anna.morris's blog

I have a ton of photos from my holiday that I want to put on-line. My new camera is great but the pictures are very high resolution and much to big to go online or email. This has caused my problems before and so, as I am “On Holiday”, I thought I would have a look at batch conversion.

Usually, when I ask about this I am told to use the command line, so I took a look at that first. Seems that ImageMagick is a highly recommended tool, however, I soon ran into some problems. I will stress first though that I could see, from the documentation why people more adept at the command line would like this program: it gives you a very high level of control without the need for a huge and slow interface…. however, I personally found it just to hard to use.

It didn’t help that the manual, rather than simply telling you what to do, seems to tell you what you USED to need to do compared to what you need to do now… and why this is the case. Perhaps there was some kind of community issue in development which has lead to this “needing” to be explained…. or perhaps all manuals are like that and I just read so few of them….

Anyway, I just wanted to change 100 odd photos from about 5000px by whatever to more like 1000px by whatever… I am sure I would have figured out how to do it with commands eventually, but it would have been a long day. I found, however, that ImageMagick has a GUI, a nice graphical interface for people who enjoy the powerful software, but not the frustrations of learning command line. It is called Converseen (and YES, that is an annoying picture of a lady their sourceforge page, can’t they just use a neutral picture like an apple or something?! Anyway… moving on).

I found Converseen very intuitive, and I didn’t need a manual at all. I chose the pictures I wanted to change, and I found it easy to input what I wanted to be done with them. The only thing I wasn’t sure about was what the result of “Scale Image” would be – if I chose scale image by 20% would that make my photo 20% smaller or make it 20% of the current size? It tuned out to be the latter, so an image that was 5000px wide scaled with a setting of 20% came out at 1000px wide. All in one go, I also renamed the files from image_001 to image_001_small and saved them into a new folder which I could make/select from a pop up window as I would expect (rather than trying to input a file path as sometimes occurs in this type of program). The whole process was very fast,  first opening the program to having my photos as I needed took me less than 5 minuets. I would brand that a success and I recommend this software.

It’s just a shame that Command Line access to ImageMagick is still beyond my comfort level (and that I have found yet another manual that completely fails help users of my level).

Some time at the end of last year, a woman who was a founding member of Cryptoparty, a phenomena which has reached even sunny old Manchester, England, quit because of the treatment she had received by male hackers. Her post resignation blog is extremely angry. Here are my musings on what she said.

She sounds a bit loopy… but then aren’t we all?

So, this blog of hers isn’t easy reading. Its true that she is writing at a really bad time in her life as a computer activist. Putting aside the intimidate situation, this woman may be, or may not, be hot headed, unbalanced or whatever. I don’t know her personally, so I really have no idea. But if she is those things, it’s not because she is a woman.

Hacktivism culture is in some ways defined by our wonderfully tenacious, unyielding, obsessive and obstinate personalities. That’s why we end up here! We see the evil in the world and refuse to obey and conform to rules we disagree with and we are prepared to say so… some of us even say so in secretive, clever, devious and subversive ways which scare and confuse governments… What’s psychologically balanced about that?

I think issues of her individual personality are basically irrelevant to the discussion. The same applies to weather or not she is some kind of extremist. There are lots of those around in hacktivism too, I’m sure.

Those first few months should be special.

“I’ve gone from being a Facebook user to running OTR, PGP and Tor all in under a month.”

I found this part of Ashers blog so evocative. I too went though this huge transformation, a few years ago, for me it was also during that time that got the most hurt and angry. At first I judged Asher harshly for her abusive language in this post, and then I remembered the time when that was me, screaming blue murder on an email list, trying to hurt the people there like they had hurt me. (It didn’t work).

Those first few months of enlightenment should be a special time, but I wonder how many women end those months like Me and Asher: suddenly exposed to the most ruthless and cruel forms of sexism, suddenly left feeling very alone. Luckily for me, Sam Tuke turned up, I found FSFE, and all was well. But for Asher?

“I’ll go back to child-rearing and tweeting in the lull while the toddler is occupied and amused…for now.”

Did the Cryptoparty community try and cut her out? Or is this normal?

She starts by describing small things, I wondered at this stage if her anger was justified

“A number of Cyptoparty organizers regularly talked down to me when I questioned their choices, suggested I wasn’t qualified to comment on their actions. And then they left me to face public scrutiny when the shit hit the fan over their stupid decisions …” and “When I communicated about concerns and issues […] I got put downs, got brushed off, ignored, […] aggravatingly told that I wasn’t qualified to judge their choices as I wasn’t a crypto-expert or a hacker. And I got told to quit. Quite a bit, actually.”

Okay, so there are some nasty people and lots of know-it-all’s out there. I am used to that. I think she is too – she lived on the streets at one point in her life. She isn’t exactly a shrinking violet…

But then it gets a bit odd…

“Multiple Cryptoparty IRC channels were created and the people creating them didn’t inform the general public about them, and didn’t add them to the wiki. Some of the servers they placed the IRC channels for Cryptoparties on were almost impossible to access.”

Were these people intentionally trying to keep her out? Was it because of her gender?

“One day I made it into one of the Cryptoparty IRC rooms – under a different handle than usual – and watched.watched a bunch of male Cryptoparty organisers talking about me – about how I knew nothing about crypto (well, that much was true, but the point had always been to build an educational bridge) and that “real hackers” should be the face of Cryptoparty, not a “mommy-type.”

Well this gets really quite scandalous… but then again, its just a few guys on a secret IRC. After all, if tree falls in an empty wood, does it really make a sound?

“When my “web-developer” (guy she barley new but gave money to to build a website) got in contact next it was to tell me he’d gone on holidays and had presented Cryptoparty at the European Commission’s “No Disconnect” meeting. He hadn’t discussed it with me before-hand. I still have no idea what representations he made to the E.C. about Cryptoparty. He never reported his talk with the E.C. to the Cryptoparty wiki.”

Wile I can see why he might not need to talk to her directly, after all Cryptoparty has “Decentralised, DIY, psuedo-leadership”, he should surely have put this on the wiki?

“When I tried to discuss the issue, he /rage-quit the conversation.”

It seems to me that there were some strange things going on here. I don’t think these are random acts of selfishness. I think that “they” tried to cut her out of the movement that she had helped create.

Left behind…

Next Asher tried to get a speaker spot at Chaos Communication Congress, a big deal for a single mum with no money. Her talk was rejected.

Part of the issue was that other, wealthier members of Cryptoparty were already going /speaking, so her talk application had to become a panel application so they would be included.

The situation sounds pretty toxic by now, in the end, her application got refused because she needed to take some people off the panel… it’s hard to grasp the details but it sounds like no-one would quit the panel voluntarily and she didn’t know what to do. So her application was rejected, the boys all went to the event without her and Asher was left to watch their twitter feeds and talks on-line…

“So by the time 29c3 properly got underway, my nose was more than a little out of joint. And I stopped sleeping properly.” 

These people are under her skin, but are they hurting too? Probably not.

Next comes the moment that pushes a woman who was key to founding an internationally successful event out of haktivism, maybe even for good…

The creeper card woman

“I reached peak rage as the ‘Creeper Card’ issue unfolded at 29c3. You might have read about the cards, if you were watching the 29c3 twitter stream.”

I didn’t know about this, but to summarise: at some events, people can give green, yellow or red cards to other people. The cards are designed to simply and clearly tell people if and when their behaviour is out of line, primarily in a sexual way.

“At 29C3, someone took a bunch of the ‘Creeper Cards’ and made them into a statement all of their own. An image of a headless female body.”

Why is the creeper card woman not funny?

Okay so she has no face, no head to keep her brain in, no arms to defend herself with (or hack with for that matter)… but maybe its too hard to make a face out of little red cards. Maybe the paper was to narrow to give her arms. Anyway, as long as she has boobs and a vagina, she’s good to go right?

I guess it this picture could be amusing in the same way that Mark Titchner’s work “We Want to Nurture and Protect” is amusing. Maybe the headless creeper card woman was made to be ironic too. Probably not though.

Even if it wasn’t made to be ironic, its still amusing… right? It’s like some kind of subversive cave art. “Me like naked lady, me drag naked lady by her hair, me do the naked lady… even though the lady doesn’t like it and waves a red card at me” – it’s just a little celebration of all things nerd, right? A bit like the IT crowd and Big Bang Theory…. no wait… those were still made by people WITH social skills to mock the nerd boys without them…

So its more like if the IT crowd and Big Bang Theory are real and… and that one of the boy nerds had done something “funny” but that had coincidently really really hurt a woman at the other side of the world who’s own funny pet-group-of-idiot-geek-boys had ridiculed and isolated her so much that she wasn’t sleeping any more… and so she quit the nerd club never to be seen again…

And there, that’s why its not funny…  I can laugh cause I am laughing AT the person who made it, and because I am safely surrounded by gentle, reasonable people right now. But I can see why it was the final straw for Asher…

“I’m sure, if it wasn’t for the fact I was incredibly pi**ed off about how I’ve been treated by some elements of the hacker community, then maybe I would have found some aspect of the ‘Creeper Card’ image funny. Maybe. I didn’t. Instead, when I saw the Headless Female ‘Creeper Card’ image I blacked out with pure rage for more than a few seconds. And then I publicly railed, in unholy unrestrained outrage for all the ways I had lost my faith in members of the hacker community over the last few months.”

Should people like Asher stay and change hacker culture?

“After I quit Cryptoparty people responded that I had to stay, had to take responsibility for changing the culture of the community. I was beyond tact. I howled “f*** you” back at them repeatedly. I was sick to death of being constantly requested to fix other people’s shitty behaviour.”

She has a point. I am not even sure its possible for one women to to simply “fix” these individuals or small organisations. And even if it were, it’s certainly not our job. Asher has a point when she says “You shouldn’t need a red card wagged in your face to let you know your behaviour is s***full.”

Who should fix this problem then?

I think in this instance it is organisations like FSFE who should be activity involved in remedying these issues. At FSFE we have the strength, numbers and positive support networks to make a difference without getting hurt as individuals.

This don’t mean that FSFE should spend it’s time getting involved in global flamewars while we could be doing something useful…

FSFE stopped me from dropping out of Free Software when I was being treated badly by a group of guys. They did this just by being friendly and treating me with respect.We just need to do the same thing but bigger. After all, it was just luck that I met Sam Tuke when I did.

So we need to be active, not in the sense of “positive discrimination” but in the sense of having a clear, outward facing and visible statement of our belief that women are equal, welcome and vital to what we do here. That ALL people are welcome (as long as they welcome all people).

I want all women in this situation to find and get involved with great organisations like ours and discover that they will be treated properly. I don’t want Free Software (and co) to lose a single person because of discrimination or bullying.

It’s never too late

Ashers blog has been bouncing around on the Flossie and Gender Changers lists today. Here is one particularly insightful response:

“Got to say, when this kind of s**t occasionally hits the fan for me, it’s also usually *afterwards* that I get messages of support and I notice this as a pattern. My main comment here is that we need to work out how to ask for help and support each other before it comes to stressful breakdown of an energetic woman’s commitment.” – Paula, Fossbox

I think Paula has hit the nail on the head. Most of the women I know in Free Software are either new, or tough as old boots. I know there are many many more women who simply quit, like Asher has done, for the same/similar reasons.

We have to make sure that the next time a woman wants to quit – that we find her, or that she finds us, and we help her. Then perhaps she will help us, and everybody wins. Except the people who told her to quit.

Why we should we care?

I really think this list of past and future Cryptoparties, borrowed from the Cryptoparty Wiki, says everything about Ashers Story, and everything about what the women we have lost along the way could be doing right now, if we had been there for them when they needed us.

Africa

• Tunis / Tunisia

Asia

• Manila / Philippines

Australia

• Canberra / Australian Capital Territory, Australia
• Sydney/ New South Wales, Australia
  • Next CryptoParty March 27 9pm
• Adelaide / South Australia, Australia
• Melbourne/ Victoria, Australia
  • 2012 Voice & Video messages from around the globe: International Messages
• Perth / Western Australia, Australia
• Hobart / Tasmania, Australia

Europe

Austria

• Graz / Austria
• Linz / Austria
• Uderns Zillertal/ Austria
• Vienna / Austria

Belgium

• Brussels/ Belgium
  • 23rd March, 2013

Denmark

• Copenhagen/ Denmark
  • Thursday, 17th January 2013 (maybe)
  • Sunday, 20th January 2013 (confirmed)

Estonia

• Tartu / Estonia

France

• Angers / France
• Lille / France
• Marseille/ France
  • Saturday 16th March, 2013
• Nantes / France
• Paris / France
• Toulouse / France

Germany

• Berlin/ Germany
  • Friday, 11th January, 2013
• Bonn/ Germany
  • Friday, 22nd March, 2013
• Cologne/ Germany
  • Thursday, 21th March, 2013
• Cologne-CCC
  • Thursday, 7th March, 2013
• Darmstadt / Germany
• Dresden / Germany
• Düsseldorf
• Frankfurt(am Main) / Germany
  • Sunday, 7th April 2013
• Jena / Germany
• Hannover/ Germany
  • Saturday, 23rd February, 2013

Greece

• Athens / Greece

Iceland

• Reykjavík / Iceland

Ireland

• Dublin / Ireland
• Galway / Ireland

Italy

• Firenze/ Italy
  • Wednesday 13th February, 2013
• Rende/ Italy
  • Wednesday 27th March, 2013

Luxembourg

• Luxembourg/ Luxembourg
  • Saturday 2nd March, 2013

Netherlands

• Amsterdam / Netherlands

Norway

• Oslo / Norway

Poland

• Warsaw/ Poland
  • Every Thursday

Romania

• Bucharest/ Romania
  • Monday 11th February, 2013

Russia

• Moscow / Russia

Serbia

• Belgrade / Serbia

Slovakia

• Bratislava / Slovakia

Spain

• Barcelona / Spain

Switzerland

• Zurich / Switzerland

United Kingdom

• Cardiff / United Kingdom
• London/ United Kingdom
  • ~January, 2013

India

• Bangalore / India

Middle East

• Cairo / Egypt
• Tel Aviv / Israel

North America

USA

• New York City/ New York, USA
  • Monday 25th February, 2013
  • Thursday 7th March, 2013
• Phoenix / Arizona, USA
• Oakland / California, USA
• San Diego / California, USA
• San Francisco / California, USA
• Stanford University, Stanford/ California, USA
  • Sunday 24th February, 2013
• Meriden / Connecticut, USA
• Washington, DC District of Columbia, USA
• Chicago / Illinois, USA
• Boston/ Massachusetts, USA
  • Saturday 23rd February, 2013
• Minneapolis / Minnesota, USA
• Portsmouth / New Hampshire, USA
• Durham / North Carolina, USA
• Las Vegas/ Nevada, USA
  • 3rd Thursday of every month
• Syracuse / New York, USA
• Philadelphia / Pennsylvania, USA
• Cookeville / Tennessee, USA
• Dallas / Texas, USA

Canada

• Vancouver / British Columbia, Canada
• Winnipeg/ Winnipeg, Canada
  • Saturday, 6th April, 2013
• Toronto / Ontario, Canada
• Kitchener-Waterloo
• Calgary / Alberta, Canada
• Edmonton/ Alberta, Canada
  • Friday, 5th April, 2013

América del Sur (South America)

• Santiago / Santiago de Chile.

Oceania / Pacific

• Oahu / Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Online

• Online / Online CryptoParty

Previous CryptoParties

Africa

• Tunis/ Tunisia
  • Tuesday 27th November, 2012
  • Saturday, 1st December, 2012

Asia

• Manila/ Philippines
  • Saturday 13th October, 2012

Australia

• Canberra/ Australian Capital Territory, Australia
  • Saturday 1st September, 2012
• Sydney/ New South Wales, Australia
  • Saturday 1st September, 2012
  • Saturday 13th October, 2012
  • Saturday 24th November, 2012
• Adelaide/ South Australia, Australia
  • Sunday 23rd September, 2012
• Melbourne/ Victoria, Australia
  • Saturday 22nd September, 2012 Voice & Video messages from around the globe: International Messages
  • Saturday 27th October, 2012
  • Wednesday 28th November,2012
• Perth/ Western Australia, Australia
  • Thursday 27th September, 2012
• Hobart/ Tasmania, Australia
  • Thursday 22th November 2012

Europe

Austria

• UdernsZillertal/ Austria
  • Thursday 11th October, 2012
• Vienna/ Austria
  • Monday 24th September,2012
  • Monday 29th October, 2012
  • Monday 26th November 2012, 2012
  • Monday 17th December 2012

Belgium

• Brussels/ Belgium
  • Saturday 13th October, 2012

Denmark

• Copenhagen/ Denmark
  • Wednesday 14th November, 2012
  • Sunday, 16th December 2012
• Aarhus/ Denmark
  • Tuesday, February 18, 2013

Estonia

• Tartu/ Estonia
  • Tuesday, 20th of November 2012

France

• Angers/ France
  • Saturday 15th December 2012
• Lille/ France
  • Saturday 25th September 2010
• Marseille/ France
  • Friday, 11th January, 2013
  • Saturday, 9th February, 2013
  • Saturday, 16th February, 2013
• Nantes/ France
  • Saturday 10th November 2012
  • Saturday 8th December 2012
• Paris/ France
  • Saturday 17th of November, 2012
• Toulouse/ France
  • Wednesday 24th October, 2012

Germany

• Berlin/ Germany
  • Friday 31st August, 2012
  • Friday 28th September, 2012
  • Friday 7th December, 2012
• Cologne/ Germany
  • Thursday, 20th December, 2012
  • Thursday, 17th January, 2013
• Darmstadt/ Germany
  • Wednesday 5th December, 2012
• Dresden/ Germany
  • Thursday, 6th December 2012
• Düsseldorf
  • Saturday, 17th November, 2012
• Frankfurt/ Germany
  • Sunday 16th December, 2012
  • February 2013
• Hamburg/ Germany
  • Friday 28th December, 2012
  • ~January 2013
• Jena/ Germany
  • Friday, 23rd November, 2012
  • Friday, 25th January, 2013
• Freiburg
  • Saturday, 16th February, 2013

Greece

• Athens/ Greece
  • Sunday 11th November, 2012
  • Sunday 23rd December, 2012

Iceland

• Reykjavík/ Iceland
  • Saturday 13th October 2012

Luxembourg

• Luxembourg / Luxembourg

• • Saturday 12th January, 2013

Netherlands

• Amsterdam/ Netherlands
  • Thursday 27th September, 2012
  • Monday 3th December, 2012

Norway

• Oslo/ Norway
  • Friday 16th November, 2012

Poland

• Warsaw/ Poland
  • Every Thursday

Romania

• Bucharest
  • Friday, 8th February 2012 (keepass + truecrypt)

Russia

• Moscow/ Russia
  • Monday 26th November, 2012
  • ~December, 2012

Slovakia

• Bratislava/ Slovakia
  • Thursday 4th October, 2012
  • Tuesday 27th November, 2012

Spain

• Barcelona/ Spain
  • Saturday 15th December, 2012

Sweden

• Umeå/ Sweden
  • Thursday 1st November, 2012
• Stockholm/ Sweden
  • Saturday 16th February, 2013

Switzerland

• Zurich/ Switzerland
  • Friday 28th September, 2012
  • Saturday 23th February, 2013

UK and Ireland

• Cardiff/ United Kingdom
  • Saturday 22nd September, 2012
• Dublin/ Ireland
  • Friday 28th September, 2012
  • Friday 30th November, 2012
• Galway/ Ireland
  • Friday 28th September, 2012
  • Friday 30th November, 2012
• London/ United Kingdom
  • Saturday 29th September, 2012
  • Friday 19th October, 2012
  • Mini Cryptoparty: Sunday 4th November, 2012
  • Wednesday 12th December, 2012

India

• Bangalore/ India
  • Friday, December 28, 2012

Middle East

• Cairo/ Egypt
  • Saturday 15th September, 2012
• Tel Aviv/ Israel
  • Sunday 4th November, 2012
  • December, 2012 (TBD)

North America

USA

• New York City/ New York, USA
  • Wednesday 5th December, 2012
• Oakland/ California, USA
  • Sunday 14th October, 2012
• San Diego/ California, USA
  • Sunday 14th October, 2012
• San Francisco/ California, USA
  • Saturday 17th November, 2012
• Stanford University, Stanford/ California, USA
  • Sunday 24th February, 2013
• Meriden/ Connecticut, USA
  • Saturday 15th December, 2012
• Washington, DCDistrict of Columbia, USA
  • Sunday 14th October, 2012
• Chicago/ Illinois, USA
  • Saturday 6th October, 2012
  • Saturday 15th December, 2012
  • Sunday, 3rd February, 2013
• Boston/ Massachusetts, USA
  • Sunday 21st October, 2012
• Minneapolis/ Minnesota, USA
  • Saturday 6th October, 2012
  • Sunday 28th October, 2012
• Portsmouth/ New Hampshire, USA
  • Thursday 13th September, 2012
• Durham/ North Carolina, USA
  • Monday, November 19th, 2012
• Las Vegas/ Nevada, USA
  • 3rd Thursday of every month
• Syracuse/ New York, USA
  • Thursday 18th October, 2012
• Philadelphia/ Pennsylvania, USA
  • Saturday 22nd September 2012 – Meet & Greet
  • TBD in October, 2012
• Cookeville/ Tennessee, USA
  • Monday 27th August, 2012
  • Thursday 27th September, 2012
  • Thursday 15th November, 2012

Canada

• Vancouver/ British Columbia, Canada
  • Friday 21st September, 2012
  • Saturday, November 3, 2012
• Winnipeg/ Winnipeg, Canada
  • Saturday, 6th October, 2012
  • Saturday, 5th January, 2013
• Toronto/ Ontario, Canada
  • Thursday 11th, October 2012
• Kitchener-Waterloo
  • Monday, 3 December 2012 Postponed!

América del Sur (South America)

• Santiago/ Santiago de Chile.
  • Friday 28th September, 2012

Oceania / Pacific

• Oahu/ Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
  • Sunday 30th September, 2012
  • Tuesday 11th December, 2012

Online

• Online/ Online CryptoParty
  • Wednesday 26th September, 2012
  • Saturday 6th October, 2012
  • Saturday 15th December, 2012

Hi, I am not a huge fan of the command-line in general, though after 3 years volunteering (and now interning!) in free software, I am slowly coming round to her charms.

“Trying to teach people about command-line is time consuming: doing it badly is an unnecessary drain on resources. I think that one of the solutions is to speed up and simplify command line interface access”.

Things that make command-line hard for a dyslexic and/or newbie?

One of the biggest problems for me is that I struggle to remember things I have just read on a forum, for example, long enough to write them into the command-line.

I do have a poor memory in general, however, as commands and their structure don’t mean much to me, most of the memory tools I use day to day are irrelevant. I guess it’s similar to people still finding mobile numbers hard to remember, we just don’t have the same tools or systems to help. Or like how chess players memory for a board set up seen only for a moment is crippled if the pieces are in “illegal” positions. Their memory is based on a set of rules, and if those rules are broken or changed, not only get confused, their learning capacity is reduced.

It’s therefore genuinely hard to remember how things are spelled or what order they go in, when you aren’t sure of the usual rules – for example G referring to gnome and K referring to KDE, all the acronyms and little jokes with which I am now familiar… at first these were a real nightmare. Like trying to write in an alphabet you didn’t know.

So, for me, with command line, time is of the essence – even when copying and pasting, the few seconds gap between seeing the forum page and seeing the command-line interface can be a problem, especially in the first year when I was still unsure about which things exactly I needed to paste.

Do these problems affect learning?

Yes, for me they do. Aside from being hard work, all these little extra worries simply got in the way of my learning – when command-line is cumbersome, learning is harder work too. I am sure most newbies and dyslexics out there understand this issue – but it’s not just an issue for beginners. Trying to teach people about command-line is time consuming: doing it badly is an unnecessary drain on resources. I think that one of the solutions is to speed up and simplify command line interface access.

How will Guake help?

Guake (again, a strange word for people not already into computers) is a command line interface that drops down and retreats again with one keystroke (in my case F12) – it feels a bit like opening a draw. You feel like you are “in” the operating system and not going to another window or application to enter a command – it therefore feels like less of a barrier, feels less alien.

Hopping between your command line and your forum help window or IRC help window is very very very simple. I am aware task hopping in Gnome3 is already quite simple – well this is more simple. It’s almost an invisible action, nothing “moves” on your screen, your help window doesn’t “go away.” You can set the background to be transparent, and because of this you feel, strangely, more supported. Your helper, your Linux lifeline, is still there, holding your hand: you can still see them through the CLI. The feeling of isolation when dealing with an unintelligible task is greatly reduced.

It’s also much faster to repeatedly compare what you have done and what you need to do, you can flick between them at lightening speed, checking each letter in your command if you need to, without any whizzing windows, re-sizing and scrolling, or issues with which window is “on top” of the other. The capacity to letter by letter check is really important for people who have not yet learned the lingo (or how to use the tab key).

I am sure there are others like Guake by the way, it just happens this is the first one I have used.

How do you install it?

I am using Fedora at the moment, so here are the instructions for fedora. Please feel free to send me instructions for other systems and I will add them 🙂

1) Open your terminal

2) Type

sudo yum install guake

hit return, type your password (you won’t see letters or stars as you do this) and hit return again.

3) Press y (for yes) and hit enter when asked.

4) Once it is finished (see it says “complete!”) press f12 and you will see your Guake command line interface come down from the top of your screen. Press F12 again, and will slide back up again. Try this a few times.

Next, you will want to make it start automatically when you switch on your computer. So

5) Type (in your Guake, see above)

gnome-session-properties

And hit enter. Press F12 to minimize, and see your autostart window.

Click on “add” and type in guake in the first two boxes. Save it, and reboot your pc in your normal way.

Now you are done! Every time someone asks you to type in a command to fix a problem or install something new, you can press F12 and your Guake Command-line Interface will be there for you 🙂

Hi, I have had this problem following numerous installs of a wider variety of OS’s. Problem is characterized by Libreoffice spell checker not picking up on mistakes, rather than not being present at all. In crunchbang/debian the solution was to run:

sudo apt-get install myspell-gb

in command line. In fedora, the solution was to run

sudo yum install hunspell-en-GB.noarch

Anyone know why this keeps happening? Most people I know haven’t changed their whole OS in a while, and just upgraded – but this is a major issue for dyslexics like me, especially as you don’t notice the absence of a spell checker for a while necessarily, not unless you can see your mistakes (which I don’t)

best

Anna

Last thing on Friday I sent an email to submit a motion to the AGM of The Phone-Coop, asking that the swap the links to adobe (on their billing emails) to links to pdfreaders.org. First thing on Monday they called me back saying they had decided to implement the suggestion straight away. They said it was so simple to do and clearly the right choice to make – they said the simply hadn’t considered that there might be another choice available.

Here is what I said to them in my initial email:

“I propose that The Phone Coop remove all links, adverts and buttons pertaining to Adobe’s PDF Reader application, and any other proprietary PDF reader apps. These should be replaced a similar link to pdfreaders.org, which provides 13 alternative readers for download, with those appropriate for the viewer’s operating system highlighted clearly. All applications listed are Free / Open Source.

The PDF readers downloadable from pdfreaders.org are developed cooperatively (1). Their development and licensing fulfill all the values
and principles listed by the ICA (2). They can be shared or sold, studied,
changed and used by anyone – for any purpose.
I’m a member of the Phone Coop because I believe in the cooperative values of “shared ownership and democratically made decisions.” (3) Adobe do not believe in these values – their decision making and technology are closed and proprietary. I believe that the cooperative model of an “autonomous association of persons who voluntarily cooperate for their
mutual, social, economic, and cultural benefit” (4) is the best for society. Adobe do not believe in this either: their business model is based on hiding and hoarding knowledge and power: they prohibit cultural cooperation through learning, and they prohibit social cooperation through sharing. This behavior is not necessary to make a good technical product: in fact it is detrimental to technological progress, user freedom, and also user safety and security.

The Phone Coop can choose to stop advertising a Adobe by refusing to promote the use of their products. We could instead further promote cooperative values: simply by replacing a few website links. I would therefore like to propose we do so.”

____

My usual way of backing up and reinstalling is to copy my entire  home folder and paste it into the new OS. This sometimes leads to file ownership and permissions problems, and I used to fix these in a slow and unsafe way, by making all my files read and writable by all. Today, thanks to FX-talk, founder of KXstudio http://www.linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=10268&p=32914#p32914 I learned that running

sudo chown USER -R /home

will fix this. You can find our your user by typing

whoami

in the terminal.

I also had this issue once when moving a hard drive from one laptop to another, so its going to be useful in the future 🙂

Tomorrow I start my first paid free software job – writing a 8/16 chapters in a free software video manual, for which I will receive about $200 dollars per chapter.  It’s been a few years of hard graft and no pay for me – and, to be honest, as a non-coding activist, I really didn’t expect to get paid at all. But here I am, at the start of my first paid job, and I really am over the moon – being paid to do something I love. It’s not very British!

Best Wishes

Anna

So, in between some work and some other work, I took 2 days out to attend Flossie 2012.

My relationship with Flossie goes back right to the start of the organization: about a year ago, following some obnoxious free-software man stress, I chatted to a FS woman I knew, and we decided to set up a network for Women in free software. I was, at the time, lonely in the free software community, and did not feel that the emotional trauma of breast-based isolation could really be understood be even the nicest of FS menfolk. Now things are better for me, as a Fellow of this wonderful organization, however, I am still not convinced that the level of distress caused by inappropriate sexual behavior in the wider FS community is easily understood by those who don’t have to deal with it. Perhaps spend a day on the IRC with a female-sounding name, to see if you get treated differently or not.

I am aware that a women only network/event is a subject of controversy (for some women as well as some men) – however, whatever logical or philosophical attack you have, in favor, or against, you can’t deny that it’s an interesting experiment. For whatever reason, women are in a minority in free software, and we can only speculate as to how this is affecting the movement and it’s products. This gave me a little peek into whichever parallel universe finds itself the other way around. The results will take a while to process, however, here are my thoughts so far:

Mostly, I found it stressful. There were so many huge and competing personalities in such a small space. I am aware that when I am around my (mostly male) free software colleges, I “big up” my personality (for fear of not getting heard in the howl of a “meritocracy” situation). In a free software environment, I am more aggressive, louder, ruthless and much less patient. Perhaps I am not alone in this. I found that once the stony wall of a male-dominated environment was removed, and I saw my “free-software self” in the mirror of a more familiar female social group: I didn’t like the view much.  I don’t like the person I am in free software. I much prefer the person who I am in the rest of my life…  and I don’t think I realized, till Flossie, just how different my behavior has become.

Also, I learned that my “software is to be used” mantra is quite correct. Coding/ers are given such a red carpet treatment sometimes (from women and men) and as a non-coding person, I find it hard to deal with. At Flossie I could see that, for many, from librarians to artists, free software is about so much more than making software. It’s development and use must go hand in hand – without the creativity and dreams of the user, software is just a corpse of code. So coding is NOT the only creative act in free software. I now feel much more confident of my relevance in the free software community. Perhaps I could have learned this in a mixed gender environment. Perhaps not. I suspect, on a personal level, not. The noise of gender isolation in FS is loud – to just take away that issue for a moment, and things seemed so much clearer.

So, on the whole, I would say the event was personal successful. Challenging, but helpful.

 

 

This is really just a quickie to let you know how my #! conversion is going. Install was hard work, however, got a load of help form the IRC. Needed to update grub to get my dual boot to work, but otherwise it was okay.

HOWEVER, I have had silly bugs coming out my ears ever since.

Alsa wont let me record (but will let me listen) – plus all input volumes are set on mute by default, and there is a learning curve to turn them on, which is stupid. You have to open Alsamixer from the terminal, wont open from menu etc.

Usb’s wont mount

Libreoffice spell-checker wont work (the selected spell-checker wasn’t even installed, and even after install it just doesn’t “see” the errors)… what else… er…

Something wrong with various browsers that wont show some bits of some pages (but NOT Java, something to do with webkit settings which I can’t find) …

No GUI for dd…(took me HOURS to learn how to make a usb livedisk for my laptop AND now it wont let me unmake it, wont mount)

Menu will let you open things like gparted, but only terminal will sudo… so you cant actually use the menu properly

Windows in programs like gimp “lock” to the mother window, like a rail along the top, the process to unlock them is either buggy or rubbish…

TBH, I am getting frustrated. I knew that #! would be more technical – but this is just silly.

I have learned to ajust my menu’s, made a new desktop, and changed the font in Conky (I love Conky) and the forums/IRC are really quite good… but otherwise….

meh

starting to miss poobuntu.

 

 

Just had to use windows to rename my new external hard drive as Ubuntu wouldn’t let me do it. Here were the steps I took before failing.

First, the rename option on the menu was grey.
Second, I found that I could select “rename” from the “computer” menu (only) but got the following error:

Sorry, could not rename “160 GB Hard Disk: BIPRA 160GB” to “anna160GB”: Operation not supported by backend

Third, I tried to reformat the entire disk, wondering if BIPRA had installed something to force me to stare at their brand name every day – but I got the following error.

Error creating file system: helper exited with exit code 1: helper failed with:
Total number of sectors (312560576) not a multiple of sectors per track (63)!
Add mtools_skip_check=1 to your .mtoolsrc file to skip this test mkfs.vfat 3.0.9 (31 Jan 2010)

Fourth, I wanted to test to see if this was a bug in Ubuntu or a fault with the drive. I rebooted in Windoze and found I could rename without a problem – but Windoze limits the number of characters in the name, so I couldn’t rename it as I wished.

Fifth, I switched back to Ubuntu and found that the drive name is now “160 GB Hard Disk: BACKUP_DISK” (Backup disk being what I chose in Windoze).

Sixth, I decided it would do, and that I don’t have time to try to remember my launchpad account details to report the bug – if thats what it is. I am moving to crunchbang today anyway, as I am tired of stupid bugs in Ubuntu, hence the need for a backupdrive in the first place.

Seventh, I wrote this blog.

Eighth, I went on with my day.

Thoughts: Perhaps I am selfish to not report it as a bug. Or perhaps the bug reporting system is incomprehensible to me…