Category: meetings

  • Summary of TTCS meetings in 2009

    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.

    Thursday February 12th, 2009- PizzaLime

    Saturday February 21st, 2009 – TTCS Podcast 16

    Recorded on Carnival Saturday, see https://www.ttcs.tt/2016/09/16/ttcs-podcasts-1-to-20-from-2005-to-2010 for shownotes and recordings.

    Saturday 21st March 2009

    Held at ENCO, we talked about

    • planning for Software Freedom Day 2009;
    • ideas for TTCS arising from the recently concluded ICANN Mexico meeting.

    Saturday 28th March 2009 – Nintendo Balance Board/Wii Fit

    Held at Handarnold, we tried the Wii Balance Board along with the Wii Fit game for the Nintendo Wii. The Wii Balance board is a peripheral device shaped like a household scale that measures a user’s weight and balance to interact with games.

    Saturday 9th May 2009 – SFD2009 planning

    planning session for Software Freedom Day 2009, planning for upcoming meeting on Windows 7, activities of TTCS within ICANN and discussion of other TTCS activities.

    Wednesday 13th May 2009

    Come join us as we eat and chat about :

    Saturday May 16th, 2009 – Windows 7RC

    Held at ENCO, we looked at the release candidate (RC) of Microsoft Windows 7 by installing Windows 7 RC on at least two machines.

    Tuesday 16th June 2009

    Held at Pizza Hut, VALSAYN,  we talked about:

    Wednesday July 29th, 2009

    Online meeting via Skype to discuss planning for Software Freedom Day 2009

    Wednesday August 19 2009

    Online meeting to finalise plans and the text for the letters for Software Freedom Day 2009.

    Wednesday August 26th, 2009

    Online meeting to finalise plans and the text for the letters for Software Freedom Day 2009.

    Saturday September 5th, 2009 – SFD 2009 Tobago

    The TTCS had its first Tobago event with a booth at the Gulf City Lowlands Mall, Tobago about Software Freedom on Saturday September 5th, 2009 from 10am to 5pm.

    There was a good turnout ; we had 50 TTCS OSSWIN CDs & 50 Ubuntu CDs
    and towards the end, we had to burn 10 additional CDs and 5 additional
    Ubuntu CDs to give out. 220 flyers were given out and it was estimated
    that up to 200 patrons visited the TTCS booth at Gulf City, Lowlands Mall.

    Pictures from TTCS SFD booth in Tobago Sept 5, 2009 are on Flickr at
    http://bit.ly/4DVAsi and on Facebook

    The hard-working TTCS group who made the Tobago booth happen :
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/ttcs/3891335104/in/set-72157622259068670/

    Saturday September 12th, 2009

    SFD booth at Long Circular Mall, Trinidad. Distributed about 140 Ubuntu CDs, 140 TTCS OSSWin CDs and 250 Flyers.

    Flickr : http://www.flickr.com/photos/knowprose/3916752900/in/photostream/

    Photos Facebook TTCS Fan Page : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=109053&id=69526139067

     

    Saturday September 19th, 2009 – “Open Minds, Open Source: For Beginners

    SFD Information Session on “Open Minds, Open Source: For Beginners” at St Mary’s College, Port of Spain.

    Facebook TTCS Fan Page : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111336&id=69526139067

    Saturday September 19th, 2009 – “Exploring Open Source Possibilities: For Intermediates”

    SFD Information Session on “Exploring Open Source Possibilities: For Intermediates

    Photos on Facebook TTCS Fan Page : http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=111819&id=69526139067

    Saturday October 3rd, 2009 – “Building with FLOS: Open Source for Developers

    Our 3rd information session on SFD 2009 “Building with FLOS: Open Source for Developers”

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/knowprose/tags/ttcs/

    Saturday 10th October 2009

    Did an analysis of our recently concluded Software Freedom Day meetings for 2009, and ideas/planning for future non-SFD TTCS activities.

    Tuesday December 8 2009 – Windows 7

    TTCS recently attended in a meeting on Tuesday, December 8 to learn more about Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows 7 (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ttcs/message/24708).

    Once the room was filled, about 5:30 P.M., the meeting commenced. The audience, which numbered roughly fifteen persons, ranged from TTCS veterans to a few new faces. We were welcomed by the affable Pradeep Raman, General Manager of Microsoft Trinidad, who introduced himself and shared a bit about his background.

    He then introduced the evening’s presenter, the confident and articulate Microsoft Technology Specialist, Jonathan Jagai. The presentation, “What’s New In Windows 7”, was moderately technical, and covered several new features of Microsoft latest operating system.

    Jonathan initially gave a broad overview of new Windows 7 features, then went into more depth with each feature. The slides showed the customer feedback upon which new features were designed and implemented. A brief explanation of the underlying technology was given. Where possible, the feature was demonstrated in Windows 7.

    Some features covered included:
    * DirectAccess, which seamlessly provided intranet connectivity to users when they connected to the Internet
    * BranchCache, which reduced network traffic on WANs
    * Windows XP Mode, which transparently ran Windows XP applications in a virtual environment

    Several new features of the Aero interface were also demonstrated, including the Aero Peek, Aero Snap and Aero Shake, among others. Aero’s eye candy was rivaled only by the PowerPoint 2010 graphics.

    Far from being XP with an Aero interface, Windows 7 was designed from the ground up with security, usability and stability in mind.

    After the hour-long presentation was concluded, a number of questions were fielded and answered thoughtfully by the presenter. Refreshments were provided afterwards and the evening’s gathering concluded around eight o’clock.

    A free 90-day trial for Windows 7 Enterprise is available from TechNet:
    http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc442495.aspx

  • TTCS pizzalime on TUESDAY June 16th, 2009

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) will be having a pizzalime on Tuesday 16th June 2009 from 7 pm to 9pm at Pizza Hut, VALSAYN.

    Come join us as we eat and chat about :

    • the Policy on Cinema Exhibition & Video Entertainment in Trinidad and Tobago. http://bit.ly/7i42G
    • the “Boosting ICT in the Dominican Republic” event on June 4th-5th, which the TTCS attended. http://is.gd/O4BC
    • the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) 35th public meeting being held in Sydney, Australia (http://syd.icann.org/) on June 21st-26th, 2009. The Secretariat from the Latin American and the Caribbean Regional At-Large Organisation (LACRALO ; http://lacralo.org/) from the TTCS will be attending.
    • gaming news from E3 2009 : http://bit.ly/Z3s6V
    • news from Apple WWDC 2009 : http://is.gd/WqD5
    • Software Freedom Day 2009

    Contribution of $30 towards the food bill is expected. Anyone interested in computing are welcome to attend.

    See you there!

  • TTCS tech meeting on Windows 7 RC on Saturday May 16th, 2009

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) will be having a meeting on Saturday, May 16, 2009 from 1pm to 5pm at Engineering Consultants at 112A Edward Street, Port of Spain (corner of Oxford and Edward Street).

    At this meeting, we will be looking at the release candidate of Microsoft Windows 7 by installing Windows 7 RC on at least two machines

    You can download the 32 and 64 bit versions of  Microsoft Windows 7 Release Candidate at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

    Please CONFIRM if you are ATTENDING OR NOT at http://www.mobaganda.com/ttcsmeetingonwindows7rc

    See you there!

  • TTCS pizzalime on Wednesday 13th May 2009 from 6pm

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) will be having a pizzalime on Wednesday May 13th, 2009 from 6pm at Pizza Hut, Roxy Roundabout.

    Come join us as we eat and chat about :

    and more. One attendee will receive a book about the popular Linux distro Ubuntu, along with the latest version of Ubuntu v9.04.

    Contribution of $30 towards food bill is expected. See you there!

  • TTCS meeting on Saturday 9th May 2009 from 11am

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society will be having a meeting on Saturday 9th May 2009 from 11am to 4pm at Engineering Consultants at 112A Edward Street (corner of Oxford and Edward Street)

    This meeting will be a planning session for Software Freedom Day 2009, planning for upcoming meeting on Windows 7,  activities of  TTCS within ICANN and discussion of other TTCS activities.

    See you there

  • TTCS meeting on Saturday 28th March 2009 from 12:30pm – NintendoBalance Board/Wii Fit

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) will be having a meeting on Saturday 28th March 2009 from 12:30pm to 4:45pm at Hand Arnold (Trinidad) Limited, El Socorro Road Extension, El Socorro,
    San Juan (see map at http://ttcsweb.org/handarnold-map)

    At this meeting, we will be trying out the Wii Balance Board <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_Balance_Board>
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_Balance_Board) along with the Wii Fit game for the Nintendo Wii. The Wii Balance board is a peripheral device shaped like a household scale that measures a user’s weight and balance
    to interact with games such as the Wii Fit.

    If time permits, we’ll also take a look at several homebrew applications for the Nintendo Wii.

    You’re welcome to attend. See you there!

  • TTCS meeting on Saturday 21st March 2009 from 1pm

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) will be having a meeting on Saturday 21st March 2009 from 1pm at Engineering Consultants at 112A Edward Street, Port of Spain.

    Proposed agenda :

    Anyone interested in computing and future TTCS activities are welcome to attend. See you there!

  • TTCS pizzalime on Thursday February 12th, 2009 from 6pm

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society will be having a pizzalime on Thursday February 12th, 2009 from 6pm at Pizza Hut, Roxy Roundabout, Port of Spain.

    Come join us as we eat and chat about various computing related topics.

    Anyone interested in computing are invited to attend. A contribution of $30 towards the food bill is expected.

    See you there!

  • Summary of TTCS meetings held in 2008

    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.

    January 9th, 2008 – TTCS pizza lime

    Held at PizzaHut, topics likely to be discussed :

    Saturday January 26th, 2008 – TTCS tech meeting – look at OLPC and Asus EEEPC

    Two One Laptop Per Child (OLPC ; http://www.laptop.org/) laptops were available at this meeting at Handarnold. The unique features of the OLPC laptops :

    • the mesh networking capability allowing for sharing of activities between the two laptops (chat, video sharing)
    • ability of the OLPC laptop to be used outdoors with the screen being visible in the sunlight
    • the Sugar interface for the OLPC
    • the journal showing how it interacts with files and programs in a simpler way for kids to understand
    • various activities (“programs”) such as Turtle Art, Record, Browser, Etoys, Measure

    Two Asus EEE PC laptops (http://eeepc.asus.com/global/product.htm) were also shown.

    February 13th, 2008 – TTCS pizza lime

    See https://www.ttcs.tt/blog/2008/02/11/ttcs-pizzalime-on-wednesday-february-13th-2008/ for proposed list of topics.

    March 25th, 2008 – TTCS pizzalime

    Held at Pizza Hut, Roxy Roundabout. Topics discussed :

    – The Education Ministry plans to install network camera in 36 schools : https://www.ttcs.tt/blog/2008/02/16/trinidad-and-tobago-education-ministry-to-consider-installing-network-cameras-in-36-schools/

    A lot of discussion focused on whether cameras help with solving crime and whether it is worth giving up privacy to make people safer.

    – TTBS and DIS29500 : https://www.ttcs.tt/blog/2008/03/07/ttcs-recommendation-to-trinidad-and-tobago-bureau-of-standards-regarding-its-vote-on-dis29500/

    an overview of the recent activity of the TTBS and its approval vote of DIS29500

    – The most popular Matt in the world registers a .tt domain : https://www.ttcs.tt/blog/2008/02/17/the-most-popular-matt-in-the-world-registers-a-tt-domain/

    J. Morris was present to discuss there will be a consultation done regarding how .tt will be run sometime in April 2008. Some discussion on the various models for .tt

    – Laqtel’s concession to provide mobile services in TnT revoked : https://www.ttcs.tt/blog/2008/03/23/laqtels-concession-to-provide-mobile-services-in-trinidad-and-tobago-terminated/

    – Internet Governance Forum deadline for workshop proposals is April 30th – does TTCS want to participate? didn’t get time to get to this topic 🙁

    Meeting concluded around 10pm

    Thursday April 17th, 2008 – TTCS pizzalime

    Held at Pizza Hut, Valsayn. Topics discussed/things done :

    • the recent Telecom Authority seminar “Balance on the airwaves ; free speech and responsibility”. The presentations from this seminar is online at TATT’s website at http://www.tatt.org.tt/Broadcast_code/Seminar_Apr_08/Presentations.htm
    • unpacking of an OLPC obtained by the Give One Get One program
    • discussion of the TTBS voting to approve DIS29500

    Sunday April 20th, 2008 – Hacking the Nintendo Wii Remote

    Held at Handarnold, we demonstrated Johnny Chung Lee’s project “Low-Cost Multi-point Interactive Whiteboards Using the [Nintendo Wii] Wiimote”. Visit Johnny Lee’s website at http://www.johnnylee.net/ for more details. A video of this was recorded and is in three parts :

    Part I is a presentation by Mike Tikasingh showing how the infra-red pens were made. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs-Vwj6hnow

    Part II is a presentation by Paul Worswick showing how the Nintendo Wii Remote was connected to a Windows PC wirelessly using Bluetooth. He then showed how to use the infra-red pen to turn a computer screen projected on a wall to create a interactive whiteboard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0eF-ejMXOI

    Part III shows the practical use of the infra-red pen and the Wiimote to create a interactive whiteboard from the computer screen projected on a wall and then on a computer screen projected on a table. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT_HkU_jAIk

    Wednesday June 18th, 2008 – TTCS pizzalime and demo of Amazon Kindle

    Mike T. demoed a Kindle, an ebook reader from Amazon.

    Other topics discussed :

    Saturday June 28th, 2008 – IPv6

    Held at Engineering Consultants, Mr. Andre Thompson from UWI gave an informative presentation about IPv6 and details about RIRs such as ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers ; http://www.arin.net/) and the recent ARIN meeting he attended.

    The presentation can be viewed as a PDF file :  TTCS-IPv6-20080625.pdf

     

    Wednesday July 2nd, 2008 –  sending and receiving electronic payments

    Held at TATIL offices on Maraval Road, Port of Spain from 5:30pm, the manager of the Trinidad and Tobago Interbank Payments System Limited (TTIPS) gave an presentation about TTIPS and how inter-bank transactions worked.

    Wednesday July 16th, 2008 – TTCS pizzalime

    Held at Pizza Hut, Roxy Roundabout ; topics discussed :

    Sunday July 27th, 2008, 5pm – TTCS Online meeting for SFD2008

    Our first official online meeting using Skype to discuss plans for Software Freedom Day 2008, see https://files.ttcs.tt/ttcs-wiki-sfd2008-planning.pdf#MeetingNotes/AgendaforJuly27th2008from5pmviaSkype  for meeting notes.

    Wednesday August 13th 2008 – TTCS pizzalime

    Held at Pizza Hut, Valsayn. Meeting was consumed with planning for Software Freedom Day 2008 ; what type of presentations could be done, and who would do them.

    Sunday August 24th, 2008, 5.00pm – TTCS Online meeting for SFD 2008

    A second co-ordination online meeting for SFD 2008. Meeting notes at https://files.ttcs.tt/ttcs-wiki-sfd2008-planning.pdf#MeetingNotesforSundayAugust24th2008viaSkype

    Saturday 6th September 2008 – TTCS workshop on SFD 2008

    Worked on the various flyers and letters needed for SFD 2008

    Friday September 12th, 2008 – SFD 2008 media launch event

    Held at the Atrium at Guardian Holdings Limited from 6-8pm. See  Photos from the Media Launch at Guardian Life Limited, Westmoorings

    Saturday September 20th, 2008 – Software Freedom Day 2008

    Held at the Old Fire Station Building, National Library, Port of Spain. See https://www.ttcs.tt/meetings/software-freedom-day-2008-report/  See a 38 minute video of interviews taken at Software Freedom Day 2008 as well as a Photos from Software Freedom Day 2008 at the Old Fire Station, Ministry of Public Administration

    Tuesday 23rd September 2008 – SFD 2008 analysis

    Held at Engineering Consultants, we discussed the SFD 2008 event and looked at some of the video footage captured at the event.

    Thursday October 2nd, 2008 – PizzaLime

    Held at Pizza Hut Valsayn, we discussed the recent SFD 2008 event and fastforward II, Trinidad and Tobago’s national ICT strategy for 2009-2013 by the Ministry of Public Administration

    Saturday October 11th, 2008 – Workshop on Draft E-business policy

    Held at Engineering Consultants, we discussed and planned our response to the proposed National E-business Policy of Trinidad and Tobago . The deadline for comments was October 13th, 2008. A wiki page was used : http://ttcsweb.pbwiki.com/Draft-National-Policy-on-Electronic-Business-For-Trinidad-and-Tobago (PDF of wiki page)

     

    Monday 3rd November 2008 from 7:30pm – TTCS online meeting

    Due to a meeting with the Ministry of Public Administration (MPA) later that week, the TTCS online meeting was done to discuss the draft Trinidad and Tobago Government Omnibus Technical Standards (eGOTS) which describes the technical standards in the areas of

    • networking  (e.g IPv4, 802.11g, WebDAV)
    • data integration  (these relate to the format of the data being transferred including file format types e.g DOC, PDF, MP3)
    • application / presentation  (e.g POP3, CSS2, AJAX, RSS)
    • security (e.g Kerberos v5, SHA-256, WEP, web services (SOAP 1.2, WS-Discovery, WS-Reliability v1.1)

    to be used within and by the Trinidad and Tobago Government for the exchange of information between : Government and citizens (G2C), Government and Businesses (G2B) and Different Government entities (G2G).

    Thursday 6th November 2008 – PizzaLime

    At Pizza Hut, Roxy, we discussed the problems of e-commerce in Trinidad and Tobago.

    Saturday 6th December 2008 – Christmas Lunch.

    Saturday 27th December 2008 – End of year lunch

  • Software Freedom Day 2008 report

    Introduction

    Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a global, grassroots effort to educate the public about the availability and benefits of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Local teams around the world organise events on the third Saturday in September. In 2008, Software Freedom Day was celebrated on September 20th.

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) organised meetings in 2005 and in 2006 to promote free and open source software, but did not register with the official Software Freedom Day website.

    In 2007, the TTCS held a SFD event and submitted a report to the Software Freedom Day organisation ; our submission received a “highly commended” award from the Software Freedom Day organisation.

    This article is a report on the planning that went into SFD 2008, a overview of the presentations made on the actual day and various photos and video clips from SFD 2008.

    Ideas for SFD 2008

    The TTCS registered as a team on the Software Freedom Day website in early July 2008 at :

    At our regular monthly meeting on July 15th, the TTCS discussed what we should do for SFD 2008. In looking back at SFD2007, the following observations were made :

    • the planning for SFD 2007 event began on the last week of August 2007. So we should do more preparations earlier for SFD 2008.
    • We had very good turnout with up to 50-60 persons present at the SFD 2007 venue which is essentially a large single room. However, if we were to promote SFD 2008 better, we would have more persons attending, that venue would not be able to handle more persons.
    • the time for presentations and Q and A made it difficult to highlight other aspects of open source.

    So there was agreement that we should get a larger venue for SFD 2008. A larger venue would facilitate a different type of SFD event than 2007. The precise type of SFD 2008 wasn’t agreed upon as yet but the thinking was that the SFD venue for 2008 should allow for :

    • SFD2008 being a two day event – a lot of material was presented last year in one day and there wasn’t time for other topics.
    • having booths/tables showcasing some aspect of open source at all time while there are scheduled presentations in another area.
    • aim for size of 100 attendees.

    A new approach for SFD 2008

    The TTCS wiki page on SFD 2008 planning went up on July 17th, 2008 at https://files.ttcs.tt/ttcs-wiki-sfd2008-planning.pdf.

    It was updated by TTCS members with sections on : what needs to be done, what kind of event, venue candidates, type of booths, type of presentations, ideas on promoting SFD 2008, potential costs, and other ideas. See the snapshot of the TTCS SFD 2008 planning page on 26th July 2008

    On Sunday July 27th, 2008, the TTCS had its first ever online meeting using Skype (late 2007 saw increased broadband competition in Trinidad and Tobago resulting in faster bandwidth at lower cost so more persons had broadband capable of VOIP). The meeting focused on SFD 2008 and was from 5pm to 11pm! See meeting notes

    Many possible venues were eliminated due to unsuitability due to high cost, size, location etc and narrowed down to two possible candidates :

    A new idea for SFD 2008 was proposed and adopted at the July 27th, 2008 meeting : have a media launch event the evening before SFD (Friday September 19th) from 5pm to 9pm. This would be a invitation only event for business persons, IT managers, media persons ; those persons unlikely to attend a meeting on a Saturday. Since there would be costs to have food and beverages served at such an media launch, we would need to attact sponsors. This was never attempted by the TTCS and it would also serve to introduce ourselves to the wider public.

    The Saturday SFD 2008 would be a single day event, but would start earlier (from 9am instead on 1pm like last year) and would have simultaneous presentations about open source in two separate areas ; one track of presentations in one room would be geared for the casual computer user and the other track of presentation in the other room geared for more computer savvy users. We would target the general public by having newspaper ads and by sending letters of invitations to secondary schools.

    Formal letters from the TTCS were sent via fax to the Ministry of Public Administration (MPA) re: use of the Old Fire Station and to the University of the West Indies re: use of university facilities on were sent on July 31st, 2008.

    From August 1st, 2008, teaser ads were placed at two electronic billboards, one in San Fernando and the other in Port of Spain.

    At the TTCS meeting on Wednesday 13th August 2008, attendees discussed SFD 2008 and worked on a schedule of presentations for SFD 2008 which was duly posted to the TTCS wiki page.

    Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Administration had responded, asking for further details about TTCS. However, the Ministry rejected the application for the two days on August 15th, 2008 due to the nature of the media launch on Friday evening. A new application for Saturday 20th September 2008 only would have to be done.

    After some discussion, it was decided to have the media launch event at Guardian Life Limited (GHL), Westmoorings. The TTCS has assisted Guardian Life Limited with a previous endeavour at that venue and GHL was receptive to the idea. The media launch would now take place at GHL, Westmoorings on Friday September 12th, 2008 from 6 to 8pm. This was considered better than having a media launch on September 19th and SFD on the 20th because to try to setup at two venues in two days would have been very difficult to do and that by having it on the Friday the week before SFD, there would be better chance for reports to appear in the media to promote SFD.

    The letter to the MPA was sent on August 22nd, 2008 and a formal letter to GHL sent on August 26th, 2008.

    To better co-ordinate SFD 2008, a ttcs-sfd mailing list was created on August 23rd, 2008.

    Another online TTCS meeting was done on Sunday August 24th, 2008 from 5.00pm.

    The TTCS received a favourable response from UWI on Tuesday August 26th, 2008. It was considered to repeat SFD on the 27th September 2008 for the UWI students but a followup meeting at UWI confirmed that due to the start of the academic year in September 2008, many facility schedules were not available. Due to this uncertainity, the TTCS decided to rule out using UWI this year. The TTCS had kept in contact with members in the UWI Computing Society re using UWI for SFD 2008. The UWI Computing Society were running a booth on the University Campus for orientiation week from September 8th to the 12th
    and offered to promote SFD 2008. The TTCS agreed to supply UWI Computing Society with flyers.

    August 25th 2008 – a Software Freedom Day Facebook group and the related Facebook Software Freedom Day 2008 event were created.

    Between August 25th and September 6th, 2008, via the ttcs-sfd mailing list, IM, emails and phone calls between members, decisions were made about :

    • confirming sponsors for SFD 2008 :
      • Trinidad and Tobago Network Information Centre (TTNIC) offered sponsorship for printing TTCS OSSWIN CDs (our CDs of open source software for Windows) and Ubuntu CDs.
      • Log On, a company specialising in Drupal deployments signed on as a sponsor and would sponsor newspaper ads and would be able to present at the media launch and have a booth on Software Freedom Day.
      • Guardian Life Limited – for allowing use of their facility for the SFD media launch on September 12th, 2008.
      • Handarnold Trinidad Limted – sponsorship of wine for the media launch
      • A.S Bryden – sponsorship of alcohol for the media launch.
    • deciding on having our own T-shirts with the TTCS logo to be worn by presenters and members on SFD, proposing various designs, getting pricing and placing the order for 20 T-shirts.
    • preparations for the media launch on September 12th : what would be the schedule from 6 to 8pm ; who do we invite ; what food to get ; what documents to give to media launch attendees
    • design of newspaper ads to promote Software Freedom Day. The ad would also mention the sponsors.

    On Saturday 6th September 2008, from 10am, TTCS members edited (and re-edited) and finalised the following documents :

    The letter to the secondary schools was approved and using OpenOffice.org and the spreadsheet of secondary schools of their names and addresses compiled last year, a mail merge was done to create 200 letters and envelopes were printed. The letter to the schools, along with the presentation schedule of events were folded and placed in each envelope.

    About 50 flyers/posters, schedules and press releases were printed for the UWI Computing Society for their booth at University orientation week.

    The week from September 8th to the September 12th :

    • letters to schools were posted
    • the http://www.ttcsweb.org/sfd page on SFD 2008 went up
    • quotations from two CD duplicating stores were done.
    • 40 folders for media launch attendees were done, these contained the seven documents (printed in colour) finalised on September 6th, 2008 along with our TTCS call card, a Ubuntu CD and TTCS OSSWIN CD.
    • two machines were prepped for the media launch
    • leaflets about One Laptop per Child (OLPC) – the TTCS has 3 of these laptops and the Asus EEE PCs (we have two of these laptops) to show along the laptops on media launch.
    • the CD labels for the Ubuntu CDs and TTCS OSSWIN CDs were done.

    Videos and Photos

    Video

    • 38 minute video of interviews taken at Software Freedom Day 2008https://vimeo.com/3327584

    Photos

    Media coverage

    Television

    • Alyson Henessey, NCC Studios, Channel 4 – interview with Dev Anand Teelucksingh and Anil Ramnanan re: Software Freedom Day 2008 recorded Friday September 19th, 2008 (video not yet available until Wed 30th October 2008)

    Newspapers