The first day of a Linux training situation sets the tone for the rest of the class. With on-site Linux training this is especially important as you are working with people face to face and you need to demonstrate Linux content as well as the ability to communicate.

Sometime during the Ubuntu 9.04 release, Canonical added a 60-second delay when Reboot or Shutdown was selected. At that time it was at least possible to go to the "User Switcher Preferences" and disable the delay. Now, with the 9.10 release, that disable option seems to have disappeared.

We live in the age of the spinmeister, the age when language is used more as a means to confuse than to educate, an age when obfuscation is preferred to clarification. Hence, one should not be surprised to find Jim Zemlin, the head of the Linux Foundation, referring to a face-to-face meeting of kernel developers and industry people as a "high bandwidth set of interactions."

Not so very long ago, most standards were set in a largely collegial atmosphere by career professionals who met in face to face meetings over a period of years. Along the way, they came to know each other as individuals, and established relationships that helped the process move forward and allowed for productive give and take.

Red Hat held the Red Hat Virtual Experience 2009 today and it was awesome. What was it? It was a completely online conference that offered everything you'd find at a traditional face-to-face show like the annual Red Hat Summit. I was hoping Red Hat would use this event to introduce / announce RHEV for Desktops but no such luck. I guess we'll have to continue to wait until January.

Leader in digital office solutions, Ricoh will participate in OpenPrinting.org workgroup and LF events for face-to-face collaboration

My brother-in-law wants to buy his daughter a cost-effective laptop for her 13th birthday. As I made my recommendations, I realized the terrible bind consumers currently face. He’s frustrated with Windows, too price sensitive to buy a MacBook and vaguely familiar with Linux. Here’s where the conversation went, and how you can help his decision process.

As command line junkie I work on linux console most of the time, only starting graphical X server with startx command when needed. The problem with using startx command is that it locks up the terminal by printing numerous warnings and messages while the X server starts and thus making the terminal unusable

I rarely evangelize about FOSS when face to face. While I will argue in favor of FOSS in articles, or in speech, I hardly ever do so in casual conversation.