Bill McGonigle announces the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee Linux Users Group Monthly Meeting – June 1st; The Return of the Nifties!
Read more at [DLSLUG-Announce November 2005 Archive]
Tag Archives | Linux
U.S. PTO smashes JPEG patent
LinuxWatch notes U.S. PTO smashes JPEG patent. The US PTO is far too eager to grant patents for bogus, vague, overly-broad “inventions.” We need to seriously reconsider whether most computer algorithms, file formats, business processes or genes qualify for patent status – a complete monopoly on the use of a design. The idea of a patent is to improve society with new inventions while ensuring the inventor can recoup the investment of building and manufacturing an invention, at the cost of slowing innovation.
About Ted Roche
Last good picture, 1997-ish
An independent consultant specializing in web site development and database-centric software development, co-author of 4 books, contributor/editor to another six. Work web is http://www.tedroche.com .
Currently, working on Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL and MySQL databases, jQuery and occasionally a bit of PHP. Certified MySQL Developer (CMDEV) for MySQL 5.x (2008), Core Certified in MySQL 4.x. Former Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, 1994-2002, Microsoft Certified System Engineer and Microsoft Certified Solution Developer, first certified in Windows 3.1. Passed 17 exams, 1994-2000.
Senior Member of the Association of Computing Machinery, Member, Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union and many other organizations.
Former member of Greater New Hampshire Linux User Group, New Hampshire Ruby Group, Alphaloft Community Supporter, Python Special Interest Group, Seacoast WordPress Developers Group, National Writer’s Union, Boston Computer Society, Foxboro Area Common Users Group and many other organizations.
Books:
- Editor/Technical editor for Using SQLite to Bypass the 2 GB .DBF Filesize Limit, 2013, written by Whil Hentzen and published by Hentzenwerke Publishing
- Technical Reviewer for The Well-Grounded Rubyist, Second Edition, by David Black, Manning Publications, July 4, 2014.
- Technical editor for “MySQL Client-Server Applications with Visual FoxPro,” 2007, written by Whil Hentzen and published by Hentzenwerke Publishing
- Hackers’ Guide™ to Visual FoxPro 7, 2002, co-author with Tamar E. Granor, Doug Hennig and Della Martin.
- Essential SourceSafe, 2001, sole author, published by Hentzenwerke Publishing
- Microsoft Office Automation with Visual FoxPro, 2000, editor. Authors Tamar E. Granor and Della Martin.
- Hackers’ Guide™ to Visual FoxPro 6, 1998, co-author with Tamar E. Granor
- Hackers’ Guide™ to Visual FoxPro 3, 1996, co-author with Tamar E. Granor
- FoxPro 2.5 Programmer’s Reference, editor. Authors Bill House and Tamar E. Granor
- FoxPro Windows Advanced Multi-User Developer’s Handbook, editor. Authors Pat Adams and Jordan Powell.
- Using FoxPro 2.5 for Windows, editor and contributing author. Main authors Steve Arnott and Lisa C. Slater.
- Using FoxPro 2.5 for DOS, editor and contributing author. Main authors Steve Arnott and Lisa C. Slater.
Contributing Editor to FoxPro Advisor magazine. Fifty columns of “Ask Advisor” or “Advisor Answers” published 1995 – 2000, along with a dozen feature articles.
Currently an independent consultant and head of Ted Roche & Associates, LLC – http://www.tedroche.com. We develop Visual FoxPro solutions, and work with clients as mentors, trainers and developers. Other tools include Microsoft SQL Server and Visual SourceSafe, the Oracle family of databases and Free/Open Source Software like Linux, Apache, MySQL, PostGreSQL, Python, Subversion, Twiki and Zope.
2000-2001: Worked at http://www.bugcentral.com before its parent did the Chapter 11 thing.
1995-2000: Worked at Blackstone Data Systems, who also managed to tank during the dot-com bomb. A great group, a great learning experience.
1995: New Hampshire Health & Human Services as a support technician while finishing “Hacker’s Guide to Visual FoxPro 3.0”
1992-1995: A brief employment at Brickstone Square in Andover, MA., followed by independent consulting, including Kronos and New England Computer Sales (NECX, since purchased by VerticalNet).
1989-1992: Software Developer for AINetwork and New Hampshire Insurance, part of AIG. Worked on a mailing label system for tracking attendees to the golf tourney that eventually turned into the most powerful and accurate P&L in the entire company. Scope creep. PCs and Fox had a tendency to do that kind of thing. Eventually wrote the report that proved the company would never make money, and they closed. Sure hope I was right. I was among the hundreds laid off.
1987- 1989: Worked for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Division of Food and Drugs. Moonlighted evenings and weekends at “The Memory Location,” Washington Street, Wellesley, MA, selling Commodore 64, 128 and Amiga computers, peripherals and software. What a blast! Great fun, cool stuff, great bosses – Don Towne and Roy Lee.
Also volunteered for the Foxboro Area Commodore User Group as President, BBS SysOp and newsletter editor. BBS was a blast: 300 baud modem, Commodore 64, an SFD-1001 IEEE-488-interfaced One-Megabyte! 5-1/4″ floppy disk. Beta-tester for GEOS Software. First public-domain (pre-Open Source) software release was a quad-density Epson printer driver hand-coded in 6502 assembler. Owner of Commodore Amiga 500, 1000 and 2000. So much for future visions!
Ten year member of the Boston Computer Society. RIP.
Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics, 1984, from the Regent’s Program of the University of the State of New York, renamed Regent’s College and now Excelsior College. Associate of Arts degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences from Mohegan Community College, now Three Rivers Community College Norwich, Connecticut. Both degrees earned while serving in the U.S. Navy full-time.
1979-1987: Served as an Electrician’s Mate First Class, EM1/SS, Submarine Service. Ten deterrent patrols aboard the USS Daniel Webster, SSBN-626, Blue Crew, 1981-1987.
NPTU Ballston Spa, New York, winter of 1980-81.
Naval Nuclear Power School, Orlando Florida, 1980. Top electrician in my graduating class, 3.94 GPA.
Boot camp, Basic Electricity and Electronics, Electrician’s Mate “A” School, Great Lakes Training Center, Chicago, Illinois, 1979-1980.
Crosbro, Inc., 1978-1978: shipped my first commercial applications (order processing, inventory control, work-in-process tracking) written in BASIC on WANG 2200-A, T and VP computer systems. 16 kB RAM, BASIC in ROM, Key File Access Method (KFAM) as an ISAM database.
Bates College, 1976 – 1978. Teletype terminals, PDP-8 and 11, time-sharing with Dartmouth College. BASIC and beta-tested SBASIC – structured basic, without line numbers! – on the Dartmouth system.
Brockton High School, 1972-1976. Swim team, 3 letters, National Honor Society. Learned BASIC on a PDP-4.
Tools for committing subversion
Subversion is a source code control system designed as a replacement for the Concurrent Version System (CVS). Subversion is platform-agnostic and has clients available on Windows, OS X and Linux and supports access locally via the file:// protocol or remotely via svn:// or svn+ssh:// protocols, WebDav via http:// or https://. Very cool. There's a free book also available in print from O'Reilly. In addition, there are a bunch of add-on tools or links to other tools, like:
- Subclipse (updated link): add on for the Eclipse IDE
- RapidSVN: a full GUI into the source code control system
- TortoiseSVN (updated link): integration into the Windows Explorer: select “CheckIn”, “CheckOut” and other options directly.
There are even more links at the Wikipedia page. Er, check it out!
Tools for committing subversion
Subversion is a source code control system designed as a replacement for the Concurrent Version System (CVS). Subversion is platform-agnostic and has clients available on Windows, OS X and Linux and supports access locally via the file:// protocol or remotely via svn:// or svn+ssh:// protocols, WebDav via http:// or https://. Very cool. There’s a free book also available in print from O’Reilly. In addition, there are a bunch of add-on tools or links to other tools, like:
- SVNclipse: add on for the Eclipse IDE
- RapidSVN: a full GUI into the source code control system
- TortoiseSVN (updated link): integration into the Windows Explorer: select “CheckIn”, “CheckOut” and other options directly.
There are even more links at the Wikipedia page. Er, check it out!
Kubuntu Getting a Higher Profile in the Ubuntu Family
OSNews reports KDE to Become Better Supported on the Ubuntu Platform. “At LinuxTag on Saturday, a meeting of Kubuntu and KDE contributors was held in order to improve the collaboration of both projects. The aim was to to talk about the common future of both projects. Jonathan Riddell and Mark Shuttleworth from Canonical attended the meeting. Later in his keynote speech to the conference, Mark publicly committed to Kubuntu as an essential product for Canonical and showed his commitment by wearing a KDE t-shirt.”
Good deal. I’ve been using KDE with Ubuntu for the last couple of versions and I like its responsiveness, especially on some of the slower hardware (PII-266 and -366 laptops) I’m using.
WinSCP 3.8.1 released
WinSCP (Secure Copy) lets you copy, move or synchronize files and folders between two machines over a secure (ssh) tunnel. It offers a simple two-panel local-remote file explorer supporting drag-and-drop, a toolbar of utilities (rename, move, copy, etc.) and intuitive operation. I use WinSCP all the time to keep remote Linux machines up to date with local Windows machines while doing development. (Actually, the “local Windows machine” is almost always using files on a networked share via SMB that’s actually a Linux file server running Samba, so I’m really just using Windows as the pretty GUI to synch two Linux machines, but I digress.)
WinSCP has just released a new version, v. 3.8.1, with a significant list of changes, improvements and bug fixes. SCP (really ssh) servers are available for most platforms and interoperate between different OSes. Check out WinSCP.
Limited User Access bugs
Garrett Fitzgerald blogs: “I noticed that Aaron Margosis had stopped blogging, but I missed that he had started back up. He has a list of ways to fix or work around bugs involving not running as Admin starting here and going forward for a couple of posts. Aaron is the creator of MakeMeAdmin, which is a little script that makes it easier to run with limited access.”
With the rampant security problems Windows has been experiencing, I reconfigured my development machine into an Least Privileged User configuration over a year ago. It’s a pain, and some applications just fall apart, especially with installing modules or updates. “Run As…” solves the problem in some cases, but others are a lot more difficult. The Linux/Unix/OSX model of security rights seem to map more easily into these situations than the “only one user is logged on” mentality of Windows. I’ll have to check out Aaron’s utilities to see if they can help bridge the gap.
Library Thing
I’ve added a sidebar to the blog showing off some interesting books from my library. LibraryThing.com has an interesting proposition: post your library online and share your book lists with others, tagging included. The Dartmouth/Lake Sunapee Linux User Group is maintaining their list of library books for loan on Library Thing, so I thought I’d try it with a barcode scanner/keyboard wedge I picked up at Hosstraders over the weekend. Looks like Library Thing is a cool application. I see Rick Borup is already posting FoxPro books up there, and I added my Hentzenwerke collection as well. Check out their tag cloud and the ability to subscribe (via RSS, of course) to tags, other people’s lists, topics, etc. Looks like fun.
Dartmouth / Lake Sunapee Linux User Group Meeting, May 4th, Resara Enterprise Linux
On the DLSLUG mailing list, Bill McGonigle announces: “The next regular monthly meeting of the DLSLUG will be held Thursday, May 4th, 7-9PM, at Dartmouth College, Carson Hall Room L01. All are welcome, free of charge.
Agenda:
7:00 Sign-in, networking
7:15 Introductory remarks
7:20 Resara Enterprise Linux
The guys from Resara Networks will be presenting their product, Resara Enterprise Linux. “Resara Networks is a leader in Linux thin-client technology. Resara Enterprise Linux has bridged the gap between thin clients and PCs by providing centralized administration, but not sacrificing the standard capabilities of PCs. With Plug-and-Play installation, customers do not require prior Linux experience or new training to easily deploy Linux on their network.”
8:30 Roundtable Exchange – where the attendees can make announcements or ask a linux question of the group.
Please see the website for links to directions.