LinuxChix Los Angeles

Here are some more great pics of us at our LinuxChix LA Booth at SCALE 9x   My Mom, Sharron took these.  Thanks Mom!:

The originals can be found at:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=scale9x&s=rec

These are the wonderful pictures that Michelle took of our LinuxChix LA Booth at SCALE 9x!  The originals with all the wonderful captions can be found at:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=scale9x&s=rec

For $50.00 or under you can purchase a Zipit Z2 Wireless Messenger at amazon.com or ebay.com and make yourself an inexpensive mini Linux laptop/hacktop!

There are several different Linux distributions for the Zipit Z2:

http://www.notanon.com/zipit/different-linux-distributions-for-the-zipit-z2/2010/05/30/

My favorite flavor of Linux for the Zipit is the Root Nexus image http://zipit.rootnexus.org/ which has the most updated version of Debian, Debian SID.  The Ubuntu image is wonderful also, but is a work in progress, and some of the hardware drivers are not quite working yet.  The Ubuntu distro shows great promise though and I am sure all the bugs will be worked out soon.

The most popular distribution for the Z2 is the Aliosa27 image, which uses an older stable version of Debian and the Fluxbox window manager.  Hunterdavis.com has a wonderful instructional video and article on how to flash the Zipit Z2 and install the Aliosa27 image:  http://hunterdavis.com/archives/201

Also http://designate72.info/?p=139 and http://quantumlime.com/zipit have great articles on flashing and installing Aliosa27′s image.  And, one of my favorite shows online, Hak5 of the Revision3 network has one of the most thorough and highest quality demos of flashing and installing a Zipit Z2 with the Aliosa27 Userland image and the Root Nexus image:  http://revision3.com/search/search?q=zipit

And, youtube.com, of course, has many of the before mentioned videos and other how-to videos for the Zipit Z2:  http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=zipit+z2&aq=2

Now, on to hacking your Zipit Z2!

Hardware requirements:

• A computer running Linux of course
• A Zipit Z2 Wireless Messenger
• A Micro SD card (Preferably 2Gigs or higher)
• A Micro SD to Mini SD Adapter for your Zipit
• A Micro SD USB Reader or a Micro SD to Standard SD Adapter for your computer

Files you need to download to your computer:

• AutoFlasher-r2.zip http://sourceforge.net/projects/openzipit/
• The Linux kernel you need to flash http://aliosa27.net/projects/zipit2/zipit2-audio+x+mouse.gz

First we will flash the Linux kernel onto the Zipit:

1. Extract the contents of the AutoFlasher-r2.zip file you downloaded on your computer to the root of your Micro SD card
2. Extract the zipit2-audio+x+mouse.gz file to an easy to find location on your computer
3. Find the file zimage-2.6.29, and copy it to the root of the Micro SD card along with AutoFlasher files you extracted earlier
4. Rename the file zimage-2.6.29 to kernel.bin
5. Make sure your Zipit has a full battery or is plugged in
6. Take the Micro SD card you just prepared on your computer and put it in the Micro SD to Mini SD Adapter.  And then put it into the Zipit Mini SD slot
7. Turn the Zipit on and the Linux kernel flashing will begin
8. Once the flashing completes, remove the SD card from your Zipit
9. Then boot up the Zipit and you should see a screen that says OpenZipit with a Tasmanian Devil Linux Penguin and a solid cursor in the top left of the screen!
10. You have just successfully flashed your Zipit and completed the  hardest part of hacking Linux on your Zipit Z2

Now for the fun part , Imaging Debian Linux onto your Zipit Z2!

1.  For this tutorial we will use Aliosa27′s popular Zipit Z2 distro at http://aliosa27.net/projects/zipit2/Debian-Z2.tgz

Download it to your computer

2.  Extract the image file to an easy to find location on your computer

3.  Plug the Micro SD card back into your computer.  Don’t worry about  the files on the card.  The imaging process will delete them.

4.  Open a terminal and as root find the location of your SD card.  I like to use the command fdisk -l to list all hard drive partitions/external devices and their locations

5.  Use dd to copy the extracted image from the computer to your SD card.  Change name_of _image.img to the name of your image and change sdx to the device location of your SD card:

dd if=name_of_image.img of=/dev/sdx

This command will write the image to your SD card, and set up proper partitions.  You will not receive any feedback from the terminal, but you should not get any errors either.  This could take a while to complete, 20 or 30 minutes, so be patient!

6.  Once the command finishes, remove the SD card and put it in the Zipit.  You should boot into Debian and be prompted to login.  User is root, and password is debian.  If you can login successfully you now have a working version of Debian installed on your Zipit!  Yeeaaahhhh!!!!!

Although, the name of the image might be different and your login may differ, this technique works exactly the same for any Linux distribution you download for your Zipit Z2.  Have fun experimenting!

When in Terminal:

• Make sure to change your root password with the command passwd in a terminal.
• Run apt-get update to update the repository lists.
• Then apt-get install any applications of your choice!
• Use startx at the command line to start the Fluxbox etc. window manager.

I love the Window Maker window manager so I have been having fun

customizing it for my Zipit

When in a Window Manager:

Pushing the [Options] button on the Zipit will enable mouse mode via the arrow keys on the top right of the keypad.  The middle button in the center of the arrow keys is the right click and the stop/play buttons to the left of the arrow keys function as the left click.  Clicking [Options] again will enable keyboard mode once again.  The “…” key is the Ctrl key for the Zipit keyboard.  And I have discovered that when it is in mouse mode the number keys become F1, F2 respectively.

Special thanks to

http://designate72.info/?p=139

http://www.mozzwald.com/node/50

http://zipit.rootnexus.org/

for the contents of this article

Jill Bryant

/jillix

jillix@linuxchixla.org

LinuxChix LA:

www.linuxchixla.org

Created in Debian Linux for

SCALE 9x LinuxChix LA

Booth #8!

It was Lorie and Sharon! On a trip down from the hinterlands Lorie zipped by and up to the Griffith Park Observatory we went for a quick hike to the top of Mt. Hollywood, and afterwards saw cosmic ray contrails in the cloud chamber (2002 Kuro5hin story on how to roll your own cloud chamber).

Then of course we balanced the outdoor healthy hike with a trip to Pinks for chili cheese hot dogs and onion rings.

We had a great time and decided to do this again soon. Look to the mailing list for the next scheduled Griffith Park hike day.

A lot more SCALE 8x pictures have been posted on Flickr.com.  Just use the SCALE8x search to see them all.  Here are some more LinuxChix LA at SCALE 8x highlights:

Enjoy!

/JilliX

Great times, great friends, great talks. I’d do it again tomorrow.

Another wonderful SCALE was enjoyed by all. And we have to wait another year to enjoy this “tuxfiled” vacation. Sigghhhh . . .

Here are some of Beth Lynn Eicher’s candid pictures from SCALE 8x uploaded to Flickr

And here is my LinuxChix LA slideshow that was running on my Chumby at our LinuxChix LA Booth at SCALE 8X!:

LinuxChix LA Chumby Slideshow

Also, this is another post on SCALE 8x WIOS by Scott Ruecker at LXer.com that will fill in the gaps that our LinuxChix LA live WIOS blog post missed:

SCALE 8x: Day 1 – WIOS Talks

These are just the first SCALE pics and articles online . . . wait another few days and there will be hundreds more
To be continued . . .

/JilliX

Katherine Druckman

“This is what we have, and this is what we’re going to win with.” How to be a web developer, graphic designer, u/i research, sysadmin team, as one person.

• Plan and prioritize your site goals and organize your plan of attack accordingly.
• Version control is necessary (!) even as a one-person developer.
• Set realistic time milestones
• Accept and move on when you’re not PERFECT.

.

Notes: Cheap and easy U/I feedback. Buy a bunch of non-geek friends a pizza and watch them tear your site apart. Find the community in which you can ask/receive help … LUGS, Regional events, IRC.

Pitfalls for the solo web team include featurtis creep … feature curve -> too many features can actually diminish usability.

Observation: Finding it easier as a female to ask another female for help. RTFM issues. Discussion on gender hiding, yes, it happens for various reasons.

Some resources: drupalchix, phpwomen, .51, women who tech.

Multidisplinary approach draws from resources in other fields. Quick poll … how many came from a non-tech field into tech? Many. (Flosspols point of interest … acknowledge non-coding contributions as just as valuable as code contributions as a way on increasing diversity.)

KD personal path … came from art field and followed inclination into web development, and here she is.

===============================================

Sarah Mei

Gender activitism in Ruby started with RubyCon in SF … presentation would have been different with 150 men/150 women as opposed to 292 men/6 women ration. Increasing gender diversity means changing the environment by changing the ratio.

1 year ago 2% women, this year 18%, target 50%

Process in Ruby community: Set goals, Do events, Cultivate people. All three necessary, most just focus on ‘Do Events’. Important to work on attainable goals, i.e, increase participation for monthly meetings. Picked specific target, 1) women who were not programmers, but worked at companies who were tech focused, and tech women who have been out of the workforce for a period of time and were looking to update skill sets.

Logistics tips: Offer childcare. Technical women are more likely to have a technical spouse (Anita Borg Inst statistic) and would be likely to attend same events. Just the fact that it’s offered sends positive message -> low cost high signal message. Social component important … after party incorporates women into wider community.

Visibility -> put name on events makes a difference, contribute to mailing lists, and do talks.

Expected outcome: After year more women have attended monthly meetups, and more women at events.
Unexpected outcome: mailing list activity has picked up with more signal than noise., more interesting talks, more women giving talks, and MEN are feeling more comfortable in not knowing everything. (Guess not wanting to appear ‘dumb’ is one of those universal traits , and events have become more newbie friendly.

=====================================================

Rikki Kite
Pretty In Print
Associate Publisher, Linux New Media

10 Tips for Getting Published

1. Don’t be afraid!
2. Writing samples optional
3. Know your topic
4. Know your publication
5. Know your editor
6. Write
“Don’t try to be clever. You use Linux so you already are clever. Write about the trivial things . . .”
“Revise, Revise, Revise!” –Rikki Kite
7. Submit . . . & wait
8. Be clear on compensation
9. Know your rights
“Review your freelance agreement carefully.” –Carla Schroder
10. Repeat

Mars Rover Spirit

The rover that could, and could, and could year after year is stuck in a sand trap since this past spring. On Monday NASA will attempt to extricate the Mars Rover Spirit. You can follow the progress via news reports on the Free Spirit page, or the Mars Rover’s facebook or Twitter feeds.

Women of MER

And while poking around on the Mars Rover pages I found the Women on the Mars Exploration Rover team photo. What an absolutely uber cool project in which to work. Go Team