Chief scribe
Earlier today, Direct.gov made the following announcement via Twitter. From 17 Oct, GOV.UK will replace Directgov as the best place to find government services & info gov.uk — Directgov (@Directgov) September 14, 2012 The gov.uk site is already up and running, although visitors are currently greeted with the pop-up below.
We learn from GNU Solidario, a voluntary organisation that has been delivering health and education with free software since 2005, that the Argentine capital Buenos Aires will be turning into the “technological capital” of Latin America between September and October due to four events covering different aspects of ICT technologies. As this article goes to […]
Earlier today, Bristol Wireless wrote to its local MP, Bristol South’s Dawn Primarolo (affectionately known to Private Eye readers as Red Dawn. Ed.) regarding the coalition Government’s draft Communications Data Bill, aka the “Snoopers’ Charter”, which seems to be more draconian than the previous Labour government’s proposals along similar lines (and rejoicing in the name […]
Our Digital Planet is an exhibition showcasing the positive opportunities and developments that have been made possible by the internet. The exhibition is being sponsored by Nominet Trust, the charity established by Nominet (the organisation which administers the .uk domain names. Ed.) and will be in Broadmead – between Boots and Marks and Spencer (map […]
The Free Software Foundation Europe FSFE) is asking whether lawsuits like Apple vs Samsung will soon take place in Europe if proposals currently on the table for reform of the patent system are adopted. The European Parliament is about to set the future course for Europe’s patent system. On 17th and 18th September, the Legal […]
Yesterday, the last day for responses, Bristol Wireless responded to the Department for Education‘s consultation on internet blocking in the cause of keeping children safe online. The consultation arose from a campaign called ‘Safety Net‘, run by Premier Christian Media and SaferMedia, and supported by the Daily Mail. The campaign, and now the consultation is […]
For years, Bristol Wireless has been opposed to software patents. Firstly, they stifle innovation and cripple competition. To date they haven’t been too much of a problem in the UK. However, one only has to look across the Atlantic to see the kind of mess that can occur due to software patents: companies making more […]
Connecting Bristol recently announced that Bristol City Council will be holding an information day on Tuesday, 4th September 2012 between 9.30 am and 3.30 am at the Colston Hall, Colston Street, Bristol (map). The purpose of the day is to explain the radical changes the council is making to its ICT procurement process, which will […]
The delightful Yorkshire town of Hebden Bridge (think Glastonbury with Yorkshire pudding & gravy. Ed.) plays host this year to the Open Source Hardware Camp 2012 (aka #oshcamp2012) from 9.00 am on Saturday, 15th September 2012 to 4.00 pm on Sunday, 16th September. The event will be held at The Birchcliffe Centre, Birchcliffe Road, Hebden […]
On Wednesday evening, the families and friends of Sam Rossiter and Naomi Smyth, plus a few Bristol Wireless ne’er-do-wells, paid a fond farewell to the couple as they sailed off into the future under the Redcliffe bascule bridge to the strains of The Ambling Band. Sam has been a Bristol Wireless volunteer of many years’ […]
On August 16, the Debian community will celebrate that epic Linux distro’s 19th birthday since Ian Murdock’s original founding announcement. As is tradition, the Debian communities all around the world will be celebrating it with Debian Birthday parties. A Debian Birthday party is a fun event, globally marking the appreciation and the joy of being […]
A scene from earlier this afternoon in the lab. What does one need when dealing with a recalcitrant screw in a laptop hard drive caddy? That’s right! Steady hands and a hammer! š We do not recommend readers try this procedure at home.
When he was over in Wales recently for Monmouthpedia (news passim), the chief scribe had the good fortune to meet Robin Owain, a stalwart of Wicipedia Cymru, the Welsh language version of Wikipedia, the world’s largest open source project. Wicipedia Cymru has a pool of some 200 editors who between them have now amassed (and […]
We learned today from Bristol247’s news wire that Bristol University has won a special award for its efforts to ābring knowledge to allā through its collaboration with Wikimedia UK, the UK charity that supports the work of Wikipedia and its sister projects. The University second in the Educational Institution of the Year category in recognition […]
Today Geo Networks Ltd (āGeoā), a leading fibre network provider, announced a ground-breaking project with Broadband for the Rural North (B4RN, pronounced barn), a not-for-profit, community-led organisation. Geo will support B4RN in delivering world class internet services to rural areas, such as Lancashire’s the Forest of Bowland and the Lune Valley. Geo will provide vital […]
At 11 am UTC on 27th July the shutters come down on registrations for the European Space Agency’s Summer of Code in Space 2012 (SOCIS 2012). SOCIS aims at offering student developers stipends to write code for various space-related open source software projects. Through SOCIS, accepted student applicants are paired with a mentor or mentors […]
We’ve already blogged about registration opening for CiviCon London 2012 – the forthcoming conference for users and developers of CiviCRM (news passim), the open source customer relationship management system (as used by Bristol Wireless. Ed.). Our old mate Sean Kenny recently blogged about it too, publicising it via Tiwtter earlier today. civicrm.org/blogs/seank/ciā¦ CiviCon2012 London blog […]
Train operator First Great Western (shouldn’t that be “alleged” train operator? Ed.) has announced that it will be trialling free wifi on trains running between London Paddington and the Cotswolds. The wifi will be installed on five Class 180 trains as part of a series of reliability and comfort modifications. FGW’s Managing Director Mark Hopwood […]
Casas Bahia is a major domestic electrical appliances retailer in Brazil with 53,000 employees and over 500 stores. For the last 5 years it’s been successfully running SuSE Linux on its mainframes and point-of-sale systems with zero downtime as the following video explains (with helpful subtitles in English for non-Portuguese speakers).
Unlike their colleagues in the city of Helsinki’s IT department, who think open source office suites cost too much (news passim), the Finnish city of Tampere is to trail the free and open source OpenOffice productivity suite alongside its regular proprietary suite (probably the one with the annoying paperclip. Ed.), Joinup reports. The pilot follows […]