I know people have their pet hate, peeve, or thing that isn’t there on the Linux desktop and the guys discussed this on LUG Radio recently. Everybody knows about binary 3d accelerated graphics drivers, suspend and resume, wireless LAN drivers and so on, but I’d like to propose another which, I suspect, shouldn’t be too hard to fix, since it’s only an interface issue as far as I can see:

Bluetooth.

Everybody has a mobile phone. A lot of us geekier types would like to send files back and forth between our phones and our PCs, sync phone to PC (where there is a suitable standard) and back again, I would like to be easily able to use my phone as a modem when I’m in the middle of nowhere to make running repairs on remote servers, or use my bluetooth earpiece as a microphone. I know all of this is possible because I’ve done it on my work Powerbook (apart from the microphone thing) and I’d like to be able to do this easily on my new Linux notebook (which I’m about to blast a small fortune on) without having to spend an hour or two searching for howtos, configuring Bluetooth, sorting out pin numbers and using gnome-obex-send from the command-line, or searching Google to see how on Earth to use a mobile phone over Bluetooth as a dial-up modem under Linux.

Pairing, configuring with PIN numbers and so on should be easy, the Bluetooth stack should be as easy to set up as installing it and configuring params in a GUI. Sending files in Nautilus should be as easy as right-clicking something and choosing Send -> Using Bluetooth -> To DeviceName. I know some of this is there, but what I mean is that this could all be easier. Doing this on a Mac is easy, but it could be even easier. It could be there from the beginning, it could be built right into Gnome. No installing your Bluetooth stack, then Gnome-Bluetooth and fiddling with gnome-obex-send. Everybody has a mobile phone these days, it should be really easy.

Of course I have no intention of helping as I’m can’t program for shit, in any language, (maybe some shell, tied to Zenity ;)) and it may well be harder than I am suggesting, but well, it’s just one thing I think which should be fixed.

For some reason I seem to be the only one that I have heard mention this. Apart from Bastien Nocera that is. I think we could be the best at this quite easily.

What do you think is missing from your Gnome Desktop?

Dear Lazyweb, I need your help. My main desktop has started falling over under heavy load. That’s when playing games and when encoding video or some other computationally intensive task. It switches off, the monitor goes black and all parts stop spinning/whirring, though the power light is still on.

I tried a PSU tester and it shows no fault. I tried memtest86 but it switches off after a short time. I don’t think I have suitable spare RAM to hand and I don’t have a spare motherboard or CPU. I may be able to lay my hands on some but I think they may be borked.

I’m normally excellent at identifying hardware faults but this time I need your suggestions.

So, the cat is out of the bag. Tiny Matt Revell is leaving LUG Radio to persue other things. Jono’s accouncement is here and pics are here. I was expecting to have to keep this under my hat until after Monday’s episode, but it seems to have been announced in advance. I’m truly sorry to see Matt leave, I thought he offered a perspective that often hadn’t been considered by the others or myself and was also the perfect counterweight to the 2 loudest presenters. I would have liked to have said this in the show, but the conversation ran away from me. Best wishes Matt.

So, that leaves a space on the team and having been hovering around since the very beginning and then stepping up to fill in when one of the guys couldn’t make it, the guys offered me the spot. I must say I’m delighted to take over and more than a little intimidated about what I have to live up to, I hope you’ll be patient with me.

I feel a little like the Sid Vicious of LUG Radio, the superfan since the beginning, several of my comments appeared as quotes on the very first LUG Radio website. I have been a listener since the first episode, I just hope that unlike Sid Vicious I am able to cope with moving from the audience to the team.

So who am I? An introduction is here, but for now, my name is Adam Sweet, I’m a 30 year old Linux Sysadmin from Wolverhampton and go by the slightly crap IRC nick of Drinky for historical reasons. I was a professional musician for around 5 years and then after a few career changes, I came to computers late at the age of 23. I had a Spectrum and ZX81 when I was a kid but music pushed that out of the way in my teens. I’ve had to learn fast and within a year of getting my first PC, I decided to do a Computer Science degree and discovered Linux. I realised at university that I was a crap programmer and became more interested in the systems and networking side. I’ve been using Linux for around 6 and a half years now. I use Ubuntu at home and Debian/Fedora/Centos on various servers.

And what can I bring to LUG Radio and why did they choose me? Well, first thing is that I live nearby and have known Jono and Aq through Wolves LUG since before LUG Radio and Ade since before he joined the team, again through Wolves LUG. I remember Matt, Jono and Aq, discussing the idea at a LUG Meeting. I appeared briefly in Season 1, Episode 5 as a silent guest and then filled in for the first time in the last episode of Season 2. Since then I’ve filled in on numerous occasions and hopefully, learned to break through the barrage of noise that is a LUG Radio recording. I have to say that, normally when I’ve filled in, I get less than 24 hours notice so don’t get to do much research and don’t know who most of the interviewees are at all until we interview them. So, I’ve been hanging around since the beginning and share a similar humour to the rest of the team which I guess is why I have been asked to join the team.

Being a sysadmin means I spend my days staring at terminals and am focused on technical implementation rather than the greater philosophies of the Free Software world, it remains to be seen how that will influence the show or my participation in it. I’ve always been a facilitator rather than a leader, I’ll hold things together and provide you a platform to build on rather than win you the game. At football I’m a goalkeeper, at cricket I was wicket keeper, as a musician I was a bass player and at work I’m a sysadmin.

So, here I am, it’s a big role to fill and we have a fantastic community of people around us, I hope I can do it justice. I’ll see you for Season 4 Episode 20 as my first episode as a full-time presenter. I’m sure we’d all like to wish Matt the best.

Hello to everyone on Planet #LUGRadio 🙂

While you’re here, I need your help. As some of you may know, I’ll be hosting Adam Sweet’s Gong-A-Thong Lightbulb Talk Extravaganza at LRL 2007. An hour long segment of 3 minute talks. Thats a lot of talks. And I need you to speak. I need people to get in touch with submissions for quick 3-5 minute talks about something cool, something you’re working on, something you can’t live without and things people need to know. You can rant if you’re not just talking shit, you can promote your favourite app or distro, or project or worthy cause. I just need to hear from you so I’m not going to be standing there scratching my nuts for an hour.

Oh and I need exhibitors for, well the exhibition. I don’t know yet how much space I’ve got or how many exhibitors I need, but I need people to get in touch about possible stands in the exhibition area. We’re looking for something a bit cool this year, so if you have some mind-boggling demo, some hot booth-babes or booth-dudes (albeit booth-dudes will have limited appeal with this audience ;)), something impressive to show off I’d like to hear from you.

And finally, if you haven’t already done so, I need you advertise the event. If you haven’t already done so, we have some logos and images for you to post on your blog or as a banner on your website. If you’re coming or not, you can help make this a bumper event by telling everyone you know. Got a machine with a lot of log in accounts? Change your motd to let everyone know about LUG Radio Live 2007. I might try to convince the guys that there should be a prize for the best guerilla advertising campaign.

You can send your submissions and suggestions to show@lugradio.org

Thanks for listening. I look forward to seeing you there 🙂

Every year I seem to go through a nostalgic phase when something pops up to remind me of a TV comedy, a film or a band that I really liked in my teens and I go on a hunt for all of the albums or episodes that I used to have on poorly copied audio cassettes or video tapes recorded from the TV.

A few years ago it was tracking down the Who video that changed my whole view on what being a bass guitarist meant, the Sugar album Copper Blue and Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub. Then it was getting the sci-fi series V on DVD. Last year it was buying up stuff by the Boo Radleys (bizarrely released by my own former record label) and now this year, the song Away From Here by The Enemy reminded me of Mega City Four. That’s how indie rock should sound. So I decided to go buy some Mega City Four stuff and while I was at it I tracked down Trains, Boats and Planes by The Frank and Walters.

The Frank and Walters had just released Happy Busman and were on Channel 4 show The Word, the week before I went to my first ever concert – The Inspiral Carpets at the Wolverhampton Civic Hall, supported by Airhead (anyone else remember Funny How?) and the Franks themselves. I was deaf the next day.

A few months later I saw Mega City Four and they were excellent, however I was shocked to discover tonight that lead singer Wiz died just before Christmas. Shit. More eloquent words fail me.

Dell to use Ubuntu on Linux PCs.

That is all.

It’s that time of year again, for LUG Radio Live 2007.

Well I’m not exhibiting exactly, but I may as well be. If you’ve not heard about Adam Sweet’s Gong-a-Thong Lightbulb Talk Extravaganza, I’ll let you guess what I will be doing.

LugRadio Live 2007, 7th-8th July 2007 – The Lighthouse, Fryer Street, Wolverhampton, UK.