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Re: whitening
by Brian Kelsay 17 Mar '05

17 Mar '05

As always, Gerald puts it succinctly. "I like the way you talk." (Slingblade) But I find it hard to not agree with Brian and for once with Jonathan Hutchins. I didn't see that one coming. I guess on natural language processing he and I find some common ground. Now if we could just get him to read some manuals. :-) j/k Gerald, don't forget the band/singer "Uncle Cracker," my 7 yr. old son's current favorite. I'm gonna raise that boy up right. See you guys at Johnny Dare's in Westport around noon if you have the guts. Brian Kelsay >>> Gerald Combs <> 03/16/05 10:37PM >>> Jonathan Hutchins wrote: > The term "hacker" includes the concept of "cracker", unless the latter is > being used to distinguish a subset of the former. "Hacker" and it's meaning > pre-date computers. The term "cracker" is next to useless. I'd venture to guess that for most people the definition of "cracker" is a way, far-off distant fifth behind: The flat bread-food A Caucasian Something that separates chemical compounds, and The alterno-college-rock band Most people simply don't associate it with computing.

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Re: whitewig
by Brian Kelsay 17 Mar '05

17 Mar '05

You devolve? Brian Kelsay >>> "D. Hageman" <> 03/17/05 01:04AM >>> <snip> You know what happens if you don't evolve right? Wait ... n/m that is a debate for another day. :-)

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Re: ajax
by Brian Kelsay 16 Mar '05

16 Mar '05

More on ajax and Google: http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-5759958-1.html?tag=nl.e501 Is a remote desktop or thin client on the way? Brian Kelsay >>> Jared <jared(a)hatwhite.com> 03/14/05 09:40AM >>> Asynchronous JavaScript and XML http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php You will be seeing this idea more and more. It cracks open the last barrier between browser applications and other PC apps, and with Google showing off how cool it is, it is bound to stay. I've been watching it for about 3 years, and now it's getting the attention it deserves. It's the thing that allows GMAIL to update your browser with new emails without reloading your webpage, or allowing you to scroll across 100 yards of map seamlessly, one inch at a time--in your browser! I like it. I like it alot. -Jared

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RE: whitewig
by James Sissel 16 Mar '05

16 Mar '05

>>"ethically motivated hackers who work entirely >> within >>the law; the whitehats of the whitehats" about > > I'm confused. Do it use the term "hacker" properly > or as most people > use it? I sure hope they used it right since they said "ethically motivated". But we all know that "ethics" can be used to justify anything.

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OT: whitewig
by Jared 16 Mar '05

16 Mar '05

Does anyone want the domain names: whitewig.org and whitewig.net? I stumbled across the term as a neoligism meaning "ethically motivated hackers who work entirely within the law; the whitehats of the whitehats" about a year ago, and liked it. I had plans to develop a micro manifesto on whitewig hacking, but it's a year later and the domain names are about to expire and I haven't done it. I had the hard lesson once of letting go of a quality 5-letter domain name because I was done with it, only to watch it get snapped up by a domain house, who later offered to sell it back to me for $500. Yech. So I'm offering these if anyone wants em. Who's got a micro manifesto on these issues, just waiting for a domain name? I'm just a squatter on your blog; take'm, please; they expire in April. -Jared

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Freebies
by Bill Cavalieri 15 Mar '05

15 Mar '05

I'll be missing the meeting, but will be at Denny's. Will have another NLD9+OES pack and a couple car window hangers that say Linux on board. -Bill

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Re: Linux on an old laptop
by Brian Kelsay 15 Mar '05

15 Mar '05

We don't mind helping each other if you are willing to do a bit of research first or as directed. Don't be afraid to read and learn. Not everything is a quick fix and a couple of clicks. It is not in the Windows world either, no matter how easy we make it appear to the people we support. No one knows everything, but together we can figure anything out. Feel free to use the listserv, irc and the twice monthly meetings to get help, but the list is usually what will get you the broadest audience. There is a meeting tonight if you want someone to lay-on-hands or wave a dead chicken. There are a couple of "Great Old Ones" that attend occasionally so you can pick their brains. If you ask me, I may first point you to google, "Google is your friend." I'll even help you with your Windows problems most of the time, UNLESS it involves Windows ME. Some of our recent meeting attendees know how I feel about that abomination of nature. I won't even help my brother with that piece of crap anymore. Is that too strong a sentiment? Anyway, welcome. We're glad to have you. Brian Kelsay >>> Christopher Kanaan <> 03/15/05 09:18AM >>> Thanks for the offer, I appreciate it. I actually went to Microcenter last night and picked up a 2.5 to PC IDE adapter and put the laptop hardrive in my desktop. From there it was as simple as could be to remove all the "crap" (thanks for the suggestion crash 3m). Put the drive back in the laptop and now it happily boots up to Linux and recognizes my cardbus ethernet adapter so I can finish putting on the rest of the goodies. Thanks again for all who responded, I am relatively new to this group and this area and it seems to me that this is great and responsive community (from the activity I have seen on the list). -Chris On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 07:10:12 -0600, Brian Kelsay <> wrote: > If I know you are coming, I can bring to the meeting an adapter that does this. You should bring the spare PC and the laptop. Or if you twist my arm, we could put your drive in my laptop, which has a working CD-ROM. Bring any screwdrivers you may need to get the drive out of the laptop and/or drive tray. Most of my tools for this are scattered or unavailable at the moment. > > Brian Kelsay > > > >>> crash 3m <> 03/14/05 03:21PM >>> > There are adapters that will let you put a laptop hard drive into a > regular system. You can pick them up at Microcenter for $6 or > something. Depending on the distro your wanting to install, you may > be able to boot from floppy and do a network install as well. > > On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 15:10:13 -0600, Christopher Kanaan > <> wrote: > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > Hash: SHA1 > > > > I recently acquired an old IBM Thinkpad (550MHz Celeron) with a broken cd-rom > > drive. I would like to remove windows and put Linux on there. I went through > > the bios menu's and found that it only boots from FLOPPY, CD-ROM, or HARD DRIVE. > > It does have USB and a 10/100 cardbus ethernet. I guess I was wondering if > > anyone had any creative ideas on how to get Linux on this beast or if anyone had > > and external (USB) floppy disk drive or an external cd-rom that they could bring > > to the meeting on Tuesday night. > > > > thanks, > > Chris >

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RE: Semi-OT: Programming Question
by Jack 15 Mar '05

15 Mar '05

--- Jared <jared(a)hatwhite.com> wrote: > >> >Beware the client who always changes the > >> requirements... :) > >> > >> Think there is a method of discovering such > clients > >> ahead of time? My > >> experience so far has been that people with > vague > >> ideas of what they > >> want are the worse. They don't know what they > want, > >> so you try to build > >> what they describe > > >This is the totally wrong approach. It is the > >deisgner's job to extract from a client a clear > >picture of what it is they want. This means > getting > >input from the people who will use the product. It > >maens asking questions, restating the answers, and > >developing a data map and interface requirements. > > Exactly. Become the expert, and then implement what > the > customer wants (but cannot define clearly). > Thereafter, > scope creep is not the customer's fault, it is part > of > what you manage as the expert. > > I know this all in principle; practice is a lot > harder, > because, essentially, it requires a geek to have the > social skills to tell a customer what they > want--with > enough precision to keep them happy... which I am > only > just learning how to do. > Yes, this requires some people skills, but there are tools and methods to extract the information from clients. Tools and methods that every geek should learn and use. There is even software that can be bought that virtually develops the skeleton of the program. However, I don't recommend buying these very expensive tools. What it comes down to is focusing the clients on the data. Here's a quick primer for those interested (if I'm way OT and anyone wants me to shut up just say so.). First, get the clients together (obviously) and ask them questions about the objects they use in thier business. Let's say they rent equipment and they have asked you to rewrite their tracking and billing systems. So, the first question might be "What defines a piece of equipment?" or "What do we need to know about a piece of equipment to track it (bill it)?". This will porobalby elicit all the things they currently capture to track or bill. To which you need to respond, "Ok, this is good, but what do you need to know about equipment that your current system doesn't capture?". Now while all this question/answer is going on, you as the expert are of course using a Big Post-it board of paper to write down on the top the name of the object and underneath all the properties of the object. You repeat this for every object that need to be captured. You should have a basic understanding of the clients business so that you can inject a few objects to get them thinking. After you get all the properties of an object you can then ask them what arfe the key fields of the object, and also any fields which they "need" to do frequent look up on. Remembering that you have to constantly remind the client that we are looking for what they need or want and not what it is they currently do. It's those things they want to do that they currently can't that lead to ever expanding requirements (scope creep). When you have explored all the objects you will wind up with your database structure, and the client has done most of the work for you. If you have the man power you could have a second person at the meeting "taking notes" on a laptop. The notes of course being table definitions or UML. With this data one could then design screens for data entry and querying. However, we still need to ask more questions. Such as "what kinds of questions do they need to ask of the data", "what do they need to do to fix mistakes in the system","what kinds of reports do they need","what information needs to be on bills","what information do they need to see when asking certain questions","what kind of what if questions do they want to be able to do",etc. With these questions answered you should be able to build interfaces and report queries. Now of course, some of these wants will be easier to do than others, based on what inforamtion is stored in the objects. This is where you need to put prices on all the questions they need to be able to answer about the data. the important thing to remember is to try to use the client's knowledge to extract the questions and data. You will most likely not know enough about their business to ask all the right questions. Getting them to ask the questions is the key. Now this won't elminate scope creep, but if you get them thinking about this, you'll find that you'll get most of what you need and over the next week they will undoubtedly think of more things as they do their day to day jobs. This way you should be able to contain 99.9% of scope creep to within the first week or two of the project, plus the clients have automatic "buy-in" on the project because they helped design it. Well this is probably long enough, sorry if this is all old-hat for everyone. Hope this help a few. Brian D. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/

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Re: Linux on an old laptop
by Brian Kelsay 15 Mar '05

15 Mar '05

If I know you are coming, I can bring to the meeting an adapter that does this. You should bring the spare PC and the laptop. Or if you twist my arm, we could put your drive in my laptop, which has a working CD-ROM. Bring any screwdrivers you may need to get the drive out of the laptop and/or drive tray. Most of my tools for this are scattered or unavailable at the moment. Brian Kelsay Brian Kelsay >>> crash 3m <crash3m(a)gmail.com> 03/14/05 03:21PM >>> There are adapters that will let you put a laptop hard drive into a regular system. You can pick them up at microcenter for $6 or something. Depending on the distro your wanting to install, you may be able to boot from floppy and do a network install as well. On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 15:10:13 -0600, Christopher Kanaan <ckanaan(a)gmail.com> wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > I recently acquired an old IBM Thinkpad (550MHz Celeron) with a broken cd-rom > drive. I would like to remove windows and put Linux on there. I went through > the bios menu's and found that it only boots from FLOPPY, CD-ROM, or HARD DRIVE. > It does have USB and a 10/100 cardbus ethernet. I guess I was wondering if > anyone had any creative ideas on how to get Linux on this beast or if anyone had > and external (USB) floppy disk drive or an external cd-rom that they could bring > to the meeting on Tuesday night. > > thanks, > Chris

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Wikisource
by Jim Herrmann 15 Mar '05

15 Mar '05

I was looking at wikimedia, the people who do the wikipedia, and was looking at their sister sites. One of them is wikisource. It has source text in many languages that is public domain. I found this page on source code, which has algorithms for doing lots of different things in different computer languages. Just thought I'd share. http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Source_code Enjoy, Jim -- Progressive Values ARE American Values Responsibility, Empathy, Freedom, Opportunity, Prosperity, Fairness, Trust, Honesty, Open Communication, Community, Cooperation http://musicalprogress.org/

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