[Infopoint] talks etc

[alan c]

Richard Smedley wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-04-04 at 15:37 +0100, alan c wrote:
>> For the record:
>> Every month for several years now, I have one or two display tables at 
>> Bracknell Computer Fair - 2nd sunday of each month.
>> I do not unfortunately update the infopoint site, however, Infopoint 
>> is a thriving and very current activity in my area. Near me anyway.....
> 
> Hello Alan, 
> 
> I'm v aware of your successes in the home counties, that's 
> why I spoke of "areas where..." by way of contrast ;-)
> 
>> I also have given a number of talks to local and some not so local 
>> clubs over the period too.
> 
> It would be great to have something about that
> on this list. Especially about the types of people
> at your talks, and their reactions to Free Software :-)
> 
> If you've blogged about it, could you post a
> link, please?

I have not blogged. Unfortunately, being retired means I do not have 
any spare time.....
:-)

The most recent talk was to a few dozen retired professional 
electrical engineers in surrey. They attended wanting to know about 
FOSS and alternative to Windows. I used a P4 2.8GHz tower with a 
projector as screen output.

I began with, unbeknown to the audience,  with a 8.04.2 live CD, and 
showed the stephen fry GNU birthday video, then showed  a brief tour 
around my USB stick content and the ubuntu system and desktop.

I then took it to the shutdown state and made the statement that this 
machine did not have a hard drive fitted(!) And  taking the side off, 
  showed the unconnected cables. This situation is a bit of a shock to 
Windows users.

After connecting the Windows xp hard drive, I connected a spare 10GB 
hard drive. I then used the same CD to install from boot menu of the 
live CD, into the spare HD. About 15 or 20 minutes. And demonstrated 
dual boot.

Questions and answers were on and off throughout the session.

One or two people had already tinkered, but were not using ubuntu as a 
main system.

The talk produced a lot of interest, and one person used a phone 
session with me to make a serious install in the following days, and 
would you believe, he also later installed an app from a down loaded 
tar.gz. real success.

The previous talk was in january to a computer group in a retired 
persons club - about a dozen people. The talk was a similar format. 
One person was trying ubuntu himself. Later I saw another person in 
WHSmith looking at Linux magazines, and this led me to make a formal 
club offer to be a contact and support point for anyone thinking of 
branching into (ubuntu) linux.

Culture shift happens slowly. The club newsletter received my offer 
to 'adventurous' computer users. I was shocked to find that one of the 
club senior people believed that there were dangers in publicising the 
free software to the unsuspecting members. This is ongoing, however I 
responded with a dignified but very assertive reply.
-- 
alan cocks
Ubuntu user #10391
Linux user #360648