[dundee] Re: Abertay Linux Meeting - 16th August 2007 – Preparation for freshers fair - Important

[Arron M Finnon]

On Fri, 2007-08-17 at 18:47 +0100, James Young wrote:
> Hi Arron,
> 
> A couple of things I thought about on the practical side ;
> 
> 1)Electrics - Do you have enough 4-gang extension bars to do the job and 
> are the leads long enough.

// this is a very good point and some thing to remember so i will be
putting it on my list.

> 2)Do you have enough people to open up on the day and manage it through 
> the day. Doing the whole day on the stand by yourself or just with a 
> couple of people isn't good news. 

// i have had volunteers for this but i do think your right about
getting a rosta set up, however i have a sneaky feeling that i and
attila will need to be on hand all day either way, but i think that
we'll need one person a machine at least.

> 3) What's the earliest time we can get in (before the fair starts - to 
> get everything set up).

// this is something that i will start making enquires about ASAP

> 4)Comms; is wireless in the building and will there be enough bandwidth.

// This was always going to be an issue on a number of different fronts,
i.e. mac address filtering is one of the front line security measures
the Abertay use, plus certificates as well so i need to scratch my head
and work it out.  I think that either way there not going to let me
bridge a connection so i think that most of the machines will have to be
offline but this is not to say that they can't be locally networked   

> So, I'd get a timetable setup for people to be on the stand, to be on 
> break or to allow for contingency. Also, to allow for any left-field 
> questions. 

// as discussed above, fantastic idea and defo will be implemented, as
with the below non abertay students will be allowed to work on the stall

> How many days does the fair run and can non-abertay people help out? 
> Anyway, I'd like to help out if I can.

// Last year it was only for the day

> Also, I think it's hard to expect bi-monthly meetings for the same 
> person standing up and preparing the work - Although, it does look, next 
> session, like there's going to be more support there which is great 
> news.  

// It has been difficult to maintain this, and it is a semi concern of
mine, but i do have faith that this situation will be remedied over the
next couple of weeks

> For the HOW TO side of things; I'd like to offer an elementary 
> guide to 'Computers, and how they can help YOU!' for anyone interested. 
> The target audience for this would be a)someone with standard grade 
> experience of computers, b)someone with a geek test score of <=4% or 
> below c)girls d)all of the above.

// All i can say about the HOWTO's is that you are a god, and it will be
very much appreciated and you gain 50 gold finux points

> If you okay this I'll do something shortly and email it to you for the 
> groups thoughts and general RFC.

// NP

> Best wishes,
> 
> 
> James
> 

// once again james thank you for the input it was full if good points
and some great advice - Well done and thanks 

> Arron M Finnon wrote:
> > Abertay Linux Meeting - 16th August 2007 – Preparation for freshers
> > fair 
> >
> >
> > As discussed at the meeting last night, this message is intended to be a
> > general outline of the ideas discussed and is designed for people to
> > lend their ideas to the process in an open manner. 
> >
> > Freshers fair is about 4 weeks away, and it is an ideal opportunity to
> > swell the numbers of both the Linux Society and the TLUG + mailing list,
> > it is thought that a majority of those that sign up will be new to the
> > world of *nix and FLOSS.
> >
> > We will have a stand at the next freshers fair and they should be a
> > rather large footfall over the day, it was discussed having a few
> > systems running different Linux distro's to show the power of *nix such
> > as Paul Lancaster's Amiga running Linux, and a Pentium 300 running Puppy
> > Linux to demonstrate Linux can revive older machines. It was also
> > discussed that a machine running Beryl (compiz-fusion or whatever they
> > call the bonny graphic thingy now) would also be appropriate as well. We
> > also have the potential to have PS3 running Linux as well to demonstrate
> > to students that they can turn there games console into a Supercomputer
> > (well when i say super computer ii mean a machine with 8 processors),
> > which i also think will be very popular. Lee Hughes also discussed an
> > idea of using two machines with OLPC's user interface Sugar. It is hoped
> > that the display will draw a lot of attention and give us a chance to
> > canvas new users. 
> >
> > It was also discussed that some disc's should be burnt with a mix of
> > distro's to give away, Linux Mint as it generally works out of the box
> > in the context of codec's and WiFi support, Ubuntu which kinda speaks
> > for it self at event's like this with maybe a mix of *buntu's such as
> > (k)buntu and maybe (x)buntu. Also maybe some Fedora's and Mandriva's as
> > well. Kris Findlay also came up with an idea some weeks ago about making
> > system rescue disc's on credit card sized Cd's, the idea being that
> > someone can put it in the wallet and when there machine dies they
> > remember that they have this disc in their wallet that can get their
> > files of their system, of course it will have a sticker on it with
> > Abertay Linux Society info on it. Also with the Credit card sized disc's
> > maybe a net install Debian as well. The idea was to copy the disc's on
> > to blank Cd's and that we design a CD sticker with Abertay Linux Society
> > - www.abertaylinuxsociety.com – Distro Name – email contact address –
> > TayLUG mailing list https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/dundee
> >
> >
> > It was also disscussed that a few how-to handout's would be useful in
> > both the context of the freshers fair and much needed content for the
> > web site which is due to go live before freshers fair. The idea raised
> > was to make a generic how-to guide that would show people how to install
> > a Linux system rather than Distro specific how-to guide i.e. talking
> > through boot partition with grub, home partition and root partition sort
> > of thing. Also some content on the political side of free software, such
> > as the dangers of vendor lock in, Trusted Computer Platform, One Laptop
> > Per Child project, Free-BIOS project, Open Source software education.
> >
> > Attila (our new society sectary, and welcome aboard) had a fantastic
> > idea of translating our welcome sign into different languages especially
> > in to Chinese and Hindi as a Abertay has an ever increasing amount of
> > international students from china and India, but i imagine polish
> > wouldn't go a miss either. Also Attila mentioned contact Novell and
> > asking for some form of sponsorship for the society as well, which on a
> > personal note i think to be a great idea.
> >
> > Abertay Linux Society web site is in desperate need of some content
> > written, and i have commented on this at numerous meetings, it seems
> > that at the moment there is dual use for any content written for both
> > the site and the freshers fair handout's.
> >
> > It was also disscussed that those working on the stall at freshers fair
> > should at least have T-shirts for the society, but that this too could
> > be a fund raising idea as well. At the university there is a society
> > that has a very popular collection of top's that say A.S.S (Abertay
> > Snowboard Society), so in the spirit of that we thought that maybe we
> > could have A/S/L t-shirts (Abertay Society for Linux).
> >
> >
> > So here comes the crunch at the moment the society membership is about
> > 35-40 members, and if we have a successful freshers fair we could easily
> > double that if not take it into triple figures. If that happens not only
> > does it mean that we will have a massive society which hopefully will
> > attract more guest speakers, but we will also have one of the most
> > active groups in Scotland (and dare i say if we have nearly a 100
> > members meeting once a fortnight maybe one of the biggest Linux groups
> > in Scotland). It also means that our budget to hold events will by
> > virtue be bigger. It was disscussed that it would be opportunity wasted
> > if it comes to freshers fair and all we have is a few disc's, and the
> > web site no where near done as there is no content there.
> >
> > So volunteers for a number of different job's is needed, and everyone
> > can help out in there own way as well. First and foremost some how-to
> > guides need to be written, if you don't want to do one on setting up a
> > *nix system then there is a need for other one, and they don't need to
> > be so complicated, they could be as simple as setting Evolution up with
> > GoogleMail and Exchange server (our uni web-mail is exchange and you can
> > use evolution to send and receive your Uni emails) which means that we
> > have something more for the site and something to handout as well. If
> > there are any graphically minded people out there then we could do with
> > some people working on designing some more graphic we have one logo and
> > it's okay but far form exciting and it would be nice if some one had
> > ideas for T-Shirt design as well.
> >
> > So if people can discuss this either through the TayLUG mailing list or
> > via emails so that we can get a wider view of ideas what people think
> > new users would like to see at freshers fair or any way that they can
> > help out.  If you are about to start work on something could you drop me
> > a line so i know what people are doing and that there is no working
> > being duplicated.
> >
> > I thank you all in advance for you assistance with this
> >
> > Arron M Finnon
> >
> > President 
> >
> > Abertay Linux Society
> >
> > 0605909 at abertay.ac.uk
> > afinnon at googlemail.com
> > arron.finnon at hotmail.co.uk
> > Skype - finux1
> >
> >
> >
> >   
> 
> 
-- 
Arron M Finnon