TCF Sunday, May Social, June Meeting, and LUG/IP Ballgame--Oh My!
David A. Harding
~~~~~~~~~~
Joe still wants a couple more volunteers to help staff the Ubuntu & NJ
LUGs table at the Trenton Computer Festival this Sunday[1]. I'm going, but
I really want to see the theramin concert. Please don't make me stay at
the table and hand out CDs.
[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NewJerseyTeam/TCF2008
May Social
~~~~~~~~~~
I've reopened the poll[1] to choose a date for the May online CHLUG
social. See the details in my previous post[2]. You have until
Sunday (27 April) at 23:59 to vote. I'll post the selected date here
Monday morning.
[1] http://doodle.ch/s89g2cvqztk6d5kb
[2] http://groups.google.com/group/chlug/msg/21785647bc75cf57
After the online social, you may join us in playing Armagetron.
I'll tell you how to connect in my follow-up email.
Members of other nearby free software groups in NJ and PA: please join us!
If you can join us, please fill out the poll now.
June 6th Meeting
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As far as I know, we still don't have a topic. I've put a summary of the
things we've discussed, on and off-list, below:
1. David Bicking wanted to teach us advanced spreadsheet
techniques.
2. Jerry Neale wants somebody, preferably Joe Terranova, to
teach us how to make effective bug reports in Ubuntu.
3. Joe Smith asked off-topic for an inexpensive, not heavily
commercialsed, trustworthy, elegant, and easy to deploy group
contact software, like ``a forum--or something.'' We gave him
a bunch of answers, from groupware to CMSes to message boards
to wikis. Most of our solutions, I'm proud to say, used free
software. Now, does anyone want to demonstrate their free
software solution at the June meeting?
4. At the last meeting, I felt some envy for my free software-
powered digital music player, a Sansa e280[1] running
Rockbox[2]. If -- and only if -- we get some other topics on
the June agenda by Wednesday morning (five days from now),
I'll show you how easy it is to install Rockbox.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SanDisk_Sansa#e200_series
[2] http://www.rockbox.org/
Please respond pronto so we can get the next meeting pinned down.
LUG/IP Baseball Game
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Saturday, July 12, for the 5th year in a row, LUG/IP is going out to
the ballgame. As usual, LUG/IP has invited all CHLUG members and their
families. Tickets are $10 a person to see Trenton Thunder play the New
Hampshire Fisher Cats with fireworks afterwards.
The game will start with us mocking the visiting team for having a dumb name.
Below are links to a few nifty pictures from last year's game:
http://gnuisance.net/tmp/180d/lugip-bball/billboard.jpg
http://gnuisance.net/tmp/180d/lugip-bball/field.jpg
http://gnuisance.net/tmp/180d/lugip-bball/fireworks.jpg
I'm going, and I would love to get the opportunity to introduce my
favourite CHLUG members to the members of LUG/IP. Please contact
LUG/IP's treasurer, William Bilancio <wbil...@lugip.org>, for tickets.
For more information, contact William or me -- or just reply to this post.
Thanks for reading to the end of this overlong email,
-Dave
--
David A. Harding Website: http://dtrt.org/
1 (609) 997-0765 Email: da...@dtrt.org
Jabber/XMPP: dhar...@jabber.org
David A. Harding
as the best date. So please join us in the IRC chatroom #chlug on
irc.freenode.net starting (officially) at 20:00 (8PM)[2].
[1] http://doodle.ch/s89g2cvqztk6d5kb
[2] Unofficially, I'll probably arrive, ready to chat, more than
an hour early.
Introductions will begin promptly at 20:05 and chat will begin
immediately afterwards. You can talk about any topic related to
free software or not, and if you have a questions or need support,
we'll try and help.
The meeting will officially end at 21:00, but I invite everyone to stay
longer. At 21:15, I'll start a game of Armagetron[1] on the server at
tron.dtrt.org. Even if you don't attend the social, I invite you to
play. If you went to the social, I suggest you play Armagetron with your
IRC nickname so we can keep everyone straight.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armagetron_Advanced
If you have a question or need help setting up an IRC/Armagetron client
or if you want to support the idea by telling everyone on the mailing
list that you're going to the online social, please feel free to respond
to this message.
Thanks,
-Dave
P.S. (I'll send out a friendly reminder Thursday morning.)
Gerald D. Neale
Jerry
____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better friend, newshound, and
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ
Joe Smith
> TCF Sunday
> ~~~~~~~~~~
> Joe still wants a couple more volunteers to help staff the Ubuntu & NJ
I stopped by the table for a few seconds, just to say "hi". Looked
like there was a lot of interest.
I would have loved to help out, but unfortunately we had a tight
schedule for Sat (left about 1pm) and Sunday was altogether booked for
me.
> I've reopened the poll[1] to choose a date for the May online CHLUG
Sorry again; I can barely manage offline socializing :-0; online
socials just give me the willies. Seriously--I've tried to get started
with chats a dozen times. It's in the same basket as fax machines:
"Things I just don't get".
> June 6th Meeting
> ...
> commercialsed, trustworthy, elegant, and easy to deploy group
> contact software, like ``a forum--or something.'' We gave him
> a bunch of answers, from groupware to CMSes to message boards
> to wikis. Most of our solutions, I'm proud to say, used free
> software. Now, does anyone want to demonstrate their free
> software solution at the June meeting?
doesn't directly support, but it does most of what we need, and what
it doesn't do we can deal with another way.
That would be a really boring talk: you all know what wikis are and
how they work, and what's on the site is of no interest outside of the
target group.
Maybe someone else has something a little more unusual to present
along these lines.
Wow, what a useless post. Nothing to say at all--I should just delete
it now and save you all the time to read it. Oh well, too late.
<Joe
David A. Harding
> I stopped by the table [at TCF] for a few seconds, just to say "hi".
> [...]
Did you get to see the theremin concert too? I went Sunday and it
rocked.
> [O]nline socials just give me the willies.
I think I understand. I refuse to spend too much time online with anyone
I haven't met in person. I don't believe I can have a healthy relationship
with someone unless I've given them one good chance and one good reason
to punch me in the face.
> [Wikis] would be a really boring talk: you all know what wikis are and
> how they work
I agree: demonstrating a generic wiki would bore the typical CHLUG
audience. But I think we might enjoy a wiki themed meeting; here are a
few questions I'd like answered:
How do you deal with wikispam? In particular, how do you deal
with wikispam on a public wiki?
Do most wiki sites succeed or fail?
What are good uses for a wiki? What are bad uses?
What is the future of wikis? To abuse an already abused Internet
cliche: what will Wiki 2.0 look like?
Does anyone want to answer those questions at the next meeting?
Thanks,
Gerald D. Neale
I appreciate your participation in these multiple
discussions wrapped into one email... interesting
read. The irc chat this Thursday should be good throw
some ideas around about the next CHLUG topic and some
other group concerns. I'm looking forward to
Armagetron afterwards. As for fax machines they are
useful for nothing more than remote signatures, but
even just that is a huge deal for me.
Jerry
____________________________________________________________________________________
Gerald D. Neale
> Do most wiki sites succeed or fail?
curious how non-wiki people can best be initiated to
group documentation using wiki.
My last grad course in medical informatics fortunately
forced us to do our group project using a wiki for
organization. It was a great success in getting
non-wiki people to learn to use this tool. The
productivity gained from having this tool was
enormous. The main feature that I think sets wikis
apart from shared folders and documents in the
inherent linking ability of wiki . It makes for
superior organization of finding documents. There are
many other reasons that a wiki is ideal, but then
again there are some shortcomings too. The one
"killer" feature is the linking ability I believe.
So our success was because our grade depended on the
quantity and quality of our wiki edits. Short of that
kind of motivation, I wonder how to include mere
mortals into the wiki world.
At my work, I once suggested having a wiki for team
contacts. Most of my team looked at me like I had
three heads. The one most technical person in the room
actually laughed as if to communicate to me "good
luck" with that. To wrap it up... we have the wiki
built and linked to the team homepage I'm almost
afraid to bring it up again.
My recent wiki score is one success, one failure.
Jerry
--- "David A. Harding" <da...@dtrt.org> wrote:
>
> What are good uses for a wiki? What are bad
> uses?
>
> What is the future of wikis? To abuse an
> already abused Internet
> cliche: what will Wiki 2.0 look like?
>
> Does anyone want to answer those questions at the
> next meeting?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Dave
> --
> David A. Harding Website:
> http://dtrt.org/
> 1 (609) 997-0765 Email: da...@dtrt.org
> Jabber/XMPP:
> dhar...@jabber.org
>
>
>
>
____________________________________________________________________________________
David A. Harding
> I am mostly curious how non-wiki people can best be initiated to
> group documentation using wiki.
That's easy. Ask them to send you their documentation in their favourite
format (even if it's Microsoft Word). Then you copy their docs into the
wiki.
At the bottom of the doc, type,
``Written by John Doe
Entered with the assistance of Gerald Neale''
Then convince them the boss reads the wiki. The subtle insult that
they're incapable of entering documentation themselves, particularly in
front of the boss, will probably motivate them to enter future docs
themselves.
At my last job I discovered the best way to get my co-workers to do
their job well was for me to do their job better -- and then take the
credit. Not only did I accomplish my immediate goal of getting
the work done, but I scored bonus points with the boss.
Edward Corrado
> On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 12:36:33PM -0700, Jerry Neale wrote:
>> I am mostly curious how non-wiki people can best be initiated to
>> group documentation using wiki.
>
> That's easy. Ask them to send you their documentation in their favourite
> format (even if it's Microsoft Word). Then you copy their docs into the
> wiki.
>
> At the bottom of the doc, type,
> ``Written by John Doe
> Entered with the assistance of Gerald Neale''
>
> Then convince them the boss reads the wiki. The subtle insult that
> they're incapable of entering documentation themselves, particularly in
> front of the boss, will probably motivate them to enter future docs
> themselves.
>
> At my last job I discovered the best way to get my co-workers to do
> their job well was for me to do their job better -- and then take the
> credit. Not only did I accomplish my immediate goal of getting
> the work done, but I scored bonus points with the boss.
>
I just skimmed through the beginnings of this, so this may not be possible
in your case. However, the best way I have heard of getting non-Wiki
people to work on wiki-based documentation was from a librarian at
Syracuse University. Note that many librarians are not fans of new
technology. The person giving the presentation had some management role,
so that helped a little with some of the people, but her approach was when
someone came with a change, edit, correction, etc. to a document was to
tell them to fix it (sometimes this involved showing them again how to do
it). Also, she whenever there were new procedures, policies ,etc. she
pointed people to the wiki instead of e-mailing them. This made them more
familiar with the wiki. She felt that made them more comfortable editing
it.
Of course, Dave's method could work to. Basically, you need an incentive
(looking good to the boss) and a method to create a comfort level.
Edward
Edward