November 2009: Show and tell and Group Business

We started with a demo of Google’s ChromeOS, (built from the recently released source), by both Dick and Wayne. we saw a  machine boot up to a login screen that uses your googlemail details to get straight into a familiar Google Chrome browser. And that’s about it – for people that live on line.

Martyn gave us a demo of the latest Linux Mint. Martyn liked the default menu system, and thinks it’s a very user friendly distro – possibly something that people coming from a Windows environment would get along with just fine. It’s also quite a powerful distribution, so if you want to get your hands dirty it has the tools to do so. For multimedia fans it comes with all the codecs ready installed – there is a ‘free-er software’ version as well.

It’s green!

John fed-back about his meeting with the CVS about putting on a ‘FOSS Event’.

1. Anthony Clipsom broadly welcomes the ideas and thanks us for our interest. He sees no objection in principle to the arrangements we are suggesting.

2. However, he is hesitant about its viability at the moment because the IT days they have run have tended to attract the faithful few rather than the wider audience we would like to attract.

3. The Bradford CVS uses OpenOffice on Windows and Firefox. In fact, Bradford Council now requires that all its web material supports both IE and Firefox.

4. Anthony will talk about the idea with colleagues because sometimes attitudes can change and, if it looks viable from the point of view of interest, he will get back to us.

5. In the meantime, Gavin, the Information Officer, would welcome short (250-300 words) articles on FOSS to go in their bulletin – starting with Firefox and OO. The deadline for the next bulletin is in January and thereafter the deadlines are about every six weeks.

Between us we agreed that going ahead with the articles for the magazine was a good idea. John will take the lead on an Open Office article, and Wayne will lead on an article about Firefox.

Alice gave a bit of feedback on the Yorkshire Drupal User Group’s first metting a coupleof weeks ago. A group is being set up at:http://groups.drupal.org/yorkshire-dug Anyone interested in a weekend in the Lakes to re-do the mountain rescue website using Drupal should visit:http://lamrt.bluwiki.com/

Those that were there fed back about the Bradford BarCamp from those that were there. But it’s probably better to check out the organisers own report. Our feedback, a bit disorganised, but a good event for Bradford, interesting people and talsk. We’d recommend it!

We then discussed getting constituted…There are advantages of our loose way of doing things now, but there may be benefits to getting constituted and e.g. getting a bank account. There is some good understanding among group members about what this entails. It’s left with the position that those that are interested can go and do the work, but agreed to keep others informed.

Festive Geekery We’re going for a Christmas Curry on the 11th December (when the social would normally be) probably at 6.30pm, with a vague idea that those going for drinks afterwards would get to the pub for around 8pm. We’re going to doodle our suggested eateries.

Past Meetings