Tag Archives: ossbarcamp

Jan3

Looking back through my times in 2009

Posted on by
Looking back through my times in 2009

I’m not entirely sure where the last 12 months have gone.  I drove over 5.5 hours yesterday back to Dublin, from spending Christmas with my family in Castleconnell, Co. Limerick.  I did the drive two years to the day moving myself to Dublin for my current job.

When I was leaving the mothership was asking when I’d next be home, and already looking at my google calender I can see an opening in February, and if not then March for Mothers day. That’s 3 months into 2010 or a quarter the way through. Which made me think where had 2009 gone.

January 2009 was a quiet month, I don’t think anyone really is in the mood to do things, everyone is exhausted after Christmas and waiting on pay day! I did get the brain fart of having my own event over in Ireland for OSS events as I  was tired of always having to travel to events, and wanted one in my own back yard, and so I created OSSBarcamp.

February kicked started nicely by waiting for 6 hours for a flight to FOSDEM due to 2 inches of snow in Dublin airport, the inability to cater for a bit of snow is  baffling.  It was my first year at FOSDEM, and it was well worth the wait, I’d tried to go in the past and always other events clashed.  I’ve booked to go again this year and looking forward to seeing more of Brussels this time. Towards the end of February, Ubuntu-ie had its first big event, taking part in Global Bug jam.  We had the help of DIT sponsoring us a venue and had students come along and learn how to take part in logging bugs and triaging them. Good day out followed by a few quiet beers.

March swiftly arrived and my brain fart of OSSBarcamp turned into a reality, turns out if you organise it, set a date, book a venue folks do come! Great day was had and lots of good discussion took place.  As with organising any event, it takes it toll on you and you clearly need a holiday ( any excuse really) and I went over to London for a few days as a holiday.  Great break away and saw London again for the first time in a long time and did all the touristy things and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

April saw Jaunty release party and the Irish LoCo in full swing burning cds in the pub and handing them out to people, having a pub quiz and meeting more people off IRC land and over a drink having a chat.  I should add that once a month we all meet up in Dublin for a face to face meet up, but we did have over 20 people turn up for the Jaunty party, dinner and drinks, and a late night.

May, Kick starting the month was our first Geeknic – a picnic for Geeks. Knowing Ireland you cannot always guarantee the sunshine, but we had a nice day out and people brought along their kids and it was nice to do something different. I sponsored myself to attend UDS Karmic in Barcelona, but before I got here I went via Edinburgh for the weekend to see the Heineken Cup final, at least an Irish team won!  I’d bought the tickets Months in advance!

I’d never been to a UDS before, and it was fantastic, to quote ubuntu folks  it was AWESOME! Getting to meet people you’ve spent time talking online about the work you’re involved in, to work on projects face to face for a week and come up with ideas, solutions and a way forward is remarkable. I got to meet some great folks and I’m really glad I went.

June saw the first MySQL meet up in Dublin, not sure more were planned but it was nice and great to see more groups starting to have more meet ups and discussions take place.  I came back so energised from UDS I went for my membership which I’d been putting off as was nervous.

July moved house, bloody stressful!  Summer months tend be filled with weekend trips home and to Lahinch and visiting mates.  Ubuntu Ireland became a recognised LoCo in July, so we were rather happy as a team!

August, we had our second Geeknic in Farmleigh Park followed by drinks and meeting some of the people behind Ubuntu who were in Dublin for a sprint!  My mate TC came home from Canada for 2 weeks so was back and forth to Lahinch and Limerick. Busy month.

September, I ran another OSSBarcamp, and 3 of the presenters from Ubuntu-uk Podcast, Laura, Tony and Daviey came over!  It was a great way to celebrate Software Freedom day and meet more people.  Pretty sure there will be more of these to come. I just need to work on a venue.

October I turned 30 and fled to Canada for 12 days to see what all the fuss was about.  I had an amazing time and celebrated my birthday in multiple timezones to keep everyone happy.  Ubuntu Ireland had another Bug jam day and release party, Karmic Koala  this month so all around a busy month.

November, I got sponsored to attend UDS Lucid which took place in Dallas, USA.  It was a fun packed week, with working on Ubuntu and night time events, from firing range, ice skating, and meals out to having an afternoon in the A&E Department at local hospital.  Y’all come back now ye’ here!

December is the month, of Christmas meet ups, and working crazy to get it all done so I could take a few days off, and catch up on doing diddly squat.  I did just that!

Cripes, I did a lot, and now I know where the time went. 2009 was amazing fun packed and entertaining, I hope 2010 is just as good!  Looking forward to working on more cool projects and helping where I can.

Sep28

OSSBarcamp – Software Freedom Day Ireland

Posted on by
OSSBarcamp – Software Freedom Day Ireland

Thanks to all those who came on Saturday 19th September in Dublin to mark Software Freedom Day. I ran another OSSBarcamp and once again was amazed but the level of support from the Open Source community here in Ireland, and not only that but in Ubuntu community. Members of the UUPC gang came along, Tony, Laura and Daviey, but also Paolo from Ubuntu Italy came over!

There were a lot of diverse talks and something to suit everyone. I like to have everyone in one room for the first talk, it’s the first time for some people to attend these events and a way to meet people you’ve not seen, Jan Lehnardt— Peer to peer applications with Apache CouchDB was the first to step up and a brave task at 9:30am on a Saturday morning but there was an audience for him there.

CouchDB talk

CouchDB talk

We had talks on Gnome 3.0, Easy parallel programming with ipython,  Growing Eucalyptus with Ubuntu, Automated Documentation, Landscape Server, easy management of lots of Ubuntu boxes and many many more.  The day went well and we’d over 120 people at the event so thank you all for coming and making it a great day! We ended up having a BBQ and a few drinks!  But this wasn’t till the TOG folks came and entertained us.  I’ll be hopefully running two more Ossbarcamps in 2010 around Ireland.

TOG – OSSBarcamp September 19th DIT

Aug27

Where does the time go

Posted on by
Where does the time go

Baffling, I know I’m a list whore, but not even I can seem to manage to get a week lately where there isn’t one event or another happening so much so I’ve gone and left the blog alone for a bit and really only updated via identi.ca/twitter which them means friends who are not on there are wondering where I’ve gone and hidden myself under.

So it’s the end of August already, a month since the Geeknic where we had 27 adults and 7 kids turn up.  It was a lovely day at farmleigh, sunshine, fresh food, music and great conversations were had.  It was great to get away from the computer screens and I am a firm believer in the fact a community is successful with more face to face interaction if it can be done. IRC is great and mailing lists are good for discussion, but a face to face chat can solve so many questions in a timely manner.

The geeknics during the summer have proved this, as many more people who don’t use IRC or are possibly quiet on mailing lists have come along and introduced themselves to the rest of the LoCo.  Another thing of not just going to the pub this means that people who don’t want to go to a pub come along and are more inclined to take part, the final big factor for the great turn out was having it on the weekend, where everyone could relax and weren’t tied down with having to go home early.  Many people brought along their families making it a real day out and this was also great as it really focused the idea about the day about getting away from the computers! Going by the photos, everyone enjoyed themselves.

Ubuntu-ie LoCo members having a picnic

Ubuntu-ie LoCo members having a picnic

That night we met some of the canonical folks who were over in Dublin for a sprint. It was great to meet more of the folks behind the system I use every day. Even better was I remembered the names from meeting them at UDS, lordie I need name tags for folks!

This week has been hectic, working on the final bits and bobs for ossbarcamp. Timetable is all done and dusted, rooms booked and double checked and the pub (the important bit) was confirmed, though this was after a light heart attack of ringing them and no answer only to find the pub had closed up and was for sale, 20 min panic later and new pub sorted.  Not really a shortage of pubs over here really.

The barcamp has talks covering a diverse topic range so there should be something for everyone.

  • Teach your boss how to Floss
  • Growing Eucalyptus with Ubuntu
  • Automated Documentation
  • Landscape Server, easy management and lots of Ubuntu  boxes – HEAnet
  • Using Free Culture in an internet free world

Are just a sample of some of the talks, so looking forward to that, and a great way to celebrate Software Freedom Day, there seems to be a lot going on which is great!

This evening I was working on the Ubuntu-NGO project and working with Jan Stedehouder on working on what way we should approach NGO’s and also by going through the case studies and making it a bit clearer how they are benefiting using open source and why others should use it!

So it’s been busy and also had to fit work in around all of this, no rest for the wicked!