Bristol Wireless members attended the inaugral event in London last year and will be organising a trip to London in the Autumn.

http://www.socialsource.org.uk/pmwiki.php/Main/LatestNews

Latest News

June 2005
Our next event has now been fixed for November 2005 and will take place immediately after this year’s UK Riders conference. The theme will be mix/match/migrate and will offer demonstrations, an “install fest”, workshops and lots of resources for VCS organisations who want to consider:

* Mixing FLOSS applications such as Firefox, Thunderbird or Open Office with their existing Windows desktops

* Matching their Windows desktops to a Linux server

* Migrating their whole networks to Linux server/desktop options

We’ll be starting up an interactive e-list soon to discuss and feedback about what should be included in the event. We’ll let everyone who’s on our existing announcement list know when this is launched.

After unsuccessfully bidding to run a massive Internet presence (wireless and drop-in access) at Glastonbury Festival 2005 you’d have thought we’d have been disappointed. Not to be deterred though, Bristol Wireless volunteers, supported by Psand, and part funded by the Scarman Trust, again put together another successful event, running a massive open air “Internet Cafe” and wide area wireless cloud for a week in Dorest at the Home Education Festival 2005 .

The Internet tent was a great success; the daily users were mainly kids who queued patiently and then stampeded the moment the doors opened. Main activities were Runescape, Hotmail, Yahoo, checking webstats on their websites and remarkably the local chat client (twenty kids in a room saying nothing but chatting to the person literally sat next to them through the chat window). We were open for about 5 hours a day and about 150 people a day came through. More of a cyber crèche than a café because the vast majority were kids.

Wednesday afternoon Psand delivered a satellite VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) conference to other home educators around Europe, including near-simultaneous translation with the French and German speakers and the translator at the Hes Fes. We also had network gaming sessions. Some people were playing interactively and others on their own. Interestingly we attracted a few adults too to the gaming. The suite was full and functioned really well. Due to the popularity, we set up a table for email, what’s on guides and public transport times, this helped enable a faster turnover.

At the end of the session we shut down the thin clients remotely, there was a groan of despondence from the users. It would have been good to run something 24 hours but a lot of the kids did have set bedtimes! A long enjoyable week was had by all volunteers involved. Definitely something that could be rolled out quickly again at outdoor events across Bristol or larger festivals across the South West summer weather permitting. Sadly we won’t be doing it at this years Glastonbury Festival as we’d hoped, but there will probably be plenty of Bristol Wireless volunteers in attendance possibly setting up freelance nodes across the site and definitely not trying to hack any Starbucks Wi-Fi hotspots in the vicinity 😉

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More information can be found at the Wiki Link

Streaming from the Chelsea tonight 8 may 05 8pm is Shane, a five piece who play rare songs of murder, adultery and death. The combination of snare, bass, 2 acoustic guitars, trumpet and vocals gives songs by cohen, parsons and hazlewood a distinctive feeling of mexican blues. Listen in!!

stream location is http://live1.radiovague.com:8000/chelsea.ogg

After some successful trials we are now streaming regular nights from the Chelsea Inn. Already we have had Jessie’s regular Wednesday open mike running for the last month and last week was Henry’s Hot Six, rocking modern jazz band plaing Tuesday night. The streams are live on internet and available using your favourite media player.

This Sunday Katus will be playing at about 8.00pm. on Sunday 17th April 05 the stream will be sent to a server that can be listened to by pointing a media player at: live1.radiovague.com:8000/chelsea.ogg . Radiovague web site gives more information on how to play .ogg files. We’re in the process of setting up an internal media server to stream locally to the wireless network.

Over the past few days Matt and Lloyd have been working on the roof of the Chelsea Inn. The old equipment is gone, a new 3m steel pole has been mounted with an omni and directional link to Twinnell. All equipment was purchased/donated by the Chelsea – thanks Julian for this donation to the community.

So, the pub is back online! Other clients in the area which used to connect to ECC but cannot see Twinnell can now connect here, many new clients can also connect – Easton coverage is now restored and improved. Streaming of open-mic nights can resume; watch this space for announcement of a media server…

Roof install:

Router configuring:

This afternoon Matt and Lloyd braved the wind and rain working on the roof of Twinnell House, the main network node. The following improvements were made:

• Replaced ‘floppy’ aluminium pole with more rigid steel pole, reducing signal loss due to wind agitation;
• Removed redundant lightning arrestor on signal cable attached to omni-directional antenna;
• Replaced and re-weatherproofed exterior connections;
• Re-pointed directional antenna from Easton Community Centre to St. Werburghs Community Centre;
• Replaced questionable Linksys WRT-54g AP on omni-directional antenna;
• Swapped ‘dumb’ Netgear WGE-101 on directional uplink antenna for second ‘intelligent’ Linksys WRT-54g.

Initial indications are good; signal strength from the lab (connected to the omni just as any other client would) has doubled.

NewsForge | The first GNU/Linux encyclopedia – Linpedia launched
Ahmet Mulalic writes:

“Linpedia is the first Linux encyclopedia on the internet that is designed to be read and changed by anyone. It runs on the mediawiki software. The project was started on 24. December 2004. and is located on http://www.linpedia.com domain (think of .com as community not commercial). Linpedia is currently working on 1,200 articles. With your help we can make it grow bigger. We are also providing users the ability to start Linpedia on their own language. Linux community needs a web site, where users can find all the information they need about Linux. We are offering you something beautiful to work on. Join us, and help us make the world a better place.”

Today, Matt, Jim and Lloyd managed to get Greenhaven back online. A new Access Point was configured to remove the performance-sapping WDS links. The Access Point was installed by Jim and Lloyd shortly before Lloyd performed circus-worthy acrobatics on the roof to realign the antenna to point at Twinnell House.

Welcome to the first post in the Bristol Wireless News section in its new incarnation as a WordPress blog. So then, one might say that the news is that the news is new on the site…

Actually, what happened is that there used to be a phpBB bulletin board on this site, and, yes, it got hacked… taking down the wiki as well. So, after relocating the server from the Easton Community Centre (RIP) to a machine run by Psand, I managed to get the wiki restored to its pristine former glory but decided against reinstalling phpBB.

Instead, I wrote a php script to convert the content of the phpBB database to the MovableType export format, which WordPress was able to import. It did mean changing the way that the posts refer to one another (the initial entry was considered to be the post, and all subsequent replies have been imported as comments) but it seems to have done the job. What this means, though, is that any post before this one has been salvaged, and there may be some quirks as a result.

If anyone finds anything that has become munged in the conversion process, let me know, or mail the Bristol Wireless team.

Enjoy!

Christian

I’m in a non-broadband area in Swansea and im trying to sort out a wireless connection with a friend who lives 200 metres away from me who is in a cabled area. Is 200 metres a feasible distance to attempt a wireless connection bearing in mind that our houses are not in line of sight and I think there are one or two houses in between us (albeit they are very well spaced apart)?

I’ve been looking at that new pre-n wireless technology which has a range 8 times that of normal wireless.

If anyone could provide me with some useful information on setting this up or if it is not possible. I would be extremely grateful

Kind Regards

Craig McTaggart
Swansea

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39175467,00.htm

Coders who give up their spare time to contribute to open source projects are the virtual equivalent of lifeboat men, according to latest research from Demos

Britain’s open-source software developers make a valuable contribution to society and the British economy through the high quality of their work, according to Demos.

The UK think tank will publish a report on Tuesday that will underline the importance of "Pro-Ams" — amateurs who pursue a hobby or pastime, in many cases an all-consuming passion, to a professional standard.

Demos says that these kind of people have traditionally made a contribution to society through involvement with bodies such as lifeboat rescue services or The Samaritans, but that they have now branched out into less typical areas.

"Pro-Am astronomers have made significant contributions to our knowledge of the universe. And Pro-Am software programmers who are part of the ‘open source’ movement are providing the only real challenge to Microsoft’s dominance of the personal computing market," said the report.

The think tank pointed out that "derogatory names" such as nerds, geeks and anoraks have often been used to describe enthusiasts. It believes that Pro-ams is a more suitable label.

The launch earlier this month of Firefox, the open-source Web browser, illustrated the power of the open-source movement. While IT giants such as IBM, HP and Novell have all embraced the Linux operating system, Microsoft — whose dominance of the desktop computer is threatened by it — has responded with its "Get the Facts" campaign in an attempt to slow market adoption of open source.

Demos reported that Pro-Ams are more likely to be men than women, and tend to be well-educated people with annual household incomes over £30,000. Pro-Ams are evenly split between part-time and full-time workers, but people who don’t work are far less likely to be Pro-Ams. Other Pro-am activities identified include photographers, gardeners and alternative therapists.

Demos is interested in Pro-Ams because it believes they help to generate "social capital", which can lead to greater community spirit and less crime. Because the open-source community is spread around the world and generally operate over the Internet, their social contribution is made in a different way.

A Demos spokesman, pointing out the positive contribution made by the open-source community, said: "I think you could successfully argue that open-source enthusiasts are doing in the virtual space what lifeboat men are doing for seaside towns."

well, i sort of agree sam_ , and it its great shame. We live in the area of the planet occupied by the rich 10%, indeed are the rich 10% and it’s makes it hard to stay sane in such an unequal world if you have the slightest shred of empathy in your heart

… but fuck it, the scavengers are such good entertainment and we deserve to let our hair down occasionally, even better if we can continue to do something worthwhile while we’re doing it.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/01/bt_wifi_quid/

BT is trying to drum up business for its Wi-Fi broadband service by offering an entry-level package for just £1 a month. Snag is, you have to be an existing BT Business Broadband, BT Broadband or BT Yahoo! Broadband customer to take up the offer.

That aside, anyone signing up to the time-limited promo before the end of the year can get 500 minutes of wireless broadband access for three months for just a quid. After that, the 500 minutes will cost £5 a month. BT’s Wi-Fi "Openzone" service – which has some 7,000 access points in the UK – usually starts at £6 an hour.

Chris Clark, chief exec of BT Wireless Broadband, reckons the UK’s dominant fixed line telco is trying to "fuel growth of the Wi-Fi market". ®

Bristol goes open source

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/online/archives/microsoft/2004/10/bristol_goes_open_source.html

"The biggest ever switch by a UK local authority away from Microsoft software to ‘StarOffice’ desktop solutions based on open source software is set to take place at Bristol City Council," reports E-Government Bulletin.

"Bristol is poised to move up to 5,000 of its staff desktop computers to the StarOffice 7 system early in the New Year, in a move aimed at saving an estimated 1.4 million pounds over five years. The Bristol decision concludes a three-year evaluation of the technical, financial and cultural issues of software migration, including a 600-user pilot in the council’s Neighbourhood and Housing Services Department.

"’Our ICT officers are convinced that the technical quality of StarOffice is good, that the financial business case is accurate and that the cultural issues can be managed so that the migration is handled effectively,’ said Stewart Long, head of ICT. Long said it was highly unlikely that his council’s plans would go the same way as those laid earlier this year by the London borough of Newham, which abandoned a similar move following last-minute price concessions from Microsoft."