[Glastonbury] tomorrow's meeting

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2005 at 01:41:55PM +0000, Martin Wheeler wrote:
> Have just tried to post something to the lugog site, using mambo, but it 
> keeps telling me I'm not authorised to post news.  (Whether I'm logged in 
> as a user or not.)  So could we have something simpler please, that we can 
> all use to post news and messages to the site, without going into the 
> forum?  Mambo is very pretty, but if we can't use it to post stuff to the 
> front page of the site, the game's not worth the candle.
> 
Someone has put in an intent to package Mambo for Debian :)
> 
> So I suggest that as from tomorrow, we adopt a *slightly* more structured 
> approach -- first 45 mins for general gassing, swapping tips'n'tricks, 
> fixing individual members' problems in the usual meandering fashion.  Next 
> 60 mins devoted to a prepared talk (in this case, me; nattering on about 
> 'Using Linux as an SGML editing workstation'; followed by 15 mins 
> questions and clear-up.
> 
> Comments, anyone?
> 
Can I offer an alternative. Use the first ten-fifteen minutes to settle people
down, check for new arrivals, introduce speaker.

45 -60 minutes for speaker: 20 minutes for questions - THEN
gassing/tips/tricks and so on. This is much how many radio clubs work.

You might want to try 15/15/15/15 - three short talks of (max.) 15
minutes and 15 minutes for follow ups. More gets covered that way.
Produce minimal bullet point handouts for those that want them and link
to them from the website. You could also do "part talks" a la De
Agostini "build HMS Victory in only 350 weekly parts - 10 matchsticks at
a time" :)

15 minutes is probably enough to give a good flavour for e.g. 

	Emergency how to check connectivity using ping/dig/traceroute/nslookup.

	Check your iptables rules using iptables -L and nmap localhost 
	to check for open ports.

	How to set up Konqueror / Mozilla / Firefox / Opera so that they 
	use your connection. How to set up/disable Java/Javascript/cookies.
	Where to find the clear cache command under each.


> However, December's meeting showed that it *won't* work with the projector 
> in the current room.  In which case, we may have a problem tomorrow night.
> What do other members think about setting up a liaison committee to 
> liaise with the school authorities on points like this , so it isn't 
> always Steve's job?
> 
Liaison committee / person always useful: if only to show that the LuGOG 
is socially responsible and treats the school with care and
consideration.

> Again, comments anyone?
> 
> And finally, an idea which I wanted to put forward sometime in November / 
> December, and never got round to, which was then slightly pushed aside by
> other events -- which was to suggest a mid-monthly meeting as well, but 
> during the winter months only, to cater for those newcomers to Linux who 
> want to learn about using the command line, and other non-Windows ways of 
> thinking.  Thus, during Oct. Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. & March we would have a 
> second meeting on the third Wednesday of the month, devoted purely to 
> helping newcomers learn the sort of stuff that those of us who've been 
> using Linux for yonks just take for granted, without even thinking about 
> it.  (Recent list discussion on use of digikam, etc. has made me realise 
> how different my own personal approach to this sort of thing is -- purely 
> because of the way I grew up in this environment -- where I would 
> never dream of looking for an application to unload pictures from a 
> camera, but would do it step by step, from first principles. [Connect 
> camera; mount camera as a device; look at memory contents of camera; copy 
> those contents to hard drive; then massage those contents using something 
> like the gimp -- etc.]  In fact, it took this discussion to apprise me of 
> the fact that there *were* ready-made applications I could use to do this 
> job.  It's just a different attitude to seeing the problem.  When I was 
> faced with the same problem, I didn't even think of looking for an app. to 
> do what I wanted -- I did the only thing I knew how to do, according to my 
> personal experience.  Now, sessions where we all exchange ideas of the 
> differing ways to do things (there are always at lest three different ways 
> of doing anything under Linux) would, I feel, be beneficial to all.
> 
Command line wierdo :) 

15 minute talk coming up from me on editors and preferences
<grins,ducks,runs>

ed - What it is and how to avoid it at all costs.

vi - Real friends teach people vi - but only enough to exit cleanly
     without changing anything.

emacs - A calendar, psychologist and maths games compendium - oh, and it
     edits text as well. Makes other kitchen sinks pale into
     insignificance. 

:)

Andy