Bay Area Linux Users Group (BALUG)

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About BALUG

BALUG is the Bay Area Linux Users Group.
We generally meet monthly in San Francisco (generally in the Chinatown area, near downtown). We also operate several mailing lists.

BALUG meetings

BALUG generally meets the third Tuesday of the month. We talk about Linux and related topics, and we generally share large portions of Chinese food.

We typically have a speaker/presentation for our meetings (generally starting around the tail end of dinner or immediately following dinner). In any case, with or without a speaker/presentation arranged and scheduled, our meetings include good people, interesting conversations, and good food at a relatively bargain price. And if we haven't announced/posted a speaker/presentation, don't let that fool you - sometimes we manage to score an excellent speaker/presentation (e.g. at the last minute) without our having managed to get it posted onto the web site and an announcement sent out in advance.

Please RSVP if you're planning to attend.
Meeting kicks off at 6:30 P.M. - we start near the restaurant's bar for meet and greet and chat and such, then move to our restaurant seating around 7:00 P.M. for dinner - $13.00* USD per person for dinner (meeting itself is free) - please arrive before 7:00 P.M. if you want to be assured of being able to join us for dinner.

We generally meet at:
Four Seas Restaurant (directions)
731 Grant Ave. (between Clay and Sacramento)
San Francisco, CA 94108-2113
USA
1-415-989-8188 (restaurant number)

RSVP

Please RSVP if you're planning to attend. To do so please e-mail us a note at
rsvp@balug.org
indicating meeting date. If you'll be bringing additional guest(s) please let us know total number of folks you're RSVPing for. Also please let us know any special requirements or concerns you may have (e.g. if you have any particular dietary considerations, so that we might possibly be able to accommodate you, or if you won't be joining our typical family/buffet style dining arrangement but do wish to otherwise join our meeting).

*for your gift of $13.00 USD cash, we give you a gift of dinner ticket to join us for a delicious family-style Chinese dinner - tax and tip included. Your gift also helps in our patronizing our meeting venue and helping to defray BALUG costs such treating our speakers to dinner. This "dinner ticket" may also be used for raffle / "door prize" drawings. This and your gifts/donations to BALUG aren't presently tax deductible, but that may change in the future.

Next meetings:

Be sure to note future meetings on your calendar:

Please RSVP (including indicating date) for meetings you plan to attend - Thank You

2012-01-17 Grant Bowman on Spreading Open Source in Nairobi, Kenya
Mr. Bowman spent September, October and November 2011 working with young adult graduates of a technology school (Nairobits) hosted by Dreamfish CEO Dr. Tiffany von Emmel in Nairobi, Kenya thanks to the generous support of Dreamfish members and donors. Nairobi is one degree below the equator eleven time zones away just inland from the Eastern coast of Africa. Dreamfish is a global peer development network connecting entrepreneurs and individuals working together to realize their dreams. Dreamfish is co-owned by hundreds of women entrepreneurs, youth entrepreneurs and professionals in 26 countries. The Community Tech project's goal is to use open source to connect people working all over the world, from the Rift Valley to the Silicon Valley using web and mobile technologies. Primary PHP software packages being customized are status.net, wordpress.org and more.

Working five days a week the graduates were exposed to many ideas and topics including ica.coop, English language classes, revolution-os.com, laptop.org (OLPC) / olpcsf.org / give one get one, toms.com shoes one for one, ARRL, Wi-Fi and Ubuntu, Fedora Project, Android. Mr. Bowman used the ground breaking Safaricom M-PESA branchless banking system popular in Kenya, Tanzania & Afghanistan - M stands for mobile and pesa is Swahili for money. During his stay he, Tiffany and the graduates presented at Nairobits, introducing 47 students to open source software, user focused design (UX), web development infrastructure and the command line. Ubuntu Hours were held every other week at *iHub_Nairobi helping the Ubuntu Kenya Local Community Team become more active again with the support of Ubuntu California.

Mr. Bowman has been a consultant and Internet professional for over twenty years including a former Director of Silicon Valley Public Access Link (SV-PAL) ISP serving Santa Clara County and a present Director of Partimus serving San Francisco and Alameda County middle schools with recycled computers, open source software, training and support. He is an OLPC Developer, Ubuntu Member, Fedora Ambassador, Debian Developer and former employee of SUSE. Active Habits is a forthcoming Android app. He is also active with Berkely Linux Users Group, Berkeley Unix User Group (BUUG), Noisebridge, San Francisco Linux Users' Group (SF-LUG) and also Diablo Valley Linux Users Group (DVLUG) (every Friday in Walnut Creek). His website is: http://www.grantbow.com/

2012-02-21

2012-03-20

2012-04-17

2012-05-15

2012-06-19

2012-07-17

2012-08-21

2012-09-18

2012-10-16

2012-11-20
... BALUG generally meets the third Tuesday of the month. Subscribe to our "announce" list to learn of upcoming meetings and speakers/presentations.

"Working in the Business" (Linux/...) panel discussion (actual date of event to be determined)

We're working on putting together a panel discussion on Working in the Business - Linux and related areas - with emphasis on Linux and open source and in the San Francisco Bay Area, but we may also include related areas and comparisons (systems/network/database/security administration, programming/development open source and other environments, comparisons to other regions, etc.).

Know someone you'd want to see on the panel (or as moderator)?
You can refer them here and also
have them complete this on-line BALUG survey/application for being panelist (or moderator) of the BALUG "Working in the Business" (Linux/...) panel discussion
or drop us a note including their email contact information and with "Working in the Business" in the Subject: header to: balug-panel-2011@balug.org

We're interested in potentially any and/or all of (for the relevant areas):

hiring managers
human resources personnel
persons with significant work experience in relevant areas
recruiters
agency account managers
persons with other relevant experience
persons with significant experience with any and/or all of the above (needn't necessarily be currently in the position)
persons newly experienced entering the field (e.g. new degree within last 2 years)
panel moderator - person who can well wrangle and moderate a collection of the above folks

For some more background on the panel idea, questions/topics we're planning or considering, how to suggest questions/topics, etc. have a peek at our wiki page: BALUG "Working in the Business" (Linux/...) panel discussion and for potential questions/topics for our "Working in the Business" panel discussion that aren't already shown there, feel free to drop us an email, with "Working in the Business" in the Subject: header, and email it to: balug-panel-2011@balug.org

BALUG Mailing Lists

BALUG Mailing Lists:

"announce" - low-volume announce-only (non-discussion) mailing list (e.g. important announcements about meeting programs and other BALUG newsy/noteworthy items; if you subscribe to any of our lists, you'll want to include this one)
"talk" general public BALUG, Linux and related discussion (see the URL for policies)
"admin" - administrivia (for those interested in the inner workings of the BALUG group)

Note that all of the above lists are publicly archived - so one can search them and/or get an idea of traffic volume, what lists one may be most interested in, etc. Note that most of the lists can also be subscribed to as a digest version (e.g. if one wants all the items on the list to be combined into a single mailing when the list (e.g. "talk") might sometimes be very "chatty").

CABAL

In conjunction with CABAL, we will help you install Linux.

Need details?
Let us know if you're bringing a computer and monitor (what kinds?) or joining as a helper.
Check out the CABAL InstallFest Schedule.

Were you looking for something quite different, but landed here? If you're looking for The San Francisco Bay Area LEGO® Users' Group and Train Club, that's over at: http://www.BayLUG.org/

Volunteering and helping BALUG

We could also always use more volunteers to make BALUG even better! Some of the tasks which could use more volunteers include:

help arrange speakers/presentations for our meetings (help refer to us, coordinate schedules, etc.)
publicity (helping us get information out in as timely a manner as feasible, and in as many places as appropriate)
website: webmaster and/or assistance with routine updates/additions
writing up meeting "minutes" (brief summaries of meeting highlights - e.g. information on presentations, interesting/noteworthy discussions/topics, etc.; suitable for web use, or even just rough notes on the relevant items)
mailing list maintenance

If you're at all interested in helping with any and/or all of the above, please contact BALUG contact.

Need to contact BALUG?: BALUG contact
Know a good speaker? contact speaker coordinators
Web questions/issues? contact balug-webmaster