News about or from Bristol Wireless
Here at Bristol Wireless, with most of us being advocates of bah-humbuggery as well as Linux and open source, we’ve been doing our utmost to avoid too much contact with the world of midwinter celebrations (e.g. Christmas, Hannukah, solstice, etc.*). However, we did crack a bit yesterday afternoon, succumbing to mulled cider and nibbles in […]
Here at Bristol Wireless we do as much as we can to re-use and extend the working life of old computer hardware. Through our Byteback partnership We are able to sell reconditioned machines for just £50. We recognise that sometimes it is appropriate to purchase new hardware, and when new purchases are made it is […]
On 29th November 2007 we will be running a beginners’ training course from 7pm – 9pm at St. Werburghs Community Centre, Horley Road, St. Werburghs. The course will cover logging in and out, the desktop, the file system, word processing, setting up and using web based email and surfing the World Wide Web. Bristol Wireless […]
Author’s note: The following is an article I’ve written for an Easton newsletter being set up in the new year. I’ve posted it here because I mention Bristol Wireless and their contribution to recycling waste electrical and electronic equipment towards the end. The Problem More than a million tonnes of waste electrical and electronic equipment […]
The open internet access suite at the Chelsea Inn in Easton, provided and managed by Bristol Wireless, has been completely overhauled. The addition of an extra station brings the total to three now, all of which are newer-style Compaq thin clients providing access to the server upstairs via LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project). The new […]
On Tuesday Bristol Wireless volunteer Lloyd Cohen installed an omni-directional antenna on the roof of The Cube Microplex, cinema in Kingsdown. The AP is to be used for the high-quality infrastructure-level connection of strategic points around the adjoining Dove St. flats, from which free open access wireless coverage will be provided to the residents via […]
On Tuesday 6th November, Bristol Wireless received a visit from Tim Erickson of E-Democracy.org, who have been helping encourage participation in the democratic process since 1994. We first me Tim on his initial visit to Bristol 2 years ago and were responsible for introducing him to West Country cider. 🙂 Tim called by with MJ […]
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 […]
On Wednesday 26th September the Bristol Wireless mobile LTSP suite went to the Beyond Engagement: Inclusion, Sport and Popular Culture conference organised by the Substance co-op at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall. The aim of the conference was to explore ways of building on developments after the target audience has been found through the channels of sport, […]
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 […]
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 […]