Juan J. Martínez used to talk here about Open Source and Other Things.
This is a blog in archive mode, you can read new posts at en_GB@blog
Another “post-moving” podcast, this time is the day after we arrived to Guildford from Reading. Someday we’ll try something IT related, but by now this will work like a very lame travel guide.
Background music is public domain (Billy Holiday). Spanish again!
Every day I walk by the side of this sign in my commuting to Guildford, and it makes me smile.
The reason is that I’m doing a lot of unit testing at work, and it’s funny that the Reading Borough Council believes in unit testing too ;).
Another pointless podcast :).
This time we’re commenting our experience in Reading, with some public domain background music (Billy Holiday). Sorry, Spanish again!
Update: as I said, the sundtrack it’s on public domain and by Billy Holiday:
We’ve been in Reading for 15 days yet, and we’re starting to know the city, so let’s attend a couple of events in September:
It’s quite a walk from home, but I like the idea of meeting some of the local geeky people. I bet the first couple of times we won’t notice the distance (Alex says that at least two meetings are needed to get a opinion, she may be right).
By the way, there’s a couple of events in London next week too: Linux & Open Source Expo and Cloud Expo Europe. Unfortunately I have to work and I can’t attend those, but it may be interesting if you’re in the area.
Update: seems that Cloud Expo Europe and Linux and OSS London Event have been moved to 2nd and 3rd of February 2011.
It’s been a horrible week working with a 3G dongle from Vodafone UK, because we have very bad coverage at home, and it had a 10% UMTS signal at best (at worst, back to GPRS!).
Finally Virgin folks managed to enable my broadband connection, with a new shitty cable modem with WiFi access point integrated (it can filter by MAC address in a kind of parental control, because by default it trusts every device and you have to list the blocked ones). For some reason the good old Cisco cable modem I was using in Exeter doesn’t work in Virgin’s network in Reading (too bad, I don’t like that Netgear crap).
The Thames, crossing Reading
But that was Thursday evening, and before that the 3G dongle stopped working (I think it was because we used all the 3GB transfer), so I had to top it up with £15 to get it working for another month (and 3GB transfer).
The USB dongle has a SIM card on it, like any mobile phone, and it has an associated number. So I though I could go to any Vodafone shop and ask for a regular top up; but it isn’t that easy.
The problem is you don’t know the number associated to the SIM card if you don’t install the Windows application provided by Vodafone. With that dashboard application you can top up and check different things that aren’t supported in Linux yet.
I got my top up voucher, but because I didn’t have the phone number, finally I had to install the Windows application to enable the 3G again using the voucher code.
I don’t understand why they don’t put the phone number in the box or in receipt when you buy the dongle, so you can do a regular top up without bothering with a Windows application. I have the chance to access to a Windows machine, but what would happen if I couldn’t?
I must confess the 3G dongle was very useful when we arrived to Reading and (sic) got lost because I put the wrong address in the trip plan (shame on me!), but after suffering it for a whole week plus the annoying top up process… I hope I won’t use one of those evil connections for a long while!
After the problems with Virgin’s self-installation kit when we arrived Exeter (it requires Windows or Mac OS X, although it’s a web based process), I’m very disappointed with the OSS unfriendliness of UK’s telecommunication companies so far.
When we were about to move to UK, about one year ago, we though about recording a podcast. You know, it’s that kind of thing you think it’d be cool but at the end you realize you can’t do.
You know we’re leaving Exeter, and I had the bright idea to record something just to say goodbye to that beautiful city.
Don’t expect anything great, and the podcast it’s in Spanish (may be next time we’ll try English, if there’s a next time -I don’t know-).
Recorded with aplay, edited fast and dirty with Audacity, and the sound track it’s the public domain Big Stuff by Billy Holiday.
See you in Reading!
Six months ago we were unpacking in Exeter, and in less than seven days, we’ll be packing again. We’re leaving Exeter and Devon, and after the 15th of August we’ll be settled in Reading (Berkshire).
Our reasons to move are professional, because I have a deal with my current company to start doing business stuff in UK, and that means being near of London.
Moreover Alex is looking for a school for the next course, and for some reason, Exeter isn’t the best place to find a job. May be it’s the good weather or the high quality of life, I really don’t know.
In those six months I’ve tried to get involved with the Linux local communities in the area, going to D&C GNU/Linux User Group meetings (although we just went once, because one hour train isn’t what I call local) and E-Space meetings (in Exeter, but unfortunately not really Linux/OSS related); but I somewhat failed.
Moreover I’ve lost track with the Fedora ambassadors list, mainly because it isn’t that easy to start in a new country, and when things started to stabilize, the ambassador list got lost in my TODO list. Shame on me.
Anyway, not everything’s lost. I’ve been planing different initiatives that, because I ran out of time, I won’t start in Exeter, but hopefully I’ll manage to run in Reading.
One of them will be based in the public library. From my experience in Exeter (and I believe this applies to all public libraries in Devon), they have some spaces where you can put non-profit advertisements, and it can be a good start for a Fedora/OSS information point
.
I can be in the library for one hour every week (Saturday morning, for example), and give lightning talks about Fedora and OSS to anyone interested, and it could even be a good start point for a release party for the upcoming Fedora 14.
So, I want to catch up with the list and my local ambassador activities, and get in touch with the local users group in Reading (SCLUG). I really want it to work this time, because I’m going to stay in Reading for a long while.
