thanks to the ninjas who migrated geekspeakr.com from Drupal5 to Drupal 6, and to a happier server during LCA2010

quote from Liz Henry, who really enjoyed the hackfest:

It was like Christmas – I hung out with kick ass open source people all day long, heard great talks, gave a talk and asked for more coding and development with other women, and then got to do that very thing with people I greatly admire!

and thanks to Catalyst for the use of their boardroom and intarwebs.

Mike discovers there's a new CHEESE SHOP in Petone

Pamela the midwife has a blog post of thoughts and info on teenage pregnancy in New Zealand.

Mark Osbourne mentions Uruguay gave a laptop to every single child.

Vampire wannabies can buy bags of tasty blood fit for human consumption.

There's a Save Maranui fundraiser involving speedos.

Open office is spreading quickly all over Belgium according to The Open Source Observatory and Repository for European public administrations.

Someone invented a Robot that loads and unloads the dishwasher

Rachel Alpine talks about need for plain language and official information

Live scribe, the makers of that shiny gadget pen i use alot are opening an app store of applications that run on the pen.

The following things are making me happy:

Finding I'm volunteering for One Laptop Per Child nearly every day and changing the world, and really enjoying it.

How the OLPC effort in Aotearoa is growing growing growing.

How many people came out to talk about how stupid Mark Shuttleworth's comment was (you know which one). "Girls" are among those that made open source what it is today, whether shuttleworth realises it or not.

Statusnet project going from strength to strength (and starting on the journey to world domination)

How Drupal is no longer this unheard of strange CMS that Brenda keeps pitching -- it's being used everywhere, for years now, in place in NZ that i've never been near. Clients turn up already wanting Drupal.

Public sector remix project gaining steam for being awesome.

How many amazing people are coming to Wellington for LCA2010 - including open source ninjas i've "known" for years and never met.

oh, and the thought that in about 2 months I will be able to see my own feet again.

OLPC Viewfinders - made on Reprap, originally uploaded by Br3nda.

Checkout out these thingies.

They're viewfinders - slot them into the OLPC XO laptops's top right hand usb port, and they're now in perfect position to be a viewfinder for the laptop's camera.

These were made on a reprap, the open source, open hardware 3d printer that's capable of printing copies of itself.

They're made from a milk byproduct polymer/plastic. They cost a fraction of a cent each.

These were printed by Vik Olliver, who also painted them XO green. THANKS VIK!! :-D

Get in contact with OLPC NZ if you'd like a copy of the file that prints these.

it's in Wellington New Zealand - 18th Jan to 23rd Jan.

There's still time to submit a speaking proposal to a miniconf:
http://www.lca2010.org.nz/programme/miniconfs

There are 3 funding programmes, if you're an open source contributor and need $$$ to get to Wellington for the conference.
http://www.lca2010.org.nz/media/news/89

The Programme is out - checkout the speakers and topics:
http://www.lca2010.org.nz/programme/schedule

There's is a partner's programme -- details coming soon.

Accomodation - there's student-style accomodation (which I reccomend) - also 4 star, 5 star, and apartments for groups/families.
This year there are couple and family accomodations available.
http://www.lca2010.org.nz/register/accommodation

The primary sponsors, who you should all be thinking good thoughts about now, are: Internet NZ and Google....

other sponsors: Catalyst, Canonical, Egressive, 3months, amberDMS, Dreamhost, Ingres, iwantmyname.com.

the goings on in Wellington, that i've heard of recently:

Tim McNarama is rallying a Sahana New Zealand cluster. Their online presence is at Launchpad.net. They've had hackfest and strategic planning meetings - there's been lots of great designs including distributed models (borrowing from laconca) and New Zealand customisations.

Don Christie, and the New Zealand Open Source Society have launched the Public Sector Remix, a desktop operating system specialising in government / public sector.

Tabitha Roder continues to lead a group of OLPC testers who meet every Saturday at the Southern Cross.

Nigel McNie, and the rest of the mahara team released 1.2.0beta1.

Who have i missed out? Who's doing Open Source mighty deeds in Wellington?

Here's is a Mollom spam filter plugin for Laconica.

To enable, download MollomPlugin.php
http://gitorious.org/laconica-mollom-plugin/mainline/trees/master

Place this in the plugins "local" folder of your laconica installation

Add the following to your config.php
<?php
addPlugin('Mollom');

$config['mollom']['public_key'] = '...';
$config['mollom']['private_key'] = ..
$config['mollom']['servers'] = array('http://88.151.243.81', 'http://82.103.131.136');

?>

replace '...' with your own public and private keys for your site, which you can get from mollom.com

If you're using this plugin, i'd love to know about it -- shiny@cpan.org or shiny on freenode.

Note: it doesn't currenly save which servers are active on the mollom service - this coming very soon.

You know what twitter is? It's a micro blogging application - the most popular one in the world.

Do you know there's an entire open specification / protocol for "Open Micro Blogging" (OMB for short)

The cool thing about the OMB protocol, is the remote subscriptions. SO you can be a user on omb.blah.com and still see notices from people you subscribed to on omb.haha.com. It's decentralised.

And most open source OMB applications also synchronise with Twitter.

I'm using my own installation of an AGPL licenced application called Laconica. I've installed it over at http://micro.br3nda.com

I'm the only user on there, but with a few mouse clicks i've subscribed to many people in other OMB platforms.

The most popular OMB website right now is http://identi.ca. It's full of people who contribute to opensource - and it can be refreshing to find such a good signal to noise ratio there. Unlike twitter you don't find people trying to sell you SEO or viagra or naked feet photos or lids for you missing tupperware or whatever spammers on twitter sell these days.

There's also an API that exactly matches twitter's. So you can take any old twitter client that you like, and tell it to talk to identi.ca (or your own installation) and you're happily using it with your favourite client.

If you want to try it out, create an account on http://identi.ca, and then point your browser at http://micro.br3nda.com/br3nda. You can then remotely subscribe to me.

The NZ Open Source Society is having an Auckland meet-up on this coming Wednesday (24th). Anyone interested in the wider aspects of Open Source, getting it into schools, government and so forth and who happens to be in the area might want to come along.

Venue is hopefully Red vs Blue (RvB) at 155 K Road, starting at 6:15 pm with initial mingling expected at 6:00.

If you plan on coming, let me know so I have a vague idea of the headcount.

The NZOSS will be making an exclusive announcement to Auckland based members and Free Software advocates about the G2009 and how we can change our government. Please spread the word and generally light the fires of revolution.

The NZ government is in the process of negotiating supply of software from A SINGLE VENDOR. NZOSS calls for an immediate halt and investigation by the Auditor-General.    

Press Release from the NZOSS - STOP G2009 | The New Zealand Open Source Society

The New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS) is calling for an immediate halt to the G2009 “All of Government” negotiations currently being completed with Microsoft. The Society will be seeking a complete review of the G2009 procurement process by the Auditor-General.

“Government procurement prac...

Press release from NZOSS on G2009 Negotiations with Microsoft | The New Zealand Open Source Society

New Zealand Open Source Society is calling for far greater use of free software in the New Zealand public sector. The renewed call comes at a time when central government agencies have been conducting line-by-line reviews of their expenditure and the UK government has released sweeping policy change...

“The crucial insight from the UK policy is that cost of ownership is not the issue; what matters is value delivered.” says NZOSS president Don Christie “With free software that value can be delivered across multiple agencies through re-use.”

The Electoral Enrolment Centre has been using free software their desktops, happily, for the last seven years. A rollout of free software, such as ubuntu linux, on new desktop/laptops would be a sensible decision. In times while we're laying off public servants due to cost cuts, why pay uber dollars for software that gives less flexibility.
Government (and education) is the right place for the more altruistic aspect of free software - build it once and reuse it through multiple departments without need for further investment. (not to mention the control you get from having the source and the rights to change it/hire someone to make it exactly as you need).

Open Source Citizenship « Dyepot, TeapotSource: dyepot-teapot.comWhen we started working on Open Source Bridge, Selena and I came up with the term “open source citizenship” to describe what we hoped to explore. We’re planning a conference that will connect developers across projects, across languages, across backgrounds to learn from each other. ...

Here's the worst kept best secret in Wellington - Linux.conf.au is heading to wellington for 2010. This was finally officially announced at the 2009 conference final dinner in Hobart last night.

It began as a lunch time conversation in Sydney - then someone made a wiki page - then people volunteered, and we put together a team, picked Andrew Ruthven as our mighty leader, and created the winning conference bid. (with a huge amount of research and negotiation with wellington businesses and government in between)

Linux.conf.au varies from other opensource conferences I've attended, in that it's technically focused. Many conferences are targetted at management, and business owners making purchasing decisions. Linux.conf.au isn't. It's the actual hacker/coder/tester/degisners coming together to do face to face meetings, technical talks, and announcements from the people who actually build the opensource awesomeness we love.

It's a conference that's easy to get involved in. LCA was definitely a big part of my own decision to write more and more opensource code. (and there are plenty of ways to contribute, not just code).

Free Icon-To-Speech: Open-Source Speech for Disabled - One Laptop Per Child NewsSource: s54379.gridserver.co...Cynthia, the daughter of my friend Sue, has cerebral palsy and uses a small touchscreen with picture icons to speak. Sue explained that this is a costly piece of equipment at $6,000, with a $400 fee when ...

kapiti.geek.nz by Andrew ChiltonSource: kapiti.geek.nzThis week something magical happened and therefore there is someone we owe a great deal of thanks to. As is usual with open source it took one person a huge amount of effort to step up and complete something that needed to be done.

New Zealand distributor of ArduinotSource: www.co-lab.ac.nzArduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Ministers call for end to fear mongering over copyright changes | coffee.geek.nzSource: coffee.geek.nzAssociate Minister of commerce, Judith Tizard, in an official press release says there is no truth in th

Copyright Act - Simply Wrong (Updated) | The New Zealand Open Source SocietySource: nzoss.org.nzIt is clear to me that Minister Tizard simply does not understand these issues as they relate both to IT and to artistic endeavour. Nor does she seem to understand the chilling scope for private and state censorship that she has just introduced.

mum and I, originally uploaded by Br3nda

mum came to town to attend the New Zealand Open Source awards. I didn't win a prize, but i did win a great 2 days hanging out with mum.

photos of the NZ open source awards are up on flickr - http://flickr.com/photos/taniwha/sets/72157607484286866/

Mahara team winning:

Slide about me (i didn't win)

Dave Lane's winning speech, where he says the "knowledge economy" is right here in NZ.

Don Christie, president of NZ Open Source Society, interviewed on 95b fm.

http://95bfm.com/assets/sm/188651/3/DonChristie.mp3

Software Freedom Day - O'Reilly RadarSource: radar.oreilly.comSoftware Freedom Day is free and open source's open day, a chance for the general public who might have been curious about open source to come along and learn more. I'll be in Wellington on Saturday, September 20th, for Wellington's event. ...

Collected "Press"

Google Open Source Blog - Wellington Girl Geek Dinners

By Brenda Wallace, Catalyst IT and Geek Girl at Large

Open Source graffiti???, originally uploaded by Taniwha the Wally i still love the graffiti from Newtown, Wellington

Jan J. Kuse writes:for the tips on the sony ux17 touchscreen - mine works now :)I found something that might interest you, if you don't know the project already:http://www.openmoko.org/ I followed their path to create a great open source phone since a year now, and they are really great. Definitely a cool alternative to QT greenphone.