Notes from DLSLUG, 6-Dec-2007

[Ted Roche]

Fourteen people made it to the December meeting of the Dartmouth - Lake
Sunapee Linux User Group, held as usual on the first Thursday of the
month and in what appears to be our new place, Haldeman 041, in the
lower level of the building next to our previous meeting place.

"Nifties" was the theme, for any presentation that might elicit the
reaction "Nifty!" from the audience, and they all did.

Roger Trussell presented a firefox extension using Javascript, XML
("XUL") and SVG (Structured Vector Graphics, yet again more XML, but
rendered by Mozilla as graphics) to create graphically complex
interactive structures in Mozilla browser. Nifty!

Glen Page, newly appointed leader of NHSTE (New Hampshire Society for
Technology in Education) at http://www.nhste.org/: Happenings at the
Christa McAuliffe Technology Conference (http://www.nhcmtc.org/) (which
also included presentations by well-known GNHLUG activists Ed Lawson,
Bill Sconce and Matt Oquist)

Doug McIlroy showed us some tricks with qsort: qsort is an interface
under which each developer could implement their own sorting algorithm,
a common homework assignment. Doug argued that a properly designed data
set could disappoint anyone who thought they'd created the cleverest
quicksort EVER by always returned quadratic (slow) results. You can
read the code at:

http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/aqsort.c

Nick Sinnot-Armstrong: One Laptop Per Child XO-1 laptop: show and tell.
A local developer experimenting on a pre-production model of the OLPC
with the very capable microphone input (accepts both analog and digital
for standard audio as well as measurement data). Gave us a tour of the
laptop, passed it around for people to get a sense of the size and
capabilities. Note that the OLPC charitable project "Get One, Give One"
is going on through December 31st at http://www.laptopgiving.org -- Nifty!

Mike Diehn showed off some very powerful tips and tricks in bash and vi,
and pointed to some handy resources at http://www.pixelbeat.com - Nifty!

Bill McGonigle demonstrated Munin, a monitoring and recording tool
that's a great add-on for a facility that's trying to pick up on
problems occuring over time, Built on top of RRDTool, it can record and
remember a set of measurements over time. Bill showed how one of his web
sites was experiencing a surge that was hurting performance and setting
off alarms. By picking a set of parameters to monitor, Bill was able to
work out that... well, you should have been there. Nifty stuff! Munin
can be found at http://munin.projects.linpro.no/

Bill has an interesting pointer to a project called FON at
http://www.fon.com I've been reading through the web site on the FON
system. Here's how I read it: Home/businesses with the proper rights
granted by their upstream suppliers can post this access point on their
network. Internally, the host can use a private wireless access,
encrypted with WPA2 or less. Externally, the WAP advertises itself as
FON_AP, an open (no key) wireless access point. Other 'Fonistas' -
registered members who are actively operating their own FON WAPS - can
access the wireless for free. But the great unwashed masses do not get
to access it for free. They get to pay for access. A FON pass will
apparently let them use any FON WAP for a day. They can purchase it on
the spot, or buy a bunch of passes and use them as needed. Not sure of
rates or the fine print. The host seems to be able to set it up as a
"Linus" and collect no fees themselves or as a "Bill" and share in the
dividends that FON makes from paying access. It's an intriguing business
model.

Apparently, on Thanksgiving FON offered their WAP for free for a limited
time, and Bill was able to get one, which he raffled off at the meeting.

And last, but certainly not least, Bill McGonigle demonstrated a pair of
carol-playing, wireless, dueling-banjo penguins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe5n2WPw3OQ

Whodathought? Nifty.

Thanks to Bill McGonigle for organizing the meeting, to Dartmouth
College for generously donating the use of the facilities, and to all
who attended and demonstrated Nifties!

-- 
Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com