Coffs Ex-Services Computer Club

The next meeting of the computer club has been postponed to Saturday the 20th, in order to roll it into the Software Freedom Day festivities. See the details on the ClubLinux website.

I'll be putting in an order for some Software Freedom Day 2008 t-shirts, so if you'd like to save on freight, let me know within the next day or so if you want any, and I'll add your order to mine. They're priced at 15 North American Pesos, which works out to roughly $AU20 (and rapidly falling).

The shirts are available in S, M, L, XL, XXL, and IT professional (XXXL) sizes, and you can see the design here, and the finished article here.

Hi all,

I've just had a phone conversation with CEX Group CEO John Rafferty. He's said he will be posting us a letter instructing us to wind up the club, given we've submitted absolutely nothing in the way of paperwork to the parent club in the last couple of years.

There's no argument to that. I haven't the time, skills, or inclination for that kind of work, so unless somebody steps forward on Wednesday to take these responsibilities on, and is also willing to carry on fighting for a place under the umbrella of the Ex-Services Club, the discussion now shifts to "what do we do now?", which will be the topic of this Wednesday's - probably final - meeting at the Ex-Services Club.

I still enjoy our meetings, and see no reason why we can't arrange another venue with less onerous administrative obligations. Some options include:

- My home office is about half the size of the Ex-Services Club board room, has three fixed computers, two laptops, a conference table (okay, a dining table we use for meetings) and an Internet connection.

- Somebody at the GNU/Linux user group meeting on Sunday suggested using the Park Beach Bowling Club, where this group meets. The club don't require anything but membership of the club, and they have a working Internet connection available. There was also a suggestion of merging the two groups. In my view this would mean the resulting group would be operating system agnostic (which may upset some people), but still focussed on free/libre/open source software (which may upset some other people).

- Both of these options are outside the Coffs CBD, which might put some people off. Perhaps we could negotiate with some business owner in the CBD with some space and an Internet connection to provide us with a home for a small/nonexistant fee. A coffee shop or restaurant within range of a CoffsWiFi access point might also be possible.

Any other ideas?

Hi all,

Last night I delivered a report to the Ex-Services Club Sports Committee basically outlining the events of the past year or so, and asking for clarification of the board's attitude to the computer club (we already know what the club management's attitude is).

You can download the report from http://computerclub.cex.com.au/sites/computerclub.cex.com.au/files/Sports%20Committee%20Report%20August%202008.pdf

So things are going to start happening. I've already got an email from the club's IT manager denying ever receiving any email from me.

The situation is that the club has every right to shut us down for not fulfilling our administrative requirements over the last few years, and as I see it their options are:

- To help us get back on our feet

- To show us the door

Personally, I don't feel that the Coffs Ex-Services Club is the kind of organisation that I want to be associated with any more, and it wouldn't break my heart to have to find a new venue. It would probably also be easier than trying to meet the club's requirements, and continuing to deal with neglect and/or hostility from club staff and management. However, I'm with Max in seeing my role as a caretaker, and my responsibility is to keep this going as long as I can so that others can make a decision on the club's future out of choice rather than necessity.

For the second time, I've sent an email to the IT manager of the club enquiring about the possible causes and solutions for the recurring network connectivity outages in the club board room, and for the second time I've received no reply. (Being familiar with the level of in-house technological expertise at the Ex-Services Club, perhaps I should have sent a fax, or a telegram.)

So I thought that unless we prepare to do something at this meeting that doesn't require Internet access, we will probably be wasting our time, and this made me think of the many ways that computers can facilitate time-wasting. I've talked about this before, but I've recently aquired a few new favourites:

• Aisleriot
• Crack Attack
• Gweled
• GNOME Sudoku
• and an old, but recurring favourite: Battle for Wesnoth

What are your favourite computer-related activities for those times when you really should be doing something more important? Bring them in to the same place at the same time:

Coffs Ex-Services Club Board Room, 7:00pm Wednesday 20th August.

See you there,
Matthew.

Usual late notice again this month. Usual apologies.

As always, we'll be in the board room of the Coffs Ex-Services Club, and as always who knows what will happen? I can guarantee at least a moderate amount of genial chat about computer-related topics; anything else is up to the whims of the fates, and that's part of the fun.

Software Freedom Day is coming up in a month, and as I've been saying all year, Allison and I aren't going to have the time to organise an event this year, but we would certainly to our best to contribute to anything anybody else wanted to organise. So far nobody's stepped forward, but it's still not too late. Take a look at what some of the other SFD teams around the world are doing, and if you have a brilliant idea for spreading free software goodness amongst the people of Coffs Harbour, all it takes is a little time and commitment to make it happen.

Matthew.

Now that's more like it, the standard seven hours notice for our meeting tonight, 7pm in the Board room of the Ex-Services Club.

Unless circumstances beyond my control change, I will not be able to make it this evening, but shed no tears as everything will be operating normally, just minus one grumpy old man.

Last meeting, or perhaps the one before, coincided with the release of Firefox 3 and "Download Day", an attempt to set a Guiness World Record for the most software downloaded in a single day. It was pretty much a fait accompli, as there wasn't already an established record set, but even so 8.3 million downloads is quite impressive. I've been using it for a while, and I've got to say it's a major improvement in the same way that Firefox 2 wasn't. I particularly like the "awesome bar", although I know some people hate it with a passion.

If I don't see you tonight, I'll see you at the next meeting, or at ClubLinux.

Matthew.

The big news of the week is Bill Gates leaving his day job at Microsoft (but retaining his office to reassure Microsoft shareholders), and the disappearence of Windows XP from retail shelves. It's a time for reminiscences, retrospectives, getting teary over old photographs, and speculation about the future. I think it might be appropriate to do some of these things ourselves at our next meeting (7:00pm Wednesday, 2nd July,  in the Ex-Services Club board room as usual).

My predictions for the future of Microsoft (not that anybody asked, and hardly very original), are as follows. Microsoft has a few years to radically revise it's business model. If it doesn't do that, the only option left open to them will be an undignified demise, struggling vainly to maintin it's share price by claiming to own virtually every useful idea ever implemented as software, and suing every competitor they can find with deep pockets. We've seen this play out before on a smaller scale; it's a scam that doesn't work.

Now I did say at the end of last meeting that I had an idea for a prepared, semi-formal presentation which I'd be able to deliver at this meeting if I had time. As it turns out, I didn't have time, so you've all had a reprieve. Be warned that I might get my act together in time for July. So it will be a general free-for-all as usual, and as usual in the Board Room of the Ex-Services Club at 7:00pm on Wednesday.

There should be plenty to talk about. Many people have been observing lately that Windows XP has become the Energiser bunny of operating systems, due in no small part to the rise of small, light, low-cost computers incapable of running WIndows Vista. This brings the total number of incredibly popular technology phenomenons which Microsoft utterly failed to predict up to, well, all of them actually.

Just found out that what I had previously known as "the Peach Project" has been released as "Big Buck Bunny". This is the second "open movie" project  designed to showcase and help develop the features of the Blender "3D content creation suite" (the first being the less funny and furry, and more arty, "Elephants Dream"). I haven't seen it yet, but will endevour to download a copy in time for the meeting (It's only ten minutes long).

The latest version of Blender, released a few weeks ago, boasts many new features developed as part of the Big Buck Bunny process. Sadly, I don't have what it takes to demonstrate Blender; it's professional-quality 3D software and just too huge and overwhelming for me. For those brave enough to give it a go, the Big Buck Bunny DVD includes all of the Blender files used to create the movie, so you can create your own movie using the same characters!

Team registration for Software Freedom Day 2008 is open. Personally I found last year's event a bit underwhelming (I have nobody to blame but myself for this), and was considering eschewing the day-long event this year for a couple of market stalls and a few talks at Chambers of Commerce, Rotary Clubs, and the like. However everyone I mention this idea to is appalled, and very keen to have another event as per the last few years.

Hi all,

Back to the usual routine of forgetting about the meeting until the day it's on. I'm double-booked this evening, so I may be stuck in another meeting and only ablt to turn up late or not at all. Some may consider this an incentive to attend, but apologies to anybody else.

It's been an interesting couple of weeks in the computer world. The Microsoft-Yahoo non-deal (for the moment at least) is being seen as another "turning the battleship" moment for Microsoft. The first of these was in late 1995-1996 when they had to cencede that the Internet was not, as they had until then been insisting, a passing fad only of interest to nerds. Another may be the belated realisation that there is a market for cheap, lightweight ultra-portable computers. A year and a half after the release of Windows Vista, designed to run on only the highest-spec computers, the notionally obsolete, seven-year-old Windows XP is getting a new lease of life as Microsoft scrambles to get it to work on the Intel Classmate, ASUS EeePC, and now the One Laptop Per Child project's XO Laptop.

We had a bit of a look at the XO last meeting (well, at video of it, anyway). The OLPC-Microsoft partnership has ruffled more than a few feathers, with one prominent figure within the OLPC project resigning over a perception that the OLPC's focus has shifted from education to mere technology. So the innovative software developed for the XO, "Sugar", has become an independant project, and as Windows XP works it's way onto the XO, we may see Sugar appearing on non-OLPC computers. It's already included as an optional package in the Ubuntu Linux OS, among others.

See you tonight, or else next month.

Matthew.