Bristol Wireless News

There are a couple of events coming up later this week if you are at a loose end in Bristol.

Friday 25th May sees the annual return of Silver Surfers’ Day (SSD). SSD is an opportunity for everyone to do something practical to help older people (aged 50+) join the digital age. So far the SSD website has one event listed for Bristol at Lawrence Weston Library, BS11 0NT (map) from 10 am to 12 noon. Booking is required; contact Vicki Bowd on 0117 3125696). If you’re outside Bristol, you can find your nearest Silver Surfers’ event by visiting this page.

On Saturday 26th May Jake Subs and Raymond Brooks will be giving a free demonstration of free and open source music software over at our friends, The Cube Microplex, Dove Street, Bristol (directions) between 1 pm and 3 pm. Amongst the goodies being demonstrated will be BpmDj (free DJ tools for Linux) – shame I’ll be away

Linuxworld reports that the Japanese government wants to use open source to reduce its reliance on a single vendor IT software infrastructure.

A consortium of 10 major suppliers including Oracle, NEC, IBM, HP, Hitachi and Dell is being formed to develop and sell Linux servers and computers to the Japanese market. This follows the Japanese government’s announcement of its wish to make Linux and open source a priority for all IT procurements from July 2007. The government says it plans to spend around 1.25 trillion yen (£5.24 bn) on IT over the next year. The government has said explicitly it wants to decrease its reliance on Microsoft as a server platform.

Read the original article.

Here at the lab, we’re busy preparing a new server for an LTSP install for CSV Environment. Of course, we had to buy the box in – this time from Dell – paying the inevitable ‘Windows tax’ in the process since it came with an unwanted copy of Windows Vista and we intended to feed it Debian instead. Left with a superfluous Microsoft operating system on our hands, we thought we’d like to try and get a refund for it and were pleasantly surprised by the helpfulness of Dell’s customer support line, which we had to call if we did not accept the Windows and/or Dell software licences (there was no ‘I do not agree’ option on the licence page ).

Anyway, our efforts proved successful. After a couple of calls to customer service on Friday, we obtained a refund from Dell for the unwanted software (Vista and MS Works). The big surprise was the refund we were offered: a mere £17 for Vista and £6 for Works.

Since Friday we’ve received the following confirmation email from Dell:

Dear Mr Rossiter,
I’m pleased to tell you that I have successfully concluded your case by refunding 23 pounds back into your account and please do reply incase [sic] of any queries, and have logged it with the following details: My Name: [removed to protect the helpful].
Please mail me back if you feel the issue is not resolved to your Complete Satisfaction. We pride ourselves on the quality of our Customer Service, if the issue is not resolved to your satisfaction please contact my supervisor: [name removed]@dell.com
Thanks,
Dell Customer Care

We’d like to thank Dell UK for their co-operation and being so helpful, as well as ask them a final question: when will you be following your US colleagues and offering Linux notebooks and desktops? Make it soon please!

Psand.net, one of Bristol Wireless’ supporters, is now hosting and supporting #openitup, the IRC chat channel launched as part of the Openitup initiative funded by the National Computing Centre and the National ICT Hub. One promise from Openitup was to establish a channel of support voluntary sector workers could go to get real-time support and advice when planning for and using Linux desktops and servers and also a virtual meeting place for practitioners to learn and swap ideas while supplying immediate voluntary support to visitors that request help.

The OpenItup project was imaginatively funded by the Home Office’s ChangeUp programme through the ICTHub to meet the needs of those groups and individuals in the voluntary sector who were attempting to create models for sustainable computing using open source software, which unfortunately has had its funding cut.

The resources developed during the lifetime of the project are still available at the Openitup website and plans and suggestions for building on the legacy are now in the hands of the IctHub – so watch this space.

In the meantime, Bristol Wireless volunteers and collaborating practitioners from across the UK welcome all visitors to #openitup and hope we can develop this useful resource pending fuller funding of open source initiatives within the voluntary sector.

To connect to the channel go to http://www.bristolwireless.net/ and select the Chat link on the home page, then select #openitup from the drop-down channel menu to log in.

See you there!

The Bristol Wireless Crew.