The August meeting was good. It was nice to see some new faces and have a good crowd. Rumor has it that Murph will be giving some sort of presentation for our next meeting so stay tuned for details. See you in September.
Mike
Meeting for 9.29.10
Aug 26
Meeting for 8.28.10
Aug 24
Sorry for the late post everyone. The meeting is of course this Wed. Please try and bring some Linux questions that we can discuss and hopefully solve. See you there.
Cheers
Mike
Well, it’s a day later that I was shooting for, but here’s a draft of the flyer for Software Freedom Day. I’d really like to hear some feedback on the flyer, as well as proposed demonstrations and/or presentations that folks would like to do, so that I can include them. So please let me know what you think.sfd_flyer-1
I was not able to upload the original Scribus desktop publishing file, probably because it looks like straight XML. If anyone wants it to remix and/or make corrections, just let me know.
Addition: I’ve gotten a ton of great suggestions from an Amiga mailing list that I’m a part of, and have the following revision to the flyer: sfd_flyer-3
I personally think that it’s a little information dense, a little too wordy. I welcome suggestions to improve it.
Addition2: Thanks to Zak for some layout suggestions for an alternate, cleaner layout: sfd_flyer-4
People, it’s time to act! Sam has done great work in getting the venue squared away at the Morris County Library, where we have the Meeting Room reserved for the 18th from 1-4:45pm correction: 2:30-4:45.
Take a look at the Software Freedom Day site and think about perhaps a small presentation you might like to do. There are several ways that we can run this, we can have one main presentation going with a variety of speakers, or we can see if we can divide the room up, and run several presentations simultaneously. Think about if you’d like to do a quick one-off presentation, or to talk about a subject on and off all day. We can discuss the logistics of this at the meeting.
I’m going to work up some flyers this week, and put them up here for all to comment on. If they look good, it would be great if everyone printed some, and put them up around.
Think about what you might want to do, we only have one more meeting before Software Freedom Day! Feel free to leave ideas in the comments, or email me.
Software Freedom Day.
Aug 5
For those of you that are interested, please get back to me quickly, waiting until the next meeting, on August 25th would seem to be too late. We need for volunteers to find and get detailed information on a venue to hold SFD. A place with a lot of foot traffic that may at least have some interest in technology would be good. We will need power, and prefereably internet access. (this is not essntial) The date is for Septermber 18th, so we need to get moving now if we are to get some publicity for the event. http://softwarefreedomday.org/
UPDATE: Sam has done some great work and found out that we can reserve the meeting room (while it’s still available) up until the 18th of August. We’ll have the room from 1-4:45. So, we have a meeting place, in the Morris County Library, if we have the support of the members to go ahead. So, who is game? We will need people to promote the event, so that we have some traffic this year. Last year we were there, but the public didn’t know about us. Can anyone step forward with some good ideas and action to make Software Freedom Day a success?
murph’s podcast list.
Jul 28
I’m long overdue to put my list of podcasts that I went through in a previous meeting on the site. If you have any questions, let me know.
Meeting for 7.28.10
Jul 2
Our June meeting was very well attended with some newcomers thanks to Nick’s meetup announcement. It was nice to meet Nando, Joe and Clyde. Murph brought to attention the Hope conference and Software Freedom Day happening later this year. Anyone interested in participating in SFD please let the group know so that we can decide weather we will attempt to do a promotion of our own. Nando offered to look into having some guest speakers attend in the future.
Next month we may have Reg doing a presentation. And I propose we discuss the article by Benjamin Mako Hill titled “Free software needs free tools” in the current issue of the Free Software Foundation Bulletin. It raises some interesting points regarding software freedom.
P.S. I intended to post my Linux bookmarks folder that I have accumulated over the years and did not do it last month. So here it is: Linux bookmarks
Convention Season!
Jun 17
Had a great time at Southeast Linux Fest last weekend. Short week of work, and off to Fosscon this coming weekend. I’ll talk a little about the two conventions at the upcoming meeting.
Meeting for 6.30.10
Jun 2
Thanks to Murph for the pod-cast presentation at the last meeting. Keep a look out in that meeting post for some materials from him on the presentation. I believe he will be posting an XML file of all the pod-casts he covered.
For next month the agenda is light so far. I plan on doing a review of my Linux bookmarks folder that I have accumulated over the years. It will likely contain sites that prove to be helpful in your future Linux activities.
Drop me a line if any of you have suggestions or would like to present at the meeting.
Cheers
Meeting for 5.26.10
Apr 30
We had a great turnout for our April meeting.
Murph has volunteered to put together a presentation for our May meeting. He is great at presentations so don’t miss it. As soon as he lets me know the topic I will put it in this post. Also, please remember that we will field presentations from any members interested in doing so. Just let me know by email or bring up your ideas at the meeting and we will get you on the schedule and make the announcement.
See you in May.
The NJ Linux user’s group would like to announce a brief presentation
of “An Introduction to Free and Open Source Software”
It will be held at the Boonton Holmes Library at 6:30 on Tuesday the 20th.
We’ll spend an hour going through the following: A quick
demonstration of some Free applications for Windows, OpenOffice.org,
and The GNU Image Manipulation Program. Then we’ll take a look at
Linux, a free operating system, as well as a quick overview of some
applications available for Linux. This will be followed by a question
and answer session. Updates and more details can be found at
http://njlinux.org and email questions can be addressed to
linux @ murph.info.
Edit: I’ve included the flyer that I’ve been distributing here: open-3
Edit2: Here are the slides that I’m planning on showing. Suggestions welcome. pres1
Meeting for 4.28.10
Apr 7
Back to our regular meeting schedule in Hackensack.
Agenda/discussion items:
- Revolution OS
- Intro to OSS
- Local LUG activities
- …
Success! Many thanks.
Apr 2
This past Wednesday was our screening of “Revolution OS.” To be honest, I was a little worried. I wasn’t getting a whole lot of feedback, and was concerned that I’d be a lonely geek watching a movie (that I already own) in a rented theatre by myself. Turns out my worries were unfounded. Our user’s group, and the local community came out in droves! We had about 4 dozen people in the Darress theatre, with only one walk out. Considering the depth of the movie, I’d say that was a great success. Many people stuck around to ask questions, which I did my best to answer. We then went over to the Boonton Avenue Grille for good food and more good conversation. Overall, it was a great night, a great opportunity to share information about GNU, Linux, Free and Open Source Software.
I have many people to thank,
- J.T.S. Moore, who allowed us to show his documentary without charge
- All the local businesses that allowed me to put up flyers advertising the event
- The Neighbor News, who ran our announcement in the local paper
- Jay Sulzberger, for running our announcement on the NYLX mailing list
- Threethirty and the Fedora team, and the Ubuntu Shipit team who combined sent out three dozen nicely printed distributions to give out to interested movie watchers
- Tom and the crew at the Darress Theatre, for the great venue
- The user’s group members that supported my crazy idea
- And above all, all of the folks who participated, donated and spent some time learning about Free and Open Source Software like Linux. (If I’ve forgotten anyone, and I almost certainly have, just let me know, I’ll update!)
We raised enough to cover the cost of the theatre, with $101 left over, which will go to the Free Software Foundation, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Stay tuned to the blog, some of the members took pictures, and we’ll update for upcoming events and meetings.
Also, I’ll be running an “Introduction to Free software and Linux” at the Boonton library at 6:30 on April 20th, for anyone who is local and interested. I’ll be showing some current software, and some explanation of what it does, and how you can use it. Details will be posted here soon.
Again, thanks to all of you, and please let me know what was good, what was bad, and if you’d be interested in more events like this, or if you’d be interested in joining us at the North Jersey Linux User’s Group at njlinux.org. I can be reached at linux @ murph.info.
I’ve made arrangements with the Boonton Avenue Grille for us to be able to gather there en masse after the movie. That way we’ll have a place to discuss what everyone thought of the movie, or anything Linux or Free Software related!
It is at 108 Boonton Avenue Boonton, NJ, which is just a block or so away from the theatre.
Hope to see everyone there!
A promotion opportunity.
Mar 15
If anyone is going to be the Meadowlands area (I cannot, if was able to make it, I wouldn’t post.) this coming weekend, maybe you can drop off a bunch of flyers. If you’re interested in going, I have a dollar off coupon that I can email to you. Let me know.
Thanks,
–Bob