X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/2922cdb5a9c7d41d34402afbc1adb8d36b5ba0e0..9d0dcdc25d86de368d53bea6cfcaecc172115c55:/blog/index.html diff --git a/blog/index.html b/blog/index.html index b6010f2b73..f03a482580 100644 --- a/blog/index.html +++ b/blog/index.html @@ -20,45 +20,17 @@
-
Why is your local library collecting the "wrong" computer books?
-
3rd October 2012
-

I just read the blog post from Tim Retout -about -the computer science book collection available in his local -library, and just wanted to share my comment on his theory about -computer books becoming obsolete so soon. That is part of the reason -why the selection is so sad in almost any local library (it is in mine -too), but I believe the major contributing factor is that the people -buying books to the library have no way to know a good and future -computer classic from trash. And they need to know which one will -become a classic in the future, as they would normally buy one of the -recently published books.

- -

During my university years, I worked for a while at the university -library, and even there the person in charge of buying computer -related books (and in fact any natural science related book), did not -know enough about computers to make a good educated guess. Once, just -before Christmas, they had some leftover money on the book budget and -I was asked if I could pick out a lot of computer books in the -university book store, for the library to buy for their collection. I -had a great time picking all the books I dreamt of buying and reading, -and the books I knew were classics (like most of the -Stevens -collection). I picked several of the generic O'Reilly books (ie -documenting protocols, formats and systems, not specific versions of -products) and stayed away from the 'teach yourself X in N days' class. -I had a great time, and probably picked out more than a hundred books -for the library that evening.

- -

The sad fact is that there is no way a overworked librarian is -going to know that for example -The -Practice of Programming is a must-have in any computer library, -and they will most of the time end up picking the wrong books to buy. -Perhaps you can help your local library make better choices by giving -the suggestions for books to get? I know they would love to hear from -you, even if their budget might block them from getting your favourite -book right away.

+
New IRC channel for LEGO designers using Debian
+
2nd January 2013
+

During Christmas, I have worked a bit on the Debian support for +LEGO Mindstorm +NXT. My son and I have played a bit with my NXT set, and I +discovered I had to build all the tools myself because none were +already in Debian Squeeze. If Debian support for LEGO is something +you care about, please join me on the IRC channel +#debian-lego (server +irc.debian.org). There is a lot that could be done to improve the +situation. :)

@@ -71,113 +43,104 @@ book right away.

-
Ny utgave (v2.1) av den frie norske stavekontrollen gitt ut
-
2nd October 2012
-

I helga fikk jeg endelig pakket sammen en ny versjon av den norske -stavekontrollen, og gikk ut versjon 2.1 etter at det var gått fire og -et halvt år siden sist. I dag fikk vi sendt ut annonseringen. Her er -det vi sendte ut:

- -

Oslo, 2012-10-02

- -

Pressemelding: Ny utgave av norsk stavekontroll med -synonymordliste

- -

Mer enn fire år etter at forrige utgave av den frie norske -stavekontrollen ble utgitt, er en ny og forbedret versjon klar. Dette er -noe utviklerne er veldig glade for.

- -

Den største endringen er at byggesystemet for stavekontrollen er -skrevet om til å akseptere ord med bindestrek (f.eks. «e-post»). Litt -over 10.000 slike ordformer er lagt til i orddatabasen. I tillegg er -det kommet en del nye ord og rettelser rapportert inn av de frivillige -som gjennomfører korrektur av orddatabasen i prosjektet. For å få -fortgang i dette korrekturarbeidet er det fint med flere frivillige -som kan bidra i prosjektet.

- -

- - En god og fritt tilgjengelig stavekontroll er en viktig byggestein - for å fremme bruken av korrekt norsk språk, sier prosjektdeltager - Petter Reinholdtsen. -

- -

Takket være samarbeidet med synonymordlisteprosjektet er -synonymordlista for bokmål tilgjengelig sammen med ordlista for bokmål -og nynorsk. En synonymordliste for nynorsk er også med, men den er på -prøvestadiet og meget liten.

- -

Stavekontrollpakken og synonymordlistene brukes i -LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org, Koffice, Mozilla Thunderbird, Firefox og -en rekke andre programmer, og på både Windows, Mac OS X, Linux og -BSD.

- -

Det hele utgis under den frie lisensen GPL og kan fritt lastes ned -fra prosjektsidene på -no.speling.org. Ferdige pakker for -LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org er også tilgjengelige fra samme sted.

- -

Det norske stavekontrollprosjektet er i kontakt med lignende -prosjekter for blant annet å forbedre stavekontrollteknologien, å -utveksle verktøy for vedlikehold av orddatabasen og å få tilgang til -relevante datasett. Et av disse prosjektene er et separat prosjekt ved -Sametinget som er i gang med å utvikle samisk stavekontroll for blant -annet Microsoft Word og OpenOffice.org.

- -

Et søsterprosjekt for å lage grammatikk-kontroll for -LibreOffice/OpenOffice.org er igangsatt, men har ennå ikke kommet -langt nok til å brukes. Frivillige til å bidra i dette prosjektet er -også svært velkomne.

- -

Kontaktperson

- -

-Axel Bojer, prosjektdeltager -
E-post: fri_programvare (at) bojer.no -
Tlf: +47 954 32 417 -

- -

Referanser

+
Lenker for 2013-01-01
+
1st January 2013
+

Her er noen lenker til tekster jeg har satt pris på å lese den +siste måneden.

+
  • 2012-12-07 + Myter og + FUD om fri programvare av min venn Christer Gundersen som + kommenterer noen av de pÃ¥standene som er spredt via Computerworld + Norge de siste mÃ¥nedene.
    • -

    Fra NEWS-fila i kildekodepakken

    +
  • BankID er et opplegg der utsteder (dvs. banken eller dens + leverandør) sitter pÃ¥ alt som trengs for Ã¥ bruke BankID, men har + lovet Ã¥ ikke bruke den unntatt pÃ¥ oppdrag fra deg. Det er greit nok + for banktjenester, der banken allerede har full kontroll over + resultatet, men problematisk nÃ¥r det gjelder tilgang til + helseopplysninger og avtaleinngÃ¥else med andre enn banken. Jeg + hÃ¥per protestene brer om seg. -

    Release 2.1 (2012-09-30)

    + + +
  • 2012-12-11 Norske elever er dÃ¥rligst i Europa pÃ¥ algebra + +
  • 2012-12-11 + Realfagsdødaren + +
  • 2012-12-21 + - + Noen mÃ¥ bli skuffet - Politiet i Bergen forteller hvor lavt de + prioriterer hverdagskriminalitet.
    • + +
  • 2012-05-03 + + Kripos-ansatt dømt for snoking for venn - viser hvor svak + reaksjonen blir nÃ¥r politiet misbruker innsamlet informasjon. En + forvarsel pÃ¥ konsekvensene av nasjonal brev- og besøkskontroll - + ofte kalt Datalagringsdirektivet.
    • + +
  • 2012-12-14 + Å + smøre en forskjell - om ensomhet og jul.
    • + +
  • 2012-12-18 + Én + krise av gangen, takk! -
      -
    • Switch to new version scheme. Make new version 2.1, not 2.0.11. We do not - release often enough to justify three digits.
      • -
    • Switch build rules to build OOo v2 thesaurus files, as the v1 build rules - no longer work. This require the libmythes-dev package on Debian.
      • -
    • Introduce new Makefile variables hyphendir and thesdir to make it easier to - control where to install these.
      • -
    • Change script used to import from no.speling.org, to load new word - boundaries if at least two people believed the boundaries was correct.
      • -
    • Added word boundaries for several words (around 500 words) using the - updated script.
      • -
    • Imported thesarus for bokmÃ¥l from synonymer.merg.net.
      • -
    • Rewrote build rules to use = instead of - as combined word marker, thus - allowing words like e-post.
      • -
    • Imported a lot (around 10k words) of new words with dash (-) in them from - no.speling.org now that it is handled by the build system.
      • +
    • 2012-12-17 + NAV: + Et mangehodet monster
      • + +
    • 2011-01-12 + Pasienter + uten vern - forteller litt om hvordan Norsk Pasientregister og + andre helseregister raderer bort pasienters privatsfære.
      • + + +
    • 2012-12-19 + Hvorfor + er barnefamilier fattige?
      • + +
    • 2012-12-25 + Den + skjulte minoriteten – konservative kristne i Norge - kronikk av + Bjørn Stærk fra aftenposten
      • + +
    • 2009-05-04 + Folkebiblioteket + 2.0 - Min venn Sturle om opphavsrett og Internett, i debatt med + Olav Torvund.
      • +
    + +

    Og et godt nytt år til dere alle!

    • - Tags: debian edu, norsk, stavekontroll. + Tags: bankid, lenker, norsk, opphavsrett, personvern.
    @@ -185,26 +148,29 @@ Axel Bojer, prosjektdeltager
    -
    NUUGs høringsuttalelse til DIFIs forslag om å kaste ut ODF fra statens standardkatalog
    -
    1st October 2012
    -

    Som jeg -skrev -i juni har DIFI foreslått å fjerne krav om å bruke ODF til -utveksling av redigerbare dokumenter med det offentlige, og -derigjennom tvinge innbyggerne til å forholde seg til formatene til MS -Office når en kommuniserer med det offentlige.

    - -

    I går kveld fikk vi i NUUG -fullført vår høringsuttalelse og sendt den inn til DIFI. Du finner -uttalelsen -på wikien. Ta en titt. Fristen for å sende inn uttalelse var i -går søndag, men en får kanskje sitt innspill med hvis en sender i -dag.

    +
    A Christmas present for Skolelinux / Debian Edu
    +
    28th December 2012
    +

    I was happy to discover a few days ago that the +Skolelinux / Debian Edu +project also this year received a Christmas present from Another +Agency in Trondheim. NOK 1000,- showed up on our donation account +December 24th. I want to express our thanks for this very welcome +present. As the Debian Edu / Skolelinux project is very short on +funding these days, and thus lack the money to do regular developer +gatherings, this donation was most welcome. One developer gathering +cost around NOK 15 000,-, so we need quite a lot more to keep the +development pace we want. Thus, I hope their example this year is +followed by many others. :)

    + +

    The public list of donors can be found on +the +donation page for the project, which also contain instructions if +you want to donate to the project.

    - Tags: norsk, nuug, standard. + Tags: debian edu, english.
    @@ -212,42 +178,51 @@ dag.

    -
    Etterprøvbar kunnskap under press, alle mann til pumpene!
    -
    24th September 2012
    -

    Jeg har sterk tro på vitenskap, som er et annet navn på -etterprøvbar kunnskap, som metode for å sikre et velfungerende -samfunn. Eller som en fantastisk reklamekampanje i England formulerte -det, vitenskap -flyr deg til månen, religion flyr deg inn i bygninger. Men den -vitenskapelige metode trenger folk med kunnskap, evne og vilje til å -gjøre sitt beste, og settes under press av et samfunn som ikke akkurat -belønner slike egenskaper. Her er noen skremmende og oppmuntrende -lenker relatert jeg anbefaler alle å lese:

    - - - -

    Ingen tvil om at alle gode krefter må jobbe sammen for å sikre at -vi vet hvor vi skal fly.

    +
    How to backport bitcoin-qt version 0.7.2-2 to Debian Squeeze
    +
    25th December 2012
    +

    Let me start by wishing you all marry Christmas and a happy new +year! I hope next year will prove to be a good year.

    + +

    Bitcoin, the digital +decentralised "currency" that allow people to transfer bitcoins +between each other with minimal overhead, is a very interesting +experiment. And as I wrote a few days ago, the bitcoin situation in +Debian is about to improve a bit. +The new debian source +package (version 0.7.2-2) was uploaded yesterday, and is waiting +in the NEW queue +for one of the ftpmasters to approve the new bitcoin-qt package +name.

    + +

    And thanks to the great work of Jonas and the rest of the bitcoin +team in Debian, you can easily test the package in Debian Squeeze +using the following steps to get a set of working packages:

    + +
    +git clone git://git.debian.org/git/collab-maint/bitcoin
+cd bitcoin
+DEB_MAINTAINER_MODE=1 DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp fakeroot debian/rules clean
+DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noupnp git-buildpackage --git-ignore-new
+
    + +

    You might have to install some build dependencies as well. The +list of commands should give you two packages, bitcoind and +bitcoin-qt, ready for use in a Squeeze environment. Note that the +client will download the complete set of bitcoin "blocks", which need +around 5.6 GiB of data on my machine at the moment. Make sure your +~/.bitcoin/ directory have lots of spare room if you want to download +all the blocks. The client will warn if the disk is getting full, so +there is not really a problem if you got too little room, but you will +not be able to get all the features out of the client.

    + +

    As usual, if you use bitcoin and want to show your support of my +activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.

    - Tags: norsk, vitenskap. + Tags: bitcoin, debian, english.
    @@ -255,44 +230,74 @@ vi vet hvor vi skal fly.

    -
    Seventy percent done with Norwegian docbook version of Free Culture
    -
    23rd September 2012
    -

    Since this summer, I have worked in my spare time on a Norwegian docbook version of the 2004 book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. -The reason is that this book is a great primer on what problems exist -in the current copyright laws, and I want it to be available also for -those that are reluctant do read an English book. - -When I started, I -called -for volunteers to help me, but too few have volunteered so far, -and progress is a bit slow. Anyway, today I broken the 70 percent -mark for the first rough translation. At the moment, less than 700 -strings (paragraphs, index terms, titles) are left to translate. With -my current progress of 10-20 strings per day, it will take a while to -complete the translation. This graph show the updated progress:

    - - - -

    Progress have slowed down lately due to family and work -commitments. If you want to help, please get in touch, and check out -the project files currently available from -github.

    - -

    If you are curious what the translated book currently look like, -the updated -PDF -and -EPUB -are published on github. The HTML version is published as well, but -github hand it out with MIME type text/plain, confusing browsers, so I -saw no point in linking to that version.

    +
    A word on bitcoin support in Debian
    +
    21st December 2012
    +

    It has been a while since I wrote about +bitcoin, the decentralised +peer-to-peer based crypto-currency, and the reason is simply that I +have been busy elsewhere. But two days ago, I started looking at the +state of bitcoin in +Debian again to try to recover my old bitcoin wallet. The package +is now maintained by a +team of +people, and the grunt work had already been done by this team. We +owe a huge thank you to all these team members. :) +But I was sad to discover that the bitcoin client is missing in +Wheezy. It is only available in Sid (and an outdated client from +backports). The client had several RC bugs registered in BTS blocking +it from entering testing. To try to help the team and improve the +situation, I spent some time providing patches and triaging the bug +reports. I also had a look at the bitcoin package available from Matt +Corallo in a +PPA for +Ubuntu, and moved the useful pieces from that version into the +Debian package.

    + +

    After checking with the main package maintainer Jonas Smedegaard on +IRC, I pushed several patches into the collab-maint git repository to +improve the package. It now contains fixes for the RC issues (not from +me, but fixed by Scott Howard), build rules for a Qt GUI client +package, konqueror support for the bitcoin: URI and bash completion +setup. As I work on Debian Squeeze, I also created +a +patch to backport the latest version. Jonas is going to look at +it and try to integrate it into the git repository before uploading a +new version to unstable. + +

    I would very much like bitcoin to succeed, to get rid of the +centralized control currently exercised in the monetary system. I +find it completely unacceptable that the USA government is collecting +transaction data for almost all international money transfers (most are done in USD and transaction logs shipped to the spooks), and +that the major credit card companies can block legal money +transactions to Wikileaks. But for bitcoin to succeed, more people +need to use bitcoins, and more people need to accept bitcoins when +they sell products and services. Improving the bitcoin support in +Debian is a small step in the right direction, but not enough. +Unfortunately the user experience when browsing the web and wanting to +pay with bitcoin is still not very good. The bitcoin: URI is a step +in the right direction, but need to work in most or every browser in +use. Also the bitcoin-qt client is too heavy to fire up to do a +quick transaction. I believe there are other clients available, but +have not tested them.

    + +

    My +experiment +with bitcoins showed that at least some of my readers use bitcoin. +I received 20.15 BTC so far on the address I provided in my blog two +years ago, as can be +seen +on the blockexplorer service. Thank you everyone for your +donation. The blockexplorer service demonstrates quite well that +bitcoin is not quite anonymous and untracked. :) I wonder if the +number of users have gone up since then. If you use bitcoin and want +to show your support of my activity, please send Bitcoin donations to +the same address as last time, +15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.

    - Tags: docbook, english, freeculture. + Tags: bitcoin, debian, english.
    @@ -300,41 +305,96 @@ saw no point in linking to that version.

    -
    Vitenskaplig metode i politikken?
    -
    20th September 2012
    -

    Jeg ble for noen dager siden tipset om en rapport utarbeidet av -Cabinet Office i England ved navn -Test, -Learn, Adapt: Developing Public Policy with Randomised Controlled -Trials, skrevet av blant annet Ben Goldacre (som jeg først ble -klar over da han holdt et veldig interessant TED-foredrag med tittel -Battling bad -science). Rapporten handler om hvordan det offentlige burde bruke -vitenskaplige metoder i større grad for å finne ut hvilke virkemidler -som er mest effektive når en skal regulere samfunnet. Her er et sitat -fra starten av rapporten:

    +
    Piratpartiet på opphavs-retrett?
    +
    19th December 2012
    +

    Jeg ble overrasket over å se at Piratpartiet i +Aftenposten +er referert på følgende:

    + +
    +Når det gjelder retten til opphavsrett for kulturproduktene, mener +Piratpartiet av levetid + 14 år er tilfredsstillende. +
    + +

    Det betyr en vernetid langt ut over det kommersielle livet til de +aller fleste opphavsrettsbeskyttede verker, og er i strid med slik i +hvert fall jeg har tolket punkt 5 i +kjerneprogrammet +til Piratpartiet:

    + +
    +

    5: Åndsverk og patenter: tilbake til start

    + + + + + +
    forslag:14 års opphavsrett og ingen +programvarepatenter
    grunn:Den første loven om opphavsrett spesifiserte 14 +års vernetid. Senere har mediabransjens lobbyister stadig presset +loven mot lengre vern, nå er det 70 år etter forfatters død. Dette +gjør at mange verk glemmes og går tapt, noe som er skadelig for norsk +språk og kultur. Vi til tilbake til start: 14 års +vernetid. Patentloven sier klart at dataprogrammer ikke kan +patenteres. Likevel klarer patentadvokater å lure gjennom +programvarepatenter. Slike patenter gjør dingsene våre dyrere og kan i +enkelte tilfelle stoppe dem helt.
    +
    + +

    Den opprinnelige opphavsretten var på 14 år totalt, ikke 14 år +etter opphavspersonens død. Jeg tenkte først dette kanskje var +feilsitering fra Aftenposten, men jeg finner samme påstand i en bloggpost +fra Geir Aaslid på Piratpartietes offisielle nettsider. Der +skriver han følgende:

    + +
    +Hva vi gjør med opphavsretten er mer komplisert fordi den omfavner så +mange bransjer, med ulike behov. Enhver reform er en forbedring men +det er nærliggende å anta at en opphavsrett på levetid + 14 år er +fullt ut tilfredstillende for musikk, film, litteratur og spill. +
    + +

    Det virker dermed på meg som om Piratpartiet allerede har gjort +retrett fra sin beundringsverdige holdning om at det holdt med 14 års +total vernetid, til sin nye som tar utgangspunkt i levetiden til +opphavspersonen. Jeg håper det baserer seg på en misforståelse hos +piratlederen som blir korrigert tilbake til 14 års total vernetid før +partiet stiller til valg.

    + +

    Hvis du lurer på hvilke problemer lang vernetid bringer med seg, +anbefaler jeg å lese boken Free +Culture av Lawrence Lessig. Jeg og en liten gruppe andre er igang +med å +oversette +boken til bokmål og tar gjerne imot hjelp med oversettelse og +korrekturlesing.

    + +

    Oppdatering 2012-12-20: Oppdaget at +bloggposten +til Geir Aaslid er endret siden i går, og nå inneholder følgende +avsnitt i stedet for det jeg siterte over:

    -

    Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are the best way to determine - wheather a policy is working. They are now used extensively in - international development, medicine, and business to identify which - policy, drug or sales method is most effective. They are also at - the heart of the Behavioural Insights Team's methodology.

    - -

    However, RCTs are not rutinely used to test the effectiveness of - public policy interventions in the UK. We think they should be.

    +Hva vi gjør med opphavsretten er mer komplisert fordi den omfavner så +mange bransjer, med ulike behov. Enhver reform er en forbedring men +det er nærliggende å anta at en opphavsrett lik levetiden, evt + 14 år +er fullt ut tilfredstillende for mange skapere av musikk, film, +litteratur og spill. Det er for det meste de store forlagene som er +imot enhver reform.
    -

    Her tror jeg også Norge har noe å lære. Det offentlige bruker mye -penger på aktiviteter der det ikke er åpenbart (og heller ikke blir -målt) at den reelle effekten er det en ønsker å oppnå. Ruters -elektroniske billettsystem, NAV-reformen, økt bruk av penger på -politiet og sykehussammenslåinger kommer meg i hug.

    +

    I tillegg har det dukket opp en setning nederst "Dette dokumentet +er et utkast til svar på et angrep på Piratpartiet fra Gramo. Det +endrer seg derfor over tid og den endelige versjonen er det som blir +publisert på Hardware.no", som tyder på at originalformuleringen ikke +var veloverveid og sitatet i Aftenposten kanskje var basert på en +misforståelse.

    - Tags: norsk, vitenskap. + Tags: freeculture, norsk, opphavsrett.
    @@ -342,105 +402,64 @@ politiet og sykehussammenslåinger kommer meg i hug.

    -
    Debian Edu interview: Giorgio Pioda
    -
    17th September 2012
    -

    After a long break in my row of interviews with people in the -Debian Edu and Skolelinux -community, I finally found time to wrap up another. This time it is -Giorgio Pioda, which showed up on the mailing list at the start of -this year, asking questions and inspiring us to improve the first time -administrators experience with Skolelinux. :) The interview was -conduced in May, but I only found time to publish it now.

    - -

    Who are you, and how do you spend your days?

    - -

    I have a PhD in chemistry but since several years I work as teacher -in secondary (15-18 year old students) and tertiary (a kind of "light" -university) schools. Five years ago I started to manage a Learning -Management Service server and slowly I got more and more involved with -IT. 3 years ago the graduating schools moved completely to Linux and I -got the head of the IT for this. The experience collected in chemistry -labs computers (for example NMR analysis of protein folding) and in -the IT-courses during university where sufficient to start. Self -training is anyway very important

    - -

    I live in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland, and the -SPSE school (secondary) is a very -special sport school for young people who try to became sport pro (for -all sports, we have dozens of disciplines represented) and we are -recognised by the Olympic Swiss Organisation. - -

    How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux/Debian Edu -project?

    - -

    Looking for Linux / Primary Domain Controller (PDC) I found it -already several years ago. But since the system was still not -Kerberized and since our schools relies strongly on laptops I didn't -use it. I plan to introduce it in the next future, probably for the -next school year, since the squeeze release solved this security -hole.

    - -

    What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?

    - -

    Many. First of all there is a strong and living community that is -very generous for help and hints. Chat help is crucial, together with -the mailing list. Second. With Skolelinux you get an already well -engineered platform and you don't have to start to build up your PDC -and your clients from GNU/scratch; I've already done this once and I -can tell it, it is hard. Third, since Skolelinux is a standard -platform, it is way easier to educate other IT people and even if the -head IT is sick another one could pick up the task without too much -hassle.

    - -

    What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux/Debian -Edu?

    - -

    The only real problem I see is that it is a little too less -flexible at client level. Debian stable is rocky and desirable, but -there are many reasons that force for another choice. For example the -need of new drivers for new PC, or the need for a specific OS for some -devices that have specific software packages for another specific -distribution (I have such a case for whiteboards that have only -Ubuntu packages). Thus, I prepared compatibility packages educlient -and eduroaming, hoping not to use them ;-)

    - -

    Which free software do you use daily?

    - -

    I have a Debian Stable PDC at school (Kerberos, NIS, NFS) with -mixed Debian and Ubuntu clients. If you think that this triad -combination is exotic... well I discovered right yesterday that -Perceus -has the same...

    - -

    For myself I run Debian wheezy/sid, but this combination is good -only I you have enough competence to fix stuff for yourself, if -something breaks. Daily I use texmacs, gnumeric, a little bit of R -statistics, kmplot, and less frequently OpenOffice.org.

    - -

    Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to -get schools to use free software?

    - -

    I think that the only real argument that school managers "hear" is -cost reduction. They don't give too much weight on quality, stability, -just because they are normally not open to change.

    - -

    Students adapts very quickly to GNU/Linux (and for them being able -to switch between different OS is a plus value); teachers and managers -don't.

    - -

    We decided to move to Linux because students at our school have own -laptop and we have the responsibility to keep the laptop ready to use; -we were really unsatisfied with Microsoft since every Monday we had 20 -machine to fix for viral infections... With Linux this has been -reduced to zero, since people installs almost only from official -repositories. I think that our special needs brought us to Linux. -Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.

    +
    Ledger - double-entry accounting using text based storage format
    +
    18th December 2012
    +

    A few days ago I came across +a blog post from Joey +Hess describing ledger and +hledger, a text based system for double-entry accounting. I found it +interesting, as I am involved with several organizations where +accounting is an issue, and I have not really become too friendly with +the different web based systems we use. I find it hard to find what I +look for in the menus and even harder try to get sensible data out of +the systems. Ledger seem different. The accounting data is kept in +text files that can be stored in a version control system, and there + +are at least five +different implementations able to read the format. An example +entry look like this, and is simple enough that it will be trivial to +generate entries based on CVS files fetched from the bank:

    + +
    +2004-05-27 Book Store
+      Expenses:Books                 $20.00
+      Liabilities:Visa
+
    + +

    The concept seemed interesting enough for me to check it out and +look for others using it. I found blog posts from +Christine +Spang, +Pete +Keen, +Andrew +Cantino and +Ronald +Ip describing how they use it, as well as a post from +Bradley +M. Kuhn at the Software Freedom Conservancy. All seemed like good +recommendations fitting my need.

    + +

    The ledger +package is available in Debian Squeeze, while the +hledger +package only is available in Debian Sid. As I use Squeeze, ledger +seemed the best choice to get started.

    + +

    To get some real data to test on, I wrote a +web scraper for +LODO, the accounting system used by +the NUUG association, and started to +play with the data set. I'm not really deeply into accounting, but I +am able to get a simple balance and accounting status for example +using the "ledger balance" command. But I will have to +gather more experience before I know if the ledger way is a good fit +for the organisations I am involved in.

    - Tags: debian edu, english, intervju. + Tags: debian edu, english, nuug.
    @@ -448,29 +467,38 @@ Those who don't have such needs will hardly move to Linux.

    -
    Naturvernforbundet i Oslo bruker OpenStreetmap i sin kalender
    -
    16th September 2012
    -

    Veldig morsomt å se at -Naturvernforbundet Oslo og -Akershus bruker kart fra -OpenStreetmap.org i -sine -kalendere. Vidar Gundersen i kartgruppa -forteller -på den norske epostlisten til prosjektet at hvert blad i -kalenderen har et turforslag på baksiden, med kart fra OpenStreetmap. -Tidligere kjøpte de visst kart fra kartverket, men nå slipper de -det.

    - -

    Denne nyheten synes jeg er fantastisk bra, og jeg håper de får -følge av flere, slik at det potensielle og fryktede inntektstapet for -kartverket ved frigjøring av kartdata blir mindre, og forhåpentligvis -til slutt så lite at frykten for å frigjøre data overvinnes.

    +
    61 kommuner lenker nå til FiksGataMi fra sine nettsider
    +
    11th December 2012
    +

    For noen dager siden omfavnet nok en kommune NUUGs +FiksGataMi. Med 61 kommuner +som lenker til FiksGataMi fra sine hjemmesider er «markedsandelen» 14% +(av 429 kommuner). Siden +siste +oppdatering i november har kommunene Re og Vågsøy kommet til og +slår følge med kommunene Askim, Askøy, Audnedal, Aure, Balestrand, +Bærum, Eide, Farsund, Flekkefjord, Folldal, Gran, Grue, Hadsel, +Halden, Halsa, Hamar, Hobøl, Holtålen, Hægebostad, Høyanger, +Kongsberg, Kristiansund, Kvinesdal, Kviteseid, Levanger, Lindesnes, +Luster, Lyngdal, Løten, Mandal, Marnardal, Moss, Namsos, Nissedal, +Nordreisa, Randaberg, Rindal, Sel, Sirdal, Skiptvet, Sortland, +Spydeberg, Stange, Stjørdal, Stord, Søgne, Sør-Odal, Tolga, Trysil, +Tynset, Tysvær, Ullensvang Herad, Utsira, Vennesla, Verdal, Vågan, +Vågå, Våler og Åseral. Oppdatert liste er tilgjengelig fra +NUUGs +wiki. Kartet er dog ikke oppdatert med de siste kommunene.

    + +

    Kanskje du bør høre med din kommune om de vil bli mer aktive +brukere av FiksGataMi? Se +en +tidligere bloggpost med tips om hvordan det kan gjøres.

    + +

    I snitt rapporteres det nå via FiksGataMi ca. 60 meldinger fra +innbyggerne i uka om feil på offentlig infrastruktur.

    - Tags: kart, norsk. + Tags: fiksgatami, norsk.
    @@ -478,37 +506,53 @@ til slutt så lite at frykten for å frigjøre data overvinnes.

    -
    IETF activity to standardise video codec
    -
    15th September 2012
    -

    After the -Opus -codec made it into IETF as -RFC 6716, I had a look -to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec -too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this -area. A non-"working group" mailing list -video-codec -was -created 2012-08-20. It is intended to discuss the topic and if a -formal working group should be formed.

    - -

    I look forward to see how this plays out. There is already -an -email from someone in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to -participate in the ISO group. Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given -that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced -multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect -joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not -involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.

    - -

    If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will -join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within -IETF.

    +
    Scripting the Cerebrum/bofhd user administration system using XML-RPC
    +
    6th December 2012
    +

    Where I work at the University of +Oslo, we use the +Cerebrum user +administration system to maintain users, groups, DNS, DHCP, etc. +I've known since the system was written that the server is providing +an XML-RPC API, but +I have never spent time to try to figure out how to use it, as we +always use the bofh command line client at work. Until today. I want +to script the updating of DNS and DHCP to make it easier to set up +virtual machines. Here are a few notes on how to use it with +Python.

    + +

    I started by looking at the source of the Java +bofh +client, to figure out how it connected to the API server. I also +googled for python examples on how to use XML-RPC, and found +a +simple example in the XML-RPC howto.

    + +

    This simple example code show how to connect, get the list of +commands (as a JSON dump), and how to get the information about the +user currently logged in:

    + +
    +#!/usr/bin/env python
+import getpass
+import xmlrpclib
+server_url = 'https://cerebrum-uio.uio.no:8000';
+username = getpass.getuser()
+password = getpass.getpass()
+server = xmlrpclib.Server(server_url);
+#print server.get_commands(sessionid)
+sessionid = server.login(username, password)
+print server.run_command(sessionid, "user_info", username)
+result = server.logout(sessionid)
+print result
+
    + +

    Armed with this knowledge I can now move forward and script the DNS +and DHCP updates I wanted to do.

    - Tags: english, frikanalen, multimedia, video. + Tags: english, sysadmin.
    @@ -516,33 +560,52 @@ IETF.

    -
    IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus
    -
    12th September 2012
    -

    Yesterday, IETF announced the -publication of of -RFC 6716, the Definition -of the Opus Audio Codec, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec -intended for both VoIP, film and music. This is the first time, as -far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec. In -RFC 3533, IETF -standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great -royalty free container for audio, video and movies. I hope IETF will -continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG -have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish -multimedia content on the Internet.

    - -

    IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to -ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty -free specifications. Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and -poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.

    - -

    Visit the Opus project page if -you want to learn more about the solution.

    +
    Lenker for 2012-11-28
    +
    28th November 2012
    +

    Mye interessant har skjedd de siste ukene. Her er noen dokumenter +jeg har hatt glede av å lese.

    + +

    - Tags: english, frikanalen, multimedia, video. + Tags: lenker, norsk, opphavsrett, personvern.
    @@ -557,6 +620,13 @@ you want to learn more about the solution.

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