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Video of Christer Edwards keynote address from UTOSC 2008 is now available at opensourcetv.tv.
Christer Edwards
Christer Edwards, instructor for Guru Labs and Ubuntu-Utah member presented on Saturday, 30 August 2008 on Ubuntu in the Enterprise.
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.
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.
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.
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
Well, the speculation is over, the rumor and anticipation is done, Steve's Keynote has been delivered. There were a number of updates, and two new products, that were announced. Let me go over them one by one, and give you my reaction to each of them.
Time Capsule
Time Capsule is a new device that Apple has that combines the Airport Extreme with a backup drive already on board. So, instead of getting another drive and adding it to your Airport Extreme, you have just the one device. Very handy, very popular, very much in need when using Time Machine to back up your data. If you don't already have a server running at home that will let you back up your machine, this is a great idea.
At the time of the announcement, I was rather luke-warm about this device, since it is kind of a watered down home SAN, but it didn't really grab me. Now, I think it's something that I would like to have. It integrates with Time Machine well, so there isn't a lot of configuration and thought that needs to go into backing up your system. It just does it for you. Of course, you can save a lot of space if you only back up your Users folder, which backs up all the user folders and configuration files. ^_^
iPhone Updates
Great idea, adding a lot of functionality to the already popular phone. But I don't have a phone, and I'm not sure I will ever get a phone. Why wasn't there an option to tether a Bluetooth keyboard? That, in my mind, would have been a much needed/wanted ability for the iPhone. Perhaps in future, as new software becomes more popular and functional with the SDK.
iPod Touch Updates
This was very much needed. It's about time! The update will be welcome for everyone that want's to have the functionality of the iPhone without wanting an actual phone. For the first time, I am seriously thinking of getting an iPod Touch. Course, if you already have one, the extra $20.00 seems a bit steep. Why charge for the upgrade?
iTunes Movie Rentals
We all knew this was coming, particularly since a lot of studios have been rather loose-lipped about the whole thing. It's a good move, in my mind. There are a lot of movies I have ripped into MP4 format that sit on a DVD somewhere, never to be watched. All the DVD's that we have purchased and have only watched once... It's a good move. And the price is about what I expected. The HD rental idea was pretty cool, though I wonder what the download rate would be.
Do I think it will change the industry? Not really. I think it will be more popular, easier to manage, and more natural for people because of their current use of iTunes, but ultimately the industry is too young to say that it will be changed forever by this announcement. But it does make using the current industry more simple to use. ^_^
Apple TV Take 2
Yes! It stores it's own media! Yes! The upgrade is free! Yes! This was the real announcement for me. The Apple TV had so much potential, but it felt like those of us using it for so long had been pretty much left out of the loop. It was great for sharing media from my wife's Mac, and still will be. But now we can rent movies to it easily, watch them, and have the movie automatically delete once we've watched it. Also, video podcasts can be downloaded and watched without having to use another machine. This was a great idea, and I'm glad Apple went with it. ^_^
The price drop was also nice, though not significant enough to warrant another purchase of the 160 GB model (yet). Yet again, price begins to drag on my wants, reminding me of the needs that are more pressing. Oh well, perhaps soon.
Macbook Air
The rumor was pretty strong on this one, and I thought it would be something similar to the Eee PC by ASUS. The devil was in the details, depending on the type of drive, size, and features it carried. It turned out to be the same, much the same way a Honda Civic is the same thing as a Mercedes Benz. Here are the points:
1. Size: It's perfect for what I want. I need something small, easy to carry around in either a backpack, briefcase, or even a portfolio. That's why I wanted an iPod Slate to begin with. Something like that would have been perfect, and they have given me basically a Slate with the keyboard attached. It's nice and compact, if wider than I would have wanted (in comparison to my 12" Powerbook).
The thing is, I don't really need a 13" screen. I can deal with a 8" screen (I did with my NEC 120LT for a couple years, and it was great!). So the screen size isn't actually a benefit for me. It could be, if I needed to see something that big, and the resolution is right where I would want it to be. But a small screen I can live with.
2. Weight: Great weight. I like small laptops that are lightweight. My 120LT that I had for years was 2.2 pounds. That was perfect for running around. This gives me the ability to write documents, show presentations, carry my movies/TV shows with me, and having a full OS that will work with the classes I teach. And it's all in a small form device that is about the same size and width of a 30 page document (estimate only). That I like. It's perfect particularly for any instructor in Distance Education, who want's to have the power of a full-sized laptop, but save on space while traveling.
But how does it compare to the Eee PC? The Eee PC is lighter by a full pound. So even though the weight is great for the Macbook Air, it's still not the lightest option out there.
3. Drive: This is what concerned me the most. Solid State drives have a limited number of writes before it fails. Granted, pretty much everything could have the same, but a solid state drive is more limited. With a full OS writing to it constantly (log files, caching, deleting, etc.), it can fail rather quickly.
I had mentioned before in a previous post that if such a thing were to be developed, it would be nice to have an iPod Classic drive in the machine. And that's what they did. It's not really fast (4200 RPM), so don't expect to be gaming heavily on it, or producing video with Final Cut Pro. But it will do the job, and potentially last longer than a Solid State Drive.
Course, if you want speed, the 64 GB (compared to the Eee PC's max of 8 GB) will definitely give it to you...at a cost. That cost? $999. yep, the 4200 RPM PATA drive was a good choice. ^_^
One thing it can't do is boot from a USB drive, unlike the Eee PC. Of course, I could be wrong about that, but that is a huge bonus with the Eee PC. Sure the SSD drive may die on it after a few years, but you can still boot from either a USB drive, or an SD card. Therefore, you have a device that can outlast the SSD drive installed, as well as have multiple versions of the OS for the machine.
4. Peripherals: The Macbook Air was built to be wireless, and use wireless devices. Sure, you can have an external, USB powered Superdrive ($99 extra), or another USB device, but that's it. It doesn't even have a Firewire port, as you might expect. The Micro-DVI port looks interesting (almost like a 400 Firewire port??), but if you lose your adapter you are sunk. No one else will have one that will work with it, unless they have the same machine.
The wireless technology is what you would expect from Apple: 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1. There was a guess that it would include either UTMS or WiMAXX, but neither came about. I wouldn't mind WiMAXX... I like the idea and the technology. Perhaps in future incarnations of the Macbook Air as the technology begins to catch on. We will see.
The Eee PC has three USB ports, and an SD card slot. Great idea, but SD cards are easily lost (particularly if you are as disorganized as I am). But then, the USB ports could easily make up for that. Wireless is the standard 802.11g, which most people support.
5. Design: Quite frankly, the Macbook Air has a killer design. It's sleek, it's fancy, it's impressive. It will turn heads, and be the kind of tech status symbol that many people feel they need in their lives. Personally, it's not as important as a number of other features, but then I still like to have something that looks as good as it performs. The key there is as good as. I don't want something that looks fabulous, but totally bomb in performance. It still needs to do what I want it to do.
The Eee PC doesn't look as nice, but the ability to boot from any Linux distro at any time, while keeping your home folders on the main drive is pretty slick. The geek factor goes up pretty high at that point. Of course you can always tri-boot the Macbook Air, you just don't have the flexibility to move based on new storage.
6. Price: For those (two) of you who have followed my blog, you know that I pride myself on my Scottish heritage. It's in my Blog's name, I show it every April 6th (national Tartan Day!), and I try to show it in my purchasing of devices. I'm very wary of paying a load of money for a new thing just because it is "shiny". I want to have made an informed decision, and gone with the lowest bid.
Now, that doesn't mean that I automatically look at price! I look at quality, life expectancy, and multi-tasking my purchases. if it does one thing really well, but I can't do anything else with it, then I generally leave it be (unless it's under a dollar ^_^). So with high prices comes high expectations. If I can do the same thing with a lesser-priced device, I will go with the lesser priced device. It's simple rules of economics.
The Macbook Air is priced at $1,799.00, with an Education discount of $100. Good price? It hurt my wallet. I want the thing, but that's a bit much for me to muster. I need a new laptop, and I really would like it to be a Mac. It makes a $999.00 Macbook look a lot better. After all, it's just a little thicker, has more features, and weighs just two more pounds. I just can't put it in a Portfolio while on the go.
Course, the Eee PC is priced around $400.00, which makes it a much better purchase. I could purchase two and still have it be less than a Macbook.
Anyway, that's what I thought of today's MacWorld Keynote. All in all, they were all really neat. But I don't think I will be getting a Macbook Air today. Perhaps, if more is known on how it performs with Target Disk Mode, and other support features, I may change my mind and try to talk my wife into letting me get one. Perhaps...
Hi all,
The Utah Open Source Conference 2007 was such a success. We’ve been busily recovering from all the work and joy we had and are ready to kick it into high gear for this year’s upcoming conference. As far as dates go, we’re looking in the same time frame (Late August, Early September 2008).
But there’s a larger question looming right now and we’d like your input on it. The question is:
Who would you like to come and keynote Utah Open Source Conference 2008?
We’ve thought of a few for you, but would like to have you submit names to us here on our blog. A poll has been created with a few obvious choices, and we’ll do what we can to get the winner here (if its not too cost prohibitive). So without further adieu, vote to your hearts content:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls. We here at the Utah Open Source Foundation would like to announce that we’ve recently been able to acquire and test the video from the Utah Open Source Conference (UTOSC).
We’re proud to announce our first video. Tons of work went into getting this live. Including streaming bandwidth provided by TierFour and video editing done by KnowledgeBlue and Open Source TV. We’d like to thank all of those who made this possible and look forward to providing you with additional videos as they arrive. Please feel free to download them or watch the stream.
In the future, we’ll work on making them downloadable from this site as well. Oh, and we’re working on part 1, it will be out soon.
Podcast currently unavailable due to a bug in the PodPress software. Currently looking for a new plugin or an alternate way to release the videos.
Cheers,
Clint Savage
Founder, Utah Open Source Foundation (http://www.utosf.org)