Summary of TTCS Meetings held in 2005

We hold two types of meetings : Pizza Limes and Tech Meetings. A Pizza Lime is the name given to our monthly discussion forum which is usually held at Pizza Hut, Roxy Roundabout, Port of Spain on the second Wednesday of the month. The tech meeting is when we have computers on site to demonstrate a particular type of hardware or software.

Contents

Wednesday 12 January 2005, 6pm

Topics discussed :

Wednesday 26 January 2005

The topics for this meeting were:

Wednesday 16 February 2005, 6pm

Topics discussed

Wednesday March 9th 2005, 6pm

Topics discussed :

Saturday 19 March 2005 – Linux Live CD Distros

Richard Jobity from the Trinidad and Tobago Linux Users Group (TTLUG) gave a brief history of the concept of bootable cds from the early command line only days all the way up to the work of Klaus Knopper who discovered how to run a full, graphical-based distro from a bootable CD-ROM. Richard also demonstrated several “live” Linux distros, these are full versions of Linux (operating systems and applications) which run from a bootable cd.

Some of the distros were:

  • Suse 9.2 Live CD (KDE)
  • Austrumi
  • Beatrix 2005:1
  • ByzantineOS.
  • KioskCD.
  • FreeSBIE (BSD live demo)
  • DamnSmallLinux
  • Knoppix DVD 2004
  • Dyne:Bolic
  • SAM Xmas Fun
  • Slax (Slackware Live CD)
  • Ubuntu
  • Hakin-9 (security)
  • 7Puppy Linux

Copies of the distros were available for purchase.

Attendees were shown and asked to comment on the interface for the TTCS open source cd project.

Saturday April 9th, 2005, 2-5pm

In spite of the fire in downtown Port of Spain, we had a meeting at Engineering Consultants with a special guest, Sean Lyndersay who has been working at Microsoft Corporation, USA for nearly 6 years. Currently working as a program manager on several projects, including Internet Explorer 7, Sean talked about working at Microsoft and answered a variety of questions from attendees.

Wednesday 13 April 2005, 7-9pm

Held at Pizza Hut, Valsayn, topics for the meeting included :

  • TSTT’s new phone rate packages for land lines for residential and business customers called “Smartchoice”. Some of the points raised :
    • Many consumers have large landline phone bills because they call cellphones. This will not change under “Smartchoice” because the various packages of bundled minutes do NOT include calls made to cellphones. It is possible the final phone bill will still be quite large./li>
    • Under “Smartchoice” landline calls to any ISP, other than TSTT, will be billed at TT 20 cents per minute. Members saw this as a blatant attempt by TSTT to not only destroy the competition but also to force consumers to switch to the TSTT internet service which, at the time of this update, is toll free (but not guaranteed to remain this way).
    • This could be an attempt by TSTT to implement the infamous “rate rebalancing” without having to seek the regulatory approval of the Telecommunications Authority.
    • TSTT has offered a discount on toll-free service for the independent ISPs. Basically, the ISPs will pay TSTT to allow their customers to receive toll-free access to their services. Needless to say, the rates being offered by TSTT for that toll-free access “service” are quite high and would likely increase the independent ISP’s internet bill if they were to take up TSTT’s offer.Update The Association of Independent ISPs (AIISP) has written a letter to the Telecom Authority about TSTT’s new pricing plan for fixed lines.
  • a new ISP, Greendot offering wireless internet access in Trinidad and Tobago. A representative from Greendot attended the meeting and answered many questions related to their present and planned future services.
  • Computer Technician charged with fraud.

Wednesday May 11th, 2005, from 6pm

Topics discussed :

Saturday May 14th, 2005, 2-5pm – Podcasting

Georgia Popplewell, a local podcaster who produces CaribbeanFreeRadio.com, the first podcast to originate in the Caribbean, gave an informative presentation about podcasting and the issues surrounding podcasting (such as advertising, promoting podcasts, legal issues, bandwidth). She also showed the hardware used for creating the CaribbeanFreeRadio.com podcasts.

For more information about podcasting, check out:

Wednesday 8 June 2005, from 6pm

Topics discussed:

Saturday 25 June 2005, 1-5pm – MacOS X Tiger and the Mac Mini

At this meeting, we looked at Apple’s latest operating system Mac OS X “Tiger”, the Mac Mini and the iMac G5 with the help of local Apple retailers:

  • F1 Connect of #33 Mucurapo Road St. James. email: ricardosnr (at) f1connect.com
  • Right Enterprises of #110 Saddle Road Maraval. email: gg (at) ggonsalves.com

Saturday 16 July 2005 – TTCS Podcast #1

Recording session for our first podcast. The TTCS Regulars (Dev Anand, Anil, Colin, Richard J., Paul, Mike T. and Nissan) discussed several topics.

For more details, including list of topics and URLs mentioned on the podcast, as well as download links, visit the official page at: https://www.ttcs.tt/2016/09/16/ttcs-podcasts-1-to-20-from-2005-to-2010

Wednesday 20 July 2005, from 6pm

The topics for this meeting were:

Wednesday 3 August 2005 – TTCS podcast #2

Our second podcast with the TTCS Regulars: Dev Anand, Anil, Colin, Richard J., Paul, Mike T. and Nissan.

For more details, including list of topics and URLs mentioned on the podcast, as well as download links, visit the official page at: https://www.ttcs.tt/2016/09/16/ttcs-podcasts-1-to-20-from-2005-to-2010

Wednesday 10 August 2005, from 6pm

Topics for the meeting included:

Wednesday 24 August 2005 – Pizza Hut, Valsayn

Topics included:

Saturday 03 September 2005 – TTCS Podcast #3

Our third podcast with the TTCS Regulars: Mike T, Nissan, Anil, Richard, Colin, Paul, Dev Anand and Peter.

For more details, including list of topics and URLs mentioned on the podcast, as well as download links, visit the official page at: www.ttcs.tt/podcasts/

Saturday 10 September 2005 – Software Freedom Day 2005

Sunday 11 September 2005 – Installfest

The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS), in collaboration with the Trinidad and Tobago Linux Users Group (TTLUG) and FLOS Caribbean celebrated Software Freedom Day 2005 with a 2 day event. The venue for both days was Engineering Consultants at 112A Edward Street, Port of Spain.

On Saturday 10th September 2005, from 1 to 5pm, we focused on demonstrations of not just some of the common FOSS software, but also FOSS software created by local software developers. The TTCS OSSWIN CD, a collection of over 100 Free/Open Source software for home and business users running Microsoft Windows (98SE/Me/2000 and XP) was made available for purchase. Special versions of the Linux operating system that you can try without altering anything on your computer (“Live distros”) were also on sale. Persons attending were encouraged to bring their own blank 700MB CDs and get these distros duplicated for free.

On Sunday 11th September 2005, from 1 to 5pm, we held an Installfest session where persons attending were encouraged to bring their PCs to get FOSS for Windows installed by the TTCS or a Linux distro installed by the TTLUG.

Other related URLs :

Wednesday 14 September 2005, 6pm

We discussed:

Saturday 17 September 2005 – TTCS Podcast #4

In our fourth podcast, Mike T. and Dev Anand talk about the audio recordings Mike did on Software Freedom Day (SFD), an event that was held by the TTCS, TTLUG and FLOS Caribbean on September 10th, 2005.

For more details, including list of topics and URLs mentioned on the podcast, as well as download links, visit the official page at: www.ttcsweb.org/podcasts/

Wednesday 12 October 2005, 6pm

The topics for this meeting were:

Saturday October 22, 2005 – TTCS Podcast #5

In our fifth podcast, (Mike T, Anil, Richard, Paul and Dev Anand) talked about our upcoming meeting in San Fernando and the coming cell phone competition from Digicel and Laqtel.

For more details, including list of topics and URLs mentioned on the podcast, as well as download links, visit the official page at: www.ttcsweb.org/podcasts/

Saturday October 29 2005 – TTCS OSSWIN CD, Burrokeet, Ubuntu

At this meeting, held at the Computer Block Amphitheatre at the San Fernando Technical Institute, we:

• demoed the TTCS OSSWIN CD, a compilation of
Free/Open Source software for the Windows platform.
(http://www.ttcsweb.org/osswin-cd/)

• demoed Burrokeet, software to help create
content for Learning Content Management Systems,
by one of its developers. (http://www.burrokeet.org/)

• a look at Ubuntu v5.10, a popular Linux distribution
which was released this month. (http://www.ubuntulinux.org/)

Wednesday November 9 2005 – Pizza Hut, Valsayn

We talked about :

* delay in local cell phone competition due to interconnection disputes.
See http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2005-11-04/business1.html
http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2005-11-05/news3.html
http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2005-11-06/news3.html

* Sony using rootkits to enforce digital rights management on its
music cds. (http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/)

* OPUS NETWORX (http://www.opus.co.tt/) focuses on spam-free
e-mail after announcing it will discontine its dialup services.

* the 2003 National E-Commerce Secretariat’s (NeCS) Surveys
on E-Commerce Usage and Awareness among Businesses and Households.
Download the 1.3MB PDF at
http://www.fastforward.tt/files/cms/NECSBooklet_output.pdf

Wednesday December 7th 2005

End of year pizza lime

Saturday 10th December 2005 – Rootkits

We looked at the Sony XCP rootkit (http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html) included on several music cds, showing how the Sony rootkit is installed and ways of detecting and preventing such rootkits from your PC.