[Glastonbury] here we stand... on a rocky shore...

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Sat, Nov 12, 2005 at 08:29:42PM +0000, Alistair Parsons wrote:
> My 2p's worth
> > Mailing list dead, as far as I can see.
> well it cant be because were all replying to it :-)
> 
OK :)
> 
> personally i have time and transport problems making meetings in glastonbury
> 
I've never yet been - though I have met Sean a couple of times and 
Tim Hall once IIRC.

> > Leaflet drop in town? Linux install day? Linux experts on hand
> > in the Assembly Rooms? Kubuntu setups to run an internet cafe
> > for tourists/"folk"?  O'Reilly bookstore at the next meeting
> 
> If someone could make the leaflets, id be happy to distribute from microbitz
> every week i get get on my soapbox and try to convert the unwashed
> a leaflet would help in my struggles
> 
A small leaflet on one side of A4 might do :)

> I quite often show people a quick spin of my Suse9.3 internet cafe type PC
> but it would be good to give people some lugog details easily, we had
> quite a few people collect leaflets for the bristol demudi thing
> 
> i think i supplied and installed OOo to about 5 customers last week,
> all very happy with not having to pay oodles for new MS licenses, also
> we are installing firefox quite frequently, this makes the transition
> so much easier
> 
Glad to hear it. I had someone complaining at me this morning
that McAfee _forced_ them to use IE. The only other app. that
forces you to use IE is Microsoft's own Windows Update :)

> side note, i now have a good supplier of bare laptops with no OS, they
> arent as cheap as Acer laptops etc, BUT they do have serial (for
> external modems) port and proper LPT ports ( ive had a lot of grief
> with the USB to LPT adapters under linux for use with old but good
> Laser printers) and run perfectly with Ubuntu, which is by all
> accounts the best distro for use with laptops. If anyones interested
> ill dig up a price,
> 
Just bought a laptop so not interested, unfortunately. The Thinkpad
has parallel, two USB and two PCMCIA - no serial, no floppy. I'd imagine
that a serial port is fairly redundant - unless and until you want
a serial console (and yes, I've used one within the last six months :) )

> > (the lady concerned brings books at 30& discount or so)?
> > Demo days to Strode students / Millfield?
> talking of demos, im setting up a demo box with Clark connect for use
> with small buisness to try and keep customer overheads down, based on
> red hat but extremely simple admin
> 
Please _don't_ use Clark Connect unless you are prepared to supply
the commercial version for which small business customers will have to pay. 
Clark is a small company which relies on licence revenues to survive.

Alternatives may be: Smoothwall - though they too have a commercial
license. Gibraltar - runs entirely from CD-ROM, Debian based, low cost
commercial licence, Mandriva Network Firewall - or build it yourself
using Debian or similar. Don't know what happened to SuSE firewall
when Novell took over.

> 
> Alistair
> (who is sorry for not ever attending a meeting and has only met a
> couple of people on the list)
>
Don't worry: a.) You are a busy man running a business. b.) You're not
actually in Glastonbury. c.) Something like this is Linux advocacy
and LUGOG publicity.

Andy