Annapolis Linux Users Group

March 2010

Our next meeting is scheduled for Monday March 1 2010.

Feb 1 2010n

We had a scribus presentation this week. In the presentation, Dave B. compared a desktop publisher with a word-processor.
He showed us how he uses Scribus to make a publication that he distributes. In his presentation, he illuminated the major differences between using a word-processor and desktop publishing program. His comparison was enlightening. For example, he stated the desktop publisher allows you to make import photos and designs in any shape or size. He imported a picture of penguin and converted the image to a circle. In the image, he added a text path and inputed some text in a circular path around the image. He also showed how a desktop publisher easily allows you to add text and wrap in around an image and through the image. Scribus has ports in Windows, Mac, and Linux. Scribus can be downloaded here.

In addition to Dave’s presentation, Jessica gave a mini presentation to Lyx a Latex editor with a gui. Latex is a great tool for creating indexes, table of contents, and presenting mathematical formulas.

Next Week Jessica is to present on inkscape.

Nick went on and on about how developers are like monkeys. Nick said he likes to put candy in his office so he can observe the monkeys bizarre working rituals. Maybe he should have been a zoologist Additionally, Nick on about icecream and work, but I lost track of this diatribe.

Next meeting is Feb 1 2010

Topic Scribus from Dave B.

Jan 4th 2010

About 6 people showed for this meeting.

Matt, the local who uses Linux for racing, came again. He brought his newest gadget called a mini-box. He wanted to use the device on-board monitoring computer for recording his car’s race data. Since he car will have a lot of vibration we recommended that he use a solid state hard-drive. Since most of the solid-state hard-drives have smaller drives, we explored some of the smaller OS that might work with it. We recommend he try damn small Linux, but there are five small distos according to tuxmachines that would work with his limited disk space. Another vendor that provides small computers that could fit into cars is jetway.

There was a failed demo of the Open Source Tomato router. More specifically, the presenter myself, did not have enough information on the router to make a decent presentation. The presentation was more of a show and tell. I hope to try this again. The open source router. Firmware for the WRT54GL router comes in three flavors: Tomato, DD-WRT, or OpenWRT.

Dave our Suse user demoed Inkscape and creating Scalar Vector graphics.This was actually cooler than the router stuff.
Also, Dave B. volunteered to present on Scribus in the next meeting.

Next meeting is Jan 4th 2010

Happy new year. We will be meeting again at 7PM on Monday Jan 4th 2009.
Directions are here.