Archives of NatickFOSS Meetings

FOSS Meeting Dates:	Agenda Topics:
Unless otherwise noted, meetings run 3PM to about 5PM (following a 2:45-3PM help session) on the first Thursday of most months (second Thursday in January, July and September) DURING THE PANDEMIC, WE'LL BE ON-LINE. When it becomes logistically possible we hope to combine On-line participation, and to again meet in person at the Natick Community-Senior Center, 117 East Central Street (Rte.135), Natick MA To get announcements, send "Please subscribe me to the NatickFOSS e-mail list." to: algot.runeman@verizon.net	Future agendas are subject to change because, with FOSS, good news arrives on a daily basis.
January 9, 2025 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE.	FOSS Meeting Agenda TBD
December 5, 2024 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE.	FOSS Meeting Agenda TBD
November 7, 2024 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne). Or, to actively PARTICIPATE, use open-source Firefox or Chromium (rather than, say, Chrome or Edge or Safari; no add-ons needed for Jitsi Meet!) - Join our meeting https://meet.jit.si/natickfoss - Opens at 2:45PM for FOSS Help. - Mute your microphone except as needed. - You can download and print this 5-page Jitsi Meet Help Sheet with Keyboard Shortcuts. As fans of FOSS and an inclusive, open Web, we will try to find, and link to, sources with limited or no ads. That may not always be possible. When we do need to link to sources with many ads (especially animated ones) with an icon. Some web links are paywalled! You need to subscribe/create an account. We will attempt to avoid those sources for our links, but in case there's just one we will try to warn you.	FOSS Meeting Agenda TBD
October 3, 2024 (3-5PM*) ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: Fedora 41 What is new in Fedora 41 and GNOME 46 (Jerry Feldman) Social Web Foundation Launched A discussion Social Web Foundation main site FOSS History: Linux File Structure ZDNet (Ed Piecewicz) Switching to Arch Linux Getting under the hood of a Linux based OS. Hot Software: Using Calibre to put ebooks on a Kindle Calibre-ebook.com Cross-Platform Linux, Mac, Windows Ebook Sources: Project Gutenberg - Standard Ebooks - iBiblio online (HTML format) books - Digital Library (early readers) ClassicPress a simplified open source fork of Wordpress Treedome encrypted note-taking, cross-platform application (in early development stage) COSMIC might be the future of the Linux Desktop reactions to an alpha release from System76 (Arnie P.) Thunderbird on Android beta release available Hot Hardware: Compute Module vs. RPi Board - smaller, designed for production use Hot Internet: TextFixer: Free Web Tools follow-up (Dick Miller) PaleMoon Close relative of Firefox (Dick Miller "Try its Walnutty theme (like Walnut for Firefox).) Meshtastic Mesh Networking a local area "neighborhood" network option One Laptop Per Child [OLPC] mesh was faster bitspeeds than Meshtastic LoRa mesh. Meshtastic is based on LoRa, which is low bitspeed. If you remember 9600bps modems and how the internet felt using that for dialup ....IoT is a good use for it ... and vice versa ... keep things OFF the real Internet. (Bill from Chat) Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Tails OS and the TOR Project Merge Privacy first tools NIST Password Proposal An attempt to make rational password rules 23 and Me for Sale How safe is your DNA data now? Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models Google’s Gemini Chat Google joins the Generative AI cloud crowd A the positive view of AI Prize awarded for work on AI as part of walking robots (Arnie P.) A Friend Used AI to Wish me Happy Birthday Robert Kingett’s reactions to a friend’s AI-generated message. AI is using a LOT of energy. This is affecting the future of nuclear power plants in the US (and elsewhere) . – Bob Primak Taxpayers on the Hook? (murphnj) OET is doing some work on FLOSS friendly and education friendly AI software. (Laura from chat) How the Institute of Education Sciences is Supporting Evidence Building for Artificial Intelligence in Education Office of Ed Tech Jan 18, 2024 (add-on after meeting from Bob Primak) LM Studio The FREE-for-individuals, NOT-shared-with-others LM Studio program that looks very enticing. But, IS it? 18-min. YouTube video (Also see the comments and related videos at that address!) - 8-min video about images in LM Studio (Dick Miller) FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) an unusually-convincing spam e-mail “from Charles Schwab” QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
September 12, 2024 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: Ubuntu LTS “Flavors” Upgrade time is here 9 to 5 Linux instructions for doing the upgrade Ubuntu Preps for 6.11 Linux Kernel in 24.10 Release - Ubuntu Note (Ed Piecewicz) Tumblr Blogs moving to Wordpress Back End half a billion blogs! German Sovereign Tech Fund for Open Source Maintainers X sues advertisers for failing to advertise Rust Maintainer For Linux Kernel Resigns. What’s the future of Rust code in the Linux Kernel? (Dick Miller) Govt. Agencies and Software Copyright vendors should not retain copyright to resell to other agencies, the same software paid for by one Govt. agency. Software Freedom Day is September 21 this year. Laura M. is organizing a virtual event 9:30-11:30 Eastern Time. Interested parties welcome! FOSS History: Wordstar 7 for DOS Released for Free as Open Source Canadian Writer Organizes Wordstar 7 Release Using Linux as if it Were UNIX command line only. FreeDOS at 30 Before Windows…still alive Running FreeDOS in QEMU Openstreetmap.org registered Aug 9 Twenty Years Ago Happy 20th Birthday! FilesFound Digital History finding obscure, obsolete digital “treasures”. Hot Software: Comparison of C, C++, and Rust with working code examples. (Jerry Feldman). Hot Hardware: Risc-V Works though slowly, Jeff Geering reviews a new $115 motherboard. (how it compares to X86 and ARM architecture) Hot Internet: ICANN approves “.internal” only for LAN use Cannot be applied for as part of a public, web-facing Domain Name (DNS) Textfixer: Free Web Tools online text manipulation (Dick Miller) Covid Levels in Wastewater new data published on Saturdays - Creator’s Post Waldo Jaquith CSS Moving Forward discussion of CSS3 –> CSS5 Brecht De Ruyte] Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: From CDK Attack to AI Tried to Kill Me: an actual link-chain. (Link #1)(Link #2) (Book Review)(Link #3)(Link #4) – Bob Primak Georgia Voter Registration Site Vulnerability - Fixed before article was published. Yubikeys All Vulnerable only with $11,000 of sophisticated equipment Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models Linus Torvalds on AI and the Future of Linux Development ZDnet (has popover and screen shifting ads) What is Chat AI used for? a selection of real “conversations” No, AI Won’t Make Art – But It Will Still Put Artists Out of Business Dani Alexis opinion OpenSource AI Image Generation Software If you wish to do it yourself FOSS Fun: FSF Printable Stickers Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Anybody interested in Open Source Job Hub?
August 1, 2024 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: Fedora 41 dropping the X11 install for Gnome in favor of only Wayland by default. What is Wayland? Why Does it Matter? EU FOSS Funding Cuts Switzerland is now requiring government software to be open source. An excellent move! (Ed Piecewicz) FOSS History: Brief History of Dell UNIX (actually not FOSS), but part of the Linux/UNIX past Hot Software: Gnome-KDE the linux experiment - Which better for beginners as of 2024? Linux Mint 22 - Major Upgrade - Released On July 25!! - Dick Miller “Fuchsia” A new OS from Google, built on Zircon. The chances of it actually replacing Android seem to be low. (Jerry Feldman) Hot Hardware: LFP Battery Price Drop EV batteries becoming more affordable. Hexa 3D-Printed Rocket - an open hardware rocket by kit or self-made Contrary to its online info, Target/Fram. DOES STOCK contract-locked smartphones in-store. We just upgraded our Tracfone-locked phones to these: https://www.target.com/p/tracfone-prepaid-motorola-moto-g-5g-128gb-cdma-lte-gray/-/A-91231034#lnk=sametab Hot Internet: Non-Google Search Engines Blocked from Showing Recent Reddit Results Updated robots.txt file prevents Bing and other search engines from displaying recent Reddit discussions without a Reddit deal. ISPs Balk at Low-Income Pricing for Broadband Internet arguing that government-set pricing isn’t appropriate (Ed Piecewicz) Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Firefox Privacy Preserving Attribution - Is this a good idea? introduced in FF 128 and can be disabled Changes Urgently Needed Before Enacting U.N. Cybercrime Treaty - Dick Miller CrowdStrike Reveals Cause of Worldwide IT Outage (inadequate quality control) Lessons Learned from CrowdStrike – Bob Primak CDK Attack: Lessons in Preparedness for Disasters – Bob Primak eBay And Its Ex-Officers Pay For Cyberstalking In Natick. - Dick Miller Modifying An HP Elitebook w/Linux Mint To Extend Usage Of A TrackPoint/PointingStick, Etc. - Dick Miller Secure Boot is Completely Broken on 200+ Models from Several Big Device Makers - Keys were labeled ‘DO NOT TRUST’. The article has Linux instructions to see if a particular device is affected. Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models From CDK Attack to AI Tried to Kill Me: an actual link-chain. (Link #1)(Link #2) (Book Review)(Link #3)(Link #4) – Bob Primak Wordpress Partners With Perplexity for AI Searching/Summarizing Nvidia Blackwell Data center GPU Processor draws 1875 Watts per GPU...sold to be run in clusters of eight. That's 15kW per cluster. Nvidia Blackwell GPU Announcement FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Is It Junk Mail? (with examples) - (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: What app(s) do other Linux users recommend to synchronize Android-phone and Linux-computer calendars?
July 11, 2024 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: UN Conference on Open Source Sovereign Tech Fund - supports Gnome development among others. Reminder of the Wednesday July 17 BLU meeting: a presentation by Abhishek Prakash, the founder of It's FOSS. FOSS History: Hot Software: Fotocx 24.50 is the latest release (Dick Miller) LibreOffice Documentation Guides for using LO software effectively LibreOffice Kit embed LO inside another application! Hyperlocal shell script names begin each with comma to avoid potential command clashes Identify your Desktop Environment - Fastfetch CLI program Why don’t more people use desktop Linux? Jack Wallen has a theory Linux enthusiasts may not like. (Bob Primak) Linux Mint 22 Beta Arrives - With An Improved Software Manager, Language Support, And More (Jack Wallen, ZDNet, July 2, 2024) (Dick Miller) By not investigating the underlying weakness in Microsoft software that was key to the SolarWinds hack, the Cyber Safety Review Board missed an opportunity to prevent future attacks, experts say. (Craig Silverman, ProPublica, July 8, 2024) Flaws In Open-Source Software Exposed “Almost Every Apple Device” To Hacking. (Michael Kan, PC Mag, July 2, 2024) How Safe is Your Favorite Packaging System? The Linux Experiment video Hot Hardware: Montreal Subway Card NFC chip in a disposable paper card. Hot Internet: Web Ethics W3C Draft OpenRss.org What if a site doesn’t offer a feed? https://lite.cnn.com/ Text-only news for low-bandwidth network connections (how common is this? alternative news sites?) A List Of Text-Only and Minimalist News Sites (thanks to Bob Primak) Ghost take on ActivityPub and the Open Web Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Things to Do “after” installing Linux Improve any distribution to suit you (Jerry Feldman) Authy IOS Two-Factor Authentication Hacked Apple/MacOS issue? Credit Card Skimmer “Hot Hardware?” Social Engineering How to recognize and Avoid Being Scammed *Scamming terms: vocabulary always expanding Phishing - uses email and web links Smishing - uses SMS text messages Vishing - uses phone call or voice mail Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models* LLM “Search” Confuses Students ChatGPT isn’t a “source”, but students think it is What is Glaze? Glaze Approvals Face Delays and Is it Effective? protecting online human art from being used by Generative AI (Ed Piecewicz) Copilot Commentary Steven Levy Praises AI Progress in *Wired* Magazine Article (Dick Miller) Microsoft Pinky-swears Corey Doctorow on Corporate CyberTheft (Dick Miller) FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Who uses which bootable USB formatter? Ventoy, Etcher, Rufus, other? (Dick Miller) Big-Brother question re smart TVs: Is there a TV-search alternative that permits one to audio smart-search (Alexa, Siri, etc.) without granting sharing permissions for one’s private data to Amazon, Apple, Google et al? Note: The Miller's $190, 50"-diagonal, 4K-resolution Insignia TV - which also makes a great computer monitor (or 4 or 16 monitors)!. And the $10, or 2-for-$18 P8b (select "P8") smartwatches can run 5-7 days on a charge and, in cahoots with the free Da Fit app on one's smartphone, they draw marvelous graphs of sleep patterns, heart patterns - and much more!
June 6, 2024 (3-5PM*) ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: Libraries Seek Alternates to Costly E-book Lending Apps Google Pays “Damages” in Advance Linux Problems Survey by Nick at The Linux Experience (Youtube) Dead Batteries in Subaru Cars Starlink using battery current while trying to connect to nonexistent 3G phone networks even when car is off. Data Control Module issue FOSS History: Hot Software: Fotocx 24.40 was released late yesterday. (a brief demo from Dick Miller) includes ONE interesting demo from the Fotoxx User Guide and its 54-minute Video Tutorial (Mashup demo, 42.00-45:00). Raspberry Pi Connect a RealVNC substitute for the newest versions of the RPi. guvcview and cameractls - GUI Webcam Control Utilities - Demo (Bob Primak) Also, a review of PulseAudio GUI controls. pstree command distro-info is a CLI tool on both Debian and Ubuntu systems to provide information about the current distribution on your computer. It is a simlink to either debian-distro-info or ubuntu-distro-info, depending on which you are using. Ed reports that distro-info is not included with openSUSE. The MAN page says the Debian version has more options. For the Ubuntu version, you have to select exactly one of –all, –devel, –latest, –lts, –stable, –supported, –supported-esm, –series, –unsupported, though the Ubuntu MAN page says there are more(!) IT Tools for Developers - In case anybody needs these (or wants to test them). Malware Analysis Tools linux commands Best Linux PDF Editors on It's FOSS inxi on Raspberry Pi a two year old article which helped me get started. It needs an update because according to the inxi developers, the source for the file has been moved from Github to Codeberg. The only change needed in the steps is to make the wget command point to the correct source: https://codeberg.org/smxi/inxi/raw/branch/master/inxi Hot Hardware: You-Do-It Electronics is Closing after 75 years in business. Link Single Board Computers What does it take to compete with the Raspberry Pi? MilkV RISC combines Arduino and Linux on one chip technical video - for the hardware hacker (Bill Ricker) Thanks to Jerry for the direct https://milkv.io/ link. Openterface Mini USB KVM Hot Internet: Standard Ebooks Server uses no Javascript Browser Fingerprinting blog expressing concern about user tracking Word Wide Web Demise Google’s new summary “search”". There is a summary bypass: Add &udm=14 to the end of your search phrase which switches the search back to not use the summary. https://udm14.org/ is a site which automates adding the switch to your search. Several Search Engines are Just Whitelabel Bing Clones Archive Buttons - a way to access most Paywalled articles on the web RSS Parrot Make Mastodon your feed reader Starlink Low Earth Orbit Satelites and TCP Protocol “an unusually hostile link environment” for transport control protocol (TCP). Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Chrome Extension Environment Changes reducing the ability of Ad Blocker extensions (touted as performance/security upgrade) (Ed Piecewicz) Windows Recall - Microsoft Malware Linux Experiment - 25GB of screen snapshots! securely sharing large files Burn After Boarding - less possible to ‘get away from it all’ airplane boarding passes have information-rich barcodes. Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models No Physics? No Problem. AI Weather Forecasting Is Already Making Huge Strides. (Eric Berger in Ars Technica, June 3, 2024) via Dick Miller. Eric Berger and Matt Lanza, based in Houston, TX, write a regular blog, The Eyewall about weather and hurricanes. The blog has a convenient RSS feed. Art History and Generative AI - Fake William Morris prints for sale Painting from Photo Infringes Copyright StackOverflow Enshittification StackOverflow agrees to let OpenAI scrape the community-generated code assistance (licensed CC-BY-SA) so it can generate unattributed coding as Generative AI output. FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:
May 2, 2024 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: Ubuntu 24.04 “Noble Numbat” Available - Once was the NatickFOSS recommended distribution for GNU/Linux - Users of Ubuntu 23.10 (Mantic Minotaur) will be offered an automatic upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) soon after the release. However, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) users will be able to upgrade (officially) on August 15th, 2024, when the Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS point release arrives. Bobby Borisov's "Noble Numbat" article (Dick Miller) Ubuntu flavors to consider, as “minimum” Ubuntu 24.04 LTS doubles in size: Linux Mint 21.3, Ubuntu Unity 24.04 LTS from Rudra Saraswat, Ubuntu Lomiri (testing) 24.04 LTS from Rudra Saraswat. (Dick Miller) Deb822 Source Format the modern Apt-readable format for sources, intended to replace the one-line source format used earlier. Always improving the plumbing. CentOS 7 End of Life linuxexperiment video Metaverse Losing Money $3.85 Billion in reported losses for first quarter of 2024 FOSS History: World Wide Web software released to the public domain by CERN at the urging of Tim Berners-Lee RSS turned 25 years old in March a way to keep track of news on the Web Hot Software: Gnome’s file indexer tracker-miner-fs is literally malware. No easy fixes. This came up during a software update/upgrade session in Ubuntu Unity 22.04 LTS. My backup drives sometimes slow to a crawl for literally hours while being indexed. (Bob Primak) (GKrellM "GTK Monitors" is the multi-function monitor Bob uses in his demo. Fedora 40 Release Review (Jerry Feldman) Inxi is Linux software to analyze hardware: - local (in your terminal window, try inxi, inxi -F, inxi -v8 , and man inxi) or remote. Easy intro - but do NOT automate its weather reporting! (Dick Miller) Hot Hardware: RPi NAS DIY network storage Hot Internet: Loops.video a federated Tiktok for short-form video (ActivityPub, Mastodon Related) Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: AI Abuse in Copyright Law Walled Culture PDF free download of Glyn Moody’s book FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). Arcade Game cabinet RPi version like (like the one by Dennis) How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Science on State Street How did it go?
April 4, 2024 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: Gmail Celebrates 20th Anniversary Ubuntu 24.04 ‘Noble Numbat’ April 25 Upgrading Guide Issues with Canonical Snaps: Ubuntu will manually review Snap Store after crypto wallet scams Choosing a Safe Linux Distribution - A discussion of options Fonts and Snaps: "~/.local/share/fonts is ignored by snap packages, install local fonts into /usr/local/share/fonts if you want web browsers on Ubuntu to see them."https://floss.social/@mgedmin/112082817203745291" via Bill Ricker FOSS History: Hot Software: Canonical Extends LTS Support for Pro users to 12 years Hot Hardware: Choosing a Keyboard for Tactile Response (Ed) Hot Internet: FCC Votes to Raise Broadband Definition to 100Mbps Down, 20Mbps Up (ExtremeTech, March 15, 2024) Decline of Web Developer Jobs LLMs and CEO world-view make coding jobs scarce (long read) Activity Pub Book by O’Reilly Evan Prodromou announces an upcoming book about Federation (Mastodon) Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Cryptocurrency Scams in Snap Store World’s first major act to regulate AI passed by European lawmakers (CNBC, March 13, 2024) Bluetooth trackers how to detect them with your phone Large Language Models and AI AIs for Edible Mushroom ID? subscription paywall Google Play “Picture Mushroom” several others can be seen searching “mushroom identification app” UNHCR on AI UN report in PDF format GPTScript - Acorn Labs open source tool for LLMs [ads] Good idea?? FOSS Fun: BBS Game: Buccaneer old abandonware game kept alive How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: NatickFOSS will have a presentation at Science on State Street at Framingham State University on Saturday April 27 from 12:00PM - 3:00PM. We invite anybody in the area to visit us to ask questions and get answers about Free Software, no matter what platform you use.
March 7, 2024 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on Youtube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: Linux market share passes 4% for first time; macOS dominance declines ArsTechnica KDE Plasma 6 Released Alternate Desktop to Gnome and Unity KDE6 Chock Full of New Features KDE Plasma 6 Review thelinuxexperiment Youtube Video FOSS History: GPL turned 35 Feb 25th Mastodon FSF Announcement Hot Software: Fotoxx-to-Fotocx name change (Dick) Making Custom Wallpaper using FOSS Tools - Demo by Dick Miller Hot Hardware: Petabyte of Storage on a DVD-sized disk Effectiveness of Hyperthreads (Dick) Does hyperthreading improve system performance? It depends. RISC vs. CISC factors. GPUs vs. CPUs. (Bob Primak) Hot Internet: Web Apps are here to stay YUNoHost, a FOSS project to make Internet self-hosting easy and inexpensive (Dick Miller) How to Self-Host Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Mathias Wandel Youtube Account Hacked - A Timeline How storing passwords let hackers bypass two factor authentication Youtube video (Algot) AI cannot be used to deny health care coverage, feds clarify to insurers (Ars Technica, February 9, 2024) Canada declares Flipper Zero public enemy No. 1 in car-theft crackdown (Ars Technica, February 9, 2024) (Device is built with open-source hardware and software.) Mozilla downsizes as it refocuses on Firefox and AI: Read the memo (TechCrunch, February 13, 2024) ChatGPT goes temporarily “insane” with unexpected outputs, spooking users (Ars Technica, February 21, 2024) Leaner, Image Generator Koala is its name Generative Video Is this the beginning of totally fake videos? Sora Generative Video some example “trailers” Wordpress LLM Opt-out Bloggers using Wordpress.com can opt out of content being used for LLM training Facial Recognition Vending Machine found at University of Waterloo FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Science on State Street We are signed up. Who will attend? FOSS Introductory Slide Talk: Still needs volunteer to maintain a current version.
February 1, 2024 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: Best Distro for Beginners - those wanting to move from Windows or Mac [ZDNet] (Bill Ricker) Doom Source has been released using GPL2 Open Knowledge Grant - Open Knowledge Foundation gets funding for Open Data Editor development Ubuntu 24.4 LTS to have new Linux Kernel (Ed) Thunderbird Desktop Dev Blog - a new, monthly progress report The Linux Experiment weekly Linux News from “Nick” I Love Free Software Day 2024 and FSFE Explanation February 14 FOSS History: Tilde as Linux “home” - a Mastodon Post and the Wikipedia Article Hot Software: How I’m Using Linux Mint Debian Edition - Demo by Bob Primak. Ads in Ubuntu Apt as one of my frustrations. (Bob Primak) Making Custom Wallpaper using FOSS Tools - Demo by Dick Miller PipeWire Camera Support Is Coming to OBS Studio for Linux Desktops (9to5 Linux, January 11, 2024) Firefox for Linux (Ubuntu/Debian and derivatives) Directly produced by Mozilla Using Picture-in-Picture with chromium and Jitsi Meet (demo by Bill Ricker) Hot Hardware: Raspberry Pi 5 First Look BLU Presentation (video) Hot Internet: Lazy use of AI leads to Amazon products called “I cannot fulfill that request” (Ars Technica, January 12, 2024) 100 Year Guarantee of Blog Storage Comcast/Xfinity to Withdraw Misleading “10G” from Ads Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Popular Youtuber, Mathias Wandel, gets Hacked (video) - a timeline of how it happened and got resolved OpenAI Claims It’s ‘Impossible’ to Train AI Models Without Copyrighted Materials (ExtremeTech, January 11, 2024) The Software Engineer Profession is Under Threat from AI and Intense Competition (TechSpot, January 12, 2024) YouTube begins new wave of slowdowns for users with ad blockers enabled (9to5Google, January 13, 2024) Google Adds Disclaimer to Chrome After $5 Billion Web Tracking Lawsuit (ExtremeTech, January 22, 2024) Digital Poisoning of Online Art Site limits # of free views (MIT Technology Review, October 23, 2023) Nightshade a poisoner for Generative AI of art Glaze designed to protect human artists by disrupting style mimicry. Patreon: Blocking platforms from sharing user video data is unconstitutional (Ars Technica, January 23, 2024) Ads, Push Notifications Are Being Used to Create Billions of Phone Surveillance Profiles (ExtremeTech, January 29,2024) Generative AI and Large Language Models The Craftsman and AI (Blog Post) FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Open Source Sustainability proposal to avoid developer burnout
January 11, 2024 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: Pipewire 1.0 Released new audio software to replace JACK and PulseAudio Comparing ALSA, JACK, PulseAudio and Pipewire AudioPhile Linux with a real-time os February 14 is “I Love Software Freedom” Day FOSS History: Floppy.Cafe technical information about reading old floppy disks Hot Software: WiFi version 7 increases speed streaming bandwidth Thunderbird donation though it asks for home address along with email! Parrot RSS - sends a toot to your fediverse (Mastodon) home timeline when a new entry occurs Home Assistant Internet of Things (Apache 2.0 license) “Smart Home” Simple Web Server for site testing on LAN Hot Hardware: RF Powered Switches could cut wiring costs in half Storing Energy in Hot Rocks storing solar power for nighttime use Raspberry Pi Model 5 Now available Geology Microscopy Streaming Video with a Pi Camera DIY Surveillance or Watching the 3D printer Sailing/Navigating/Charting with a Pi Arduino Arduino Uno R4 Minima and WiFi the latest experimenter boards. Arduino Minimus/WiFi Explainer Dronebot Workshop video Dronebot Workshop videos and written guides for all sorts of electronics Hot Internet: Moving to Mastodon for live tooting conferences live tooting conferences used to be a Twitter thing Swimming the net upstream decrying the advertising burden of sharing links The fall of Firefox: Mozilla’s once-popular web browser slides into irrelevance (ZDNet - January 5, 2024) Firefox market share held steady and rivaled Microsoft Edge in 2023. (Stat Counter. Conrtibuted by Bob Primak.) Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Openwashing - Using “benefit” words to co-opt FOSS Ideas (Dick Miller) Thomas Claiborn: Artificial Intelligence is a Liability Cory Doctorow: What Kind Of Bubble Is AI? Ron Amadeo: Google Gets Its Way, Bakes A User-Tracking Ad Platform Directly Into Chrome. Hewlett-Packard Sued (again) for printer ink monopolistic policies EFF robots.txt Recommendations for ChatGPT DRM and Polish Trains Train Service/Repairs gone bad - Hackers find out why New Google Malware Attack Uses Expired Cookies (Tom’s Guide, January 3, 2024) Canonical poised to expand SNAP Use? AI and Large Language Models AI for language practice Using AI for language learning - $200 a year LibreLingo a FOSS Language Learning App FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne) Dad Jokes via the federal government 10 Fun Linux Commands to Try When You’re Feeling Bored (How-To Geek, December 24, 2023 (Added by Ed)) Digital Snowflakes How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Updated version of OpenWeather or alterntive to?
December 7, 2023 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne). Technical issues: Apologies, the recorded version of the meeting did not start until the FOSS News section had happened. However, the links lead to information which we hope you will find interesting.	The FOSS News: It's the 25th anniversary of the Linux-run International Space Station. (Dick Miller) ISS Tracker Where is it right now? Switched to Linux in 2013. History of the ISS as told by NASA Space Age Silver Jubilee" Ubuntu LTS 24.04 Opened and Daily ISO (9to5Linux, November 1, 2023) GSConnect works with Gnome45 to share with KDEConnect app on Android (Algot) Fedora 40 to include KDE Plasma 6 and drop KDE X11 FOSS History: Mainframes Still in Use Ruffle - Adobe Flash Player sandboxed written in Rust Hot Software: Bluetooth Control App “Overskride” first release to work with all Linux desktops Pipewire 1.0 Released audio system Exercism.org free coding language practice for 67 programming languages Hot Hardware: Why Apple Thunderbolt is $130 Adam Savage on Youtube has guests who have used CT Scans of the cable to show the reasons. Astrophotography with Raspberry Pi Apple Phone Photos No Shapshots any more Driverless Printing How Ubuntu Linux snuck into high-end Dell laptops (and why it’s called ‘Project Sputnik’) FCC Opens Up 6GHz Spectrum for Super-Fast Wireless Communication Intel’s failed 64-bit Itanium CPUs die another death as Linux support ends Accessibility: Electro-mechanical Braile video with accented English Hackaday Entry of Braile Prizewinner open source hardware/software [BraileBot](https://www.instructables.com/BrailleBot/ Nomouse.org - Can your application work without a mouse? FCC Plans Wider Bandwidth for Hams Hot Internet: Make Firefox Scrollbar More Visible (Algot) Make Scrollbars in GTK Applications More Visible LibreOffice Calc was causing me issues. (Bob Primak with Demo) How to Fix the Internet Firefox lost users during “failed” Yahoo search deal, says Mozilla CEO Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Google forced to reveal user search history in Colorado court ruling Chrome not proceeding with Web Integrity API deemed by many to be DRM (9to5Google, November 2, 2023) As YouTube Declares War on Ad Blockers, Google Sponsors Ad Blocking Conference (404 Media, November 3, 2023) YouTube’s plan backfires, people are installing better ad blockers (Android Authority, November 3, 2023) YouTube’s ad blocking crackdown is facing a new challenge: privacy laws (The Verge, November 7, 2023) Internet voting remains a risky method of casting election ballots (The Hill, November 10, 2023) YouTube facing criminal ‘spying’ charges for ad blocker detection (Android Authority, November 13, 2023) VSStudio Designed to Fracture FOSS Development - Microsoft at the “embrace, extend, extinguish” game Large Language Models and General AI: AI Guide Mozilla’s general guide to what AI is Fake AI Authors in Sports Illustrated The Sky Is Falling, or is it? Comfort Zones and Generative AI FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Electron Flow Explained via Tomasz Nurkiewicz on Mastodon Reference Post
November 2, 2023 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne). Some of the links to web pages of information on which there are intrusive amounts of advertising. While we will try to find sources with limited or no ads, that may not be possible. We are thinking of labeling such links with an icon. Some web links are paywalled! You need to subscribe/create an account. A *Boston Globe* link illustrates the issue this month. Please let us know what you think.	The FOSS News: GNOME Foundation names new Executive Director Wordpress.com Users can join the Fediverse by activating the ActivityPub plugin (Algot) Landmark Technology Patent Troll Case Over (finally) FOSS History: What is Debian? the very stable community GNU/Linux distribution (a blog post) (Algot) Hot Software: OpenStreetMap and KDE Itinerary Open source travel planning and mapping (Algot) openSUSE Introduces Slowroll (currently experimental, Ed is presently testing) to eventually replace Leap Inkscape Stickman Animation video tutorial from 2dgameartguru (Algot) Paperstrips Font-Creation Demo - Using Inkscape to make a fancy font (Algot) Warehouse - GUI for Flatpack Management (Algot) Hot Hardware: Dead Bug Found Underneath an Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU Core Hot Internet: X (formerly known as Twitter) testing $1.00 charge to tweet/retweet X (formerly known as Twitter) to launch two new subscription tiers FCC moves ahead with Title II net neutrality rules in 3-2 party-line vote Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Massachusetts, 40+ other states sue Meta Platforms (Facebook, Instagram) over child marketing. (Boston Globe, October 24, 2023) Google forced to reveal user search history in Colorado court ruling Firefox gets a Review Validity Checker (Algot) Super-Long Stable Linux Kernel for Civic Infrastructure think electrical grid, etc. (Algot) YouTube’s ad blocker crackdown escalates, aggravating users (Ed and Dick) FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: What about using Ad Blockers? Is there a volunteer to take over maintenance of the Introductory Slide Show so we can move it onto the NatickFOSS.org site (and make it easier to use for people who don't have or know about LibreOffice Impress). As of now, the link leads to an Impress (odp) file at millermicro.com.
October 5, 2023 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: Linux giving up on six-year LTS kernels - too much work. Long-term support for Linux to be cut as maintenance remains under strain. Thinking about switching to Linux? Nine things you need to know. FOSS History: GNU Operating System turns 40 Making a free UNIX Linux Kernel Turns 30 a retrospective Original GNU Announcement Hot Software: U.S. rejects AI copyright for art. humans can get copyright Fedora 39 Beta. (Jerry Feldman) Hot Hardware: Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches - please buy a new one. Doctors say most metrics provided by your Apple Watch, Fitbit aren’t helpful to them? USA Today interviewed doctors about how to use the data effectively. – and medical – experts. (Bob Primak) Google extends Chromebook support from eight years to 10 after heightened backlash. RaspberryPi 5 and Ubuntu 23.10 has official support Powerful pair? Hot Internet: The Unicode Consortium has approved Emoji 15.1 - new emojis are on the way to your phone. Firefox 118 offers language translation (no cloud) W3C Updates Web Content Accessibility Guidelines - first update since 2008 for blind/deaf/etc. users Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Some spam might not actually be spam - it could be legitimate. (Ed) This dangerous Android malware is stealing from 100 banking apps - protect yourself now. Local banks listed in article: Bank of America, Chase, PNC, Santander, TD What Is Wi-Fi Eavesdropping? Understanding the Risks and How to Stay Secure. Apple executive defends corporate decision to make Google the default search on iPhones and Macs. Windows Is adding Windows Copilot AI to the Operating System There is already concern that Apple may need to follow suit in Mac OS. Not to be outdone, there is a Linux distro under development which will integrate AI into the OS. Android is also integrating AI into their phone OS. And there is a lot of AI baked into iOS 15 and upwards for iPhones. A previous Microsoft AI project called GitHub Copilot generated a lawsuit. FOSS Fun: Godot Funding; Game of the Month: Acid Flight (Dennis Payne). Recommended Reading: Linux Starters Guide (Dick Miller) How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Should we have a page listing recommended software? – Consensus: Yes – Please email us your favorite regularly-used FOSS applications and reasons for your choice. Should we have a page listing board members’ background? – Referred to Board group for consideration New: We will attempt to avoid providing links to paywalled articles, and will attempt to note those sites heavily littered with advertising. Correction: Dick Miller’s mention of AI-generated “stickers” should have referred to Meta (Facebook, etc.), not Google as heard in the recording.
September 14, 2023 (3-5PM*) VIEW us (live or later) ONLINE at Youtube. Thanks to Dennis Payne. (in spite of some network technical difficulties during the live meeting, you should be able to review this meeting's recording.)	The FOSS News: Government of India Switches to Linux OpenELA forms to offer sources compatible with RHEL includes SUSE, Oracle, CIQ (Rocky Linux) The Maddog View of the IBM/Red Hat issue FOSS History: Bram Moolenaar, creator of Vim, the text editor, has died. Hot Software: Rhino Linux has released version 2023.2. Also watching BlendOS (by young author of Ubuntu-Unity) and 'Mantic Minotaur' Desktop (Ubuntu-Unity at Ubuntu) - and, for smartphones, Phosh. All these can be tested easily in RAM by booting from a Ventoy thumb drive. (Dick Miller) Widen too-thin scrollbars in gtk-based applications – a demo based on this and this solutions. (Bob Primak) Hot Hardware: Ethernet in Your Car Ventoy is the current recommendation for making live USB sticks for exploring different GNU/Linux versions. 12-v. LED Rechargeable Mini-Flashlight for $4 (Dick Miller) 16"x12"x5" excellent Tigernu/Lapacker Laptop Backpack for about $10 (Dick Miller) Hot Internet: The Wayback Machine (demo by Dick Miller) The Wayback Machine Supports Environmental Research (Dick Miller) The WayForward Machine (Dick Miller) Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Data from Autonomous Cars EFF poses the need for laws to deal with the mass of data collected. Broadband Fees - FCC says “publish them” Library E-book Bills Are Back; Publishers Respond (Bob Primak) Large Language Models, etc. The State of AI - P.Z. Myers Language Is a Poor Heuristic For Intelligence Comparing “Language Fluency” vs “Intelligence” - very thought provoking (Algot Runeman) Statistics of ChatGPT Copyright by Machine FOSS Fun: Game Availability Study; Rockstar sells cracked game; Game of the Month: Wipeout Rewrite(Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: Essential FOSS Software - Should we have a similar list which we publish on the web site?
August 3, 2023 (3-5PM) ONLINE. - 2:45PM: One-on-One Help ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne).	The FOSS News: 7 leading American AI companies offer Voluntary Guardrails to President Biden (Dick Miller) Can a Unicode Character be Trademarked? Twitter re-branding with U+1D54F (𝕏) ARM supports GPUs for Linux through Collabora’s open source Panfrost GPU driver; OpenGL vs Vulkan - open source graphics APIs compared. (discuss?) FOSS History: Forth Revisited - The language that writes itself Hot Software: Fotoxx Without A Camera (demo by Dick Miller) Hot Hardware: Chromecast Patent Violation $339 Million Awarded (Ed Piecewicz) Hot Internet: Open Street Map (demo by Dick Miller) The National Map/USGS (Dick Miller) BenMAP-CE/US EPA (Dick Miller) Web Feed How-To Demo (Algot Runeman) Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: Microsoft Cloud Services Breached - The Verge (Bob Primak) Biden Administration Tells Car Companies to Ignore Right to Repair Law (Bob Primak) Photos Reused - something of a follow-up to the Tineye tool mentioned last month Opinionated Guide to AI Updating an older Open Education Resource Textbook using GPTChat Web Environment Integrity - Google API proposal to “Lock Down” the web. FCC Chair proposing 100Mbps national broadband speed standard Vivaldi, Mozilla Raise Alarms over Google’s Proposed ‘DRM for the Web’ FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Spam “from FedEx” (Jill Miller) Check SPAM folders to ensure you are getting NatickFOSS emails. QUESTIONS & ANSWERS & EXTRAS: The Next Monthly BLU Meeting is Wednesday, August 16, 2023 at 06:30 pm Online at Jitsi The meeting will demo and discuss AlmaLinux OS, the community-supported alternative to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. (Jerry Feldman) Software Freedom Day is the third Saturday in September (the 16th), and it will be 20 years old this year. At how many Town Public Libraries might we staff a NatickFOSS demo table with at least two volunteers? Ask that, and solicit other ideas, on this August agenda? Corey Doctorow's blog Pluralistic contains the following "EULA": READ CAREFULLY By reading this website, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. Compare to the version Dick Miller has posted on the MMS Money is not Wealth page: READ CAREFULLY: By reading this website, you agree, on behalf of your employer and yourself, to release us from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that we have entered into with you, your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to our ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release us from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer. (Dick Miller)
July 13, 2023 (3-5PM*) ONLINE. VIEW us (live or later) on YouTube (thanks to Dennis Payne). The links shown in the topics to the right are discussed in the meeting's video and are valid links at the time of the meeting. Over time, websites may change or even disappear, and the older the links are, there is a chance they'll no longer work.	The FOSS News: NatickFOSS.org Update: Hosting change - In order to make the user group more resilient, and to remove the burden from our founder, Dick Miller, NatickFOSS.org is hosted on the Boston Linux Unix server. Big thanks to them! Linux Reaches 3% of worldwide Desktop Use Software Containerization - Red Hat to stop shipping LibreOffice with RHEL, Limiting Fedora LibreOffice Involvement Open Source Project “Relationships” Martin Owens video: “Are you being served?” Open Source Computer Science Curriculum - a curated list of free courses available online from reputable universities FOSS History: Ethernet is 50 years old RSS feeds (Really Simple Syndication) are not dead. Google Reader Shut down in 2013 - Feeds in Thunderbird. Member Laura M. likes QuiteRSS for reading feeds, and has made an online tool for creating an Atom feed for a website. (Algot Runeman) Hot Software: Snap-free Ubuntu BlendOS v3 is in beta (Dick Miller) Thunderbird 115 “Supernova” (Dick Miller) Lovely photo - but what, where, by who and when? TinEye as a Firefox add-on (Dick Miller) Ubuntu Unity 23.04 Improved 8 min. video (Dick Miller) Distro Packaging Model is Broken (video from TheLinuxExperiment) strong opinion against .deb, .rpm, etc. and for containerized GUI programs like Flatpak, Snap, etc. Hot Hardware: Blatant tech frauds run amok on the biggest online marketplaces 4TB Solid State Drives for 4 cents per GB (Dick Miller) Hot Internet: Online e-books celebrate 52 years Making Web Pages (part 3) - JavaScript for Interactivity (Algot Runeman) Twitter requires sign-in to see posts, limits 3rd party access Reconsidering Mastodon Expensive Emoji Typed O.K. and Thumb’s up emoji contractually the same. Computer Security, Privacy and Freedom: 800,000 Maryland License Plates have URL for Gambling Site - highlighting the need for long-term domain name planning and control How a Cloud Flaw Gave Chinese Spies a Key to Microsoft’s Kingdom (Dick Miller) Pause in AI development increasingly unlikely (Dick Miller) More AI Links at https://www.millermicro.com/money.html. Taxpayer Data Shared with Google, Meta (Dick Miller) FOSS Fun: Game of the Month: (Dennis Payne). How to ID Junk mail: Samples from Dick’s Junk Mailbox (Jill Miller) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: NatickFOSS Housekeeping Mailing Lists: NatickFOSS Discuss, Mailman User Manual, Announce list
Original Archive (March 2011 to June 2023) Web page standards have changed through the years. The information in the earlier archive is still good, but the file has grown in ways that made it too difficult to bring it all up to more recent standards. Please follow the link to get to the past meeting notes. Thanks for your understanding.