USA-wide Approved LoCo’s by the end of the year! Lets do it.

USA-wide Approved LoCo’s by the end of the year! Lets do it.

**UPDATE: [Digg this and spread the word!](https://digg.com/linux_unix/Ubuntu_In_The_United_States)

OK folks are you ready make something cool happen? Christer and co at the excellent [USTeams Project](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/USTeams) are working hard to get an Ubuntu LoCo team in every state in the USA. Their specific goal is to have an *approved team in every state by the end of the year*. This goal is absolutely possible, and the incredibly committed USTeams Project are chomping at the bit to help teams get set up and started.

Back in November when I delivered a talk about community I noticed that the two bare regions for LoCo teams were Africa and rather interestingly the USA. The USA map looked like this:

The blue states were new states and the green states approved teams.

Well, thanks to the incredible efforts of the USTeams Project and the wider LoCo project, the USA is now looking much healthier:

But, lets not get too carried away. We have a target on our hands, a target that we absolutely *can* achieve if we all work together to nail it. There are a number of states left over that need teams setting up. These are:

* Alaska (AK)
* Delaware (DE)
* Hawaii (HI)
* Idaho (ID)
* Iowa (IA)
* Louisiana (LA)
* Minnesota (MN)
* Mississippi (MS)
* Nevada (NV)
* New Hampshire (NH)
* North Carolina (NC)
* North Dakota (ND)
* Rhode Island (RI)
* South Dakota (SD)
* Texas (TX)
* Vermont (VT)
* West Virginia (WV)
* Wisconsin (WI)
* Wyoming (WY)
* Michigan (MI)

If you live in one of these states and like the idea of bringing together Ubuntu users, you are in an ideal position to kickstart a LoCo team in your state. A LoCo is simply a team that brings Ubuntu users together to talk about Ubuntu and help promote and encourage Ubuntu use in your state. Creating a team does not mean that you need to be an expert in Ubuntu and it does not mean you need to organise physical meetings, you just need to set up some resources for the team to talk together (typically setting up a mailing list and IRC channel, which can be provided freely by Canonical and Freenode) as well as helping the team to work together to think of things it can do to increase Ubuntu use. This could involve handing out free CDs from ShipIt at computer fairs, visiting Linux User Groups, representing Ubuntu at trade shows, installfests, designing merchandise or other activities. A LoCo team really is what *you* want to make it.

So how do you get started? How exactly do you create a LoCo team? Well, head over to the #ubuntu-us IRC channel on irc.freenode.net and express your interest there. If you get no response, contact [Christer Edwards](mailto:christer DOT edwards AT ubuntu DOT com).

Come on folks, lets make this happen. On a global scale we are already kicking ass with LoCo teams, lets now kick ass in the USA and get an approved team in every state by the end of the year. 🙂

USA-wide Approved LoCo’s by the end of the year! Lets do it.

Feedback on Ubuntu training course. Apply within.

One of the services that Canonical are working to offer are high quality training courses. These courses are produced by our training team and executed around the world by training partners. One aspect of producing these courses are training materials, and we are keen to not only make the materials freely available, but to also get the community as involved as possible in constructing, maintaining and advising on them. This way we can produce some high quality, freely available training materials. Nice. 🙂

To kick this off, Billy (our Training Programmes Manager) has produced a proposed Table Of Contents for the Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Training Course and is keen to gather feedback about it. To get involved and offer your thoughts, experience and ideas, head over to [this page](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Training/DesktopCourseFeedback) and follow the instructions.

USA-wide Approved LoCo’s by the end of the year! Lets do it.

Sucked in by Facebook

You know, I hate social networks. But…I now have a [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/) account. If you have one and feel like we should be connected, go ahead.

I still hate social networks. I consider this an experiment. 😉

Sworn in the USA

Sworn in the USA


(*thanks to schwuk for the image and blog post title*)

LUGRadio Live USA has been something that has been discussed for the last few years in the LUGRadio community. Some of the American fans have been banging on about it for quite some time, but we have been very protective of doing it as we want to maintain the pretty unique atmosphere of the UK event. Typically barred by not having enough time, we agreed to accept proposals for people to run it, but never had anything that completely won us over. I am not surprised though – we needed confidence on so many levels to even consider it. The last thing we want is the promise of LRLUSA and it not having the same vibe as the UK event.

Well, recently we have been in discussions with a team of people who are exceptionally keen to run LUGRadio Live USA, and will be taking care of the major areas we were concerned about. After some meetings and conference calls, we felt happy with their commitment to the event, and are happy to announce LUGRadio Live 2008 in the USA. It will take place in Silicon Valley in California in March 2008. More news as we get it.

To be completely clear, LUGRadio Live UK will still be happening like normal, and so there will be two events to mark into your calendar. We look forward to bringing LRL to the USA and our American friends. Rock a bollock. 🙂

LUGRadio Live 2007. Check.

LUGRadio Live 2007. Check.

Well, its over. This weekend [LUGRadio Live 2007](https://www.lugradio.org/live) happened, and after 8 months of planning, over 20 crew, a stack of exhibitors and a bunch of speakers, everyone seemed to have a blast. There are a bunch of excellent write-ups of the event [listed here](https://technorati.com/posts/tag/lugradio+live), so you can get a flavour of what happened if you could not make it.

This year we made the crew a much more integral part of the event, and this bunch of people were incredible:

Over 20 people dug in and helped out and they didn’t ‘arf work their arses off. They were there ready and waiting when needed, always keen to help the presenters, exhibitors, speakers and visitors, and it was heartening to see them working so hard. Stunning, absolutely stunning. 🙂

The key to grading the success of LUGRadio is in defining a specific kind of atmosphere. Our aim is a very loose, social, friendly, amusing atmosphere, and we worked to have lots of little flourishes to try gain this atmosphere. It seems that things pretty much worked out and a number of people commented on how social and accessible the atmosphere was. We still have lots of room for improvement, but I am pleased people were *getting* the aim and intention of LRL. One of the upsides of developing an event like LRL is that it attracts a certain kind of personality, and as such you have a room full of similar personalities (read *cool people*) who are pretty cool.

Also, sadly the LUGRadio Live And Unleashed show was Ade’s last ever LUGRadio. We are all saddened to see him leave, but he is exceptionally busy jet-setting around Europe as a VoIP expert and is looking to move on. Ade is an incredible guy, very genuine and one of the first things you notice when you meet him is how warm a personality he has. He brought an awful lot to the show with his experience, his dry humor and a viewpoint that balanced out the show. He will be missed hugely both as a presenter and as a friend who we had the privilege of being around every two weeks.

Stepping into Ade’s seat is Chris Proctor, who’s nickname on the show is *The Proctologist* or *The Lord Of The Rings*. Chris comes from a technical background, has a dry sense of humour and was one of the co-leaders of the crew at LUGRadio Live 2007. With Adam and Chris newly wedged into the studio, you can be assured that Season 5 of LUGRadio will bring some fresh ideas and viewpoints. We have lots planned for Season 5, it really is gonna kick some arse and take some names. Expect some surprises. We should kick it off around September time.

Bring it on

Bring it on

Just seen on `#jokosher`:

i gotta head out to the airport
cya tomorrow guys 🙂

Laszlo flies from Canada to [LUGRadio Live 2007](https://www.lugradio.org/live/2007/) this weekend.

It is exciting when *the world’s single greatest event, ever, in the history of man and womankind* is happening at the weekend.

It’s coming…

It’s coming…

Holy crap, this weekend is [LUGRadio Live 2007](https://www.lugradio.org/live/2007/). This week is a busy week with every evening being dedicated to last minute preparations for the event. My house is slowly filling up with content for the event, we are making plans for last minute bits and pieces yet to be done, and the community is gearing up for the big weekend. We are also firming up a few special announcements. We have big news, people. Its kind of odd that six months of work is coming to a conclusion.

Running a community event is hard work. This year, LUGRadio Live has involved a hell of a lot more work, and we have over 15 crew members, two designers, AV contributors and much more. Much of the fun has been in discovering how *we* work and optimising how we can get the most out of our time. Before LRL2005, none of us had done anything like this before, so it has been a learning process, and each event has required progressively more and more work as it has grown. Organising it is not just organising over 40 speakers and a room full of exhibitors, but sorting out the venue, projectors, PA systems, hotels, hotel discounts, transport links, special events, scheduling, social events, posters, equipment, BOF sessions, venue facilities, printing and more. Well, in a week or so we can see the result of our efforts. 🙂

LUGRadio Live 2007 is uniquely community. We can’t wait to see the lot of you there. If you are still unsure about whether to come, you would be nuts to miss out. 7th and 8th July, Wolverhampton. Be there. 🙂

Banshee…good

Banshee…good

Music is important to me. I spend all day every day listening to it and much of my free time making it. As such, the choice of media player is pretty important to me. I have tried all sorts – Rhythmbox, XMMS, Songbird, Amarok to name a few. Despite my experiments, I always come running back to Rhythmbox. Why? Well, I am looking for something that is elegant and well designed, simple to use, reliable and does what I need it to do.

Rhythmbox has always provided an elegant, simple and reliable player, but has lacked on the features side. My ideal music player would include the following vital statistics:

* Be able to play all of my media without drop-outs or huge gaps between songs
* Provide album art
* Sync up with my iPod
* Support Internet radio – I have always wanted to see the excellent [StreamTuner](https://www.nongnu.org/streamtuner/) integrated into a media player
* Stream media across the network with DAAP and uPnP where possible
* Last.fm support
* Podcast support
* CD writing
* Crossfading
* Preferably be a GNOME application that uses GStreamer

Well, I have now found a replacement for Rhythmbox – the rather excellent [Banshee](https://banshee-project.org/Main_Page).

Banshee does pretty much all of the above, aside from Crossfading, and it adds to Rhythmbox with decent Internet radio, podcasting, CD writing, iPod syncing and more. What is nice about Banshee is that it is clearly going for a complete feature set but not willing to sell its UI grandmother while getting there. This has always been the thing that has kept me away from Amarok; sure it provides the kitchen sink, but it is just overkill, and the user interface suffers because of it.

I think what has also encouraged my change has been the excellent [recent performance work by Aaron](https://abock.org/2007/06/27/my-hack-week-the-new-banshee/) that has dramatically improved startup time (no media player should have a frikken splash screen!) and [Joe’s Banshee Media Server hacking](https://idea.opensuse.org/content/ideas/web-interface-to-banshee-library). It is all looking good for this little media player. Incredible that a man who looks about 12 years old can pull off such an incredible project. 😛

…and no, I have not tried sharing Jono’s World Of Metal with it. I [wonder if it is possible](https://cvs.gnome.org/viewcvs/banshee/ChangeLog?rev=1.509&view=markup).

## Novell Hack Week

While on the subject of Banshee, I think Novell deserve a hefty chunk of kudos for Novell Hack Week. From what I can tell it has been an excellent week, well run and resulted in some incredible contributions to upstream software. Novell are a very good citizen when it comes to upstream software development, and the week has produced some excellent results. Thanks to everyone who has contributed – I am itching to have a poke with some of the things that have been produced, particularly the Banshee related stuff. Joe is getting a beer at [LUGRadio Live 2007](https://www.lugradio.org/live/2007) next weekend for his Banshee web frontend, and if Aaron can it along, I will buy him a pepsi or something. 😛

Sworn in the USA

One Man Freedom March

Get all your LugRadio Live news and updates from the LugRadio Live Latest News Blog!

A while back we released the [Freedom March promo video](https://www.lugradio.org/freedommarch/) for [LUGRadio Live 2007](https://www.lugradio.org/live/2007). Well, the ever amusing Roger Light of Bruce Campbell looklike fame has produced a spoof version which is utterly, utterly excellent:

(*If you can’t see the vid, [click here](https://atchoo.org/videos/omfm/)*)

All of the hair growth appears to be real, and it must have taken him ages to do it. He will be there at LUGRadio Live 2007 on the 7th and 8th July (a week today!!) to receive your adoration. Nice work Rog. 🙂

It’s coming…

LUGRadio Live 2007 Social Fun

Get all your LugRadio Live news and updates from the LugRadio Live Latest News Blog!

As [LUGRadio Live 2007](https://www.lugradio.org/live/2007/) grows closer (one week! – 7th and 8th July 2007), I just wanted to fill you all in on some of the social events that are happening. So, below is the schedule of LUGRadio Live 2007 from start to end:

* **Friday 6th July 2007 – 7.30pm** – Pre-LRL07 drinks at The Hogs Head in central Wolverhampton. This takes part in the beer garden at the back of the pub. Kicks off at 7.30pm.
* **Saturday 7th July 2006 – Daytime** – LUGRadio Live 2007 Day 1 at The Lighthouse, Wolverhampton.
* **Saturday 7th July 2006 – 8pm** – LUGRadio Live Party the main LUGRadio Live venue at The Lighthouse, Wolverhampton. Music, drinks and good company make the official party the place to be after the first day. 🙂
* **Sunday 8th July 2006 – Daytime** – LUGRadio Live 2007 Day 2 at The Lighthouse, Wolverhampton.
* **Sunday 8th July 2006 – 7.30pm** – Unofficial post-show meet up at The Quality Hotel, Penn Road, Wolverhampton. This loose, informal meet-up is a great way to wind-down and talk about the weekend. A number of members of the LUGRadio community come along to this evening.

For a map of where the venue, travel links, hotels and other places are, [click here](https://www.lugradio.org/live/2007/index.php/Travel_Information).