Wednesday night I held a well-attended Ubuntu Hour and Debian dinner here in San Francisco. Lots of great discussion at both meetups, huge thanks to everyone who came out!
Last night I gave another (first was in September) “Introduction to Ubuntu” talk for a Linux class at ITT Tech in Oakland.
After my short talk (slides here: pdf, odp) the class was small enough for me to be able to give everyone an Ubuntu 11.10 CD that they could try live on the lab PCs (with the blessing of one of the folks from IT) and I was able to bring up one on the projector to show everyone the basics of Unity. Thanks again to Professor Michael Roth for inviting me out, it’s always a pleasure to talk to people who are truly interested in learning more about Ubuntu and F/OSS.
Back in October Laura Czajkowski put me in touch with Paula Graham who was doing research for a Women in F/OSS Linux Format magazine article. I gave her details about the Ubuntu Women project, a quick blurb about my own journey and some photos from Ubuntu Women gatherings. The article titled “Women, know your Linux!” appeared in Issue 152 of Linux Format. I was quite honored to be the second of two profile blurbs in the article, the first of which went to the amazing Valerie Aurora, a Linux kernel developer whose latest project is the Ada Initiative (donate now!). The Debian Women and Ubuntu Women projects also got a nice sidebar in the article.
Finally, the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) is coming up in just over a month! I received notification on December 5th from the SCALE committee that my talk “Bringing Linux into Public Schools and Community Centers” had been accepted in their Open Source Software In Education track on Saturday, January 21st. The Ubuntu California team itself has been working to put together details and volunteers for an Ubuntu booth at the event like we’ve done in years past and Nathan Haines has been working with other volunteers to put together an Ubucon for Friday the 20th.
I’ve submitted a talk proposal for a casual “Get involved with Ubuntu” Ubucon session where I’ll outline basics of getting involved with various areas and then open up the floor to specific involvement questions from the audience. There is still at least one slot open for Ubucon speakers, so if you’re interested see the details here (yes, the stated deadline has passed, so please submit proposals ASAP if you’re interested).