Brisbane Ubuntu Community Meeting - 7th February, 2010.

[James Beake]

A very late write-up from our most recent meeting. Enjoy.

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The second Brisbane Ubuntu community meeting was held at Gilhooley's
Chermside, a typical Irish style pub. As I was the nominated meeting
organiser for the event so I got there early, ordered a Kilkenny and sat
back to wait for folks to arrive.

I found myself scrutinising everyone that walked past to see if I could
identify if the person was an ubuntu user. Not sure what I was thinking;
that by using ubuntu we are all somehow develop a power to be able to
instantly recognise another member of the tribe. Anyway my powers were on
the fritz that day as all I managed to do was get some odd looks from some
poor people that where wandering around just trying to find the loo.

Do we ubuntu users need to come up with a secret signal so that we can pick
each other out in public?

What a relief when I recognised someone from our previous meeting. Andrew
was at the other side of the room near the bar scanning the area for signs
of ubuntu geeks. At about the same time a couple of other ubuntu-ers arrived
and the combination of swivelling heads and searching looks and my vigorous
arm waving must have been enough of a signal to everyone that like minded
people were in the area and we were all soon seated and making
introductions. The last couple of attendees to arrive seemed to have no
trouble finding us. Might have been due to the laptops and other gadgets
that had appeared soon after we were all seated.

It was great to see a 50% increase in attendance for this meeting. There
were six of us at the meeting! Fingers crossed we can match this growth for
our next meeting.

After we completed the introductions everyone started talking about their
favourite topic, tech. There were a number of different conversations at the
same time, here is a list of the ones I was apart of, or caught snippets of:

- Conroy's filter plans ( what's a gathering without a bit of political
chat)
- Calendar synchronisation
- How to secure home environments with tools that work with ubuntu
- Options for ditching itunes for teenagers with iPods.
- Are we brave enough to install Ubuntu on relatives computers?

Packages/products discussed:
- ispconfig
- amsn
- atunes
- xaile
- quickcad
- spyspurt
- GNOME configuration cleanup tool - name?
- randr.com
- Lenovo D10 server


Just before we pulled stumps Paul asked each of us "What is the one thing
you would change about Ubuntu if you could?"

Here are the answers everyone gave:

Cary: combined DVD of all *buntu, no need to carry separate CDs for server,
desktop, Kubuntu, etc.

Andrew: fix the regressions, esp. laptop power management

David: iPod/Nokia/electronic device support

James: added onto Andrew's point on laptop power management; more intuitive
keychain password management when passwords change

Nigel: slick shared calendar across all desktop apps

Paul: compelling web admin interface for directory/file
sharing/email/calendar setup; Active Directory & Exchange are killing us in
this space

Just before everyone went their own way we agreed our goal should be to all
have ubuntu tee shirts so that we at least can find each other and hopefully
raise the profile of ubuntu at our next gathering.

We finished the meeting at about 5pm. Three hours goes fast when you having
fun. I had a great time geeking out with a group of like minded people and
am looking forward to our next gathering. Hopefully we can lure more ubuntu
users and people who are curious about ubuntu and open source in general to
our next meeting.

The list of attendees and where they travelled from to attend:
Andrew - Mt Gravatt
James - Mcdowall
Nigel - Hendra
Cary - Wamuran (Caboolture)
David - Springfield
Paul - Birkdale
Thanks to Paul for taking notes during the meeting.

Next meeting: Release party for Ubuntu 10.4 - Lucid at Breakfast Creek
Hotel. Date TBD - End of April/Early May.

Until then, as my wife likes to says, "Shouldn't you, Ubuntu?".

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James
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