Donna Benjamin

Originally published at KatteKrab. Please leave any comments there.

linux.conf.au 2009 starts in a little over 2 weeks in Hobart Tasmania...

Will you be there?

Originally published at KatteKrab. Please leave any comments there.

Whilst it's not a holy-day for everyone, Christmas Day is a scheduled public holiday in Australia. For some people that just means time and a half, perhaps triple time for a few.  Nurses, Police officers, system admins - slave on, while others gather with family and friends to share each others company, eat too much food and exchange gifts.

But it's a dark time for some people - everyone else's excess and good fortune is just salt for unspoken wounds. Whatever the faith (or lack there-of) behind your celebration take a moment to think outside your own experience. Hate a little less, criticise not, appreciate another point of view. 

Observe some inner peace, and share tolerance and respect in the closing days of 2008.  The future always seems close at this time of year. Ponder the possibilities for the future you want. Dream a little.

Love. Blessed Be.

Donna

Peter and I are sitting on the technical committee for ACEC 2010 - the Australian Computers in Education Conference scheduled to take place in Melbourne in April in 2010.  That seems like a long time in the future, but, well it's not really - the organisers would like to open the call for papers in early March!

We've been looking at the following systems:

• Expectnation
• MyReview
• OCS
• OpenConf
• Zookeepr
• Drupalcon
• Eventwax
• Regonline
• Easychair

And are in the process of finalising our feature wishlist.  We'll be seeking expressions of interest in the next weeks for development/hosting.

We'll need call for papers, paper review and speaker management, including speaker profiles, registration and delegate management, delegate experience including links to social networking sites, and session selection. Payment gateway, financial reporting, and export to accounting software...  A Tall order?

Do you have other suggestions?

Originally published at KatteKrab. Please leave any comments there.

Deep into preparations for the Inkscape tutorial I'm giving at linux.conf.au in Hobart in January, I've been practicing techniques and recording them using RecordMyDesktop. It is a Linux application that does exactly what it says, screencast and audio recording of what's happening on screen.  It works very well!

This was inspired by heathenx and rfguerin's fantastic screen casts. They've also followed these up by creating a group on flickr for people to post examples of the work they've done inspired by the screencasts. It's interesting to see how other people express their learning and apply their own creativity and perspective.

But the HeathenX screencasts and other online tutorials make me wonder about the value of a same-time, same-place tutorial in some random room, at some random conference, when one can learn so much from following step-by-step how-to's and watching videos on you tube.

Does the value lie in the quality of the learning environment? Is it the chance to collaborate with peers? We often learn just as much from the questions of fellow learners. During a recent interview Michael Wesch said something along these lines [1]. So I'm looking at resources such as Wikiversity's article on Instructional Design to see if there are tried and true methods I can build on.

I reckon there also has to be shortcuts - most people want to use a tool to accomplish a task, not spend hours scaling the rocky cliffs of the ugly end of the learning curve. So helping beginners get past that stage will be one of the major aims of this tutorial. But I also need to have something there for more experienced users of Inkscape. A couple of gurus and developers who could put my meagre knowledge to shame will be at the conference too, so if they come to heckle, I hope they'll get something out of this too, and perhaps learn something about learning inkscape they can take back to help build the world's best open source scalable vector editor.

Refs:

1. Interview with Michael Wesch

Note: This was posted at http://www.kattekrab.net/ and -fingers crossed- automatically posted back to LiveJournal

I was reminded last night that I have failed to proclaim to the world that video of the November LUV talks is now online - and it is pretty darn good quality.  A huge thanks to Ben Balbo for his efforts in filming, encoding and uploading to BlipTV

So - 1st up was Brianna Laugher - Hacking MediaWiki for Users
and 2nd was Russell Coker - Cloud Computing

Get 'em here: http://www.luv.asn.au/2008/11

I could link direct from here - but then you'd fail to see that the LUV site looks different.  Don't get excited though, this is just a staging post on the way to a glorious new destination and custom theme courtesy of Raena Jackson Armitage and Tim. As it happens, Raena spoke at the LUV December meeting, giving us a sneak peak of her Usability on a Beer Budget talk she's preparing for linux.conf.au - which looks to be a cracker.

Unfortunately, Ben was at OSDC, and we didn't quite pull together the resources to film the December talks - but we're hoping to regularly film our talks starting from Tues 3 Feb next year... So - those attending LCA and hanging about in Oz are very welcome to attend our Linux User Group meeting - all the details will be on the website.

Oh FFS!

Despite trying to fix the embed code for Get Ups petition signing widget 3 times...
I've decided to can it. It was a silly flash thing anyway...

But don't let that stop you from signing the petition, and telling everyone you know to do the same.

Here's an old fashioned link instead: http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/SaveTheNet/442

From:     Donna Benjamin
To:          ultranet@edumail.vic.gov.au
Cc:         The Moodle Users' in Schools Mailing List, rodney gedda,
Subject:     Selective Tender for Ultranet
Date:     Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:36:13 +1100

I note with interest the release of a selective tender for Ultranet with revised specifications. It is disappointing to see that Moodle, an Open Source, Australian developed learning management system already in use in many Victorian schools and widely used around the world, is not included.

 1. Was Moodle considered or consulted in the independent market sounding exercise?

 2. If Moodle was considered, why was it not included in the selective request for tender? What were the specific reasons for its exclusion from the new request for tender?

 3. Otherwise, why was Moodle not considered or consulted in the independent market sounding exercise?

I look forward to a prompt response. Any constructive and useful criticism of Moodle will be taken back to the development community who may be able to improve and further develop the product for the global user base.

yours sincerely,
Donna Benjamin

--
Donna Benjamin
President - Linux Users of Victoria - http://www.luv.asn.au
Education Spokesperson - Open Source Victoria - http://www.osv.org.au/
Member - Open Source Industry Australia -  http://osia.net.au
Executive Director - Creative Contingencies -  http://cc.com.au

"Open Source is arguably the most significant movement in the software
world of the past decade. Its impact is both pervasive and disruptive,
and the importance of Open Source solutions to government and business
organisations of all sizes continues to grow."
                     Prof. Bob Williamson, Scientific Director, NICTA

Gah.

I just voted.  I hate the electoral system for the city of melbourne.  Postal voting should be reserved for those who can't attend a polling booth on election day. I like going to vote. There is purpose, intent and often a thoughtful celebration of the democratic process in heading off to the local school, town or church hall to put pencil to paper, and slip the ballot paper into the box. 

We don't get to do that in the City of Melbourne, instead we fill in forms, stick em in an envelope and post them. Mail order Government?

And corporations that own or occupy property may also nominate representatives to vote... not sure that's the case anywhere else in Victoria.

From the VEC site:

You are enrolled to vote at the Melbourne City Council elections if:

• you are on the State and Federal electoral roll for your present address and will be 18 years of age or over on 29 November 2008;
• you own property in the municipality but don't live at that property, and you are the first or second-named person on the Council's rate records;
• you have successfully applied to the Council to be enrolled for this year's elections; or
• you are the nominee of a corporation that owns or occupies property in the City of Melbourne.

Also of note: you don't need to be a citizen - if you've lived in the City of Melbourne for a month or more, you're eligible to enrol - but the rolls closed over a month ago - and the postal poll closes on the 29th of November. that's almost 2 months later. pfft.

Shame I didn't know that earlier, because Peter is not a citizen, but clearly eligible to vote in this election, despite being ineligible to vote in State or Federal elections. Curious.

BTW - candidates that rang me with recorded announcements disqualified themselves from the contest, as did those who sent negative campaign material.  Sorry Peter McMullin and crew - you failed on both these counts.

meh...  page 56 is blank!

Book Title: There's no business that's not show business:  Marketing in an experience culture

Authors: Bern H. Schmitt, David L. Rogers and Karen Vrotsos

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
• Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST

"I am a product of a Whitlam education. If it were not for his education reforms, I doubt I would have darkened the doors of a university, for which, Gough, I thank you."   K-Rudd.
 
Aaah the irony...  those who benefited from a free education voted to deny it to those who followed them.

Thanks Keating and Howard. 

Rudd - will you restore it?

No way - credit crunch - nahaa - we can't afford it. Yes, we can. If we choose to.

So, this clean feed thing...

If you think it's a silly idea, as I do, I'd urge you to write a letter to Minister Conroy and tell him so.

My letter - http://www.cc.com.au/nocleanfeed
Here's some examples of other people's letters:
  Lev Lafayette - http://levlafayette.com/node/6
  James Turnbull - http://www.kartar.net/no-clean-feed
  Peter Lieverdink - http://cafuego.net/2008/10/23/clean-feed-nonsense

The EFA's website has a good template on it too - http://nocleanfeed.com/takeaction.html

Blog your letter, and add a link to your letter in the comments.

Send a copy to your local MP, the leader of the opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, and the leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown, consider also sending a copy to a media outlet.
[Edit. I did -  Thanks Rodney!  - http://www.techworld.com.au/node/264978]

Some other articles and commentary on the issue...

Audio Interview with Mark Newton, network engineer for Internode, My ISP. He's expressing his own views, not those of his employer.  Mark also features in this article in this morning's SMH - Filtering out the fury: how government tried to gag web censor critics

As Mark says "Write a real letter, print it on real paper, sign it with a real pen, put it in a real envelope with a real stamp and post it in a real letter box."

It's a bit better in Opera - but still largely illegible...
I could implement a greasemonkey work around and get it rendered in verdana - but I'd like to fix the problem.

Can someone help me here? Is there a bug in firefox? Do I need to install some kind of magic anti-aliasing font foo?

I've googled a bit - but it's all a bit hard to grok.

And it's really driving me nuts as more and more websites are adopting this font.

Fruster-ating it is. in the extreme!

Help me lazyweb - you're my only hope.

Linux users of Victoria October meeting is tomorrow night!
It snuck up on me what with Software Freedom day, International travel and the fog of jet lag!

2 excellent talks lined up
Stewart Smith talking about Drizzle - new database derived from the MySQL codebase.
Ben Balbo talking about streaming media in a sneak peak of his OSDC talk to be delivered at this year's OSDC conf in Sydney.

Our venue is the Evan Burge Lecture Theatre at Trinity College, Parkville.
Full details online: http://luv.asn.au/2008/10

Admission is Free, and all are welcome.

Various peoples tend meet to eat before or after the meeting
Before: 6pm - Classic Curry House, Elizabeth St, Melbourne
After: 9.15 pm-ish - Maria's Trattoria, Peel St, North Melbourne

Ok - so I didn't get around to installing sugar - but I did get a sugar livecd from david during walter's talk.

This is pretty cool - it is possible to turn almost any laptop into an XO by installing sugar - which has the potential to rapidly expand both the user and the developer base for the platform... but more than that - we can engage teachers in exploration of new pedagogy with this very special operating environment for children.

It's not perfect - it is in development, but it's a tidal wave for progressing the aims of the original olpc project.

Go to http://www.sugarlabs.org/ to find out more...
 
and those of you who received an XO at LCA this year - I'll be in touch soon to get a progress report on your puppy - and invite you to participate in our community of practice - working with teachers to explore applications for classrooms and learning.

Oh!  And!  Zareason - making laptops - ubuntu pre-installed... with an ubuntu key ;)  Must get a piccie tomorrow.  Also nice to note that Zareason is owned and run by linuxchick - Cathy Malmrose (and Earl) :)  Very cool people doing very cool things.

Less than an hour to showtime - and I'll be presenting to the K12 Open Minds Conference and I've posted my slides and references to cc.com.au/k12openminds

Yesterday I facilitated the National Roadmap summit - which was an absolute Joy! To be in a room with like minds, equally passionate about the place of free and open source software in schools was totally invigorating.

Here's some of the working output of our efforts. http://ncose.wikispaces.com/Summit

and... Squee! I met Walter Bender... who was sitting in the lobby running Sugar on Ubuntu. Shiny shiny.  I'm going to apt-get install sugar after my talk!

heh.

we are soooo tired, but had an amazing day.  The talks were fantastic - at least, people were buzzing as they came out of them, I didn't actually sit in and watch... the little cinema room was full to bursting at times.  I hope some the video camera jiggery pokery results in vids online somewhere...

A full report will have to come later - but I did just want to get some of these pix online!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kattekrab/tags/sfdmelb/

BobDylan.com  oh yeah.... Thank You Drupal.



Dries Buytart, founder of Drupal, reported on his blog that bobdylan.com uses drupal... I can't think of a more poignant indicator that free and open source software is getting somewhere... and on the eve of Software Freedom Day too.

Nice.

Software Freedom Day - 20 September 2008 - Everywhere!

Check out some of the media coverage so far...

• 16th September 2008 - Kiel, Germany - Software Freedom Day 2008

• 16th September 2008 - Philippines - One Nation: Unity for Software Freedom. Celebrating Software Freedom Day 2008 in the Philippines (CP-Union)

• 16th September 2008 - Nicaragua - Presenting Software Freedom Day (TV Channel 2)

• 14th September 2008 - Nicaragua - Nos vemos en el Freedom Day (El Nuevo Diario)

• 14th September 2008 - Melbourne, Australia - Software Freedom Day 2008: Updated (ITwire)

• 13th September 2008 - Virginia, USA - He's fighting to free us from Microsoft (Paul Frields) (Fredericksburg)

• 13th September 2008 - Australia - Sun plans open source push (CRN Australia)

• 12th September 2008 - New Zealand - Unlimited Potential in open source software (Scoop Independent News)

• 12th September 2008 - Ghana - September 20 is ‘Software Freedom Day’ (My Joy Online)

• 12th September 2008 - USA - Sun Microsystems sponsors Software Freedom Day (Trading Markets)

• 11th September 2008 - Nicaragua - Radio Interview (Radio Futura)

• 11th September 2008 - Boston, USA - Software Freedom Day in Boston is a Wealth for the Commons: Saturday, September 20, 2008 (Open Media Boston)

• 11th September 2008 - Boston, USA - Software Freedom Day in Boston is a Wealth for the Commons

• 10th September 2008 - Tijuana, Mexico - Promocionan ventajas del software libre (El Mexicano)

• 9th September 2008 - Nicaragua - Promoting Software Freedom Day (TV Channel 2)

• 8th September 2008 - Australia - Australia gears up for Software Freedom Day (ITnews)

• 7th September 2008 - Nicaragua - Software Freedom Day Nicaragua 2008 (El Nuevo Diario).

• 5th September 2008 - Philippines - CP-Union's Software Freedom Tour and SMS Campaign for SFD 2008 (Inquirer.net)

• 5th September 2008 - Australia - Software Freedom Day 2008 (ITWire).

• 4th September 2008 - Nicaragua - Radio Interview (Rock FM)

• 2nd September 2008 - UK - Stephen Fry, the FSF and Software Freedom Day (Heise Online).

Over 500 teams in 120 countries across the planet have registered their events with Software Freedom International... The sfd-discuss mailing list is buzzing with tales of goodie packs arriving, press stories coming in, and team bloggers signing up for Planet SFD: 
http://planet.softwarefreedomday.org/ .

Aussie teams have more CDs to give away than ever before thanks to Paul Wayper and Linux Australia... what else can I say... it's going to be HUGE! :)  THREE MORE SLEEPS!  Check out http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/australia