[BALUG-Announce] BALUG: Meetings (online & otherwise) & other BALUG News

[Michael Paoli]

BALUG: Meetings (online & otherwise) & other BALUG News

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items, details further below:
Meetings (online & otherwise)
COVID-19 - what you can do
giveaways (& wanted), hardware, CDs/DVDs, books/publications, ...
help BALUG! :-) - volunteering, venue, ...
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/BALUG_org

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Meetings (online & otherwise)

BALUG meetings?  Thus far due to COVID-19, no in-person meetings,
and no online meeting for BALUG ... yet, however ...

Many regional [L]UGs have started having / moved to online meetings.
I wasn't able to earlier spot a list of such regional / Bay Area
listing for Linux User Groups (LUGs) & related, so, created one on
BALUG's wiki:
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:covid-19#virtual_meetings
If you know of others that ought be listed there, if you're set up
to edit the wiki, you can add them - or email me to get set up with
such access (or you can email the meeting online details, and I
can attempt to maintain it there).
Also, online meetings have many advantages too.  Have a peek at:
https://berkeleylug.com/2020/06/21/meetings-virtual/
for a listing of some of those many unique advantages.

BALUG virtual meetings?  Not yet, ... but could happen.  I've also been
watching interest/attendance of some other regional / Bay Area online
meetings.  If there's sufficient interest, I/we could certainly set
that up and do that for BALUG.  Also, at least traditionally, BALUG
more commonly (at least over the years), typically does
presented talks for much of meetings, so perhaps if we arrange
a particular presentation topic and presenter, we may specifically
set up an online meeting for such - or if there's sufficient interest
of having a meeting around a particular discussion topic.
So feel free to discuss that on the BALUG-Talk list:
https://lists.balug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/balug-talk
If sufficient interest develops, we may set up an online meeting.
We might also do it in future "just because" - and when it's been
"long enough" - as BALUG has a somewhat different (and generally larger)
membership, than other Bay Area LUGs - though meeting attendance
size can vary a lot (from hundreds, to just a handful or so).

In-person meetings?  At least for BALUG - and as far as I'm aware
the other regional / Bay Area [L]UGs - no in-person meetings ...
yet.  Though things are (slowly and carefully) starting to
re-open ... slightly.  E.g. I've been getting reports of and seeing
some restaurants/cafes doing socially/physically distanced outdoor
dining.  Of course, even notwithstanding COVID-19 considerations,
for the more social/physical distanced outdoor, there may be
many practical considerations such as noise, lighting,
(lack of) Wi-Fi/power, infeasibility of screen projection or well
visible large display, etc.

In all cases, continue to watch the BALUG-Announce list:
https://lists.balug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/balug-announce
and/or have a look at the BALUG web site:
https://www.balug.org/
for relevant updates.
And there's also the wiki page also mentioned further above regarding
other regional / Bay Area [L]UGs - including known online meetings:
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:covid-19#virtual_meetings

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COVID-19 - what you can do

There's much more information out there now.  Please do keep in
mind, there are many that can use resources/assistance, and
particularly many and more so due to COVID-19 direct and indirect
effects.

Everything from donations of funds, certain items/materials,
skills (e.g. programming assistance on project), volunteering time,
computing resources, etc.

E.g.:
Some compute projects are working on COVID-19:
BOINC Rosetta@home[1]
Folding@home[2]
1. https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=13533#91772
2. https://foldingathome.org/

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giveaways (& wanted), hardware, CDs/DVDs, books/publications, ...

Okay, so the physical may be on hold or require special arrangements due
to COVID-19 - but notwithstanding that - and some of these quite still
apply ..

We typically have various giveaway items at BALUG meetings.  We'll
likely have at least the below plus additional items.

(could probably be arranged via snail mail or such, if needed)
CDs/DVDs/ISOs, etc. - have a look here:
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc
Donations of blank or +-RW media, USB flash, or funding thereof,
also appreciated.  See the above URL for details (and the inventory
(qty.) of what we specifically have "burned" and available on-hand does
also frequently change).

Hardware, etc. wanted/offered!
Got some (computer, etc.) hardware, etc. you're looking to give
away or acquire (or if not free, well below current fair market value),
and locally?  We have a wiki page to list that - so ... see what's
offered, wanted, etc.!
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:offered_wanted_hardware_etc

Books and other titles!  (includes some online digital resources)
have a peek here:
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:books_and_publications

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help BALUG! :-) - volunteering, venue ...

You can do useful and cool stuff volunteering to help BALUG.

Quite a variety of opportunities to help BALUG.  Come talk to us at a
meeting and/or drop us a note at: balug-contact@balug.org
These opportunities may include, among other possibilities:
o assist or lead on speaker coordination/procurement, etc.
o venue arrangement (e.g. followup on potential leads,
   on-site coordination/preparations)
o chief/assistant cat herder
o assist on publicity
o Linux Systems Administration (e.g. do/assist/learn, with/under some
     quite experienced and skilled Linux systems administrator(s)).
o webmaster, assistant webmaster, designer, graphic artist
o archivist/history/retrieval/etc.
o and other various/miscellaneous tasks BALUG would like to be doing
     (also feel free to suggest ideas!)

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Twitter - you can also follow BALUG on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/BALUG_org

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Feedback on our publicity/announcements (e.g. contacts or lists where we
should get our information out that we're not presently reaching, or
things we should do differently): publicity-feedback@balug.org