I can easily reserve the room at the elmhurst public library for a meeting if ya guys want (we did early on) but i can't make it to a meeting on feb. 23rd <div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 30, 2008 5:03 PM, Richard A. Johnson <<a href="mailto:nixternal@kubuntu.org">nixternal@kubuntu.org</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">On Wednesday 30 January 2008, Patrick Green wrote: [...] I am happy seeing you guys take off and I wish you the best with this, and of course if I can help out in any way, please do not hesitate to ask. <div class="Ih2E3d"> | 1) The Ubuntu Desktop Classroom. | | 2) The Ubuntu Classroom Except for Servers: | | This project would be the same idea of the Ubuntu Classroom but focus | more on setting up basic servers. | - Teach How-to Setup LAMP | - Drupal | - Wordpress | - Basic Security </div>I wouldn't do the same idea as the Ubuntu Classroom, because that hasn't worked well recently. Myself and a couple of others started the project a couple of years ago and it was rockin'. Recently everyone has been to busy. Taking the concept is fine, but you guys can obviously do much better! <div class="Ih2E3d"> | 3) Work with Free Geek Chicago </div>This is a great idea! I was working on something similar 2 years ago, but just didn't have the time nor the manpower to really carry forward with it, hopefully you can hit both in the head with this. | 4) Hold Installfests In the past 4 years in the Chicagoland area, Install Fests have brought the same group together every time. I would say that if you are going to do install fests, don't do them in conjunction with a LUG event at all. The only way I can see an install fest being successful these days is if you take it to the people. What I mean is going to a college campus on heavily trafficked days. No Saturday's or Sunday's because students don't want to be there then. Weekends have proven to be no good for install fests. The best install fests I have ever seen in my 10+ years in the Linux/Free Software community were at the College of DuPage, yes the CODLUG, back when the Computer Show used to be there. It was nothing to get 50+ people to show up every month, and 50 different people to say the less. In the past year we have taken out articles in the Chicago Tribune, the Daily Herald, as well as local community papers for install fests, and none of them worked. The only thing I haven't tried is getting space at say the mall during a weekend, setting up a booth and attracting people. Something has to be done differently in this arena for it to work, otherwise you will get the Chicago LoCo people and other geeks who only show up to socialize. <div class="Ih2E3d"> | 5) Advocate Ubuntu to Local Government </div>Only one local representative listened to me about this. Last year, in association with Canonical and other Linux distributions, we started a campaign to target the local government and in the Chicagoland area, we sent out over 1,000 letters to local, high-ranking, government officials. To be honest, I think manchicken is the one who started the buzz on this last year. Out of those 1,000 letters, 1 replied positively, while the other ones who did respond, let us know that the Illinois government has a new multi-million dollar contract with Microsoft for some time to come (can anyone say earmarks up the arse for this one?). This is the contract that is fueling some of the new Microsoft advertisements that you can find on their website as well as on TV. I would strike the government at this time, and go for educational institutions. Right now, the educational funding in this state is at its all time lowest, so "free" or "damn close to free" is music to their ears if marketed correctly. Word of the wise on this one, go directly for the board and not their IT people. IT people are typically idiots who breathe Windows and cuss Linux. Now here is a word of encouragement, we were fundamental in seeing the DuPage Country Government Center(s) take in Linux, in this case both Ubuntu and Kubuntu. If you go into the DuPage County offices, take a look at their kiosks they have spread around, if the color schemes look familiar (brown or blue), then you know it is running one of the two. The City of Chicago is Red Hat, and they have a great long standing contract with them. Cook County on the other hand is still using some old systems. You will actually still find quite a few Windows 98 machines in some of the Cook County offices. So strap on your mafia face, write up a fake contract, and get to advocating :p <div class="Ih2E3d"> | These are just some project ideas I have had in my head for awhile.  I | wish you all the best of luck with all future projects and hope I can | help out whenever possible. </div>If you need any help, I am still here. Going to be quite busy in the next few months with talks at Flourish, Penguicon, Ohio Linux Fest, Ubuntu Live, and some others. So in between school, working, and talking, I should have some free time to help you all out with :) -- Richard A. Johnson <a href="mailto:nixternal@kubuntu.org">nixternal@kubuntu.org</a> GPG Key: 0x2E2C0124 -- Ubuntu-us-chicago mailing list <a href="mailto:Ubuntu-us-chicago@lists.ubuntu.com">Ubuntu-us-chicago@lists.ubuntu.com</a> <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-chicago" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-us-chicago</a> </blockquote></div>