From Sfvlug

Current revision as of 07:20, 24 June 2009

This page is a discussion on the SCALE events and our participation.

SCALE-7x

Linux 101 An Introduction To Linux, Learning How To Learn

Unfortunately my Linux 101 presentation was a disaster. Rather than posting a "My Dog Ate My Homework" excuse I'll leave it that I was not prepared, I didn't have access to my outline and my slides were incomplete. When I realized that my brain was a deer in headlights and I could remember next to nothing of what I had prepared I wound up doing about 40 minutes of Q&A. So, to make up for it I'll post material and resources that hopefully will in some small way make up for a poor presentation. I'll create a new section named Linux 101 and post information and resources there.

DD-WRT Project

I have moved this section to its own page. Go to DD-WRT on Airlink 101 AR430W

Update

We just had our regular Saturday meeting and an interesting discussion about the upcoming SCALE meeting, February 20, 21, 22. We talked about reaching out to people of all sorts of skill levels. SCALE has put a recent emphasis on reaching an audience of people newly come to GNU/Linux. Because more of those new people have been attending SCALE lately and have been inquiring about having more entry level presentations available they have created a new beginner's track. It looks like more and more folks are starting to catch on to the Wintel monopoly and are looking for better alternatives. But it's not all going to be about newbies by any means and we plan to have demos and presentations that should be interesting for visitors of all skill levels and interests.

Some of the topics discussed included our old standard, voice triggers for hands off computing, DD-WRT and other router enhancement tools, making custom live CD/DVD/USB distros, virtualization, available replacements for Windoze apps and how to better present the appearance of the booth. We are inviting all members of all skill levels to volunteer to demonstrate something cool that they have been doing with GNU/Linux. Even if a topic is already fairly well known by the community, if it is something you personally find interesting or useful to know chances are good it is something other people attending the expo will also appreciate.

We still have two, maybe three exhibitor passes for anyone willing to put a decent effort into helping man the booth. We invite all our members to help make sure that we keep SFVLUG, SCALE and the entire GNU/Linux/FLOSS community a vital and thriving. Sure we would love to have you help out at our booth and talk to visitors about your own experiences but just coming out to attend SCALE yourself and perhaps bringing a friend would also be great and we hope to see you at this year at SCALE and our regular SFVLUG meetings.

Please post your ideas, suggestions or questions here at the Scale 2009 page, in #sfvlug IRC channel or to our mailing list. More updates to follow as we progress.

--Miasma 14:23, 18 January 2009 (PST)

Hi all, it's that time again, we are getting ready for this year's SCALE http://scale7x.socallinuxexpo.org/

This year in addition to our usual Psyche demo we are also going to spotlight some smaller projects too. Our overall theme is about using GNU/Linux/FLOSS in the home and small business, basically SOHO + personal use. The current working title is "Using Linux In The Home And Small Business Environment" but we still have a couple of days to come up with something better. If you have a favorite application, or more broadly any set of tools or applications, that you think might make a cool presentation please contact Brian or Kurt. You don't need to have an elaborate polished demo, just something you think visitors to SCALE might find interesting. You don't need to even attend the event as long as it is a presentation that fits in the theme, and our theme is quite broad and could include just about anything that could be useful to a small business or for personal use.

Please check back, we will be adding more content here as things progress. Please feel free to post suggestions, comments or questions here, in IRC or in the sfvlug mailing list.

Scale 2009

A Bit Of Reflection On SCALE 5x

I consider our presence at SCALE 5x a success despite the fact that we were unable to present our Psyche demo this year after failing to achieve a satisfactory recognition rate with Sphinx2, the speech recognition engine we had been using in the past. I had a chance to spend more time soaking in the event by concentrating more on the interaction with visitors to our booth than in putting on a presentation. I got a chance to meet a lot of nice folks and while it would be nice to have an attraction to draw in more folks I was reminded that our focus needs to be as much on community as it is on the technology itself.

I have a few suggestions I have based on my experience that might help us grow as a community through our presence at future SCALE events. Some of these suggestions have been discussed in the past but for one reason or another haven't been implemented.

• Printed Handouts - This year we provided printed hand outs with a map to our normal venues. This could be improved to include more information about our organization. Other information about Linux and open source software could be made available.

• Better Signs - We had our SFVLUG Tux poster but some folks didn't understand who or what we were easily from our signs.

• Branding - It would be great if we could provide stickers, or other low cost swag with name and URL included

• Scheduled Participation - I had plenty of help with the booth but it would have been nice to have known in advance when I'd be able to attend a presentation or go to the bathroom.

• Printer - There were many times it would have been handy to print out information for a visitor.

• CD/DVD Burner - I burned a few to hand out, mostly Knoppix 5.1.1 and Open CD for Windoze. It would be nice to continue this practice but a bit more on purpose.

--Miasma 23:07, 13 February 2007 (EST)