Re: [tlug] Trying to clarify the idea of a "Bye-bye Windows"

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Shannon" == Shannon Jacobs <shannon.jacobs@example.com> writes:

    Shannon> I think most of these things are basically trivial
    Shannon> installation questions that could be addressed in a few
    Shannon> minutes

*Nothing* can be addressed in less than 30 minutes in the TLUG meeting
format.  Sometimes you can front-load the first 10 minutes worth into
the time slot between "doors open" and "meeting starts".  But there
are introductions, jokes, speaker warmup lag, projector or laptop
fumbles, etc.

    Shannon> However, I was actually just hoping to bounce a few
    Shannon> things off of someone after the meeting.

Venue and timing problem.  For a presenter, or an active member of the
audience in a seminar format (eg, the Art Tyde talk), WSA's meeting
room was great, "hot", tight, interactive.  But there just isn't much
room for making small circles of 3-4 people working on a problem.  If
we could get a substantially bigger room, or even better, a meeting
room adjoining a lobby with a couple of tables for three-four people,
this would just happen.

After meetings is a problem, too, because everybody is packing up to
go to the nomikai.  What you want to do is identify somebody who
probably has a clue about your problem, who will either answer or
point you at somebody who does.  Any of the oldtimers will do.  Then
snag them *before* the meeting and ask your question in words, and be
ready to grab people and workspace at the break.  It's also often
possible to get work done at nomikai, but then you risk having your
laptop smell like a mixture of Chu-hai and wasabi for a couple weeks.

    Shannon> I haven't even been able to print a PDF document from the
    Shannon> Linux side since the office uses a kind of network
    Shannon> printer (5587?) with a driver that isn't available for
    Shannon> Linux.

Seems very unlikely; I don't see how directly driving a shared printer
would work.  More likely the printer implements one of the defined
network printing protocols (lpr, ipp, or SMB).

That's obviously not a workable topic for a meeting, not even for an
ad hoc "committee meeting", unless you can offer your office to host
the meeting.  But it's quite likely that it can be solved on the
mailing list.  Or perhaps it already has been: network printing is a
perennial issue.

    Shannon> Another example was that I made a number of attempts to
    Shannon> access Java from Firefox, and eventually concluded it was
    Shannon> more trouble that it was worth.

That would be something that you could demonstrate on a laptop.  But I
have no idea what you mean by "access Java".  This might benefit a lot
from discussion on the mailing list.  There might be benefit to having
a presentation about it, but that would depend on exactly what you mean.


-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.