Author Archives: mjr

Hi, Why Are You Doing?

2010-08-26 by mjr

In a great post a few days ago, Jono asks why you are doing free software and reminds us to remember it. It’s quite easy to lose sight of our goals and motivations while working on the day-to-day tasks. This … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Training and Information | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Audio Processing Tips for ffmpeg

2010-08-25 by mjr

I did some sound file mangling earlier this week. I’ve been using the Bambuser app for Symbian recently to capture some recordings. If you tell their site your User-Agent is a mobile browser, it’ll work OK with free software – … Continue reading →

Posted in GNU/Linux | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Library Cuts

2010-08-24 by mjr

Another day, another story about #ukgov cuts and today it’s the turn of libraries. When I turned on the TV at breakfast, they were discussing BBC: A novel idea: Take a look inside the library pub. There’s also a discussion … Continue reading →

Posted in Koha | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Reasons to use cat unnecessarily

2010-08-23 by mjr

Recently, I read on planet debian another rant along the lines of “why oh why do people use cat when they could just redirect from a file?” – but not that this is a new complaint from expert users. I’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in GNU/Linux | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

Respond to the European Consultation on Library RFID

2010-08-20 by mjr

As you may remember, our co-op is working on various RFID (radio tags instead of barcodes, basically) extensions for Koha. One of the main ethical concerns about RFID is privacy – if done wrong, it could become quite easy to … Continue reading →

Posted in Koha | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Welcome Back

2010-08-19 by mjr

I’m back. Where have I been? I was in Portishead, Plymouth and Taunton in Co-operatives Fortnight back in late June/early July. I seemed to spend July flat out with work trying to catch up again, then I fell ill just … Continue reading →

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Doing Business the Co-operatives 2010 Way

2010-06-27 by mjr

Co-operatives 2010 On Friday, I was at this event in Plymouth. The basics of it are pretty well covered by John Atherton’s blog post. I led one of open surgeries on use of Social Media, which I’m going to try … Continue reading →

Posted in Cooperatives | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Budget 2010: take 2 (IT, Co-ops and Community edition)

2010-06-22 by mjr

I’ve been watching the June budget and pondering its effects on me, our co-op, co-ops in general and the wider community.

IT Taxes I just want to flag this one up as a special interest: the telephone tax is killed off before it starts. Yippee! But now we … Continue reading →

Posted in Cooperatives, SPI | Comments Off on Budget 2010: take 2 (IT, Co-ops and Community edition)

Koha in Book Industry Communication

2010-06-11 by mjr

Our co-op has joined Book Industry Communication as an associate member, mainly in order to voice experiences of the Koha community and ourselves about RFID tag standardisation and related sustainable development. I want us to give the Free and Open … Continue reading →

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Talks: RMS Kosovo, MJR Plymouth

2010-06-04 by mjr

RMS will be visiting Kosovo today to speak at the national library. There is no entrance fee, however the number of seats is limited to 250, so please register by writing to register@flossk.org. Less illustriously, MJR will be visiting Plymouth … Continue reading →

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