LHS Episode #185: Second. Worst. Episode. Ever.

In the latest episode of Linux in the Ham Shack, which is in fact better than the title would suggest, we tackle a bunch of different and interesting topics. There's information on driving while hamming, openness at the FCC, Belarussian nanosats, open-source documentation, Firefox returning to Debian, Chinese Linux distributions, things Linux doesn't have that it should, CW clocks and more. Thank you for listening and please donate and share our Hamvention 2017 funding campaign. Thank you!

73 de The LHS Crew

LHS Episode #165: Knifey Spoony

KnifeySpoonyWe're back at it again, producing podcasts, drinking, laughing, having way too much fun. We hope you do at least a couple of those things when you listen to the show. This time around the topics include the UK selling spectrum, a California university ham factory, cartoons, a Debian Summer of Code project, tax reimbursement for FOSS developers, Firefox Servo, upcoming hamfests and a whole lot more. Thanks for tuning in--and please don't forget our LHS Hamvention 2016 Generosity Campaign campaign. Hamvention 2016 is less than two months away.

73 de The LHS Crew

 

LHS Show Notes #063

Promo:

  • Ohio LinuxFest will be held September 9-11, 2011 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, OH.
  • Linux in the Ham Shack promo from the Low SWR guys. Thanks!

Announcements:

  • Our best wishes for a speedy recovery to MadamMoo!
  • Our regular hosts are joined by Torsten, XE2/K5TOR.

Topics:

  • Firefox 4 has been out a while, and version 5 beta is available at the time of recording. Our hosts discuss. The first thing Russ noted, was the increase in speed! Look for versions 6 and 7 before the end of the year. (As I write this, version 6 has been released. -Ed.)
  • Kudos to The Linux Link Tech Show (TLLTS) and their interest in amateur radio. One of the hosts, Joel, aka "gorkon", W3RAZ, has recorded a couple podcasts for Hacker Public Radio: Episode #738 is an introduction to amateur radio, and Episode #756 explains the basics of radio. Another TLLTS host, Allan, is N3MAW.
  • Leo LaPorte of This Week in Tech has started a podcast about amateur radio. (It's Ham Nation with Bob Heil, K9EID, and Gordon West, WB6NOA, under the TWiT banner and with Leo's support and occasional participation. By the time you read this, Leo has his license and is now W6TWT. -Ed.)
  • Russ describes the Linux from Scratch project that provides instructions for building your own custom Linux system, entirely from source code. Russ plans on providing more details of his experience with Linux from Scratch on a future episode of the QSK Netcast.
  • Our hosts tried Ubuntu 11.04, Natty Narwhal, and discuss it, good and bad.
  • Russ also tried Fedora 15, and liked the default desktop environment.
  • Richard likes PCLinuxOS, and SUSE Linux.
  • Linux Mint gets a mention, too.
  • In future LHS episodes, look for information about svxlink, an EchoLink client for Linux, and codec2, an Open Source and patent-free audio codec.
  • Torsten has had problems installing CQRLog on a 64-bit machine. Russ recommends installing the ia32-libs package to provide the needed 32-bit libraries. In Debian-based distributions, you can install that package with the command "apt-get install ia32-libs". More information about running 32-bit programs on a 64-bit machine with Debian-based Linux is here.

Contact Info:

  • Contact Richard at kb5jbv@gmail.com, Russ at k5tux@lhspodcast.info, or both at the same time at info@lhspodcast.info.
  • Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
  • Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
  • Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
  • Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
  • LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
  • Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

  • "Vacancy" by Assembly Line Gods, from their album Control (Volume 1).
  • The music in Episode #063 is provided with kind permission by Assembly Line Gods from their recent EP release, Control (Volume 1). The track is called "Vacancy." Follow ALG on Twitter and Facebook and buy their new tracks at iTunes. Thanks, guys!

LHS Show Notes #018

Contributors:

  • George, N0JRJ, really likes the podcasts and would like to participate in the live show.  (Just show up! -Ed.)  He also agrees with Richard that it can take a long time to amass the equipment for a radio station, and that we need to foster new Elmers.
  • Walter, KV6M, made a donation to the podcast.  Thank-you!
  • Rodzilla, no call yet, is looking forward to getting his license and a Yaesu FT-8800.  He would like remote control software for the FT-8800, and wants to know if the programming software runs under Wine in Linux.
  • K6*** provided instructions for compiling fldigi under Ubuntu Linux 9.10 X64.
  • The Princeton Ham Radio Club mentioned the LHS podcast on their website.  That's Princeton, KY.

Announcements:

Links and Notes:

  • Richard talks about his experience with the Linux Cranks (Stay clear of the monorail!)  (ogg format, explicit)
  • Hacker Public Radio has asked Richard and Russ to do a couple segments.
  • Richard rants about receiving spam via Twitter.
  • We discuss "Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu" .
  • Firefox addons useful for ham radio operators.
    • AE7Q has tools to add callsign and grid square lookups to your Firefox search engine tool bar (Scroll down to the pink boxes on the lower right corner of the page. -Ed.)
    • Mozilla has a QRZ.com addon.
    • There is also a plugin to search the ARRL Callsign database.
    • N0HR has Propfire, a Firefox plugin for propagation information.
    • N0HR also offers PropStats, which provides propagation statistics for your website. https://www.n0hr.com/propstats.htm
    • haminfobar from John, G0DPC.
    • hamlinks toolbar from N0HR.
    • Take a look at VA3STL's weblog (October 5, 2008 entry).
    • Not actually ham radio related, but a couple of cool 3D plugins:  FoxTab lets you browse your Firefox tabs in a 3D fashion, and Cooliris allows you to browse your image files in a similar way.
    • Synergy allows you to share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers, with just software and your existing network.    There are several configuration tools, such as QuickSynergy for Linux or OS-X, another Mac OS X Synergy GUI, and SynergyKM.
  • Xirc is a good IRC client program.  There are versions for Linux, OS X, and Windows.

Conclusion:

Contact Richard via:

Email: kb5jbv@blacksparrowmedia.com
Twitter: twitter.com/kb5jbv
Web: lhsinfo.org
Forums at blacksparrowmedia.com

Contact Russ via:

Email: k5tux@blacksparrowmedia.com
Twitter.com/jrwoodman

Music:

LHS Episode #018

While Richard is back home in Texas, I came out to San Jose, California for a week of "geeking out." I'm attending the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, learning all I can about Ubuntu, Open Source licensing and patents, cloud computing, system tuning and monitoring and a whole lot more. I hope to put out a couple of short supplemental podcasts for Linux in the HAM Shack giving a little insite into my experiences here and tell a little bit about what I've learned.

As far as Episode #018 is concerned, Richard and I tackled a few questions from listeners. We spent a few minutes trying to keep our thoughts to ourselves about spam e-mail, managing to fail miserably. After that, we talk about some useful ham radio and other miscellaneous add-ons for Firefox that we hope our listeners will find useful. And when no other topics present themselves, our well-oiled machine moves onto an in-depth look at the virtual keyboard and mouse controller called Synergy.

We hope everyone enjoys this edition of the podcast and feels compelled to send in their comments, questions and suggestions for future episodes. Also, don't forget to follow us individually and as a podcast on Twitter, and make sure to leave your audio comments at +1-888-455-0305 so we can include them in upcoming shows.

73 de Russ and Richard