Recent Posts by Al Gordon

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / June 15th Meeting

The Next Meeting announcement blurb has been updated.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / New MythTV - DVI video question?

I may have a DVI cable you can use, in case you’re having layer 1 issues.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / June 15th Meeting

I believe I can be there. I’ve updated the Next Meetings blurb on the menu bar. I should really show you and some others how to do this at the next meeting, Nick. :)

Topic: SCOSUG Support / Mouse Trouble

It’s been a while since I’ve had to dig around in X conf files. I’ll take a look and see if I can spot anything as well.

Topic: SCOSUG Support / Mouse Trouble

btw, I fixed the format of your code posting. You just need to wrap code with preformat tags (<pre> and </pre>) to get it to show up right. I’ll see if there’s a markup shortcut that can be applied to the forum’s text editor.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / New MythTV - DVI video question?

For all of the time sunk into this, you’re probably just as well off to get a new video card with DVI. I think it’s hard to get one without DVI these days, actually, and you don’t need to spend huge bucks to get a modern low-end card that will blow away most high-performance cards of just a year or two ago.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / Intechra - Meeting topic?

I like it! Maybe as a bonus, we could get them to haul away some of our stuff, so we don’t all have to drive to Windsor. ;)

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / Security Updates

Some people have asked me where I get the security notifications that I sometimes pass on to them. Here’s a few, feel free to add to the list.

• The SANS Institute (http://www.sans.org/): Provides SANS Newsbites in email and RSS formats. I get this one as a weekly newletter. Good on details, with a little bit of editorial content thrown into the mix. Not so bad.
• Bat Blue (http://www.batblue.com/): Publishes Daily Security Briefing in email, RSS and podcast formats. I get this one as a daily email. It’s nicely formatted with a list of current security vulnerabilities, a list of recent virus and malware activity, summaries of major issues and their actionables.

There are a few more lists/resources I could mention, but these are the top two that seem to cover most issues for me. Watching slashdot and/or digg is sometimes also useful, for up-to-the-moment advisories, as long as you can manage to tune out all of the chatter on those sites.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / New OpenSolaris releases

Details at http://OpenSolaris.com.

From the site:

Why use the OpenSolaris OS you ask? It’s pretty simple, you’ll find it full of unique features like the new Image Packaging System (IPS), ZFS as the default filesystem, DTrace enabled packages for extreme observability and performance tuning, and many many more. We think you’ll be quite happy you came by to take a look!

And, I found ths headline interesting enough to actually click through to the article: OpenSolaris: What Ubuntu wants to be when it grows up. http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8703

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / May Meeting - waiting for confirmation

Sweet! Please ping me with details when you have them, so I can update the Next Meeting blurb.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / April Meeting?

I won’t be able to attend this one, but I’ll be bringing my BUG to future meetings for people who are interested in seeing such a thing.

I’ll update the meeting announcement blurb.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / REST what is it?

This is a pretty good resource. However, I think I disagree with something, right off the bat.

Use HTTP POST to update information

Actually, I believe it’s supposed to be something along the lines of: use POST to create information, GET to read it, PUT to update it, and DELETE to destroy it. I’m basing this on the Method Information section of the RESTful Web Services book by O’Reilly (pp. 9-11), as well as the REST implementation which is provided by default now in Ruby on Rails.

Of course, Wikipedia’s REST page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_S…) lists a table that maps HTTP methods against CRUD operations allowing POST to do everything other than a Read, and to be fair, since web browsers pretty much don’t implement anything other than GET and POST, most implementations of REST that exist “in the wild” (including the Rails one I just mentioned) basically simulate PUTs and DELETEs via POSTs.

I also think I heard someone say something like “REST really isn’t anything”, or something along those lines. (I may have misheard—I’m old and have bad hearing.) REST actually is something, but there’s not a lot to it, specification-wise. I believe, however, that in the case of REST, a little bit goes a long way. In the case of the BUG, for example, it provides convention, such that if you understand how to pull coordinates from the GPS module (an HTTP GET operation against a URI such as http://mybug/services/Location), you should pretty much intuitively know that pulling a picture from the camera module is as simple as referencing its service (in this base, ‘Picture’) via a URI such as http://mybug/services/Picture.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / March meeting?

Hi, guys. Hopefully I’ll be able to bring a BUG with me to show off. I’m pretty sure you guys will all dig it—it’s an open source hardware and software platform for designing and building your own gadgets.

Details at http://buglabs.net/ .

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / My SCP Died... :-(

Pretty slick if it actually works!

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / March meeting?

I believe I can be there.

Isn’t the 23rd Easter? Might make it rough for some people to get to the meeting.

By the way, the Next Meeting blurb for the website is now updated with content related to this meeting.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / Feb Meeting?

I think he’s more or less open to just about anything, as long as it happens sometime later this month. His schedule is filling up quickly. Preferences are, I believe, for week nights rather than weekends.

Do we (SCOSUG) have a specific date that we think would work well for us? We need to get word back out to our “regulars”, as well as maybe cross-pollinate with some other groups (New Haven Ruby Brigade comes to mind, as well as various groups in Hartford).

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / So when is the next meeting before all turns snowy?

Sounds like a plan to me. I’m interested!

Topic: Testing... / More Testing 2

test…

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / Gentoo, anyone?

Thanks for the advice, Lou. After using it not so extensively, I’m pretty sure I agree with you.

Apparently, there is a requirement to use Gentoo at my new job in order to support our software development team, but I’m working to reduce that requirement so as to run it on as few machines as possible, replacing with Ubuntu server wherever I can. I really like the mostly Debian-ness of Ubuntu from a technical standpoint combined with the operational plus of a regularly scheduled upgrade interval.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / So when is the next meeting before all turns snowy?

I have no idea, but I’m interested in a meeting as well.

If anyone is interested, I could perhaps give an informal talk about Bug Labs, and their upcoming open source hardware/software product.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / Gentoo, anyone?

So, do any of you have any recent experience with Gentoo? I’m looking to do some stuff with it, and would like to get tips, opinions, etc. from current users with current knowledge. There seems to be a lot of information on the Gentoo site, but a lot of it seems perhaps out of date.

Topic: Help Wanted / Looking for an unpaid internship

(after which time the wife and I plan to spend a year in Hawaii)

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / MythTV and channels greater then 13

Looks like version 0.20.2 just released.

1. The major impetus for this release is the shutdown of TMS Labs; among other changes this adds Schedules Direct support. # The 0.20.2 release notes have a list of the two major and many minor changes since 0.20.1. Since 0.20.1 never made it to a public release you may want to look at the 0.20.1 release notes as well.

Download: http://mythtv.org/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_…

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / SCOSUG Picnic/BBQ THIS Saturday!!!

I know I had a great time. The food was excellent, and I know there were a few really interesting conversations going on.

I’ll get the pictures I took out to the group soon. I hope that Chris and Steve share theirs, too.

Topic: SCOSUG Discussion / Free as in hardware

Hrm, good idea. I may post some freecycle things here as well. I believe I also have an old series 1 TiVO that needs to find a home, along with some other old gear (maybe even another Game Cube).