[sf-lug] SF-LUG meeting of Sunday 6 January 2013

[Bobbie Sellers]

     Hi LUGgers,
         Well it was an interesting meeting today.
     John Strazzarino was there before me at the Cafe Enchante.
He was very interested in seeing Ken Schaefer's Chumby running
and Ken with his wife was in shortly thereafter.  Ken's
gadget today was not only the demo of the operating Chumby
but an Ocopoid like USB Hub.
     Then as I was booting to Knoppix 7.04 a nice fellow named
Nelson showed up briefly and then saying he need cash and
the in-cafe ATM was out of order left to find $$ and food.
     He never returned so I hope he had no other problems.  He was
looking for help with his Lenova Linux install as all his support
had moved East after doing a big update for him.  He is a writer
and needs his computer to be working.
     Next in was Jim Stockford and he came to help and learn.

     Playing with Knoppix I had tried to log out but in doing so
was offered the chance to use KDE in the desktop environment
and did so.  This is KDE 4.7.4 and it was interesting as the
set-up from the 4.5.4 that I use daily was not terribly different
but there was a problem with over-sized widget(s) icons on
the vertical panel.

     By the way the Knoppix is running on Kernel 3.4.9 I believe
and usually boots to LXDE which can put up as many panels
as KDE but makes it substantially harder to populate them with
icons and widgets.

     Then Morgan cam in with a problem getting an older editor
to run.  We were not able to help him much though I personally
sympathise  because I used to use Textra on the Amiga and try
to duplicated the features of that fine old tool using both
KWrite and Kate to do the chores I used to accomplish with
Textra.

     Finally Eric came in to show off his Nexus 7.   This inspired
a search on the tablet and on its larger brother the Nexus 10
both by Google but the 10 inch device is much more connectible
and expensive.  I looked up the specs for Jim and it is a very
good fast multi-core with a separate core for Graphics and it
shows about 2560 x 1600 in those 10 inches.

     Some one perhaps Ken raised the Raspberry Pi as a good
usable computer which reminded me of the news from Team
Amiga of "the MK802 Allwinner A10 Mini PC,the Other $35
Do-It-All Computer. Running Android 4.0, this about the size
of a flash drive and, also like your favorite USB storage device,
enjoys being plugged into things. HDMI inputs to be precise.
Unlike flash drives, however, the MK802 also enjoys having
things plugged into it. A keyboard. A mouse. A micro SD card.
The little brick with the Android brain is truly a wonder
of versatility and skill. . . ."

<http://www.dudeiwantthat.com/gear/computers/android-mk802-mini-pc.asp>

     We discussed the use of touch screens as well on full-sized desktop
computers.  I find them pointless for general computing but for
kiosk and similar uses it was pointed out they have their places.

     1:05 PM we adjourned.

     Thanks for the ride, Jim.

     Bobbie Sellers
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