Bert blogt

As a Fedora Ambassador I go to conferences sometimes.. Today, I decided to go to Chemnitzer Linux-Tage on 13 and 14 March.

Because going from Ghent to Chemnitzer is difficult by public transpot, I decided to go by car. I will be staying in the Mercure hotel together with the other fedora people (and possible other linux people?).

But maybe you are going to, and you need a lift? If you live (or you can come to) a place near my route, maybe we can ride together? I still have 2 seats left.

just let me know if you’re interested

cheers,
Bert

ps: it would be cool if you also had a drivers licence, because it’s a long drive..

hi,

as you might know, I’m a fedora ambassador (and much more).. one of the things we are currently doing is trying to get FOSS software into colleges (and other schools) by the Fedora Campus Ambassadors program!

So, I figured we had to eat once after all, why can’t we get together (students and teachers that want to see more software in their school, or teachers who want to learn more about the idea). Together we can discuss how to do this, and take our newly formed plans back to our schools.

I created some doodles for the people who want to attend this session:
* the date
* the food

I hope to see you there!

[edit]
and oh! leave a reply, or send me an e-mail (biertie at fedoraproject dot org), so we can stay in touch

We are searching for some graphical talents that want to show off with a nice logo!
We had a meeting today about the FOSS event for system administrators, and we came up wit the name ‘LOAD’, or: Linux Open Administration Days.

anyway, we need a logo now.. So, if you’re an expert, and you want to have eternal respect from us, create a logo!

You can send the logo to biertie at fedoraproject dot org. the deadline is 28december. I hope you guys can come up with something nice!

* if you win this competition, we want the svg file too.

hi!

I wanted to inform everybody about what we are going to do now, in order to get the event started.

As this is still just an idea, there is still allot of
planning ahead!

things we still have to decide on:
* the name
* the date and time
* the place where it will be held.
* everything else

But I think those were the 3 most important ones that we should decide
on as quickly as possible. That is why I want to have a meeting. I think
for a first meeting, IRC would do fine, were we can talk about these
things, and maybe decide on a real live meeting if we think that would
be necessary.

This meeting will take place on #ugov.be , a channel on freenode.net .
We expect everybody on Monday 14december, 22h on the channel to discuss these first topics.

Fudcon takes place at the senecca college, in Toronto. What a modern an beautiful college it is! so, yesterday was barcamp day. I think there were about 200people attending this FUDcon, so that was very nice. We started off with pitching the talks. I pitched 3 talks:
* How to install Fedora (slides)
* How to add and remove software in Fedora
* How to join our community (together with Yaakov)

My first presentation was a real presentation, just let openoffice do the work there were about 25people attending, so I was happy about that!
My second talk was about how to use packagekit, but also how to install xchat, go to #fedora.. I was really happy the people started asking questions, that way I could give tips they really care about. My third talk was again different, there were only 7people, and most of them were already enrolled. But I heard Iwan was even less fortunate, nobody showed up on how Fedora community works.

In the evening we went to the Dave and Busters.. it’s a bar, but what a difference with the bars I’m used in Belgium, so huge! I like the Belgian bars more Anyhow, we played some eight-ball and had some food and drinks, so that was nice.. When I went back to the hotel around 11pm, I moved the hospitality room in the hotel, to hack on some things.

I went to sleep around 2am, and now I’m still a bit tired, while I’m writing this blog post

Like most of you probably know, I leaved yesterday for Toronto, Canada to meet some Fedora friends at fudcon.

I waked up around 8am, way to late to be comfortable off course, but things luckily worked out right. After I had a fast breakfast, My father brought me to the train station, were I met some classmates. There I discovered not everybody knew about my plans… I think that guy lives in the past or something . when I arrived in Brussels South railway station, I had to search the check-in for Air France.. that wasn’t fun, but I managed to find it right in time.. I got my tickets for the Thalys, and my boarding pass for the plane. I was happy about my place in the plane, it is the place I chose the day before.. (I just love to sit next to the window). My ride on the Thalys was quite awesome.. First class, electricity, a free drink, … . Yep, it was quite nice. When I arrived in Paris, Charles de Gaulles, I searched my right gate immediately, luckily it wasn’t difficult to follow the signs

We were brought to the plane (an airbus 340-300) with a bus.. /me doesn’t like that! but ok, the plane was nice… but I was a bit disappointed I had no electricity I was sitting next to the window (whoop whoop, clouds are so cool!). off course, there was also one person sitting next to me, an older woman, but she was kind of fun.. So, my flight was pretty enjoyable, with video, music, food, drinks, …

When I arrived in Toronto, I had to go to immigration (but I don’t know why), and after some question about what I was doing in Toronto, she noticed that you can find a lot about me in the interwebs.. oh wow, who would have thought that? When I finally got out the airport, some other fedorians were already waiting on me. how awesome is that? We went with a taxi to the hotel… well, with 2 taxis, because we couldn’t fit 7people in one..

after meeting with the Fedorians already in the Hotel, we went to the ‘Irish pub’.. A lot of pub, almost no Irish   We had dinner there, and my first impression about Canada is: the food is awful but I hope I’ll survive anyway… Off course there was also traditional Irish music like ‘I like big buts’

I went to bed around 1am local time, so I was about 23h awake in total, and I wasn’t really Jetlagged..

Today I heard Vincent ranting about FOSDEM. As a system administrator he couldn’t find any cool rooms that fits his interests.

So I had an idea: if there isn’t any event in belgium that promotes open source tools for sys admin, why not create one? Vincent and Kris were enthusiastic about it, but I think we need more people.

We are still in concept-mode, so we don’t know yet where or when it will take place (although we know that it will be in Belgium ). We also want to make it FOSDEM style, but of course we don’t expect 1000people

so if you want to join us, please leave a reply on this blog post, or send an e-mail to: biertie   _AT_   fedoraproject   _DOT_   org.

Yesterday we had the first Fedora event in Belgium. Reason to hold one was the release of Fedora 12.

the event took place in  a Don Bosco school, in Antwerp (Wilrijk), and I want to thank them once again for making this possible!

We had something between 20 and 25 people attending.. that was nice, although I expected some more people.. We had food (chips, cheese, bread), and drinks at the place, to make the event somewhat more enjoyable.

after my talk Bart got the idea of forming a ‘getting-to-know-each-other’ circle, I think that in this way we got some people interested in joining the fedora community.

As a last ’surprise’, Martin showed up, and the crowd was really interested in his talk about OLPC.. Luckily for us, he brought some olpc’s, and he let us play with them

thanks to all people who attended the event, and let’s hope we can make a strong Belgian Fedora Community out of it!

* you can find my presentation here

boink boink boink boink boink

Name: Bert “bret” Desmet
IRC nickname: biertie
IRC channels: #fedora, #fedora-ambassadors, #fedora-social, #fedora-nl, #fedora-devel on freenode; #cfk, #ict on Quakenet
Location: Ghent, Belgium

Yes, this will be the first Fedora release party in Belgium since a long time (maybe this IS the first one in Belgium, I don’t know for sure)

So, I hope all the belgian Fedora contributors will come to this event, this would be a great opportunity for a get-together. Off course, also other people are welcome on this event -Fedora users, or people that want to start with linux-. We will help people installing fedora -there will be a local mirror-, try to give them some useful tips, and maybe we’ll throw in a more serious talk too. This is also an opportunity to get to know the Fedora contributors in Belgium.
So, if you’re coming, please register on this page (this _is not_ necessary), but it is useful for us to know how many people are coming!

I created the poster in inkscape, on A4 format, so feel free to print them, and hang the poster in your school / work / wherever you want

Dutch version
English version
French version
German version

I hope I see you guys there, the 28 of november!

cheers,
Bert