The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) celebrated Software Freedom Day (SFD) 2009 with a series of activities in September, including scheduled presentations with giveaways and demonstrations of various aspects of Free and Open Source Software. Admission was FREE and CDs/DVDs of Free and Open Source Software were give to all attendees.  The activities involved outreach meetings involving booth displays at malls in Trinidad and Tobago as well as information sessions geared towards beginners, intermediates and software developers.

Booth Displays were done on

• Saturday September 5th, 2009 – outreach meeting at Gulf City, Lowlands Mall, Tobago
• Saturday September 12th, 2009 – outreach meeting at Long Circular Mall, Trinidad

• Saturday September 19th, 2009 – “Open Minds, Open Source: For Beginners” at St Mary’s College, Port of Spain
• Saturday September 26th, 2009 – “Exploring Open Source Possibilities: For Intermediates” session at St. Mary’s College, Port of Spain
• Saturday October 3rd, 2009 – “Building with FLOS: Open Source for Developers” session geared for OSS developers

A great deal of planning sessions were done in 2009 and this planning work was documented on the wiki

• TTCS meetings in 2009
• archived wiki page on SFD2009 planning
• archived wiki page on SFD2009 schedule

Promotional Material

Promotional material was generated for the events including a number of flyers and a press release. Newspaper ads (2″ x 8″) were also done for the three daily newspapers.

• TTCS SFD 2009 Press Release
• TTCS SFD 2009 Schedule
• TTCS SFD 2009 Flyer
• SFD 2009 Newspaper ad for September 19 2009 session
• SFD 2009 Newspaper ad for September 26 2009 session

Booth Displays/Outreach meetings

Venue for Tobago  : Gulf City, Lowlands Mall, Tobago on Sept 5th)
Venue for Trinidad : Long Circular Mall (available Sept 12th)

• One table geared towards providing information about the TTCS and filling out membership forms online.
• One tabled geared towards demonstrations of the OSSWIN Open Source CD
• One table for the demonstration of Ubuntu and Netbooks

Members of the TTCS were able to distribute approximately 140 Ubuntu Cds, 140 OSSWin Cds, 250 Flyers and added 120 new members to our mailing list (see photos and videos section below).

Photos and Videos from SFD 2009 Events

Saturday September 5th, 2009 – outreach meeting at Gulf City, Lowlands Mall, Tobago

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 https://www.flickr.com/photos/ttcs/sets/72157622259068670/ and on our TTCS Facebook Fan Page at http://bit.ly/2y6ja1

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 – outreach meeting at Long Circular Mall, Trinidad

At Long Circular Mall, 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“

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

Saturday September 26th, 2009 – “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“

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

 

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 :

• proposed Trinidad and Tobago Government Policy on Cinema Exhibition and Video Entertainment in Trinidad and Tobago. This policy is targeted  “to the proprietors/ businessmen, administrators and law makers involved in providing availability to, and regulation of such availability of, film and video entertainment products to the public of Trinidad and Tobago.” and applicable “..to all persons exhibiting, intending to exhibit or otherwise making available motion pictures, video games or any form of video entertainment via rental, sale or arcades to the general public.”
• Windows 7 Release Candidate. There will be a TTCS tech meeting on Saturday May 16th on Windows 7RC
• Software Freedom Day 2009 planning.
• .tt ccTLD consultations
• Government to create ICT company?

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:

• the Policy on Cinema Exhibition & Video Entertainment in Trinidad and Tobago
• the “Boosting ICT in the Dominican Republic” event on June 4th-5th which the TTCS attended.
• 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
• news from Apple WWDC 2009

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

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 :

• Network Solutions accused of domain name front running :
• T&TEC to deploy broadband over power lines :
• Ordering an OLPC laptop from Trinidad ; Intel pulling out of the OLPC
• Warner backing Blu-ray and what it means for HD-DVD
• Microsoft Deprecating Some OOXML Functionality http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2007/12/21/500-national-body-comments-posting-today.aspx
• Launch of http://trinidadtunes.com/

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 :

• Trinidadian charged for turning off computer
• Business Software Alliance Trinidad ads
• Help Firefox get a world record on Tuesday 17th June 2008 – Jamaica had 1792 downloads, Trinidad and Tobago 1724 downloads
• the Trinidad Guardian website misconfiguration resulting in a demo page using PHPcow being online for over a day
• the TTBS wanting to adopt ISO/IEC 27002 as a voluntary IT standard

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 :

• The Ministry of Public Administration releases Draft National Policy on Electronic Business For Trinidad and Tobago. https://www.ttcs.tt/blog/2008/07/11/mpa-releases-draft-national-policy-on-electronic-business-for-trinidad-and-tobago/. One key point was the definition of e-commerce used in the draft policy did not include the transfer on money electronically. It was decided that a wiki page (done a few days after this meeting) be setup to begin to gather comments since there was no deadline specified on the MPA’s website.
• security flaw in DNS
• TATT releases “Draft Universality Implementation Plan for Telecommunications Services in Trinidad and Tobago” http://www.tatt.org.tt/ddocs/Universality%20_Implementation_Plan.pdf
• planning for Software Freedom Day 2008 : http://softwarefreedomday.org/. We discussed ideas and possible venues for SFD 2008. A SFD 2008 planning wiki page was setup a few days after this event.

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