Puppy Newsletter

[smokey01]

Forgot to mention, like bigpup's ideas as well, especially a "new programs" section with a good description (and perhaps screen shots as well) and link/s to download it.
Although many "new" programs are announced on the forum as well, the announcements is usually "lost" in a day or two due to all the posts.
Would be nice to have them listed in the newsletter too.

Most of bigpup's ideas are already included in the Feb and Mar editions.

I'm happy to include it all but someone needs to make me aware.

[Pete]

@smokey01

I may just do that.

After reading your post, got thinking about what is the most unusual thing I have used Puppy for.
Don't know if this qualifies, but around 2 years ago, I built a simple monitoring system for a local FM radio station which had no budget for a professional monitoring system.

They needed a way to keep tabs on two things:

1) If their transmitter was still up, and

2) Monitor for any long periods of silence which would indicate the transmitter was on but there might be something wrong with the audio chain.
Especially important between 1 and 5 am where the music was "canned", i.e. played from computer with no presenter in the studio.

Essentially the monitoring set-up consisted of a modified car radio tuned to their frequency.
I took the voltage from the stereo indicator led, through an opto-coupler and fed that to the parallel port.
If the led went off, it meant that they were off-air.

I also took the audio output and fed that via a rectifier and onto a monostable.
If no audio was present for more than a minute, the monostable would trigger and feed the output to the parallel port as well.

A script would poll the parallel port every couple of seconds and log any "errors" to a file which could then be checked on a regular basis.

The computer was an old Toshiba laptop running Puppy 4.3.1 ( if I remember correctly).

Will try and dig up the schematic and script if anyone is interested.

[bigpup]

Pete,

Sure looks like something to submit to the newsletter.

The submit input buttons are at the top of the newsletter web page.
http://www.smokey01.com/newsletters/

If you would like to contribute to the newsletter it must be created in notecase. It's very easy to learn and use. Try and keep your articles to less than 1000 words. Photos and images should be no bigger than 1024 x 768.

The deadline for articles is the 20th of each month. Let's not worry about time zones. I know it may be the 20th in Australia and only the 19th in the USA but I can live with this. If it's more than 24 hours late with respect to Australian CST then your article may be pushed right into the next edition. I expect proof reading to take less than a week which will provide about four days to publish at the beginning of each month.

I will upload the Newsletter to my site at http://smokey01.com/newsletters. There will be two versions. One will be an xz compressed notecase file and the other will be a html file so it can be read in a browser. The naming convention will be pln-2017-01.ncd.xz and pln-2017-01.html respectively. The formatting of the html is not brilliant but readable. The newsletter is intended to be downloaded and read in notecase.

[Pete]

@bigpup

OK, let me scratch around for the schematic and code and will submit it.

[smokey01]

Last call for Feb articles. 20th is the deadline.

[LazY Puppy]

Is that newsletter EN only?
Could it include a DE section?
If so, do I need to write a DE article in EN also?
Do I need to use notecase to write an article for the newsletter?
What else could be used to write/submit an article for the newsletter?

[bigpup]

Notecase is not hard to use.
It works the same as most word/text editors.
There is info about it in the first newsletter. (2017 January)

All this is in the top of the first newsletter.

Smokey01 will have to respond about the language.

If you would like to contribute to the newsletter it must be created in notecase. It's very easy to learn and use. Try and keep your articles to less than 1000 words. Photos and images should be no bigger than 1024 x 768.

The deadline for articles is the 20th of each month. Let's not worry about time zones. I know it may be the 20th in Australia and only the 19th in the USA but I can live with this. If it's more than 24 hours late with respect to Australian CST then your article may be pushed right into the next edition. I expect proof reading to take less than a week which will provide about four days to publish at the beginning of each month.

I will upload the Newsletter to my site at http://smokey01.com/newsletters. There will be two versions. One will be an xz compressed notecase file and the other will be a html file so it can be read in a browser. The naming convention will be pln-2017-01.ncd.xz and pln-2017-01.html respectively. The formatting of the html is not brilliant but readable. The newsletter is intended to be downloaded and read in notecase.

[smokey01]

Is that newsletter EN only? Yes
Could it include a DE section? If you converted it. I don't think Notecase uses .pot files.
If so, do I need to write a DE article in EN also? Yes please or I would have to use Google translate.
Do I need to use notecase to write an article for the newsletter? I prefer notecase as it make my job easier but I can convert it in most cases.
What else could be used to write/submit an article for the newsletter?If not notecase, then I prefer LibreOffice.

[greengeek]

Is that newsletter EN only? Yes
Could it include a DE section? If you converted it. I don't think Notecase uses .pot files.
If so, do I need to write a DE article in EN also? Yes please or I would have to use Google translate.
Do I need to use notecase to write an article for the newsletter? I prefer notecase as it make my job easier but I can convert it in most cases.
What else could be used to write/submit an article for the newsletter?If not notecase, then I prefer LibreOffice.

Maybe the Puppy newsletter could include a "Letters to the Editor" section and allow letters to be in any language. This would be a good way to internationalise it and to perhaps kick off interest from potential translators.

Such an idea would probably need volunteers to act as "moderators" for each language of letter submitted - all that would be required is a quick perusal of each letter to ensure no profanity or spam.

[smokey01]

Maybe the Puppy newsletter could include a "Letters to the Editor" section and allow letters to be in any language. This would be a good way to internationalise it and to perhaps kick off interest from potential translators.

I had considered a letters to the editor section but it will increase the work load and it is only a newsletter, not a magazine.

Such an idea would probably need volunteers to act as "moderators" for each language of letter submitted - all that would be required is a quick perusal of each letter to ensure no profanity or spam.

I think it would be better to convert the entire Newsletter to other languages. I think reading the browser version in another language would work now, if the browser can translate, yes?

[musher0]

Automatic translation being what it is, that's an awful suggestion, smokey01!

Automatic translation on the Internet is the best way to lose any nuance
and sometimes convey the exact contrary of what you mean!!!

Not ot mention becoming the laughing stock of the target language community!

If this newsletter is to be considered seriously, we need someone who
knows the target language enough to provide a decent summary of the
article, if not a complete translation.

BFN.

[smokey01]

Automatic translation being what it is, that's an awful suggestion, smokey01!

Automatic translation may not be perfect but it does a much better job than I can do as I only communicate in English.

Automatic translation on the Internet is the best way to lose any nuance and sometimes convey the exact contrary of what you mean!!!

There certainly is some truth in that.

Not ot mention becoming the laughing stock of the target language community!

I'm not sure I agree. It's written in English and If somebody want's to read it in another language, then they must take some responsibility for the translation. If we are going to publish in multiple languages then somebody with the skills needs to take on the responsibility of conversion. I'm happy to post the results on my site. We must remember, it's a Newsletter not a Magazine and it's provided for free.

If this newsletter is to be considered seriously, we need someone who knows the target language enough to provide a decent summary of the article, if not a complete translation.

I Agree.

[greengeek]

Request for newsletter article:

I would be keen to see a HowTo tutorial for puppians wanting to understand the git interface for Woof contributions. I think I saw one on the forum but cannot find it at present.

Anybody up to drafting some notes to help users track or contribute to git advancements?

[smokey01]

How about this?
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90822

[greengeek]

How about this?
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=90822

Excellent, thanks.

[tlchost]

I've added a link to your news letter at PuppyLinux.us
http://puppylinux.us

[6502coder]

I've used the old free version of Notecase for many years on both Linux and Windows. I've been using it heavily on LXLE, a Lubuntu spin, installing it from the Ubuntu 8 DEB (it's the same Notecase 1.9.8 version that Puppies have). It has worked fine on LXLE 12.04 (which is based on Precise) but I just upgraded to LXLE 16.04 (based on Xenial) and on that platform the old Notecase isn't usable. Pop-up menus don't disappear when you mouse off them, and the Notecase window doesn't refresh properly when it gets covered and then uncovered. Presumably the version of GTK in LXLE 16.04 (gtk 2.24.30) is just too different for the Ubuntu 8 package to work.

So I switched to Notecase PRO, using the free "lite" version, whose feature list seems at least equal to what was in the old Notecase, and this works just fine on LXLE 16.04.

I mention this because I wonder if this problem will similarly affect Puppies based on Xenial.

[LazY Puppy]

Hi.

E-Mail about the new Puppy Newsletter being available received!

[oldyeller]

February newsletter looks great nice job

[smokey01]

Hi.

E-Mail about the new Puppy Newsletter being available received!

Thanks RSH. I wasn't sure if the email went out. You should have received two as I sent it a second time. Can you confirm you received two please.

Thanks