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Archive for February 1st, 2007


Posted on February 1, 2007 - by jono

LUGRadio Live 2007!

As one of the four large gents I am pleased to announce LUGRadio Live 2007 will happen on the 7th and 8th July 2007 at The Lighthouse in Wolverhampton, England.

LUGRadio Live is an awesomely cool, fun, social and interesting two-day conference based around Open Source, free software and related subjects. The show packs in interesting speakers, exhibitors, BOF sessions, debates and a live recording of LUGRadio in front of an audience.

This is the third year we are running LUGRadio Live and the last two years have proved successful with a great a line up of speakers, exhibitors and an excellent bunch of people coming along to make it what it is. This year promises to be bigger, better, and the venue is a fantastic location for the event.

More details about the event, hotels and all that jazz is coming – the website is being set up as we speak, but this blog entry is here to encourage one thing, and one thing only – SPEAKERS!

SPEAKERS SPEAKERS SPEAKERS!

We have around 45 slots to fill this year, and we are keen to get a range of interesting and different talks at LUGRadio Live 2007. In the past we have had speakers including Simon Phipps, Mark Shuttleworth, Michael Meeks, Ted Haeger, Stephen Lamb, Christian Schaller, Simon Willison, Matthew Garrett and more. This year we are sure to have an excellent line-up of speakers!

We are keen for subjects including, but not limited to:

  • Desktops – GNOME/KDE/Xfce/Enlightenment etc…
  • Cool technology – Beryl/Compiz/Telepathy/Arthur/GStreamer/Pulseaudio etc…
  • Community
  • The web
  • Software development
  • Digital rights and ethical computing
  • Free software in the home, arcades, embedded applications and other places
  • Crazy, wacky, funky uses of technology
  • Retro computing
  • Digital media
  • Anything else

So, if you want to speak at LUGRadio Live 2007, send an email to show@lugradio.org with the following details:

  • Your name and email address
  • Talk title
  • Short abstract of your talk
  • Type of talk – main stage or lightning

We have two type of talk – Main and Lightning. Main talks are 45 minutes long and lightning talks are 25 minutes long.

So, lets make it a third incredible year for LUGRadio Live – the fun begins here…


Posted on February 1, 2007 - by jono

Calling all Brits…again

OK Brits, time to call on you again. The BBC has an open consultation regarding its online services for making content available. Question 5 is whether this service should only be made available to Microsoft platforms. Naturally, this would be a bad idea for various reasons:

  • We should always encourage media consumption on all systems, using open formats where possible.
  • Being a license holder does not make an assumption that I am a Microsoft customer.
  • Being a license holder gives me a certain amount of leveragable opinion on where the BBC is moving forward, and as a public institution I feel it should be as open and accessible as possible. I would not expect my tax return forms to only be available in Word format, and I don’t expect my TV shows to only play on a Microsoft platform.

So, make your thoughts known people. This is the magic link for the consultation, so get along and fill out Question 5 with your views. :)


Posted on February 1, 2007 - by jono

Make videos, win stuff

We all like ‘free’, both free as in speech and free as in beer, well how about free as in “cool little device”?

Technalign (producers of Pioneer Linux which based is on Kubuntu) and Canonical have hooked together for a competition for all you orange sunglasses wearing, kilted, Lost-loving video makers, and the rest of us who fancy a go at making videos. Send in a decent video and you could bag a prize.

The videos that they are looking for are be between 60 and 90 seconds long, and are based on the ideas, thoughts, ethics, development processes, colours or people in the Open Source world. The objective is to produce a video that encapsulates some of the above, and makes for essential viewing. Well, essential viewing while sat in front of a computer and checking your email and chatting on IRC. :P

The best ones win prizes and the cream of the crop bags a Technalign Flare MP4 player/recorder. Others can win a Flare mini or a Flare Micro.

This is where it is cool though – the videos can be made on any device, from a mobile phone to broadcast camera. You don’t have to have one of those hulking great cameras that is strapped to your waist that you see in behind the scenes documentaries. Your vids can be submitted in any recognised standard video format; there won’t be any obvious penalising or boot to the spuds for those souls who cannot manage to deliver a Theora file, although of course, you should all try to use Theora and spread the good love. The videos should be sent to videos.tapioneer.com.

The comp is open now and closes 31st March. Judging will be performed by a panel of bods from both Technalign and Canonical. See this page for more details.