Sometimes I get ideas from other Linux bloggers to try out other applications. That’s why there are times that I have a series of guides on using certain applications. Those are usually the applications that fit my needs. But each of us have different needs. I definitely can’t help some of my friends in the academe and research fields who use specific tools because I can only touch the surface of their fields and the FOSS tools I could find might not suit them. I’d never know until they try and sometimes it’s not always practical.

Another reason for blogging your Linux experiences is that you could share the highs and lows of using Linux and FOSS. I know that Linux and FOSS applications are not always shiny and good but here’s the thing: how do you get to use those tools well? Or did you end up with a proprietary solution? Why did it happen? These stories might not end up as formal case studies but they still show a better picture of what does happen and how people deal with them. And sometimes other people can help you with those issues too.

Do you have a blog? Are you blogging your Linux experiences too? Why/Why not? Is there anything that holds you back aside from time to write?

Post from: New Linux User

• It’s the common interest that drives people to go together.
  Sometimes just having a common interest drives people together. It could be that they meet each other online and then start talking more often. And from that they get an idea if they could get a community going. Sometimes it could be that they want to achieve a particular goal which is to have events that are related to free and open source software advocacy. Or it could be the general goal which is to start with a small group of people who are passionate about FOSS who can continue to advocate Linux and other FOSS out there.
• It’s not always about numbers. Numbers of members on forums and mailing lists don’t always count. Why? There are people who sign up mainly to lurk and learn but not necessarily share what they know/learn/experience. Then again, it can’t be helped. Some people could get easily intimidated. That or some people are lazy to write. Or there are simply those who stay on the lists and forums to get help as needed.
• Not everyone gets along but sometimes those disagreements are pushed aside. Why? Because at the end of the day, everyone’s a FOSS user and/or advocate. There are still things that they agree upon. Just not all the nitty-gritty details. So even if there are some very, uh, flaming emails flying back and forth, it might not always be an indicator of how mad people are with each other but it’s a matter of voicing out different opinions. As long as no one takes it personally, that is. And I think that it might not be easy but people should learn to take things in stride.

In connection with the last point, there are times when I see people face to face in those community meetings or maybe release parties and they pretty much get along in person. It’s just that sometimes they get really passionate and end up being argumentative when trying to get their point across. I guess it’s also about the honesty people express that makes them act like that online but it also contrasts with how warm they really are as persons.

So there are many different kinds of personalities in FOSS communities, really. And that does show what ecosystems there are. It could be that you will feel that you don’t belong in any or you might immediately feel like belonging to one. But definitely it takes time to grow one and for people who got together to grow into a community because of the different factors involved like what goals they have, how they are growing the community, the demographics of the community, etc.

Post from: New Linux User

BrightHub’s guide on how to use your iPod with KDE4 gives you a better idea if you are a KDE user. And this is through the use of Amarok, a media player for KDE. Amarok not only lets you play music but it also lets you synchronize your music to your media devices. Now that sounds cool, right?

Basic tips from the guide:

• Start Amarok then connect your iPod. And you’d have to explicitly make Amarok remember your iPod.
• Select songs on your collection list then right click on them and select the option to transfer to your media device, which happens to be your iPod.
• You could also back up your iPod’s music. Now this sounds like a good thing to me especially since I am using an iPod Nano with only 8GB of space for media files. It means I could have my music sorted out by type and just keep backing them up from time to time, depending on the amount of space I need and how much music I want to cram into the iPod.

Their guide makes me want to try out Amarok too and see how convenient it is. But there’s also Banshee. I’d want to try both, probably later this week.

Are you using Amarok too when it comes to managing your iPod? Share some other tips if you’ve got any. It could be related to connecting and/or disconnecting your iPod, or it could be a way to manage all your music. Whatever it is, I am sure someone’s going to appreciate all the help.

Post from: New Linux User

But there are other things to consider. Like skills. Children must grow up with the actual skills at the tips of their fingers, not just all in their heads as theories. Same thing goes for computer usage.

Admittedly the free and open source applications out there might look so scary. Why? There are still applications that say RTFM. How will children ever learn if they don’t even have documentation and everything looks weird?

There’s an awesome looking project called OOo4Kids. They want things to be based on OpenOffice.org though. They want to focus on the use of ooo4kids.org to just make sure that kids do have the skills they needed. On the website you could see Visual Guidelines, Usability, etc. Basically they want young learners to be more comfortable with using the software.

However, it makes me ask the question: What would kids use a separate OpenOffice.org for, right? Well, they could use it for anything and everything. It’s just that the user interface could be a whole lot better for kids.

Post from: New Linux User

Joomla is a great tool you could use to create your website. It could take your site to another level. If you already have a blog, well, you could keep using that. But Joomla has a lot of features for its users.

Some features that I find are usually used in projects I encounter:

• Article posting. You could post various articles and categorize them too.
• Blogs. If your organization would like to have blogs, then there’s also a way to do that within Joomla. No need to get a separate blogging software.
• Custom menus. You could move things around and put them in different menus and make them behave differently, in terms of which items could be seen even if the user is not logged in, etc.
• Setting access levels. This one is pretty much default in Joomla so it’s possible for some articles to only appear for users with a particular access level.
• Embedding a page in an iframe. Well, it’s called a wrapper in Joomla but basically that’s what it is.

And the nice thing about Joomla is that there are many extensions out there for it. Extensions are the additional features that users might be looking for. Although that is a good thing, they say that too much of a good thing is bad. For me, having too many extensions is also painful. Why? That would mean additional things to research on and test. And that could be what’s overwhelming.

As a tool for getting a person or organization’s message across, Joomla is most likely to be considered as one of the interesting things. After all it’s very versatile. And I think that counts for something.

Post from: New Linux User

Well, most things have been nice and shiny with Dom and Ubuntu. But not with Karmic Koala. He experienced kernel panic – not synching. His search for an answer led him to the ubuntuforums with this issue posted three weeks ago: Wubi – Kernel Panic – Not Synching – VFS…. Another place where this showed up is in Launchpad: Wubi/Karmic boot: kernel panic – not synching: VFS.

This mainly affects those who have installed Ubuntu via Wubi. That’s tough. Some people would rather install via Wubi than the regular installer. If there’s this bug that’s affecting them, then that would just be sad. And how would everyone else deal with it? I suppose one could back up all the files then just do an install from the desktop/Live CD or the alternate installer.

If I recall correctly, Linux Mint is based from Ubuntu. I wonder if this will affect their users too or if they’d do something about it to make the Linux user experience better. Well, I am not very familiar with how Mint4Win works but it’s basically Wubi but for Mint. If ever, I do hope that it will work just fine and maybe the two projects can learn from each other. I certainly hope this bug will get resolved soon.

Post from: New Linux User

Snort SMS Alert System is a tool which informs you of attacks or other suspicious activity in your server. For those who are system administrators, this could be a great tool. After all, even if you work practically round the clock (as if you are doctors) you can never tell when a situation might occur. However, this is what Snort SMS Alert System will help you out with.

I really liked what Ruth shared with us during the speed geeking session. It was a brief introduction to Snort SMS Alert System and how beneficial it is for web server admins. She also shared with us the system which involves the following:

• a standard workstation with Apache, MySQL
• intrusion detection system – Snort, Barnyard, Oinkmaster
• a sensor machine which updates the log files and database
• Gammu
• BASE and ACID

If you’ve encountered some problems on your web server before and you had no idea when it all happened, maybe you could show your sys admin this tool if he/she doesn’t know it yet. It could be quite helpful in the future. : )

Post from: New Linux User

Here’s what I tend to do:

• Look out for blogs that talk about open source especially in the context of my locale or region. There are quite a number of local bloggers and they have something to share about their experiences in the free and open source community. And they also share what they do or what theu plan to do. Whether it’s a release party or some kind of conference, they enjoy sharing it with their blogs. If I’ve been following their blog for quite some time now, I also have more reasons to join them.
• Read sites and blogs that cover technology. Sometimes they also post links to events. There are some events listed that could come up as a surprise and well, it could be quite good to figure out anyway. So if those events don’t conflict with my existing schedule, I’d actually plan to go.
• Follow some folks on Twitter. Every once in a while, I encounter people with interesting ideas. Like the thing about hacker spaces and open hardware. I ended up following some folks on Twitter and they do re-tweet information about niceh topics plus events too.

I know that social networking and social media could be quite overwhelming but certain keywords will tend to jump at you if you’re looking for them. In this case, events and the particular project/s you are concerned with. I guess it’s a matter of conditioning your mind to look for them? Some folks will be quite blatant about events they are promoting so those will be easy to remember. *laughs* But for the rest, just learn to skim through your headlines and something might actually show up.

The best way for me to learn about events is from people I know. If they say they’re going, chances are, I am going too. : ) And this December, there’s a DrupalCamp happening in Manila so I am going to be there to join the fun and learning.

I hope you find some events that you like too!

Post from: New Linux User