Herefordshire Linux and Open Source User Group

Hello everyone again

It's nearly time for our February LUG meeting to be held as usual at the Point 4 in Hereford across from the RNIB in Hereford. Please see http://www.hlug.org.uk/node/4 for details of how to get there if you haven't been before. We have a few new members over the last few weeks so it would be nice if you can make it so we can to say hello.

We're lucky to have such a good free venue with good free fast wifi (I measured 10 Mbps one night last year ;-) ), and easy free nearby parking, drinks and food available too.

The Linux Emporium have once again kindly offered to support us by duplicating and printing 100 of our custom Open Discs for our Open Source Day in Hereford on March 26, 2011.
Paul has been hard at work amending the Open Disc which he originally created for the SFD day back in September. This new version features Libre Office and we will be testing it before it goes out to The Linux Emporium to be copied.

Nominations are open for our new HOSS Herefordshire Open Source Star Awards - we are looking for entries from businesses, organisations and individuals who have done the most to promote and develop the use of FOSS (free open source software) in the county.
The HOSS Awards will be presented at our Open Source Day on March 26.
So if you have introduced Open Source Software at work, at your school or college, at your organisation or have been active in the Open Source community let us know by emailing hoss@hlug.org.uk

Dr Mark Wright has been confirmed as a guest speaker at Hlug's Open Source Day on Sat March 26, 2011. Dr Wright is currently the cabinet member responsible for efficiency and value for money at Bristol City Council and is an advocate of Open Data, Open Standards and Open Source Solutions.
He will be speaking about his experience of Open Source in Local Government.

The 2011 HOSS awards were presented to the winners by Hereford's Mayor Councillor Anna Toon at HLUG's Open Source Day on March 26, 2011 at Allsaints, Hereford.

You can watch a video of the Award presentation here

The HOSS award for the promotion of Open Source in the business sector went to Heather and Kevin Dontenville of OpenSure for bringing Open Source IT solutions to local enterprises.

Hello everyone again

It's nearly time for our January LUG meeting to be held as usual at the Point 4 in Hereford across from the RNIB in Hereford. Please see our website http://www.hlug.org.uk/node/4 for details of how to get there if you haven't been before. We have a few new members over the last few weeks so it would be nice if you can make it so we can to say hello.

We're lucky to have such a good free venue with good free fast wifi (I measured 10 Mbps one night last year ;-) ), and easy free nearby parking, drinks and food available too.

We have begun organising another public event to promote Open Source and Linux - it will be held on Saturday March 26, 2011 and will focus on promoting Open Document Standards.
Once again AllSaints have been kind enough to allow us to use their venue which proved such a wonderful space for the SFD event last September.
We have lots of exciting ideas for the event - for more details take a look at the Open Source day event page.

Our October meeting, again at the Point4 in Venns Lane Hereford, was the best turn out for some time, despite the absence of many regulars ( including our Lugmaster!). It was a great buzz to see so many new faces, and to find such a wealth of talent and wide range of interests and experiences, from hard core Unix sysadmin to customer facing IT support professionals, both paid and volunteer!

Some of the topics discussed during the meeting -

ISFD evaluation from hlug meeting 22.9.2010

It was good to see some new faces at the meeting!
We began by circulating a feedback/evaluation comments sheet to get everyones' impressions of the day. These will be posted into a new EtherPad ( renamed PiratePad!) for further comment and suggestions for future events.

The meeting then went on to discuss how to carry forward the momentum and utilise the resources we have brought together to continue the promotion of FOSS in this area. Much of this centred around using the HLUG.org.uk website as a gateway.

We will be meeting again at the 'The Point 4's terraced cafe/bar, next to the National College for the Blind in Venn's Lane, about a mile from the centre of Hereford. With free wifi and their own good sized car park nearby, and food and drink available, its a great place for our meetings !

For our September meeting we will be discussing how Software Freedom Day went and probably meeting new members who met us from the event which was held Saturday 18th September. Look forward to seeing everyone on Wednesday at 7.30 - 9.30pm (ish).

The Point 4 Map: The Point 4 is easy to find by following the signs to the Royal National College for the Blind which the Point 4 is opposite to. It is approximately 1 mile north east of the centre of the town.

So please come along and talk Linux and Open Source ! We're a friendly, welcoming group of both sexes and all ages.