OGGCamp washup

Posted by Adrian on May 5, 2010 in Open Source | 0 comments I really enjoyed my day at OGGCamp in Liverpool on Saturday.  The variety of freedom of thought from the attendees was quite refreshing.  From ANPR camera monitoring and embedded linux in in car entertainment systems through to the role of women in open source culture and home automation it was a great event. Thanks to all who organised the event, including Josh who came to work for us last...
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Chilli update

Posted by Adrian on May 5, 2010 in Open Source | 0 comments
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See you at OGGCAMP this weekend

Posted by Adrian on Apr 28, 2010 in Open Source | 0 comments I’m up in Liverpool for the open source software OGGCAMP this weekend and will be there on Saturday around lunchtime.  If anyone wants to catch up with me in particular then please email me your contact details. I’d particularly like to share experiences with any other SME users of  FLOSS .  See you...
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Chilli growing update

Posted by Adrian on Apr 20, 2010 in business, Open Source | 1 comment I’ve picked up on the open source community interest in Chilli plant growing from Alan at the Open Sourcer, and previously blogged on last years Chilli crop, and the new batch for 2010.  Growing progress is good – this is the state of this years crop.  Good curries coming next...
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connecting a Dell mini 9 to a nokia e90 using ubuntu 9.10 netbook remix and PC suite over USB

Posted by Adrian on Feb 22, 2010 in Open Source | 0 comments I’ve had problems recently connecting my Dell mini 9 using ubuntu netbook remix to a t-mobile  3G modem over bluetooth as previously blogged, which I think is related to this ubuntu bluetooth bug.  I had some time yesterday and set about finding a fix to this problem to enable me to get web access on the netbook anywhere I have my phone and a 3G cable. The solution was to connect the...
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follow our blog posts on twitter

Posted by Adrian on Feb 18, 2010 in Labels, Open Source | 1 comment Ok, we give in. You can now follow our posts on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MercianLabels .
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Oggcamp 2010 in Liverpool – I’m going

Posted by Adrian on Feb 17, 2010 in business, Open Source | 0 comments I’ve been to lugradio live a couple of times, and am hoping that the new Oggcamp event will be the replacement FOSS social and networking event.  I’ve got relatives in Liverpool, so have it in my diary to visit Oggcamp 2010 this year.  Hopefully see you there!  If you want to catch up with me and discuss our experiences of open source soft3ware in a UK SME environment then please...
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miserware only delivers a 2.7% power reduction

Posted by Adrian on Feb 13, 2010 in coding, Open Source | 3 comments 15/2/10 NOTE: this post has content that is seen as inaccurate by Miserware and you are advised to read all the text before forming conclusions to give Miserware a fair hearing. Interested by some of Alan’s posts at the Open Sourcerer, I’ve been conducting an experiment in recent weeks with the Miserware power saving software that claims to save energy by better controlling CPU...
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get fit in 2010 by running whilst listening to really good podcasts

Posted by Adrian on Jan 1, 2010 in business, Open Source | 1 comment A couple of months ago I started getting into running.  I’ve always found running really boring, even at the gym watching TV, listening to music whilst pounding the pavement, or whatever.  However, I’ve now discovered the secret – podcasts. Download any podcast on a specialised subject that you enjoy, but dont get time to listen to normally, load it onto your MP3 player, and...
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Solution for Cowan Iaudio “read-only file system” error

Posted by Adrian on Dec 5, 2009 in Open Source | 0 comments I have been using a cowon iaudio iplayer for playing MP3s for some time now, as its the only small mp3 player I could find that mounted natively in linux without special software that needed to be run under WINE or similar. Today I had a problem whereby after a power cut where the unit was charging and the unmount had not been done “properly”, it refused to mount in any other way but...
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new provider of open source support

Posted by Adrian on Nov 12, 2009 in Open Source | 0 comments Since Senokian Solutions Ltd ceased trading earlier this year we have been in negotiations for a new supplier of open source software support for our systems.  Today we can signed up with Opus VL in Rugby, who we have met and look very capable of meeting our needs.  We look forward to working with the people there. It wasnt easy finding quality suppliers of open source support in the UK, in...
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the BBC cover the new Ubuntu Karmic Koala release

Posted by Adrian on Oct 28, 2009 in Open Source | 0 comments With the recent release of Windows 7 getting widespread publicity as a half decent replacement for Vista, widely acknowledged to be a failure, its great to see the BBC covering the new Ubuntu release on their homepage yesterday.  You can read all about it here.  I will be using it, and its free, as in speech as well as beer. Give it a go – just download the CD ISO image and try it from...
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Efficient Pc has closed – for cheap Linux PC’s in the UK try Ginger6

Posted by Adrian on Oct 15, 2009 in Open Source | 2 comments My home PC was a 9 year old Dell heavyweight box (1ghtz pentium with 512mb ram running ubuntu 9.04) given to me years ago, and it finally gave up its lust for life recently and started tripping my home electrics. Looking for a new supplier of a good value linux desktop I initially ordered from Efficient PC, but after some days of no response I cancelled the order by email and bought a custom made...
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Zimbra MTA postfix will not start bug solution after restart

Posted by Adrian on Oct 5, 2009 in Open Source | 0 comments A technical post here… this weekend we had a problem where one of the partitions on our zimbra email server reached 100% capacity, and resulted in us doing a hard restart.  As a consequence of this on restart we could not get zimbra MTA to start, the problem being that postfix thought it was already running.  The solution for anyone who finds this is  as follows, pasted to gether from...
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I’m an apprentice Open Sourcerer

Posted by Adrian on Oct 5, 2009 in business, Open Source | 2 comments One of the UK’s leading bloggers on open source software, Alan Lord (aka the Open Sourcerer) got me thinking some time ago about growing chilli plants.  Alan has just posted pictures of his 2009 chilli crop, and so I think its only fair that I post mine.  Not quite as impressive, but then again most of my conservatory was taken over with monster tomato plants this summer!  Next year I...
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