I hate to cancel yet another meeting this year, but due to an extremely tight work schedule this month and looming deadlines I am unable to host the BILUG meeting in May.  If someone else is interested in hosting the meeting, please drop me a line and I’ll gladly notify the mailing list.  The June meeting is likely to suffer a similar fate unless someone steps up to host that one as well.

The good news is that my schedule should clear out quite a bit beginning in July, and the meeting schedule for the second half of the year looks pretty straightforward.

Peace,

–Eric

…

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS raises the bar on the Linux desktop experience. It includes the latest, stable version of many core products, and in that spirit is the first distribution to bring Mozilla Firefox 3 (Beta 5) to millions of users. The combination of Linux and Firefox make Ubuntu 8.04 LTS a superb web desktop, with fast browsing and greatly reduced exposure to viruses, web forgery and spyware.

Enhanced photo experience: The enhanced default photo manager, F-Spot, together with improved camera and phone recognition means users can upload, tag, manage, display, delete, print and share photos with friends and family more easily.

Music sharing and download: Users can plug in a PSP, share playlists with friends, buy from the Magnatune online music store, stream live radio and plug in more devices than ever (with UpnP).

Better video: The new default movie player now allows users to browse YouTube and other video sources across the web and to share their videos with others. It integrates with Myth TV, the open source TVR, so users can watch their favourite TV shows straight on the desktop. Brasero allows them to easily burn all content to CD or DVD.

Productivity enhancements: Clock and calendar integration is available to manage time across the globe with a single click to set, attend and receive alerts about appointments.

Slick desktop: Ubuntu 8.04 LTS combines the latest GNOME applications with desktop visual effects, giving users a smoother, better-looking and more intuitive experience.

…

Longer support: Ubuntu 8.04 LTS is supported with security updates and maintenance for three years so corporate and individual users have a longer upgrade planning cycle. Those who want the newest applications will be able to upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10, due in October 2008, those who prefer longer deployment cycles can stay with Ubuntu 8.04 for three years before moving to the next LTS release.

…

Get it here!

Our April meeting will be held on Sat Apr 26 at Subaru Telescope in Hilo.  This puts us just a couple of days after the Hardy Heron release and we’ll have a couple of laptops available with it for you to play with.  We’ll have a last go-around with the e-cycling, so bring anything you think may be of interest for swap or to give away.  I’ll try to arrange a drop off at the county e-cycling facility for any unclaimed stuff.

We’ll also have the usual industry buzz, round table discussion of all things open-source, CDs with the latest distros, help with your installation and troubleshooting, and etc.  It’s a bargain!

The usual time 1-5pm.  Pupus welcome and appreciated.  See ya there.

Alo—–ha!

–Eric

Greetings all,

Due to busy a busy schedule this month I was not able to arrange a BILUG meeting. Let’s shoot for one in April. I still have some items left from the last meeting, and we can let anyone who missed have a last look over the items before they go to e-cycling.

Stay tuned,
–Eric

The February BILUG meeting will be held Saturday, Feb 23 from 1pm-5pm at Subaru Telescope Base Facility conference room 104B.

This month will feature a swap-meet: bring your no longer desired computer books, old computers, working parts, etc.  Maybe someone has something you want and can swap, take or give away.  Mac and I will try to arrange transportation for stuff left over to the county electronic recycling.

Please bring a pupu to share, and note the usual caution about parking only in visitor stalls or on the street (you can drive up and unload under the overhang before parking).  We’ll also have the usual round table discussion of open-source news and events, and help with configuration and troubleshooting.  Should be fun–hope to see you there!

–Eric

There is a fix.  I found part of it here and the other part here.

# Install adobe flash player instead of gnash player
$ su -
$ rpm -ivh http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/flash-plugin-9.0.115.0-release.i386.rpm

# Force flash movies to default to lower quality, which improves frame rate
$ cd /usr/lib/flash-plugin
$ cp libflashplayer.so libflashplayer.so.bak && sed -i ‘s/HIGH/LOW/g’ libflashplayer.so && sed -i ‘s/LOW/HIGH/’ libflashplayer.so

# Remove annoying “click to view” link behavior for flash sites
$ cd /usr/share/activities/Web.activity
$ mkdir bak && mv agent-stylesheet.css clickToView.xml bak

After taking these steps, YouTube videos play a lot smoother, as well as various flash games my kids like…

Enjoy!