Microsoft Software Assurance Employee Purchase Program

Posted on July 8, 2009 by brousch

An acquaintance recently received an email at work which offered access to the Microsoft Software Assurance Employee Purchase Program. I don’t really see a problem with this program, other than it is less convenient than just going to the store and buying the software or devices. You do get a slight discount over the retail rate of about 10% on the products I checked compared to Newegg.

However, I would like to see equal opportunity for non-Microsoft products, so I wrote up the following email for GNU/Linux (with an emphasis on my beloved Ubuntu) as a spoof on the original. Whether the acquaintance will send this on to the company remains to be seen.

From: Ben Rousch
Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009
To: All People
Subject: GNU/Linux Software Freedom Program

With the GNU/Linux Software Freedom Program (GLSFP), anyone in the world – employed or not – can get software at no cost. Products currently available* for free download include the Ubuntu Linux operating system (which is IMMUNE TO CURRENT VIRUSES), the OpenOffice.org office suite (which has NO ANNOYING RIBBON MENU), thousands of games WITHOUT ANNOYING ADS OR MALWARE, and other software to do almost ANYTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE. All at no cost!

Taking advantage of the GLSFP is easy. Begin downloading today!

– Get started by visiting http://www.ubuntu.com/

NO ANNOYING LOGINS OR SIGNUPS ARE NECESSARY

Please note that GLSFP software is only available until the heat death of the universe. Many orders can be shipped to PO boxes, but most people prefer to just download it (yes, that is legal, and is in fact encouraged). Your GLSFP downloads are not conditioned on your employee status. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for details.

We trust you will enjoy this benefit provided by the Free Software Community and look forward to your participation.

Although the GLFSP does not actually exist, the free software is for real and is used by millions of people around the world and behind the scenes of most – if not all – Fortune 500 companies in some capacity. Internet behemoths like Google and Amazon are taking advantage of GNU/Linux software, so why shouldn’t you?

* Availability does not vary by country, and prices are not subject to change. All products are available in all regions. GLSFP software is yours to use and modify as you see fit.

Posted in grlug, linux, planet-ubuntu-users, tech, wmlug | 1 Comment

New Georgie Videos

Posted on June 22, 2009 by brousch

I hadn’t made any Georgie videos in a while – he really keeps us busy now that he’s running around. I finally sequestered myself in the computer room last week and put these together:

Kitchen Hockey (Feb 2009)

Collecting Easter Eggs (Apr 2009)

eeePC Camera Test (Jun 2009)

Dancing to Animusic (Jun 2009)

Posted in george, personal | Leave a comment

Meat

Posted on June 22, 2009 by brousch

I love this short story by Terry Bison. The flapping meat always makes me laugh.

Posted in fluff | Leave a comment

Pidgin + Yahoo Problem

Posted on June 19, 2009 by brousch

Yesterday Pidgin 2.5.6 stopped connecting to Yahoo Instant Messenger. It looks like a problem with DNS, because changing the Page Server from scs.msg.yahoo.com to 66.163.181.167 fixes the problem.

Posted in tech, troubleshooting | 14 Comments

GRPUG Meeting Summary

Posted on June 16, 2009 by brousch

Before the GRPUG meeting on Monday I went to the Calvin College North Hall to meet Joel Adams, the Chair of the Computer Science Department there. When I arrived, an astronomer was in his office with a strange IPython bug. A mathplotlib plot of a 5MB data set run through PyDev seemed correct, but the same script run through IPython introduced several different plot points. They were both run with the same version of Python, on the same PC, and with the same mathplotlib module. I was unable to help, other than point them to the IPython bug page the next day.

Prof Adams showed me a couple of the room available for GRPUG meetings, and I went with the room currently used by the GR-JUG.

I think we had a good first meeting. Besides me, there were four guys from local Linux groups, and three professors from Calvin College in attendance. The beer was good, the food was pretty good, and the noise wasn’t a big problem. Adam was kind enough to bring a projector and screen, so we had some IDE demos. IPython, Komodo Edit, VIM, Geany, Eclipse with PyDev, Python Machine, and one other one I can’t quite remember the name of were demonstrated. It looks like finding a Python IDE to suit your needs is not the problem, it’s just a matter of wading through all the options to find your favorite.

We decided to meet every other week on Monday nights. We will meet at Calvin College in the Science Bldg, Room 382, which the GR-JUG has been nice enough to break in for us. After a presentation or two, we will head over to the Grand Rapids Brewing Company for food, drinks, and socializing.

The next meeting will be Monday, June 29 at 6PM in room 382. Adam will be presenting on the py-xmlrpc module, and if anyone else would like to show something off, let me know.

Posted in grpug, python, tech | Leave a comment