Stuff involving volunteers
Via a friend connected with our mates at Bristol Hackspace, we have received very early notice indeed of a date for your diaries and calendars in 2013; there will be a Mini Maker Faire at MShed at Princes Wharf, Wapping Rd, Bristol BS1 4RN (map) on 23rd March (that’s the first Saturday of the Easter […]
Debian is a great Linux distribution. Indeed, besides being a distribution in its own right, it acts as the foundation for the very popular Ubuntu distro and countless others. Here at Bristol Wireless, we’ve been using Debian for as long as the chief scribe can remember. The Debian Project is now in the final stages […]
Today, 16th October is Ada Lovelace Day, which is a worldwide event about sharing stories of women — whether engineers, scientists, technologists or mathematicians and has the aim is to create new role models for girls and women in these male-dominated fields by raising the profile of other women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics […]
We learned today from Bristol247’s news wire that Bristol University has won a special award for its efforts to ‘bring knowledge to all’ 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 […]
It’s just been announced by Wikimedia UK, the UK charity that supports the work of Wikipedia, that the English language version of Wikipedia has today passed through the barrier of 4 million articles: The English @Wikipedia now has over 4 million articles! Congratulations to its 100,000+ editors that have made this possible! — Wikimedia UK […]
While the rest of the BW crew were enjoying a sunny weekend, the chief scribe was up with the sun (almost!) last Saturday to attend the Wikimedia UK 2012 Conference and AGM at London’s Science Museum in South Kensington. One of the great aspects about with Wikimedia community is the commitment to openness and sharing. […]
A couple of weeks ago, we reported on Bristol’s (ultimately unsuccessful) bid to host the annual Wikimania convention in 2013 (news passim). James Forrester, Moderator of the Wikimania 2013 Jury, has sent the following email to the Wikimania mailing list announcing the 2013 winning bid as Hong Kong. On behalf of the Wikimania 2013 selection […]
Tonight Bristol Wireless volunteers Jules and BenG are going to the Novers Park Community Centre to visit South Bristol Amateur Radio Club to give a talk on the work of Bristol Wireless. Jules has offered to do a write-up following the talk, so call back soon to read the details! 🙂
Bristol Wireless was donated* some redundant laptops yesterday that were surplus to requirements. Their arrival has encouraged volunteer Acesabe to try experimenting, as about an hour ago he tweeted: Think I’ll have a pop at installing ChromeOS on one of those old laptops we got donated @BristolWireless yesterday http://chromeos.hexxeh.net Please let us know how it […]
Regular readers will remember that we had a visit from journalist Jonathan Edwards (news passim) which ultimately resulted in Bristol Wireless being the subject of a four-page feature in the Christmas 2011 edition (issue 158) of Linux Format (news passim). For those who did not take our above advice and go and buy that edition […]
2012 is fast approaching and there are two reasons for celebration in the New Year. Firstly, the United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives as an acknowledgement of the fundamental role of cooperatives in promoting the socio-economic development of hundreds of millions of people and have released a little […]
Regular users of Wikipedia will be aware that the main page showcases a different article every day; this is known as the featured article. Yesterday’s featured article was the one on Bristol’s Knowle West area. Those familiar with the Wikipedia article grading process will know just how much effort has gone into getting an article […]
It’s been an interesting day in the lab. Your correspondent arrived early in the lab and found Rich and Acesabe getting ready to out on a cabling job, running Cat6 round a new office for a client. After a while Jim turned up, followed shortly after by Chris, our newest volunteer. It’s interesting working with […]
One of the barriers frequently mentioned to getting involved in editing Wikipedia is the clunky editing interface; indeed it has come up at sessions attended by Bristol Wireless volunteers cunningly disguised as Wikipedians (news passim). Your scribe has some vague memory of the topic of the clunky editor even coming up in the course of […]
From the Bristol Girl Geeks Dinner website: Following on from the success of our Girl Geeks vs Wikimeet event back in August, we are teaming up with Wikipedia again, this time to bring you a hands-on editing event, at the University of Bristol. This event will run from 1pm until 5pm on Sunday 15th January […]
We’ve been contacted on Twitter by Easton Arts Trail of Bristol with the following request: @BristolWireless We’re looking for a web designer to relaunch our website. Do you know anyone who might take it on as a project for free? The Easton Arts Trail was founded in 2006 by a group of local artists and […]
According to the OpenStreetMap Foundation blog, the organisation is growing fast, having just welcomed its 500,000th signed up user, and logged the 10,000,000th update to its map of the UK. The Foundation is a UK-registered not-for-profit organisation that supports the OpenStreetMap Project and some years ago, Bristol Wireless volunteers spent a pleasant day or so […]
Connecting Bristol reports that a new three-year initiative has been launched in Bristol to help local people, particularly the elderly and disabled, access the internet, learn new skills and find out more about computers and technology. The project’s called Get IT Together and will feature sessions tailored towards the learners’ own personal interests and delivered […]
Yesterday the Charity Commission approved Wikimedia UK, the UK membership organisation supporting Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, as a registered charity. The news comes shortly before the launch of this year’s global Wikimedia fundraiser. Starting on 14th November, Wikimedia UK aims to raise £1 million to support Wikipedia and its sister projects. The Charity […]
Your correspondent arrived at the lab last Friday to find there was – initially at least – nowhere to sit down. We had a full complement of volunteers present – both old and new – and a couple of customers too. Looking at our volunteers, I’d like to draw your attention to 2 of them. […]