Last night saw another first in collaborative events in Bristol when Bristol Girl Geeks got together with a bunch of local Wikipedians plus trailblazing female Wikipedian Fiona Apps, who helps Wikimedia UK with outreach work (news passim). After we’d all got a glass of wine and some nibbles, Fiona was introduced and gave a brief […]
After the recent spate of revelations about Bristol City Council’s IT problems (news passim), it’s good to be able report some positive IT news from the Counts Louse. The Council’s new website, built upon the open source Drupal content management system (CMS), went live today and first impressions are very favourable: the new site looks […]
Saturday 17th September 2011 is Software Freedom Day (SFD). SFD is an event with hundreds of teams from all around the world running local events to help their communities understand Software Freedom. SFD is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). The aim of SFD is to educate the general public about […]
According to the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MAI), domestic Romanian and European interoperability requirements are forcing it to ban the use of open source software in building a criminal records management system. The explicit ban of software available under an open source licence is one of the requirements made by the ministry in the […]
According to Computerworld Denmark, hospitals in Denmark’s Copenhagen region are switching from Microsoft Office to the open source LibreOffice suite. The switch will involve some 25,000 desktops. Savings costs in the first year are estimated at DK 40 mn., equivalent to 5.3 mn. EUR or some £5 mn. In addition to the costs savings, the […]
Yesterday, 12th August, marked the 30th anniversary of the birth of the personal computer (PC). On 12th August 1981, IBM announced the launch of its 5150, subsequently called the IBM PC. The 5150 was originally released with a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 CPU, 16 KB of RAM, 2 x 5¼ floppy drives and a 80 […]
Yesterday we reported on the troubled history of Bristol City Council’s troubled efforts to implement its open source strategy with the ‘assistance’ of Computacenter, one of the country’s largest suppliers of proprietary Microsoft products (news passim). Today Mark Ballard of Computer Weekly has published a new post on the affair, which highlights, inter alia, the […]
Some weeks ago we gave advance notice of the forthcoming Bristol Girl Geek Dinners and Wikipedia event on Thursday 18th August (news passim). Further details have now emerged. It’s being held at the Merchant Venturers Building, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UB (map) and starts at 7.00 pm. The main aim of the […]
OSOR reports that the Brazilian Government signed a letter of intent last month to work with both The Document Foundation and the Apache OpenOffice.org community to develop the office suites maintained by both communities. The letter states that the Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF) standard is already a guarantee of interoperability within the […]
In recent weeks we’ve reported several times on developments at Bristol City Council (news passim), but it seems the software wars between open source and proprietary are still going on down the Counts Louse. Computer Weekly now reports that systems integrator Computacenter has prevented Bristol City Council from publishing details of a consulting project that […]
According to the Raspberry Pi blog, the alpha boards for this ARM-chipped Linux device are now in production. This board is intended to be identical to the final device, with the resulting units being used to validate the schematic design and serving as Raspberry Pi’s interim software development platform. Key differences between the alpha and […]
Yes, you did read that correctly; today, Friday 29th July is System Administrator Appreciation Day, the 12th since its inception. For 364 days of the year sysadmins toil away unappreciated, their arcane skills only really being noticed when a problem needs sorting out (and nobody can do any work at all until the sysadmin’s done […]
Our friend Sean Kenny of Circle Interactive has contacted us today to let us know that CiviCon London is taking place on Monday August 22nd at SkillsMatter, 116-120 Goswell Road, London, EC1V 7DP (map). CiviCon is the international meeting of CiviCRM users, implementers and developers to share knowledge, experience and to discuss the future of […]
Here at Bristol Wireless we’re keen advocates on green ICT and have many times experienced the delights of providing off-mains event ICT powered by renewables (news passim), so were overjoyed to hear of a recent development in India. India’s Simmtronics Semiconductors recently announced the launch of a solar-powered desktop. What’s more, it’s running Linux, making […]
Earlier this year we reported that Linux is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year (news passim). As part of the celebrations, the Linux Foundation invited video submissions to mark this milestone. A birthday greetings video from Microsoft has now been received by the Foundation. We hope you enjoy this submission from the ‘Beast of Redmond’ […]
Our friends at Bristol Hackspace are organising a beginners’ Arduino programming workshop on Saturday and Sunday 30th/31st July 2011 at the Bristol’s Pervasive Media Studio (map). By the end of the weekend participants should be able to: Make LEDs light up in different colours and patterns; Detect switches, light/dark, touch; Make sounds drive motors and […]
Question: when talking about Linux recently, who said the following? “Linux gives us the flexibility and technology maturity we require to evolve… and… to address the expectations of our customers.” The answer: Kenichi Murata, a project general manager with Toyota, upon Toyota’s joining The Linux Foundation. Murata continued: “The Linux Foundation provides us with a […]
Version 2 of the ‘Guide to Open Source Software for Australian Government Agencies’ has become available following an online public consultation on the draft document which was initiated by the Australian Government Information Management Office (AGIMO), according to OSOR. In March 2011 Glenn Archer, AGIMO first assistant secretary, requested feedback via the dedicated blog on […]
Some time ago, we speculated about the possible end of open source use at Bristol City Council following the decision to replace Star Office with Microsoft Office 2010 (news passim) and allegations of bad behaviour involving one of the council’s suppliers. It now seems these speculations may have been premature in the light of a […]
A new post has appeared today on the Bristol Girl Geek Dinners site. We are currently planning an exciting event in collaboration with Wikipedia on the 18th August – Girl Geeks vs Wikimeet. This will be a Girl Geek Dinner merged with a ‘Wikimeet’ including a talk from an inspiring female Wikipedian. The theme will […]