Virgin 3G on Ubuntu Jaunty

Today I bought a Virgin 3G USB dongle for internet access while on the road, and I thought I’d share the experience. It turns out I don’t need to write up the documentation because it mostly works out of the box, and the little bits I need to change are already well documented 🙂

First I looked at the Ubuntu 3G Hardware page to see what the best supported cards were. We already have our mobiles on Virgin, so I was pleased to see the default Virgin mobile Broadband device was supported, the Huawei E169.

When I plugged it in, I then created a new mobile broadband connection through the network manager. If I used all the defaults, and then selected the connection through Network Manager, it would ask for a password and fail.

So I followed the excellent instructions from the Ubuntu forums here to both disable chap from the /etc/ppp/options and edit my network managed mobile broadband connection with a few settings (the Virgin Broadband number and password, plus the changing of the name from the default VirginInternet to VirginBroadband) and within minutes it is working perfectly!

This configuration is on an EEEPC 1000H running Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04) which is currently in beta, but looks great.

Going to work on the Hill

I am very excited to say that I am now working as a Policy Adviser for Senator Kate Lundy! This is a very different direction for me. I have worked in the ICT industry for almost 10 years, been deeply involved in FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) for nearly as long, and although I have worked with several Government agencies, I’ve never been involved in the political arena. I’ve also been a long term observer of Senator Lundy, watching her really involve herself in our industry and try to ensure there is sufficient political debate and understanding around core ICT issues.

I felt and the Senator agreed that it was important I announced this new role in my blog considering the public profile I have, and that I have always tried to be as open and transparent in my actions as I could. Senator Lundy feels that online and transparent engagement with the democractic process is an important goal, and I am now a part of that process.

On a personal level, I am extremely excited about this role. I love Parliament House, and now I am working here. I have always wanted to understand how policy and legislation comes about, and how the political process works. But I have, as have many Australians, been fundamentally disinterested because of, well, the politics 🙂 This role gives me an opportunity to really understand – and hopefully participate effectively in – the system.

This role is my new full time employment, and as such I will not be engaging in any new Waugh Partners’ or other business. Jeff will be continuing as a Waugh Partners’ consultant, focusing primarily on his new website development work.

From a community participation level, I intend on maintaining my participation in various industry and community groups, however I will not be in any leadership or advocacy roles. I have spoken to Donna Benjamin and James Purser, who are both specifically interested in creating a FOSS Government liaison  group, and if anyone else is interested in useful engagement with the Government, please speak to Donna or James.

Traditionally a person employed as a political staffer would not have any kind of “public” role. This is largely because of the challenges in ensuring a clear distinction between when a person is speaking on behalf of their employer, or themselves. Taking this into account, plus my existing online presence, we will be experimenting with me continuing to blog and twitter, and I hope to establish a good balance.

I see my new role as a way of contributing to a more robust and informed discussion within Government about ICT, skills development, online engagement in the democratic process, and the importance of openness (standards, technologies, transparency) in sustainable ICT procurement, in industry development and in global competitiveness. I hope that my peers in the FOSS community, in the ICT industry, in the media and in education are supportive of me in this role, and I look forward to an open dialogue to help shape future directions of ICT for and within the Australian Government.

Another excellent Unlocking IP conference

The Unlocking IP group at UNSW have coordinated many great conference about open knowledge and openness over the years, and the most recent upcoming conference will be the last of the project. If you are interested in open knowledge, copyright, the impact on  access and development of content and other related topics, then definitely come along! The speakers and topics look great!

National and Global Dimensions of the Public Domain

Many thanks to Prof Graham Greenleaf, David Vaile, Abi Paramaguru, Catherine Bond, Ben Bildstein and anyone else who has contributed to the Unlocking IP project, as it has been a real spearhead of research in opening access to content and knowledge.

The “myth” of warrior women

Recently in martial circles there has been a raging debate as to whether women warriors have ever existed. I find this kind of debate frustrating, sexist and reminiscent of the debate that keeps popping up (although less so now) as to whether there are any women geeks.

My Shaolin Gung Fu master, Shi Fu Xing Mu, wrote a great article about this with references to many awesome historical warrior women, and some reasons why the myth is just that. I’m in the process of researching and linking them now, but check it out if you are interested. Short quote from the  article:

Those who are arguing for the myth viewpoint really seem to be winning. Their arguments are logical, well thought out and very reasonable and as a result they are difficult to refute. However, I feel that there is a tiny flaw in their argument that should be addressed, mainly that the entire premise is wrong!

I put my thoughts in the comments of his blog post, and have reposted them below.

I think that the reason many martial arts believe it is a myth, is because, as with religion, many martial arts basically have taken local cultural expectations of the day and enmeshed them into the martial style to maintain the status quo. It is no coincidence that many of the Japanese martial arts don’t recognise women as equals on the battlefield when in Japan itself, some schools still refuse to allow capable and worthy women to attain the black belt. It is no coincidence that many styles (particularly some European ones) only take into account brute strength, because for centuries or millennia the physically strongest _man_ would win. I think one of the strengths of many good martial arts (including many Japanese and European styles, as well as from all around the world), and certainly a strength of Shaolin Gung Fu is that there is an understanding growing that physical strength won’t win you the game. It takes skill, tactics, and overall the ability to know what works for you as an individual both on and off the battlefield. Each person is individual and has different strengths, whether they be male or female, big or small, fast or slow, and a good martial art or good martial artist should be able to easily facilitate anyone to be a great martial artist.

There is nothing masculine about martial arts, as they are fundamentally about knowing yourself completely, and being the best and most harmonious person you can be on the battlefield, but more importantly off the battlefield. With this in mind – plus the overwhelming historical evidence – the fact that there is a debate raging at all shows the utter lack of real understanding of these practitioners and how limited their practise is.

Open Source for non-profits

I’ve been invited to speak at the Connecting Up conference which is a conference for the non-profit sector. I’ve spoken at similar conferences a few times, but have only just stumbled across the Nonprofit Open Source Initiative, who have some great information for non-profits, including a primer document with practical information on selecting appropriate tools and basic TCO worksheets. I also found an interesting Red Hat case study on non-profits and an article called Open Source and non-profits: A match made in Heaven. Enjoy!

Happy Ada Lovelace Day – Silvia Pfeiffer

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, and below is my blog about a female geek I admire! Get writing your Ada Lovelace Day blog post, sign the pledge and add a link to your role model blog post to the Geek Feminism wikia page! This would be a great assignment for teachers to take to their schools to get students knowing about famous and accomplished women in technology 🙂

silvia_thumb

Silvia Pfeiffer

I chose to do my Ada Lovelace blogpost on Dr Silvia Pfeiffer. Silvia has been a friend for many years, and she continues to be a technical, professional, academic and personal inspiration. She also let’s me stay over when I’m visiting Sydney and helps maintain my addiction to excellent takeaway Indian food, so this is my way of both showcasing Silvia as a fantastic ICT role model for women and girls, but also as a thank you for being such a role model for me 🙂

Silvia has a broad swathe of skills and accomplishments. She is a software developer, project manager, AV guru, Open Source project lead for Annodex, Open Media advocate, co-founder and CEO of an up and coming Australian video metrics company called Vquence and much more. She used to work for the CSIRO as a researcher and software developer, and has forged a fascinating career around video and online media, putting her on the cutting edge of technology and emerging markets.

next2_sylvia_narrowweb__300x3280

Silvia has also put substantial time into voluntary community community projects, including as a member of the Sydney Linux User Group committee, on the Pearcey Awards board, the head of AV for linux.conf.au 2007 (which was the best video/audio coverage linux.conf.au has ever seen), a constant participant in various open media and open standards events and committees, a participant in online accessibility work, the coordinator and founder of the Foundations of Open Media Software workshops, co-founder of OLPC Friends, and a volunteer for various Open Source events including Software Freedom Day, SLUG events, OLPC Friends events and more.

Some of the things that really amaze me about Silvia include her constant optimism, professionalism, business smarts and how she manages to balance all this while simultaneously being a fantastic mother, who for many years did this as a single parent.

Her wonderful son is learning programming – just like Mum – so who could ask for a better role model on Ada Lovelace Day 🙂

silvia-pfeiffer

If you want more information about Silvia, check out her brief biography, her blog, and the many articles she’s written.

Ubuntu training for educators

On the weekend I ran a short training session for teachers about Ubuntu. It was a lot of fun, and surprisingly most of the teachers had never played with Ubuntu before. Usually at these kinds of events, the people who turn up to the Linux/Ubuntu session are the hard core converted, so that was lovely!

We spoke about a lot of stuff, but unfortunately, even though I mentioned the need to be online, the people running the day hadn’t put two and two together (booting from a livecd and asking to be online) and they didn’t know their proxy details to get online, so the session was slightly less interactive than I would have liked. I wanted to have the online Ubuntu repository available so we could install and play with ome specific applications. Anyway, below are some useful links for the people who attended, and for anyone else interested.

The meaning of “Ubuntu”:

Ubuntu is an African word meaning ‘Humanity to others’, or ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.

Information about Ubuntu:

Information about Open Source generally:

Make sure you join the edulists open source mailing list to connect with other teachers using and talking about Open Source in education. Join the list and introduce yourself 🙂

Have fun everyone! If you have additional links that would be helpful, please add them to the comments.

Iceland software resellers being screwed by disappearing clients and licensing contracts

I just read this really interesting blog post about what is happening in Iceland. I won’t go into detail as those interested should simply read it. Please note, it has some crude language and imagary. Basically the companies that are falling over due to the financial crisis have multi-year contracts for software licensing, and the software resellers are being held responsible for the outstanding yearly fees of customers that don’t exist anymore. Really nasty stuff.

I am generally against Microsoft bashing, because I find it both contrary to our message of software freedom, and that it turns off newcomers. Basically I believe we have so many positive and inspiring messages that we don’t need to use “because it’s better than M$, lolz” as a rationale for free and open source software (FOSS). However, stories like this are clear cut examples of how companies such as Microsoft can play pretty nasty when it comes to the bottom line. For another example of Microsoft playing dirty, if you haven’t already heard about the TomTom fiasco, here is a wrapup by Glyn Moody about why he thinks Microsoft are targetting embedded Linux companies.

It is very frustrating because ultimately in a free market, you wouldn’t have these spiderwebs of glass cutting down the competition, you would have the best products and services being able to shine. I think the great think about FOSS is that in spite of all this idiocy (and in many cases because of it), the general population is turning to FOSS and to openness.

What are you doing for International Women’s Day?

International Women’s Day is coming up on the 8th March. Considering I’m in a new town and all, I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing, but I was recently told about a women’s lunch get together in Sydney happening on the 6th that sounds fun.

IWD Brown Bag Lunch
Our plan is simple: bring your own lunch and join us to support International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) charity and network with likeminded people. Entry is free, gold coin asked to help cover room rental costs and donations to IWDA will be collected separately.

Sounds like fun 🙂 And I know a lot of really awesome geek women will be there like Kate Carruthers and Spiderlily Redgold. Should be fun!

There is also an Aussiechix Python gaming hackfest on March 14th which should be awesome! And a FITT IWD Lunch event which is $120 a head unless you are a FITT member, which is $90 a head. Add events in your community to the comments below.

Even if you aren’t going to any event for IWD, take a moment to think about all the women in your life, their challenges and achievements, and about how you are helping contribute to a world where negative gender discrimination is eliminated. Of course, IWD is also a great opportunity to think about any negative discrimination, and how we can equal the playing field for everybody 🙂

And don’t forget about Ada Lovelace Day, March 24th! Blog about an awesome geek woman you know!