------------------------------------------------------------------------ * G * O * A * N * E * T **** C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Enjoy your holiday in Goa. Stay at THE GARCA BRANCA from November to May There is no better, value for money, guest house. Confirm your bookings early or miss-out
Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A VIEW FROM THE FIFTH FLOOR... Breathless impressions made during a busy ECAP/Software Freedom Day 2006 in Panjim, Goa. Frederick Noronha LAST WEEKEND marked the launch of Goa's main IT exhibition, which coincided with Software Freedom Day (Sept 16). Taking part in ECAP, the Exhibition of Computers and Allied Products (Sept 16-17, 2006) at Hotel Mandovi, was a learning and enjoyable yet tiring experience. Some observations: INTEREST AMONG students in GNU/Linux is simply amazing. Compared to last year, the students were much more aware, and there were many -- specially from Goa Engineering College, PCC, and RIT, among other colleges -- who showed much awareness in Free/Libre and Open Source Software. Other non-engineering colleges where teachers have undertaken initiatives (Khandola, Xavier's, Rosary, Chowgule's, among others) were also aware and interested in knowing more. MANY VISITORS to ILUG-Goa's stall were unaware about (i) ILUG-Goa itself (ii) what Free Software and Open Source implies or (iii) how to get and install FLOSS. We can do a lot more awareness-building work. Better communication, pointers to sites such as http://linuxdvdsale.tripod.com/ , or building a list of our volunteers in different locations of Goa could help in bridging the gap. Someone suggested that ILUG Goa launch a PDF magazine of its own. Any volunteers? LFY'S GIFT OF some 150-200 of its earlier issues, together with CDs, and also Novell USA's offer of Open Suse DVDs were well appreciated by people visiting the stall. Even ILUG-Goa members like DP had a positive feedback with Open Suse. Visitors appreciated the ease-of-use of Ubuntu. But unless we make these available and point to them, it would not spread. Encouraging access to reading material on FLOSS could also help build skills in Goa. So, how do we do this on a sustained basis? UNFORTUNATELY, due to some technical difficulties, we didn't get the Software Freedom Day CDs this year. But a student from Margao was kind enough to bring some 50+ Ubuntu CDs for distribution; which were much appreciated. As mentioned above, we also got Open Suse DVDs via Domnic of Quepem; which helped greatly. LFY, India's only GNU/Linux-focussed magazine (they prefer to call it "Linux" and talk "Open Source") gave both magazines and some CDs for distribution. We made it a point to hand out the goodies on the basis of interest shown, and not just randomly. And, of course, we had a bias in terms of distributing the same to students. (Goa Engineering College, our sister LUG, however held Software Freedom Day, a day earlier at Farmagudi, and a separate note on this is available at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14166 ) ENGINEERING STUDENTS (specially from PCC and RIT) were keen to have some LUG activity in their colleges. We need to build a LUG-starter-kit of sorts. GEC has been doing well, but we're all going to miss George Easaw, who moves on from the college. HARDWARE VENDORS were particularly keen to know more about FLOSS. For instance, Prashant Cuncolienkar was keen to have a list of FLOSS DVDs and CDs available for sale in Goa. Reuben Quadros of Vasco was keen to install FLOSS on his blank laptops. We handed over two Open Suse CDs. Lot of potential on this front, but it needs to be systematically explored. WE MET UP with some old-timers at the LUG. It was great to meet Lawrie D'Souza (Ferdie's dad, both of whom are into computers majorly) and also Ashwin Naik, of ND Naik and Company, a long-time supporter of our LUG and its activities. Ashwin offered his support to do something at Chowgule's -- possibly help build a GNU/Linux user-group there -- as did Madhav, both of whom are alumni there. BASIL FERNANDES had a long and interesting discussion on teaching young kids programming, the possibility of encouraging schools to do the same, and whether schools could have Computer Clubs that work on a build-them-young approach. He is keen to get involved with such a programme. FROM CHOWGULE's College in Margao, paesantonio at gmail.com was keen to launch a user-group in that locality. Pallavi and other students of RIT were also keen to get more access to FLOSS at their RIT college. Obviously much more can be done here. Some of the young students from Std XI at Pilar spent many hours at the stall. It was fascinating to see their interest in this subject. With maturing of the student community, ILUG-Goa has only a bigger role to play. VISITORS TO the exhibition had some specific queries: Can Open Office print six slides per page? Will Ubuntu work with bluetooth, or will additional drivers be needed? How can GNU/Linux help a person interested in cartooning or art? Can Ubuntu work with blue-tooth? Preston Rodrigues wanted to know if Ubuntu 6.10 would work with an Apple. We need to build up expertise in offering responses to such queries. MY PAD of notes is full with entries, requests and names. One wholly non-FLOSS related idea that came up at the ECAP was the suggestion that we build up a HAM club at the Goa Science Centre. Both M S Shinde VU25MS and Didier DeMelo (HAMS) were keen on this idea, and Goa Science Centre Panjim's director Mr Joshi who visited soon later was willing to undertake the same! A BIG THANK you to all who helped make the program, despite all the odds -- DP, Edgar, Arvind, Nelson, Madhav, Prachi, Damodar, Lawrie (who held out at the very end, when all of us were tired), Bijon Shaha, Nigel Brito, Mandar, Antonio (GEC), and the others whose names surely slipped this list inadvertently. Fritz of the Goa-Floss-Developer network was a great support... and here's looking to our dreams on the software developer front grow over the next year and beyond. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/goa-floss-developer ONE OF THE BEST things of being around with young people is that you get so many new ideas. Thanks Fritz for telling us about elgg.org and Meebo.com. Elgg is a new breed of social software based around choice, flexibility and openness: a system that firmly places individuals at the centre of their activities. With the freedom to incorporate all of your favorite tools within one environment, Elgg allows you to showcase your content with as many or as few people as you choose. http://elgg.org/ Meebo is a web based IM that lets you log into your IM networks from any computer with a browser and internet connection with no firewall issues. It employs technologies (like AJAX) to make it act more like a desktop application, which dramatically improves usability. Many users enjoy the benefits of a native DHTML application, as it does not consume as many system resources as a Java applet (such as ICQ2Go or Yahoo Web Messenger). Some users are also experimenting with setting meebo as their Active Desktop page to use meebo like a native Windows application for their instant-messaging purposes. http://www.meebo.com BTW, TO SOME OF the many students visiting the stall, we spoke about support they could get for their projects. Either from IIT-Bombay's Project Ekalavya or NRCFOSS. See http://ekalavya.it.iitb.ac.in/brochure.do The main objective of the eGURU programme is to benefit those final year students of B.E., M.C.A. and M.Sc. (CS/ IT/ Electronics), who find it difficult to carry out a major component of their curriculum, namely the project, due to the paucity of resources and mentors. http://ekalavya.it.iitb.ac.in/eguruHome.do Put your project ideas here. This is a common page for student project proposals, fellowship proposals and other foss projects. If you require repository and server space, please contact us by mail. Once we approve, we will allot a repository and server space to you. Students and lecturers, please remember that all projects have to be open source and have to be hosted or mirrored on our server otherwise we will not recognise them and issue certificates. http://nrcfosshelpline.in/code/wiki/ProjectIdeas ANOTHER IDEA that came up was to promote an ILUG-Goa PDF magazine, where you people can hone their writing skills, and feel a sense of participation/contribution. Incidentally, we already have at least five persons from this LUG writing for LinuxForYou magazine. Edgar, Nelson, Bijon Shaha and Anil Seth. Any volunteers willing to coordinate the PDF mag plan? AND THEN there is also that older plan to encourage ILUGers to keep their own blogs, and link up all of these with some Planet-like group-blogging software. [Planet is an awesome 'river of news' feed reader. It downloads news feeds published by web sites and aggregates their content together into a single ... http://www.planetplanet.org ] CHECK THIS LINK and see what the chief guest said for the event: http://in.news.yahoo.com/060917/43/67o3h.html We at ILUG-Goa need to rededicate ourselves to build skills and 'intellectual capital' among young techies, as we have been trying for the past half-dozen years since Arvind Yadav took the initiative to get it all going. See this report: Goa should improve intellectual capital: Infosys director. By IANS Sunday September 17, 05:37 PM Panaji, Sep 17 (IANS) Goa needs to address its 'limited educational capabilities' if it is to come anywhere near its dream of luring IT players to this region, said Infosys Director (resources) T.V. Mohandas Pai. Pai critiqued the view that IT companies would come in if they were merely provided 'power and land' and suggested that the region needed to work on the most vital ingredient the state still lacks -- intellectual capital. IT involved 'building businesses with nothing but what you have in your mind', said Pai Saturday while speaking at the launch of the Exhibition of Computers and Allied Products organised by the Computer Society of India (Goa chapter). WE NEED TO do more to tap the skills of all our various supporters and friends. For instance, people like Dhanesh (Xavier's 98237 42699) is interested in graphics. Likewise, other members are interested in specific subjects. How do we build on these interests? IN THE RAMPON HALL, located on the first floor of the ECAP site, Hotel Mandovi, volunteers worked to hold demos and talks. Efforts were hit by the heavy rains, limited number of visitors on the first day of the event (Saturday), and the fact that ILUG-Goa itself is down to a small core group as many have moved on to other jobs and new challenges (often outside the state). But Fitz D'Souza was happy with how his talk on "software projects for students" went. Arvind and Edgar had some interesting software demo. Bijon Shaha's talk didn't happen because of a communication gap and some uncertainty earlier over the availability of an LCD projector. More of a report from those who were at that session please.... IT WAS ALSO NICE TO meet up with Shailendra Bandodkar and others of Damodar College, also asking about the possibility of setting up a GNU/Linux user groups there. Leonard J Fernandes, an alumni of GEC who did his higher education Ohio, is back in Goa with his http://www.dogearsetc.com (a site for peer-to-peer selling of old books). A discussion in another context brought him to meet with ILUG-Goa volunteers, and it was a nice exchange. A senior GoI official was on the lookout for some science tools, and the Vigyaan CD was inspiring enough to prompt a long-distance call to check out its applicability. See http://www.indianmuslims.info/comment/reply/6583 LASTLY, an apology for the delay in putting out this report. There were too many issues that needed to be included... and I'm not even sure we managed to do justice to all! FN -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org 9822122436 +91-832-240-9490 http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/ _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org