How to schedule On Air Events and set up Google Hangouts On Air

A few people have, believe it or not, asked for our procedure for setting up virtual conferences like FtBConscience 2. I figure it’s a good idea to go ahead and post the document that I’d passed around behind the scenes, so others can benefit from our, heh, “wisdom”. I’ve scrubbed out the FtB-specific stuff.

As of January 2014, the procedures for creating a live Google Hangout On Air have changed, in some ways quite drastically. Please read this thoroughly and attempt this at least once, all the way through, as a dry run before your con!

Remember, you will need all your facilitators to perform all of thee actions. This can’t be done in advance by a single person, because each panel will have to be run by the person who went through this procedure. It’s best to appoint at least 3 facilitators per concurrent “line” of panels that you’d like to run. You can sometimes do with less if you’re strict on end times, though.

Requirements:

A Google+ Account (obtain one here: https://plus.google.com/ )

A Youtube account (MUST BE LINKED TO G+ ACCOUNT, see below)

A telephone (land line for phone call verification or cell phone for text message verification)

(Optional) A 300x1200px banner for your event

To set up your Google+ Account linked to Youtube:

Google has a tutorial here: https://support.google.com/plus/answer/2553119?p=first_hoa&hl=en&authuser=0&rd=1

Continue reading “How to schedule On Air Events and set up Google Hangouts On Air”

How to schedule On Air Events and set up Google Hangouts On Air
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Hard drive recovery 301

Let’s say you have a hard drive whose media is failing but whose controller card is still functional. Let’s further say you have a desire to pull a partition off that drive and see what’s still salvageable. And let’s further say you have a computer you’re okay with leaving on for a month or so to do it. All of these things were true about a hard drive that Glendon Mellow, The Flying Trilobite, sent along to me to try to recover — there were some family photos and tax returns that he hadn’t had backed up anyplace when the drive started failing. Being the samaritan that I am, I took the project on as a way to hone my own skills. I also had a feeling I could write a blog post afterward so others might benefit.

This isn’t a 101 level course. Hell, it’s not even a 201, as it assumes you know enough to use Linux’s terminal (no GUIs in this post!), and how to connect your hard drive through a USB adapter or directly. It also assumes the hard drive is in a specific state that it might still be readable even if Windows itself can’t get at the data. This last one is a fairly big assumption, and I trust you’re going to be able to identify when that’s the case.
Continue reading “Hard drive recovery 301”

Hard drive recovery 301