New Mexico Ubuntu LoCo Meeting all Welcome

It’s been allot of work but the New Mexico LoCo is really getting off the ground. The last two IRC meetings have been really productive. This weeks meeting marks are first official meet in greet (we have had a few smaller organizational meetings) and I hope it is a big success. We will be having a simultaneous meeting on our IRC channel #ubuntu-newmexico and we would love people to come and join in.

Topics for discussion will be the up coming Software Freedom Day - were planning a big event.

The details

Where: The Downtown flying star in Albuquerque, NM & IRC Freenode channel #ubuntu-newmexico

When: Thursday the 30th of August

How long: From 7:00 till ?

So if your in Albuquerque look us up.

Ubuntu Restaurant and Yoga -

Came across this thought it was funny……

Ubuntu Restaurant and Yoga Studio has opened at 1140 Main St. in downtown Napa. It’s serving dinner this week, and will start offering breakfast and lunch on Monday.

The attractive restaurant features pizzas, pasta and other vegetarian fare from organic gardens and a wide selection of wines.

The yoga studio upstairs hosts a full schedule of classes separated from the diners.

So I wonder what there computer and point of sale systems run……

 www.ubuntunapa.com

Ubuntu and Linux Polished Commercial Games

We have all heard it, Linux is great but where are the games? We all, also know that most good games cost a little money. I say most because I’ve played a few Linux Open Source and Freeware games that blow some commercial games out of the water, Grid Wars 2 and Neverball just to name a few. However, I stumbled upon one game the other day and after a few moments my credit card was in hand and I payed my $19.95. Look I’m going to admit something right here and now, I like casual games. You know what I’m talking about Bejeweled and it fantastic sequel Bejeweled 2 (play that one for hours on my Treo 650), Bookworm, all those PopCap Games that take way to much of your time. I found a company called anawiki.com and they have a few Linux titles one of the games is just great Runes of Avalon. It has all the things I like in a casual game flashy graphics (got to have those particle effects), play that is not to easy but not to hard, and bonus levels and power ups. This one even has a few mini games hidden with in it. Sure it’s not Defcon and I don’t get to frag people but it is fun and it’s very polished nice voice overs, vivid graphics, and fun game play. Sure you can get it in windows and even the Mac, but it sure is nice to see tux sitting right next to windows and mac logos with the words download beside it.

Zimbra a Detailed Review

Last week I blogged a little about installing Zimbra, and got allot of feedback. Today I decided to go a little deeper into what we installed and how we plan to use it. Zimbra is an email server, and much more. There is a commercial version of this product and I’m sure once the beta test phase of our project is done we will be moving to it, there are some features that are very attractive to us, including mobile  syncing over our wireless network (more on that later).

What  we wanted to do was build a completely Open Source email solution and let me tell you we were able to accomplish that in a record 1 hour from start to finish. This email server is running on a Dell GX-280 with 2 gigs of ram, and a 80 gig hard drive, not really a server at all. We First  installed Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, one thing you have to watch for if you download the package for Zimbra Ubuntu 6 don’t try to install it on Ubuntu 7, it just will not work. Each package is very picky on what you install it on, so just be sure you follow that and it will install just fine. Once you have the packaged downloaded there are a few prerequisites you will need to download a simple apt-get install done on the packages you need and your ready to go. The Read Me file does a good job of telling you how to install but there are a ton of how tos (this was the one I used) on the Internet to help out as well. So add a MX record and  your ready to go. Fire up a Browser and start using your new email server. It really did take less than an hour, next I added the POP3 info from my Domino server and I was using the Ajax client from Zimbra to check all my email……

I will keep you posted with more details soon. Happy Open Source Computing Everyone!

A response from the INCITS/Information Technology Industry Council

This week I wrote a letter to the voting standards committee about ODF and  Open XML, I was actually surprised to get a response;
Your contribution (in071289.htm - attached) was received during the INCITS EB voting period and has been posted to a comment page on our web site

Thanks for your interest in this matter.

Best regards –

Jennifer T. Garner
Director, Standards Programs
INCITS/Information Technology Industry Council
1250 Eye Street, NW - Suite 200
Washington, DC 20005
202.626.5737
e-mail:   jgarner@itic.org
website: www.incits.org

 Please contact them and pledge your support for the ODF format, if you use Open Source Software, this will effect you.

Lugs helping my LoCo

Last week I invited the NMLUG to get involved with the New Mexico Ubuntu Loco for Software Freedom Day on September 15th. It was a good thing I did. For starters our IRC channel has really picked up, were up to 10 members in the LoCo, and we have even seen more use of our mailing list. I really hope the same is going on for the NMLUG too. I know I for one have enjoyed talking to other users of other distros. I have been trying for months to get a fire burning in New Mexico for Ubuntu, with a little help from the local LUG I think I see a spark…..

Ubuntu Server and Zimbra

Today I installed Zimbra on Ubuntu 6.06 LTS. I’ve been a systems administrator for almost 15 years now, both a Exchange administrator and a Lotus Notes administrator. Never have I been so impressed with two products in all my life. Simple fast and direct. I started from scratch and had people exchanging emails 1 hour after I started. Did you just hear what I said! I installed a server operating system and a email server with shared documents and calendering, plus created users in less than 1 hour. I’ve seen the future and it’s Open Source….Oh and the Cost to the State of New Mexico “at which I work”? Absolutely nothing.

ODF VS.OpenXML a call to arms.

A letter I sent to the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards, I urge you to find the committee in your country.

A list can be found here, but not all of them are listed so you might have to dig a little more. Sign petition here.

The letter:

To Ms. Jennifer Garner,
InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards,

I’d like to thank you for taking the time in reading this letter as I know your time is very valuable.
My name is David Thomas and I’m the IT specialist Manager for the New Mexico State Metropolitan Court System. During the course of my day I deal with many types of file formats, and many types of applications those formats use. I was very happy to learn that ODF was being considered as a standard file format, it would make life much less complicated and I believe save the State time and the tax payers money. Now as others have introduced a alternative file format OpenXML I have some concerns. As I’m sure you are more aware than I of the technical hurtles that introducing OpenXML as a competing file format introduce. I’d just like to focus on the practical aspects that ODF will mean for the State of New Mexico. In an effort to save money and for practicality sake we have begun migrating to Open Office, and other Open Source software products, moving to make ODF the standard file format will help propel these migration efforts forward. So I ask you to vote yes to ODF and vote no on OpenXML.

Again I thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

David Thomas
IT Specialist Manager
Bernalillo County Metropolitan Courts
401 Lomas NW
Albuquerque, NM 87103

A Call for Open Source, voting machines and the Iowa Straw Poll.

A little back ground, what is the Iowa Straw Poll. The Iowa straw poll is nothing more than a republican fund raiser, it cost $35.00 to cast a vote and the only requirement is that you be a Iowa resident, and you be of voting age 18. This year they relied on the voting machines provided by Diebold, these machines have been at the center of a controversy for some time now in the United Sates. Well, lets just say all the conspiracy nuts were right, the machines had a glitch and 1500 votes had to be counted by hand. It delayed the count, and frankly put serious doubt in the integrity of the outcome of the poll. The Issue as I see it is that the Diebold voting machines are a closed based system, software patented, a very proprietary. This is a huge argument for Open Source. The American government was based on a check and balances system, we have really moved away from that ideology. Open Source, however embraces that ideology it allows for a peer review of the code. Just how important is that? Just ask any Open Source developer, how fast are bugs fixed and patched for Open Source applications? I’d say 10 fold faster than proprietary software. It’s time for a review of voting machines they don’t work and the diabolical at the Iowa Straw Poll proves it.

My other concern is why in the world is the media ignoring Ron Paul he placed 5th yet when you read articles from the Washington post and the Associated Press they talk about the 1st to 4th place winners then on to 6th. This is just mind numbing to me. I promise I’m not a conspiracy nut but I can’t ignore what is in front of my face. I’m really getting embarrassed by my country.

So if you ask, why do I use Open Source Software, why did I convert all 5 of my home computers from Windows to Ubuntu, why am I converting 400 desktops at work to Ubuntu, all my servers to Debian. Because there is at the very least a little truth behind these products, something at the moment it appears, America has very little of.

Software Freedom Day Sept 15, 2007

Well the Ubuntu New Mexico Loco is gearing up for our first real project, Software Freedom Day. We’ve put together over 1oo DVD Case handouts. Included in the handout.

• One OpenCD a collection of open source windows applications “we got to start them somewhere”
• One Ubuntu 7.04 CD
• A brochure on open source software
• Instructions on how to install both the OpenCD and the Ubuntu CD
• SFD and Ubuntu stickers
• New Mexico Ubuntu Loco contact card

I was a little bummed as I didn’t get the team registered in time for all the good swag, the first 200 teams got the freebies and I was like 201. The good news is I got creative instead. I should be posting pictures soon so you can see what the DVD cases look like.

So if your in Rio Rancho, New Mexico on September 15th, I’ll see you at the main library from 11:00am till 3:00pm