HIS week is unusually hot for this season, probably breaking new records with about 26 degrees near October. So we all took advantage of the weather and spent more time outdoors. Here are some photos from today (I am still reasonably pale).

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Summary: Techrights’ Sebastian and Roy talk about GNU/Linux distributions, Identi.ca, and Mageia’s 1-year anniversary

LAST night’s show covers GNU/Linux on the desktop with focus on Mageia. Sebastian joins us from the IRC channels, where he is a regular contributor.

We talk about what Mageia is, its relationship to Mandriva, Sebastian’s experiment moving from Ubuntu to Mageia, and then we play “Klezmer” by La Santa Cecilia. We talk about moving to/from GNOME 3 and Unity, noting Roy’s prior experience with Mandriva. “The Way It Is” by Kristyna Myles is then played and later begins a discussion about Mageia’s GUI and installer, the 1-year anniversary, and Identi.ca group (including something about polls). “Impossibly Beautiful” by Julie Feeney is played and then comes a long discussion about PCLinuxOS, Mandrake, Gaël Duval (and Ulteo), UnityLinux, etc. “I am” by Jones Family Singers closes this long show.

We hope you will join us for future shows and consider subscribing to the show via the RSS feed. You can also visit our archives for past shows. If you have an Identi.ca account, consider subscribing to TechBytes in order to keep up to date.

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Summary: Tim, Roy, and Rusty meet to speak about new subjects, as well as debate general important issues like patent systems and privacy

We start today’s show by discussing Linux/dual-boot systems being hampered by Microsoft’s plans. We talk about other GNU/Linux matters and then play “Lagrimas e vodka” by Sylvia Patricia. Red Hat’s results are then discussed with some enthusiasm and Tim mentions that Statusnet reached version 1.0beta4. “Pajama Party” by Swimming With Dolphins is then played and we mention the patent ‘reform’ among other issues relating to patents, even the Samsung/Android situation. “Go’n Be Gone” by LidoLido is played and then we cover Google antitrust (Google under the US government’s eye) as well as the failure of Windows Phone 7 in competing against Android (sign of things to come for Windows 8). Google+ opens to the public, so Rusty and Tim have a good debate about it, followed by almost no coverage (due to lack of time) of Yahoo and search snatch, as well as US-oriented statistics that deceive the public and make it seem like Microsoft has made real progress. We are hoping to have another episode this week.

We hope you will join us for future shows and consider subscribing to the show via the RSS feed. You can also visit our archives for past shows. If you have an Identi.ca account, consider subscribing to TechBytes in order to keep up to date.

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fter some preparation and discussions among ourselves, we are finally ready to show SCI Fitness to the outside world. Some of the pages are still work in progress, but we are eager to make updates and provide information in the near future, so by all means subscribe to the RSS feed if interested.

fter months explaining my case to Virgin Trains [1, 2] because they made a booking mistake they finally compensated me for their error and also issued compensation in the form of a coupon for all the trouble. It does not make up for all the time wasted, but it does at least prove that I was right all along and justice was served as a matter of principle.

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Summary: Rusty is back for this latest fun show, which is only the second show ever that had the list of topics prepared before recording

LAST night’s show started not with Linux, for a change. We spoke about Google’s ever-reaching arm of control and why one should care, then we spoke about problems with Facebook and noted that ACS:LAW’s Andrew Crossley will face the SDT on January 16th (2012), having threatened people based on their IP addresses. Tim played “Endsequence” by Obsidian Shell and we then spoke about $199 Android tablets, right before moving on to the track “Deeper Conversation” by Yuna.

As Linux turns 20 it celebrates a win, but Kernel.org gets cracked as well. We speak about this briefly and then mention that the Microsoft-led Nokia is feeding a patent troll, MOSAID, to attack Microsoft rivals like Android. There is a class action lawsuit over Windows Phone 7 privacy, the iPad is losing market share to Linux/Android, and the Amazon Kindle tablet is coming before Christmas, expecting about 5 million sales. We talk about all of these subjects and then play “One More Workout Shawty” by DJ Car Stereo. We speak about how Wikileaks’ Cablegate reveals diplomats batting for Microsoft and defaming Linux, then we speak about Red Hat’s RHEL 7 ideas being crowdsourced as well as some other distributions like the new Dream Studio, Ubuntu’s approach with the release of a new beta, and more. The show closes with “Mi Compadre Bernabe” by Cerronato.

We hope you will join us for future shows and consider subscribing to the show via the RSS feed. You can also visit our archives for past shows. If you have an Identi.ca account, consider subscribing to TechBytes in order to keep up to date.

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was about to give up, realising that getting justice would take far longer than it’s worth. But now it’s a matter of principle and it also provides insight into how dysfunctional things are at Virgin. It’s an opportunity to show that after nearly 5 months Virgin still suffers from bureaucracy that has the customer (me) tell and retell the story half a dozen times to half a dozen different representatives (that’s how it works in big companies). Way back in the beginning of April I was given an invalid ticket by Virgin and they still play dumb about it, even after they received many long explanations (hand-written) and paper trail that support the claim with solid evidence. After 3 visits to the counter (face to face), 3 letters sent with detailed explanations of the claim, and 3 phone calls, there is a glimmer of hope as the lady I spoke to 5 minutes ago acknowledged their mistake. What Virgin has in its hands are 2 blunders. One is the selling of an invalid ticket that cannot be used and causes great discomfort, lateness too. The other is the support team tacking nearly 5 months to finally compensate (it seems inevitable now), although it took many hours to handle a small claim that is just the fraction of the total I spent on Virgin Trains.

The moral of the story is, if you can, avoid Virgin. It’s just not worth the trouble. Your blood pressure does not need it, either.