Search Results: "meike"

15 April 2008

Meike Reichle: Blatant Advertising

No news in this post, just a little advertising. I just came across geekspeakr.com and think it's a really great idea. From the site:
Many organisers of technical conferences, meetups, and dinners want to have more gender-balance in their lineups, but they don't know where to find technical women speakers.

Enter geekspeakr.com, a simple directory and connections system to help technical women speakers and event organisers to find each other.
I guess this could also be interesting for a some of my fellow Debian Women.

13 April 2008

Meike Reichle: What a sh***y week!

And now, off to clean the flat and hope for better luck next week. *sigh*

31 March 2008

Meike Reichle: Yay, I'm through

Since yesterday I am through with my NM procedure. Looking back I get to the same conclusion as probably most NMs have: not overly hard, but time-consuming and glad to have it over with. Anyway, so far so good, just waiting for DAM approval and my account now. There are still a couple of people in front of me but I hope for another processing before the elections close. (I guess it would at least be good for the turnout.) For now, many thanks to my Application Manager Andreas Barth who has been very responsive and always answered my mails quickly and thoroughly, and also to Martin Zobel-Helas for advocating me.

15 March 2008

Daniel Burrows: Why should Europeans get all the cool words?

My sister is studying at a German university. Having talked to her about her experiences there means I can understand blog posts like this one instead of just being confused. For non-Europeans: apparently in some parts of continental Europe video projectors are called beamers. Given how much more succinct and easy on the vocal apparatus beamer is than video projector, not to mention that it's plain cool, I think we should adopt the name here in the States. All in favor: refer to the next video projector you see as a beamer. If enough of us do it they'll call it a movement! UPDATE: the original post confused overhead and video projectors. I always have used the terms interchangably, and apparently incorrectly. I'm not sure why: maybe it's partly because when I was a kid the only projectors I encountered were overheads. Anyway, several readers wrote me to say that beamer is quite specifically a term for a video-projector and not at all a term for the overhead type. My bad. Comment by Meike Reichle on 2007-12-13: Hey Daniel! actually we do call an overhead projector[0] simply an "Overhead" (in the former GDR is used to be called a "Polylux"). A "Beamer" is a video projector[1]. Best wishes from Germany, Meike [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:OHP-sch.JPG [1] http://www.audio-ideas.com/reviews/video/graphics/LG-JT41.jpg Comment by Magnus Therning on 2007-12-13: No, /video projectors/ are called beamers in some places. Search for "beamer" on wikipedia and you'll find "Video projector, a pseudo-anglicism in a number of languages including German and Dutch." An overhead projector is quite a different thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overhead_projector /Magnus (wearing his besserwisser hat)

2 March 2008

Jan Wagner: 10th Chemnitz Linux Days

Like Meike already told, it was a nice event, like always. IMHO it’s based on the good balance of community and a small amount of business booth and of course the visitors.
This year we was apart the Sidux Project. Didn’t heared about (much) before, but their slogan is Hot & Spicy! Maybe ‘hot’, cause it’s based on Debian unstable. Hopefully you won’t get tears if it’s too spicy. Anyways … if you want, you could take a look. My opinion is, this would be a good case for a Custom Debian Distribution, if there would be a requirement for it. But he.. everybody is free to do, what ever he want, if nobody else is restricted.
The talks I attended was in most cases excellent, some of them was funny … only one of them did really suck. Desktop Virtualision … after the talk, my question if there could anything else virtualized then the OS from Redmond, was answered with ‘Unfortunetly only XP’ … how lovely!

Meike Reichle: Chemnitz Linux Days 2008

Seems as if the Chemnitz Linux Days somehow turned out to be the only Linux event I still attend regularly. These days I miss out on most of them, simply because of a total lack of spare time, however, I somehow always make the CLT ... no matter how big the hassle may be! They're just worth it :) My talk went well, even though I actually got a bit pressed on time this year and had to cut the Q&A part. The (German) slides for my talk are as usually on my talks page.

25 January 2008

Meike Reichle: Look Ma I'm on Podcast!

I recently had my first podcast experience, when I was approached by Mario Heide of the German podcast pofacs.de ("Podcast für alternative Computer Systeme") who asked me for an interview. To be true, I first had to read up a bit on podcasts, but after a little research I was very happy to accept his invitation. We did the interview via Sykpe, which wasn't exactly optimal sound-wise but still very nice. We talked mostly about Debian, primarily from a first time user point of view. The (German) interview is online now and will, as I just heard, also be included on the next LinuxUser magazine CD. If you do understand German also have a look at the other podcasts there and thanks again to Mario for giving me the opportunity to brag a bit about Debian.

18 January 2008

Meike Reichle: My current favourite debian package

... and the reason I get nothing done. Please meet cuyo. Fun, addictive, drives you nuts!

10 January 2008

Alexander Schmehl: About Apache, Basic Authentication, Location and regular expressions

The other day, I had an interesting problem, regarding Apache, the LocationMatch directive and regular expressions. I'll put it here, so I'll be able to find it again... Actually it was a quite simple problem: A simple web page, where all web pages are protected with a password. No big Problem: Use a <location /> and AuthType basic, problem solved.... or isn't it? Some documents might be needed to be available without the authentication... for example robots.txt... or the funky custom error document, which explains how to get the authentication data, in case the authentication fails. Looking at the documentation, found a solution: LocationMatch exists, where you specify a regular expression, which must match, for the following configuration to apply. What isn't mentioned in the documentation, that the obvious solution... something like <LocationMatch !"^/(robots.txt my401handler.html"> doesn't work. See apache bug 10932. Needed quite some time, to find this out... Luckily Meike found the bug report above, which has a workaround for that problem: Use <LocationMatch "^/(?!robots.txt my401handler.html)"> Oh... and if your customized error handler references some pictures or style sheets, don't forget to add them to the regular expression above, too.

31 December 2007

Meike Reichle: Happy new year!

The year is almost over and a lot has happened. I finished my studies and got engaged, (Again, thank you very much for the many, many congratulations and warm wishes!) now, just before the year is really over I decided to finally make another commitment. Now, I guess the first thing I'll turn to will be Tasks and Sp tzle. ;)

30 December 2007

Meike Reichle: Without words ...

presenting engagement rings
Intercultural disclaimer: In Germany it is customary to buy the wedding rings
on the occasion of the engagement and wear them on the left hand until the
actual marriage. Afterwards they are worn on the right hand.

19 November 2007

Meike Reichle: Symptoms

The German language has an expression that is "Zeichen der Zeit". Literally translated this means "Signs of the time", the idea behind that expression is that sometimes there are certains things or events that are symptopmatic for a current development or a general change of times. One of these "Zeichen der Zeit" can currently be observed very nicely in our neighbourhood. In the last half year three shops in our direct vicinity closed down. One was a quite cute 60s cafe that was later rented out to a citizens' action committee, the second was a shop that sold wooden toys, the third was a health food shop. I don't know how long these shops where around, but all of them had lasted for at least a couple years if not longer. Now all three shops are rented out again, two are now temp work agencies, the third is a "consumer bank" that specialises on small consumer credits for things like cars, washing machines or entertainment electronics. Apparently they also cooperate with some mail order firms. Is this really where we want to go?

17 November 2007

Meike Reichle: Back from the bookshop

I am wondering ... when exactly did cookbooks stop being about cooking and start being about cooks?

6 November 2007

Christian Perrier: Bloggers I like to read

There are some bloggers who I'm really happy to see back in the blogosphere.

29 October 2007

Ingo Juergensmann: New Passport

Like Meike Reichle I'm going to order a new passport without fingerprints before this stupid new law becomes reality/active.
What Meike forgot to mention: you maybe need a certificate of birth (Geburtsurkunde) when you order a new passport. When you're ordering the new passport at your birth place, it's likely that you don't need such a certificate, but I moved in the meanwhile to another town and wanted to get a new passport last Thursday and was told from the people at the town hall that I need to have a certificate of birth.

Another interesting point to know: you can order your new passport anywhere in Germany, but when doing so somewhere else than where your main living is (Hauptwohnsitz), the costs will be doubled: instead of 59.- you'll need to pay 2x 59.- = 118.-.

Meike Reichle: Only three days left ...

Citizens of Germany have only three days left if they want to apply for a new travel passport that does not include its owner's fingerprints. From the 1st of November on German citizens who apply for a new travel passport will have to provide their fingerprints so they can be included in the passport's biometric section. Up until now, fingerprinting was a treatement reserved for those user reasonable suspicion of a crime. A new travel passport can be applied for at any time, whether the old one is expired or not. Your new passport will be valid for 10 years if you are 26 or older, otherwise it will be valid for only five years. A new passport costs 59,00 Euro respectively 37,50 Euro for those under 26 years. I for one do not welcome this further erosion of privacy so I got myself a new passport just in time. Guess I'll have to do a lot of travelling in the next 10 years ...

2 August 2007

Meike Reichle: Some more positive things and Dear launchpad.net Part 2

More happy people: following up on my last post on nice free software experiences Chris Ball has responded by posting one of his. Are there any more? Also talking about free software nuisances I remembered my recent grudge with launchpad.net. At that time I was contacted by someone from Canonical shortly after that first post. He said he'd pass my comment on, but in the next days nothing happened so I turned to other things and only occasionally checked back on the site. A few days ago I've again checked back and guess what, the objectionable title has been replaced, both for people using launchpad and for those who don't. The page's title for peple who do not actually use launchpad now reads "X does not use launchpad" and "X in launchpad" for those who do. Much better! Well done launchpad.net!

29 July 2007

Meike Reichle: A little comfort

Being in any reasonably large free software project one tends to be confronted with endless little annoyances, frustrations and letdowns. Often it happens that these little things keep growing in our perception the longer they last and the more they trouble us. In these times it is good to be reminded that the actual thing we invest so much time and energy in is not those little issues that often annoy us so much, but the overlying ideal of free software which is still a great thing, even in view of all the little frustrations that we have to deal with when working on it. Yesterday I had one of these little experiences that just remind you, just how good a thing free software is:
  • At Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:38:49 I filed a whishlist bug against a software I recently started using.
  • At Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:04:35 the bug had been passed on to the software's upstream and I got an email from the upstream author telling me that the feature I wanted was already in the current development version of the software, where I could download the tar.bz2 and how to contact him on jabber.
  • At about half to ten I downloaded the code, rolled it into a package and tried it, but couldn't get the new feature to work, so I wrote another email.
  • An half hour later I got an answer telling me what I'd done wrong. I fixed my mistake, tested the new feature and found that it did right what I wanted. However, there was one more option I thought would be useful so I contacted the author via jabber.
  • In the following 2.5 hours he implemented the additional option that I had asked for, renamed a button I found a bit unintuitive and fixed two bugs I discovered in the process of testing the new feature, sending me new code versions to test after every change.
  • I am now using the software with the new feature I asked for and with all the options I wanted from a homemade package but expect the proper Debian package to show up in the archive any day.
  • The whole process took three days.
... and this is exactly why free software (and the people in it) is so great. Because if there is something you'd think would be useful, all you have to do is ask and maybe lend a little help in testing and you got it. And this is why it's worth to put up with all the little annoyances, frustrations and letdowns that working with humans brings with it. Even if they sometimes seem to be overwhelming. PS: I know that there are also enough examples where things didn't go as smooth as this one. But this just makes it more worth and important to highlight and appreciate these examples where everything just worked out perfectly and not just take them as granted. So, inbetween posting rants and fuming at all the things that tick you off, how about if you think of a nice FLOSS experience you had and share it with the rest of the world?

7 July 2007

Meike Reichle: More Pancakes


a plate with a half eaten pancake
Following the invitation on the SocialContractTenYears wiki site. We also decided to join the distributed pancake party. So on the evening of July 5th we joined the many other pancake eaters. Pancakes where prepared and much enjoyed with a whole lot of toppings. A nice party! PS: In fact, following the composition of this blog post pancakes where had again. Now, that's the Good Life!

4 July 2007

Meike Reichle: On Beauty

Every day, when sitting in the bus, I see a lot of girls who obviously invest a lot of time, effort and money into looking good. ... and then render the whole effort useless by putting on this horribly bored, ill-tempered and disdainful look. Tsss.

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