Hi there, Thanks to everyone who came to the installfest today, and a special thanks to all those who helped out; especially Matt for all the organizing, Daniel for the venue and Bruce for rousing all the attendants! We had a lot of people signing up as a token of their gratitude - thank you very much; those of you who didn't pay today will want to check https://secure.wlug.org.nz/join.html to figure out what to do next. Just a note to a gentleman named David, who gave us Mandrake 10 - you paid and filled out a membership form, which I think you took with you. Can you contact me off list, if you're out there, or if anyone knows David can they please ask him to get in touch. I'm sure you'll hear more from others about this event soon. If you came, and have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them to this list. Regards, Craig
* zcat <zcat(a)wired.net.nz> [2004-05-08 08:47]:
I think that went pretty well for our first installfest; I've already had a thank-you email from someone for getting their winmodem working :)
Did anyone take photos? Is anyone going to do a short writeup? How the idea came up, turn of events during organization, how the day went, the atmosphere, difficulties encoutered, noteworthy moments, things learned -- stuff like that. We have two of those, for the two fests the LUG has done (I wasn't on boat for the 2001 one): http://www.uni-koeln.de/themen/linux/nachlese_2001.html http://www.uni-koeln.de/themen/linux/bericht_2003.html Of course they're in German only, I'm afraid. :) -- Regards, Aristotle "If you can't laugh at yourself, you don't take life seriously enough."
It was certainly a great atmosphere, and for the first time round, it went really well I thought... Bruce took some photos and they are posted here... http://www.wired.net.nz/gallery/installfest2004 Also I'm waiting Phil Murray's photos that he took with that cool camera from www.open2view.com I think we all endured some highlights (and lowlights). 7 years ago, it would have been beyond my wildest dreams to be able to borrow two Cisco Catalyst 5000 series switches connected together by Gigabit over fibre with more than enough 10/100 ports to go around from my employer with no strings attached apart from my employers concern of the box falling on someone's toe and that he wants me to clear the configuration before and after and also clear the flash and re-image it on return. An overkill perhaps, but it was a great novelty. So in seven years time, we may have a Cisco Catalyst 6500 switch in the middle :) As for one of the 2926's, well I'm looking forward to hearing Fraser Parkinson's (my CAM from Cisco) reaction when he sees a picture of the Cisco 2926 with the 3Com Baseline switches on top working, while that is just sitting there unplugged :). We also encountered quite a few rouge DHCP servers along the way, and PCI-NIC being turned into a mini-PIC NIC :) It would be good to have more of this and also try different venues. -----Original Message----- From: A. Pagaltzis [mailto:pagaltzis(a)gmx.de] Sent: Sunday, 9 May 2004 2:18 p.m. To: Waikato Linux Users Group Subject: Re: [wlug] Installfest roundup * zcat <zcat(a)wired.net.nz> [2004-05-08 08:47]:
I think that went pretty well for our first installfest; I've already had a thank-you email from someone for getting their winmodem working :)
Did anyone take photos? Is anyone going to do a short writeup? How the idea came up, turn of events during organization, how the day went, the atmosphere, difficulties encoutered, noteworthy moments, things learned -- stuff like that. We have two of those, for the two fests the LUG has done (I wasn't on boat for the 2001 one): http://www.uni-koeln.de/themen/linux/nachlese_2001.html http://www.uni-koeln.de/themen/linux/bericht_2003.html Of course they're in German only, I'm afraid. :) -- Regards, Aristotle "If you can't laugh at yourself, you don't take life seriously enough." _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug
A. Pagaltzis wrote:
* zcat <zcat(a)wired.net.nz> [2004-05-08 08:47]:
I think that went pretty well for our first installfest; I've already had a thank-you email from someone for getting their winmodem working :)
Did anyone take photos?
http://zcat.wired.net.nz/gallery/installfest2004 - I have a cheap 1MP camera, so they're not great quality. :)
Is anyone going to do a short writeup? How the idea came up, turn of events during organization, how the day went, the atmosphere, difficulties encoutered, noteworthy moments, things learned -- stuff like that.
There were a few minor glitches, but on the whole I would say it went fairly smoothly. IMHO we had just about the right number of people turned up; few enough that anyone who needed it was able to find an experienced WLUG member to help them. I think for the next one we need to plan further ahead with press releases and such, so we have a better chance of getting the papers to run an article on us. Also there was very little mention of the 'corporate sponsors' in advance, we probably could have listed them on the poster and stuff.. Just thinking about the Ham Club sales, which are a fairly similar event, and how they promote those. A 'large' corporate sponsor providing a venue and some 'infrastructure' might be an advantage here. I understand that one has offered, and I think we should follow that up! :) I also think we should organise the install lecture and the installfest less than a week apart, and advertise both as part of the same initiative. Some 'newbies' might like to try the install at home and then bring the machine along just to iron out hardware issues. We did have an install lecture but it was a little far ahead of the installfest, and not as well promoted as it might have been. One other idea I had; I could provide a PABX and some modems set to answer, so that anyone with modem issues has a way of testing their setup. I know many WLUG members detest winmodems, but the reality is that's what most users end up with these days and they usually do take a little extra setting up. Just my 2c+GST.. WLUG members please don't take any of this as being negative. It was our first installfest and I think we all did a pretty good job of it!
participants (4)
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A. Pagaltzis -
Craig Box -
Lindsay Druett -
zcat