Paul Sutton

Torbay COVID 19 update 31/12/2020

Torbay, Devon, UK, has now moved into Tier 3, this means that we are on very high alert.

Remember to :-

• Wash hands, Cover Face, Make Space

Current coronavirus restrictions in Torbay

We must act to control the spread of the virus. When we reduce our day-to-day contact with other people, we reduce the spread of the virus.

• Only socialise indoors with people you live with, or who are in your support bubble.
• If you meet up with others outdoors, keep to groups of six or fewer, and make space – keep 2 metres apart if possible.
• Whatever you’re doing, think COVID and think hands, face, space.

---

• If you think you have the symptoms – please book a test and self-isolate.

If you have symptoms of COVID-19 you need to self-isolate immediately, alongside anyone you live with, and book a free test. Only the person who has symptoms needs to take a test.

For more information see :-

• https://www.torbay.gov.uk/coronavirus
• NHS website
• Government Website

#Torbay,#covid19,#update,#31dec2020

Rocky Linux

https://github.com/rocky-linux/rocky

Rocky Linux is a community enterprise Operating System designed to be 100% bug-for-bug compatible with Enterprise Linux created in response to the effective discontinuation of CentOS. 

@[email protected]

https://mastodon.social/@alatitude77

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FSF fights to secure software freedom for future generations

A message from Geoffrey Knauth, President, Free Software Foundation.

This year-end, we are focusing on growing the community with our year-end goal of gaining 500 new associate members before December 31st. The deadline is only two days away, and we are not there yet. We need your support to continue to grow, and to give strength to the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) mission to protect #UserFreedom. Below is a message from our president Geoffrey Knauth reflecting on the FSF's mission to protect software users everywhere.

The US government recognized that 2020 was a difficult year for people, and for charities like the FSF. Special tax law changes for 2020 now make it possible for deduction of cash donations, including becoming an associate member, of up to $300 made before December 31, 2020.

You can read the rest of the article here

• Free Software Foundation
• GNU

#freesoftware,#fsf,#GeoffKnauth,#freedom,#fundraising, #campaign,#donations,#help,#softwarefreedom,

Hackers Against Climate Change

Another interesting climate group on the Fediverse.

“Hackers Against Climate Change” originated as a series of self-organized sessions at 35c3. Since then we have worked with other climate activist groups, supplying them with technical knowledge, as well as trying to raise awareness for the current climate crisis in the hacker community.

• Website
• Hacc on Mastodon

#climate,#science,#computers,#hacking,#climatechange, #environment

Activity Update

Over the past two weeks, I have been busy, not only with Christmas, but tasks relating to my free software contributions.

Firstly, with help from Ron (Noisytoot), I have been working on a Digital skills framework project to include more alternatives to the closed source tools they suggest. This is now hosted on Codeberg, to facilitate collaboration. The idea behind this project is to raise awareness of alternatives so people have real choices with regard to software, websites and also social media.

In I have been reviewing some of the proposed talks for the upcoming LibrePlanet in March 2021.

I have also been in touch with the Flockingbird to suggest some ideas as to what would make some useful features for their project, which is to build a privacy and decentralised alternative to LinkedIn, something that I would find most welcome as it would be good to be able to actually engage with people and promote / share skills with in the free software communities.

If you would like to get in touch with the team, they can be followed on their Mastodon Account

This is the really nice thing about the Free software community, very welcoming and lots of people happy to help and collaborate.

Work has already started on creating a Poster for Emacs Conference 2021, and also a poster for Libreplanet 2021, so I think I have inspired people, which is not bad, given I am not even a graphic designer. I have also written an article on Libreplanet for the Beach hut which is a local community magazine. Latest issue article is on page 32.

In other project updates work on the Debian Academy and LibreOffice Documentation is also progressing nicely.

Closer to home I have also been writing lots more blog posts, updated the Devon and Cornwall Linux User Group blog with upcoming events.

I am also trying to reach out to local groups. I would like to promote opportunities within Free software development, which is not just programming, but software testing, documentation and much more, Lets see if they reply after Christmas.

Compared to Twitter, I am finding that the Fediverse is far more engaging as a platform, So please feel free to connect with me on Mastodon at https://qoto.org/@zleap. You can join the same instance as me with this link but please note that Qoto is STEM focussed, if you want a more general instance then you can find lots at https://joinmastodon.org/ including a UK based instance.

Until my next update, keep well.

South Devon Tech Jam

South Devon Tech Jam is on 9th Jan 2021. This is now a virtual event due to the ongoing Covid19 pandemic.

For more information see

• Meetup
• Facebook
• Website

The meeting will take place on Big Blue Button,

Information is on the Meetup page.

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Virtual Learning

Virtual learning with the Big Blue Button platform.

This is a good platform, as it is :-

• Open Source
• Privacy respecting
• Hosting based in the EU / UK
• GDPR Compliant
• COPPA Compliant

This Big Blue Button instance is being hosted by Faircam. A copy of their privacy policy is available upon request.

Introduction video

Links

• Big Blue Button
• Big Blue Button help

Run your own social media

A really good article on how to run your own social instance, from Terrance @[email protected]

Some really good tips here https://runyourown.social/

#fediverse #activitypub #socialnetwork

Emacs Conference 2020 Writeup

This years Emacs Conference [1] took place on the weekend of 28th and 29th November. This is the online conference aimed at users of the stalwart text editor which is described as “An extensible, customizable, free/libre text editor” [2]

Emacsconf this year had users from all different backgrounds, who use Emacs for a range of applications from basic text editing, writing documents in LaTeX, HTML or Markdown. Emacs is also popular with programmers and developers working on their latest project(s), but can also handle reading / writing email, chat, debugging software, and also has a built in calender and organiser to help you keep track of what you are doing. All this from a single interface.

Emacs is free software, and released under the GNU license, so has the usual 4 freedoms of use, study, share and modify. The more accurate name is therefore GNU / Emacs.

Talks this year were presented with Big Blue button [5] and live streamed with gstreamer [4] and other tools. This combination worked really well.

Talks were either longer with time for questions and answers or shorter lightning talks on quick subjects. Attendees could add their questions to a collaborative text pad, that everyone had access to. There was a big social presence using IRC (chat) [3] which was active during the conference.

Topics included development updates, a new users viewpoint, writing novels, Music and quite a few on Org Mode which is used for creating task lists and much more. Emacs, has a steep learning curve, but is very powerful and flexible to use. I am still learning the basics.

All talks are available to view here

1. https://emacsconf.org/
2. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
3. https://webchat.freenode.net/ #emacsconf
4. https://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/
5. https://bigbluebutton.org/

#conference,#emacs,#editor,#2020,#review,#writeup,#fsf, #freedom,#FreeSoftware,#irc,#BigBlueButton,#gnu, #FreeDesktop,#gstreamer,#live,#virtual,#freenode

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Privacy tools

Ok, more content shared on Mastodon / Fediverse. See my post from yesterday

There are several sites here.

• privacytools.io/browsers/
• https://computefreely.org/
• https://linuxjourney.com/
• https://disroot.org/en
• https://entraide.chatons.org/en/

Feel free to connect on Mastodon

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