Berkeley Linux Users Group
Here’s what Google Trends (image at right) says are last month’s top search items for software technologies. Are these the ones you use most often?
We meet on the second and fourth Sundays of each month from noon to three in Berkeley near the Downtown Berkeley BART station near the corner of University & Shattuck. We hope you join us at Bobby G’s Pizzeria and/or join the discussion on our list.
Ignore these ideas at your own peril. Free, The Future of a Radical Price (2009) by Chris Anderson is available, not surprisingly, for free, gratis, no marginal cost. The google buzz is interesting too.
* books.google.com version
* Amazon has hardcover, paperback, kindle ebook and (gratis) audible.com versions
Mr. Anderson is a fellow resident of Berkeley and is also the author of Makers: The New Industrial Revolution (2012) and The Long Tail: Why The Future of Business Is Selling Less Of More (2006). This TED bio is helpful and his first TED Talk recorded in 2004 is a prelude to his 2006 book.
We meet on the second and fourth Sundays of each month in Berkeley near the Downtown Berkeley BART station. We hope you join us at Bobby G’s Pizzeria.
We all want to share with each other. Twitter was created in 2006 and is a leading social networking service grown from combining the micro-blogs with Short Message Service (SMS). Facebook and other popular social networking services combine games, pictures and video with the Internet. "A 2011 survey found that 47% of American adults use a social networking service." [1] Social networks have been studied for decades as a subdiscipline of computer-mediated communication.
For BerkeleyLUG communication we use wordpress, groups.google.com for our email list, twitter, IRC and google+. What social networking services do you use?
We meet on the second and fourth Sundays of each month in Berkeley near the Downtown Berkeley BART station. We hope you join us at Bobby G’s Pizzeria.
WordPress is quite a popular platform for blogs and powers this website. What do you think of the WordPress app for Android? What other software do you use with WordPress? If you use an alternative, what do you use?
We meet on the second and fourth Sundays of each month in Berkeley near the Downtown Berkeley BART station. We hope you join us at Bobby G’s Pizzeria.
Things can get quiet during the summer time for LUGs. How are people that attend the meetings using IRC? Generally due to critical mass, we have recommended that attendees use the #ubuntu-us-ca channel instead of our own #berkeleylug channel. If there is interest we can collaborate online as well as at Bobby G’s from noon to three on the second and fourth Sunday of each month.
Many thanks to Michael for logging into IRC from physical meetings. This enables some remote participation via IRC from those unable to attend as regularly in person.
We talked about IRC a couple times already, but after you are connected, then what? Is IRC about instant gratification? Well, yes and no. It depends on who is in the channel you are talking in. I use it to talk to people about projects I am working on like #ubuntu-us-ca. If you can think of a large open source project, chances are good that there’s an IRC channel for it on Freenode. I have conversations in real time during meetings but I also have conversations over periods of days. Some channels are busier than others and it varies depending on the time of day and day of the week. Phone calls are OK for unconnected people about private topics, however IRC is one of my most important and effective tools I use when collaborating with others on important projects.
I alluded in the previous post to enhancing or augmenting an IRC channel by running a bot that has useful services. I’ll get to that in the next post. Unfortunately the power supply of my ShivaPlug died so I need to get a new one and get my super python bot or supybot back online. I look forward to speaking with people about grantbow.com/irc.html intended to help people get started. Your feedback here or via email would be most appreciated.
The BerkeleyLUG meets from noon to three on the second and fourth Sunday of each month at Bobby G’s Pizzeria. Our May 26th meeting is going on now.
With the move to mobile the online, connected all the time standby tools like IRC (see previous Freenode post) may not seem very modern but it’s having a resurgence in tech circles and is one of my most important tools when collaborating with others. The trouble is there is resistance to adopting it. It’s as close to an Internet command line as you can get, especially when augmented or enhanced when running a bot that has useful services.
It’s so important a tool I have started writing a web page on my website to help people get started. Your feedback here or via email would be most appreciated.
The BerkeleyLUG meets on the second and fourth Sunday of each month at Bobby G’s Pizzeria. Our May 12th meeting is in about an hour. I look forward to seeing people there. Happy Mother’s Day!
There’s more than just Ubuntu out in the Linux universe. Maybe you’re satisfied with your current operating system, but are curious to see what else there is. Distributions (or distros for short) are operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Just like with Ubuntu’s live CD, there are many distributions that allow you to test out the operating system without allowing it to take over your hard drive. You can also run them in a virtual environment without having to leave your desktop by using Qemu, VirtualBox, or VMWare.
One great resource for learning about the different flavors of Linux and their features is DistroWatch.com. It has a large index of the different Linux distributions, as well as reviews, summaries, and comparisons between versions to get you started. The beauty of open source software is that you can even use and modify the code from other distributions to make your own. If you’ve got some spare time, Why not try a new distro today?
We hope you join us for our meeting in Berkeley at Bobby G’s Pizzeria. We meet on the second and fourth Sundays of each month.
When advocating for Linux can you tell us about it in a way the general public can understand?
http://www.ted.com/talks/melissa_marshall_talk_nerdy_to_me.html
We hope you join us for our meeting in Berkeley today at Bobby G’s Pizzeria. We meet on the second and fourth Sundays of each month.
The next billion people getting onto the Internet won’t be using “PCs” and there is quite a bit of development going into efforts to make Linux easier to use and reduce the choices in favor of excellent user experiences. Some of the most visible efforts now are:
Since I just voted with my wallet at Best Buy in purchasing a Samsung XE303 and enjoy using it I’m curious to hear what you think about this movement.
We hope you join us for our meeting in Berkeley Sunday at Bobby G’s Pizzeria. We meet on the second and fourth Sundays of each month.