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<big>Dear all,<br>
<br>
Sorry for the length of this email, there's a few things to
communicate.<br>
</big>
<h1><big>Artifactory</big></h1>
<big>PLUG had a good turnout last night at Artifactory's workshop in
Osborne Park, where <b>Daniel</b> gave an introduction to hacker
spaces and what equipment they have acquired. People had a poke at
various pieces of kit, and played the Arcophone mk II, pictured
(original Arcophone video at [1] below). Many thanks to Daniel
and the other Artifactory members who attended to show off their
creations (including the electric motorbike).<br>
<br>
The change of venue brought out a few new faces who hadn't been
able to make it to Christchurch previous months, and PLUG
attracted a few more financial members (as did/may Artifactory)!
Thanks to everyone who came along.<br>
<br>
</big>
<h1><big>Future talks</big></h1>
<big>Next month, on <b>Tuesday 12th of April </b>2011, long term
PLUG member <b>Harry McNally</b> will talk about some work he is
doing to get a dormant Radio telescope
dish moving on the top of the UWA Physics building. The project
had languished
and UCC were offered the job of reviving it. The talk covers using
an Arduino
board to control the high power stepper motor driver boards. The
embedded
software is based on a software framework called Quantum
Programming (QP)
which allows a design to be defined as state machines using UML
state charts.
The code is dual licensed so it is available under the GPL (and at
no cost)
for projects where GPL is an appropriate distribution license. The
venue isn't yet 100% confirmed, but we're trying to get to the
UCC/Loft Area in Cameron Hall at The University of Western
Australia. Many PLUG people will know of UCC (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.ucc.asn.au">www.ucc.asn.au</a>) as
one of the older Perth hacker hang outs, perched high above the
Ref tavern in Cameron Hall for over 30 years. The calendar on the
web site will be kept up to date.<br>
<br>
To our future presentations, we're having an IPv6 presentation by
<b>Carl Gherardi </b>in Fremantle on May 10th, and later in the
year a presentation by Indulus Bernstein at IBM. If you have a
talk/presentation inside you that you'd like to share with
everyone please email committee your proposal, and the month(s)
that suit you to give it.<br>
<br>
</big>
<h1><big>Other Events</big></h1>
<big>However, before we get to next month's talk, we have a <b><font
color="#ff0000">Quiz night </font></b>on <b>Monday the 28th
of March</b> - just over two weeks away - at <b>The Moon &
Six Pence</b> in the city. We've booked the back room ("<i>The
Stables</i>") and have several rounds of fun questions - some
Linux focused, some more general. Nothing too hard, so don't be
afraid to come along and join your other like minded Linux
community friends on a table. This event is <i><b>FREE</b></i>,
you can bring anyone you wish if you think a <i>partially </i>Linux-focused
Quiz would appeal to them. We will hopefully have a few prizes for
our brainiest table, and possibly some for our not so über brainy
tables! This is not a professional quiz night - it's a bit of
amateur fun on the otherwise scheduled <i>PLUG in the Pub</i>
night! So set your expectations low, and come along to have a
laugh. :)<br>
<br>
As to other activities, <b>Nick Bannon</b> is organising a <font
color="#ff0000"><b>workshop event </b></font>is on the brink of
being scheduled, where you can bring your PC along with your Linux
issues you're experiencing, and sit down with a group of people to
help try and nut out a solution. You'll also be able to bring
along your PC and have someone help install Linux on it. I'll let
Nick fill in the details on this as soon as they are finalised.<br>
<br>
PLUG is also looking for a few volunteers: one person (or a small
team) for co-ordinating the PLUG monthly presentations, and one
person for the coordination of <i>Software Freedom Day</i> (in
September) - plus volunteers who would like to help out on the
day. If you're not aware of Software Freedom Day, check out
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://softwarefreedomday.org/">http://softwarefreedomday.org/</a>, and watch the videos at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/Resources">http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/Resources</a>; including the
Stephen Fry video from a few years back when GNU turned 25 years
old. </big><br>
<br>
<big>For all of these events, please mention them to your friends
who may not know about PLUG. <br>
</big><br>
<h1><big>Projects</big></h1>
<big>The AV project, to create a one-room live streaming video
studio based around open source software and cheap commodity
hardware is under way on the PLUG AV mailing list. The first
workshop day is probably going to be announced in the next week
after the acquired VGA to DV capture device (<i>TwinPact 100</i>)
arrives from the US. The project will start with a mix of some
donated equipment, and when a working prototype is together, we'll
look to improve and replace the borrowed pieces. One of the goals
is to stream the monthly PLUG presentations so that people unable
to attend can still watch (and possibly participate via IRC or
other means); and as a training exercise for any future video
projects that may require this.<br>
<br>
Others have suggested running Bug Squashing days, and possibly you
have a project you'd like to work on with other PLUG people. If
so, let the committee know and we'll help you with whatever we
can. PLUG has some limited funds to assist and we'd love to help
you help PLUG. We also have the ability to put grants in to Linux
Australia for some of their excess funds from LCA (the AV project
plans on doing this).<br>
<br>
</big>
<h1><big>Housekeeping</big></h1>
<big>After several years of PLUG committee not having the
signatories on the PLUG account actively involved with PLUG, we've
brought this under control. The four office bearers now have
access (on a 2 to operate basis) to the PLUG Bank Account. We're
looking to reinstate PLUG's own PO box for traditional dead tree
correspondence (incorporated bodies need a postal address), which
means we're having to apply for an ABN for PLUG. All of this is
taking time to organise, and may look like nothing is happening to
the rest of the membership. Tim is working on an upgrade to Drupal
version 7 on the web site.<br>
<br>
If you are interested in helping write pages on the PLUG web site;
please email committee. We had a bit of link spamming happen from
some bots, so account privs are now more restricted by default.
However we'd love to give anyone access to add content if they
have the time - just let us know.<br>
<br>
My thanks to the rest of committee; we've been meeting twice a
month (once face-to-face, once on IRC) to try and sort through a
bunch of issues on the agenda to try and bring these events and
initiatives to life.<br>
<br>
</big>
<h1><big>Feedback</big></h1>
<big>We have a range of members, and I'd like PLUG to appeal to all
of them. If you have something you don't like about PLUG, or
suggestions for things PLUG can do, please let me and the
committee know. My mobile number is at the end of this email for a
reason - you can call me. Otherwise, email and occasionally IRC
(#plug on irc.gimp.org). I'm also interested in what keeps the
majority of the subscribers on this mailing list - 340+ people -
not joining as PLUG members for the small sum of $10/year. Please
let me know your thoughts. If you've read this and would like to
join, fill in <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://secure.plug.org.au/members/signup.cgi">https://secure.plug.org.au/members/signup.cgi</a>, and
then send your $10 ($5 for concession/student/unemployed) to our
account (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://secure.plug.org.au/about/bank-account">https://secure.plug.org.au/about/bank-account</a>) with you
name as the reference.<br>
<br>
<br>
Well, many thanks for reading this far!<br>
<br>
James<br>
<br>
</big><br>
[1] The Arcophone mk I: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WfszpzNAmw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WfszpzNAmw</a><br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Mobile: +61 422 166 708, Email: james_AT_rcpt.to</pre>
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