Chief scribe
I was reminded today by a fellow labrat that there’s only one month to go to the next Adventure in Technology – Techadventure for short, as mentioned here last autumn (news passim). “An Adventure in Technology” is a party which will be held on the 28th February at the Trinity Centre in Bristol (map). Doors […]
If anyone’s coming along to the next Bristol Wireless monthly meeting, it’s going to be held at Hamilton House on Stokes Croft in Bristol (map here). It’s where the December Dorkbot hacklab was held (news passim). As part of the meeting, there’ll be a presentation by Amias and Jamie from the Coexist Project, who are […]
BBC Technology reports that Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, is preparing a paper on the use of open source software for the new US administration. “It’s intuitively obvious open source is more cost effective and productive than proprietary software,” he said, adding, “Open source does not require you to pay a penny to […]
Bristol Wireless volunteer Tony Stone has been experimenting with increasing the range of USB wifi dongles and has come up with a splendid bit of home-made kit. In Tony’s own words: I was having trouble picking up my local WiFi hotspot. I was using a USB dongle and added an extension cable to put it […]
This coming Tuesday 20th January is Penguin Awareness Day (hat tip: Kerry McCarthy). Why is a tech news site so concerned about aquatic, flightless birds you may ask? Anybody familiar with Linux will be aware of the existence of a character called Tux, the mascot of the Linux kernel and a penguin to boot (should […]
When I saw that as the subject line in an email we’ve received, I thought it was a great way to open a testimonial to Linux. Last week we had a visitor in the lab who bought one of our splendid £30 computers. Normally, we don’t hear from our customers: the machines just keep running […]
Aar me hearties! Jules, Bristol Wireless’ treasurer will be taking us back to the 1960s in a couple of weeks time, when he talks on pirate radio (Ah! The pink-shrouded mist of nostalgia descends over my eyes. Ed.) in the Zoo bar at St Werburghs Community Centre (map here) on Wednesday, 14th January 2009 from […]
If you’ve still got some enthusiasm left after Saturday’s Dorkbot (news passim) down in fragrant Stokes Croft this coming Saturday, news reaches the lab that Chaostreff Bristol will be having some malarkey on Sunday 14th December in St Werburghs, as outlined in the following email from Adam that I received earlier this week via the […]
This coming weekend of Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th December looks like being a busy time for geeks and other ne’er do-wells in the Bristol area. First of all comes news that Bristol’s December Dorkbot (strapline: “people doing strange things with electricity”) is happening on Saturday 13th. Just for a change, it’s having a rest […]
The time: first thing on Monday morning this week (Groan! Ed.). The place: outside the Watershed by Bristol’s historic docks, where Rich Higgs and yer ‘umble scribe found ourselves unloading a car full of stuff – a refurbished £30 computer, the Bristol Wireless banner, blank CDs, literature, etc. – to haul inside for the South […]
Instead of the traditional Christmas-time office booze-up, Bristol Wireless is organising something slightly different this year: we’re putting on a geek quiz night as a fundraiser. Details are as follows: Venue: St Werburghs Community Centre, Horley Road, BS2 9TJ; Date and time: Friday 19th December at 7pm; Team size: 4-6 persons; Entry fee: £2.50 per […]
Yesterday the Bristol Wireless lab was graced by a visit from Ronnie Corbett – the real one that is, not the wee comic… 😉 Anyway, avid readers of BW News will remember that Ronnie was the warden at Princess Royal Gardens (news passim). He’s now retired from wardening duties for Bristol City Council, but is […]
Richard Stallman, founder of the GNU Project, was recently interviewed by Rosalie Marshall of Australia’s IT news and gave the following intriguing response when asked: “Do you think public authorities should be leading the way with free software?” Every public agency has a duty to maintain its control over its computing, as a matter of […]
Our old friend Shevek has just given the first notice of the next Adventure in Technology will be returning again early in 2009. Writing from the other side of the Atlantic, Shevek posted the message below yesterday to the BBLUG mailing list: Hi, We are holding the next episode of our festival of creative technology […]
Every now and again one’s previous work comes back up again to haunt – just like the previous night’s dodgy takeaway meal. This has just happened to Bails, one of Bristol Wireless’ longest serving volunteers, who yesterday posted the following message to the BW mailing list: Last year I was requested to put together an […]
Spanish site Dos Hermanas Wireless reports that five villages in Girona, northern Spain, that have been bypassed by the telephone companies, decided a few years ago to install their own WiFi networks to provide internet access to residents. The regulator, the Telecommunications Market Commission (CMT) has now fined them for breaking the law, as the […]
Bristol Wireless volunteer Acesabe is currently doing the final installation and configuration of a laptop due to go out to Palestine in the near future through the good offices of Bristol Computers For Palestine, who are currently raising funds for computers for educational and community use in the West Bank. The machine itself is a […]
The BBC reports that, as part of a $3bn (£1.66bn) bilateral trade deal with Portugal, it will be buying one million low-cost laptops for its schoolchildren. Portugal is manufacturing the blue and white laptops under licence from Intel and the machines are broadly based on the design of Intel’s Classmate computer, which will also sport […]
Muniwireless.com writes that Lincoln has issued a request for proposals for bids for the installation of a city centre wireless network. Lincoln Business Improvement Group (BIG) has received a grant of £150,000 to be used to help fund the cost of building the network; BIG regards this grant as seed money to encourage a service […]
Last night our friends at Trinity Community Arts (aka 3ca) held their first computer give-away for people who’d successfully completed their music technology course. It also marked the release into the wild of the first public version of Trubuntu (codenamed 0.2), Trinity’s custom edition of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution. While waiting for their machines, […]