November Meeting Notes

First, I should report that the next meeting is going to be held in
two weeks: Wednesday Dec. 13 at 7:30pm at Winston's Pub:
http://www.hotelsenator.ca/winstons/winstons.html

(notes for Jim, Brian and Gerald included lower in this e-mail :)

Google Sketchup is not currently available for Linux
http://sketchup.google.com/download.html
though you might be able to get it working with Wine
http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=4828
If you'd like to try a GPL app though, there's Blender:
http://www.blender.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_(software)
From Synaptic:
"Blender is an integrated 3d suite for modelling, animation,
rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback (games).
Blender has its own particular user interface, which is implemented
entirely in OpenGL and designed with speed in mind. Python bindings
are available for scripting; import/export features for popular file
formats like 3D Studio and Wavefront Obj are implemented as scripts by
the community. Stills, animations, models for games or other third
party engines and interactive content in the form of a standalone
binary and/or a web plug-in are common products of Blender use."

Because there were new people at the meeting, we went around the room
introducing ourselves and saying which Linux distro(s) we use:

Conrad - Ubuntu
Brian - Mandriva
Rob - Debian (and Ubuntu)
Glen - Red Hat
Chris - Everything ;)
Jim - Ubuntu
Doug - doesn't (yet ;) he uses Windows as he needs it for his work,
which is photography at Picture Perfect Portraits, but he came to the
meeting with...
Jennifer - Red Hat (mostly; she does RH support)
Scott - usually Debian (but Ubuntu on his laptop)
Tanieth - Ubuntu (on Mac hardware with Parallels:
http://www.parallels.com/) she's from South Africa and so is obviously
a friend of Mark Shuttleworth ;) Factoid: Her name apparently derives
from Tanit, a Carthiginian lunar goddess:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanit Regarding Parallels, apparently it
can be setup so that if you tap the side of the computer it switches
OSs: http://blog.medallia.com/2006/05/smacbook_pro.html
Dave - doesn't run Linux, he runs OpenBSD
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenBSD) 'the Canadian OS' (because the
lead developer is in Calgary :) The geek joke was that because he
uses the lynx browser, Dave is waiting for the *ascii* flash plugin
for BSD ;)
Les - usually Debian (and Red Hat for customers) but runs multiple OSs
Nels - Ubuntu (admits to using XP but will never use Vista! ;)
Gerald showed up after the intros and I forgot to ask him ^_-;

Ginkgo biloba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kwanten/
(I'm hoping my little tree overwinters)

I showed off some test pages from the Samsung ML-2510 (a B&W laser
printer that was on sale at Futureshop for <$90 after tax) which
specifically mentions on the box that it supports Linux. Some notes
for installing it in Ubuntu:
http://mattgordon.wordpress.com/howto/installing-a-samsung-printer/
See also http://www.linuxprinting.org/

Gerald found this image amusing:
http://www.jayhosler.com/Charlie.jpg

Brian asked about the image linked on
http://www.slg.org/index.cgi?MonthlyMeetings
The website is Google maps: http://maps.google.ca/
One can also use Google Earth, which is available as a native Linux version:
http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

Jim asked about aligning and printing cartridges on HP printers in
Linux; in Ubuntu this functionality should be available via the HPLIP
Toolbox (System -> Preferences -> HPLIP Toolbox) or via the command
line: hp-align and hp-clean though as I recall it might have
difficulty picking up printers connected via parallel cable.

CK
Received on Thu, 30 Nov 2006 14:14:00 -0600