Is not only a challenge because of language and culture, but also will be a challenge because is not an easy to topic to talk about. I will be giving a keynote about Venezuela, and how an Entire Country Migrates To Linux. Venezuela has, like all Latin American countries, a strong interest in using free and open source software for many different purposes. That gives them more independence from big software corporations and gives them the opportunity to develop the software in their own country giving their local talents a chance to grow professionally.

So the Venezuelan governament has started its own Linux distribution, called Canaima, which is installed on most of the computers in all governmental institutions. Venezuela also has a program for equipping all schools with laptops, which were first bought in Portugal and are now produced inside the country. So the kids grow up using Linux on their computers from the age of eight.

This talk will give an overview on the migration to free and open source software in Venezuela. I really hope people enjoy and use as example all the efforts done in my country to migrate and can follow this example :)

See you in Vienna next week!!!!!!!!!

This will be a general talk about:

• How to join the Ambassadors program
• Steps to fullfill before open a trac tickets
• How to contact and interact with your mentor
• What to do once you are aproved
• What will Fedora expect from you once you’re an Ambassadors
• Tips to be the best ambassador

When: Friday at click here to know your time
Where: Google Hangout gplus.to/tatica
Language: English (first 30min) / Spanish (second 30min)

Even if I know is a really boring thing to do, let me encourage you to take some minutes to explain why you need to do it:

If you want something, people need to know who the hell are you!

If you’re interested on request media, swags, attend to events or anything… be sure that people will ask who are you? what have you done so far? what are you doing now? and anything that they can come up with. We are not asking you to write when do you brush your hair and how many sock wear daily, but a couple of details about things you like in FOSS and project you’re in can help.

Is there a human behind that nick?

We would like to know your real name and if there is a way to contact you. Doesn’t matter if you rather a mail, twitter, fb or smoke signal… please, provide us some way to get in touch and make things happen.

Now, cool thing about wiki is that anyone can do whatever they want (but please make it readable), however I know that there is lazy people that simply doesn’t want to get involved with complicated styles (even if they like them)… so let me provide some ideas and you can choose any you like:

• Yes, you can use a template! Even if isn’t easier, is the one I use. just click on edit and copy content, and then just add your information following the info-text in your own page. DO NOT EDIT THIS ONE plis plis plis. Follow this link to see my template. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Tatica/Template-User
• Yes… if you’re too lazy I can do it for you… but make my job easier. Please follow this link, complete the info and send it to me through mail. https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Tatica/Template-User-Mail

What is Fedora Videos?

Our contributor Nitesh Narayan Lal came up with an idea to create a serie of videos and give our users an interface to check them on an easier way. We could say that we want to teach fedora through videos… but I’m sure that this project might have bigger goals in a short lapse.

Will be there a guidelines?

Yes, but consider it more like “recommendations”. We want to gather the best videos from the net, created by users and enthusiast, and turn them info Fedora official videos. Yes… we are thinking on give you an intro/outro and some easy tips so our job making translations and sharing can be easier. Right now we are working on this guidelines and you can actually check how it goes in here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Niteshnarayan/video_tutorials/Guidelines

How can I search though so many Videos?

Yes, But we need your help! We think that use the *Join Fedora categories* might be a good start, but we need more sub-categories. Nitesh has done a great work on this… can you help us improve it a bit more? Check: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Niteshnarayan/video_tutorials/Guidelines#Video_Categories

Current Tasks

In our amazing first meeting we start with some task that are currently under development. Tasks so far goes this way:

• Create a guidelines for official videos – bckurera, tatica and Nitesh Guidelines first draft
• Create a guidelines for submit and publish videos – bckurera, tatica and Nitesh Guidelines first draft
• Categorize video sections by interests or teams – Nitesh Sections first draft
• Check privacy, licenses and Ads for each service and Check on HTML5 alternatives who link you to the theora – FranciscoD: Analysis

Now, on a more personal task I’m needing people who have some experience with Video edit and intro creations. I might be able to do a Blender intro but I want to have some experienced hand to have some support and guide. Let me know if you can give us a hand :)

If I have an idea to share, a video to spread or just want to be part of this project, what should I do?

All mayor stuff will be online at our wiki, however, if you can make it to our meetings and share one hour weekly with us will be amazing. We will gather every Thursday at 1530UTC (Check your local time/date here)

Following the rules

* Respecting Meetings protocol: Dear lord… was so nice to have people respecting IRC meeting protocols that I really felt on heaven. When you have a really structured meetings wiki page, that people actually reads, everything is just easier.

* Knowing zodbot: everything is easier when you know how to work with zodbot. First time I see on a meeting that all attendees are mark as chair for a meetin (even me).

* Quorum: Is really nice to see a lot of people being at meetings and participating. Quorum is always an issue at any meeting. either we talk about time/date collide or just people not beign interested. Community members should try a bit harder to attend to meetings (even if sometimes are bored), you might always know about something new or provide a good idea.

* Mistakes: If you make a mistake, get slow on sending your message, got some lag, your nick was jumping or just missunderstood something… don’t make a big deal and keep the meeting going. Everyone can make a mistake, so don’t turn it into a meeting topic.

* Local leaders show up: This might be the most interesting, as community contributor, that you can find on a meeting. When a local (or general) leader shows up and interact on the meeting means that people care. Motivation and example arethea key that we should try to take advantage of every time we can.

Activities to spread Fedora

* Ton of Release Parties: Yes… perhaps only 2 so far, but they are working a lot and are already organized for this activities. This only encourage me to plan a Fedora Release Party full with Beefy Miracles :)

* Marketing Swags: When we talk about a big region this is a common issue that is always hard to work with. At LATAM we are still working on this, however, we are 21 countries (plus 9 dependencies), and even if we still have some unexplored places, we have to deal with shipping prices that most of the times, are equal to bring swags from EMEA.

* Media: I don’t know if I’m the only that receives perhaps 300% more tickets from APAC that from anywhere else. This means that Fedora media-program is beign effective in this region. Perhaps simplify how we send media, how we produce it and who can really make shipments can be a solution. For those locations where our users cannot get (or is too expensive) maybe contact a local company, school or college might be a solution. I guess is easier just to send a couple of bucks to a local person to buy a dvd pack that ship a single dvd through mail.

Sorry Shakthimaan - by Shreyank Gupta

I will keep trying to attend to each regional meeting. I think that know what’s happening all arround the world can teach us how to improove. Take a look arround, learn from your peers goals and failures, and make everyone take a step into change. “I never thought we could transform the world, but I think every day you can transform things.”- Françoise Giroud.

El año pasado, el LibreBus viajó desde el 03 hasta el 16 de mayo de 2011, intercambiando experiencias alrededor del software libre, el conocimiento y la biodiversidad, la libertad de expresión y la libertad de compartir. La idea del recorrido, además de llegar a las distintas ciudades, es ir trabajando los conceptos, problematizando las propuestas, deconstruyendo esas “soluciones” que ya se tienen enquistadas en las ideas y promover así la discusión y reconstrucción colectiva de alternativas.

Si quieres ver como es el Librebus por dentro, como es la experiencia y te animas, entonces date unos 30min para que veas este clip. Creo que si tenemos tiempo de ver una serie en tv, ver las noticias o ver una peli en casa, esta es una peli que no solo nutrirá tu intelecto sino tu alma, porque las experiencias de vida se deben compartir. No olvides de visitarlos en: http://librebus.org/

Para quienes no pueden ver el embeded de youtube, el link directo es: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqUXkC7Iu9I

Our social live, or some part of it, happens inside a screen, and we are uses to help because we learn from someone who also took part of his/her time to show us how special Fedora community is.

But every fairy tale has his dark side… What happens when people doesn’t understand that is not a requirement to be 24/7 waiting for someone who needs help? Problem is’t them… We are!

I can only use my experience as base for this: I have been using Fedora for about 5 years now and i was one of those who spend hours reading what people had to say because “there was a big chance to learn something from them”.

Most of the time that’s what happens… But when you are near 15 hours on IRC you become the person who give answers and knows who can provide them in case you don’t know what to reply.

Slowly, we create a dependency on people and they get used to see us Always on IRC/Mail_list/Whatever and we also delay meals and other activities because “we can give a short reply and will help”.

On an ideal world we could live that way, but truth is that we cannot because we have family, jobs and some of us are seeking to have a life outside the Box.

Now that we know that is our fault we need to consider what to do. People is already used to this behavier and new contributors have learn that this is the way things work… So is not weird to see someone mad if we are not online. So, what can we do?

1) Would be nice to tell them to go to… But we cannot.
We need to stablish limits. add that kind of info on your wiki user page or run a calendar that you can share with people. Let them know that your time is partialy dedicated to Fedora.

2) interact beyond the chat: people wont understand what you do outside Fedora if you don’t let them know.
I’m not asking to twit what are you doing at the bathroom or how many drinks you had… But a couple of daily/weekly facts about your non-robotic life may work.

3) help hem to learn what you know instead link them to everything:
Isn’t nice when someone ask you “hey, which is the Fedora site URL?” … Seriously….
If you’re an troll try with www.lmgtfy.com or simply point him/her how to Google it, how to contact other contributors, how to analize their problems… Don’t create a dependency on your shoulders. Create leaders, mentors and creative people.

4) You’re a community member… use that!
If you’re a developer and think on ideas to decreasse the dependency of new users, then do something (like ask.fedora), if you’re a designer or marketing team member then create a campaign (like we will with videos.fedora) or if you have anything in your head.. please, tell us. The only way to apply is to act, doesn’t matter if you only have 10min to explain us your ideas or you have 3 days to develop it.

5) if anything works… Turn arround and help the next one.
Is as hard as it sounds. However, we are a free-to-join community and everyday people comes and goes. It hurts, but that’s how it works.

What to expect?
People may not change or react to this in a while, however, people will change at the end. If we not start changing what we believe is not ok, we might get used to what is wrong. Make people Change is almost imposible, but we can all learn to adapt.

We need to stop showing how much we know everytime we can and start pushing people to learn and teach what they can do… Teach them how to fish with their own TCP/IP cables.

Usualmente soy una persona organizada, pero en lo que a contabilidad se refiere no. Es por ello que haciendo un simple “search finance” en el listado de aplicaciones de mi sistema linux me percaté de que hay varias soluciones para las personas como yo. En este caso les mencionaré las siguientes:

1.- Expendable

Este programa es para modelar las finanzas caseras. en particular, puede ser usado para saber cuanto tomará pagar una hipoteca si la opción de “offset” (compensación) está disponible. Las cuentas de compensación son como las cuentas de ahorro, pero en vez de acumular intereses, reducen la cantidad de intereses cargados al préstamo al compensar el monto del préstamo.

2.- GnuCash

GnuCash es un gerente personal de finanzas. Con una interfaz como la de una caja registradora, te permite ingresar y rastrear tus cuentas bancarias, ingresos e incluso las operaciones cambiarias de divisas. Su interfaz está diseñada para ser simple y de fácil uso, pero por detrás tiene una doble entrada de principios contables para asegurarse de un correcto balance.

3.- Grisbi

Grisbi puede manejar múltiples archivos de cuentas, monedas y usuarios. Puede manejar terceras partes, categorías de expedición y recepción, así como líneas presupuestarias, años financieros y otras informaciones que lo hacen apto para asociaciones (excepto para aquellas que necesiten doble entradas de contabilidad).

4.- KmyMoney

Los objetivos de KmyMoney son: Mantener las cuentas en el orden correcto, ser fácil de usar, mantener caracteristicas similares a las de cualquier contabilidad y permitir llevar cualquier tipo de finanzas, familiares, personales o empresariales.

5.- Skrooge

Skrooge es un manejador personal de finanzas, el cual apunta a ser simple e intuitivo. Te permite mantener registro de tus gastos e ingresos, así como categorizarlos y construir reportes en base a los datos obtenidos.

En base a eso, hemos formado una hermosa amistad en la cual ambos nos nutrimos tanto personal como artísticamente, y sus luchas en la vida han sido un ejemplo a seguir en un mundo caótico. Así que cuando Ivan me preguntó si querría ayudarle con el arte para la portada de su libro…. la respuesta fue un automático brinco, unos cuantos gritos y una sonrisa que hasta hoy, no se me ha quitado. Debo dar un agradecimiento especial a Ivan, por hacerme parte de este viaje y a @yurbita (Yurbi Mafurro) quien se dejó por horas tomar fotos para usar como base para la portada :)

A partir de hoy pueden adquirir “Armageddon’s daughter” (La Hija del Armagedon), la sinopsis va así:

El libro lo puedes obtener en formato digital en : http://www.amazon.com/Armageddons-Daughter-ebook/dp/B005OLF47Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316770586&sr=8-1. Como dato curioso, la portada ha sido realizada en Fedora utilizando gimp y mypaint :)

Para los amantes del SciFi es una lectura que seguro disfrutarán. En lo personal, jamás había realizado algo así y no les puedo contar con palabras todo el esfuerzo que llevó. Muchas otras cosas aún aguardan en el camino así que… a leer!

Ahora bien, este es el logo que hasta los momentos se maneja para el próximo FUDcon NA, el cual será realizado en Blacksburg, pero necesitamos TU opinión e ideas… cuentanos, que te parece?