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Video of Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier’s keynote address from UTOSC 2008 is now available at opensourcetv.tv
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Joe Brockmeier
Joe Brockmeier, the OpenSUSE Community Manager for Novell, spoke on Friday, 29 August, about bootstrapping communities and OpenSUSE.
The Utah Open Source Foundation has released two more audio recordings from UTOSC 2008.
The audio recordings now available are
More audio from UTOSC 2008 will be showing up on podcast.utos.org. This site already has audio recordings from the local Utah User Groups and other events. Feel free to check back at any time, or use our rss feed as well.
Calling anyone and everyone interested in WordPress, we’re getting together for WordCamp Utah in Provo, Utah! They’ve got a great line up of speakers, including WordPress founding developer Matt Mullenweg and long time WordPress developer Alex King.
The cost is only $20 and includes lunch, t-shirt, stickers, etc. Signing up only takes a minute. Help spread the word! Blog about it and tell your friends!
When: Saturday September 27, 2008 from 9:30am - 5:00pm
Where: Novell, Open Source Technology Center (Building A) 1800 Novell Place Provo, Utah 84606 Map
Website: http://utah.wordcamp.org/
Price: $20 - Buy Tickets
Video of Howard Tayler’s keynote address from UTOSC 2008 is now available at opensourcetv.tv.
Howard Tayler, the creator of popular web comic Schlock Mercenary (available at schlockmercenary.com), spoke on Friday, 29 August, about how he makes money while giving stuff away.
If you missed the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference or attended and want to relive a piece of it, you’re in luck.
OpenSourceTV.tv, a service provided by KnowledgeBlue and the Utah Open Source Foundation, is now (finally) up and currently features video of UTOSC keynote addresses given by Paul Frields (of Fedora/Red Hat) and Mac Newbold (of Code Greene).
More video from UTOSC 2008 will be showing up on OpenSourceTV.tv in the weeks to come as well as video from UTOSC 2007 and other events.
On Thursday, August 28, the Utah Open Source Conference begins. Presentations start at 12:30 p.m., but Phil Windley will be kicking off the conference with a CTO Breakfast from 7:30 - 11:00 a.m. in the Salt Lake Community College Student Center, room 221/223.
The CTO breakfast is an informal monthly gathering of leaders within Utah’s tech community. You don’t have to be a CTO to come. “Anyone interested in product development in high tech is welcome,” Windley says.
The SLCC Student Center has a variety of food vendors on the first floor. Get what you want to eat and jet upstairs so you can participate in the CTO Breakfast. For information on parking and where all UTOSC activities will be taking place, see this map.
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is the second annual gathering of open source enthusiasts in Utah. Following the amazingly successful first conference held in 2007 at Novell’s Open Source Technology Center in Provo, UT, this year’s conference is being held on the Redwood campus of Salt Lake Community College near Salt Lake City.
For more information about this conference, to register to attend, or to see a really neat website driven by open source software, go over to <http://2008.utosc.com/>.
UTOSC 2008 has chosen to utilize eventbrite as its registration system this year. To register for the Utah Open Source Conference 2008, visit <http://utosc2008.eventbrite.com/> and sign up today. We accept credit cards (through paypal) and payment at the door. We’re looking forward to seeing you soon.
There’s been a lot of talk about this thing called ‘Family Day’, being held on Saturday, August 30. Its been in the planning for some time now and things are very close to finalization. Because of this, its time to reveal what family day is and how it will work.
Some of the items should be clear, the general idea is that any attendee can bring their family along and enjoy some family activities. Because Utah is a very family based community, UTOSC 2008 is focusing on technologies for the family.
Located just outside the SI Building at the Salt Lake Community College, will be large inflated activities for children young and old. Volunteers from UTOSC will be stationed around this area making sure the kids have a safe and fun time.
If the kids are a bit older, they might enjoy our try-it lab, and parents will get an opportunity to see the OLPC (one laptop per child) as well as some machines running educational software and possibly a mythtv setup as well.
Lunch will be picnic style where families can bring blankets and sit out on the grassy knolls near the venue and enjoy the BBQ food from The Smokehouse restaurant. There will be chairs and tables near the student center for your use as well. The Smokehouse will be offering southern bbq meals for a good price. They did a great job for us last year so expect some great food.
Drop the kids off at the bouncy houses and plan on spending an hour or two in sessions you’d like to see with your significant other. After the sessions, feel free to kick around for lunch and then peruse the try-it lab. Sounds like a great day for the family!
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is the second annual gathering of open source enthusiasts in Utah. Following the amazingly successful first conference held in 2007 at Novell’s Open Source Technology Center in Provo, UT, this year’s conference is being held on the Redwood campus of Salt Lake Community College near Salt Lake City.
For more information about this conference, to register to attend, or to see a really neat website driven by open source software, go over to <http://2008.utosc.com/>.
UTOSC 2008 has chosen to utilize eventbrite as its registration system this year. To register for the Utah Open Source Conference 2008, visit <http://utosc2008.eventbrite.com/> and sign up today. We accept credit cards (through paypal) and payment at the door. We’re looking forward to seeing you soon.
Mark your calendar and clear your schedule! Christer Edwards, instructor of Linux courseware for Guru Labs and a very active participant in the Ubuntu Linux community, will be giving one of several local keynote presentations at the Utah Open Source Conference schedule Aug 28-30.
Christer will be presenting Saturday, Aug. 30 at 8:30 a.m., so limit your normal late Friday-night activities, get to bed early, or grab a caffeinated beverage on the way. You don’t want to miss Christer’s presentation!
Christer presented at OSCON — O’Reilly’s annual open source conference held this year in Portland, OR — in July on “Using Ubuntu in the Enterprise” and he will treat UTOSC attendees to a similar, perhaps improved, presentation.
When Christer isn’t hopping around the country teaching Linux courses for Guru Labs or working on various projects within the Ubuntu community, he lives in Farmington with his wife of three years and their six month-old daughter.
Christer has been publishing tutorials on a variety of topics for users of Ubuntu Linux on his weblog site — <http://www.ubuntu-tutorials.com/> — for over two years. After starting the Utah Ubuntu team in 2005, Christer helped organize Ubuntu communities in every state in the United States in 2007. Within Ubuntu, Christer has had his hands dirty in many aspects of the project including virtualization (KVM), the availability of SELinux for Ubuntu, and managing an Ubuntu package called Origami, a Stanford Folding @ Home frontend.
Christer’s presentation will outline lesser-known enterprise features of Ubuntu like repository mirroring, automated installation, network installation, ActiveDirectory service connections, and more.
“Ubuntu does have more to offer than just a shiny desktop, it has many of the same ‘enterprise’ features you may be used to in RHEL/CentOS, etc.” Christer said.
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is the second annual gathering of open source enthusiasts in Utah. Following the amazingly successful first conference held in 2007 at Novell’s Open Source Technology Center in Provo, UT, this year’s conference is being held on the Redwood campus of Salt Lake Community College near Salt Lake City.
For more information about this conference, to register to attend, or to see a really neat website driven by open source software, go over to <http://2008.utosc.com/>.
UTOSC 2008 has chosen to utilize eventbrite as its registration system this year. To register for the Utah Open Source Conference 2008, visit <http://utosc2008.eventbrite.com/> and sign up today. We accept credit cards (through paypal) and payment at the door. We’re looking forward to seeing you soon.
As an effort to help other community conferences in Utah and to help our overall technology Mecca, I’d like to invite anyone/everyone attending the Utah Open Source Conference 2008 to consider also attending the newly formed WordCamp Utah.
This one day event, held Saturday, September 27, 2008, is the latest project from our very own Joseph Scott, who will be presenting on WordPress Performance and Scalability at UTOSC 2008, has been hard at work planning and prepping for what will become the Inaugural WordCamp Utah.
If you are a Wordpress user as I am, it would be in your best interest to come down to the Open Source Technology Center at Novell and listen to such presenters as: Matt Mullenweg, Founder of Wordpress/Automattic, Alex King, wordpress developer and theme creator extraordinaire and many others.
We at the Utah Open Source Foundation have been working to help other local conferences succeed as well. In the true nature of open source, competition makes everything better. We look forward to your attendance at UTOSC 2008 and hope you will consider attending WordCamp Utah as well.
During UTOSC 2007, we opened our conference with an opening keynote dinner, featuring two great speakers, Matt Asay of Alfresco and Bruce Perens, well known free software advocate. At these two keynote presentations, attendees were provided with great insight into the open source world, its technology and how great things can become greater with open source software and its communities.
In addition, there was a great buffet table full of food, well, because computer geeks like to eat! And last but not least, the findlay quartet played for us, and they will be returning to entertain us with some classical music.
In 2008, we decided that the opening evening keynote dinner was a great idea. We’re keeping the same format, and providing food and drink for all that attend. This year will be more grand, UTOSC has secured the Oak Room at the Salt Lake Community College Student Center. With comfortable table seating for approximately 300, and a podium and microphone for the presenters, UTOSC 2008 is sure to end its first full day of presentations with great keynotes from Mac Newbold (Code Greene) and Paul Frields (Fedora Project/Red Hat).
The full schedule of speakers and events is being finalized right now, and we anticipate a final version very soon. In the meantime, we have the list of presenters, along with times and dates available on our website, <http://2008.utosc.com/speaker/list/>
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is the second annual gathering of open source enthusiasts in Utah. Following the amazingly successful first conference held in 2007 at Novell’s Open Source Technology Center in Provo, UT, this year’s conference is being held on the Redwood campus of Salt Lake Community College near Salt Lake City.
For more information about this conference, to register to attend, or to see a really neat website driven by open source software, go over to <http://2008.utosc.com/>.
UTOSC 2008 has chosen to utilize eventbrite as its registration system this year. To register for the Utah Open Source Conference 2008, visit <http://utosc2008.eventbrite.com/> and sign up today. We accept credit cards (through paypal) and payment at the door. We’re looking forward to seeing you soon.
For those of you who are in the know in the local technology scene, you know that Utah has a lot of good choices when it comes to successful small businesses. Today, we announce one of our local small business leaders who’s accomplished a great deal and helped the community as well.
Mac Newbold - Code Greene (Chief Technical Officer & Partner)
Mac has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Computer Science from the University of Utah. He began intense involvement in web development in 2001 and has been an avid member of the Utah PHP User group (UPHPU) since 2004. In 2005, Mac co-founded Code Greene, a web development company, which has now grown to 10 team members. Code Greene develops using almost exclusively open source software and platforms. Code Greene helps clients make money by helping them streamline their businesses with intelligent dynamic websites and business process automation.
Keynote Title: How To Leverage Open Source in a For-Profit Business
Lessons learned by helping hundreds of companies develop an online presence and automate their businesses by using open source software and development platforms.
Mac will be warming up the crowd for the Paul Frields keynote on Thursday, August 28, 2008. He will begin at 6:30pm at the UTOSC Keynote Dinner.
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is the second annual gathering of open source enthusiasts in Utah. Following the amazingly successful first conference held in 2007 at Novell’s Open Source Technology Center in Provo, UT, this year’s conference is being held on the Redwood campus of Salt Lake Community College near Salt Lake City.
For more information about this conference, to register to attend, or to see a really neat website driven by open source software, go over to <http://2008.utosc.com/>.
UTOSC 2008 has chosen to utilize eventbrite as its registration system this year. To register for the Utah Open Source Conference 2008, visit <http://utosc2008.eventbrite.com/> and sign up today. We accept credit cards (through paypal) and payment at the door. We’re looking forward to seeing you soon.
Its the last day for early bird registration for UTOSC, <http://2008.utosc.com>. After today, prices go up to $100 ($50 w/LUG discounts).
Register with eventbrite today! <http://utosc2008.eventbrite.com>
See you all there!
A few days ago, we mentioned the Dining and Lodging information that has been posted on the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference website for those looking for suggestions for where to crash and/or where to refuel while you’re attending the conference this month.
Thanks to Paul Frields, Fedora Project Leader, we now have an additional resource: A Google Maps page which highlights hotels, restaurants, and other notable locations around the conference. As if that wasn’t enough, the Google Maps application allows collaboration from multiple individuals which means if you know of a restaurant or hotel worth recommending to other people who are coming to the conference, you can add it to the map for others to see. Amazing!
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is the second annual gathering of open source enthusiasts in Utah. Following the amazingly successful first conference held in 2007 at Novell’s Open Source Technology Center in Provo, UT, this year’s conference is being held on the Redwood campus of Salt Lake Community College near Salt Lake City.
For more information about this conference, to register to attend, or to see a really neat website driven by open source software, go over to <http://2008.utosc.com/>.
I’m sitting in the airport waiting to head out to San Francisco. Starting tomorrow as many know is Linux World Expo. I’m really excited and can’t wait. I’m going so that I can help with the opensuse booth. This year there is an openSUSE community day. If you go to that link there is a list of the events. They have some really good presenters that will cover some really cool topics. So, if you are passing though make sure that you stop by the openSUSE community day. I can’t wait!
From what I understand there are some really good booths to stop by as well, One of them is Linux Journal. I’ve been working with them to get our conference in their magazine and the person that I was talking to said there will be some sort of really cool secret swag this year.
If you are going to be there, I’ll see you then.
While you were out, your mom called and asked that we tell you, “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, leave your muddy shoes outside… And, make sure you register for the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference before August 7 because that’s when early registration ends and the price goes up!”
She added, “If your father finds out you waited until registration costs $100, he will not be happy with you.”
It sounds like she’s pretty interested in your going to the conference. Make sure you invite her and your dad (and other family members) to come on Saturday, August 30 because that’s Family Day. They can come (for free) and learn how open source can enrich their lives too.
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is the second annual gathering of open source enthusiasts in Utah. Following the amazingly successful first conference held in 2007 at Novell’s Open Source Technology Center in Provo, UT, this year’s conference is being held on the Redwood campus of Salt Lake Community College near Salt Lake City.
For more information about this conference, to register to attend, or to see a really neat website driven by open source software, go over to <http://2008.utosc.com/>.
I’ve been very busy this last two weeks updating pages and working on finalizing details for UTOSC 2008, held August 28-30, 2008. For instance, the Fedora booth is coming along nicely. For a conference of around 400, we should have a pretty good booth turnout. I had Jeffrey Tadlock, Paul Frields (who’s also keynoting btw) and its possible other NA Ambassadors may attend. I’m really excited about this development.
In addition, Joe Brockmeier of OpenSUSE will also be keynoting and we’ve got quite a list of presenters on our website. Our goal is to help open source grow in Utah, and by providing this conference once a year, we can help our local LUGs and open source leaders. We have approximately 50 presentations, plus events and other fun stuff up our sleeve over this 3 day conference.
One of the great events returning this year is the Guru Labs Troubleshooting Challenge. We hope to have this event bigger and better this year, with cash prizes for the winner(s). There will be sign-ups available on Thursday morning at the registration booth and the contest will run all day Friday, crowning a winner Friday night!
Another great return from last year is KnowledgeBlue. With opensourceTV, they’ll be recording the video for several of our presentations and keynotes. They’ll be working just like last year (only better) to provide interviews as well with some of the leaders of the open source community. We expect you all will enjoy the videos as they go up on youtube. This year, they will focus on multiple angles and getting a good quality presentation from the presenters.
Lastly, I’d like to talk a little bit about Family Day at UTOSC, August 30, 2008. If you take a look at the presentations on Saturday, you’ll notice a bit of a trend. With a few exceptions, presentations are intended to help the family. Also, we are working on activities for the kiddies such as an OLPC, videos on MythTV, edubuntu, Fedora Electronics Lab demos and more in our try-it lab. We’re also working to acquire a moon bounce and sumo suits (for the big kids). Saturday looks to be a ton of fun.
NOTE: This doesn’t mean that we have enough family stuff, and in fact, we really don’t. One thing I’d like to see, is a presentation on content filtering for the family. Something like “Howto use Dan’s Guardian effectively” or a discussion of pfsense, smoothwall or other firewalling/filtering tools. If you have a presentation you’d like to suggest in this area, please let me know by commenting or emailing me.
I hope to see many of you there as the cost is quite low at $70 and if you are LUG member, its only $35 until August 7 for the early bird pricing. Read more on our website at http://2008.utosc.com or register directly with eventbrite at http://utosc2008.eventbrite.com.
See you all there.
Herlo
We're about one month away from the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference and it's shaping up to be a sweet conference. This year's conference will be Thursday, August 28 through Saturday, August 30 and will be held at Salt Lake Community College Redwood Campus.
Keynote presentations will be given by Paul Frields, Fedora Project Leader and Joe Brockmeier, OpenSUSE Community Leader.
Over 50 presentations by members open source community, both local and abroad, have been approved, including one by yours truly: Tools for video and images.
I should mention that I've been very involved with the planning and execution of this years conference and I've been named a "trustee" of the Utah Open Source Foundation. I am thrilled to be a part of this great organization!
This year adds many new things to UTOSC including "Family Day" (Saturday, 30 Aug) which is the day to bring your spouse and/or children. There will be plenty of presentations on Family Day geared at those just starting out with open source software and tackling conventional tasks like digital photos, desktop publishing, and genealogy. Plus, we're planning on having games and activities for the whole family.
If you have not already registered for the Utah Open Source Conference, it's not too late. If you register before August 7, you can qualify for the early bird rate of $70/person. If you are a member of a participating local user group, you can qualify for a discounted rate. Talk to your group leaders for more information.
Even the geekiest of geeks have to eat and sleep, so for attendees of the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference, we’ve put together a list of restaurants and hotels near the conference location (Salt Lake Community College, Redwood Campus) and around the Salt Lake Valley.
You’ll find this information at <http://2008.utosc.com/pages/lodgingdining>.
Check back as we may be adding more information to the page before the conference begins.
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is the second annual gathering of open source enthusiasts in Utah. Following the amazingly successful first conference held in 2007 at Novell’s Open Source Technology Center in Provo, UT, this year’s conference is being held on the Redwood campus of Salt Lake Community College near Salt Lake City.
For more information about this conference, to register to attend, or to see a really neat website driven by open source software, go over to <http://2008.utosc.com/>.
We’ve set up a new mailing list for all attendees of the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference and we’ve prepopulated the list membership with those people who attended the conference in 2007. This utos-attendees list is a perfect way to ask questions, share information, and stay up to date with the latest news about the conference.
If you’re coming to the conference from out of town, the utos-attendees list is a great way to learn about your lodging options while you’re at the conference. If you’re looking for activities to do after conference sessions end at the end of the day, the utos-attendees list would be a great way to find out what people are doing.
To subscribe to (or, heaven forbid, unsubscribe from) this mailing list, go to http://utos.org/mailman/listinfo/utos-attendees/.
It has finally arrived! The list of approved speakers (though it might not be final and more might be added). For those of you out there waiting to see if it is worth paying for admission to the Utah Open Source Conference, the wait is over. Not that this should have ever been questioned. If you see your name and wonder why you haven’t received a notice yet, its on its way. Congrats to all the presenters. See you all then!
Clint and company have been working hard to code up the beautiful and illustrious UTOSC website so you can see the schedule of speakers for this year’s Utah Open Source Conference.
It’s done!
It’s now time to drop everything; Don’t walk, RUN to the schedule pages and start figuring out what sessions you’re going to attend at this year’s conference.
If you haven’t yet registered for the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference, what are you waiting for?!
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is the second annual gathering of open source enthusiasts in Utah. Following the amazingly successful first conference held in 2007 at Novell’s Open Source Technology Center in Provo, UT, this year’s conference is being held on the Redwood campus of Salt Lake Community College near Salt Lake City.
For more information about this conference, to register to attend, or to see a really neat website driven by open source software, go over to <http://2008.utosc.com/>.
It’s time to let loose information about yet-another keynote speaker for the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference. We are very pleased to announce that attendees at the upcoming conference will have the fortune of hearing from Paul Frields, current Fedora Project Leader (FPL).
Before being employed by Red Hat and serving in the FPL position, Paul worked as an engineer for the U.S. government, but has been intimately involved in the Fedora Project community since 2003 (after Red Hat created the Fedora Project out of the ashes of the free Red Hat Linux distribution). Paul’s involvement with Fedora has included working on and chairing the steering committee for the Fedora Documentation Project.
Paul lives in Fredericksburg, VA with his wife and 2 children where he also helps manage FredLUG - the Fredericksburg Linux User Group.
Paul’s personal blog illustrates that he represents many in the open source community. In addition to being a outspoken advocate of open source software and the communities surrounding open source projects, Paul loves music (playing and listening) and good movies. He lists as one thing he hates that he can’t just play music and hack on Linux all day.
As the FPL, Paul claims accountability for everything in the Fedora project. He works with the Fedora Program Manager, Fedora Engineering Manager, and Fedora Community Architecture teams to make sure Fedora is on track and making progress toward meeting the goals of their next release and supporting the community using the current releases. Paul also manages a handful of Fedora Project packages.
Paul plans to talk about the Fedora Project in his keynote presentation, how it came about, where it’s going, and some of the challenges it has faced in its five year existence.
We are truly lucky to have Paul Frields along with Joe Brockmeier as keynote speakers at this year’s conference!
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is the second annual gathering of open source enthusiasts in Utah. Following the amazingly successful first conference held in 2007 at Novell’s Open Source Technology Center in Provo, UT, this year’s conference is being held on the Redwood campus of Salt Lake Community College near Salt Lake City.
For more information about this conference, to register to attend, or to see a really neat website driven by open source software, go over to <http://2008.utosc.com/>.
One of the major projects that I have been working on for the last year or so has been the Utah Open Source Foundation and their annual conference. I’m incharge of sponsorships and marketing, so if you are interested in sponsoring or helping us market the conference better… Please let me know!
Yesterday Jayce, one of the guys in our group, was interviewed on couchcast.org. It was really good, so if you missed it you are lucky they have a stream up that you can listen too. Plus, I think there is a discount code that was announced there.
A direct link to the article and stream: Utah Open Source Conference Preview - Jayce Hall of UTOS - Jul 07, 2008
As you may know, the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is coming up in less than two months (28 - 30 August, 2008). In order to pull off another successful conference, we need help, possibly your help. In addition to getting a warm feeling inside, conference volunteers may be privy to other benefits:
It’s an opportunity to be a part of history in the making. The second Utah Open Source Conference is destined to be just as groundbreaking as the first.
Now, we’re not talking about garbage-dumping duty. We’re talking about important, critical functions to the conference. Here are some of the positions that need to be filled:
There will probably be more volunteer positions created as the conference approaches.
There’s no better way to experience the Utah Open Source Conference than from right in the center of it. Volunteer positions expose you to the inner workings of a conference like no other opportunity.
If you’re interested in volunteering, send us some e-mail to volunteer@utos.org with your contact information and what you may be interested in doing.
For information on volunteer positions, see http://wiki.utos.org/UTOSC2008/VolunteerPositions.
Last week, we announced that Jayce^ Hall will be on couchcast.org. Well that day is today, so come and listen to him and the couchcast crew as they discuss who will be at the Utah Open Source Conference 2008.
Here’s the details again just in case you missed them the first time:
When: July 7, 2008 12pm MDT (Today)
Where: http://couchcast.org
See you all there!
UTOSC 2008 abstract submission has ended. And while that part of the process is over, we now have the task of selecting presenters. For those of you who have submitted presentations, or those in the community we’ve contacted, feel free to vote for your favorites in our digg style voting system.
As mentioned before, login and click on the “SPEAKERS” link at the UTOSC 2008 website. Vote for or against the presentations (or don’t vote for a presentation at all). But hurry, because voting privileges are only good until July 10, 2008.
On July 15, 2008, a tentative presentation schedule will be delivered. In addition, because UTOSC 2008 has more presenters than we can possibly take, many presenters will be asked to be alternates. This selection date should give you almost 45 days to prepare your presentation.
Don’t forget, registration is open as well, visit http://2008.utosc.com/ to register today. If you haven’t already, contact your Local User Group for discount codes today.
We hope to see you all at Utah Open Source Conference 2008.
Cheers,
Clint
For those of you who’ve been considering submitting a presentation for the Utah Open Source Conference, its not yet too late! But you only have until July 1 (that’s Tomorrow) to submit your presentation.
The selection committee is currently voting on presentations and will be doing so until July 10. In addition, we’re going to be extending an invitation to any and all potential speakers to help us select the best presentations for our conference. As a potential speaker, just click on the “SPEAKERS” link at the UTOSC 2008 website and start voting for your favorite presentations starting July 1. But hurry, because voting privileges are only good until July 10, 2008.
On July 15, 2008, we’ll announce which presentation have been selected, along with a tentative time and date for each. In addition, because UTOSC 2008 has more presenters than we can possibly take, many presenters will be asked to be alternates. This selection date should give you almost 45 days to prepare your presentation.
Either way, we’ll be having a great conference and we look forward seeing everyone at the Utah Open Source Conference 2008.
Cheers,
Clint
Hey everybody!
Guess what! The Utah Open Source Foundation’s very own Jason Hall (Jayce^ [the face]) will be discussing the Utah Open Source Conference with Robert Merrill et al, on CouchCast.
CouchCast is a local show with topics around technology and business. Its a call-in show, so be sure to get on the line in advance and ask questions. Feel free to dial in around noon, 347-324-3797 and ask pretty much anything you like.
Discussions will include keynote announcements, presentations, family day, the Utah Open Source Awards, the troubleshooting challenge (last years big hit) and many other aspects of the conference at the end of August.
Jayce will also be discussing the Utah Open Source Foundation, its purpose, goals and plans for 2009. Things like live streaming of Local User Group meetings, podcasts and other events to make it easier to spread the word about open source in Utah.
Feel free to check it out, here’s how:
When: July 7, 2008 12pm MDT
Where: http://couchcast.org (yes, its flash, sorry) –> hosted by blogtalkradio.
Enjoy the show!
Hi all,
Its been a few days since we blogged about the Utah Open Source Conference 2008 (in fact, more like 2+ weeks). But I’m back now and ready to let you guys know that while there might be a few more bumps in our migration path, most of the Utah Open Source servers are up and working well.
We have been busy lately, preparing for an exciting and fun Utah Open Source Conference 2008. New features continue to crop up on our main site. Check them out and start watching for speakers as we’ll be approving presentations over the next few weeks. The selection committee, made up of many professional geeks, LUG leaders and others, has been madly voting for their favorites so it looks to be a good list of presentations.
As of right now, UTOSC 2008 will begin in approximately 63 days. And due to this, I’ve taken the time to create a little javascript that can be included in your site, with a neat countdown. Have a look at the right hand side of our site.
We’d like to invite everyone to put this link on their website to help us get more people interested in the countdown. Basically, this is a very similar countdown script to the ones released by each of the big Linuxes (Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE).
Just stick this code anywhere on your site:
<script id=“utosc-banner”
type=“text/javascript”
src=“http://dl.utosc.com/08/scripts/release-counter-ext.js”>
</script>
You should get something similar to this:
See you all at the Utah Open Source Conference 2008!
Cheers,
Clint
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference is coming up fast, as you know. If you would like to present on a topic at the conference, there’s no time like NOW to whip up a response to the Call For Papers (if you have not already).
You only have until June 1 to get that paper turned in. You can submit your proposed topic by going to the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference website and clicking on the Call For Papers link.
If you’re not sure where to begin, check out our previous blog post about the Call For Papers.
Not only is 2008 the second year we will be holding the Utah Open Source Conference, it is also the second year we will be recognizing and awarding four remarkable individuals as part of the Utah Open Source Awards ceremony at the conference.
The Utah Open Source Awards will be given in four categories:
In 2007, awards were given in three categories as the Education category was not added until this year. The recipients of the 2007 Utah Open Source Awards were:
Now is the time for you to close your eyes and search deep in the crevices of your mind of who within the local community has made a positive impact on your experience using open source software. It could be someone who writes helpful documentation or blog posts. Perhaps you know someone who has developed valuable open source software. Maybe it’s someone who has made a difference in encouraging adoption and understanding of open source software. Whoever it is, concentrate on them. Now, imagine them receiving a big round of applause and a cool gift as thanks from the community. Okay, open your eyes.
When you have thought of at least one person, send a quick e-mail message to awards@utos.org with the name and a brief explanation of why you think this person is deserving of a Utah Open Source Award. There’s no limit to how many people you can nominate, but you can only submit nominations until August 1.
Winners will be announced (and awarded) during the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference held August 28-30, 2008 at the Salt Lake Community College Redwood Campus.
Mailing lists can be a pain in the butt, especially when discussions spiral into topics about which pizza delivery company is best, which text editor is best, which Linux distribution is best, which caffeinated beverage is best, etc.
We at Utah Open Source (UTOS) know you work hard day in and day out and deserve a break from the hardship of having to deal with meaningless discussions about what’s best. We give you something better — perhaps the best mailing list ever: utos-announce. We created this list so we can mail out announcements about upcoming UTOS events, but you can use it too, to announce anything you’ve got coming up… well, as long as it has something to do with open source in Utah.
Subscribing to the utos-announce list is simple: Go to < http://utos.org/mailman/listinfo/utos-announce >, enter your e-mail address, your name (optional), a password (also optional), and select the Subscribe button. If you’ve followed these instructions so far without making any mistakes or being distracted by a flamewar continuing on one of the other mailing lists you’re subscribed to, a confirmation message will be sent to your e-mail address with instructions on how to confirm your subscription. Follow those instructions (They’re real, real simple… like “click on this” simple.) and you’ll be ready to receive amazing, exciting announcements!
Subscribing to the utos-announce list is a great way to stay informed about the latest developments of the upcoming UTOSC conference. Find out who the keynote speakers will be before the story is aired on the local evening news. Learn what exciting schwag and promotions conference sponsors will be offering in their booths. Get the low-down on entertainment options while you’re attending the Utah Open Source Conference. Ahhh… the possibilities are endless.
What? You’re still here? Go subscribe already!
Before there can be another Utah Open Source Conference in 2008, there needs to be a list of people who will present on various topics. This is how YOU can contribute to the conference: by being a presenter!
The UTOSC Call For Papers begins now at <http://2008.utosc.com/>! Papers can be submitted until June 1, after which time chosen presenters will be announced.
Some people are natural public speakers and presenters while others are reluctant to imagine themselves in front of a group of people at a conference. Because this year’s Utah Open Source Conference theme is “HOWTO”, nobody should feel unqualified or inexperienced to present. We want presenters who can share information at all levels.
And now, some tough questions.
You should talk about Open Source software, philosophy, technology, etc. The theme for this year’s conference is “HOWTO” so your topic can be targeted at beginners, experts, or someone in between.
It may help to see what topics were presented last year. Go to <http://www.utosc.com/2007/sessions/> for information about 2007’s conference sessions.
This year, several sessions will be targetted at beginning or “newbie” users including those who are family members of an Open Source geek. Basic sessions on using OpenOffice.org, GIMP, or K3B are good examples of these types of sessions.
We are asking for presentations in one of the following categories, so bear that in mind also:
You should come up with a brief outline, or abstract, of your presentation and who would be interested. You should also provide some information about you, your experience with open source software and the specific aspects you’re proposing to speak about.
Here’s an example of an abstract:
Title: Open source home security This presentation will outline how I have used a Linux server, IP cameras, and open source software, to provide around-the-clock video and image surveilance of my home which is archived for later viewing and is available for viewing via the Web when I’m not at home. The presentation will describe how to set up a system similar to mine and what alternatives are available for software and hardware in the system.
There are lots of perks reserved for people chosen to present at the Utah Open Source Conference!
Go to <http://2008.utosc.com/> and get yourself an account. Then you can submit as many presentation ideas as you like.
Tomorrow night, 7pm, in Murray at my house, we’ll be eating pizza and hacking on ConMan again.
If you are interested in joining the fun, please feel free to stop by and learn some kick-a** django skillz.
The last two HackNights were all-nighters and were very successful. Tomorrow’s HackNight is to refactor the views a little and build out the blog portion of the app as well. Feel free to come by and stay as long or as little as you like.
See you all there.
Cheers,
Clint
The 2008 Utah Open Source Conference, to be held at Salt Lake Community College’s Redwood Campus August 28-30, 2008, will be a great opportunity for open source enthusiasts to gather, socialize, learn, and exchange ideas. In these ways, the 2008 UTOSC won’t be a lot different than the 2007 UTOSC. However, the planning and organizing team behind UTOSC 2008 does have some new and exciting changes for the 2008 conference.
In our previous blog posting, we described the theme the 2008 UTOSC is designed around: HOWTO. In this article, we’ll explain some of the ways we’re planning to abide by this theme.
The 2008 UTOSC is designed to be more friendly to “newbies,” people who have only had a limited amount of exposure to the open source world, and to family members of those who eat, drink, sleep and roll around in open source every moment of their geeky lives.
Conference sessions on Friday, August 29, will include sessions targeted at those just getting their feet wet. Topics may include “Installing Linux,” “Using OpenOffice.org,” “Introduction to open source social networking tools,” and “Understanding SSH.”
The planning and organizing committee is excited about getting family members involved in what would ordinarily be considered fairly exclusive to geeks. There will be plenty of activities and conference sessions Saturday, August 30 targeting children and significant others so they can learn how open source may benefit them. We’ll have games and educational software for the kids like SuperTuxCart, SuperTux, Planet Penguin Racer, Gcompris, and KDEEDU. Session topics may include “Open source digital scrapbooking,” “Open source for the musician and music enthusiast,” “Open source and family history,” and “Open source artistry.” Great fun for the entire family!
To make this happen, admission on Saturday will be free to those who attend with a registered conference attendee.
Earlier this year, Utah Open Source Foundation (UTOSF) Head Cheese, Clint Savage, attended FUDCon, a conference for users and developers of the Fedora Linux distribution. One of the days of this conference was set up as a BarCamp, where attendees meet at the beginning of the day and decide, as a group, what conference topics and activities will take place that day. The BarCamp process is fairly informal, but there is one rule: Every attendee has to participate either by presenting or facilitating in at least one session.
Clint was totally amazed by this process and said it was one of the most satisfying conference experiences he’s had. He vowed that the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference would include one day of BarCamp. As a result, Thursday, August 28, the first day of the conference, will be held BarCamp-style. Be sure to show up early so you can participate in the entire process.
We’ll be posting more information in the days and weeks to come with more information about UTOSC 2008 including a Call For Papers and a Call For Volunteers. If you haven’t already, start thinking of topics you could present at this year’s conference with the above information in mind. Because this conference caters to a very diverse audience of varying levels of experience using open source or even using computers, nobody should feel they don’t have something to contribute.
For those of you waiting with bated breath, wait no longer. The Utah Open Source Conference volunteers have been hard at work year preparing an even more awesome conference for 2008.
Because 2007 was such a grand success, we’ve made some minor changes and improvements to help with a smoother conference. This year’s conference is at a different location and we’ve added a full day on Thursday.
The Utah Open Source Conference 2008 will be held at the Salt Lake Community College, Redwood Road campus August 28 - 30, 2008.
This years theme is HOWTO. The concept is that within the technology, education, community and business tracks, there will be plenty to talk about.
These are just a few of the many things that HOWTO theme will accomplish during the Utah Open Source Conference (UTOSC) 2008.
The Salt Lake Community College Computer Science department is excited to be a sponsor of the 2008 conference and will be using it to improve students’ awareness and understanding of open source software.
The Utah Open Source Foundation is also re-dedicating itself to ensure the pricing structure remains reasonable for those who’d like to come and are on a budget. The pricing structure right now is tentative, but no major increases in the fees are planned for attendees.
We currently have a tentative plan on our wiki, so feel free to have a look. If you have suggestions, please join the chat anytime in the #utos channel on irc.freenode.net or email clints at utos dot org with your comments.
Watch closely over the next week for the Call for Papers, updates on the basic schedule, and the Call for Volunteers among other exciting announcements, including our keynote speakers.
See you all in August.
Clint Savage
Founder, Utah Open Source Foundation
The UTOS Confrence Manager or ConMan, is really coming along. Tonight’s HackNight didn’t last quite as long as last weekend, but there was some definite improvements.
One of the really nice improvements was the addition of the logo by James Hancock who’s really good with his inkscape skills. Other improvements included a better gui, backend administration, refactoring much of the user creation to better accommodate future enhancements.
One of the best features that has been added tonight was the blog functionality by Kevin Kubasik of GNOME fame. When a conference is upcoming and during the conference itself, this feature will be front and center. Nice work!
Things that are left include registration, including payments with google checkout, paypal or a merchant backend. Sponsor management is another, as well as schedules for volunteers, speakers, attendees and sessions, bofs and events.
I’m even sure there are items not yet considered above, but that’s the functionality we hope to have in place within the next few months. Feel free to download the project, and submit patches back to us anytime, we dig the help.
We’re looking forward to deploying the Call for Papers components tomorrow or Sunday in our official call for papers announcement, so keep your eyes peeled.
Cheers,
Clint
A special thanks to Guru Labs, Kevin Kubasik, John Weis, James Hancock, Will Smith and Trevor Sharpe for sticking it out much of Saturday night and into the wee hours of Sunday night.
The chinese food arrived at around 9pm, and we sat around talking design and ideas for the next 30 minutes, and about 11pm we really started digging into the project.
After about 12-13 hours of good coding, and time troubleshooting, learning, drinking loads of caffeine and a bunch of other good stuff, I’m proud to announce the first real progress on the ConMan project from UTOSF.
The general idea is to improve upon otherwise incomplete or sucky open source conferencing systems. ConMan (Conference Manager) is seeming to become quite good, with some good coding from Kevin Kubasik, good web design by John and some good perserverence as well by yours truly. Most of the group crashed out somewhere between 2am and 8am, Kevin and I however, continued to hack until we had something semi-solid at around 11:30am.
It was a great time had by all and a good framework has been built. Django seems like the perfect solution for this and we will even have CAPTCHA and email confirmation early in the 0.0.2 release.
For now though, if you are interested in seeing the Call for Papers, Call for Volunteers and Contact applications, please feel free to download it at http://code.google.com/p/utos-conman. We look forward to bug reports (which you can also make at the google code site, you just need a google account) and fixes in the future. Also any recommendations that are made will be taken into consideration.
In addition, keep an eye out for the “Call for Papers” to appear at http://2008.utosc.com very soon.
Cheers,
Clint Savage
The Utah Open Source Foundation, OpenSourceTV.tv and KnowledgeBlue are excited to announce another video from the Utah Open Source Conference 2007.
This time, meeting with Doran “fozz” Barton, its Jared Smith of Digium. Fozz and Jared discuss the future of Asterisk and Digium’s role in bringing Asterisk to the general public.
Here’s the link, enjoy.
Cheers,
Clint Savage
Its coming soon, the Utah Open Source Conference 2008!
and we need some help getting our registration system off the ground!
If you are interested in working on a really cool project, want to learn Django and enjoy some good food, come on over and hack.
The Hackfest will be held at my new home in Murray, Utah! So come and enjoy the new surroundings and hopefully we’ll have the projector and screen up, which means movies and video games. I’m also working on internet access (its Qwest/XMission for now. Soon to be UTOPIA/XMission), but it should be installed by Saturday. If not, we’ll let everyone know an updated location nearby.
Here’s the details:
Date/Time: Saturday, January 26, 2008 / 7pm
Location: Herlo’s house: 5225 Gravenstein Park, Murray, Utah 84123 - Map
Please feel free to ping me on IRC if you have any question.
Cheers,
Clint
