Where are Podcast Listener Communities
Posted on Fri, Sep 13, 2024
(Last modified on Sat, Sep 14, 2024)
| Alan Pope
Parasocial chat On Linux Matters we have a friendly and active, public Telegram channel linked on our Contact page, along with a Discord Channel. We also have links to Mastodon, Twitter (not that we use it that much) and email.
At the time of writing there are roughly this ⬇️ number of people (plus bots, sockpuppets and duplicates) in or following each Linux Matters “official” presence:
Channel Number Telegram 796 Discord 683 Mastodon 858 Twitter 9919 Preponderance of chat We chose to have a presence in lots of places, but primarily the talent presenters (Martin, Mark, and myself (and Joe)) only really hang out to chat on Telegram and Mastodon.
[Read More]Windows 3.11 on QEMU 5.2.0
Posted on Fri, Sep 6, 2024
| Alan Pope
This is mostly an informational PSA for anyone struggling to get Windows 3.11 working in modern versions of QEMU. Yeah, I know, not exactly a massively viral target audience.
Anyway, short answer, use QEMU 5.2.0 from December 2020 to run Windows 3.11 from November 1993.
An innocent beginning I made a harmless jokey reply to a toot from Thom at OSNews, lamenting the lack of native Mastodon client for Windows 3.
[Read More]Virtual Zane Lowe for Spotify
Posted on Fri, Aug 30, 2024
| Alan Pope
tl;dr I bodged together a Python script using Spotipy (not a typo) to feed me #NewMusicDaily in a Spotify playlist.
No AI/ML, all automated, “fresh” tunes every day. Tunes that I enjoy get preserved in a Keepers playlist; those I don’t like to get relegated to the Sleepers playlist.
Any tracks older than eleven days are deleted from the main playlist, so I automatically get a constant flow of new stuff.
[Read More]Text Editors with decent Grammar Tools
Posted on Wed, Aug 7, 2024
(Last modified on Thu, Aug 8, 2024)
| Alan Pope
This is another blog post lifted wholesale out of my weekly newsletter. I do this when I get a bit verbose to keep the newsletter brief. The newsletter is becoming a blog incubator, which I’m okay with.
A reminder about that newsletter The newsletter is emailed every Friday - subscribe here, and is archived and available via RSS a few days later.
I talked a bit about the process of setting up the newsletter on episode 34 of Linux Matters Podcast.
[Read More]Application Screenshots on macOS
Posted on Sun, Jul 28, 2024
(Last modified on Wed, Aug 7, 2024)
| Alan Pope
I initially started typing this as short -[ Contrafibularities ]- segment for my free, weekly newsletter. But it got a bit long, so I broke it out into a blog post instead.
About that newsletter The newsletter is emailed every Friday - subscribe here, and is archived and available via RSS a few days later. I talked a bit about the process of setting up the newsletter on episode 34 of Linux Matters Podcast.
[Read More]The Joy of Code
Posted on Sat, Apr 27, 2024
| Alan Pope
A few weeks ago, in episode 25 of Linux Matters Podcast I brought up the subject of ‘Coding Joy’. This blog post is an expanded follow-up to that segment. Go and listen to that episode - or not - it’s all covered here.
Not a Developer I’ve said this many times - I’ve never considered myself a ‘Developer’. It’s not so much imposter syndrome, but plain facts. I didn’t attend university to study software engineering, and have never held a job with ‘Engineer’ or Developer’ in the title.
[Read More]Do you know Simone?
Posted on Fri, Apr 26, 2024
| Alan Pope
Over coffee this morning, I stumbled upon simone, a fledgling Open-Source tool for repurposing YouTube videos as blog posts. The Python tool creates a text summary of the video and extracts some contextual frames to illustrate the text.
A neat idea! In my experience, software engineers are often tasked with making demonstration videos, but other engineers commonly prefer consuming the written word over watching a video. I took simone for a spin, to see how well it works.
[Read More]SAP Upgrade: The Sound of Silence
Posted on Fri, Apr 5, 2024
(Last modified on Sun, Apr 7, 2024)
| Alan Pope
This is the seventh in an increasingly infrequent series of Friday Tales From Tech Support. Some stories from the past featuring broken computers and even more broken tech support operatives - mostly me.
London. Summer 2002 In the early 2000s I worked as a SAP Technical Consultant which involved teaching courses, advising customers, and doing SAP installations, upgrades and migrations.
This story starts on a typical mid-summer, warm and stuffy day in London.
[Read More]Today is my Birthday! I got ADHD
Posted on Thu, Apr 4, 2024
| Alan Pope
This is a deeply personal post. Feel free to skip this if you’re only here for the Linux and open-source content. It’s also a touch rambling. As for the title, no, I didn’t “get” ADHD on my birthday; obviously, that’s humourous literary hyperbole. Read on.
LET age = age + 1 Like a few billion others, I managed to cling to this precious rock we call home and complete a 52nd orbit of our nearest star.
[Read More]Guess Who's Back? Exodus Scam BitCoin Wallet Snap!
Posted on Mon, Mar 18, 2024
(Last modified on Wed, Mar 20, 2024)
| Alan Pope
Previously… Back in February, I blogged about a series of scam Bitcoin wallet apps that were published in the Canonical Snap store, including one which netted a scammer $490K of some poor rube’s coin.
The snap was eventually removed, and some threads were started over on the Snapcraft forum
Groundhog Day Nothing has changed it seems, because once again, ANOTHER TEN scam BitCoin wallet apps have been published in the Snap Store today.
[Read More]Mini EV: Two Years On
Posted on Sun, Mar 3, 2024
(Last modified on Tue, Mar 5, 2024)
| Alan Pope
tl;dr I have had a Mini EV for a little over two years, so I thought it was time for a retrospective. This isn’t so much a review as I’m not a car journalist. It’s more just my thoughts of owning an electric car for a couple of years.
I briefly talked about the car in episode 24 of Linux Matters Podcast, if you prefer a shorter, less detailed review in audio format.
[Read More]Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: Follow up 2.0
Posted on Fri, Feb 23, 2024
| Alan Pope
On Tuesday, I blogged about a series of Bitcoin scam apps published in the Canonical Snap store.
Edit: This section updated on 2024-02-23 to include a Canonical response as two new forum posts from sabdfl (Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical).
Two things! Three things!
Zerothly, today we have a response from Canonical.
There are actually two new posts from Mark. One in response to the thread asking whether crypto apps should be banned from the Snap store, and the other an acceptance that identity verification might need to be stronger on the Snap store.
[Read More]Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: $490K Swindle
Posted on Tue, Feb 20, 2024
(Last modified on Sat, Mar 23, 2024)
| Alan Pope
Edit: There’s a short follow-up to this post: Exodus Bitcoin Wallet: Follow up.
tl;dr: A Bitcoin investor was recently scammed out of 9 Bitcoin (worth around $490K) in a fake “Exodus wallet” desktop application for Linux, published in the Canonical Snap Store. This isn’t the first time, and if nothing changes, it likely won’t be the last.
This post turned out longer than I expected. So if you don’t have the time there’s a briefer summary at the bottom under “In summary (the tl;dr)” along with my suggestions on what Canonical should do now.
[Read More]Ubuntu Summit 2023 was a success
Posted on Tue, Nov 7, 2023
| Alan Pope
Last week, I wrote about my somewhat last-minute plans to attend the 2023 Ubuntu Summit in Riga, Latvia. The event is now over, and I’m back home collating my thoughts about the weekend.
The tl;dr: It was a great, well-organised and run event with interesting speakers.
Here’s my “trip report”.
Logistics The event was held at the Radisson Blu Latvija. Many of the Canonical staff stayed at the Raddison, while most (perhaps all) of the non-Canonical attendees were a short walk away at the Tallink Hotel.
[Read More]Ubuntu Core Snapdeck
Posted on Fri, Nov 3, 2023
| Alan Pope
At the Ubuntu Summit in Latvia, Canonical have just announced their plans for the Ubuntu Core Desktop. I recently played with a preview of it, for fun. Here’s a nearby computer running it right now.
Ubuntu Core is a “a secure, application-centric IoT OS for embedded devices”. It’s been around a while now, powering IoT devices, kiosks, routers, set-top-boxes and other appliances.
Ubuntu Core Desktop is an immutable, secure and modular desktop operating system.
[Read More]Heading to Ubuntu Summit 2023
Posted on Wed, Nov 1, 2023
| Alan Pope
Ubuntu Summit This weekend the Ubuntu Summit begins in Riga, Latvia. I originally had no plans to attend until a recent change in circumstance, and a late space became available.
The Ubuntu Summit is “an event focused on the Linux and Open Source ecosystem, beyond Ubuntu itself. Representatives of outstanding projects will demonstrate how their work is changing the future of technology as we know it.”.
Essentially it’s a conference-style event with multiple tracks hosting speakers talking about Ubuntu and Linux-adjunct topics.
[Read More]You stole my lighter!
Posted on Fri, Oct 13, 2023
| Alan Pope
This is the sixth in a series of Friday Tales From Tech Support. Some stories from the past featuring broken computers and even more broken tech support operatives - mostly me.
Scene setting My first job out of college was for the auspiciously named “National Telecom” as a “Computer Operator”. Back then, this was a job, rather than something you just do day-to-day. I mean, it’s quite likely many of you have “operated” a “computer” in order to read this blog today.
[Read More]Ninety percent updated in a week
Posted on Thu, Oct 12, 2023
| Alan Pope
The other day I wrote about snapcraft metrics, a tool that enables publishers to extract application metrics from the snap store. Something I’ve noticed which I wanted to share, was how quickly automatic updates roll out to an application’s user base.
So I took the metrics from an application that I published in the snap store and scrubbed the names and version numbers. I charted below the speed that devices roll over from one release to the next.
[Read More]Updating snap packages: OBS Studio
Posted on Wed, Oct 11, 2023
(Last modified on Fri, Oct 13, 2023)
| Alan Pope
tl;dr. The OBS Studio snap is now updated to the latest stable release, 29.1.3, after a “brief” hiatus.
Another day, another updated snap, which had been languishing a bit. I wrote about updating Spot yesterday, and today, as per the title, it’s OBS Studio. As I mentioned previously, there’s a bunch of outdated snaps in the store, and I want to help fix that. Hopefully, with these blog posts, others might learn how, and be motivated to either publish new applications or step up and update existing ones.
[Read More]Updating snap packages: Spot
Posted on Tue, Oct 10, 2023
| Alan Pope
I recently lamented that there’s a bunch of broken and outdated snaps in the snap store. Well, some of them are my responsibility, so in the spirit of “be the change you want to see”, let’s get them fixed and updated.
I thought I’d highlight one or two as I go through them, to highlight any important or interesting changes. Today I took a look at Spot, which is a very decent native GNOME Spotify client by Alexandre Trendel.
[Read More]