/notify.module .

Here is the diff:


*** 427,433 ****
// Set up initial values for e-mail.
$from = variable_get('site_mail', ini_get('sendmail_from'));
$from_name = variable_get('site_name', 'Drupal');
! $subject = t('@sitename new content notification for @username', array('@username' => $user->name, '@sitename' => variable_get('site_name', 'Drupal')));

$body = t('Greetings @user,', array('@user' => $user->name)) ."\n\n". $body;


Note that in addition to adding the date I removed the username from the subject. Also note that this will break when the notify module is changed (perhaps with the next Drupal upgrade).

This blog entry is intended to trigger a notification.

If you are one of the 11 people who signed up for notifications independently you may notice some problems. Unfortunately I am a terrible programmer, so I think the code I hacked to make the notification e-mail subject threadable has lots of bugs.

Hello

I have sent an e-mail to the Asus company in Markham asking for more
info on the new Linux laptop. At this time they do not know when it
will arrive in Canada.

I asked them if I could borrow one to Demo at the KWLUG meting OR
would someone from Asus like to come to one of our meetings. They will have to get back
to me on that.

I am quite excited about this laptop as it has the potential to bring the Linux desktop to
thousands of new users.

more info:

http://www.hothardware.com/articles/Hands%5Fon%5Fwith%5Fthe%5FASUS%5FEe…

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3829

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFLJJw6WRqM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEeLJltAHRE

Cheers

John

At http://www.linux-games.ca/kwlug/index.html I've posted most of the books in the KWLUG Library that I have over in Computer Recycling at 66 Queen Street South. This list does not include books kept over at 43 Queen Street where we hold our meetings. There's at least one other box of books at 43 Queen Street.

The Computer Science Club at the University of Waterloo is hosting two very big names in the computer science world next month:

- On Friday July 6 at 4:30pm, Richard M. Stallman (founder of the Free Software Foundation) will be speaking about "Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks"

- On Tuesday July 17 at 7:00pm, Bjarne Stroustrup (creator of C++) will be speaking about "C++0x -- An Overview"

Both talks are being held in Room 116 of the Arts Lecture Hall at the University of Waterloo. Admission is free as in beer, I believe.

More information is available at the CSC website: http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca