Alexandre Bourget’s energetic presentation on Pylons is at last online: Pylons, Web development done right.

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SimplyMEPIS is a simply wonderful distribution. It was the first to offer a complete out of the box experience all tied up in a pretty package. It would be fair to say that it was probably the inspiration for many of the easy-to-use distributions available today. more>>

If there was any justice in this world, there would be two cars parked in my driveway. One would be a 1977 Ferrari 308 GTS. The other would be a midnight blue BMW M3 convertible with all the amenities. I'd want the leather seats and power everything. more>>

There was a time when Linux was notorious for having what was called "fugly" fonts. Things improved a bit over the years, but thanks to expiring patents things are about to get even better. more>>

One of the new features in bash 4.0 is the coproc statement. The coproc statement allows you to create a co-process that is connected to the invoking shell via two pipes: one to send input to the co-process and one to get output from the co-process. more>>

OpenOffice.org 3.2.1 was released on June 4 and a new master workspace was branched off for the upcoming 3.3 on June 5. The code in this branch will be stabilized and later become the product release that will find its way onto your desktops. more>>

Saxophone? Check. Digital recorder? Check. Camera? Check. Ready to rock & roll. Or do some blues. A bit of jazz? How about some Zydeco. Honky Tonk?

We'll see when we get to the Second Street Brewery this Wednesday in Santa Fe, New Mexico. That's when the weekly open mic session kicks off at 7:00pm, led by Case Tanner and his house band. more>>

We plan to sprint a few time in the coming weeks. Here’s our schedule:

• Thursday 2010-07-29 (packaging)
• Tuesday 2010-08-03 (Django translation)
• Thursday 2010-08-05 (packaging)

All sprints will be at Brasseurs Numériques, at 1124 Marie-Anne, suite 11. Attendance is limited so please RSVP on the wiki. Thanks a lot to AUF for supporting the translation sprint with food and drinks.

update: all sprints start at 6h30 pm EDT (UTC-4) and it’s possible to participate by IRC.

As most of you certainly know by now, Montréal-Python 15 is next Monday. We now have the room number and the list of flash presentations. It will be in room SH-3420 of the Sherbrooke building and flash presenters are going to be:

• Pierre Thibault on ipython
• Dimitry Zolotaryov on dealing with remote API calls
• Derek Mounce on A way-too-short introduction to a new Web framework for Python
• Simon Law on Startup Mistakes in Cloud Deployment
• Wesley Bouarab on skeedy.com

Thanks to our sponsors for making Montréal-Python 15 possible:

• UQAM
• Benelux
• Savoir-faire Linux
• Ecometrica
• Apress

Last Thursday, we ran our 6th sprint on the Python packaging system. Most people worked on distutils2 and its test suite although a few were undertaking the implementation of new features in the 2to3 automated migration tool.

This sprint was a turning point in our sprint series because we managed to get enough notoriety to convince two sprinter to join us remotely despite a massive six hours timezone difference. Alexis Métaireau and Éric Araujo, both living in France and both Google summer of code students on the Python packaging system, joined us util the end of the sprint, around 7am in their timezone. Their participation was very helpful since they were able to answer many questions regarding the road-map and what was in the pipe for various sub-systems of the packaging eco-system. Since they both the commit privilege in the canonical repository, it was very motivating for everyone in Montréal to see their contributions being merged on the fly.

Congratulations to all the sprinter who resisted the call of the terraces to work on the Python packaging system:

• Éric Araujo (remote from France)
• Nicolas Cadou
• Alex Gal
• Yannick Gingras
• Alexis Métaireau (remote from France)
• George Peristerakis
• Luis Rojas

We will have more sprint in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for the announcements.

On July 22 a $35 (or 1500 INR) hand-held Linux computing device was unveiled by Shri Kapil Sibal, the Union Minister for Human Resource Development of India. The goal of the project is to lower the price to around $20 in time and eventually reaching the amazing price of $10. more>>

I've already covered tar and all the wonderful ways to use it, but it's not the only tool at your disposal. Another popular backup tool is afio. Depending on your distribution, it already may be installed. On Ubuntu, for example, run the following to install it: more>>

When Oracle began the acquisition of Sun, few doubted that MySQL was the main asset of interest. With MySQL still breathing six months later, users hoped Sun's other projects would survive as well. But despite Oracle's early claims and intermittent assurances that OpenSolaris would remain open source software, very little else has been said. more>>

Although my intent is not to start the next GNOME/KDE-level war, it seems there must be a happy medium between total desktop insecurity and total desktop unusability. Linux offers so many ways to secure data that it's important to realize it's okay for folks to have different needs and desires. Sure, there are some basic security measures we all should take—things like: more>>

Introduction

What is agent-based modeling, otherwise known as ABM? What is distributed computing? Why do it? more>>

Spotify is a streaming music service that previously was only available to Windows and Mac users. Spotify offered a way for music lovers to enjoy their favorite tunes on their computers and gadgets legally. But Linux users were left out in the cold... until July 12. more>>

We've covered Tor in LJ before (see Kyle Rankin's "Browse the Web without a Trace", January 2008), but that was some time ago, and this subject seems to be more timely with each passing day. Also, with Tor being at only 0.2.x status, it still qualifies as software in development, so I'm justified in featuring it this month. more>>

DeVeDe is an application that converts various video file formats into a disc that can be played in a DVD player. Other applications and tool chains can be coaxed into doing this but DeVeDe has the advantage of being a dedicated utility that has been designed for a single function. more>>

At a recent local LUG I regularly attend, Braddock Gaskill gave a wonderful presentation on an open source 8-bit computer he had created. This was his first public debut of the device and every person in attendance was enthralled. more>>

Mandriva S.A. issued a press release to announce the restructuring of its core business organization. While specifics were still not given, the main message did come through: Mandriva will survive, in some fashion, for a while anyway. more>>