OLPC @ Barcamp Brisbane, 18th July

July 2, 2009 – 6:34 am

Just to let everyone know that I will be bringing along the Gold Coast OLPC Group’s XOs to the next Barcamp Queensland in Brisbane on Saturday 18th July. So, if you are interested in finding out more about the OLPC and OLPC Friends projects or just getting a look at the XOs please come along. I also plan to do a short demo of Sugar and how you go about writing a small sugar activity, so this will be of particular interest to developers. If you don’t live in Queensland, but know people up here who may be interested - please pass on.

For more info on the barcamp please take a look at our meetup page at http://www.meetup.com/barcampqld and RSVP if you are interested - we will be at East Brisbane Bowls club from about 9am-4pm.

By spidie | Posted in Devel, Education | Tagged | Comments (0)

OLPC at the DigitalNZ Hacktest

June 27, 2009 – 11:55 am

Last weekend the weekly Wellington Friends in Testing group changed location to the National Library to join in the Digital NZ Hacktest.

Here’s the blurb explaining who DigitalNZ are:

DigitalNZ is a collaborative initiative led by the National Library of New Zealand. We work with a wide range of contributing institutions and organisations. Without these content providers and their content, DigitalNZ would not be possible.

We did the usual test of the latest build of Sugar, and some general playtime testing contributed applications. Some of us tried out the Digital NZ open data API, and thought creating a OLPC app that queries this API would be great, especially if it caches the data locally somehow, or turns into a collaborative activity.

There was coffee, pizza, lollies and beer. Thanks Digital NZ!

By Brenda Wallace | Posted in Devel, testing | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)

Linux Conference - New Zealand January 2010

June 27, 2009 – 11:26 am

If you are in the region, you should check out the Linux Conference in Wellington, New Zealand and January 2010.

We are proposing a mini conf about OLPC and Sugar - If you want to help out, please contact tabitha@hrdnz.com and let me know how you can help.

By tabitha | Posted in News | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

June Sydney Hackfest

June 1, 2009 – 11:15 pm

OLPC Friends – June Sydney Hackfest

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Friends/SydneyUG

The first mid-year Sydney Hackfest will be running on Sunday, June 21st at Macquarie University.

The Hackfest is an open meeting for testing, development, general assistance and discussions with a focus on regional activities. We welcome all new people to come and get hands on with the XO laptop and meet people in the OLPC Friends community. Please register your interest in attending to meaton.2v@gmail.com.

What: OLPC Friends - Sydney Hackfest
When: Sunday 21th June, 2009  11pm - 4pm
Where: Level 2, Room 251 Building E6A Macquarie University (Campus Map - http://www.ofm.mq.edu.au/maps_campus.htm)

RSVP: to Mitchell Seaton - meaton.2v@gmail.com
Contact: m. 0404 131 939

Getting There:
By car: M2 motorway, Lane Cove Rd, or Epping Rd
By bus: bus 288, 290 or 292 from QVB (city)
By train: from Epping or Chatswood on Epping-Chatswood rail link, Macquarie Uni station.

Parking options:
Macquarie University - N1, N3, X3 and W4 car parks
http://www.ofm.mq.edu.au/parking_fees.htm (pt.1)

Street Parking -
12hr zones on Talavera Rd
Free parking on Waterloo Rd (off-campus cnr of Culloden Rd)

Macquarie Centre - Free parking for < 3hrs.

By Mitchell Seaton | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

East Timor Pilot 2

May 25, 2009 – 9:25 am

In early May I returned to East Timor and met with the local OLPC Pilot team. I have blogged on the meeting including some of the fascinating ideas that came up. As well as the OLPC Pilot I worked on a couple of other projects like VOIP training, so I have also blogged on these projects and what it’s like riding around Timor Leste on a Scooter!

Thanks,

David

By drowe67 | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Sydney Hackfest - May

May 4, 2009 – 12:07 am

OLPC Friends - May Sydney Hackfest

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Friends/SydneyUG

After a great meeting last month, the 3rd Sydney hackfest for 2009 will be running at Macquarie University on Sunday 17th May.

Moving forward from April’s meeting, there are quiet a few things to be looking at this month including SoaS beta (Sugar 0.84) testing, Smoke Testing the latest Sugar and XO (802) builds, open discussions, and your own development, testing and experiments. There will be a supply of XO’s available for people who do not have their own. We welcome all new people to come and get hands on with the XO laptop and meet people in the OLPC Friends community. It’s a great place to come and get answers to any problems with your XO laptop or questions you may have.

Please RSVP your attendance to meaton.2v@gmail.com so we can have an idea of numbers.

On a side note check out the latest FLOSS Weekly podcast for a 60min interview with OLE Nepal’s Bryan Berry about OLPC in Nepal.

What: OLPC Friends - Sydney Hackfest

When: Sunday 17th May, 2009  11pm - 4pm

Where: Room 133/251 Building E6A Macquarie University  (Campus Map - http://www.ofm.mq.edu.au/maps_campus.htm)

RSVP: to Mitchell Seaton - meaton.2v@gmail.com
Contact: m. 0404 131 939

Getting There:
By car: M2 motorway, Lane Cove Rd, or Epping Rd
By bus: bus 288, 290 or 292 from QVB (City)
By train: from Epping or Chatswood on Epping-Chatswood rail link, Macquarie Uni station.

Parking options:
Macquarie University - N1, N3, X3 and W4 car parks
http://www.ofm.mq.edu.au/parking_fees.htm (pt.1)

Street Parking -
12hr zones on Talavera Rd
Free parking on Waterloo Rd (off-campus cnr of Culloden Rd)

Macquarie Centre - Free parking for < 3hrs.

By Mitchell Seaton | Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

April Sydney OLPC Friends meet-up

April 29, 2009 – 12:27 pm

Last Sunday we had a great first Hackfest at Macquarie University, thanks to Pia Waugh who helped supply 5 new XO’s for the Sydney User Group. A few attendees brought their own laptop and there were a few who got hands-on with the XO for the first time. During the afternoon we were able to show Ann how to re-image her machine to the latest stable 767 build, and install Activity bundles from USB. Ann was able to learn more about the OLPC Laptop project, and the uses of the XO and Sugar.

Harrison got into a Distance activity test and found it didn’t work with one XO machine running an older build. He will be working on a Temp sensor with one of the new XO’s lent to him, and has already upgraded the machine to 8.2.1. Denis applied for a Developer Key on his XO to enable him to unlock security and 8.2.1 testing.

We had a few students from Macquarie University and MUCS come and play with the XO’s. The afternoon concluded with a discussion with Charles (who has a team in Philippines), about a OLPC program in the Philippines, technical and support issues, and Sugar over other interfaces.

Some of the XO laptops I have will be available for developers in the community to use for testing, development or small trials/demos. If you wish to apply for a loan please email meaton.2v@gmail.com with “OLPC Library” subject, and some basic details, how you plan to use the XO and for how long etc.?

Thanks to everyone who came to the April meet-up.

The next Sydney Hackfest is scheduled for May 17th 11pm – 4pm at Room 133/256 Building E6A, Macquarie University.

See you then! - Mitchell

By Mitchell Seaton | Posted in Devel, Education, testing | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

OLPC Club Gold Coast

April 24, 2009 – 2:47 pm

I was very happy to receive 5 XOs in the post today (thanks Pia!) for the Gold Coast OLPC club/group that I proposed at the last Gold Coast Barcamp.

If you live and/or work on the Gold Coast and you are interested in being more involved in the OLPC project, please join the Open Source Developers Gold Coast mailing list to be kept informed. As the group grows we may start our own list, but the osdgc list should do for now.

The main purpose of the group is to develop software for OLPC, but you don’t necessarily need to be a developer to join in. You may be interested in testing, getting involved with a deployment or just want to find out more about this fantastic project.

I am proposing (unless I get better ideas) that 2 of the units remain at my office for demos and testing (I have a great almost 4 year old beta tester that loves XO) and the other 3 can roam around the coast with developers who have a specific need for hardware.

By spidie | Posted in Devel, Education, testing | Tagged , , , | Comments (4)

Sydney Hackfest - April

April 17, 2009 – 7:53 pm

OLPC Friends - Sydney Hackfest

UPDATE: The Hackfest has been moved to Sunday 26th April due to the 25th being a Public Holiday (ANZAC Day). I hope this will be more convenient time for people to attend.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Friends/SydneyUG

The hackfest is back this month and we will be meeting at Macquarie University on Sunday 26th April. This is a great opportunity to get hands-on with the XO laptop, there will be a number of XO’s available for people who do not have their own. Some of the testing/activities on the day will include 1hr smoke tests (8.2.1), SoaS, Fedora Spin, discussion on local/regional trials and deployments, and your personal testing or experiments.

Please RSVP your attendance to meaton.2v@gmail.com so we can have an idea of numbers.

What: OLPC Friends - Sydney Hackfest
When: Sunday 26th April, 2009  1pm - 5pm
Where: Room 133 Building E6A Macquarie University (Campus Map - http://www.ofm.mq.edu.au/maps_campus.htm)

RSVP: to Mitchell Seaton - meaton.2v@gmail.com
Contact: m. 0404 131 939

Getting There:
By car: M2 motorway, Lane Cove Rd, or Epping Rd
By bus: bus 288, 290 or 292 from QVB (city)
By train: from Epping or Chatswood on Epping-Chatswood rail link, Macquarie Uni station.

Parking options:
Macquarie University - N1, N3, X3 and W4 car parks
http://www.ofm.mq.edu.au/parking_fees.htm (pt.1)

Street Parking -
12hr zones on Talavera Rd
Free parking on Waterloo Rd (off-campus cnr of Culloden Rd)

Macquarie Centre - Free parking for < 3hrs.

By Mitchell Seaton | Posted in News | Tagged , | Comments (1)

East Timor Pilot

April 17, 2009 – 4:03 pm

In February I (David Rowe) traveled with Tom and Thomas Daly to East Timor to research an OLPC Pilot. Lots of blogging on what we discovered during the trip:

We (an Adelaide user group called Seaton OLPC) are now planning for the Pilot deployment, to be scheduled for some time in the next 6 months. We have also kicked off some related projects in VOIP over Wifi and Mesh networking with the local Timorese Linux/IT crowd.

By drowe67 | Posted in Deployments | Comments (1)