GCLUG meeting topics

Add your topic to present at a Gold Coast Linux Users Group meeting.

Business phones, personal tools, employee choice and empowerment.

To me, this article "Is the Apple iPhone a business phone? - Mobile OS - ComputerworldUK" raises a more interesting issue. It implies that many corporates never did understand and take on the cornerstone concept of "Universal Responsibility" within the world of Quality. They still try to dictate and control their employees, instead of guide and learn from the smarter and more progressive of them. They try to dictate which mobile device is "approved". The same "Network Nazis" block access to many internet sites and facilities on the basis that any visit to them could not be for any corporate benefit. This is an arrogant and/or outdated military attitude that assumes that quality and excellence flows from the top of organisations to the serfs at the bottom. In many institutions this is a great indicator of the abundance of mediocrity that is deeply embedded into the institution, and a good sign to not have anything to do with them, beyond perhaps a quick "hit and run" sale.

Sending blog posts with photos from the mobile phone

This photo was sent from my mobile phone directly to this blog. It is promising technology, but something (perhaps either my LG phone, or the Virgin email setup, or both) is still a bit buggy. I have so far had success sending:

1. simple text emails;
2. this photo with a text signature (sent via
   • selecting a photo, then selecting to send it, rather than
   • select to compose an email, then attach the photo file).

The objective is to take a photo when out and about, and add a minimal amount of text at that time, since I find it too inefficient to do this via phone keypads, then send it as a blog post. More text can be added later, as I have done here.

15 Rules for Business Bloggers | Internet Marketing Strategy: Conversation Marketing

The article "15 Rules for Business Bloggers | Internet Marketing Strategy: Conversation Marketing", which I found at The WebMarketCentral Blog, has some good ideas about blogging: why one might do it and how to be effective. It skirts the issue of ROI, an issue I find most interesting.

I think that many people simply blog because they feel the need to do so, with little regard for any reader. Is this the tormented artist in many of us, struggling to express themselves? How many artists, say they produce their art for themselves, and as a therapy with little regard for any consumer. ROI is therefore not expressed as a $sales return / hour expended, yet in the long-term there is either a perceived sense of satisfaction, or a real $'s return somewhere. Anyway, I do not intend to start blogging about blogging. It a tool to use presumably for a greater end than itself.

The future of collaboration - here now.

Two great reasons to clear your desktop and move to a world of better communication and integration with your associates, customers and audience.

Google Docs in Plain English: collaborative creation of content, made easy.

Add in Google Wave for a full and rich collaborative environment.

Flogging Molly - The Worst Day Since Yesterday

Larf til ya cry, cry til ya larf!

Meetups: where cyberspace REALLY supports the real world

Now here is a shining example of a really useful Web2 facility: The Meetup website. I am using it quite a lot lately, to get about and interact with like-minded people here on the Gold Coast. Meetups is an especially useful facility, as the Gold Coast is a place where many newcomers are always arriving and many are 'net savvy and therefore look to this sort of facility to find their way around.

'Green Drinks Gold Coast' is the first Meetup group that I am involved in.

I have just found how to get Meetup notifications via an RSS feed, ie into my Google Reader account, which is where I get all my news etc. This results in all the local meetings that might be of interest to me being aggregated into my favourite feed reader (Google Reader), where I can keep track of them... Nice.

Worldfocus.org’s OLPC Rwanda Video | One Laptop per Child

Worldfocus.org’s OLPC Rwanda Video | One Laptop per Child: March 30, 2009: Worldfocus.org has produced a good video report that describes OLPC Rwanda’s plans to provide computer access to the country’s 2.3 million schoolchildren. Note the discipline and pleasant respect shown by the children. How does this compare to those in the Australian educational system? Which group even speaks English better, and is better spoken? Which group shows more courtesy, respect and self discipline?

Linking to an OLPC XO via vnc

This screenshot is taken from my desktop, running the Vinagre vnc client on Ubuntu Intrepid. I can move the XO's mouse cursor from the desktop PC, and hovering over menu items pops the menus open. However that is as much control as I can currently achieve. I cannot send keystrokes nor mouseclicks from the desktop PC to the XO, so I cannot control the XO from the desktop PC. It wold have been especially nice to be able to use teh desktop PCs keyboard. Perhaps I should forget the vnc approach, and just plug a USB keyboard directly into the XO.

OLPC XO testdrive

This post is created on an OLPC XO. The keyboard is far too small for an adult touch typist though, so the rest of this post will be done from a standard PC.

Now editing from the 'safety' of my normal PC.
I have borrowed this XO from the OLPC Club Gold Coast to check it out, and see what if anything I might do with them, especialy to support development of software for them, or support their adoption in general. Findings so far ...

0. The XO found our local wifi router, and accepted the WPA passphrase. On reboot it's automatically reconnecting - nice.
1. My PC here has a normal keyboard, so I can touch-type. One downside of the XO is that it might give rise to a generation of kids that type via "hunt 'n peck".
2. The XO has just been tested in sunlight, where ...
2.1 ... I downloaded the vnc server "Activity" (ie software package) from the OLPC support wiki. This should allow me to control the XO from a vnc client on my desktop PC.
3. It's not fast, and its not hard to have it appear to freeze while its beavering away in the background trying to play catchup. This must be a plan by the OLPC folk to teach kids patience.
4. There is no point 4, mate. :-)
5. The camera tool (Activity) is nice. I took the pic shown onscreen, and shared it. I guess the other 3 or 4 nodes that I see in the 'mesh' view might be able to see it.

Gary Hamel on Managing Generation Y - the Facebook Generation - Gary Hamel’s Management 2.0 - WSJ

Gary Hamel on The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500: an interesting article on where progressive ideals embodied in the Web 2 world contrast with traditional concepts embodied in the traditional commercial world. The big unknown of the current age is what does one do that could be called 'productive' or 'valued' work, and if value is not recognised, why would you get paid anything? So then what do all the people do who are not needed in the workforce - ie there is no work of value for them to do. Is the next age to be one of a new type of communism: from a select few rather than from each according to their ability, yet still to each according to their need?

Making the Future Happen In Linux - Linux Today Blog

Making the Future Happen In Linux - Linux Today Blog seems to be a nicely written piece on why many people could find Linux better than Windows on their PC. What i like especially is the sentiment "joining the 'wah, Linux isn't 100% ready for me yet, and dangit someone needs to do something about it' chorus isn't the best way to get there". In this day and age too many people are mindless passive consumers. Consumerism is at the root of today's economic mess, and needs to be countered. People need to educate themselves to not be mindless consumers. The Open Source approach implies an anti-consumer approach which is not implied in commercial systems. The Open Source and anti-consumer approach is what we need in order to slow the cycle of mining, manufacture, consume, destroy that is now failing badly on this planet from both a commercial and an environmental perspective.

Exetel ADSL - Whats the best way to get naked

We are now running naked ADSL here :-), and I have also helped a friend via the Exetel User Help Forum - Whats the best way to get Naked ADSL from nothing.

So phone calls here are all working nicely via VOIP. The VOIP service providers I am using are Exetel, & Gizmos5, and the for client VOIP apps I use Ekiga, and Gizmo5.

Inside A Google Data Center

Your data and much of your software need not reside on any specific PC anymore. Just leave as much as you can up in "the cloud", eg up here somewhere, where its free, secure, and accessible from wherever you might be.

Twouble with Twitters

Just what I have been since about 10 days after I started using it. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN2HAroA12w)