Re: Fwd: Linux in dunedin

On Tue, 15 Jul 2014 10:36:46 Kathinka wrote:
> Good thinking Joe and Paul.  It wouldn't be a bad scheme to have a list of
> people of good repute within the local Linux community for when anyone
> needs something fixed, instead of calling a random who advertises & may
> charge the earth but not be as good as they say.  Also, who's good at what.

this is more of a profession job search sort of thing - some people get really 
upset when people post blatantly commercial messages to open source lists, I 
understand this but I feel that the occasional short message is OK - not 
something that should be abused, no one wants to end up in a spam sewer.

> Myself, I have the computer equivalent of gardeners' "black thumbs" and I'm
> sick of having to call on favours from friends, they've got their own work
> and hobbies and lives to  get on with.  I'd like to have a good recommended
> person - or people with various strengths according to what the problem is
> - who can come in and for a fair price fix all the assorted annoyances,
> connect/configure all the things that I shy away from because of my years
> of "black thumb" scattering the equivalent of aphid colonies from ISP to
> mouse-pad.
> 
> Personal tutors who could go out and help a newbie for half an hour or so
> might also be a good move to take away the fear (promoted by non-free
> systems) that Linux isn't safe because "there's no support".  The fear that
> changing to a different OS may leave one unable to use
> email/twitter/youtube/facebook, send photos to family, use Skype, banking
> and so on, is a real disincentive to switching, for people who only want a
> computer so they can so they can do everyday things.  And often those are
> the people who really need to be freed from the expense of "other" systems.

I think that's a good idea - we don't really do install fests any more but we 
could - we could also hold "linux classes" if we wanted - we can make 
Makerspace available if people want

BTW: The "portable mirror" is still sitting at Makerspace, it's out of date 
but fixing that is just a matter of updating its sources file and doing a sync - 
anyone's welcome to borrow it

	Paul


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