“TPN would like to advise that we are doing some important server maintenance on from Dec 31 - Jan 2 and our comments system will be down during that period. Regular access to podcasts and blog posts should not be affected during this time. Thanks for your patience!”

So there :)

My Kyocera 7135 finally died. It was getting more and more clunky as the days went by and at the end the speaker cracked and it was useless so I ended up with a new one. Merry Christmas to me :)

Happy holidays all!

We’re done. See you in 2006.

Complicated, eh?

Seriously, I had hoped to get one more show out over the next few weeks which was going to be a chat with John Buckman of Magnatune but that didn’t pan out (not John’s fault - he’s been very accomodating).

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking but between having house guests, a new puppy, and the general chaos that the holidays bring, I don’t have a chance in hell of getting an hour alone, never mind finding a quiet hour in which to record.

It blows me away how nobody on the planet that I know in real life has a clue what podcasting is. You can tell them over and over that you need to record and they nod wisely and then go turn up the stereo. I tell ya, podcasting has a really, really, really long way to go before you can find 2 people on the street that have heard of it.

But I digress…

Rather then getting more and more frustrated, we’ve said screw it - this is podcasting, not a commercial venture. Why beat the hell out of ourselves for free? The show would suck anyhow if we did it because I’m so cranky, so it’s better just left alone.

Kelly and I wish all of you a good holiday season and we’ll be back bright and early in the new year.

Don’t pet the sweaty penguins!

MP3: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE
OGG: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

It occurred to me (OK, Kelly told me) that while it was all fine and well that I was going to do a mail merge show using a database in the near future, many people don’t know what a database is. Therefore, this show is a primer on databasing. It’s high on the theoretical side because OOo2 Base crashed and burned so many times that it was nigh impossible to do anything with it, but hopefully there’s enough information in here to get people comfortable with the ideas and concepts.

Topics:

• How to tell when it’s time to put away that spreadsheet and move into a database
• The philosophical differences between a spreadsheet and a database
• The front end/back end concept
• How (kinda) to build a database with OOo2 Base

Minutes:

• 00:25 Show intro
• 03:44 Freecasting: Podcasting for the Masses
• 06:20 Magnatune albums to give away: Nova Express Gimme Some(x3), Shiva in Exile Ethnic(x 3 2), Artemis Gravity (x3). Email me if you want one!
• 09:20 Justin’s HOWTO on suspending an Ubuntu box using Suspend2
• 13:10 I have a spreadsheet. Why do I need a database?
• 17:56 Entities and how to dissect data
• 22:33 Table relationships
• 28:00 The front end and backend concepts
• 32:47 Create a database in OOo 2 Base
• 34:00 Create some tables
• 44:38 Commence crash and BURN!
• 46:12 Trying to use the Form Wizard
• 52:00 Suspend a no go. Downloading SuSE! (yes, I’m a distro-whore)

Can you believe I FORGOT to play a song at the end of the show after all the talking about it on the blog? Sheesh…next time, I promise!

If you like the show, review us and cast a vote for us on the Podcast Pickle!
Even better, Yahoo! podcasts is up; Give us a rating over there by clicking here!

Show Forums: here
Kelly Penguin Girl’s website: here

Wow, was I wrong. I have received so many comments, emails, and even one audio file (thanks Adam!) containing recommendations. Interestingly enough, every recommendation was the same: stay away from the iRivers and buy an Iaudio. Every one.

So I will.

I just wanted to thank everyone who sent me their recommendation. You guys saved me from spending $300 on something that wouldn’t do what I want.

So - thanks!

There’s something wilfully solitary about writing a book alone in the GNU/Linux community, so I’m not going to do it that way. We’re all going to write it together. I know that’s not a completely novel idea but it feels better than writing it alone in the middle of such a great community. Therefore, I will be posting it as I write it on my wiki for everyone to contribute to.

The working title of the book is Freecasting. Wikipedia has no entry for that, so, I consider it wide open.

Everything you need to know about how we’re doing this, where to hang out, what to do, etc can be found on my wiki at the link below. To start things off, I’ve posted my first attempt at the table of contents. Someone told me once that books should start with a table of contents. Sounds good to me…So go - modify it, add to it, make it better.

The finished version will be available in many formats, but one will be free and online.

Link to the Freecasting project.

Well, he called the Gnome Project’s mentality ‘a disease’ today and urged people to move to KDE.

That’s gotta hurt…

Here’s the Usenet posting link.

But, at the end of the day, this is a GNU/Linux show and not a pop radio station and I’m aware that I might be the only person out there that wants me to do this. So, the question is, how do you guys feel about me playing a song at the end of the show each week? Is that too much? Is that bringing my own agenda to the show? Or is that cool?

Let me know…

MP3: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE
OGG: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

No Mail Merge with OOo2 again. I’m still waiting for OOo2 to show up in the Linspire CNR. That’s OK, we’d rather learn about amaroK, right?

Minutes

01:00 - Where the hell is OOo2 in the Linspire CNR?
02:26 - ThinkFree Office. The name annoys me.
04:25 - We’re gonna do amarok!
08:14 - Overview of amarok. How do you rip CDs?
16:00 - Podcasting/Podcatching with amaroK
21:00 - Wikipedia and Lyrc
31:20 - Run through the menu items and how to use them
41:25 - Show wrapup

Correction: Cameron Reilly has pointed out to me that there is a free online version of Think Free Office. Damn…I hate it when a good rant is ruined by something a trivial as the facts…

If you like the show, review us and cast a vote for us on the Podcast Pickle!
Even better, Yahoo! podcasts is up; Give us a rating over there by clicking here!

Show Forums: here
Kelly Penguin Girl’s website: here

It came up again today in the show forums and there was some good (albeit only two-way) discussion about it.

I’m going to post an entry on this topic tomorrow on New Linux User to get people talking about it. I’m not going to try to contain the conversation in any one place. Feel free to comment here, on the show forums, and on New Linux User. I’ll try to participate in all conversations.

I’ll post the link to the entry when I’ve written it.

Edit: Here’s the link!

I seem to recall that they were giving out free versions a couple of months ago. You may want to wait for that to come again, if it ever does.

MP3: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE
OGG: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

This week’s show was supposed to be about how to Mail Merge in OpenOffice.org 2.0, but due to technical difficulties, that’s going to have to wait until next week. Instead, this week I talk about Linspire since I’ve been playing with it recently.

And look - real minutes!

Minutes:

• 00:30 - Show Intro - not Mail Merge with OOo 2 as promised.
• 01:45 - I’m now using Linspire
• 04:30 - I’m running a laptop and therefore whatever works on a desktop isn’t relevant in most cases.
• 05:30 - My package problems with Kubuntu
• 08:30 - My basic requirements to carry on with testing a distro
• 09:50 - Justin has suspend working on Ubuntu
• 11:33 - Linspire has given me no grief, but the CNR delay is kind of annoying
• 12:30 - The Click n’ Run (CNR) Warehouse. It’s not a piece of crap
• 15:00 - I found all the apps I looked for in the CNR. Even the weird ones
• 19:30 - The Linspire community
• 23:00 - Some of the CNR package descriptions show a lack of understanding about what the package is
• 25:30 - Not everyone likes the CNR
• 26:40 - Is Linspire evil or good?
• 29:00 - Primer on Free Software
• 31:45 - RMS himself encourages us to sell free software and to charge as much as we wish or can for it
• 32:05 - RMS told me, personally, on show #13, to download a GNU/Linux distro named UTUTO and sell copies of it.
• 33:00 - That’s not to say that RMS likes Linspire in any way. I think it’s safe to say that he’s disgusted with it
• 33:54 - Something about Linspire still sticks in my craw
• 34:40 - Is Linspire good?
• 35:20 - It’s all about Mass Marketing ™. People have to be able to buy GNU/Linux pre-installed
• 37:30 - Stores are not going to shelve free stuff. They need to be able to sell it
• 38:20 - Consumers want to pay for software. It gives them some weird sense of confidence in it
• 42:55 - Kelly Penguin Girl names the penguin! You are not going to believe this…
• 47:30 - Alan Clements’ email
• 50:39 - Kelly thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!
• 51:50 - Wrapup

NOTE: Yes, I know the LGPL doesn’t stand for “Lesser GNU Public License”, it’s the GNU Lesser General Public License. Slip of the tongue…

If you like the show, review us and cast a vote for us on the Podcast Pickle!
Even better, Yahoo! podcasts is up; Give us a rating over there by clicking here!

Show Forums: here
Kelly Penguin Girl’s website: here

MP3: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE
OGG: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

Weehooo! We made it to show #25! Who would have thought that we would have made it this far? We sure didn’t…you guys are crazy to keep encouraging us.

I recorded the OGG on level 4 instead of level 5 this week. It seems a little smaller, but is still quite a bit larger than the MP3. I’m going to record it on level 3 next week unless you guys tell me it sounds crappy.

We were going to revisit Puppy Linux on this show. I thought that since many months had gone by and the fact that many, many people are still commenting on an old Puppy Linux review I did that it would have sufficiently advanced to work on my system. But, alas - that’s not the case and since it’s hard to talk about something that doesn’t work - we’re not going to.

Instead, we take a trip down memory lane and talk about every show since the first one. You likely won’t learn anything about GNU/Linux in this show, but you might have a laugh or two.

Enjoy!

To that end, I’ve moved them to my own domain embedded within my personal site. I’ve made the ‘Comment on shows’ forum open to anonymous posts, but that’s it. To post in any of the other forums, you’ll ave to re-register, which sucks I know, but hey…I’m trying…

The old forums will stay active as read-only so the information there is available, but no new stuff can be posted.

Here’s the link to the new forums.

I’ve only got the MP3’s on the list at the moment, I’ll be doing the OGGs later.

Here’s the link.

In the meantime, the next best thing to my list is to click on the ‘podcast’ category on the right-side menu. That will show you all the posts in the podcast category which will make it easier to weedle through them to find the one you want.

MP3: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE
OGG: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

This week I chat with Robin Miller, editor-in-chief of the Open Source Technology Group (OSTG). The OSTG is responsible for such foundation sites such as Slashdot, Sourceforge, and Think Geek.

Robin has recently wrote/edited Point & Click OpenOffice.org which is available for pre-order now and will hit the shelves in early December.

Minutes
Once you get past the first 2 minutes or so, it’s all Robin and me.

Links

• Link to 11 of the videos that come with the book, here.
• OpenOffice.org website
• Robin Miller’s Homepage. Make sure you check out his email Terms of Srevice!
• Point & Click Linux
• Point & Click OpenOffice.org

If you like the show, review us and cast a vote for us on the Podcast Pickle!
Even better, Yahoo! podcasts is up; Give us a rating over there by clicking here!

Show Forums: here
Kelly Penguin Girl’s website: here

We talked for over an hour, but I’m going to try to shorten that up to 45 minutes. I don’t think I’ll be successful, but I’ll try :)

Show should be up sometime late this weekend!

MP3: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE
OGG: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

Yes, I forgot to convert the OGG at a lower bitrate so it’s still much larger than the MP3. I will remember next week, I promise. This week we take a visit to Klik - the one ‘klik’ application downloader and installer. Very cool.

Minutes
00:00 - Housekeeping notes since we’ve been gone for a week
09:40 - Show intro and Klik begins
21:00 - A Klick application left some files behind
26:05 - Kelly Penguin Girl
41:39 - Show wrap up

Links
Klik
b5 Media
Cosmopod
Link to the forum where I asked about left over files.
Klik User FAQ

If you like the show, review us and cast a vote for us on the Podcast Pickle!
Even better, Yahoo! podcasts is up; Give us a rating over there by clicking here!

Show Forums: here
Kelly Penguin Girl’s website: here

Show #23 will be going up within the next 24 hours. Kelly and I take a look at Klik.

Show#24 will contain a talk with myself and Robin Miller of the Open Source Technology Group (OSTG). Robin has a new book out titled Point & Click OpenOfficeorg. Some of you may recognize that the OSTG is responsible for thjings like Slashdot and Sourceforge. I’ll post some tidbits Robin has given me over the next few days.

This day has great meaning to me.

Please take the time to thank a Veteran today.

You’ve heard all the blah-blah before about ‘this survey will help us serve you better’, so I won’t bore you with that. I will say, though, that the results of this survey could really help us with financers and advertisers which really does mean more money to throw at the the server and bandwidth areas.

If you wouldn’t mind taking 2 minutes to fill it out, we’d appreciate it. Here’s the link.

Thanks!

Who knew some penguins had blue heads? I sure didn’t. Please send your suggestions in to Kelly (kellypenguingirl at gmail) for names. It’s so sad to have a penguin with no name…

Here’s the accompanying letter (click on it to make it readable) :)

Now all we need is a name for him. Got a suggestion? Email Kelly Penguin Girl at kellypenguingirl at gmail with your suggestions!

I think this is a first - a GNU/Linux podcast with its own real, live penguin mascot. Thanks to all that contributed!

ZDnet is reporting a Linux virus this morning. Since there are so few Linux virii out there in the wild, I immediately get suspicious when I hear of one. I investigated this virus and here are my thoughts on it:

First off, while everyone is indeed calling this a Linux virus, I must disagree.

The vulnerabilities that this virus attacks actually belong to three scripts, not the OS itself. Therefore, I really wouldn’t call this a Linux virus. That’s like calling a vulnerability in MS Word or Windows Skype a Windows virus. That’s just not correct.

As McAfee states:

This worm spreads by exploiting web servers hosting vulnerable PHP/CGI scripts.

It’s the scripts, not the OS.

I think people are calling it a Linux virus because these three scripts primarily run on Linux machines, however I’m pretty sure the AW stats plugin is a Wordpress plugin will therefore run on IIS if the Wordpress installation it is plugged into is running on IIS. That’s just speculation on my part, though.

There are many things inherent in GNU/Linux that make it very difficult for a virus to function which is the main reason why there’s virtually no GNU/Linux viruses out there. However, as the OS gains popularity, more people are going to start focussing on it and I expect we’ll see more viruses pop up. They won’t be nearly as destructive as Windows virii though.

You might remember show #17 with Mark Rais where we discussed GNU/Linux virii and security.

Srinivasan runs the Free Software Blog which is where you can catch the ODOC series, or you can link right to the Technorati ODOC tag, here.

Check it out!

We played with the idea of just posting show #23 late (like on Tuesday or something), but Kelly’s and my schedules are so tight that doing that would likely put us into a cycle that we wouldn’t be able to get out of. In all likelihood the only way we would be able to get out of it is to miss a future show anyway.

Please accept our apologies, but look at the bright side. This was going to be show #23 for the 23rd week. BUT, remember that we did a show #11.5? That means that this was actually show #24 and therefore we’ve already posted show #23 and are therefore not late or missing a show.

Right?

Riiiiight….

Stay tuned for more details!

Hey Jon - if they wanted to get the files manually, couldn’t they have just… like… scrolled down?

We’re not sure why this just started happening, but apparently it’s not just this show.

They’re on it and hopefully you’ll see those shows pop up in your podcatcher shortly.

If you want them now and don’t want to go rooting through the blog for them, I maintain a quick and dirty list of the shows on my wiki, here.

MP3: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE
OGG: LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE

Yes, that’s right - the OGG is somehow 14 seconds shorter than the MP3. I have no idea why….

Kelly Penguin Girl is once again swamped under a pile of homework, so I tackle the tricky subject of instant messenger clients all by myself. OK…well, they’re not so tricky and I ended up going off on a few tangents. But hey! That’s why you love us, right?

Right?

Minutes
00:49 - No Kelly Penguin Girl this week.
01:29 - Talking about instant messaging clients Kopete and Gaim
02:10 - Moving the show bookmarks to Dattica!
04:33 - What is Dattica?
08:14 - Cosmopod
10:41 - Kopete
19:13 - Kopete plugins
22:23 - Gaim
25:45 - Buddy pounce!
29:02 - Skype and Gizmo
34:31 - Please feel free to comment on the shows directly into the comments of that show’s blog entry, or use the forums to expand upon topic.

Links:
Cosmopod
Dattica
Kopete
Gaim
OpenWengo
Skype
Gizmo

If you like the show, review us and cast a vote for us on the Podcast Pickle!
Even better, Yahoo! podcasts is up; Give us a rating over there by clicking here!

Show Forums: here
Kelly Penguin Girl’s website: here
Intro voice by Bob Taylor Productions: here
Outro music by Mirror Shades: here

Me too!

Cosmopod has recently launched offering just such a beast utilizing the KDE desktop operating in kiosk mode. Their servers are getting hammered right now and I can’t get logged in, but I’m sure trying!

The first one to get in has to report back here :)

Waiting for pics, certificates, and whatever else is coming our way. Thanks once again to everyone who contributed to saving this little guy (whoever he is…).

I’ll keep you posted!

I’m not going to post it here because it’s not really helpful to new users, but I thought I’d mention it in case anyone is interested in my thoughts. I think it’s important to keep a positive vibe going on when (trying!) to teach people new things and sometimes I come across people who tend to teach by showing how bad the alternative is. I don’t think that’s all that productive.