#ubuntu-learning 2009-09-14
<doctormo> BiosElement: Hello again
<doctormo> Did bzr play ball last night?
<BiosElement> Hey doctormo Yeah, it's mostly playing. Lemme link ya to what I upped. Afraid it's not much but I'll try to correct that problem. >.> Next project is writing a bzr for beginners guide for teachers writing a course
<BiosElement> https://code.launchpad.net/~williamchambers/ubuntu-learning-materials/williamchambers
<doctormo> Certainly an excelent plan
<doctormo> And gets us all practicing creating classes
<BiosElement> I figured at the very least it'd be a stopgap till the rest of the lesson is finised
<BiosElement> *finished
<doctormo> looking at it now
<BiosElement> I probably organized it wrong >.>
<doctormo> BiosElement, pleia2, paultag: Your advice please, I want thinking of having a description section for each course, explaining what it's trying to do and what we expect people to learn throught the entire course.
<paultag> Hay
<pleia2> in one of the course documents?
<paultag> great idea doctormo
<paultag> doctormo: it will help focus topics
<pleia2> like an objective section
<BiosElement> Already thought we were going to do that eventually. >.>
<doctormo> Thinking they should be written before hand
<doctormo> I think I'm also going to take dina's advice and have a section in each class lesson plan at the top which should be headed "Class Objectives" and in there a short description of what the students should achieve by the end of the class.
<doctormo> She called them learning ovjectives
<doctormo> Perhaps that's a better name,
 * pleia2 nods
<doctormo> BiosElement: OK, notes about your class so far. Not sure about the headers with the [# Name] format.
<doctormo> But otherwise it's a great step forward,
<BiosElement> Aight. I kinda liked it but I figured they were easy to change later.
<doctormo> I'm thinking that perhaps a better source compilation format is required, I fear that the odts are not modual enough for the kinds of publication and style definition we might want to do.
<doctormo> Thoughts on using TeX?
<BiosElement> If you give me a minute I may have an idea
<BiosElement> Well, more like 10min >.>
<pleia2> tex makes the barrier for entry much higher
<pleia2> I think odt is good
<BiosElement> Pure .txt with syntax for headers, bold, etc
<pleia2> we're already having a hard enough time getting people to write courses
<BiosElement> Honestly, I don't like odt very much besides that it's an open format. >.>
<BiosElement> But I agree it's important to keep it simple pleia2
<pleia2> out of curiousity, what is the  ">.>" thing you end your lines with?
<BiosElement> haha, sorry. Just a nasty habit of mine. It's supposed to be "shifty eyes".
<pleia2> ah, I thought that might be it but you use it a lot so I wanted to make sure :)
<BiosElement> I've got a few options that should all be very simple.
<doctormo> pleia2: I agree, but we can help that by thinking about tools that make the workflow easy to get into, I was thinking about a simple dev tool that downloads the bzr branch and allows commiting like bzr-gtk
<pleia2> doctormo: oh, that'd be great
<BiosElement> The one I first thought of is Sphinx which is what python uses for their docs. It's got a very clear .txt format. Not sure how hard it'd be to setup though. I can try later tonight.
<BiosElement> HTML: http://docs.python.org/3.1/whatsnew/3.1.html
<BiosElement> TXT: http://docs.python.org/3.1/_sources/whatsnew/3.1.txt
<doctormo> BiosElement: If we can find somethign that is editable in openoffice, but more flexible. Then that would be best
<BiosElement> doctormo, I'm looking at pure .txt because It may always be possible to build later onto that.
<BiosElement> Also bzr commit changes should show nicer.
<doctormo> Of course, although html, xml, wiki and pdf should all be considered publication target formats.
<pleia2> yeah
<BiosElement> Exactly.
<BiosElement> doctormo, Any thoughts on the sphinx example?
<pleia2> and if there is some kind of moodle format
<BiosElement> pleia2, If there isn't I could probably hack one together.
<BiosElement> reStructuredText and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown are the other two that come to mind. The python docs example uses reStructuredText
<doctormo> BiosElement: As a python programmer myself, I'd have a bias for using sphinx and such, but we may need something more apt, I'm not sure how we should include images etc, but it's a larger scope than just doc
<BiosElement> doctormo, That's what I was thinking. I like python too. But Markdown is another that could work. though we'll have to figure out images.
<BiosElement> Personally I see no need to re-invent the wheel with several good proven .txt based formats out there.
<BiosElement> Images work with markdown. Syntax is ![Alt text](/path/to/img.jpg "Optional title")
<doctormo> BiosElement: And now what about editing tools? At least LaTeX has gui tools for editing we could use
<doctormo> Oh did I mention that your files should all have the name of the class rather than just the generic couse name 'Teaching'
<BiosElement> I'd imagine there's a editor. I'll go poke around
<BiosElement> And yeah, I figured that.
<BiosElement> Would we even really need a gui though really? I mean the point would be to focus on the text. It could always be written in .odt and converted over to be upped
<BiosElement> IMO the syntax is pretty clear
<doctormo> BiosElement: Aye, sometimes it's just a matter of apperences though, if we could edit the entire class in one long stream but them have it split up when saved, that would be best.
<BiosElement> I hear what you mean
<BiosElement> Funny thing is Sphinx seems the least complicated >.>
<doctormo> heh, well if you want to give it a shot just take my networking class and convert it into sphinx and see hwo easy the workflow is.
<BiosElement> Aight, I'll start toying
<doctormo> BiosElement: The most research and playing around, the better our workfow I think
<BiosElement> Probably
<BiosElement> doctormo, Sphinx can export to latex, html and probably pdf
<doctormo> If not, then latex or html will, I just want to make sure that I could define 1xdiagram, 1xexplination, 1xdescription and 1xexercise which can be combined into a published section with other sections into the overview sheets we know and love.
<BiosElement> Honestly with a few changes I think sphinx can do it. It's a little focused towards documenting a project rather then just a document but that should be just a few template changes away
<BiosElement> doctormo, Question: Would it be useful to have digital "textbooks" and just use moodle for the "coursework" like quizzes, mail, etc?
<doctormo> BiosElement: If we can do it so that the moodle is front end providing those downloads
<BiosElement> doctormo, Well it could be all in a pdf, zip, page-by-page or hosted.
<doctormo> BiosElement: Depends how we do it
<BiosElement> Personally I'm really liking this format. It'll take me awhile to convert it all over but it's really simple to do and looks great.
<doctormo> If you can commit to a different branch, then we can both have a play around, what ever you do, I'll need to set up some tools to make this all easier
<BiosElement> I don't mind if I have to convert others work over from .odt format honestly. the actual work isn't hard. Just I'm flooded with windows here so It's kinda slow work >.>
<doctormo> BiosElement: I can see that formatting and structuralisation is fun for you yes?
<BiosElement> doctormo, I sound like a masochist don't I... >.> Not fun exactly, but it 'is' fun to get instant gratification.
<doctormo> heh, well I'd like to see the first class and what scripts / tools to automate the workflow before you convert any more.
<BiosElement> Currently all you do is run "make html" in the directory and it dumps the html files into a seperate directory ready for use. If there are images it'll copy the ones that are used over also
<BiosElement> doctormo, http://bioselement.com/teachingtest.zip
<BiosElement> Note that I haven't actually done more then a quick test. I got distracted by looking into the templates
<doctormo_> BiosElement: Interesting stuff
<BiosElement> That's what I thought.
<doctormo_> Now get it to build pdf files :-)
<BiosElement> Can do
<BiosElement> For the record: pdf is where docs go to die
<BiosElement> >.>
<BiosElement> Dear heavens doctormo_ the latex data for converting to pdf's is a freaken gig >.>
<BiosElement> Why? Because language files for every language under the sun, from english to the language of the lone fisherman in the middle of the ocean is required >.>
<doctormo_> what? explain, I don't understand
<BiosElement> texlive requires every supported language pack to be installed >.>
<doctormo_> BiosElement: bUll, redo the package if that's what it's doing
<BiosElement> doctormo_, That's what I said. I'm poking through the packages now to find the exact one
<BiosElement> It's very poorly documented.
<BiosElement> +1 for packages.ubuntu.com though >.> Making things much easier
<BiosElement> Looks like texlive-latex-extra has the pdf generator and is 500mb less.
<doctormo> heh, it's funny but if we were going to make use of it, we'd need it fixing anyway
<BiosElement> doctormo, Yep. Well I've got the generator installed but it wants fonts...back to the salt mines for me.
<BiosElement> Ahh, looks like I somehow didn't have 'textlive' installed with the fonts.
<BiosElement> PDF: http://bioselement.com/TeachingTest.pdf
<BiosElement> All the blank pages are because I broke the Table of Contents format
<BiosElement> And because there's hardly enough content >.>
<doctormo> BiosElement: OK, so I want to see a diagram and I want to see a code snipit, styled. This proves two of the couter points.
<BiosElement> Aight
<BiosElement> doctormo, Re-download the pdf
<BiosElement> And the zip is bioselement.com/TeachingTest.zip
<doctormo> They are the same
<BiosElement> Shouldn't be. Should have code sample + image
<BiosElement> Hang on
<BiosElement> www.bioselement.com/TeachingTest2.pdf
<doctormo> OK so the code snipit should be in a coloured box similar to what I have in my PDFs and the image should come from the svgs available.
<doctormo> I don't really want raster images to be the norm
<BiosElement> Fine by me, I just grabbed it as the closest image to toss in
<doctormo> Oh and align right.
<doctormo> But it's excelent work, I'm excited to see where this goes
<BiosElement> Ahh, I'll see what I can do. Thanks
<BiosElement> Not sure about the right align but I suspect it shouldn't be 'too' hard to ad the code styling for the pdf
<BiosElement> It does support code highlighting
<doctormo> Well I want to see how close to the style of my pdf you can get, since I want condensed styles, allowing teachers to print things out for students without bancrupting them
<BiosElement> Images can be right aligned
<BiosElement> I don't think I can get any kind of background behind the code for the pdf currently though
<BiosElement> It is monospace though
<doctormo> hmm, even html could put the code in a div tag which padding and borders
<BiosElement> Currently the html version does have a code bg, only the pdf uses pure monospace
<BiosElement> Honestly I think that saves ink
<doctormo> Perhaps, but I'd still like to know I have full power to control the style, if it's too hard to style (and I'd like the style to be some form of a style sheet) then it's inflexible.
<BiosElement> It's latex, It's a pretty standard format so I can't imagine there's nothing else out there.
<BiosElement> See first i generate the latex docs, then from that go to pdf.
<BiosElement> And if we wanted we could always generate the html files with a special template and just print them off that way.
<doctormo> We could always generate them in a number of steps
<doctormo> I suppose the html could contain the css refs and that could make pdfs of the right style
<BiosElement> Exactly
<doctormo> Now you just have to show me it in action :-D
<BiosElement> haha
<BiosElement> doctormo, I want candy :P
<BiosElement> This is working nicely
<doctormo> BiosElement: Wonderful, what kind of sweets?
<BiosElement> haha, I'll take anything sweet. Speaking of which, the .rst files look 'really' sweet.
<doctormo> cool, well I'll get you a crunchy bar, fair's fair
<BiosElement> hehe, yay :P
<BiosElement> FYI I'll need to add image padding to the css
<doctormo> OK, so I'd like you to commit your work to an experimental branch attached to ubuntu-learning-materials, that way I can see it and help if need be, without uploading or padding around things
<BiosElement> Ok. One minor problem just now, lemme fix it
<BiosElement> Oh I see the problem
<doctormo> Don't bother to commit any of the builded or compiled files, I should be able to work about it.
<BiosElement> Aight, the only hard part was pdf's
<BiosElement> FYI doctormo the make command is "make html" in the main directory
<BiosElement> doctormo, Should be working https://code.launchpad.net/~williamchambers/ubuntu-learning-materials/sphnixformat
<doctormo> thanks!
<BiosElement> doctormo, Lemme know if it's missing anything....I think the makefile got list
<BiosElement> doctormo, It was. Pushing the makefile now
<BiosElement> Should be fine now
<BiosElement> doctormo, Note this: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~williamchambers/ubuntu-learning-materials/sphnixformat/annotate/head%3A/systems-admin/source/01-command_line.rst
<BiosElement> Easy to read, even with just text
<doctormo> ok so I need to get sphinx, is that this bad package?
<BiosElement> doctormo, No
<doctormo> E: Couldn't find package sphinx-build
<BiosElement> doctormo, One moment
<BiosElement> package is python-sphinx
<BiosElement> To make the pdf's you will need texlive and texlive-latex-base
<BiosElement> The texlive-latex-base is the one that took me forever to find
<doctormo> hmm a bunch of warnings and errors
<BiosElement> About?
<BiosElement> doctormo, Finished converting 01 - Command Line
<doctormo> cool, I'll pull
<BiosElement> "just" fixed the index page too
<BiosElement> doctormo, Lemme know how it works
<doctormo> Looks good, I will have to reform the css of course, since it's supposed to be more of a teaching thing than a documentation thing
<BiosElement> Of course
<doctormo> BiosElement: While I do that, can you get a simple svg2png process going on with the make, I'd like the svgs to be the source
<BiosElement> Just outta curiosity, can't we just use svg's? I mean most modern browsers can read them and if we're teaching ubuntu I'd hope they have an ubuntu machine
<doctormo> We could, but we'd have to use different html, not until firefox 4.0 will we be able to specify svgs in the img tag
<doctormo> OK, I think we should remove the align right from the source docs, it's more of the style thing anyway
<BiosElement> Figures >.>
<BiosElement> It's up to you if you want too
<BiosElement> But we 'can' align it
<doctormo> Aye, I think I'll keep alignments in the css files, that way we can better control the publication
<BiosElement> Only problem with that is if we 'don't want to align it
<doctormo> Nah, that can be controlled too, alignment can be switched on and off at will
<BiosElement> Ahh, well if that's true then great
<doctormo> That one conf should probably apply to all sections of the same course, I'd like to make sure that the main editable documents are not stuffed inside of a directory and are the primary visible files
<doctormo> The only directories are perhaps if we end up splitting each section out, I wonder if we could get it to build them automatically
<doctormo> BiosElement: Do you know what hands off workflowing is?
<BiosElement> I'm 99% sure I've heard of it, 99% sure I used to know what it means. But I can't seem to remember
<doctormo> BiosElement: It's where we can just add new files and directories into the right places and have the machinery pick them up, we should need to configure conf.py with each new class, or configure each Makefile for each course.
<doctormo> It's a sort of automated systematics.
<doctormo> shouldn't*
<BiosElement> Ahh, yeah.
<doctormo> That should say, we shouldn't need to cofnigure
<BiosElement> Actually
<BiosElement> conf.py was made by the generator
<doctormo> Aye, but I've just had to edit it
<BiosElement> Ahh
<doctormo> I set the static page to a root path and set a title and a few other things.
<doctormo> But fortunatly, it's python, so we can make it more magic
<doctormo> BiosElement: OK just commited a stylesheet and some mods for your merging in lp:~doctormo/ubuntu-learning-materials/sphnixformat
<BiosElement> doctormo, Aight
<doctormo> BiosElement: It produces very boring html, not as fancy as the python doc stuff, but we can work up to what we want out of the docs, since my aim is to make sure we can make pds that are clean.
<BiosElement> doctormo, Well I don't think we should ignore the html version either. Because I'm sure we'll have classes taught on IRC too
<BiosElement> Heck, I'd do some of those sometime
<doctormo> Of course not, stylesheets can be very easily substituted for online use, but for building the primary must be clean so all formats are built and then we can publish as required.
<BiosElement> Great. Just making sure
<BiosElement> doctormo, Want to file a merge request or should I just do it manually?
<doctormo> The merge request is formality, you still have to merge manually
<BiosElement> Ahh, figures. GImme a sec then
<doctormo> I've pushed up rev 6, updated styles
<BiosElement> Figures...
<BiosElement> I 'just' merged it
<BiosElement> Lemme update and merge again
<BiosElement> You should be proud of your teaching, a month ago I'd never touched bzr. >.>
<doctormo> thanks
<doctormo> That really does mean a lot to me
<doctormo> althoguh you did have a head start knowing what other vcs are
<BiosElement> doctormo, True. I must admit I can't decide if I like git or bzr better at this point. Though git is for sure more popular >.>
<doctormo> git is faster and leaner, but bzr is python based and easier to use.
<BiosElement> I mostly agree with you
<BiosElement> >.>
<BiosElement> Not sure about easier to use. It feels the same to me
<doctormo> plus, while certain parts of git are perl (write once read never) and certain parts are C, I untimatly think bzr is the better structured.
<BiosElement> CSS looks nice though
<doctormo> Just not the better mathermatically worked out
<BiosElement> So, is this better then .od
<BiosElement> *.odt's?
<doctormo> you can count on me for style sheets and image ;-) all this programming and marketing is just a day job.
<BiosElement> haha, Suggestion
<doctormo> Well these files will be 100 times easier to translate, if you can get it to generate pot files for uploading into launchpad's translation service, then you've got a strong contender why it shoudl be used.
<BiosElement> Remove the left+right bars on the code box. Because on a print view the text flows over the bar on the right and looks silly
<BiosElement> At least if there isn't a solid bar I don't think it'll look horrid
<doctormo> BiosElement: That is why we make print css directives.
<BiosElement> doctormo, Ahh, Aight. And yes, I do know what that is :P
<doctormo> although your going to have to take a screen shot, because my print preview shows no such thing
<BiosElement> Hang 1 sec
<BiosElement> doctormo, I THINK we can translate to .po files Not sure about .pot
<doctormo> Er, you know how translations work right?
<doctormo> you make a pot file which contains all the original elements, and then eadch po file is a translation comapred to the pot file
<BiosElement> doctormo, More or less. Here's your screenshot. FF Shiretoko latest build http://i32.tinypic.com/23j1pph.png
<BiosElement> Yeah. I gathered that from the launchpad help page :P
<doctormo> without a pot file, you can't make po files ;-)
<doctormo> Ah it's the right side, not the left
<BiosElement> Ya know I gotta say this is alot easier to read through then odt too...It even feels better formatted. >.>
<BiosElement> Oh FYI, your bash: doctormo image was resized. It was something like 640x500 in the odt
<doctormo> I think it's the PRE that causes that btw
<doctormo> the overflow problem
<BiosElement> Probably. PRE 'should' prevent text-wrapping but if we want this printed it has to wrap
<doctormo> My best guess, remove the python-code section use and use some kind of custom class for that text, once it's in <p>'s I can deal with it in css.
<BiosElement> The div's are<div class="highlight-python"><pre>
<BiosElement> You 'can' style <pre> just like <b> ETC. I can probably find what's needed to enable word-wrapping on the print version
<BiosElement> http://users.tkk.fi/tkarvine/pre-wrap-css3-mozilla-opera-ie.html
<doctormo> I got it
<BiosElement> Great
<doctormo> So far with this system I'm concerned with: a) Images being converted to pngs, but not originating as pngs, b) translations, c) pdf published format, d) Common Man Editing
<BiosElement> a) Probably a python script can handle that, b) Possible problem but it should be simple enough, c) just a bit more work should solve that d) If needed I volunteer to convert them from .odt or similer format if they get the images to me in a folder.
<doctormo> BiosElement: for d) you'd become a single point of failure and attempting to find the best ways of bringing contributors onboard is important. Hell if people want to edit wiki pages and have them commit in, fine.
<doctormo> But even wiki is not WYSIWYG
<BiosElement> doctormo, Exactly. Which is why I figure most people will be able to learn the format.
<doctormo> This is also good for the blind, because one of my students is blind, I have to make for him text files, html files would be even better.
<BiosElement> And those who won't, I'm willing to convert it over. And if I die tomorrow someone else can. It's not exactly a difficult skill and I'm sure someone could be found to do it.
<BiosElement> I'll also look into some form of WYSIWYG Web Editor later
<doctormo> Is it possible to make odts from these source files?
<BiosElement> Not sure.
<BiosElement> doctormo, http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/119600
<BiosElement> 2007 article
<BiosElement> It's in the repo's python-odtwriter
<doctormo> cool
<BiosElement> command is.
<BiosElement> rst2odt myinput.txt myoutput.odt
<doctormo> Just thinking about ways we could allow _editing_ rather than creation in odt
<BiosElement> Don't think it'll work backwords though
<doctormo> Your the backwards :-)
<BiosElement> heh
<BiosElement> I do think we're making a bit of a mountain outta a mole hill though with the syntax. People learn to edit wikipedia all the time. While it does raise the entry barrier, it's not that big a jump and makes everything much easier once you jump it.
<BiosElement> Oh doctormo It also supports folders if I didn't mention that.
<BiosElement> doctormo, Gotta get some sleep. Do you want me to convert over the rest of your lesson tomorrow?
<doctormo> BiosElement: before you go
<doctormo> BiosElement: I agree with you but with two important conditions, 1) that there exists a barrier with bzr that is too high anyway, binging that down to common man editing will be harder, but is more important, 2) that when editing these files, that the results are tested before commiting, this required syntax tests
<BiosElement> Yeah?
<BiosElement> Of course there would be syntax tests
<doctormo> So one of the things I'm pondering is how to get bzr easier to aquire without the CLI, your task (as well as converting things and doing the pdf and translation research) is to see if there is a syntax checker.
<BiosElement> You never upload untested-broken code to anything but your own experimental repo's
<BiosElement> doctormo, BZR has a great GUI >.>
<doctormo> If I can get aquasition and pushing methods to work without the CLI, then I'll need some editing for the text files
<BiosElement> Olive Bazaar manager or something like that
<doctormo> Yea I just used it, it's not that great, it's a bzr manager, when what I need is a project manager.
<doctormo> That ties heavily into launchpad.
<BiosElement> Don't think we can do a syntax checker because honestly the only way you can tell is by making it and looking at it
<BiosElement> We should just require you make html it and check first
<BiosElement> The core files for that are not that big and we could even make a little python script if  needed to doubleclick make it >.>
<BiosElement> doctormo, http://rst2a.com/ Might be useful
<BiosElement> There's also what looks to be nearly WYSIWYG with Gedit. http://textmethod.com/wiki/ReStructuredTextToolsForGedit
<BiosElement> And a cheetsheet here. http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/user/rst/cheatsheet.txt
<BiosElement> Now I'm off to sleep, I'll log anything here.
<doctormo> BiosElement: Wodnerful
<doctormo> Good work tonight
<BiosElement> Thanks, Night
<switchgirl[H]> hi pleia2
<pleia2> hi switchgirl[H]
<switchgirl[H]> hope your day is ok
<pleia2> it's good, thanks :) hope yours is too
<switchgirl[H]> kinda
<pleia2> interested in contributing to this project?
<switchgirl[H]> is there a way I can learn shell while using windows xp?
<pleia2> if you have a shell account somewhere
<switchgirl[H]> I mean like a lightweight emulation
<pleia2> I don't really know much about windows, but there are some linux environments that can be installed, like cygwin
<pleia2> and google tells me there is a bash port for windows
<pleia2> http://www.google.com/search?q=bash+on+windows
<switchgirl[H]> yeah I am on an eeepc so, looking for something thumbdrivable
<pleia2> pendrivelinux.com is pretty decent for guides on that
<pleia2> http://www.pendrivelinux.com/index.php?s=ubuntu
<switchgirl[H]> thanks
<switchgirl[H]> I should ask elsewhere I guess
<pleia2> yeah, this channel is for actual course development
<pleia2> not many people here for support :)
<switchgirl[H]> oh ok
<switchgirl[H]> in that case may I /msg you ?
<pleia2> yeah, but I'm at work so I am kinda busy
<pleia2> #ubuntu is a better place to find support
<pleia2> and I've never done anything with usb drives ;)
<switchgirl[H]> k, I thought you where American
<pleia2> I am
<pleia2> it's 10:30 AM, I'm at work
<switchgirl[H]> oh. ok
<switchgirl[H]> hopes your having a good day
<switchgirl[H]> do you guys run courses for absolute beginners
<pleia2> yes, you can see our subjects on: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning
<pleia2> but we're course developers, loco teams and ubuntu classroom actually run the courses
<pleia2> right now we're in the development phase
<switchgirl[H]> I understand and I found a more appropriate channel for my questions #ubuntuforums-beginners sorry for hassling you
<pleia2> not a hassle at all :)
<BiosElement> pleia2, Did you see what we worked on earlier?
<pleia2> BiosElement: not really, I need to focus on recruitment and finishing my own course
<pleia2> as long as the barrier to entry is kept low, I don't mind what we use
<BiosElement> Aight, just trying to make sure everyone's in the loop.
<pleia2> and I want to see this get moving soon
<pleia2> we've spent like 6 months planning, I'm getting bored :)
<pleia2> we have people eager to help out, and still we're talking about formats
<pleia2> (and really, I didn't see a problem with odt to pdf)
<BiosElement> Yeah, I could see how that would be frustrating.
<dinda> BiosElement: which course are you working on?
<BiosElement> dinda, I'm working on the "How to write/teach a course" course that really needs a better name >.>
<pleia2> it's actually "how to teach Ubuntu"
<pleia2> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/TeachingTopics
<dinda> BiosElement: how bout something simple like "How to develop courses"
<BiosElement> pleia2, Thanks. Didn't know there was an actual name. doctormo didn't mention it >.>
<pleia2> BiosElement: that wiki page is all yours :)
<BiosElement> dinda, Thanks for the suggestion though.
<pranav1> i need help with installation of ubuntu
<pleia2> pranav1: you'll want to check out #ubuntu
<pranav1> k
<ibuclaw> BiosElement, likewise, not everyone is an effective teacher ;)
<BiosElement> Heh, you did fine.
<pleia2> we should have a team meeting
<pleia2> BiosElement: are you busy tonight?
<pleia2> doctormo_: how about you? meeting tonight?
<pleia2> tonight == 5.5 hours from now
<BiosElement> Shouldn't be but I 'may' be held up at the dentist.
<pleia2> we can make it later if you want
<pleia2> I'll be around all night
<BiosElement> Ahh, maybe in 6.5 hours and It shouldn't be a problem.
<dinda> pleia2: is there a meeting today?
<pleia2> dinda: dunno, doctormo_ wandered off
<pleia2> we didn't have anything planned, but I'm hoping if we can get some people together...
<dinda> pleia2: I've been busy but ready to find out what the stopping points are for you folks
<pleia2> I think right now we are trying to figure out what format to use for course development
<pleia2> doctormo_ is using odt and pdf, which I think is fine
<pleia2> but BiosElement doesn't like it
<dinda> Moodle works best with it's own html but it does seem to prefer html. . .
<dinda> pdfs are okay for final things which need to be printed but then you just get a course that's a bunch of linked pdfs
<pleia2> yeah, so we've been putting the .odt files in bzr and releasing the courses as pdfs generated from that
<pleia2> presumably we'd generate the html from that odt too, for moodle
<pleia2> or go with another format entirely, but the fear is barrier to entry :)
<dinda> anything involving bzr is a serious barrier to entry
<pleia2> BiosElement is working on some super easy instructions
<pleia2> we need something for sharing and revision control
<paultag> I think I am teaching Bash tomorrow afternoon
<paultag> looking forward to it
<pleia2> paultag: do you have a document you're teaching from?
<paultag> pleia2: on meatspace paper.
<paultag> pleia2: I am going to write it up + more after I teach it
<pleia2> paultag: ok cool, let me know if you need help getting it into the format doctormo_ has developed
<paultag> pleia2: its a 1:15 long session, so I am freebasing some of it in class. I am good at that
<paultag> pleia2: Please, I will need help
 * pleia2 nods
<pleia2> doctormo_: I am better at helping, reviewing and recruiting than writing courses
<doctormo_> hey
<pleia2> hey :)
<BiosElement> Hey, I'm around but I've gotta head out in just a bit.
<doctormo_> pleia2: The work done for the formating, it's a kind of research. I want to exlore different ways of formatting.
<doctormo_> pleia2: The problem with odt is that it's bad for translations, bad for modualisation, terrible for centralisation of styles and formatting.
<pleia2> BiosElement, doctormo_, will you both be around at 9EDT?
<pleia2> doctormo_: ah ok
<doctormo_> So keeping an eye out for other ideas I felt was useful.
<BiosElement> pleia2, I should be yes
<doctormo_> I will be
<pleia2> ok, let's discuss then
* pleia2 changed the topic of #ubuntu-learning to: Ubuntu Community Learning Project | https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning | Next Meeting: Monday September 14th @ 9pm EDT (01:00 UTC September 15th) | Support in #ubuntu
<doctormo_> dinda: There may be a way to reduce the barrier to entry for bzr
<dinda> doctormo_: how so?
<doctormo_> dinda: A nautilus plugin and some clever slight of the hand. Basically using XDG directories with a specified Projects directory you display a nautilus button that allows people to get involved with a project. This makes required dirs, stores important information, downloads the development focus and allows downloading of other branches too.
<paultag> doctormo_: pleia2 do we have an example ( completed ) lesson about? I saw one last time I asked, but forgot the link
<doctormo_> paultag: about the bzr stuff?
<paultag> doctormo_: Whatever you have :)
<doctormo_> paultag: There are irc logs and BiosElement is writing it up
<paultag> doctormo_: I'd love to take a peek
<pleia2> paultag: an example of the final lessons? doctormo_ has published several already on his blog
<pleia2> the latest: http://doctormo.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/systems-administration-network-infrastructure/
<paultag> thanks :)
<pleia2> they are all linked to here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning/SystemAdminTopics (have "Done" written after the links)
<paultag> BBL thank you again pleia2
<doctormo_> BiosElement, pleia2: have you seen http://zim-wiki.org/Usage/VersionControl.html ? facinating project.
<Vantrax> good morning all
<bodhi_zazen> 'lo Vantrax
<bodhi_zazen> I see the test server was full
<bodhi_zazen> I made more space
<bodhi_zazen> but I am having problems with dns =(
<Vantrax> thats a good thing, means its getting used:P
<doctormo> Hey Vantrax and bodhi_zazen!
<Vantrax> hi mo
<doctormo> BiosElement is doing some research into possible source formats from which publishing into pdf/html/wiki is possible. Your thoughts please.
<bodhi_zazen> 'lo doctormo
<bodhi_zazen> PDF is nice, but sometimes of poor quality in terms of images
<doctormo> bodhi_zazen: true, depends how it's made of course.
<doctormo> Tonght's meeting should be more about source formats though
<bodhi_zazen> What time is the meeting tonight ?
<doctormo> 9pm EDT
#ubuntu-learning 2009-09-15
<dinda> does anyone here know anything about edubuntu?
<dinda> i.e. anyone use it?
<doctormo> dinda: No, it's not a healthy project from what I've heard. Although that's been from the OLPC guys
<dinda> doctormo: they've tried to get the community team running again but it's been slow
<doctormo> It can be, communities are like that. Although Walter Bender would love to get etoys and sugar working on edubuntu. That's about as much as I know.
<dinda> yes, the olpc and sugar labs aspect is interesting
<dinda> in other news just heard from a guy in the LA area who is starting a non-profit and wants to give Ubuntu sys admin training
<BiosElement> I'm back from the dentist if anyone needs me. Apparently I'll live after a root canal >.>
<doctormo> dinda: Interesting, anything to collaberate?
<dinda> doctormo: I think he will be very interested in helping develop resources
<doctormo> That sounds good
<pleia2> I've spoken to LaserJock some talking about this team and edubuntu
<pleia2> but it seemed like he's got his hands full with the attempt to get the edubuntu community running again, if possible
<doctormo> be back soon
<doctormo> OK back
<doctormo> Ready for meeting
<tiozinho> hi
<doctormo> hi
<pleia2> BiosElement: you about?
<BiosElement> pleia2, Yep
<pleia2> ok, #ubuntu-meeting is free during this upcoming timeslot so we're good
<pleia2> k, we're started :)
<BiosElement> Afraid I've gotta split, I'll read the rest of the meeting logs when I get back.
<pleia2> dinda: let me know if you have any trouble logging in or don't actually have admin (looks like things are fine, though)
<dinda> pleia2: do you know if there is any structure around course numbering yet?
<dinda> pleia2: the shortname or course id fields?
<pleia2> all I know so far is the bzr structure we have
<pleia2> 5 core topics
<pleia2> for instance
<pleia2> |-- systems-admin
<pleia2> |   |-- 01 - command line
<pleia2> |   |-- 02 - computer basics
<pleia2> etc
<pleia2> |-- desktop
<pleia2> |   |-- 01 - desktop familiarity
<pleia2> does that help?
<dinda> okay, so that is something that needs to be addressed - these are the field in the moodle database when you create a new course
<dinda> these are different, think of like college course numbering 101, 102, 303, etc
<dinda> each course has to have  a unique course #
<pleia2> ah ok
<dinda> we use course starting dates like 1001_09142009
<dinda> don't worry, I'll make a list of these and we can discuss them in the next meeting
<dinda> bodhi_zazen may have some experience in that area as well
<pleia2> ok, great :)
<bodhi_zazen> =)
<bodhi_zazen> lolwut
<pleia2> hey bodhi_zazen :)
<pleia2> you missed the meeting!
<pleia2> hehe
<bodhi_zazen> indeed :(
<dinda> bodhi_zazen: howdy!
<bodhi_zazen> good to see you dinda
<bodhi_zazen> and pleia2 =)
<dinda> bodhi_zazen: was just creating a course on Moodle and wondering if you have a schema for course id #s?
<bodhi_zazen> no, I wish I knew moodle better then I do , lol
<dinda> bodhi_zazen: no problem - I'm making a list of things to discuss, decide next meeting
<pleia2> 21:59:47 < dinda> I'll take an action to be here next Monday evening, same bat time to answer any getting started questions
<pleia2> ^^ I'll add this to our schedule
<pleia2> I won't be around (giving a lug presentation) but I'll catch up later
<bodhi_zazen> LUG, nice
* pleia2 changed the topic of #ubuntu-learning to: Ubuntu Community Learning Project | https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning | Next Meeting: Monday September 21th @ 9pm EDT (01:00 UTC September 22th) | Support in #ubuntu
<pleia2> bodhi_zazen: yeah, I'm speaking at a conference next month and am soooooo scared, so I am doing another lug talk
<dinda> pleia2: more talks!  you're so popular
<pleia2> dinda: yeah, people found out I actually will speak if nagged, darn it :)
<pleia2> I should have kept that a secret!
<bodhi_zazen> pleia2: why scared ?
<pleia2> bodhi_zazen: I'm very shy :)
<bodhi_zazen> you will be just fine, better then most I am sure
<bodhi_zazen> you , shy ?
<bodhi_zazen> lol
<dinda> pleia2: so am I!  public speaking is all an act
<pleia2> yeah, turns out I'm actually not that bad at it
<bodhi_zazen> everyone is shy at public speaking, just relax and be yourself
<pleia2> oh no, I'm shy in genral :)
<bodhi_zazen> Public speaking is hard at first, too bad we do not get more exposure in grade / high school
<bodhi_zazen> For me the key is to rehearse the presentation once or twice and be familiar with the topic
<pleia2> I actually had to do a fair amount in high school, had many sleepless nights before presentations
<bodhi_zazen> it is otherwise not too bad
<dinda> I hated public speaking until I started teaching a college course, then had no choice
<dinda> the first time I heard someone ask, "Professor Lopez. . ."  I turned around b/c I didn't think they were referring to me
<bodhi_zazen> lol
<dinda> the first big conference talk was pretty nerve racking though
<pleia2> hehe
<bodhi_zazen> I would not say I hated it, but in my profession I was required to do teaching. I do public speaking professionally now and it is no more difficult then anything else I do
 * pleia2 starts with a little conference :)
<bodhi_zazen> At first I was very nervous and self conscious
<dinda> it helps me if I have a projector or laptop/computer to help hide behind
<pleia2> I need to watch some other people speak, at my last presentation I was like "oh no, I am looking at my laptop too much, I should look at the audience, where are my notes! hmmm I should maybe look at the projection screen and point to stuff?"
<dinda> my big trick is to focus on folks foreheads instead of their eyes
<dinda> to them it looks like you're looking at them but you can still hide and not see theme looking at you
<bodhi_zazen> Men have it easier in that regard, we have to think along similar lines all the time =)
<bodhi_zazen> I try to shift my focus between people every 20-30 seconds
<pleia2> lol
<bodhi_zazen> and if I see people falling asleep, I know I am droning on, which happens often
<bodhi_zazen> so I try to be more lively and / or skip to the next topic
<bodhi_zazen> I encourage questions during my talk as it keeps people more engaged
<pleia2> me too
<pleia2> I also ask questions to the audience
<bodhi_zazen> yes, keep it broad
<pleia2> like my sneaky question in my foss involvement talk, where the answer from everyone is "I was introduced to foss by my dorm buddy"
<bodhi_zazen> I am going to move to the next topic, any questions on the first one ?
<pleia2> and I say "that's the problem! we need fewer people learning about it in dorm rooms! get into the real world!"
<pleia2> :)
<bodhi_zazen> LOL
<bodhi_zazen> I do not think of FOSS when I reflect on lessons learned in dorm rooms
<pleia2> lol
<bodhi_zazen> when I think of FOSS and college days I think Unix Mainframe, the one with the cute terminal with glowing green text
<BiosElement> I'm back now, sorry I vanished earlier
<bodhi_zazen> wb Bis
<bodhi_zazen> BiosElement:
<BiosElement> haha, You were close bodhi :P
<Vantrax> sorry I missed the meeting, had one on at work unfortunately
<Vantrax> Couldnt miss it after having a few weeks off with the new bub
<pleia2> no problem, it was mostly just groundwork for further discussion
<pleia2> we'd sorta been talking about it in here on and off the past few days, I wanted to get some of the key folks together in a more formal setting to start hashing things out
<pleia2> I posted details to the list, so you can catch up :)
<pleia2> dinda: awesome!
<BiosElement> I'm doing some research into formats + CMS/LMS Support for said formats.
<dinda> night all
<BiosElement> Night dinda
<BiosElement> doctormo_, You about?
<doctormo_> BiosElement: yes
<BiosElement> doctormo_, I've looked over DocBook. Quite frankly, I think it's a mess, a step backword and it'd be even more confusing. >.>
<doctormo_> BiosElement: Can you show me an example?
<BiosElement> Oh, and it needs compiled too. >.>
<doctormo_> What I'd like to see is that single class in both formats
<BiosElement> I found the ubuntu community docs on it. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DocBook
<BiosElement> Note that it DOES support make to html, pdf and txt.
<doctormo_> BiosElement: And how easy/possible would it be to convert between DocBook and Sphinx?
<BiosElement> It does however feel to me WAY more complicated to even get started. I've no idea where to even start writing an "beginners guide to docbook".
<BiosElement> doctormo_, I'm not sure. Simple enough but time consuming. Either by hand or a python script to convert it over which we'd have to code.
<BiosElement> Ya know this doc of theirs is already off-putting. Whole section on "HTML and SGML vs. XML"
<BiosElement> And then they say "t doesn't really matter whether you use SGML or XML."
<BiosElement> And I've just gotten to 1.2. of the first section :S
<BiosElement> doctormo_, I found a script posted on the sphinx-dev mailing list to convert from docbook to sphinx.
<doctormo_> interesting, then perhaps it's not so important if things can be converted
<BiosElement> doctormo_, Well maybe not but from what I can tell, docbook is the old tried and tested and sphinx is more up and coming.
<doctormo_> BiosElement: OK, well if we can do a side by side comparision of the same content in both formats it might help picking one and the rationale for it
<BiosElement> I may have to leave that up to someone who's used it before. because the docs are horrible. >.>
<BiosElement> Well wait, I may have it working...Not sure how it worked but I guess it did.
<BiosElement> doctormo_, Question: Do we want to be "writing" docs or do we want to be "coding" docs? Because I feel the docbook is more "code" compared to sphinx. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it is a big deal.
<doctormo_> Depends on how good the GUIs are for both
<BiosElement> GUI? What's that? The best GUI docbook has is code highlighting >.>
<BiosElement> At least from what I've found so far. >.>
<doctormo_> pleia2 might be able to answer that, from what she was describing, it seemed like the best thing since sliced bread. But XML isn't editor friendly
<doctormo_> So I guessed that if pleia2 said it was easy, it must have a gui
<BiosElement> doctormo_, pleia2 I think said something about bluefish which is just syntax highlighting.
<BiosElement> And don't get me wrong, I love highlighting but it's about as user friendly as a plain text doc >.>
<BiosElement> The only real "GUI" I've found so far is proprietary with a "personal" version for free. Closed source. Figures
<doctormo_> If it's XML, then it's less. You have to consider the ability for coruption. Which with XML is higher that plain text, which is usually adaptive to errors.
<doctormo_> Plus XML would be worse for diffs (although not as bad as odf)
<BiosElement> doctormo_, Very much worse for diffs. Honestly I'm trying to like it but...It's xml. It nags you about a single space >.> I've been spoiled by python.
<BiosElement> Add a space with python and it goes "Oh, ok. I'm sure you meant to remove that space so lemme do that for you! Here's what you wanted."
<BiosElement> doctormo_, One thing going for docbook is it's Oreilly's format of choice.
<EricFisher> Hi, if i want ask a question about apt-get? which channel is appropriate? Thanks.
<BiosElement> EricFisher, You're looking for #ubuntu
<EricFisher> thx,8
<BiosElement> doctormo_, This is basically xml docbook format. http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/introduction.xml
<EricFisher> well, too many people in #ubuntu. who knows how to find the source package after install the deb?
<doctormo_> EricFisher: You can use `apt-get source [package-name]` to get the source of any deb that you have installed via the repositories (assuming sources are available)
<EricFisher> i see. but after i installed the package,  does the deb exist in my machine? where is it?
<doctormo_> EricFisher: I see, the downloaded source deb or binary deb?
<EricFisher> binary deb
<doctormo_> EricFisher: /var/cache/apt/archive/
<doctormo_> EricFisher: Are you doing anything interesting with the deb cache?
<EricFisher> no, actually, I just need to get the source file about a deb. but i'm not familiar with it.
<EricFisher> so what about the src deb?  where should it be?
<doctormo_> EricFisher: There is no src deb.
<doctormo_> EricFisher: The debs are either compiled binaries, or tar.gz files with .changes and .debdiff companion files.
<EricFisher> uh, thx
<doctormo_> EricFisher: The best thing to do is to ask in #ubuntu-motu as they deal with apt for development, and I assume that's what your trying to do.
<BiosElement> FYI I'm still toying with docbook
<BiosElement> It does seem to have a huge backing, particularly commercial.
<doctormo_> BiosElement: That was the consideration
<BiosElement> Yeah, Problem is the only reason I see them saying they like it is because they're comparing it to a workflow of .doc's. Also they're mainly using it because it's not likely to vanish quickly. I should also note they use svn which kinda suggests they're not quick on updating things >.>
<BiosElement> My opinion is that docbook is just going to make things stupidly complex. You even need tags for paragraphs...
<doctormo_> BiosElement: Continue working on the sphinx workflow, if it can be made easy enough, then we can use that and it doesn't matter since it looks like it's possible to move to docbook and back anyway.
<doctormo_> BiosElement: One thing I would say, what do you think to seperating out each section into it's own file?
<BiosElement> Seen my latest bzr push about 15 hours ago?
<doctormo_> prob not
<BiosElement> Each class gets it's own folder, each section also get's it's own folder and inside that there's the section index + images folder for that section
<doctormo_> BiosElement: I notice pngs are still there. >:-)
<BiosElement> >.>
<BiosElement> I'm off. and pleia2 or someone from the docs team or whoever likes docbook needs to explain why paragraph tags are not a bad thing. If that's a non-issue then I'll support whatever is chosen. Otherwise I don't see the point in docbook.
<BiosElement> Off to sleep now. Lemme know what you think.
<doctormo_> BiosElement: did you go?
<doctormo_> damn ages ago
<doctormo> Anyway I've sent a message documenting revised structure
<pleia2> doctormo: I never said DocBook was easy, I said I'd dabbled with it once before a few years ago and I'd be willing to learn it
<pleia2> and it was dinda who used bluefish, I only ever used vim (which supports docbook syntax highlighting)
<pleia2> my point was that it's pretty much a foss standard for documentation development, so there are tools that support it, lots of ways to export it to other formats, lots of people are familiar with it, or, who, like myself feel it's a valuable skill to have
<doctormo> pleia2: I agree, having it as reliable format is important and hell it's designed for this purpos. Plus there is a script to turn it into sphinx if we find that produces different, more interesting outputs.
<doctormo> pleia2: We'd need to have a strong policy on checking the docbook xml format for correctness and formating (for best diffs), which can be added to bzr
<pleia2> we should see what other teams do
<doctormo> bbl
<BiosElement> pleia2, Apologies if I mixed up who suggested docbook, I was not entirely sure.
<dinda> BiosElement: i think i mentioned it was currenlty being used by the Doc team and others
<dinda> Btw - I've received three leads on Moodle helpers!  :)
<BiosElement> Great!
<BiosElement> FYI pleia2 dinda Docbook files can be converted to .pot files with xml2pot apparentlty.
<pleia2> yeah, docbook can be converted to pretty much anything :)
<BiosElement> pleia2, I noticed. I'm not sure I like it, mostly because it's xml but it does have it's strong points.
<dinda> BiosElement: I'm totally with you.  I hate docbook but like the things it does.  We use it for the Desktop course materials.
<dinda> it was not a fun process learning it either
<BiosElement> dinda, I've got no problem learning it and writing a how-to course, but if it'll take that much work then there needs to be strong advantages >.>
<dinda> BiosElement: biggest advantage is that the format plays well with Bzr, you can mix and match chapters/sections, and easy to translate via po files
<BiosElement> dinda, the po files are the only real advantage over anything else though chapters/sections may be useful
<dinda> BiosElement: several folks last night mentioned revision control - so if you want RCS and BZR then docbook also makes that easy but any xml schema will do that as well
<dinda> Moodle has no default RCS
<BiosElement> dinda, I didn't even consider moodle an option for the docs because of that. The other option Sphinx has the same advantage with RCS
<dinda> either way, those are just more barriers to entry. . .if someone wanted to create a course directly in Moodle, they should be able to - it was designed for a low barrier
<dinda> if the team/project decides they want to use RCS or any other format other than someone typing directly into the Moodle html editor, then you start raising that barrier
<BiosElement> dinda, I get what your saying but bzr and whatever we choose won't have a high entry level. We're not talking about a beginner off the street can write courses. It's safe to assume anyone who has something valuable to teach won't mind spending 15 minutes figuring the system out.
<dinda> BiosElement: Bzr takes more than 15 minutes!
<BiosElement> dinda, IRC lessons do, but a single page guide wouldn't take 15min to read and understand.
<dinda> BiosElement: for non-technical folks it is a HUGE barrier, trust me
<BiosElement> As is docbook and moodle. >.>
<dinda> correct, which is why a kiss method of just having folks create the courses within Moodle should be an option
<pleia2> good idea :)
<pleia2> I really do like the pdf deployed ones too, so maybe we can have multiple ways of contributing? the long route for high-quality docbook-happy ones, and also an option to contribute directly through moodle (giving some of us the opportunity to convert to docbook later if we want)
<L1nUX1z3R> hi
<L1nUX1z3R> what was the last topic?
<BiosElement> Eh, I thought the point of this was to keep one standard format, not going right back to having 30 different ways of doing everything >.>
<sharath> there
<sharath> hie
<pleia2> hi
<bharath> Hey sharath
<doctormo> dinda, BiosElement, have you guys been debating this morning?
<BiosElement> Ahh, yeah. Between docbook/moddle and bzr/sphinx basically
<doctormo> I'm leaning towards bzr/moodle/docbook myself right now.
<doctormo> I know dinda doesn't like the idea of devel on bzr, but it can be made eaiser.
<BiosElement> One thing I should note real quick
<BiosElement> Is that docbook is an xml format, not indended for reading in pure text while sphinx was designed to be readable in both .rst/.txt and .html/.pdf.
<BiosElement> Wow, I really have to say docbook is the same as editing xml files by hand...Which is painful :S
<pleia2> BiosElement: might want to ask some doc people who use it what editors they use
<pleia2> it doesn't have to be edited by hand
<BiosElement> pleia2, I've been looking into that. The only GUI editor I could find died back in 2005 and is very crash prone. >.>
<pleia2> lyx?
<dinda> Bluefish works
<pleia2> this is the page the Training team put some editor ideas: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Training/Tools
<BiosElement> pleia2, I'll look into it. I'm currently poking through the docteam's pages on the ubuntu wiki. Lots of 404 pages >.>
<pleia2> oh yes, bluefish seems to work nicely
<BiosElement> Yeah, I saw that pleia2. It basically sums up what I thought already.
<pleia2> BiosElement: you can probably also ask in #ubuntu-doc
<BiosElement> pleia2, Will do.
<BiosElement> Bluefish is pretty decent.
<BiosElement> I still can't stop thinking that this is going to be difficult for people to figure out >.>
<pleia2> is sphinx really that much easier?
<pleia2> if it is, that's fine, it's why I asked
<BiosElement> pleia2, Lemme show you a sphinx file real quick.
<pleia2> no need (I'm at work anyway) I'm just asking :)
<pleia2> the reason I suggested docbook was the whole "If we're going to make contributors use a format, have them use a popular one"
<pleia2> but if it's really that awful, we don't have to
<BiosElement> Ahh, I just think sphinx is much cleaner to format. It also does not use xml style tags and can be read from .txt format as easily as from .html or .pdf
<BiosElement> pleia2, According to the wiki, docteam recommends gedit. Which is text-highlighting >.>
<pleia2> do you want me to go into #ubuntu-doc and ask them? :)
<pleia2> they are friendly, I promise!
<BiosElement> haha, You can. Iwas going to but got distracted by the wiki docs >.<
<pleia2> oh, I can't right now
<pleia2> I'll have to do it later, or tomorrow
<BiosElement> Well i will then.
<BiosElement> doctormo, are you about?
<BiosElement> Question: Which is more important? Simple Syntax & Shorter Learning Curve or XML Standard Syntax + 14-15 years of use + conformity with the current ubuntu doc team's standards?
<dinda> BiosElement: trick question, depends on your priorties. . .
<BiosElement> dinda, I know it is. I'm just trying to layout the pro's/cons as simply as possible.
<dinda> BiosElement: doc team is about to change
<BiosElement> What do you mean?
<dinda> BiosElement: they are looking possibly going with the new system that upstream GNOME is transtitioning over to - mallard, I believe
<dinda> BiosElement: but the question is worth asking, how much of their material can be reused in the learning project
<dinda> if so, then compatiblity is important, if not, then what they do doesn't matter
<BiosElement> dinda, I'm not thinking re-use, I'm thinking more that the tasks are generally the same and so we may as well teach people a skill that will benifit them or they may already know from past work
<dinda> The biggest problem always seems to be in getting folks to develop course materials - so making that as easy as possible seem key - imho
<dinda> BiosElement: even on the doc team there are relatively few key contirbutors who know the toolchain really well. . .
<dinda> BiosElement: this is an issue that comes up regularly as the learning curve for new contributors keeps participation low from even enthusiastic new potential contributors
<BiosElement> It'd be nice if someone would volunteer to try out sphinx and tell me how hard they think it is >.>
<dinda> BiosElement: is it a wiki page I can just edit?
<BiosElement> No, first you create a .rst file and edit it as a .txt with the styling, then you run "make html" on the makefile. I can get you my bzr branch with everything setup if you want
<dinda> BiosElement: I got 30 minutes as I play teaching assistant for a live course - point me in the right direction
<BiosElement> Just a sec dinda
<BiosElement> The bzr branch is lp:~williamchambers/ubuntu-learning-materials/sphnixformat
<BiosElement> You will need to install a couple packages, let me go get the names
<dinda> BiosElement: I can already tell you, when you start sending me to Bzr for things, there's an issue but I'll play along for testing purposes ;)
<BiosElement> hehe, I'll make a template file in a zip if we decide to use it
<dinda> BiosElement: there's your first test - how many steps does it take to get me started?
<BiosElement> Download the template, run a single console command to install packages, edit the file as you want, cd to the directory and run "make html" - done
<BiosElement> And that last step can be done with a python script
<BiosElement> Command is sudo apt-get install python-sphinx
<BiosElement> That should get you everything you need.
<dinda> installing
<dinda> install complete
<BiosElement> Great
<BiosElement> I'd recommend after you bzr it to go to the systems-admin folder. The "build" folder is where all the html ends up and the makefile is in the systems-admin directory.
<BiosElement> Again a python script can make that a doubleclick
<dinda> BiosElement: what do you mean by "bzr it"?
<BiosElement> bzr branch lp:~williamchambers/ubuntu-learning-materials/sphnixformat
<BiosElement> Sorry I wasn't very clear
<dinda> BiosElement: you gotta think in terms of steps, as in step 1, open a terminal and run this command, step 2. ???
<BiosElement> I'll write up a quick guide then >.>
<dinda> so step 2 is:  after the install is complete, type this command:  bzr branch lp:~williamchambers/ubuntu-learning-materials/sphnixformat  ??
<BiosElement> Yes
<dinda> step 3.  enter you pass key into the resulting popup window
<dinda> step 4 - cd to ?? where
<BiosElement> I just typed it up a tad differently
<BiosElement> cd ~/Desktop
<BiosElement> bzr branch lp:~williamchambers/ubuntu-learning-materials/sphnixformat
<BiosElement> You will now have a folder on your desktop named sphnixformat. Inside you will find other courses. Each course folder has it's own makefile which you can run by typing
<BiosElement> cd ~/Desktop/sphinxformat/<coursefoldername>
<BiosElement> make html
<BiosElement> There. It'll be better once I get the template course made.
<dinda> step 5 - cd ~/Desktop - done
<dinda> step 6 - bzr branch lp:~williamchambers/ubuntu-learning-materials/sphnixformat   done
<BiosElement> I recommend the system-admin course because that's what we've gotten the most work done on currently
<dinda> step 7 - cd ~/Desktop/sphnixformat/systems-admin
<dinda> step 8 - make.html
<dinda> BiosElement: step 8 - command not found
<BiosElement> No ',' And you do that whenever you want to see the html formatting. After I started I only did it about twice to double check
<BiosElement> *No '.'
<dinda> okay, i've got the files - how do I edit with sphnix?
<dinda> BiosElement: you've got 2 minutes ;)
<BiosElement> heh, in the systems-admin/source/01-commandline folder there's a index.rst file. You can open that with any text editor and start editing.
<BiosElement> ### underlines are level 1 headers, *** underlines are level 2 headers, surround words with *one* asterisk for italics, **two* * for bold, and so forth.
<dinda> BiosElement: wow - that's ugly text
<BiosElement> >.>
<dinda> BiosElement: have you seen the flossmanuals site?  ;)
<BiosElement> Do I want too? :P
<BiosElement> Ahh yes, Twiki.
<dinda> it's a wiki-based editing/publishing environment for FLOSS manuals
<BiosElement> The project that had a takeover by the copyright owner
<dinda> BiosElement: which project?  the whole FM one? or a certain title?
<BiosElement> The Twiki project. Last I heard they were making a branch after the "owner" banned all the devs from the site because they didn't want him to make a commercial version
<BiosElement> Not sure I'd want to start a project with Twiki just because I'm not sure how active it is anymore.
<BiosElement> Simply put the doc team are developing a system "just" for the yelp powered docs so I don't think it'll be very easy to apply for our uses
<BiosElement> Although I will note that it looks totally awesome
<doctormo> BiosElement: I'm trying to think about the problem some more. To me DocBook xml is attractive as a source format simply because it is xml, it's controlable and elements can be structured from a computer-editing standpoint.
<doctormo> Although human editing suffers it
<BiosElement> doctormo, Here's further food for thought
<BiosElement> The doc team is jumping ship from docbook
<BiosElement> http://www.gnome.org/~shaunm/quack/mallard.xml
<BiosElement> The bottom has some of their reasons
<dinda> BiosElement: yes, I met with ShaunM  this summer at a conference
<BiosElement> Yeah, he's put alot of thought into it and basically summed up my complaints
<dinda> BiosElement: he and the whole GNOME doc team - all 4 of them were trying to figure out how to make it easier for newbs
<BiosElement> Yeah
<BiosElement> Their solution is at least 6 months away from 1.0 and I'm not sure we'd be able to use it but it does look interesting.
 * dinda recalls there was some beer drinking involved in that weekend so I'm a bit fuzzy on my mallard recollections. . .
<dinda> there were woolly mammoths as well as ducks too . .
<BiosElement> hehe
<dinda> but yes, they have done some awesome work and are really good folks to work with
<BiosElement> Here's the question though. Will we really gain from xml doctormo or is it just something "nice" to have?
<doctormo> BiosElement: Well ShaunM seems to think it's a core part of being able to mix and match sections, and I have to agree.
<doctormo> But more than that, it's more likely that we'd be able to write a simple gtk based tool for doing the editing.
<BiosElement> With docbook or Mallard?
<doctormo> BiosElement: Either TBH
<BiosElement> And FYI, I'll look into a script to convert docbook/mallard/xml to sphinx. Shouldn't be difficult and may come in handy.
<doctormo> Yep
<BiosElement> EclipseIDE may have xml editing too
<BiosElement> doctormo, http://i32.tinypic.com/9sc8qb.png
<BiosElement> I scared him away! man I'm awesome at doing that >.>
#ubuntu-learning 2009-09-16
<BiosElement> Welcome back doctormo
<doctormo> Thanks BiosElement
<doctormo> any news?
<BiosElement> Well docbook seems to be the way to go though the syntax is overly complex + it doesn't have an awesome built in ajax powered search >.>
<BiosElement> Be nice if we could get a final decision though. I still feel docbook is several times harder to edit but if we're looking at designing a GUI it'd be easier to work with.
<doctormo> BiosElement: Sometimes I wish I could just design the apps and have somone else program them ;-)
<BiosElement> haha, I never said we would. but if we have any intention of doing so docbook might be somewhat easier. Then again sphinx is in python so really it's a tossup.
<doctormo> Well there is the project stuff to do first, not only for UCLP but also because it'd be useful to the wider community too.
<BiosElement> doctormo, Not sure I'm following you. Project stuff?
<BiosElement> doctormo, This is the same bit of the System Admin's Course that I converted to Sphinx only it's in DocBook. http://pastebin.com/d7bea2e39
<BiosElement> It took me about 18 minutes to do that.
<BiosElement> doctormo, Let me know when you're back and have a sec
<BiosElement> Well, I think we have consensus. DocBook or at the very least an XML based format is best. I've just asked three non-techy people what they thought was easier to read and all three said the DocBook format.
<doctormo> BiosElement: back for a second
<BiosElement> doctormo, Are you around?
<pleia2> oh hey, a board member should reply to dinda's email
<pleia2> I won't be around Monday
<pleia2> maybe I'll just speak for everyone
<BiosElement> Oh great
<pleia2> hey BiosElement :)
<BiosElement> Hey pleia2
<doctormo> pleia2: what email/
<pleia2> the direct one to all of us with subject [UCLP] Searching for Moodle course developer for Ubuntu Learning Project
<pleia2> she sent it to all board members, along with steve and mark who can help us with moodle :)
<doctormo> OK
<doctormo> I got that one
<dinda> doctormo: and another person emailed me today offering Moodle help
<jfluhmann> dinda, have you found some Moodle people?
<dinda> jfluhmann: yes, several have come forth :)
<jfluhmann> ah, good
<dinda> jfluhmann: we can always use more though
<jfluhmann> dinda, I replied to your FB message with a person
<dinda> jfluhmann: yes, received that, thanks
<stlsaint> lo all
<jfluhmann> dinda, I can install and set it up all day long, but that's as far as I go ;-)  (never tried to setup a course)
<dinda> jfluhmann: two guys from the SW washington school district offered to help
<dinda> one has tons of experience training teachers to use Moodle
<jfluhmann> dinda, nice!
<dinda> and today this guy emailed me as well:  http://k12opensourcehelp.com/about-me
<jfluhmann> dinda, at some point I'd like to get involved with training, so I may ping you some time down the road
<dinda> jfluhmann: that would be great
<dinda> jfluhmann: do by any chance know Ken Trask from the TCEA Moodle project?
<jfluhmann> yep, Ken Task is a member of our Strategic Open Source SIG under TCEA (I'm the current President)
<dinda> jfluhmann: really!  you're the Pres?  I'm so out of date
<dinda> jfluhmann: do you guys have any regular meetings or events?  or just TCEA convention?
<jfluhmann> dinda, I'm the Pres of the SOS-SIG (however, I haven't been involved with the TCEA Moodle project yet)
<jfluhmann> dinda, we have quarterly meetings, one of which is at the TCEA convention
<dinda> jfluhmann: great - I'm trying to get back involved in all things TCEA
<jfluhmann> dinda, great!  Are you going to the convention in Feb?
<jfluhmann> the meeting at the convention is when we do the officer change-over
<dinda> jfluhmann: not sure yet as my technically my job/work is in training and not education. . .for the moment anyways
<jfluhmann> dinda, ah, I see
<jfluhmann> well, I'm out for the day, but I'll catch back up with you later, dinda
<dinda> jfluhmann:ok, thanks
#ubuntu-learning 2009-09-17
<pleia2> ok, well we need to reply to this email
<pleia2> BiosElement: will be you around monday evening?
<pleia2> anyone else, Vantrax? bodhi_zazen?
<pleia2> these are actual professionals who are offering to help us learn moodle :)
<Vantrax> hi:P
<pleia2> Vantrax: any comments on dinda's email w/ steve?
<Vantrax> Ill try and be around, time is a little more awkward for me
<Vantrax> Im keen on getting them involved
<pleia2> ok, good
<BiosElement> pleia2, Yes, I should be.
<Vantrax> If they can help us learn permissiosns and structures for moodle its all going to be a big gain for us
 * pleia2 nods
<pleia2> cprofitt!
<pleia2> are you going to be available early monday evening for some moodle guys to teach us things?
<pleia2> we need to reply to this email :)
<cprofitt> pleia2,
<cprofitt> I have a meeting for NY Loco
<pleia2> ah, ok
<cprofitt> what do they want to teach us?
<pleia2> well, hopefully doctormo will be around
<pleia2> oh, you weren't on the email
<cprofitt> I am fairly proficient in it -- I have created a 'production' course in it already
<pleia2> "I'd be happy to go over how we have setup roles and permissions in our
<pleia2> District with regard to course creators and teachers, I don't know how
<pleia2> close the setup would be to what you require.  Mark has plenty of
<pleia2> experience of course setup, how to setup permissions for "student"
<cprofitt> no... I was not on the email.
<pleia2> access etc."
<BiosElement> Good news on the docbook front, I may have found a "best of both worlds" system
<BiosElement> asciidoc supports text files being converted into docbook format. It's used by the Linux kernel, Battle for Wesnoth, Some docs for git, WeeChat and Mercurial.
<BiosElement> I don't think I like the format as well as restructured text but it still looks like a vast improvement.
<BiosElement> If anyone's around, I'm looking over moodle themes and would like some opinions.
<BiosElement> doctormo, Got a few?
<doctormo> sure, just writing a blog post about narative anthropological social stories ;-)
<BiosElement> I found a sorta good solution for docbook
<BiosElement>  asciidoc supports text files being converted into docbook format. It's used by the Linux kernel, Battle for Wesnoth, Some docs for git, WeeChat and Mercurial.
<BiosElement> I don't think I like the format as well as restructured text but it still looks like a vast improvement.
<doctormo> Sounds good
<doctormo> And I like the idea that it's used for many existing projects
<BiosElement> Yeah, Seems to be pretty popular. I also assume not many projects advertise it since they just distribute docbook format
<doctormo> Certainly interesting, how easy is it to do images, code and cli snips and other things/
<doctormo> ?
<BiosElement> "blocks" are simple, Images are easy,
<BiosElement> Even supports code highlighting
<BiosElement> Oh, and ascii doc is in the ubuntu repo's also
<doctormo> good
<doctormo> So, this oh so easy format has a comparative document you've been working on? *I know, I know I've already gotten you to write a docbook doc*
<BiosElement> haha, No it doesn't yet. I was busy toying with moodle. However I do have a ton of examples from other projects
<BiosElement> http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/index.txt
<BiosElement> ^Source
<BiosElement> http://www.methods.co.nz/asciidoc/index.html
<BiosElement> Result
<BiosElement> Holy cow, that was easy!
<BiosElement> I just tried it, 3 lines, worked outta the box
<doctormo> What did/
<BiosElement> asciidoc
<BiosElement> I mean I had 3 lines and told it to run, it ran with a ton of errors because of missing sections and such but it ran and looked fine
<BiosElement> doctormo, Done. >.>
<doctormo> BiosElement: that was easy
<BiosElement> That's what I said >.>
<BiosElement> http://pastebin.com/m64534341
<BiosElement> That's what it looks like
<BiosElement> Oh and doctormo AsciiDoc is written in python >.>
<BiosElement> Supports custom syntax and such also
<doctormo> heh
<BiosElement> Seems to me the best mix
<BiosElement> Gives us the "standard" of docbook but the easy of writing that sphinx had.
<BiosElement> Heck, we even have quote blocks >.>
<BiosElement> Which apparently docbook always had but no one actually knew the syntax to use them
<BiosElement> Anything else you need before I head off doctormo ?
<doctormo> nope, your've done awesomness, now for sleep?
<BiosElement> Yep. Oh and speaking of which, I installed moodle on my server to toy with. We need to get better icons but otherwise the default "standardlogo" theme is perfect for our uses.
<BiosElement> doctormo, a2x - convert Asciidoc text file to PDF, XHTML, HTML Help, manpage or plain text
<BiosElement> ^So we can do all those without even converting to docbook
<BiosElement> Anyway, I'm off for the night. Lemme know if you need anything else.
<doctormo> BiosElement: Good night
<pleia2> doctormo: will you be around early monday evening?
<pleia2> we still haven't replied to these nice people offering to help us, we need to :)
<doctormo> pleia2: I should be, there is a meeting
<doctormo> pleia2: Also like your opinion on AsciiDoc
<pleia2> we kinda need to commit to something
<pleia2> I'm not telling them "yes, please take time out of your busy schedule to come teach us" based on "should be"
<pleia2> especially since I know I won't be there
<pleia2> BiosElement was similarly non-committal
<pleia2> as was vantrax
<doctormo> pleia2: I commit to learning from them, I'll be there.
<pleia2> ok, thank you :)
<doctormo> non-commital seems to be the meme of ubuntu-learning
<pleia2> yeah, which is a problem when we are asking for professionals to help us
<doctormo> How goes the desktop class btw?
<pleia2> as I said the other day I've been focusing on recruitment, organization and review
<pleia2> so the version in bzr is the same as it was last week
<pleia2> ok, the email says these guys will be around 3:30-5 Pacific, which is 6:30-8 our time
<doctormo> ok, it's good because recruitment, organisation and review all need attention too :-)
<doctormo> I have to wonder if all community things are this baddly organised or is it just the doctormo effect.
<pleia2> I don't think we're *that* badly organized
<pleia2> we get volunteers frequently, we have lots of people now offering moodle help
<pleia2> we even have people ready to write some courses :)
<pleia2> which - process aside - we should talk about some
<pleia2> paultag wants to write a bash one, I think asking people who are actually teaching things now to write the "overview-sheet" and give us some notes for the practical-sheet would be great, we (I) can generate a course based on those things
<pleia2> I think you worry a lot about controlling the flow of courses, which is valid, but there will be style inconsistancies in this kind of project, it's unavoidable, and we need to accept that and work with it :)
<pleia2> if someone wants to write a class we should let them, and fit it in somewhere
<pleia2> anyway
 * pleia2 works
<doctormo> pleia2: I agree, if people want to write thigns in odf, or docbook or what ever, then they should be encouraged to do so. We can always convert things.
* pleia2 changed the topic of #ubuntu-learning to: Ubuntu Community Learning Project | https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Learning | Moodle Training Session: Monday September 21st @ 7PM EDT (23:00 UTC); Next Meeting: Monday September 21st @ 9pm EDT (01:00 UTC September 22nd) | Support in #ubuntu
<doctormo> dinda: I'm having a lot of fun with this project manager gui :-)
<dinda> doctormo: which gui is that?
<doctormo> dinda: http://imagebin.ca/view/ZHzeWAls.html this one, the one that allows you to add bzr branches without using the cli
<BiosElement> doctormo_, Had a chance to poke around with asciidoc yet?
<doctormo_> BiosElement: Not much, been weaving magic
<BiosElement> Ahh, sounds fun
#ubuntu-learning 2009-09-18
<BiosElement> doctormo_, Is it safe to assume we've settled on docbook/asciidoc or did we want to look over that further?
<pleia2> hey guys, can we use the test site?
<BiosElement> pleia2, I've no idea. I don't see why not?
<BiosElement> If you need a test site to play around with and break, I've got one I setup to play around with.
<pleia2> I don't know if it's fully functional
<BiosElement> Speaking of which pleia2 Did you hear about asciidoc yet?
<pleia2> BiosElement: nope! do tell :)
<BiosElement> Basically it gives us the advantages of docbook and the ease of use that sphinx had with restructured text. Lets us write the course in plain ascii txt files and then convert it to docbook/html/pdf/pot and just about anything else.
<pleia2> cool :)
<pleia2> I like
<pleia2> example?
<BiosElement> Sure, just a sec
<BiosElement> http://pastebin.com/m64534341
<pleia2> BiosElement: I just added you on the Cc: of this discussion with some guys who are offering to help us with moodle :)
<pleia2> they use it for real, at a school! they're the ones who will drop by monday evening
 * pleia2 points at /topic for "Moodle Training Session"
<BiosElement> Yep, I heard about that.
<pleia2> please reply to all on the email if you have any thoughts about what to ask these guys while we have the opportunity to pick their brains :)
<pleia2> I just made stuff up
<pleia2> doctormo_: you toO!
<pleia2> morning Vantrax :)
<BiosElement> haha, Aight. I've been playing around on a test bed install and it looks like it'll be workable enough once configured
<Vantrax> yeah.... morning... ZZzzz
<Vantrax> Im discovering new depths of sleep deprivation lately...
<pleia2> I did that earlier this month
<pleia2> seemed like a good idea at the time
 * BiosElement is working on getting onto an everyman cycle...4 hours of sleep a day >.>
<pleia2> but I suppose yours wasn't so self-inflicted :)
<Vantrax> pleia2: you know anything about kerberos?
<pleia2> Vantrax: nope, sorry
<Vantrax> ahh well worth a try:P
<Vantrax> the university is switching from novell to ad, so im having a hell of a time
<pleia2> ugh, sorry to hear that :(
<Vantrax> yeah
<Vantrax> i have the auth working for one domain, but the student logins inherit logins from the staff domain too.. and that is causing problems
<Vantrax> need to cross authenticate
<Vantrax> with means capaths
<pleia2> oh yuck
<Vantrax> which means headaches
<pleia2> yeah
<Vantrax> on the other hand i might be presenting all of this at linux.conf.au
<Vantrax> well presenting how we develop and manage large scale linux deployments
<pleia2> we kinda booed the guy who presented on using ad to manage everything at the ukuug spring conference
<pleia2> first talk at this unix lisa-like conference was about AD?!
<Vantrax> well when you hit network you really have to use novel/ldap or AD
<doctormo_> back
<pleia2> the openldap talks were received much better :)
<Vantrax> and btw Kerberos, the core of AD is FOSS and AD Domains can be run via the MIT Kerberos server side app without windows
<pleia2> doctormo_: if you could pipe up in this discussion with Steve about what you want to learn that'd be great :)
<doctormo_> pleia2: Hey, digging people out of Active Directory and Share Point and all those other demons. That's why the sys admin course had LDAP and Karberos as two sections (not very well done, but a start)
<pleia2> doctormo_: that's right! :)
<BiosElement> doctormo_, The HTML generated by asciidoc works outta the box even without any extra CSS added to moodle
<BiosElement> doctormo_, Around?
<doctormo_> BiosElement: back
<BiosElement> doctormo_, HTML generated works perfectly besides for some CSS styling
<doctormo_> BiosElement: I'd still like to have the pow-a to style it!
<doctormo_> Yes, yes, I read it :-P
<BiosElement> haha
<doctormo_> OK so we have out set of different formats with their positives and negatives. Now that we have some solid data about what features are there, we should put it to some kind of a vote.
 * doctormo_ thanks BiosElement very warmly for doing the research
<BiosElement> Yep. Oh, and I'm looking into Qt+Python for a cross-platform bzr system
<doctormo> BiosElement: Bah, don't find something before I've put my work to good use, I've done a lot of exciting things today and I wouldn't like them made pointless by something already written.
<BiosElement> haha, Aight :P
<pleia2> ah, ignorance is bliss :)
<doctormo> pleia2: It's talk like a pirate day tomorrow, don't you just wish you didn't know that :-p
<pleia2> doctormo: not tomorrow, saturday :)
<doctormo> pleia2: Tomorrow from tomorrow... or tomorrow UTC
<pleia2> fair enough :)
<pleia2> and yes, same day as software freedom day!
<doctormo> Nice
<pleia2> but dressing as pirates during software freedom day probably sends the wrong message
<pleia2> "here, have free software, from pirates, hmm..."
<BiosElement> *cough* That's a bad combo :P
<pleia2> yeah
<doctormo> pleia2: Yah! you can take me life, but ye canna take me FREEDOM!
<pleia2> lol
<doctormo> Doesn't really go down with the do it yourself, killing anyone who gets in the way attatude of traditional pirates.
<BiosElement> So doctormo When do you want to hold that vote?
<pleia2> right now, go
<doctormo> pleia2: You sure you don't want to present some findings to Vantrax, cprofit and bodi too?
<pleia2> doctormo: I wasn't actually being serious
<pleia2> maybe at our next meeting?
<pleia2> I will still be out, but I can leave my vote with someone
<BiosElement> haha
<doctormo> BiosElement: If you could just conclude your research on the mailing list with each format (including odf, docbook, sphinx and asciidoc) examples and the main positives and negatives of each one. Then we can have a proper vote at the next (or next next) meeting.
<doctormo> I ask because I don't want a vote on vauge feelings and nostalgia.
<BiosElement> doctormo, Will do
 * doctormo goes to bed
<pleia2> night doctormo
<BiosElement> Night doctormo
<doctormo> Thanks a _lot_ BiosElement, your a champion.
<BiosElement> Darn you pleia2 Beat me by one second >.>
<Gen1us2k> hi all
<Raidsong> hello
<doctormo> dinda: Your Thoughts: http://doctormo.blip.tv/file/2618440/
<geekbuntu>  all: good morning - i have a new install of ubuntu 9,04 64bit - system/preference/remote desktop is setup when i log into it remotely i do not have control over the input devices - can anyone make any suggestions?
<doctormo> geekbuntu: The best place to go is #ubuntu-signpost or #ubuntu, this channel is for educational materials creation.
<geekbuntu> ok - tyvm
<pleia2> doctormo: neat!
<doctormo> pleia2: Would this be something you would find useful?
<pleia2> doctormo: authentication is what I found most difficult
<pleia2> so this + additional portion for push w/ easy LP auth would be perfect
<doctormo> pleia2: I figured that would be the next step
<pleia2> doctormo: yeah :)
<doctormo> pleia2: The test is to have a blank ubuntu install and move from there
<pleia2> yeah, I use virtualbox for testing
<doctormo> As you know from the PXE boot stuff, me too
 * pleia2 nods
<BiosElement> Wow, Finally another good ubuntu theme >.< Hanso got shipped in the karmic community-themes package. Actually pretty good.
<johnyO> hmm not much learning going on here
<pleia2> johnyO: we do course development :)
<doctormo> johnyO: depends, I'm learning a lot
<pleia2> and there is plenty of that happening!
<johnyO> Next course is at 8 on monday?
<doctormo> For the moodle stuff yes
<BiosElement> doctormo, I think this may be useful to point course writers too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better
<doctormo> BiosElement: Interesting article
<BiosElement> Yeah, that's what I figured
<BiosElement> I just found out that WeeChat also uses asciidoc >.>
<pleia2> why is that ">.>"?
<pleia2> I thought that's good!
<BiosElement> Because I'd been reading these docs just last week and never noticed until just today it was asciidoc
#ubuntu-learning 2009-09-19
<BiosElement> doctormo_, I sent the summery of course format options off to the mailing list.
<pleia2> BiosElement: you rock! :)
<BiosElement> pleia2, Thanks.Be sure to let me know if I missed anything.
<pleia2> sure
<doctormo_> BiosElement: You deserve whole plate of cookies, well done :-)
<BiosElement> Ahh, thanks doctormo_
<BiosElement> doctormo, DocBook had some support for exporting to .pot files. None of the others had any kind of translation besides manually.
<doctormo> BiosElement: Pot exports are a fundermental requirement if we want to do this right, although as pleia2 said, we could get too bogged down in the hows and not get stuck into writing some of this stuf.
<BiosElement> Exactly. Like I said, DocBook can be transformed into basically any format there is
<doctormo> BiosElement: Yes but can asciidoc convert into docbook?
<BiosElement> doctormo, Of course, that's the whole point of asciidoc.
<doctormo> Then asciidoc can make pot files, it's as simple as that :-D
<BiosElement> haha yes
<doctormo> I'm doing a lightning talk tomorrow at the Boston (FSF HQ Party) for Software Freedom Day :-)
<doctormo> It
<doctormo> It's going to be on FOSS Economics :-) I have a small 5 slide thing if you want to see?
<BiosElement> Ahh, sure. I'm currently neck deep in trying to get thunderbird b3 to stop being stupid and taking up 30% of my screen with 4 lines of header info >.<
<doctormo> sent,,,
<doctormo> I might go offline for a second
<BiosElement> Aight
<BiosElement> doctormo, Looks good to me
<pleia2> oh, can you put images in asciidoc?
<BiosElement> Yes
<pleia2> ok good :)
<BiosElement> Oh and just a thought, I think all user contributions to the moodle site should be under the same license as well. As in, any comments etc only excluding pm's. This way teachers could also use other info from the site.
<doctormo_> BiosElement: It's worth having that documented on the website, you have to specify that as terms and conditions
<BiosElement> doctormo_, Yes, Exactly. I just was thinking that it would just save hassle later on.
<doctormo_> aye
<BiosElement> Oh,  I should also mention that AsciiDoc supports custom formatting also >.>
<BiosElement> Heh, there's a talk about reStructuredText which is what powers Sphinx at OhioLinuxFest >.>
<BiosElement> I'm working on conventions for AsciiDoc currently, one of which will be a required double space between topic headings. This way they'll stand out from paragraph breaks
#ubuntu-learning 2010-09-20
<doctormo> pleia2: ping
<pleia2> doctormo: pong
<doctormo> pleia2: There is some interest in art.ubuntu-owl.org so I have a plan and I'd like your thoughts.
<doctormo> I'd like to commit the original cchost to a bzr branch, then apply our modified branch over it, then I'd like to set up a bzr pull similar to what we have for the main owl site.
<doctormo> then if we get interested developers pitching in [or I can convince them to], the admin burden is simplified.
<pleia2> that's fine :)
<doctormo> I'll send you a message later with the bzr branch if you can do the automation step?
<doctormo> thanks pleia2!
<pleia2> doctormo: sounds good, I probably won't get to it until later tonight though (busy work day again)
<doctormo> *hug* Have a good busy day then and we'll talk more tonight.
<Proumbro> Hello, anyone here?
#ubuntu-learning 2010-09-21
<doctormo> Well yes
<pleia2> doctormo: ok, with art.ubuntu-owl.org do you want to do an initial bzr pull over what exists there now?
<pleia2> I went ahead and did the symlink for the .htaccess
<doctormo> pleia2: Yes, pull over what we have, we can fix any mistakes.
<pleia2> can you give me instructions for doing that?
<pleia2> or is there a way you can do it?
<doctormo> pleia2: mv existing_dir somewhere_temporary; bzr checkout lp:~ubuntu-owlers/ubuntu-learning-materials/art-website original_dir_name
<doctormo> sorry for the delay, didn't catch your response.
<doctormo> I can't do it because of the protected files in there.
<doctormo> Then you would just move the 3 symlinks back in and we'll do a test by running the sync command and seeing if it kills those symlinks
#ubuntu-learning 2010-09-22
<pleia2> doctormo: I didn't get around to this today and I have to run off to a lug meeting, I'll nudge you tomorrow so I can do it and then we'll fix up stuff if anything goes wrong :)
<doctormo> pleia2: understood, and thanks for the attention :-)
#ubuntu-learning 2010-09-24
<jordancason> hey guys i have a script here and i need some one to explain each step to me. its not big about 10 lines. will some one help if i post it up
<doctormo> Ah hell, I could have helped
<pleia2> doctormo: this week has been horrible busy-wise, I can temporarily trust you with sudo on dagobah if you promise to be good and just do the art thing :)
<pleia2> maybe tomorrow, I need to hit the sack now, ate something bad last night and have been dealing with the consequences all day (plus being busy at work! it's been a rough day :))
<doctormo> pleia2: Sure thing, have a good night and we'll talk tomorrow about it.
<pleia2> doctormo: I should be around all day (working, and busy, but I will respond to pings, so just let me know when you want sudo for art)
<doctormo> pleia2: I figured we would talk first, I don't think we're in such a rush as for you to give me keys to a shared box. It's security after all.
<doctormo> I can wait for next week if you like.
<pleia2> I should have time in about 5 hours
<pleia2> (after work :))
<doctormo> pleia2: I got a nice Joy of Propaganda button for you: http://imagebin.ca/view/yiNwASH.html
<pleia2> hehe
<pleia2> although, I do quite like my job, I am doing some neat xen to kvm migrations this week
<doctormo> I found some other wonderful stickers: "Buy More Shit" which I stuck to my Ubuntu mousepad in the background and the ever lovely "Bad things come to those who wait too."
<pleia2> nice
<doctormo> Shame the company is no more, their tshirts were the best.
<doctormo> I don't thing these are legit, but this tshirt was very popular on postmaster: http://www.cafepress.com.au/+jop_gender_stereotypes_black_tshirt,36889616
<doctormo> pleia2: So your moving your chinese philosophy to a keyboard video and mouse?
<doctormo> Hey bodhi_zazen
<pleia2> doctormo: yes, that's exactly what I'm doing
<pleia2> (except it has more to do with virtualization)
<bodhi_zazen> 'lo all
<pleia2> g'day bodhi_zazen :)
<doctormo> pleia2: A virtual chinese philosophy into a virtual keyboard and mouse?
<pleia2> :)
<doctormo> I know what you mean of course, I just love how technical words are often confusing.
<pleia2> I wish kvm had a better mascot
<pleia2> xen came up with the so cutest one this year <3
<pleia2> just as we're switching to kvm :(
<doctormo> pleia2: Link to Xen mascot?
<pleia2> http://www.xen.org/images/mascot/XenPanda.jpg
<doctormo> That's really cute, god damn it.
<pleia2> hehe
<doctormo> I'm trying to think of something good but not used by other technical parts, hard to pick because of Tux.
<doctormo> Even KVM is such a bad name, I'll just call it Kevim. Like "It's so cool because Kevim manages all my virtual computers, he's so super cool."
<doctormo> Just like I like to call SQL "Squirrel", because having a No-Squirrel database is much better than having to deal with Squirrel Injection Attacks. Etc, sounds better off the toung.
<pleia2> lol
#ubuntu-learning 2010-09-25
<duanedesign> Squirrel, lol
<pleia2> doctormo: ok, I'm around, I'm going to see if I can break art now ;)
<pleia2> doctormo: actually, I think I sorted out permissions so you *should* be able to do it, can you give it a try?
<pleia2> permissions are going to be the concern here, we want it all to still be owned by you, but give www-data access to write (so I made them of the www-data group)
<doctormo> pleia2: back
<pleia2> wb :)
<DiegoTc> doctormo, do you have time for a small python question?
<doctormo> DiegoTc: how can I help you?
<DiegoTc> doctormo, I am having a little trouble with a for loop in c i can have a for this way
<DiegoTc> for(int i=99;i>0;i--)
<DiegoTc> i thought that in python it will be this way
<DiegoTc> for i in range (10,0):
<DiegoTc> but it looks i am wrong :(
<doctormo> DiegoTc: What is wrong with for i in range(10): ?
<DiegoTc> doctormo, I want to print numbers this way 10,9,8,7,6,.....
<DiegoTc> no 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,...
<doctormo> the hack is just to say "for i in range(10): print 10 -i
<doctormo> but range can do that too
<DiegoTc> so how it will be the range wayÂ¿?
<doctormo> DiegoTc: What you need to do is look at the range method, it's range([start=0], stop, [step=1])
<DiegoTc> ohh thanks
<doctormo> DiegoTc: Which means range(10, 0, -1) will work. Of course we'll never get anything out of range(10, 0) because 10+1 can never get to 0
<doctormo> DiegoTc: Remember to get yourself into a python command line (type python at the bash shell) and do help(method) on anything you need help for.
<doctormo> q to exit the help
<DiegoTc> whoa a little difference from c++ or java
<DiegoTc> thanks doctormo
<doctormo> DiegoTc: Python is more like Perl than C or Java. It's very, very different in how it operates.
<doctormo> yw
<doctormo> pleia2: back to you
<doctormo> I'm munching right now
<pleia2> ok :)
<pleia2> well, I think you have the permission to do what you need now
<pleia2> so if you want to give it a go - all yours!
<doctormo> pleia2: aye aye
<doctormo> thanks skipper
<pleia2> sure, just let me know if you have any trouble, I'll be around this evening
<zkriesse_> hey lyz
<pleia2> evening, zkriesse_
<zkriesse_> how are ya?
<pleia2> doing good, busy as always, you?
<zkriesse_> the same
<zkriesse_> college, job hunting, multiple ubuntu projects
<doctormo> pleia2: dagoba doesn't have bzip2 support?
<pleia2> I'll install it, sec
<pleia2> doctormo: installed
<doctormo> pleia2: Thanks! ok so the permissions are a bit off kilter, most files are owned by www-data user and doctormo group, so some directories don't have a writer permission for group.
<doctormo> I thought it would have been the other way round
<pleia2> yeah that's weird, it's the opposite of what it was
<pleia2> kinda
<pleia2> just gave group write to content/
<pleia2> everything else you should have access to, I think
<pleia2> doctormo: you should be able to look in htdocs.bak to see what the permissions were earlier today before I gave your user permissions, that might give you a clue as to why it's wonky
<doctormo> pleia2: It was htdocs/art_files/images that had the problem
<doctormo> And it's weird because the contents are 777
<pleia2> ok, group has write now
<doctormo> pleia2: Ah the content directory can be given to www-data user and group if you like, it's not in the repository. up to you of course.
<pleia2> ok
<pleia2> having ccadmin/ there is confusing the live site
<pleia2> I think
<doctormo> pleia2: OK we're set, we just need a cronjob, do you want that to run as my user?
<pleia2> yeah
<pleia2> and yay! :)
<doctormo> OK set to 2:05 each morning to do a bzr pull.
<pleia2> great
<nhandler> doctormo: Is that for ubuntu-owl or one of the other sites?
<pleia2> it's art.ubuntu-owl.org
<nhandler> pleia2: Think we should setup a similar cronjob for ubuntu-owl ?
<pleia2> probably :)
#ubuntu-learning 2011-09-19
<doctormo> pleia2: ping
<pleia2> doctormo: pong
<doctormo> pleia2: I need your permission to publish a picture to my deviantArt scraps.
<pleia2> doctormo: sure, what picture?
<doctormo> pleia2: http://divajutta.com/doctormo/drawing-2011-09-19.png
<pleia2> oh, is that a drawing of me?
<doctormo> pleia2: Supposed to be, I'm doing character practice.
<pleia2> yes, it's fine to publish it :)
<pleia2> and cool
<doctormo> http://doctormo.deviantart.com/art/Art-2011-09-19-259180430 Permanent Link
<doctormo> Thanks for the nod :-)
<pleia2> sure :)
<doctormo> Yesterday was discord: http://doctormo.deviantart.com/art/Art-2011-09-19-Discord-259140675 ;-)
<pleia2> hehe
<doctormo> how's Ubuntu doin'? I haven't heard hardly anything from the community for weeks.
<pleia2> well enough, same old same old
<pleia2> user days is coming up on saturday
<doctormo> pleia2: Lots of user days and other such, but no formalisation of the materials and notes.
<doctormo> Perhaps the next step is attracting people to convert the irc logs into reusable materials
<pleia2> yeah, that would be nice
<dinda1> doctormo: just the person i was looking for!
<dinda1> doctormo: congratulations btw
<pleia2> dinda1: since you own the nickname "dinda" you can stop someone else from using it with the nickserv ghost command :)
<pleia2> /msg NickServ ghost dinda password
<pleia2> then /nick dinda
<pleia2> to reclaim it
<dinda1> pleia2: it's still saying the nick is already in use
<pleia2> yeah, you do the ghost command first
<dinda1> pleia2: I did :(
<pleia2> hm, maybe they reconnected immediately
<dinda1> pleia2: I'm thinking this from the Rackspace setup they had me do. . .
<dinda1> pleia2: setting irc up so I could scrollback even when signed off
<pleia2> aah
<pleia2> 10:10:39 [freenode] -!- dinda [~dinda@184-106-204-95.static.cloud-ips.com]
<pleia2> so that is you :)
<dinda1> pleia2: apparetly - my old RS laptop
<dinda1> pleia2: I haven't sent it back yet so maybe I'll fire it up and see if I can kill it there
<dinda1> pleia2: well shoot,  I forgot the password to get onto that computer!
<pleia2> doh :)
<dinda1> pleia2: I guess I need to find someone at openstack to kick me off their server
<pleia2> it's not really a problem, I was just trying to be helpful to get your nick back
<dinda1> pleia2: I would like it back myself :)
#ubuntu-learning 2012-09-20
<JoseeAntonioR> btw, I'll start with the materials tomorrow
