Christmas Is Coming

OK, I haven't updated for a while, but I've had a lot of deadlines to get past.

So, what has happened in the last month?

Firstly the FSS has run another installfest. I installed Ubuntu on a laptop, filled a portable hard drive with Windows applications and Arthur went on a quest to distribute Ubuntu CDs and biscuits. Was enjoyable :)

Next year the FSS should be hosting some Sheffield LUG meetings (hopefully, if I can sort out room bookings), the ReFreshers fair is coming up (now that we actually have some active members :) ), Arthur has convinced a local computer shop to let him install Ubuntu on their systems (dual booting with Windows) and there is also some
talk about the Music dpeartment getting more Free Software and some Sun Microsystems collaborationy demonstrationy thing. Looks like I'll have my hands full until I hand over power sometime in May
:D

On a personal note I am off to Sandbach soon (maybe even later this evening), and I don't know when I'll be back in Sheffield (probably sooner rather than later. Sheffield > Sandbach). I am (slowly) learning how to use Clutter (from within Python), and hope to get my music visualiser tool to use it (BTW, the link from my old blog post is a pretty old version. It's had quite a few improvements since).

I am trying to make a physics engine, which is proving quite challenging, which I hope to make efficient enough to do some kind of OLPC activity out of, which would be great. I've got some nice bar/string things going, but I'm going to have a proper sit-down-and-think-it-through session sometime.

Other than that, I can't really think of much. Bullar and Ingram came up to visit over the weekend which was cool, although they missed the best bit of Corporation (the main room on a Saturday night) since it didn't open until midnight ( :( ) and by that time Bullar was being his usual drunken self (ie. not taking no for an answer when asking if he can just go to sleep on the pavement after getting carried out of Corporation by the securty people) so Ingram took him home. Ah well.

I may update more freqently now, since I will have little else to do in rural Cheshire.

Installfest Success :D

Aside from some inevitable technical and organisational issues (valuable experience) it went really well. We had enough people turning up to keep us busy for 3 hours, which is the only thing I was worrying about. I don't know how many laptops we got Ubuntu installed onto, I know at least one (but we had no time to test it, so I just added a Windows entry to GRUB to make sure Vista booted properly and left it for now) and maybe a couple more. Some people have got OpenOffice and things installed on Windows, a couple of people came in after Windows help, so I gave them ClamAV and Spybot Search and Destroy (I know it's not Free Software, and explained that, but sometimes it is better to be friendly and helpful rather than arrogant and alienating) along with a copy of Ubuntu (which they were impressed with on my laptop (Compiz Fusion does it again :P ) I kept saying how I haven't dealt with viruses in years because I'm on Linux but that's what it sounds like). We got through quite a few of Arthur's Gutsy CDs (my CD writer fails :( ). Avatar had a complete mirror of Ubuntu's repositories set up, which was VERY helpful, since running it through a gigabit ethernet switch was much nicer than upgrading a system from Ubuntu Breezy to Ubuntu Gutsy via a 60Kb/s Wifi connection. We got through a load of biscuits and Guru3 and Avatar had a few networked games running whilst I rushed around between computers. Sarah and Jo popped in for a bit too and made up some signs to direct people, thanks guys :*, although Sarah you should have got your laptop out and we'd see if we could get your wireless going (I even brought along my PCMCIA wireless card with Windows drivers :P )

Anyway, yes it was good. I'm going to sort out a room for a couple of week's time when we can have another go (this time with at least one Ubuntu alternate CD ;) )

MASSIVE thanks to everyone who came

Free Software Society Gathering Steam... Sort Of

The Sheffield University Free Software Society is gathering new members and meeting face to face more :) Yay. After a bit of a get together social type thing yesterday where I got to put faces to forum members and got some membership monies in (which I need to give to Dave, our Treasurer). There was going to be a formal, serious meeting in a proper meeting room and stuff today, but due to a power cut on Thursday I was unable to book a room for it, thus making Interval the only real venue available. The problem with that is that there isn't much to do there which wasn't done last night, so I think I'm going to pop along to catch anyone who does turn up, but I'm not expecting much (if anything) to come from it.

A week tomorrow I hope to run an installfest for a few hours, rotating the people attending what will basically be an open room next to the Gallery in the student's union building (where quite a few people use their laptops). These days installing stuff is completely straightforward, only requiring the willingness to do so, thus pretty much anyone can help out as long as there is a guru close to hand in case their expertise is needed. So yes, need to book something for that.

Lots of good crazyness has been going on recently, which is good. Lots of partying, chugging, lolling and generally being a lolman. I hope it continues :)

I am sorting out running some very beginner Python workshop things here at Access Space, which will hopefully be popular (although I think I may need to run them next year due to scheduling, I'm not sure yet). My graphical skillz0rz in the GIMP and Inkscape seem to have gained me some respect, which is good news since I want to run some graphics workshops for the Free Software Society.

OK, I can't think of anything else to say..........

HAVE A CHUUUUUUUUG!

Free Software Society Get-together

Not a real meeting as such, not quite a release party, basically we're just having a bit of a meet up in BarOne. I'm currently downloading an Ubuntu 7.10 CD image, but it says it will take at least another 4 hours, which basically makes me unable to offer any written CDs of them :( I hope someone takes along a CD or a laptop with an image, then I should have no problem copying it (as long as my CD drive doesn't go all silly). I'll take along some Fedora and Debian CDs and stuff, so at least I'll be able to offer something.

Oh well... /listens to LUGRadio

I <3 U Dell

I am in Sheffield, but I have no Internets :( (Currently using a mixture of dialup, Walkley Library (across the road :) ), the Information Commons and Access Space (the latter being where I am at the moment).

The dialup in question is made possible thanks to Dell, who have got the evil Connexant to stop their stupid policy of pay-for Linux drivers and release them for no cost. Thank you Dell, this is exactly the thing we are after :D

The Free Software Society is off to a great start, with the Freshers' Fair an amazing success. We gave out about 100 CDs (both Ubuntu (packaged 6.06 and self-written 7.04) and a disc of Windows Free Software I made myself) which is around 70GB of data :) I want to do a follow up on that, in case anybody had badly written discs and to hopefully get some more converts.

This week has been pretty amazing. I've been out loads (the only day I stayed in was Thursday, since I thought that Bleach tickets had run out, but apparently there were spares so I could've gone. Oh well). Wednesday we crashed Ranmoor bar, and got completely smashed. Yesterday we managed to get through half a bottle of Absinthe (among other things) playing drinking games and I ended up sleeping in Jo's bed :P Today I seem to have upset Harriet by letting my 'phone's battery die (dramatic, I know) so I didn't get a call from her when we were meant to go swimming, so I think I'm in bad books there. Sorry Harriet T___T. Should be going to Corporation tonight with the RockSoc, which will be cool (I'll be one of the experienced members rather than a fresher, wow I can feel the respect dripping from my brow!).

Yes, so I just thought I'd give an update about what I've been up to. My Plasma installation guide has been quite popular on ubuntuhq.com (at one point being the most popular article of the week!), which is pretty nice :D

So, farewell until I get enough bandwidth to bother updating this blog regularly again.

Some phrases should be culled

Although 'screen real estate' is up there, the top dog must be 'bling bling'. With that in mind I've been pimping my laptop in anticipation of the influx of potential new Free Software users in the form of the next academic year's worth of firstyears. I am now running Ubuntu Gutsy, which overall seems to be following the less-dramatic-upgrade tendancy I've seen in Ubuntu (Breezy>Dapper was very pervasive, Dapper>Edgy seemed nice, Edgy>Feisty didn't really seem worth it, Feisty>Gutsy? Dunno yet), but it means that along with working out how to get ATI's crapware to 'work' I can run Compiz Fusion (using XGL, eww) which seems nice, although I really don't like the 'CompizConfig' tool, it is in serious need of some UI lovin' (who in their right mind would provide users an integer system for animations without telling them what animation each number corresponds to? Plus, the amount of conflicting stuff is annoying, like 'minimise effect' not being disabled when minimise/maximise animations are enabled).

I've installed E17 as well, which has changed a bit since I last played around with it. Although it has gained features on the whole the process of configuring the thing is a real mess. The 'shelves' idea is OK I guess, but as far as I can tell I can no longer use the modules as desktop widgets (strange, considering how other desktop systems are moving in the opposite direction) which would be a shame. Still, I have set up a new non-admin user called fss-test and set up a nice enlightenment configuration to use (although Amarok, Rhythmbox, MPD and Exaile all crash for that user :( Banshee seems to be OK so far (Banshee has become very nice recently too I have noticed!), but that's what you get for using pre-release software). I wanted to have KDE4 running too, but the packages are pretty bare at the moment (Plasma is the main area I'm interested in but they only have 2 plasmoids in the vanilla setup, the rest of them living in the 'playground' directory in subversion, which I have tried unsuccessfully to compile).

Now that I know my own laptop will stand up well in the first-impression-critical world of the Freshers' Fair I want to get other machines on board. I have asked my friend Heminder if I can borrow his laptop to demo stuff on and I think he agreed, I'm not sure. I'll try and hunt down some more (perhaps James could pop along, since he is supposed to be a member and has Fedora installed on his laptop, making no live CD needed).

Oh well, time to get back to the real world and make sure my monetary hurdles are overcome.

PS: Must test Wii controller with my laptop, since demoing that would be awesome :)

GNOME Blog Works!

Yes, I know. I am a genius. Anyway, just tried Ubuntu Feisty's package of gnome-blog and found that it can use Blogger's new API (it changed when Google bought them, thus making the older versions not work for accounts using the new API, like mine). This is a welcome relief since I no longer have to deal with the nightmare of writing blind (white-on-white == bad usability), and if a dodgy website (or browser) loses the Blogger page then I'd lost it all (as happened to me just :( ). Anyway, now that we have established that GNOME Blog works onto the main issues of the day:

The Free Software Society has now got a forum, located here. Thanks go to our secretary Harriet for that :) Of course there is still the Mugshot group as well (although their software could do with a little improvement, I'll download the source and see what I can do to add proper last.fm, jamendo.com and other integration).

Check out this video: Whilst being a slightly exaggerated parody it is still very insightful and funny too. Still has nothing on the master though, Prof. Eben Moglen, who recently gave a talk in Edinburgh. If you haven't seen any of his talks then you're missing out, he really is a powerful and passionate speaker who makes beautiful use of the English language.

Also, check out Frets on Fire, which has now had its non-Free songs and fonts removed and has been packaged for Debian (and therefore Ubuntu). It's made with Pygame BTW :)

Finally....... I'm going LUGRadio Live! Woooo!!!! I'll meet Jono Bacon and other people I have admired via HTTP for all these years (well, 2 or 3). Whilst some people I would like to chat with won't be there (namely Mirco), it could help me become more known throughout the community which would be good news networking-wise as president of the Free Software Society (hopefully my social networking will beat my ethernet networking, the height of which was getting ping to work and kicking my little brother's ass on Crack Attack).

I am pondering GUADEC as well, but accommodation would make it impossible for a week-long event :( (unless I am an extremely cheeky bastard to Jo, which I honestly try not to be)

Woah, a long time since I posted! I thought I'd say what I've been up to and have in the works:

* It is currently the Easter break, so I am at home in busy-busy Sandbach

* I am going a bit crazy brainstorming ideas that the FSS can act on (we will hold a meeting soon after getting back to Sheffield)

* The latest assignment from my COM162 Java course is to simulate a pinball machine.... Well, I am currently going a little crazy with my Physics knowledge to create an elaborate, general purpose physics engine which I can then shove values in to make a pinball table (I actually hope to let it read some kind of XML syntax in the future, and thus define tables (or whatever else it is used for) easily). Since it is an assignment which is testing my ability to understand object oriented programming I must do this myself, but after its use in my course is over rest assured I will make it publicly available as Free Software

Oh, and it may be a little late, but go on:

I have nothing to talk about

Just thought I'd update this since I haven't for quite a while. Well.... The Free Software Society is a go-go, we've got membership cards and everything! Harriet's making a bit of a website for it, so that should go live soon (at http://fss.union.shef.ac.uk ). I will put together a humourous little history of Free Software, then show it off at our first meeting (after publicising the site, which has contact details) along with some admin like any new committee members (currently 3, the bare minimum) and ideas for nice projects to do. Currently I am thinking:
Installfests
A Freedom Toaster
Free Wifi (maybe via Fon or something)
Storming local computer shops like a plague of locusts of biblical proportions, although armed with CDs and stands, and hopefully some kind of penguin suit (NightLine has one. Maybe we could borrow it...... [without the tshirt though]).
Helping local schools and charities by collecting and recycling older computers and getting rid of any crappy proprietary software on them to run LTSP and stuff (need some training here...)
Of course the FSS will also only officially distribute things in unencumbered formats, and communicate with unencumbered, freely documented standards (basically, MSN is a pile of crap, Jabber 4TW).

If you are reading this and you are in or near Sheffield then check the site linked above for updates and you'll be welcome to come along... Unless you are meant to be in prison at the time or something... Well.. I'm not signing you into the Student Union building......

PS: Oh yeah, also a big thank you to Loz for breaking the handle off the door in my corridor last night/this morning. What a silly dick.

PPS: It's in English!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! W00t!