Category: meetings

  • TTCS meeting on Saturday September 8th, 2007 – Software Freedom Day 2007 event preparations

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS ; http://ttcsweb.org/) will be having a meeting on Saturday September 8th, 2007 from 1pm to 6pm at Engineering Consultants at 112A Edward Street, Port of Spain (corner of Oxford and Edward Streets).

    We need your help at this meeting to prepare for Software Freedom Day (SFD) on Saturday Sept 15th, 2007. SFD is a global, grassroots effort to educate the public about the benefits and availability of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).

    In order to make SFD a great experience for those learning about Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) for the first time, we need to:

    • make a flyer about TTCS, TTCS OSSWIN CD, Ubuntu and Open Source.
    • make a flyer to promote the Software Freedom Day event
    • test machines which will be used for SFD. Minimum of three PCs needed, so far.
    • test a PC with Ubuntu installed.
    • practice how to do various tasks in Ubuntu that persons on other OSes are accustomed to.(e.g. common internet tasks, playing media content, installing a printer, etc).
    • have a Windows PC to show how to dual boot with Ubuntu or another “live”/hard drive-installed Linux distro.
    • have a Windows PC to demo Open Source Software for Windows (Microsoft Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, XP).
    • have a Windows Vista PC (if possible) to demo Open Source Software on this latest OS.
    • if possible, have a laptop running Ubuntu to show how it works on such a device.

    Linux/OSS fans, Windows users, Mac users, anyone is welcome to assist ith this project. If you can help us with these tasks, have ideas, suggestions, would like to volunteer to help with SFD 2007, then email the TTCS at admin at ttcsweb d.o.t org. Let us know if you will be attending the TTCS meeting on Saturday September 8th.

  • TTCS pizza lime on Wednesday August 8th, 2007

    The next TTCS pizza lime will be held on Wednesday August 8th, 2007 at Pizza Hut, Valsayn from 7 to 9pm. One of the topics will be the 3rd Caribbean Internet Governance Forum which will held in Curacao, Netherland Antilles from the 16-17th August 2007.

  • TTCS pizzalime on THURSDAY July 19th, 2007 from 6pm – speaking with Guyana ccTLD (.gy) administrator

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society will be having a meeting on Thursday July 19th, 2007 from 6pm at Pizza
    Hut, Roxy Roundabout.

    At this meeting, we will be speaking with the Guyana country code (.gy ; http://www.registry.gy/) domain administrator about his experiences with running the .gy top level domain (TLD) and issues related to operating regional country code top level domains (ccTLDs).

    Persons interested in computers and related technology are invited to attend. A contribution of $25 towards refreshments is expected. Copies of TTCS OSSWIN CD will be available for $40 TT. Be there or be square!

  • Summary of TTCS meetings held in 2006

    We hold two types of meetings : Pizza Limes and Tech Meetings.

    “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. During the course of the year, Pizza Hut increased their prices (for both food and the party room) to a level which we could no longer afford.  Fortunately, we were able to hold several pizza limes at  F1 Connect  #33 Mucurapo Road, St. James, Port of Spain in the fourth quarter of 2006. Pizza was purchased from the nearby Papa John’s.

    At a tech meeting we have computers (and other equipment where necessary) on site to demonstrate a particular type of hardware or software. These meetings held at Engineering Consultants, 112A Edward Street, Port of Spain or at Handarnold Trinidad Ltd, El Socorro, San Juan.

    Wednesday January 11th, 2006 – TTCS Pizza Lime

    Main topic for discussion was discussing the release of the TTCS OSSWIN CD online for download.

    Saturday January 21st, 2006 – TTCS Podcast #8 recorded

    See https://www.ttcs.tt/2016/09/16/ttcs-podcasts-1-to-20-from-2005-to-2010/ for notes and download links

    Wednesday February 8th, 2006 – TTCS Pizza Lime

    Topics discussed :

    Wednesday March 8th 2006 – TTCS Pizza Lime

    Topics discussed :

    Saturday March 11th, 2006 – TTCS Podcast #9 recorded

    See https://www.ttcs.tt/2016/09/16/ttcs-podcasts-1-to-20-from-2005-to-2010/ for notes and download links

    Wednesday 12th April 2006 – TTCS Pizza Lime

    Held at Pizza Hut, Valsayn, topics discussed :

    Saturday April 29th, 2006 – TTCS tech meeting – Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird extensions and themes

    Colin gave the first presentation about Mozilla Firefox. After discussing several Firefox myths, he reviewed: how to install and uninstall extensions, themes and plugins for the browser.

    Problems that may be encountered (such as conflicting extensions) were discussed along with possible solutions.

    Dev T gave the second presentation on extensions for Mozilla Thunderbird.

    Wednesday May 10th, 2006 – meeting with ICANN

    We met with John Crain and Jacob Malthouse from ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an internationally organized, non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions.

    The meeting was held at Engineering Consultants and lasted several hours. A variety of topics were discussed ranging from what ICANN does and how it functions, the situation regarding the .tt domain and how groups like TTCS can get involved with ICANN

    The meeting was recorded, and an unofficial transcript was done by Vasudev and Dexter, with final formatting by Colin : Download transcript : Transcription2a.pdf

    Mark Lyndersay wrote about the meeting in his 23rd May 2006 BitDepth column.

    Thursday May 11th, 2006 – TTCS Pizza Lime

    Held on Thursday at Pizza Hut, Roxy to cater for the meeting with ICANN on Wednesday May 10th, 2006. Topics discussed :

    Saturday May 27th, 2006 – TTCS Podcast #10 recorded

    See https://www.ttcs.tt/2016/09/16/ttcs-podcasts-1-to-20-from-2005-to-2010/ for notes and download links

    Wednesday June 14th, 2006 – TTCS Pizza Lime

    Topics discussed :

    Saturday June 24th, 2006 – discussion of Internet Bandwidth Management

    Held at Engineering Consultants, to discuss the “Internet Bandwidth Management” proposal document from the Ministry of Public Administration and to formulate the response to it.

    The TTCS comments on the “Internet Bandwidth Management” proposal (PDF ; 140K) were submitted to the Ministry on June 27, 2006.

    Wednesday July 12th, 2006 – TTCS pizza lime

    Topics discussed :

    Saturday July 15th, 2006 – TTCS Tech Meeting – Microsoft Vista Beta 2

    Dev T gave a demonstration about Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 , Microsoft’s upcoming operating system and pointed out the various features of Vista.

    At the end of the meeting, an official version of Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 on DVD (which comes with serial code), was given away.

    Wednesday August 9th, 2006 – TTCS Pizza Lime

    Saturday August 12th, 2006 – OSS LAN gaming

    This meeting was a LAN party which focused on OSS (open source software) games for Windows.

    The games played :

    Saturday August 19th, 2006 – Podcast #11 recorded

    See https://www.ttcs.tt/2016/09/16/ttcs-podcasts-1-to-20-from-2005-to-2010/ for notes and download links.

    Sunday August 20th, 2006 – test of mobile Wi-Fi hotspot

    This scheduled meeting was cancelled due to the sudden unavailability of the required equipment. The concept had been tested earlier however and we can use Wi-Fi for future meetings.

    Saturday August 26th, 2006 – TTCS tech meeting – a look at MacOSX

    Our first meeting to be held at Hand, Arnold (Trinidad) Limited, El Socorro Road Extension, El Socorro, San Juan.

    (See http://tinyurl.com/knbef for a satellite map of its location on Wikimapia)

    Ricardo Sandy of F1 Connect showed off several features of the version of Apple’s MacOS X operating system, codenamed “Leopard” (http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/),  showing the features highlighted by Steve Jobs keynote earlier this year. F1 Connect also bought several Intel-based Mac computers such as the Mac Mini to demonstrate their capabilities.

    Mike T demonstrated several of the iLife (http://www.apple.com/ilife/) applications.

    Saturday September 16th, 2006 – Software Freedom Day 2006

    Also held at HandArnold.

    The meeting was to celebrate Software Freedom Day 2006, a global, grassroots effort to educate the public about the virtues and availability of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).

    At the meeting, Dev T showed how to dual boot Windows and Linux (using Ubuntu, a popular Linux distro). The steps taken :

    • Defrag the Windows partition to create free space at the end of the hard disk which could be used for Linux. Check the free space after that. You should have 5GB to run Linux comfortably at least.
    • Next boot the Gparted Live CD. Gparted is a program which can create/resize partitions. Gparted was used to resize the Windows XP partition to create 10GB free space.
    • Ubuntu was then installed and pointed to use the free space. Ubuntu created a boot menu so you can boot into either Windows or Ubuntu.

    Also, shown on another machine was Ubuntu installed with XGL/Compiz, which uses graphics cards hardware acceleration to show several visual effects not seen in Windows or MacOS X.

    Saturday September 30th, 2006 – report about ICANN workshop on Sept 9-10, 2006

    After the TTCS meeting with ICANN on May 10, 2006, the TTCS submitted an application to ICANN on August 22nd, 2006 to be designated as an “At-Large Structure.”

    The application can be viewed at http://www.alac.icann.org/latin/applications/ttcs-22aug06.htm

    ICANN hosted a workshop on September 9-10, 2006 in Buenos Aires, Argentina to bring together such groups and lay the foundations for the development of a regional at-large organisation to be called the Latin American and the Caribbean Regional At Large Organization (LACRALO). This organisation would consolidate regional policy advice on Internet management.

    Anil Ramnanan attended the September 9-10th meeting and discussed the workshop today at Engineering Consultants.

    Also discussed was the Ministry of Public Administration and Information (MPAI) response to the TTCS comments about the proposed “Internet Bandwidth Management Strategy”.

    Saturday October 28th, 2006 – TTCS pizza lime

    Held at ENCO, the topics discussed :

    A machine with MS Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 was also available for anyone who wanted a first look at Vista in action.

    Wednesday November 8th, 2006 – TTCS pizza lime

    The meeting was held at F1 Connect at #33 Mucurapo Road, St. James, Port of Spain (next to Papa John’s).

    Topics discussed :

    Re: the November 1st, 2006 MPAI workshop, Dev T had attended the workshop and discussed the findings from it.  At this workshop, the MPAI presented two broad proposals to address the issue of Internet Bandwidth Management :

    • Development of an Internet eXchange Point (IXP) :
      • how such an IXP be developed and managed
      • the best location for an IXP
    • local hosting of local content :
      • what should be done to promote local content development
      • how should domestic hosting be developed and managed
      • where would such a local hosting facility be located

    After the MPAI did a presentation of both issues, attendees were broken up into two groups to look at each topic. At the end of the workshop, both groups presented their findings.

    The MPAI later published an Overview of Internet Bandwidth Management Consultation (PDF ; 72K)

    Saturday November 11th, 2006 – discussion of “Role of OSS in TnT”

    Held at Engineering Consultants (ENCO).

    The discussion focused on formulating our response to the Ministry of Public Administration and Information (MPAI) discussion paper on “The role of Open Source Software in Trinidad and Tobago”.

    Points raised in the discussion were captured on our wiki page: Role of Open Source Software in TnT

    Saturday November 18th, 2006 – “Role of OSS in TnT”

    The deadline for comments on the Ministry of Public Administration and Information (MPAI) paper on “the role of Open Source Software” was November 25, 2006, so a second meeting was held at Engineering Consultants (ENCO).

    Once again, points raised in the discussion were captured on our wikipage : Role of Open Source Software in TnT

    View the  Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) comments on “The role of Open Source Software in Trinidad and Tobago (2006 – 2008)” as submitted to MPAI on November 25th, 2006.

    Saturday December 16th, 2006 – report on ICANN General meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil

    Dev T represented the TTCS at the ICANN general meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil from December 2-6, 2006.

    As one of the ten accredited ‘At-Large Structures’ (the TTCS received accreditation from ICANN in November 2006), the TTCS

    together with representatives from the other nine accredited ‘At-Large-Structures’ signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with ICANN to create the Latin American and the Caribbean Regional At Large Organisation (LACRALO). Related links :

    You can see a video clip of the signing of the MOU :

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Rmpp0VLQQ]

    Photos of the ICANN signing MOU with Latin American and Caribbean At Large Structures –  http://flickr.com/photos/bretfausett/314961791/

  • 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.
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  • TTCS/TTLUG Installfest 2005

    When and Where

    Date: Sunday 11th September 2005

    Time: 1pm to 5pm

    Where: Engineering Consultants (ENCO), 112A Edward Street (corner of Oxford and Edward Street), Port of Spain.

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) will be installing open source software for Windows such as those on the TTCS OSSWIN CD.

    The TTLUG will be installing several Linux distros: Fedora Core, Mandriva, Knoppix/Mepis/Morphix Light and for the brave, Gentoo, Slackware and other non-mainstream distros.

    (more…)

  • Summary of TTCS Meetings held in 2004

    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.

    (more…)

  • Summary of TTCS Meetings held in 2003

    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.
    (more…)

  • FLOS Caribbean 2003 Report

    FLOS Caribbean 2003 Report

    (Updated : March 2015  – added wayback links to FLOS Caribbean website and removed the “contact the creator” section)

    Introduction

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society was one of the exhibitors at the Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOS) Conference.

    The Conference and Exhibition was held at the Central Bank, Port of Spain on Thursday 26th and Friday 27th June 2003.

    This page provides details about Society activities for the conference.

    NOTE: Programs on the GNUWin II CD were updated by the TTCS for the FLOS Software Conference. You can get the CD for TT$20. Please email us at: ttcs at opus.co.tt and let us know if you wish to purchase a CD.

    Preparations for the conference

    Preparations for the Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOS) Conference began in early 2003 when we offered space to operate a booth in the DOT Org section of the main exhibition area by the conference organisers: the Caribbean Centre for Monetary Studies and Trinidad and Tobago Linux Users Group.

    During March and April, members were asked to contribute ideas and suggestions as to what could be done at the booth; they were also kept updated on the status of the conference thanks to regular email notices and live reports from Richard J at TTCS Pizza Limes.

    Work on the booth began in the middle of May. The objectives were to promote:

    • the Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society.
    • the GNUWin II CD: a CD-ROM containing a variety of open source software for the Windows operating system.
    • Knoppix: a GNU/Linux distribution that runs completely from the CD (no hard drive installation required) and includes recent Linux software and desktop environments.

    Sunday 25th May 2003: Created the initial booth layout sketch and equipment list.

    Saturday 31st May 2003: Timetable for conference preparations finalised. Began planning booth activities.

    Saturday 7th June 2003: Draft versions of the 3 OpenOffice.Org Impress presentations presented to members. CD label designs modified.

    Saturday 14th June 2003: Finalised: the Impress presentations, the Society brochure, the one-page flyer (for use with the CD sales), tested the video splitter for the first time.

    Saturday 21st June 2003: Tables, chairs and computer equipment were set-up, plugged in and tested. The initial layout was modified to accomadate a “demo” machine. This computer would be used by anyone who desired hands-on experiance with the GNUWin software or Knoppix. Everything worked smoothly. The “Booth Crew” and daily timetable were also finalised.

    Monday 23rd June 2003: Informal site visit to the exhibition area at the Central Bank.

    Wednesday 25th June 2003:

    • installed and tested the GNUWin software on the “demo” machine.
    • burned CDs for sale during the Exhibition.
    • packed equipment.

    The Booth

    The Booth was located on the western side of the exhibition area between the TTLUG and TTAC booths.

    Diagram showing the general layout of the booth

     

    Picture of the booth at the Central Bank

     

    Photo of the booth at the Central Bank

     

    Equipment used:

    • Three Athlon class machines.
    • Three 17″ CRT monitors.
    • One LCD monitor.
    • One 15″ CRT monitor.
    • One 4-port video splitter.
    • One 4-port KVM switch.
    • One 4-port ethernet network hub.
    • Three tables.

    Software on display:

    • Applications and games from the GNUWin II CD-ROM.
    • The Knoppix GNU/Linux distribution.
    • An offline version of the Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society website.

    Two of the machines were plugged into the KVM and video splitter. These were used to demonstrate the software on the GNUWin II CD and the Knoppix live Linux distro. The third machine was a “hands-on” demo machine where visitors to the booth were able to use the GNUWIN software. In the case of Knoppix, visitors could boot the machine themselves and use all the Linux software on the disk.

    The Society’s FLOS Caribbean “Blog”

    Thursday 26th June 2003:

    There was a mix-up in the scheduling and we were unable to set up the booth on Wednesday 25th. This meant that we had to spend the first three hours of Thursday morning transporting and setting up tables and equipment. Fortunately, our staging area for the Conference was located in Port of Spain so only a little time was lost due to transportation.

    The Conference was well attended on Day One, in fact so many people were present that the initial area set aside for lunch (on the 16th floor) could not accomadate everyone. The Conference organisers decided to split the group: half would take lunch immediately while the other half would go downstairs to the official launch of the Exhibition. The original schedule called for the launch to take place at 1300 hrs.

    Many of the Conference attendees were curious about the Knoppix CD since many of them were of the belief that GNU/Linux could only work if it was installed on a hard drive. The GNUWin CD was very popular with visitors since many of them were unaware that there was open source software available for the Windows operating system. Others who were aware, were surprised at the variety and high quality of the available applications. Many of the visitors took the opportunity to try out both the Knoppix distro and the various applications from the GNUWin CD on the Demo machine. We had 30 CDs (19 GNUWin and 11 Knoppix) alloted for the two days of the conference. All were sold by closing time (1700 hrs) on Thursday.

    Friday 27th June 2003:

    The traffic from Conference attendees on Friday was not as heavy as on Thursday but more members of the general public, Central Bank employees and TTCS members visited the booth. In a way, less traffic was a good thing because visitors got to use the Demo machine for a longer period of time.

    A second batch of 23 CDs (11 Knoppix, 12 GNUWin) was burned overnight for the second day of the conference. All were sold out by noon. We had to purchase and burn additional CD-Rs, print new CD labels and handouts.

    Closing time on Day Two was about 1715 hrs and all equipment was returned to the staging area by 1830 hrs. There was a get-together after the close of the conference at Pizza Hut Roxy Roundabout (it was not a TTCS Pizza Lime). Some of the TTCS booth crew attended along with other Conference persons such as Robin ‘Roblimo’ Miller, David Sugar and Steve Traguott. FYI: We sold a total of 30 Knoppix CDs and 40 GNUWin CDs.

    Comments

    • Overall there was a good level of enthusiasm for the concept and (perhaps more importantly) the products of Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOS). Our (TTCS) experiance with booth visitors suggests that local computer users are willing to experiment with alternatives to expensive, proprietary software. If they will continue to use it after the initial “thrill” has worn off is unknown.
    • Awareness of the existance of Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOS) is another problem. Local user groups and individuals have been promoting FLOS concepts and products for some time now but mainstream users have yet to hear about them.
    • Many mainstream users who know about Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOS) are reluctant to try it because they fear it is not as good as commercial, proprietary software.
    • Acceptance of FLOS is less about technical merit of the software and more about the attitude some i
      ndividuals and comapnies have towards it.
    • There was talk of a need for a “grassroots” movement to spread awareness of FLOS. While it is good to “start small but think big”, persons who are involved with such a concept or who are thinking about becoming involved with such a concept, must remember:
      • There are no short cuts to success.
      • Difficult and thankless work is required to achieve a successful “grassroots” movement.
      • The “grassroots” movement will be in direct competition with multi-million dollar advertising campaigns and other promotional efforts from financially wealthy proprietary software companies.
      • Acceptance of FLOS requires a change in attitude amongst potential users. Changing that attitude will be difficult.
    • FLOS can only achieve its full potential if there is a change in the local attitude towards: self-sufficiency, computers/information technology, data security, the local economy and expenditure of local tax dollars.
    • The FLOS Caribbean Conference was a first step in raising awareness of FLOS and addressing some of the issues mentioned in this list of comments. Attendess, presenters and the organisers must now capitalise on this surge of interest and show how FLOS can truly benefit this nation.

    Thanks and acknowledgements

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society would like to say thanks to:

    • The “Booth Crew”: Dev, Paul, Colin, Helen, James.
    • Dev, Paul and Anil for donating equipment.
    • Richard, our liason with the conference organisers.
    • All members who took time out to visit us at the Conference booth.
    • All members who contributed ideas, comments and suggestions via email and helped us to have the best booth possible.
    • The Trinidad and Tobago Linux Users Group (TTLUG) and the Caribbean Centre for Monetary Studies (CCMS) for the invitation to take part in the Conference and for providing the exhibition space.

    Links to sites mentioned in the slideshow, the brochure and at the conference booth

  • Summary of TTCS Meetings held in 2002

    Summary of TTCS Meetings held in 2002

    The Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society held 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.

    This year, there was only one tech meeting due to a lack of a suitable venue. As a result, there were two pizza limes each month

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