geek – Page 3 – Louisa Parry

Geeky socialising

22/10/2007 / louisa / 1 Comment

WYLUG, the West Yorkshire Linux User Group, has had long standing monthly meetings – the second Monday of every month, usually a talk or two at the University of Leeds, then down to the Victoria pub afterwards for geeky chattery – but last month, we decided to try arranging social meet-ups on the other fortnight.

We had the first one at the Victoria last month – seven people attended – and the second last night at the Scarbrough Hotel, with ten people dropping in and out over the course of the evening. It would perhaps be overly presumptuous to say “a good time was had by all” but I can safely say “a good time was had by all the people I asked and who weren’t lying”.

Like after WYLUG talks, the conversations were varied (ie, not just about linux) but usually geeky, and progressively louder and more heated (but in a good, excited way) as more beer was consumed during the course of the evening. Lots of fun though, and a good laugh.

I’ll arrange a date for the next one ahead of November’s WYLUG talk (12th November) – it’ll probably be around the 25th/26th November – and if you’re in the West Yorks area and of the geeky persuasion, you should come down. :)

KXStitch

29/9/2007 / louisa / 1 Comment

Pacman pattern and KXStitch screenshot A few months ago, I started learning how to cross-stitch but was hindered slightly by the lack of non-chintzy kits out there. I started on the simple and cute designs from Mouseloft but once I wanted a bit more complexity, I was somewhat out of luck. I found a few cartoony cat ones but don’t like them much more than the full on twee ones.

Anyway, this led to John and I wondering how I could go about designing my own patterns instead – we initially thought I’d end up having to do loads of hard work in my beloved Inkscape but then I found KXStitch.

Since I run Ubuntu, it was easy (and free) to download from Synaptic and not one for going out of my way to read instructions, I just dived right in to using it.

Unlike the aforementioned Inkscape, there aren’t a bazillion different options and tools to navigate so it’s pretty easy to pick up.

So far, I’ve mostly just used the “Import Image File…” option to convert existing drawings (usually made in Inkscape) into patterns. This option has a wizard, letting you set the details about the cloth count and size, whether or not to include partial stitches and set a maximum amount of colours (linked to DMC, Anchor and Madiera thread colour charts). I’ve then hand-tweaked the scans to make them easier to sew or correct colour issues.

The printouts are great – a proper little kit pack with a cover, details of threads (codes and how much thread of each colour is required for the finished design) and a pattern to follow. The font on my first printout was too big and bold making it hard to glance at the design but I have since tweaked this and they’re very easy to follow.

When John saw me working on my first KXStitch-produced pattern (commonly known as “the vaginas one”, although I swear they’re supposed to be eyes) he commented how the stitches make it look pixelly so that inspired the Pacman one seen here. I’ve still got to do the walls – and I didn’t follow the curve for Pac perfectly so it’s a bit square – but it was very easy to make and sew (aside from the nightmare of sewing on black Aida).

While it’s not perfect (oh for an “undo” – but it’s supposed to be coming in a future version), I’d recommend KXStitch for Linuxy crafters – and to me, it’s really symbolic of the wonder of free software – there is something for just about every niche out there and it’s free in both cost and freedom. Hurrah.

Quick tip for checking through your email spam folder

13/8/2007 / louisa / 0 Comments

I thought this was quite a given way to do it but John seemed surprised by it when he saw me doing it once so I’ll document it here in case he’s not the only one who hasn’t thought of it yet:

When checking through your spam folder for false positives, sort by the Subject rather than the date or whatever – you can then instantly eliminate huge groups of the messages that have the same subject line or that all start with the word ‘Viagra’ etc. Makes it a lot easier to browse through and find those pesky real mails.

Southport is on the map

27/7/2007 / louisa / 1 Comment

The Google map to be precise.

On the default screen when you go to maps.google.co.uk – the level of scaling to show pretty much all the UK in one screen, Southport is listed alongside Liverpool and Preston – but numerous cities around the country, like Sheffield, York and Bradford, are missing.

One zoom point further out, Liverpool and Preston disappears, leaving Southport and Manchester the only noted locations in the whole north-west.

I realise this is probably because Liverpool’s name tag would run into Manchester’s (and other cities would have similar text spacing issues) while Southport’s name tag can just sit right out in the sea but still, I prefer to think Southport’s tourist board have paid off Google for the exposure and/or it’s a shout-out to the countless former Sandgrounders like me out there who really should go back and visit the old place more often.

LUGRadio Live 2007

8/7/2007 / louisa / 2 Comments

Just back from LUGRadio Live 2007 – the annual weekend of geekery in Wolverhampton. As well as being in a different location to last year, it had a completely different atmosphere for me – last year was too hot to circulate much but this year, I chatted to lots and lots of interesting people.

Good & Bad points below but all in all, it was pretty cool (both in temperature – hurrah! – and as a quality statement) and we both had a great time.

Lurking

10/6/2007 / louisa / 2 Comments

I have started lurking on the ubuntu-uk, ubuntu-women, and linuxchix mailing lists and the IRC channels of the latter two too.

I would like to get more involved in the whole FOSS community fandango but I don’t know where to start or what sort of things I want to do so I thought I’d start lurking to see what comes up.

I don’t know if I’ll end up contributing any more than the current occasional bug report or blog entry about random software, but I figure I’m way more likely to get involved now that I see what is going on than I was before.

So we’ll see.

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