Category Archives: Microsoft

Notes from the Python Special Interest Group, 18-Nov-2010

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Four members attended the November meeting of the Python Special Interest Group, held a week early due to the Thanksgiving holiday (anticipate a similar schedule for December). The Amoskeag Business Incubator was kind enough to allow us to use their smaller meeting room, which worked out perfectly for the smaller crowd.

It was an open Q&A evening, and boy, did we have Qs and As! Topics covered included:

  • Getting scanners working on Ubuntu 10.10
  • sharing printers in Ubuntu
  • Why DSL isn’t always at its rated speed
  • what a CO and a DSLAM is
  • Win7 Starter Edition blue-screening on an Asus Aspire One
  • the New Microsoft/Verizon KinONEm KinTWOm
  • the disaster that was the Microsoft-Danger hiptop acquisition
  • Microsoft’s announcement of Java as a “first class citizen” of their Azure cloud
  • Microsoft’s “Embrace, Enhance, Extend, Extinguish” history
  • Maybe they’ll call it IronJava? And, hey, where did IronPython go?
  • Oracle and Java and licensing and FUD
  • Oracle and MySQL and licensing and FUD
  • A public library looking for a Linux-based solution to reserving PC use
  • A great suggestion to consider Gnome Nanny
  • generating PDF Forms out of a LAMP app using pdftk
  • OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice
  • Generating PDF fill-in forums out of OpenOffice.org, courtesy of Solveig Haugland
  • the difference between “business class” and “consumer grade” machines
  • Dell and HP, Linux support, HPLIP Open Source project
  • printing to PDF in Ubuntu only worked when App Armor was removed
  • the ease of hooking up a projector to Fedora 14 with the new video subsystem and Noveau drivers
  • installing NetworkManager on Debian Lenny (there’s python in there!)
  • a quick tour of NetworkManager on Fedora 14
  • a demo of using Elementree to parse and modify an XML file used to manage installs of Atlassian Jira
  • using BeautifulSoup to parse an HTML file and generate an INI file
  • the Venus software for generating an RSS aggregator page
  • hacking WSDLs for SOAP using suds

Those were the Qs. You needed to be there for the As. And the awesome gingerbread cookies and frosted cake.

Thanks to Janet for the desserts, to Bill for organizing the meeting, to the Amoskeag Business Incubator for the facilities, and to all who attended and participated. Look for the December meeting announcement with the date tentatively planned for the 16th.

Notes from Python Special Interest Group, 20-Nov-2009

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Eight people attended the Python Special Interest Group, held a week early to avoid the Thanksgiving holiday. Anticipate a reschedule December meeting as well.

Last night’s meeting was a vigorous and far-reaching discussion of MySQL, Oracle, the future of MySQL, Maria DB, OpenOffice.org automation using Python, OpenOffice.org automation using Visual FoxPro, Twisted, IE6, Zope, Plone, Django, MS SQL Server, pyodbc, SQLAlchemy, Cascading Style Sheets, IE6, FireFox and FireBug, User Agents, IE6, how not to insulate a bungalow roof, the (Python!) cssparse module (http://cthedot.de/cssutils/), Fortune’s selection of Steve Jobs as “CEO  of the Decade”, Lenovo netbooks and Ubuntu, the Millennium, why calendar years are one-based and not zero-based, distributed version control systems, master-slave and master-master replication using MySQL and Postgres, svn and git, and more! Whew! You should have been there!

Thanks to Bill for organizing the meeting, to all for attending and participating, and to the Amoskeag Business Incubator for providing the great facilities!

Stay tuned for an announcement of the December meeting, and hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving!

Windows 7 Motto?

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I noted on the Lenovo site a note on the page that said, “Windows®. Life without Walls™.” It’s pretty hard to believe that even Microsoft marketing, well known for tone-deafness, thought this was a great motto. I mean, without walls, who needs windows?

The note goes on to say, “Lenovo recommends Windows.” Do they really, or does Microsoft pay them to say that? Or require them to say that in order to get a discount on their OEM licensing, which amounts to the same thing? Where’s their FTC disclaimer? (I posted my disclaimers about 3 years ago here.)

Notes from CentraLUG, 6-July-2009, Philip Sbrogna and WINE

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Eight people made it to the July meeting of the Central New Hampshire Linux User Group, held at its July location of the Hopkinton Town Library.

Philip Sbrogna spoke and demonstrated Wine, the Microsoft Windows ™ API emulator for Linux. Phil showed us how the install and configuration occurs, using a first-person shooter installed from CD. We talked about the structure of the files installed (in the home directory, under .wine), how to reset the Windows configuration (delete everything under .wine and run wine again to rebuild the default structure), where the registry files are stored (in the directory above the drive_c directory), add-on tools that can help get specific applications running (Winetools, Wine-doors, Winetricks). Members had lots of questions, on- and off-topic, and discussion was vigorous and educational.

Tentative August meeting: a cookout, somewhere off I-93 exit 23. Stay tuned for details.

Thanks to Philip for making the trip and making a great presentation (despite projector difficulties) and to the Hopkinton Town Library for the facilities.