Fsf-friends December 2009

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Internet, tech skills growing quietly in Goa...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 02 Sep '24

02 Sep '24

INTERNET, TECH SKILLS GROWING QUIETLY IN GOA PANJIM, April 30: Goa's BSNL internet service provider is already providing some 3000 broadband connections in the state, and roughly another 24,000 people dial-up to get access the Net using this central government-run service. These figures emerged during an informal discussion at the monthly meeting of the India Linux Users Group (Goa), a network promoting Free Software and Open Source in the state. ILUG-Goa, which holds its meetings usually on the fourth Saturday of each month at the Goa Science Centre at Miramar, sees a range of tech issues -- usually directly related to Free Software and Open Source in Goa. During it's meet on April 29, a range of issues came up for discussion, from how to partition your hard-disk (to install GNU/Linux side-by-side with Windows), to software tools to ehance productivity, and various internet and broadband options available to users in diverse parts of Goa. For instance, there are some useful Free Software tools to monitor your bandwidth usage on BSNL's broadband. One such tool is available for free download at http://tinyurl.com/qgu9p Called the Data One Broadband Statistics, this is a screen-scraper written using Perl to download usage statistics of BSNL's Data One (www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone.htm) broadband service and total it. Generally, BSNL (www.bsnl.co.in) allows only the Microsoft-based IE and has no monthly total. But trust Indian software talent to find a work-around. This solution comes from the Free Software/Open Source network in Chennai. Meanwhile, the Goa free software network stays connected and announces its event via http://iluggoaannounce.notlong.com There are no fees for joining, all are welcome, and encouraged to form parallel user-groups in diverse parts of the state. Meanwhile, the Fedora Core 5 Free Software distribution has just become available on DVD in Goa. Number of foreign magazines are also available. Members of ILUG-Goa such as engineer Bijon Shaha and software pro Arvind Yadav gave diverse views on techies-only distros like 'Gentoo'. Debopriyo 'DP' Sarkar pointed to a 'mindmap' of various Free Software distributions or 'distros' available, which was illustrated at linuxhelp.blogspot.com Earlier, there was a brief presentation on FreeMind. FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. It has the potential of playing the role of a high productivity tool. Operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster because of one-click "fold/unfold" and "follow link" operations. Other members raised a range of issues -- from how to get started in GNU/Linux, to playing around with tools like StumbleUpon, and how to encourage Free Software usage in schools and educational institutions. Remy Furtado of Rosary College, Navelim expressed an interest in working on the Free Software tool Moodle, ideal for distance education, as the Goa University moves to a pattern of semisterisation. Goa Engineering College's Prof George Easaw has done work on this platform, as have others. Reacting unofficially, BSNL officials said Goa now had six STMS 155 MBps connectivity, which was resulting in a speedy expansion of broadband to many parts of the state. But for broadband facilities to become available in village areas, at least 60 subscribers were needed to make operations viable. So far, broadband from BSNL is available in a growing number of areas in Goa: Panjim, Vasco (except Cortalim, but including Sada, Mangor, Bogmalo, Sancoale and other areas), Ponda, Bambolim, Merces, Dona Paula, Porvorim, Mapusa town, Calangute-Candolim, and Saligao, among others. Equipment has already been installed in Aldona exchange, and broadband facilities are expected to go functional -- ------------------------------------------------------------- | India Linux Users' Group, Goa | | Join the friendly user group | | Mail list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/join | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teach-yourself-linux | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa-announce | | http://www.iosn.net/country/india/organizations/ilug-goa/ | ------------------------------------------------------------- , , / \ .-. * SOFTWARE ((__-^^-,-^^-__)) (. .) * FREEDOM `-_---' `---_-' / V \ * SHARING `--|o` 'o|--' // \\ \ ` / /( )\ KNOWLEDGE IS POWER ): :( '.^^_^^.' SHARE IT EQUITABLY :o_o: \_/ \_/ "-"

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Careers in FLOSS... (Dec 2003 issue of LFY)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 06 Jun '24

06 Jun '24

=========================================== LINUXForYou * Dec 2003 (Vol 1 No 10) In India Rs 50 (with CD) http://www.linuxforu.com Pages 102 * US$7.95 0 74470584957 =========================================== THIS ISSUE has probably reached your city. Saw it in Bangalore, and also got a complimentary copy from the LFY team at LinuxBangalore2003. But when I reached back to Goa on Dec 4, it wasn't in as yet. So it might take time to reach 'small town' India... FN REVIEWED: Mandrake 9.2 * PhProjekt * StarOffice 7.0 COMPUTERS AT TIS HAZARI, the session courts for the city of New Delhi, are being shifted over to Linux, courtesy the National Informatics Centre. - Rahul Chopra in this month's editorial. LINUX LEARNING CENTRE at Bangalore is offering courses in administration, security, development (internals and programming essentials, programming with Qt, device driver programming, MySQL & PHP), RHCE and Red Hat rapid track certification. www.linuxlearningcentre.com DotGNU RELEASES CD: It can now be used to implement application programs and Web services in C# and C applications under multiple operating systems, including GNU/Linux, FreeBSC, MacOS, MS Windows. The 219 MB release 0.1 CD is available as a free download at http://download.freedom.biz/dotgnu/dotgnu-0.1-cdrom.iso.gz.torrent e-Bridge calls itself "the new state-of-art training facility from eSpark Infotech is now open in the heart of Bangalore". It's offering embedded Linux courses (Linux fundamentals, programming Linux, embedded C & Linux, realtime C & Linux, Linux internals, device drivers, networking) and DSP courses (DSP fundamentals, TI/analog dev programming, audio/video, image processing, bio-medical systems). www.ebridgesolutions.net Linux.net provides a free e-mail service to those who want an e-mail address that ends in '@linux.net' MAJOR UPDATES and releases: OpenNA Linux 1.0, Gibraltar Firewall 1.0, Xandros Desktop 2.0, Onebase Linux 2.0, CUPS 1.120rc6. CAN YOU MAKE money with open source? Registration entails a "nominal fee" of Rs 5000 for a three-day conference. http://www.linuxasia2004.com/attendees/ February 11-13, 2004, New Delhi. SEND IN YOUR favourite slogans for a tee-shirt, and win five free copies of the shirt... LFYedit at efyindia.com MONEY CAN't buy respect, says Robert Adkins. Some of us might have met this guy at LB2003 in Bangalore. He's the CTO of Technetra Corp, and an advocate and implementer of FLOSS solutions for government. He can be contacted at radkins at technetra.com CAREERS WITH FLOSS: The number of students opting for courses in Open Source is growing steadily, even as industry experts predict a growing need for trained professionals in this expanding field. EXIT RED HAT, ENTER FEDORA: It's official now; the free (of cost) version of Red Hat Linux will not be available anymore. This has created a lot of FUD in an already unstable environment, thanks to the SCO episode. But is Red Hat closed for good? WEB-BASED COLLABORATION SOFTWARE: PHProjekt is an easy-to-install collaboration suite, which runs on the open source platform and databases. As the design of the system is developer-friendly, adding new features and components is a piece of cake. STAROFFICE: The latest version of Sun's office suite, StarOffice 7, may just be the right solution for the cost-conscious user. It loads faster than the earlier version, and sports some noticeable improvements. IN THE LFY CD THIS MONTH: Slackware (the "oldest Linux distro") and a range of GNU software for Windows users. FALLING BACK on backup systems. MAKING ADOPTION OF Linux in the enterprise easy. www.linux4e.com Business partners required: http://wwww.linux4e.com/partners ooWRITER HELPS YOU create your own templates and styles so that you can work with documents easily. Open Source is key to IBM's vision of computing. User empowerment is key to Microsoft's, writes Alolita Sharma USING DATABASE functions in Calc, a tutorial. (Wish there were more how-tos for the user in this mag! --FN) HALDIA DOCKS: it has a uniquely designed Linux installation with an active-active cluster set up, which is considered the best of its kind. This has ensured efficiency and cost-effectiveness. BASIC UNIX commands and concepts: an extract from *Running Linux* (Shroff Publishers, Pp 674 only Rs 425 in India). VxWorks and LynxOS are definitely the biggest embedded operating systems in use today. But slowly they are acknowledging the power of GNU/Linux and how it can help them maximise deployments. HELP LINUX GO INDIAN: By using various translation tools, you can join Language translation groups working across India to help translate GNU/Linux into your language. EXPERT INTRODUCTION: Multi-threaded programming under Linux. KICKSTART YOUR Linux installation (Part I): Installing Red Hat Linux on multiple machines one after another can be quite tedious. To avoid answering the same question over and over again, try the KickStart method, as it does not need any user intervention. WRITE CHEQUES. NOT JUST BOOKS: Niyam Bhushan on how anybody can turn thoughts into words, and words into wealth. NFS CLIENTS for Windows. OpenSSL PACKAGE offers a vast crypto library of algorithms WAIT QUEUES in Linux device drivers UNDERSTANDING recursive sub-routines INDIA-RELATED NEWS: HP launches GNU/Linux laptop Mandrake's latest distribution Oracle announces 10g for GNU/Linux Delixus offers India Linux CxProtect anti-virus mailing solution for mail-servers Trade management system from Network Programs Netweb Technologies unveils Tyrone MRO-Tek rolls out Network Management Systems Review of FLOSS at BangaloreIT.com =========================================== DISCLOSURE: This journalist (FN) writes a monthly column for LFY and gets paid for it. Promoting awareness about the content of LFY however is not part of the job, and is carried on with the intention spreading awareness about FLOSS among different GNU/Linux user groups in India. -- Frederick Noronha : http://www.fredericknoronha.net : When we speak of free Freelance Journalist : http://www.bytesforall.org : software we refer to Ph 0091.832.2409490 : Cell 0 9822 122436 : freedom, not price.

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Python/LaTeX book mailing list
by Pramode C.E. 14 Dec '09

14 Dec '09

Hello, The Python/LaTeX book: http://radiantbytes.com/books/python-latex/ now has a mailing list: http://www.freelists.org/list/pymath Please join the discussion! The book urgently needs a good set of exercises for each chapter; please contribute your ideas - together, we can make this a useful resource for our teachers and students! Note that all the source files required to build the book are available on GitHub: http://github.com/pramode/Python-and-LaTeX-Book Regards, Pramode ------------- The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/

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Training programme on effective teaching/learning of programming
by V. Sasi Kumar 13 Dec '09

13 Dec '09

Prof. Phatak's 1000 teacher training programme on the topic, "Effective teaching/learning of computer programming" is scheduled to start tomorrow at about 9:30 am. The details of this course are available at http://ekalavya.it.iitb.ac.in/EffectiveTeaching_Course.do This training will take place through the student interactive terminals located at 22 remote centres of EDUSAT, with two way audio, video interaction. As of now about 900 college teachers who teach computer programming in hundreds of colleges will go through this training over a period of ten working days during 14-24 Dec. 2009. Prof. Phatak plans to use the open source learning management system Moodle for this course. All teachers will be able to participate in discussions, etc. through this forum. All of these, including the video recording of the course lectures, will be released as open source. A webcast of the entire course will be available free of cost at http://www.cdeep.iitb.ac.in/webcast/ Thanks to Prof. Kannan Moudgalya and Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam for the information. Best -- V. Sasi Kumar http://swatantryam.blogspot.com

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School students in action...
by ck raju 13 Dec '09

13 Dec '09

"Kozhikode: An information technology project prepared by the students of KPES High School, Kayakkodi, near Kutyadi in Kozhikode, aims at popularising the use of the free software, Linux, in the panchayat with the help of trained student volunteers of the IT Club at the school. The school authorities said the project was already in the implementation stage at the Kayakkodi panchayat. IT coordinator of the school K.T. Kunhammad said 70 students had been trained by experts to install the GNU/Linux operating system in the households in the panchayath. Initially, a survey was conducted in the panchayat with the assistance of IT experts from different institutes, including the National Institute of Technology (NIT-C), to study the current nature of system usage. It was found that at least one member in 90 per cent of the families in the panchayat was computer literate. According to Mr. Kunhammad, the study found that 15 per cent of the households owned PCs with 67 per cent of them using Microsoft’s Windows as the operating system. As many as 27 per cent of the households have Windows and Linux on their computers. “Only 7 per cent had only Linux on their computers,” he said. Mr. Kunhammad said the people were not aware of the “moral” and “legal” angles of using a “pirated” copy of Windows operating system on their computers. The project will create awareness among the students and the households. The school have already conducted study classes and seminars to sensitise people about the legal and moral dimensions of using a pirated version of the Windows. ...." Complete story at http://www.hindu.com/2009/12/13/stories/2009121352630300.htm -- CK Raju

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scipy.in
by Vimal Joseph 13 Dec '09

13 Dec '09

watch scipy.in online at http://giss.tv:8000/scipy.ogg -- Free Software, Free Society സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്വെയര്‍, സ്വതന്ത്ര സമൂഹം <http://fsfs.in>

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Python textbook for BSc Informatics paper
by Pramode C.E. 10 Dec '09

10 Dec '09

Hello, I am writing a small Python and LaTeX book to be used as a text for the BSc Informatics paper of Calicut University (for math students): http://radiantbytes.com/books/python-latex/ A mailing list will be up and running soon .... please let me know your suggestions. Regards, Pramode ------------ The INTERNET now has a personality. YOURS! See your Yahoo! Homepage. http://in.yahoo.com/

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Government of Karnataka releases Kanaja.in - a wikipedia type Kannada website and a Copyright
by jaykumar hs 06 Dec '09

06 Dec '09

Karnataka Knowledge Commission released a wikipedia type Kannada website. http://www.kanaja.in/ We already have good kannada wikipedia, but I don't know whether Karnataka Knowledge Commission had any clue about this before venturing into another one. GOK is spending about Rs. 2.0 crore for this, says Deccan herald report. http://www.deccanherald.com/content/39746/kanaja-launched.html Curiously, this site has copyrights!! Regards Jaykumar

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Fsf-friends December 2009