Chief scribe
Since its inception as a community wireless networking project, Bristol Wireless’ range of activities has expanded at a rapid rate. One of the newer lines of work – although the idea was first mooted a few years ago – is the development of our own Bristol Wireless Debian-based Linux distribution. Ben Green has today announced […]
Following on from Bristol Wireless’ sale of internet-ready Linux computers for £50, news reaches the lab that well-known supermarket chain Tesco, once described by a TV comedy programme as “the world’s first retail state”, has now commenced sales of entry level PCs with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed. Tesco’s Linux machines cost slightly more than ours do, […]
At the start of the weekend Matt Toseland sent a message to our general list announcing he wouldn’t be able to make our monthly meeting in November. Apart from being a bit early, there’s nothing unusual in apologies from people unable to attend meetings. However, Matt has a good excuse: he’s moving to Scarborough (in […]
Bristol Wireless was recently contacted on behalf of the Healing Hands Network to see if we could help provide a laptop computer for Amir, a 27-year old resident of Sarajevo and Bosnian civil war victim, to enable him to turn his life around and help him gain the qualifications to find work. After being nearly […]
A short time ago, Matthew Edmonson of M6-IT, a long-time supporter of Bristol Wireless, posted to our mailing list about his experiences using a 3G USB modem out and about and his impressions on how it could encourage mobile working. His email started as follows: I am writing this from a meeting in Bristol; fifteen […]
The “damning” results of a survey of local authorities by Liberal Democrat MP John Pugh show that the majority have no idea how much money is being spent on IT in their schools. Of the 59 respondents, 37 local authorities keep no information on the amount spent by schools on IT provision and procurement. With […]
While the big wide world classes Bristol Wireless as supertechies or ubergeeks, we do have artistic sensibilities: indeed, the co-op has several artist(e)s – musicians, DJs, wordsmiths, practitioners in the plastic arts, etc. – in its ranks and I reckon that collectively we have more appreciation of creative works than your average Radio 4 studio […]
A Bristol Wireless group and photo pool has now been established on Flickr, the popular image sharing site. The idea is to document the work and personalities of the Bristol Wireless project. At the time of writing the group has 7 members and nearly 80 pictures, including some historical images from our first high-rise install […]
iT4 Communities, the national IT volunteering programme of the Information Technologists’ Company, is accepting nominations for the 2007 IT Volunteer Awards, which aim to recognise the best, most innovative examples of IT volunteering and projects. Charities can nominate themselves and/or their IT volunteers by submitting an application by 6 October. Anyone who has volunteered their […]
The New York Times reported yesterday that the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have rebuffed the efforts of Microsoft to have its Open Office XML (OOXML) document format accepted as an international standard. Of the 87 countries that participated in the vote, 26% opposed Microsoft’s bid. Under the […]
Once camping in a field meant being well out of touch, but today your ‘umble scribe at the Ragged Hedge Fair has sent a birthday greeting to his sister by text message and phoned the family on a VoIP telephone (routed via satellite, back to earth in Germany, Bath, Switzerland, back to the UK and […]
Saturday at the Ragged Hedge Fair started bright and sunny, but to misquote the late Larry Grayson: “What a grey day”. As we’re running off solar, that’s not working at its full capacity due to cloud cover, although Clive, our power supplier, still has the wind. The free first hour of internet access for kids […]
It’s Friday lunchtime and the Bristol Wireless/Psand cybertent at the Ragged Hedge Fair at Abbey Farm near Cirencester has running for about 2 hours now; the suite and the site wireless access (which I’m using) are all running off wind and solar power kindly provided by Magrec Ltd., next to whom we’re pitched. The advance […]
This was supposed to be the last post from Bristol Wireless’ latest away fixture – a game of more than two halves – but is being written a couple of days later back in Bristol. The entire tournament was characterised by fair play all round. Marks (out of 10): 10 The whole team acted as […]
The third day has now started at the Cowboys‘ Crystal Balls tournament in Cullompton with classical music playing in the cybertent. Breakfast has been consumed and the suite has just opened for business, whilst football and cricket swing into action on a fine, sunny morning. Last night Mike and Lloyd rigged up a second satellite […]
Day 2 has now dawned on the Easton Cowboys’ tournament down in Cullompton, Devon (news passim). Today’s football has started, with the mens’ and womens’ tournaments running, from which Sean has just returned with a result sheet to update the live stats. The Bristol Wireless cybertent is again well occupied, whilst the BW crew’s breakfast […]
Our correspondent in a field in Cullompton writes: Bristol Wireless’ old friends, the Easton Cowboys, have all deserted their usual Bristol haunts (including the Plough and other watering holes, green flat places suited to the beautiful game and the like) and toddled to Cullompton, where they’re camping and playing football on the edge of the […]
In June Bristol Wireless were approached by Eddie Smith, Chair of Governors at St Werburghs Primary School to demonstrate our Linux thin client technology. On Monday 2nd July 2007 Bristol Wireless took the 12 volt LTSP suite plus three desktop thin clients to the classroom for two weeks since the school wanted to investigate the […]
Festival time is upon us again: we’ve already had the quagmire of Glastonbury and last weekend saw the delights of Womud. Coming up this week is the Big Green Gathering, where Bristol Wireless are once again providing internet access, using renewable energy. A full report will follow after the event, even if yours truly has […]
Bristol’s latest summer attraction, the urban beach down on the Redcliffe stretch of the city docks (otherwise known as ‘Harbourside’ by the city’s bright young things), now has wifi thanks to Bristol Wireless. Rich Higgs writes: “Bails and I set up wireless for the urban beach project in Redcliffe last week. The opening was on […]