Birmingham Linux User Group UK ()

Martin Meredith | 10 Feb 2012 12:22

[Meeting] February - Education and Programming - John Pinner

Education and Programming

Raspberry Pi is a single board computer, costing $25 or $35 according to 
which model you buy, and should be the 21st Century replacement for the 
BBC Micro. As supplied it runs Linux and is expected to be available in 
limited supply this month.

John Pinner will discuss the Raspberry Pi project, and will have a 
system to demonstrate.

  Recently there has been considerable publicity around the shortcomings
of our educational  system teaching children 'ICT' (or how to use
PowerPoint) rather than programming skills, and this has been aided by
Government ministers jumping on the bandwagon.

Some pundits, looking through rose-tinted specs maybe, hark back to
the 'good old days' when schools had BBC Micros (too expensive for
most kids who maybe aspired to Sinclair ZX81s) and kids bought
magazines and typed in programs for text-console games and learnt
debugging skills as the published programs usually did not work.

The proposition is that if somehow we can return to a situation where
kids have the opportunity to learn to program rather than use Office,
their interest will be stimulated and we can improve the UK's
competitiveness by rebuilding our software industry.

And in the era of Linux and the GPL,  there should be no software
impediments to this.

Hardware-wise, it has been a different story. Now with the advent of

(Continue reading)

headers

Keith White | 9 Feb 2012 09:09

New sub/spin-off group update.

Following the CovLUG tech meeting on Tuesday 7th, here is an update and 
my attempt at a summary of things so far. I have updated the web page 
http://www.covlug.org.uk/index.php?n=Members.Subgroup accordingly.

*Overview*
The group has multifaceted interests, two of the main ones are:
1) Both influencing and giving education to community, public, schools, 
government.
2) Microcomputers/controllers and their programming, electronics, robotics.

These is also interest in two types of regular meetings:
1) talks/presentations/theory/demonstrations.
2) hands on practical doing and hacking sessions.
Perhaps the meetings could alternate.

A first meeting was proposed for the last week of February pending:

*Issues to be resolved*

*Mailing List & Website* Are a priority for group infrastructure and 
communication. They will probably be set up soon after 11th February 
when our Server-Masters return from their holiday, so we have to be 
patient for a little while.

*Venue* To be arranged.
- City centre (Coventry) location preferably.
- Some people would like to bring their children along, hence pubs are 
no go areas after 7pm.
- The Council House has meeting rooms available for free in the evenings.
- For weekends The Herbert museum is a good venue with cafe, they have

(Continue reading)

headers

Keith White | 5 Feb 2012 12:50

Formation of new sub/spin-off group at CovLUG

Part 2:
Related to the presentation at the next CovLUG tech meeting, on the 7th 
February, there are some exciting developments going on to which your 
contribution, influence and involvement is invited:

The meeting will begin the formation of either a CovLUG subgroup or 
spin-off group, the nature of which may be determined by meeting 
discussion, on-line and by initial interested parties. The new group's 
interests may be some combination of open source hardware, micro 
computers/controllers, Raspberry Pi, Arduino and similar devices, micro 
computer/controller programming, electronics and may include some 
involvement with education at various levels, schools, academia, local 
community etc.

It's up to you. If you would like to have your say and have some 
influence on what happens and what gets formed then come along to the 
meeting.

Keith
%%%%%%%

headers

Keith White | 5 Feb 2012 12:48

Micro machines and computing in schools: Invite to CovLUG tech meeting,

Part 1:
Following recent discussion on the mailing list relating to the 
Raspberry Pi and government educational announcements, the CovLUG 
technical meeting this coming Tuesday 7th February, may be of interest. 
You are invited and welcome, as you always are, to attend:

*Micro machines and computing in schools*
By Dr.Steve Matthews

Practical experience in architecture design has been around since the 
BBC micro, but is now making an interesting comeback in the Arduino and 
the almost here Raspberry Pi.

The first question posed by the evenings talk is whether the LUG could 
be developing a part of its activity to encourage members to buy such 
micros and simply have fun programming with them for the greater 
strength of the LUG's traditional interests in Linux and open source.

The second question, following on from the first, is the recent 
conclusion of government that the ICT curricula in schools needs to be 
strengthened this year by "programming", "computer science", and "open 
source". The fear of many is that we might be producing a generation of 
young people that can use a few standard packages, but would not have 
inherited the deep scientific engineering skills base to make future 
computers for which the UK is traditionally reputed.

And so, the evenings talk will propose and consider these two questions, 
and to what extent the LUG might contribute in future to the development 
of computing in school curricula.
--------

(Continue reading)

headers

Stephen Welch | 1 Feb 2012 21:52

Fast broadband

I thought some of you might like this picture......

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1744237244.png

Fazeley Studios, Birmingham.  Looks like a leased 100MB contended
connection to the cloud.

So the architects office of three partners and a secretary paying a
reasonable rent for an office in the media center of Birmingham opt
for the cheapest internet package for their office.

OUCH.  At circa 10 am they were getting 68 down and 55 up.  The
needles were in red - barring you tube this is the fastest I have
seen.

Funnily enough this morning near Selly Oak I see a new BT telco box
next to one stripped out with a sticker on it for BT fibre.

Following this I get all excited and put a call into BT to enquire
about BT fibre  Selly Oak are being done as we speak so it might be up
and running now or very soon if anyone makes enquires.  As for
Edgbaston or kings Norton it going to be another 18 months I get told
- STD stock answer - who knows!?

Bloody good advert for Fazeley Studios if anyone is looking for a place.

Back to bonded internet from Bethere.....

Stephen

(Continue reading)

headers

Antonio Roberts | 31 Jan 2012 18:58

Richard Stallman lecture

Was the video of Richard Stallman's lecture last year ever put online?

Ant

--

-- 
============================
antonio@...
http://www.hellocatfood.com
============================

headers

James Haigh | 27 Jan 2012 16:26

Ripple Monetary System

Hello,
Has anyone heard of the Ripple Monetary System? Or know of any
Midlands group where this would be on-topic?

James.

(
https://ripplepay.com/
http://ripple-project.org/
)

headers

John Pinner | 27 Jan 2012 14:56

FLOSS UK Spring Conference

The FLOSS UK Spring Conference is in Edinburgh in March. It is an 
excellent conf, with a very high signal-to-noise ratio. A Bursary is 
available to assist a student to attend:

"""
Due to generous sponsorship from Opengear <http://www.opengear.com/>, we 
are pleased to announce the 'FLOSS UK 2012 Conference Grant' to 
encourage students in computer science and related courses to attend and 
participate in the UKUUG 2012 conference, 21-22 March, Edinburgh, UK.

We encourage all students to apply.

One person will be chosen from the applicant pool to receive:

    * free registration for the main conference (Accommodation not
      included).
    * up to 400 GBP for travel costs and accommodation (to be claimed
      back from UKUUG after the event).

To be eligible for a conference grant candidates must:

    * Be a student studying Computer Science or relevant course
    * Attend both full days of the main conference
    * Be over eighteen

See: http://www.flossuk.org/Events/Spring2012/Bursaries

for more details and how to apply.

Deadline date 29th February 2012

(Continue reading)

headers

Joerg Hahn | 19 Jan 2012 13:26

configurating Linux

Hello all

Once upon a time...

Ok, not that long but long, I wrote the last post on this list. Now I
have a question to all Linux users out there.

After one installed Linux, you have to configure this and that. For
example vim or mutt or fetchmail or procmail or exim...
Sure there are lots of information on internet, but I like to know what
things you configured to make the programs fit your wants/needs. Maybe
this could lead to a very small database on what switch has to be,
should be, or shouldn't be switched.

Questions that come up are i.e.

mutt/vim: set the appropriate spelllang for the language the message is
			 written in. Maybe give a additional parameter to each list you
			 subscribed.
mutt:		 When a spam mail gets through and you push it into a spam
			 folder, run a script afterwards which adds the sender address
			 to a spam blocker.
vim:		 Switch on cindent, autoindent... whan needed. When to use
			 which one?
procmail: Tell me some more details when a mail is processed. i.e. Who
			 wrote a mail with which subject and where is it stored.
fetchmail: I told fetchmail not to fetch mails larger than 50kB. Maybe
			  there is a possibility to tell me who wrote the mail and with
			  which subject.

(Continue reading)

headers

Charles Barnwell | 17 Jan 2012 18:37

Thursday's meeting

We don't have a speaker for Thursday's meeting so we shall be having lightening talks (enlightening talks?).

Please come along with a lightening talk if you can do. We shall retire to the Sack of Potatoes afterwards.

Charles

<div>
<p>We don't have a speaker for Thursday's meeting so we shall be having lightening talks (enlightening&nbsp;talks?).</p>
<div><br></div>
<div>Please come along with a lightening talk if you can do. &nbsp;We shall retire to the Sack of Potatoes&nbsp;&nbsp;afterwards.<br clear="all"><br>Charles<br>
</div>
</div>

headers

Joerg Hahn | 13 Jan 2012 18:18

The raspberries will arrive soon

Hello all

For those who are interested in embedded boards I am glad to suggest
the raspberry board.

www.raspberrypi.org

--

-- 
george aka Joerg Hahn

hahnjoerg@...

13	February 2012
16	January 2012
60	December 2011
41	November 2011
62	October 2011
54	September 2011
44	August 2011
39	July 2011
53	June 2011
49	May 2011
42	April 2011
50	March 2011
60	February 2011
54	January 2011
38	December 2010
93	November 2010
131	October 2010
79	September 2010
41	August 2010
54	July 2010
156	June 2010
115	May 2010
62	April 2010
51	March 2010
67	February 2010
39	January 2010
105	December 2009
73	November 2009
88	October 2009
59	September 2009

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun

		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31