Sunday

[S. Lawton]

THE BEST WAY TO LEARN is to teach someone else.  Pick a 
topic, any topic and try to learn enough about it to explain it to 
someone else.  Even a topic you know well, teach it to another and 
you will be surprised how much clearer it becomes.  

	Too true, I train the new employees at work to avoid the "panic" 
phone calls from the shift change at 5:45 am on a Saturday.

Being a NEWBIE is even more reason to dig into linuxnewbie.org 
and other pages like mandrakeuser.org.  One can only say "I'm a 
newbie"  for so long, eventually they have to cut loose and say "I 
want to learn something on my own instead of others telling me 
what I need to know!"

	I have a huge collection of shortcuts from the LINKS pages of 
such sites that I'm wading through, but it takes time. 

 I have to spend a lot more time reading or asking very direct
questions on IRC (it's amazing what people will help with when you 
don't open with,"I know nothing help me!" but instead "THis is what 
I've tried and this is what I think might be causing it, any 
suggestions?"  

	I don't have IRC, but I do spend time in the news groups. In 
some groups, I can often answer 2 or 3 questions before I post 
mine, if I don't find an answer already. But some times, the stock 
answers aren't enough. It took me 14 months to get my CD-ROM 
to work, because "just plug it in set to slave" and "you need to 
change your BIOS values" weren't the solution. It turned out for this 
1993 Mother, I needed a secondary IDE control board for the CD-
Rom, and it's only recognized in Windows, not the DOS 
environment. I went to MUO to find out how to access floppy dives. 
The basic answer was click on the icon and change properties. I 
didn't even have a desktop icon ! After a few days of digging, I now 
grasp [I think] the rudiments of mount points and links, and I have 
icons for fd0 and fd1. 

HERE IS A SCHEDULE::::::

When I suggested we meet early I only meant those who really  
wanted to Quake!
So 11:00-1pm QUAKE or gaming fooling around /setting up.  just 
those with games stuff, no real help or newbie setups etc. (unless 
you need getting quake started)
1-4 regular meeting time.  At least one hour or more on topic and 
then helping people with individual problems (like my stupid  
joystick in Flightgear!) then when everyone is sated anyone who 
still wants to can play some more. especially since some may now 
have a working system after getting help.

	I'm still planning on coming early. I figure I can ask a few 
questions while helping set up. If some one can tell  me where boot 
log, system log, detect log, and error log are, how to view them, 
and what should and shouldn't be there, I can pursue that end while 
you all are Quaking. I'm sure it's there; just a missing program mod 
or a switch set wrong. 
	As to who's in charge of NFLUG, my impression was that it 
was a loose association of like-minded individuals, more of a tribal 
society or pack structure than a military/executive hierarchical 
structure. Technophiles, as a rule, tend to be free thinkers. I read 
an article on it some where; I believe it was called "Suits versus 
Ponytails". If we were all mainstreamers, we'd be running XP now, 
not pursuing Linux, right ? 
	I just found out my brother and his wife bought an XP box, so I 
have to teach them the basics of GUI and what's where and does 
what in Windows. So I guess I'll have firsthand experience of MS 
Xtreme Prejudice after all. Come to think, that's what I need for 
Mandrake/KDE. The what's where and does what, not the fascist 
software !! 


Scott

Windows: Where do you want to go today?
MacOS: Where do you want to be tomorrow?
Linux: Are you coming, or what?
(from Linux Journal)