Come join us for Software Freedom Day on September 20th. We will be celebrating at the Howard County Library’s Miller Branch. Help us partake in a day of talks and socializing with our fellow Free Software fans and interested parties.
Right now we are looking for people to give talks on F/OSS software aimed at the end user. The general thoughts have been the talks themselves should last up to about 30 minutes. Once we have the submissions we’ll decide on a schedule for the day. Take a look at the wiki and drop us an email offering your services as a speaker if you want the glory or with general questions about the day.
This is overdue. Sorry for the delay but I have been getting ready for this weekend’s Global Bug Jam!
Saturday August 2 the Ubuntu Maryland Loco Team and the Columbia Area Linux Users Group organized a tour of the NSA Cryptologic Museum. There were about 23 of us that showed to tour and learn some crypto history.
We were greeted by the staff there and introduced to David Hatch, a NSA Historian. We briefly discussed what we were looking for out of the tour and then got started. From the start David was giving us some great information. He kept the subject matter interesting and answered all the questions we came up with. We had several ‘straightmen’ in our group that asked the right questions at the right time to take us to the next area. As we went on our group seemed to pick up other guests that were going through the museum. Everyone was focused on the tour and enjoying ourselves, taking advantage of our guide’s knowledge of the subject matter. A little over two and a half ours later, that seemed much less, our tour ended. After giving applause to our host we broke into smaller groups.
After the tour ended a group of us gathered together to take part in a GnuPG keysigning. For some it was their first event and it went smoothly. So there in the NSA museum 7 people gathered information to sign keys to expand the use of encryption and trust in the personal privacy realm.
It was a good day. To see more photos check out my flickr set.
It’s almost upon us here on the east coast of the US. The Ubuntu Global Bug Jam August 8-10th.
Here in Maryland we’re having a get together on Saturday August 9th at the Loyola College Center for Community Informatics in Columbia, MD.
We’ll be arriving about 9am to begin setting up and getting laptops set up and ready to go. If you need wired connections please drop me an email to ensure we have that set for you. Then at 9:30am I’ll be giving a presentation on bug reporting and triaging. Once we’re through with that the rest of the day is putting into practice what you’ve learned from me! That and general socializing with like minded folks. A good time will be had by all or your money back. (Did I mention admission is free?)
I’m going to try to be on IRC at #ubuntu-md and #ubuntu-bugs on freenode as I can throughout the day.
Remember that when you help with bug reporting and triaging it improves your software.
For those participating in the Ubuntu Maryland/CALug NSA Museum GPG keysinging, you should see the keyring with the keys I have in your email. The md5sum is 13325b1f1bd14ed78b44c016bec77398 and there is a detached .sig file as well.
See you Saturday!
PS Don’t forget August 9th is the day the Ubuntu Maryland Team will be participating in the Global Bug Jam as a group at the Loyola College Center for Community Informatics in Columbia, MD. I’ll be posting more details in a few days.
We have a list of participants for the GnuPG keysigning this weekend at the NSA Museum. I’ve sent the list out to those who are participating so you should see it in your inbox at the email address on your provided key. If you do not get it let me know by Thursday so I can make corrections as needed.
The md5sum is f7d04837d8db6576fa8e370d9c28697c and I also included a detached GPG sig to the mail as another form of verification.
See everyone Saturday for the tour!
As a reminder the Ubuntu Maryland Loco Team will be holding part 2 of our three part GnuPG program with the CALug group at our next meeting. This part will be the hands on portion. Please feel free to bring in your laptops and questions on how to use GnuPG. We will have at least one demo machine if you do not have a machine to bring in.
We will also be answering any questions that you may have about the keysigning that will be happening after our NSA museum trip August 2nd.
Finally we’ll be discussing other upcoming Maryland Loco events including the Global Bug Jam and Software Freedom Day.
As normal we will be meeting at the Howard County Library central branch at 7pm right across from the mall.
As a reminder the CALug GnuPG presentation is this Wednesday, July 9th at Tenable Network Security’s offices in Columbia, MD.
Alan Hastings will be giving the main body of the presentation and then I will start about 8:30 with a quick talk about how the GnuPG key signing will be organized for the NSA Crytpo museum trip on August 2. Don’t forget to add your name to the list if you plan to attend!
I am both sad and glad to see the boys calling it a day for the program.
I am saddened that the show is going away as it is always interesting to listen to by the time I would get to it. There was a time where I would hold out on release Monday mornings and sometimes run late to work so could grab the episode and listen on my way in and through the early bit of the day. Many times I would relisten to focus on a topic.
I must admit though that this latest season has been, I won’t say disappointing, but not as compelling. I don’t think that Adam and Chris really found their stride and their part in the show that became Jono and Aq debates. It started to feel that every episode you would know exactly how each presenter would argue their point. I found myself on time to work more often on release Mondays.
After four years together Aq and Jono have debated I think every major topic in the F/OSS world between themselves and with Matt, Ade, Adam, Chris, Sparkes and other guest presenters. Their guest list is a veritable who’s who in the F/OSS world.
So I think it’s a good thing that they have decided to pack it in and call and end to the LugRadio we’ve known and loved. They’re going out the way they want. After the LRL show in a few weeks I’ll keep the feed open in hopes of maybe a surprise show down the line discussing the topics of the day after the guys have rested and refreshed from the regular releases.
Good Luck guys and I hope to meet with you again in the future!
Just as a reminder the Maryland team will be be holding our monthly IRC meeting this Wednesday July 2nd at 8pm eastern. The agenda as of now is:
Usability Testing Discussion – Where are we at?
Maryland’s Global Bug Jam Discussion
NSA Museum & GPG Keysigning
Software Freedom Day 2008 – We need topics and speakers
See you there!
Wow, so this is what it’s like to have people (outside your circle) actually reading your blog!
Now I just wish I had something impressive or interesting to say.
Anyway, a short intro in an Ubuntu centric way. My name is Chuck Frain and I have recently become an Ubuntu Member. My major contribution to date has been to start and run the Ubuntu Maryland LoCo team. I have a great team of people around me that has helped keep the whole thing rolling. We’ve managed to keep a regular in-person meeting schedule at the Howard County Library (already an Ubuntu and FOSS friendly place and featured as a case study in Hardy’s Example Documents) going for over a year now. We’ve had several events to promote Ubuntu via install fests, presentations, and we participated in last year’s Software Freedom Day. Between the library and the Loyola College Center for Community Informatics we haven’t had a problem getting space to hold events.
Speaking of events, we have a few on the horizon. First up is a joint venture with the Columbia Area LUG. At CALug’s July 9th meeting we will be having a presentation on GnuPG. Then the Ubuntu Maryland Team’s July 17th meeting will be a hands on follow up to that presentation. We are inviting those who have questions about the actual implementation of GnuPG to bring their laptops and questions after a week of playing at home with the product. We’re going to try to have a few demo machines for those without a portable machine. Then it’s off for a field trip to the NSA Crypto Museum on August 2nd for a guided tour and GPG keysigning event.
We’re working with Celeste Lyn Paul to do a usability study on some of our friends and family members. We’re waiting on a confirmation of a time and place for this.
Then August 9th we’ll be going to the Loyola College Center for Community Informatics to participate in the Global Bug Jam. This will lead into more bug triaging and support from me and hopefully members of the team.
Then the furthest thing out that is planned is Software Freedom Day 08 in September. More details on this in the near future.
That’s about it for me right now. I’m not one to do alot of blog entries as a visit to my site will affirm. I’ll be getting a hackergotchi together in the near future (either on my own or someone volunteering to do it for me). However I do intend to pick up on the entries a bit surrounding the Maryland team and pimp our activities a bit.
Be Seeing You.