Bristol Wireless News

Not sure if this is very accurate .. or if it even works correctly yet should update every 15mins:

http://stats.mjleonard.me.uk

The Easton Cowboys now have a new website

http://www.eastoncowboys.org.uk

I’ve not seen them myself, but apparently the Works bargain bookshop opposite "John Lewis" in Broadmead are selling Introductory Linux books published by Dorling Kindersley at a £1 a copy! one for the Xmas stocking.

I’ve started writing Course Materials (Students Notes and Session plans) for our free introductory courses for novices on the "TempWiki", so if anyone want’s to join in they’d be more than welcome, you can see the sort of format it’s supposed to be in, fairly clearly, I think.

http://irvken.homelinux.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/TrainingNotes

Spell and grammar checking would be equally appreciated as I’m writing them in a bit of a hurry due to the fact we’re supposed to start next Thursday.

There is a meeting next Thursday evening in Paignton, Devon apparently to promote co-operation on a full ECDL wiki for developing Open Source teaching material,

the wiki is

http://www.defoam.net/wiki/tavi-0.22/

although as you can see it’s only one page so far, perhaps there are people in Bristol who would be interested in getting involved ( as well as me )

Yesterday we got into the ICT Suite thanks to Nigel from ECA ( trivia: Nigel used to be in Orchestral Manouvres in The Dark!) , and with the help of Tall Paul we got all the machines dual booting between their default WinodowsOS and Suse. Partitioning was fast, install was quick and configuring for the network was very simple (I quite enjoy using YAST ) . One machine refused to play ball with the partitioning, we suspect Windows will have to be reinstalled first, apart from that everything went smoothly.

Two things to complete to finish preparation for Linux training -

Suse 8.2 doesn’t come with Mozilla default so that has to be dloaded and installed on all the machines, I think we did one, but the rest will have to be done before Nov 13th, not a difficult job, but time consuming nonetheless.

We have to sort out the printing, so we don’t disturb the Centre’s Windows network, Matt thinks he has a solution.

Hurra we’ve got the multia mounted and running the new antenna at the ECC, it’s all up and working ! still cant see it from the lab tho :/

lessons learnt: call a rigger (£60.00) with all the tools makes the process easy. The LDF 450 cable is good but hard to use in comparison to the UM67 cable and the expence makes it prohibitive for smaler nodes. Thanks to John at Westcom for the donation on that one

This is an invitation to anyone out there with an interest in media content to contribute to a forum that sets out to promote, develop and encourage collaboration and support of ideas – for creative media projects.

This could be:-
- for an internet based website or for a local wireless network
- involving training or learning new skills
- based on radio, video, photography or simply text and graphics
- the recording of a performance, the telling of a story or the documenting of an event. It could be interactive
- for art, culture, information, education, health, news, entertainment, commerce – etc etc etc.

Media and consumers are evolving – new media forms emerging alongside new types of consumer.
Liberated from the captivity of elitist controllers, we now have access to the creative tools and to the networks. What do we want to do with this technology?

Please post your views and comments.

It was raised at the meeting that we could either run a big event like last time at the ECC, or run smaller 2 hour training/giveaway sessions at the office. What’s everyone’s opinion on this? Personally, I think the smaller sessions at the office will be better.

+ Smaller groups mean less volunteers
+ No rental for the ECC room
+ Easier to manage
- Not so good for publicity

As an idea, I suggest we maintain a first come, first served list of people wanting PCs. To get on the list, a message can be left on the office answerphone, an email sent (say freepc@bristolwireless.net), or a submission on the website. When we have machines ready, and enough people to run a course (say 4-8 people), we contact the first people on the list to make a training course at the office. The people turn up to find ready-to-run machines that they will learn to use for a couple of hours before taking them home.

It’s cheap to do, and sustainable. Any thoughts on this?

Cheers,
Andy

Another thing that came up at the last meeting is the question of what constitutes membership?

The Rules of the Bristol Wireless Community Co-Operative Ltd. state

5. The Committee may admit to membership any person or corporate body, or nominee of any unincorporated organisation or firm, who or which is living, working or active within the community served by the co-operative and who or which has agreed to pay to the co-operative any subscription or other sum due in respect of memebership.

In practice, this means virtually anybody including the ex-pat Psand lads.

For the purposes of meetings

24. …a quorum shall be one tenth of the members of the Co-operative or five members, whichever is the greater

so we just assumed that for the purposes of the last 2 meetings that everybody was a member thus making them quorate, however we are actually legally required to keep a formal register of membership (each paying £1 for a "share").

One suggestion might be that signing up for this BBS or the mailing list constitutes membership application and unless you hear otherwise (i.e get thrown off for spamming or abuse) sending a £1 either by mail or through paypal to info@bristolwireless.net address confirms membership.

Discuss!

At the last meeting Andy Laurence suggested that if tutors were going to be paid for the courses being run at ECC (which has not been confirmed yet) , it might be a good idea if the payments were paid back into the Bristol Wireless "pot" to fund other projects and development work.

On a theoretical level this is probably a good idea, however on a practical level it may be difficult to get professional tutors (which ECC and Bristol Community Education insist on) to give up time on a regular basis to prepare and deliver the courses as volunteers.

Personally as someone who does quite of lot of work for the project it would be nice to receive a bit of cash doing something I would normally get paid for in my "day job" . However if there is anybody who would like to lead the sessions and donate the money back to BW, then I’m more than happy to forego any finacial recompense in return for having my evenings free. I’ll even come along as a volunteer helper on one or two sessions if required.