- wlug - University of Waikato Mail Lists

wlug meeting next Monday
by Peter Reutemann 20 Oct '14

20 Oct '14

Hi there We've got a WLUG meeting coming up next Monday - due to Labor Day a week earlier that usual. 'Greg B.: A talk with an overview of the so-called "Crypto2.0" open source projects that are attempting to be overlays for the bitcoin network. Why does bitcoin need overlays and possible future directions in cryptofinance in general? A brief round-up of the emerging Crypto2.0 projects out there, Counterparty, Mastercoin, Bitshares, Ripple, Stellar, Next and CoinSpark. Then a more in-depth discussion of Open-Transactions (openTXS). Peter R.: Running OwnCloud on a Raspberry Pi.' http://www.meetup.com/WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup/events/212122742/ Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Debian's Systemd Adoption Inspires Threat of Fork
by Peter Reutemann 20 Oct '14

20 Oct '14

'It appears that systemd is still a hot topic in the Debian community. As seen earlier today, there is a new movement shaping up against the adoption of systemd for the upcoming stable release [of Debian], Jessie. They claim that "systemd betrays the UNIX philosophy"; it makes things more complex, thus breaking the "do one thing and do it well" principle.' -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/10/20/1944226 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Ubuntu Turns 10
by Peter Reutemann 20 Oct '14

20 Oct '14

"Scott James Remnant, now Technical Lead on ChromeOS, was a Debian developer before that. That's how he became involved from the beginning (becoming Developer Manager, and then serving on the Technical Board) on the little derivative distribution that Mark Shuttleworth decided to make of Debian Unstable, and for which the name Ubuntu was eventually chosen. On this date in 2004, Ubuntu 4.10 -- aka Warty Warthog, or just Warty -- was released, and Remnant has shared a detailed, nostalgic look back at the early days of the project that has (whatever else you think of it ) become one of the most influential in the world of open source and Free software. I was excited that Canonical sent out disks that I could pass around to friends and family that looked acceptably polished to them in a way that Sharpie-marked Knoppix CD-ROMs didn't, and that the polish extended to the installer, the desktop, and the included constellation of software, too." -- source: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/10/20/1356248 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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GNOME Developer Comes Up With New Animated Image Format
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '14

19 Oct '14

"Jasper St. Pierre who we're usually talking about on Phoronix due to his GNOME contributions related to Wayland support, shared today he's come up with a new animated image format to compete with GIF. While GIF is technologically out-of-date with its compression support and other features, alternative animated image file formats like APNG and MNG haven't taken off. However, Jasper ended up devising a new image format called XNG. XNG doesn't impose any restrictions, can support more complex functionality, and will work existing HTML5 browsers of today. " -- source: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTgxNjc Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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New open hardware: Raspberry Pi B+
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '14

19 Oct '14

"The main differences between the B+ and the Raspberry Pi model B are the new model has: - four USB ports (versus two in the model B) - a microSD card (versus a full size SD card in model B) - a video jack integrated with the audio jack (versus two separate jacks in the model B) - GPIO pins extended to 40 pins (versus 26 pins in the model B) - lower power consumption - four mounting holes What has not changed: - The price, it is $35 USD - The amount of RAM, it has 512 Mb" -- source: http://opensource.com/life/14/10/reviewing-new-raspberry-pi-b-board All in all, sounds like very reasonable changes - especially the 4 USB ports. Though would have preferred 1GB of RAM. :-) Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Tiny Wireless Device Offers Tor Anonymity
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '14

19 Oct '14

"The Anonabox router project, currently being funded through a Kickstarter campaign, has surpassed its original $7,000 crowdfunding goal by more than 10 times in just one day. The open source router device connects via Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cable making it harder for your IP address to be seen. While there have been other Tor-enabled routers in the past, they aren't small enough to fit in a shirt pocket like the Anonabox and they haven't offered data encryption on top of the routing network. The device, which is being pitched as a way for consumers to securely surf the web and share content (or allow businesses to do the same), is also being directed at journalists who may want to share stories in places where they might otherwise be censored." -- source: http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/10/14/0035226 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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After Negative User Response, ChromeOS To Re-Introduce Support For Ext{2, 3, 4}
by Peter Reutemann 19 Oct '14

19 Oct '14

'Only three days after the public learned that the ChromeOS project was going to disable ext2fs support for external drives (causing Linux users to voice many protests on websites like Slashdot and the issue tracker), the ChromeOS team now plans to support it again. To quote Ben Goodger's comment: "Thanks for all of your feedback on this bug. We've heard you loud and clear. We plan to re-enable ext2/3/4 support in Files.app immediately. It will come back, just like it was before, and we're working to get it into the next stable channel release."' -- source: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/10/16/1228232 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Test the new Firefox Hello WebRTC feature in Firefox Beta
by Peter Reutemann 18 Oct '14

18 Oct '14

"Firefox Hello provides more value to Firefox users by making it easier to communicate with your friends and family who might not have the same video chat service, software or hardware as you. It’s free to make voice and video calls and there’s no need to download software, plugins or even create an account." -- source: http://goo.gl/HoR1aS Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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How To Install Chromium And Enable Pepper Flash Plugin
by Peter Reutemann 18 Oct '14

18 Oct '14

Lately, I've been a bit annoyed by my Chromium browser no longer working with flash, seemed to disable the flash plugin automatically (running Linux Mint 17). Usual workaround was to paste the URL in Firefox. But, alas, there is a fix for that: Pepper Flash Player. Check out the link below for instructions (applies to Ubuntu 14.04, Linux Mint 17, Pinguy OS 14.04 And Elementary OS 0.3): http://goo.gl/CNJ8Bt Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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Tor Browser 4.0 and Tails 1.2 Update Released
by Peter Reutemann 18 Oct '14

18 Oct '14

"Tor - Privacy oriented encrypted anonymizing service, has announced the launch of its next version of Tor Browser Bundle, Tor version 4.0, which disables SSL3 to prevent POODLE attack and uses new transports that are intended to defeat the Great Firewall of China and other extremely restrictive firewalls." -- source: http://thehackernews.com/2014/10/privacy-tools-tor-browser-40-and-tails.html Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174

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