Sounds like a good approach to me, as we talked about (in the earlier meeting)
doing demos of standard business functions, both with Windows front ends to a
Linux server and with Linux front ends. I think we may need to be somewhat
flexible, as in prioritizing the work. Let's not get too complicated or it will
be hard to pull off. I've started (emphasis on started) playing with
OpenMerchant from OpenSales, learning complicated Perl while getting going, but
that looks like a starter for the e-commerce piece.
I would suggest we add some building of advertising materials (GIMP, various
word processors for the advert text), writing letters to suppliers, maybe some
financial / spreadsheet stuff for accounting.
I'd also suggest some dry runs in Mar, my experience with setting up things is
that you want 2 - 3 dry runs to iron out the details. Maybe some progressive
dry runs, building on what we have each time.
jeff smith
"Rick Petree" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on 02/17/2000 08:51:04 AM
To: "GNHLUG Organization" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
cc: "SLUGs Distribution" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>(bcc: Jeffry
Smith/CORP/HPHC)
Subject: Linux Business Show Suggestion
Hello Everyone
After our SLUG meeting on Tuesday we went to Red Hook to discuss the GNHLUG
LBS. At the end of the table where I could hear, the topic was determining a
track of lectures and demos. There was a great deal of brainstorming about
advertising, lecture topics, guest speaker. I have no idea what the other
end of the table talked about. So far I have not heard any discussion as to
who will set up the demonstrations or what exactly they will be.
My suggestion is that we don't wait for specific feedback from the Business
Community before we start setting this up. I believe people will come for
the basic reasons of finding out what Linux is, what it will for them, and
what is the cost. Their needs will range from just typing a simple letter to
their customers to possibly porting their entire system over to Linux. So
let set up a mock company; "SLUG Inc." We will manufacture SLUG Widgets of
varying sizes and color. I think we could set this up to show the following
for starters:
+Seamless integration with other OSs
+Possible complete migration to Linux
+Applications like WordPerfect, StarOffice, Applixware on everymachine
+Firewall Security
+Web base Business
+Data bases or specific apps for payroll, inventory, billing (populate these
db also)
+Email server
I'm talking not only just installing these applications and let people play.
I'm talking setting it up and run it! A person could just sit at one of the
Linux boxes and go to the "SLUG Inc" web site. At the Web site they order
several SLUG Widgets of varying color and sizes. They then enter some bogus
shipping and payment information and press the order button just as if they
were a customer on the www. Then they get notification on their machine that
an order was placed. They open up the db to see that they have an order to
fill. Then they walk over to a few WinNT boxes and access the same
information. Type a memo on a Linux box the save it and access it from a
WinNT box and vice versa. We could have sample email accounts set up so that
they can email another machine and test it out. Have queries set up to
access the billing or inventory db from either platform and see the data.
The things listed above will take a great deal of work to set up and get
working. We can always fine tune it to what feed back we get from the
surveys that we will soon have out. However, the lab is set up and ready for
us to do this now and I cannot imagine getting feedback that will be
significantly different than the scenario listed above. I don't have the
technical savvy to get this done, but I'm willing to help. If a group is
already working on this stuff then I apologize for my ignorance. The full
dry run is April 10.
Rick
:-)
winmail.dat
