LinuxSA November 2009 - Catalyst

   Hi all,

   It's past time for the November meeting announcement (it's tonight)...

   The usual details:

    When:   6:30pm-8:30pm on Tuesday, 17th November, 2009
    Where:  Room G05/G06 Gerard Innovation Centre
            Prince Alfred College
            Capper Street, Kent Town SA
    Cost:   FREE
    Who:    Anyone and everyone.
            No pre-registration necessary.

   Presentation:

    Geoffrey D. Bennett will be giving a talk on the Catalyst web
    application development framework, including the related Perl
    modules:
    - DBIx::Class object relational mapper (talking to your database)
    - Template Toolkit template processing system
    - HTML::FormFu form generation, processing, and validation

   Getting to the Venue:

    Prince Alfred College faces Dequetteville Terrace, but access to
    Room G05/G06 is only available from Capper Street; there is no
    access to these rooms from any other entrances in the College.  On
    Capper Street, Room G05/G06 is closer to The Parade West than to
    Dequetteville Terrace.

    Parking is available on-street or maybe off-street (adjacent to the
    Sports Centre). Look for the two storey stone fronted building with
    the sign "Gerard Innovation Centre". Enter through the double doors,
    first room on the right hand side of corridor (ground floor). The
    external door automatically locks at night. Should it not be propped
    open please be ready to knock loudly.

    There are buses that go along Dequetteville Terrace, with a stop
    adjacent to Capper Street. The 143, 145, and 146 buses leave from
    North Terrace, and the 141 and 142 buses leave from Currie Street
    and Grenfell street.

    If you are in the city, you could also catch the 99C bus to East
    Terrace, then take a 10-15 minute walk to the College.

   Pizza:

    After the meeting, people generally go out for pizza at San Giorgios
    (cnr. Frome Street and Rundle Street in the city).

   For more information:
 
    Email:        organisers@linuxsa.org.au
    Web Page:     http://www.linuxsa.org.au/
    Mailing List: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
    IRC:          #linuxsa on irc.freenode.net

tech/LinuxSA | 17 Nov 2009 | #

All set to go

I've registered, booked flights and accommodation, ready to attend linux.conf.au 2010.

Cannot wait.

tech/linux-australia/lca2010 | 13 Oct 2009 | #

12 Month Anniversary

Yesterday was the 12 month anniversary of starting my photoblog - Learning 2 See - an attempt at posting one image per week day, in some sort of thematic grouping.

What it's shown me is that producing quality shots on a regular basis is really difficult. It's an incredible time sink. To succeed, you need to be scheduling photo shoots on a regular basis, and being prepared to take enough shots to throw away 90% of them. In my attempt to keep the commitment of a shot per weekday, I've had to use quite a few shots that I'm not happy with - whether it be the composition, or the technical execution that has failed - just so I could have something to post. But out of the 218 or so shots posted so far, there's some captures that I think have worked.

So has it been worthwhile?

Absolutely!

I've learnt a lot, and I think I'm a better photographer today than what I was 12 months ago. But as per usual with any field of endeavour, the more you learn, the more you realise how much you don't know. I've got a long way to go, but I'm glad about the journey so far.

photos | 23 Sep 2009 | #

linux.conf.au 2010 Conference Program now available

Cool!

The team in Wellington organising linux.conf.au 2010 have released the conference program. This is shaping up to be an excellent 6 days in January! :-)

Just some of the things that stand out immediately to me are:

• Free the Cloud Miniconf led by Evan Prodromou (the identica guy)
• Wave Developers Miniconf led by Shane Stephens
• Introduction to game programming by Richard Jones
• A whole bunch of talks about HTML5
• subunit: Testing across boundaries for fun and profit by Robert Collins
• Git Wrangling - Advanced Tips and Tricks by Scott Chacon
• The Hydras: Improving the C/C++ Development Experience via GCC Static Analysis Plugins by Taras Glek
• PostgreSQL Development Today by Josh Berkus
• Simplicity Through Optimization by Paul McKenney
• Using Launchpad for Code Reviews by Tim Penhey
• Using Functional Programming Techniques In Your Favourite Language by Malcolm Tredinnick
• Patent defence for free software by Andrew Tridgell
• FOSS Fun With A Wiimote by Rusty Russell
• Patchwork: pursuing productive project participation by Jeremy Kerr

I love this time of year - knowing what the conference will contain, but still a few months of waiting in anticipation. So Wellington team, when are registrations going to open? It's time to book flights for the week starting January 18, 2010 :-)

tech/linux-australia/lca2010 | 17 Sep 2009 | #

The need for continuous uninterrupted time

The Maker's Schedule. Why meetings are such a distraction to the creative process.

As someone who designs systems and writes code this is so incredibly intuitive but lacking from common knowledge. I can't believe I haven't seen this in writing before. Reading something like this behoves me to go at my calendar with a machete and fight back against the onslaught of meetings that impact my productivity.

tech/sweng | 30 Jul 2009 | #

Last Chance

It's your last chance to submit to the linux.conf.au 2010 CFP - submissions close Friday 31 July 2009 17:00 NZST. If you've been putting this off, now is the time, must get something in RSN.

Read up on the essentials so you can then make a submission.

Don't miss out!

tech/linux-australia/lca2010 | 29 Jul 2009 | #

Getting excited

Wow! linux.conf.au 2010 is looking very, very, very exciting. I'm currently reviewing miniconf proposals - there's some awesome proposals - and I can honestly say it's the best bunch of miniconf proposals that I've ever seen! (but I can't tell you any details yet, Andrew and Susanne will kill me :-)

Now, just as a reminder, the linux.conf.au 2010 CFP is currently open, you can read about it here on the Papers Info page. Talking at an LCA is a fantastic thing to do, so if you're working on something in the open-source world and you want to share that with other developers, recruit a community, and gain some recognition, you should make a submission and see if your proposal gets up. Go on, write up a submission and share your enthusiasm with others!

See you in January in Wellington, NZ. This conference is going to be wonderful - something you don't want to miss!

tech/linux-australia/lca2010 | 18 Jul 2009 | #

LinuxSA May 2008 - the Village Telco/Mesh Potato

  Hi all,

  Time for the May meeting announcement (it's this Tuesday)...

  The usual details:

   When:   6:30pm-8:30pm on Tuesday, 19th May, 2009
   Where:  Room G05/G06 Gerard Innovation Centre
           Prince Alfred College
           Capper Street, Kent Town SA
   Cost:   FREE
   Who:    Anyone and everyone.
           No pre-registration necessary.

  Presentation:

   David Rowe will be talking about the Village Telco/Mesh Potato:

     The Village Telco is an easy-to-use, scalable, standards-based,
     wireless, local, do-it-yourself, telephone company toolkit.

     The Mesh Potato is a 802.11bg mesh router with a single FXS port.
     It is designed to provide telephony via VOIP while simultaneously
     facilitating a mesh cloud. It is an open hardware and open
     software design. It will run off a nominal 12VDC, from either a
     mains supply or solar PV system, and be priced in the range of
     currently available Wifi routers (sub US$100).

   David Rowe has 20 years experience in the development of DSP-based
   telephony and sat-com hardware/software. David has a wide mix of
   skills including software, hardware, and project management
   including a PhD in DSP theory. He has held executive level positions
   in the sat-com industry (www.dspace.com.au) and has built and
   successfully exited a small business (www.voicetronix.com). However
   he has decided he is better at debugging machines than people so
   currently chooses to hack telephony hardware and software full time.

  Getting to the Venue:

   Prince Alfred College faces Dequetteville Terrace, but access to 
   Room G05/G06 is only available from Capper Street; there is no
   access to these rooms from any other entrances in the College.  On
   Capper Street, Room G05/G06 is closer to The Parade West than to
   Dequetteville Terrace.

   Parking is available on-street or maybe off-street (adjacent to the
   Sports Centre). Look for the two storey stone fronted building with
   the sign "Gerard Innovation Centre". Enter through the double doors,
   first room on the right hand side of corridor (ground floor). The
   external door automatically locks at night. Should it not be propped
   open please be ready to knock loudly.

   There are buses that go along Dequetteville Terrace, with a stop
   adjacent to Capper Street. The 143, 145, and 146 buses leave from
   North Terrace, and the 141 and 142 buses leave from Currie Street
   and Grenfell street.

   If you are in the city, you could also catch the 99C bus to East
   Terrace, then take a 10-15 minute walk to the College.

  Pizza:

   After the meeting, please join us for pizza at San Giorgios (cnr.
   Frome Street and Rundle Street in the city).

  For more information:

   Email:        organisers@linuxsa.org.au
   Web Page:     http://www.linuxsa.org.au/
   Mailing List: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
   IRC:          #linuxsa on irc.freenode.net

tech/LinuxSA | 19 May 2009 | #

LinuxSA April 2008 - Awesome Things You've Missed in Perl

  Hi all,

  Time for the April meeting announcement (it's this Tuesday)...

  The usual details:

   When:   6:30pm-8:30pm on Tuesday, 21st April, 2009
   Where:  Room G05/G06 Gerard Innovation Centre
           Prince Alfred College
           Capper Street, Kent Town SA
   Cost:   FREE
   Who:    Anyone and everyone.
           No pre-registration necessary.

  Presentation:

   Paul Fenwick will be presenting "Awesome Things You've Missed in
   Perl":

     Awesome things have been happening in Perl recently; so many that
     even if you've been paying close attention, you may have missed a
     few. In this talk we'll examine some of the coolest recent
     technologies for Perl programmers, including:

     - Overhauling Perl's Object Oriented framework with Moose.
     - Making everything a first-class object with autobox.
     - Slashing your error handling code with autodie.
     - Building fast, readable and reusable regular expressions with
       Perl 5.10.
     - Bundling and building stand-alone applications using PAR, the
       Perl Archiver.
     - Astonishingly good profiling with Devel::NYTProf.
     - Playing MineSweeper automatically with App::SweeperBot.

     Knowledge of Perl is nice, but not essential to appreciate the
     contents of this talk.

   Paul Fenwick is the managing director of Perl Training Australia,
   internationally acclaimed speaker, and long time contributor to 
   Perl. He's an author for The Perl Journal and The Perl Review,
   technical editor of Perl Best Practices, and co-managers the very
   popular Perl Tips newsletter.

   In his spare time, Paul's interests include security, mycology,
   cycling, coffee, scuba diving, and lexically scoped user pragmata.

  Getting to the Venue:

   Prince Alfred College faces Dequetteville Terrace, but access to
   Room G05/G06 is only available from Capper Street; there is no
   access to these rooms from any other entrances in the College.  On
   Capper Street, Room G05/G06 is closer to The Parade West than to
   Dequetteville Terrace.

   Parking is available on-street or maybe off-street (adjacent to the
   Sports Centre). Look for the two storey stone fronted building with
   the sign "Gerard Innovation Centre". Enter through the double doors,
   first room on the right hand side of corridor (ground floor). The
   external door automatically locks at night. Should it not be propped
   open please be ready to knock loudly.

   There are buses that go along Dequetteville Terrace, with a stop
   adjacent to Capper Street. The 143, 145, and 146 buses leave from
   North Terrace, and the 141 and 142 buses leave from Currie Street
   and Grenfell street.

   If you are in the city, you could also catch the 99C bus to East
   Terrace, then take a 10-15 minute walk to the College.

  Pizza:

   After the meeting, please join us for pizza at San Giorgios (cnr.
   Frome Street and Rundle Street in the city).
 
  For more information:

   Email:        organisers@linuxsa.org.au
   Web Page:     http://www.linuxsa.org.au/
   Mailing List: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
   IRC:          #linuxsa on irc.freenode.net

tech/LinuxSA | 19 Apr 2009 | #

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...

What can be done with an Apple iPhone and a telescope on a clear night?

Crude Astrophotography.

photos | 14 Apr 2009 | #

Billion Modems and Gigaset C470IP compatibility

Seems like there is an issue with Billion ADSL modems (such as the Billion 7404VGO) and independent VOIP telephony devices (such as the Siemens Gigaset C470IP) where the Billion, even though it's not configured for VOIP, grabs traffic on the SIP/RTP ports and doesn't let it through to the VOIP handset. The solution? Move the SIP port to 15060 and RTP to 15004-15020.

And how's the Gigaset C470IP working out? Fantastic! Easy to use, configures easily, looks good, passes the WAF test, and the audio quality is very nice.

Update: The easier solution is to turn off the Billion 7404VGO's 'SIG ALG' setting, which is found on Configuration->Firewall->General Settings. Thanks Peter for the tip...

tech/gadgets | 12 Apr 2009 | #

iTiVo

Just discovered iTiVo - extract recorded TV from your TiVo. Works very nicely indeed.

tech/gadgets | 28 Mar 2009 | #

Having a go

A dangerous video for a software developer to watch: Damian Katz on CouchDB and Me. The story behind doing something great.

Living the dream, making a go of it, stepping up to the plate, having faith in your own abilities. Being successful by taking risk.

I think that inside some developers[0] is an urge to do this. One differentiation between those who succeed and those who don't is that only some try. Talent and opportunity are other important differentiators, but without the 'try' it can't happen.

Note to self: Must keep trying.

More info on CouchDB and Damian Katz.

[0] Is developing software a job, or is it something you'd do even if you weren't paid?

tech/sweng | 23 Feb 2009 | #

97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know

Soon to be released book: 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know. An open collaborative wiki, these are the 97 things that will make the printed edition. The whole site, especially the selected 97 axioms, is a fantastic resource. So many people claim the title, but so few walk the walk or even talk the talk. Technical leadership is so important, but so badly done in practice.

Best item: Communication Is King.

tech/sweng | 19 Feb 2009 | #

The Magic Minutes

"Magic Minutes": The number of minutes after passing the 40 minute mark when running. They are the only minutes that count. They are only minutes that affect weight-loss and gains in cardiovascular fitness. You cannot skip straight to them, you need to go through the "useless" 40 minutes of running that has little impact first. This definition is neither scientifically proven, nor dependable in all circumstances for all people. Your unique situation may affect your results. Please talk your doctor before embarking on any exercise program :)

exercise | 18 Feb 2009 | #

Stock Market: Why shorting is wrong

Here is an article about how to short the stock-market. Shorting is selling stock you don't own, hoping the price will go down, and buying the stock at the lower price to cover your previous sells, hence making money. While within the law, it's just plain wrong.

Shorting allows day traders and the like to continue to make money while the market drops, but by doing so they are encouraging the market downwards hurting 'long' investors - aka your super fund.

Shorting should be banned permanently. The ongoing greed in the market is disgusting - step up the plate governments of the world! It's time for some regulation.

tech/misc | 16 Feb 2009 | #

What tripod do I have?

So when planning a photo trip overseas I keep on forgetting what tripod I'm currently using. It's embarrassing. So once and for all - the tripod I use is a SLIK U9000.

At least now it's on my blog so I can find it without having to go back into my Amazon account and looking up past orders from 5 years ago.

Oh, and by the way, I'm soon off to Wellington, NZ.

photos | 16 Feb 2009 | #

LinuxSA February 2008 - Chumby

  Hi all,

  Time for the February meeting announcement...

  The usual details:

   When:   6:30pm-8:30pm on Tuesday, 17th February, 2009
   Where:  Room G05/G06 Gerard Innovation Centre
           Prince Alfred College
           Capper Street, Kent Town SA
   Cost:   FREE
   Who:    Anyone and everyone.
           No pre-registration necessary.

  Presentation:

   Chris Iona will be presenting a talk on Hacking the Chumby.  This
   will be an introduction to its OS, hardware, and how to program it.
   See http://chumby.on.net/ for some general information about the
   Chumby.  Chris is a senior member of Internode's Content Services
   Group, with a strong web focus.

  Getting to the Venue:

   Prince Alfred College faces Dequetteville Terrace, but access to
   Room G05/G06 is only available from Capper Street; there is no
   access to these rooms from any other entrances in the College.  On
   Capper Street, Room G05/G06 is closer to The Parade West than to
   Dequetteville Terrace.

   Parking is available on-street or maybe off-street (adjacent to the
   Sports Centre). Look for the two storey stone fronted building with
   the sign "Gerard Innovation Centre". Enter through the double doors,
   first room on the right hand side of corridor (ground floor). The
   external door automatically locks at night. Should it not be propped
   open please be ready to knock loudly.

   There are buses that go along Dequetteville Terrace, with a stop
   adjacent to Capper Street. The 143, 145, and 146 buses leave from
   North Terrace, and the 141 and 142 buses leave from Currie Street
   and Grenfell street.

   If you are in the city, you could also catch the 99C bus to East
   Terrace, then take a 10-15 minute walk to the College.

  Pizza:

   After the meeting, please join us for pizza at San Giorgios (cnr.
   Frome Street and Rundle Street in the city).

  For more information:

   Email:        organisers@linuxsa.org.au
   Web Page:     http://www.linuxsa.org.au/
   Mailing List: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
   IRC: #linuxsa on irc.freenode.net

tech/LinuxSA | 11 Feb 2009 | #

ack and pv

The latest additions to my shell toolbox are ack and pv. Very cool indeed!

tech/code/shell | 03 Feb 2009 | #

Resuming normal activities

So it appears the back has been broken on our heatwave - we "only" had a 39C day yesterday meaning that we only equaled and did not break the record for longest run of > than 40C days.

The good news is that the nightly temperatures have dropped below 30C too, meaning that I could get back running in the early morning. Today was only a brief 6.5km, but boy did it feel good to get back on the road! Next step, do that 4 days a week; then get that back up to 12km and the marathon dream might get back on track.

exercise | 03 Feb 2009 | #

linux.conf.au 2009 Day Minus Three

So the story of linux.conf.au 2009 starts like this...

On Sunday I caught the only Virgin Blue direct flight from ADL to HBA along with most of the South Australian contingent (the red-eye earier in the day was cancelled no doubt frustrating those who got to the airport before dawn). It seems that VirginBlue has cemented itself as the carrier of choice nowadays, despite having to pay for both checked luggage and food - says a lot about Qantas and JetStar. Caught a cab with a couple of guys to the accommodation, quite amusing was the fact that we ended up looking up a map and using Google Maps over GPRS to find the university accommodation as the taxi driver had no idea.

Getting to the accommodation gave us the first wonderful surprise - modern, spacious (and cheap!) rooms with wonderful views over Hobart. The best LCA accommodation yet in my opinion. Met the other guys in the 6 bedroom complex, all from SA but I only previously knew one of them. Network access just worked - congratulations to Steve Walsh and his team.

Wandered down to the registration area via The Steep Hill just prior to the 5pm close and found a well-organised team and area ready to serve the open-source commnuity. Re-established some relationships from Ghosts and found a group of old friends "checking email" which we all had to do. Good to catch-up.

Then from there it was a nice stroll to a restaurant to eat with some other ghosts. A very nice time again talking substantionally with some good friends, finally took the offer of a lift back to the uni after comtemplation of the The Steep Hill. Got some sleep, knowing that I'd need it for the week ahead.

tech/linux-australia/lca2009 | 25 Jan 2009 | #

planet.linux.conf.au 2009

planet.linux.conf.au 2009 is now up and running! That also includes Atom and RSS 2.0 feeds.

Any issues can be sent mailed through to planet at linux dot org dot au.

See you all at linux.conf.au 2009 in 6 days time...

tech/linux-australia/lca2009 | 12 Jan 2009 | #

linux.conf.au 2009 coming real soon now

linux.conf.au 2009 in Hobart, Tasmania is only 13 days away. Have you registered yet? Flights blooked? Bags packed? Mine are ;)

Why come?

One awesome week of technical, brain-numbing input during the day and party time, catching-up with the free software community in the evenings. And they'll be ducks with lasers! Don't miss it - register before you'll regret it.

tech/linux-australia/lca2009 | 05 Jan 2009 | #

iPhone Cellular Data: Just Say No

So I got a 3G iPhone for Christmas, a closed proprietary platform, but a fun one :-) We just need to get a python runtime on there :-)

A frustrating thing with this device is the lack of control over its network interfaces. You can explicitly control 3G data and wireless, but not 2G data - this was a retrograde step moving up to the 2.0 firmware. What this means is that if your wireless connections drops, you skip back to cellular data - and even if you have 3G off, you're still unexpectingly racking up 2G data bills. Urrghh.

There is a very easy solution though - which strangely doesn't seem to get mentioned out there on the web that I've discoverd in my brief searches so far. To turn all cellular data connections off, but leave wifi on, just turn on "Airplane Mode", then after that turn "Wi-Fi" on. That gives the desired result.

tech/gadgets/iphone | 04 Jan 2009 | #