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Author: Kevie Macphail

Kevie is from the Outer Hebrides, in the north west of Scotland,UK. He started podcasting with TuxJam back in 2011 and followed this by co-hosting tech-themed, discussion show Crivins along with Gordon Sinclair. A full time Linux user, currently using Debian as his distro of choice, and a keen promoter of unknown artists/bands, especially those who release their music under a Creative Commons license, this led Kevie to starting the CCJam community podcast. Always keen to spread the word on Creative Commons music and open source projects, Kevie has appeared as a guest on the Bugcast, Hacker Public Radio, Music Manumit Podcast, Rathole Radio and TINT.

TuxJam 66 – Heads or Fails?

After their usual swing through distrowatch, your hosts Kevie, Dave (aka thelovebug) and Andrew (aka mcnalu) pair up to review three offerings from the wonderful world of free and open source software:

NextCloud Notes (note taking app for NextCloud)

Heads (Live distro, focused on privacy, based on Devuan)

SimpleNote (Cloud based note taking app for Android)

Along with the usual mix of Creative Commons music:

No keyboards were harmed during the making of this podcast though one did have too much beer and had to spend a few days sobering up.

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TuxJam 65 – The End is nigh, more or less

In this episode your intrepid explorers, Dave, Kevie and Andrew take a stroll through distrowatch and then venture deep into  the forest of free and open source software to discover three treasures:

He likes it.
Can you guess what Kevie thinks of Endless OS?

Creative commons tunes played in this episode:

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TuxJam 64 – Space Time

Kevie, Dave (aka thelovebug) and Andrew (aka mcnalu) take a wander through the wonders of recent releases reported on distrowatch before reviewing a trio of free and open source marvels. For older hardware and those in places where the internet is not so great, there is the Emmabuntüs linux distro. Then if you have some free time to fill, you might want to try out the space sim game Pioneer. It’s inspired by the classic Elite 2: Frontier game. But if you have no free time at all and are prone to forgetting important tasks (ed: such as writing show notes) then why not let your phone govern your life with the Open Tasks app.

Projects:

Music:

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TuxJam 63 – GymJams

Kevie, Dave (aka thelovebug) and Andrew (aka mcnalu) begin their New Year detox and fitness regime by talking about beer and pipes before going through their regular distrowatch work-out which includes a brief furrowing of brows over the Spectre and Meltdown security vulnerabilities.

Speedmeter screenshot
Speedmeter screenshot

Next our intrepid trio review:

  • PureOS – A free software respecting GNU/Linux distro (vaguely related to detox via its name)
  • Speedmeter – A simple app that tells you information about your movements (featuring a mini-rant by Andrew about Sith Lords tampering which machines at his gym)

 

 

 

Creative commons music played in this episode:

Other links mentioned:

Feedback is very welcome. Either comment below or email tuxjam@otherside.network.

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TuxJam 62 – Crypto Christmas Currency

In the second of the Christmas themed episode, Andrew, Dave and Kevie take a look at the BitCoin themed distro Bitkey Linux. With a bonus Christmas present of a UK based voucher site that accepts Bitcoin called Zeek. For those who like to use open source apps on their Android devices, the F-droid app store has been given a makeover in time for the festive season. Everybody remembers those days when family comes around during the holidays and board games were the main order of entertainment, Pushover brings the fun of dominoes without the need to place them down perfectly on a level tabletop.

Pushover – a family friendly puzzle platform game

Along with these we have an array of Creative Commons Christmas tunes:

 

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TuxJam 61 – Gifts for Geeks 2017

It’s that time of year again when we suggest gifts that we you might like to find stuffed into your stocking by our partners Santa. We’ve handily organised them by price to ease the pressure on your Santa’s wallet.
Stocking fillers (under £10)

Low-Mid range (£10-25)
  • Imusic pillow
  • Take a look at their Steam account, most users have games on their wishlist. Buy the game on Christmas Eve, print off an item saying here’s your present and put it in a card.
  • Personalised glasses or a mug with their name and likes on it (make it extremely personal).
  • Stealth VR
  • VRidge FREE (10 min per session)Google cardboard £15 for one, £25 for two
  • Electronics starter kits: Sometimes are self-contained kits with pluggable components, but be aware that some of these may be intended specifically at beginners.  Other times, they are filled with various kinds of components with instructions to make a number of projects.  You may need additional equipment – like a soldering iron – so always check the product description!
  • Soldering starter kits: Usually contain a soldering iron, holder, solder reel, desoldering pump, at a minimum. These are often Chinese imports from unknown companies.  Do a search in your shopping site of choice, and make an informed decision. Or go somewhere like Maplin.
  • The micro:bit (pictured below)
  • ANENG AN8008 Multimeter
Mid-High end (£25-100)

High price (£100+)
The butterfly project as described by Dave in the show

Wow,you really love them

Festive Tunes:

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TuxJam 60 – Thrusty Spaceships

Your hosts – Kevie, Dave (thelovebug) and Andrew (mcnalu) – bring you a stellar array of software in this episode. Quite literally with Stellarium, both on the Desktop and via Google Play, which allows you to explore the stars without waiting for a dark, clear sky or enduring the cold that goes with it. We also give an honourable mention to Sky Map which debuted on the first production Android phone and is still available on Google Play and F-Droid. Also from F-Droid is the simple yet addictive, time-gobbler Critical Velocity which might be better named Thrusty Spaceships (think Flappy Birds). If retro-tradey-fighty-spaceships is more your thing then you might be interested in our wee review of Alite which is an affectionate reworking of the classic Elite for Android phones. And we then turn our attention to a First Person Shooter, giving a thumbs up (and aching index finger) to the highly moddable Cube 2: Sauerbraten. We finish up with tales from this summer’s Podcrawl Glasgow including some things that Dave didn’t want brought up.

Creative commons licensed tunes played in this episode are:

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TuxJam 59 – Revenge of the Jami

The audio-friendly tones of newish recruit Lovebug join Kevie and mcnalu‘s Scottish harmonics to bring you a symphony* of free and open source and creative commons goodness. First they do their usual tour of distrowatch, then relate their experiences of Open Box based OBRevenge. They then move on to tour task management and diary apps including Diary (Android), OSMO, Deck for NextCloud, and Andrew delves into his ancestry with a look at Persian Calendar (Android). In feedback, we are pleased to report that themightyglider author of Roguebox Adventures found our review in TuxJam 58 useful and has produced a How to Survive Your First Day video. Top marks to that developer! Finally we invite listeners to our annual podcrawl in Glasgow. For more information check out the official blog post.

OBRevenge Screenshot
OBRevenge Welcome Screen

*May be a cacophony YMMV.

Music:

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TuxJam 58 – Stuck in Qube Corner

Following Kevie and mcnalu‘s failed attempts at testing out qubes-os (as recommended by Chalkahlom) they have a bit more success with the software offerings. Being in the mood for a bit of gaming, they test out Roguebox Adventures (as recommended by themightyglider, who is also the developer). But not wanting to appear like they just playing about, they give off a false vibe of hard work, they take a look at the extremely functional file manager Ghost Commander (as recommended by r7) on the Android platform.

RogueBox Adventures

All this with the usual mix of creative commons music, the tracks included in this episode are:

 

 

 

 

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TuxJam 57 – North and South

As McNalu is MIA, Kevie is joined by Dave Lee from the Bugcast music podcast for the 57th episode of TuxJam.  But the change doesn’t alter the show content with a review of the Ubuntu based disrto LXLE.

Along with some software KISS Launcher (Android) and Synapse Launcher (Linux, shown below). We have some feedback to discuss and we announce Podcrawl Glasgow 2017 on Saturday 29th July. Along with the usual mix of Creative Commons music tracks:

 

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