Czajkowski » Ubuntu-ie

OSSBarcamp Wrap up

Laura Czajkowski — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 19:55:51 +0000

I meant to get this out sooner but it’s been a manic week preceded by a crazy fun packed enjoyable weekend. Firstly a big thank you to all those who came ! There were some slight hiccups with airlines and equipment but it all worked out well in the end.

This was the 4th OSSBarcamp to be run in Dublin by members of the Ubuntu Ireland LoCo. This time we moved it to UCD – University College Dublin thanks to the students in the Computer Society UCD Netsoc we secured their help in getting their department to open up over the weekend for us. We like to run the events during the weekend so as many people as possible can attend.

We were a bit adventuress this time and went for 2 days and in hindsight we should have stuck to one day as I’m not sure the Irish community is ready just yet to give up an entire weekend just yet Over the two days there were a lot of talks on covering a multitude of different talks which was great to see happening and very interesting to see happening in our own back yard. We had some great talks from the DPL Stefano Zacchiroli who is a pleasure to talk to over a few pints and brought along some members of the Debian community who are over here in Ireland working. He has some great plans for the future and if you can nab him do to chat!

We had talks on Make mine a MeeGo! Develop great apps everywhere, using Ruby on MeeGo, Git Awesome – Better OSSDevelopment Using Git, Using Ubuntu in an Average Home, My First Patch and Dexy plus lots more. It was great to see speakers who I’d never met before sign up and come along and give really interesting talks. I thought it was great to see how people reacted to topics and discussions took place after the event in the pub for many hours over drinks and food A special thank you has to go to Brian O’Donovan who took on the task of organsing talks to be video and a just over a week later he has them all up! THANK YOU! We have our own video channel.

We were fortunate to have some great sponsors this year who made it possible to have this event and I’m always contentious of the fact I don’t like to ask the same sponsors over and over as it’s a small country and they could be promoting over events , but Enterprise Ireland coming on board to promote an open source event was a big kudos as I’d seen them sponsoring so many events in the past but none were OSS friendly. A big thank you to David Scanlon who made this happen! Having Blacknight Solutions as a sponsor is great as they are Irish and do try and support OSS events and sometimes their staff come to events and give talks so it’s nice to see Irish companies supporting and promoting Irish events.

The Linux Fund came on board this year and I had the pleasure of talking to Michael Dexter which I never would have had in the past, it’s another reason why I help run these events getting to meet and talk to people I wouldn’t normally over here in Ireland. People in the USA don’t seem to realise how lucky they are, surrounded by many OSS community advocates and developers on your front door steps it’s frustrating to others across the pond. Microsoft came on board supporting the event and sending a speaker who was engaging and eager to talk about his Coapp Project which is on launchpad , Garrett Serack. I was also fortunate thanks to Microsoft to attend a press conference regarding open source Microsoft and community here in Ireland with Garrett.

Thanks to the folks on the Ubuntu UK podcast who came over also ye rock!

There will be more OSSBarcamps happening in the future, but we are really looking to move them out of Dublin to move things around, and also with me moving to the UK… we’ll just have to wait and see.

Thank you to all those who helped, rallied around and jumped in to help! That’s what being in a community is all about!

Limerick Ubuntu hour a success

Laura Czajkowski — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:24:59 +0000

Thanks to all those who came along it was great to meet new people here in Limerick who are users of Ubuntu but also want to get more people using it.

Seven of us turned up the Absolute Hotel in Limerick, I had a table got and had a few things that were on the table to let folks know I was there. I was really chuffed to see so many people turn up, a lot were end users like myself and others are using Ubuntu but also want to see it more visible in their workplace.

It was interesting to hear their experiences in getting Ubuntu rolled out onto more desktops. The issues they faced, the lack of contacts here in Ireland, we’re rather unfortunate not to have Canonical partners over here, or service providers who can be onsite within 4hrs to help with issues that are needed. But again this hasn’t deterred them in going forward! I was ecstatic to hear Limerick City Council Manager uses Ubuntu That made my day!

I think it went well, and I’m glad to say we’re going to try it again next month, same place, time and hopefully get some more discussion going.

Dun Laoghaire July Geeknic

Laura Czajkowski — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:17:16 +0000

It went ahead even if it was a miserable wet and windy… Summers day! At least the rain held for the time we all met up and had some lovely food from the farmers market. Well worth going to if you are in the area. 1st Sunday of the month there is a farmers market in people’s park in Dun Laoghaire.

Thanks to those who came along and braved the cold it was nice to meet some new folks as well and exchange some ideas and thoughts on Ubuntu and Open Souce and what people were doing. Big thanks to Jeffrey to organised the Geeknic also! More photos here

Ubuntu at fosdem

Laura Czajkowski — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:17:18 +0000

Well we’ve arrived, met up with more Irish guys over here at FOSDEM, had waffles and lots of Kriek beer. Six of us left Dublin yesterday from the Ubuntu Ireland LoCo, and we ended up finding a Debian guy on the place who lives in Dublin so he’s been with us on our wee journey. An early flight at 6:50am meant by the time we arrived, we’d been up hours and hungry, in search of waffles and coffee and checking into our hotels, we walked into the city dropping our bags off at different locations along the way. Who knew we’d find it so hard to find a place to sit down find coffee and waffles in the same place. We ended up a little restaurant and folks got their coffee and food and we started to sample the beer, at 12 in the day….

Should note I’m going to create a quotes page based on the groups smart ass comments, we’ve ubuntu, kde, fedora and Debian folks with us this weekend, comments in good fun and jest are flying left right and centre and it’s proving rather entertaining. Last night we went to the beer event, just sitting down and chatting to random folks, it’s great. I got to put the faces to the handles of the freenode staffers and go out for dinner with them. So all in all a great day.

Today the talks have started, great buzz around the place and a few sore heads. Looking forward to the ubuntu dinner tonight.

: some of the ubuntu ireland LoCo

: we really just want coffee

Ubuntu-ie On Ice – Christmas meet up

Laura Czajkowski — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 12:16:51 +0000

In keeping with the Merry Chrismtas spirit and all, we’re going have an outing. For those who are interested, ICE SKATING, followed by some food and drinks in a local pub so we can laugh at who fell over and nurse our bruises!

Hope to see you all there! Bring along your kids if you like it’s not going to go on late!

Ice Skating in Smithfield Sunday 13th December Meet up the the ice rink for around 16.00, to start on the ice at 16:35.
Cost:
Adult €12
Under 12 €8

Direction on how to get there:

Smithfield Ice Rink

Luas Smithfield Stop.

Dublinbikes. Smithfield Station

Pub: We are meeting at 18.00 at Pifko for some food and beer.