Archis Gore
2006-01-23 17:34:52 UTC
Dear BLUGies,
As Sudhanwa Sir had mentioned, PLUG had been
given a stall at the IT Expo held by the CMDA during
the days of 19th January to 22nd January.
Devendra Laulkar and Shirish Agarwal were the
star performers, being present at 10:00am daily and
waiting on quite late.
To sum it up:
Day 1:
I was sleeping so dont know what happened.
Day 2:
Slightly low turnout during the day and steadily
increasing towards nightfall. We got quite a few
queries and had some time to answer them too. Being
the first day, it was not so boring explaining things
repeatedly. Mandriva was on display for a demo.
We got some good CD bookings but not too many.
Things went well with some minor glitches in the WiFi
connectivity.
Senior citizen's training was fulfilling and
satisfying. Felt good. Mostly people in their 70+ were
there. Had some time to talk to them also. This was a
good fun happy day.
Day 3:
Things were picking pace. Although a Linux stall
doesn't exactly appear to be a "cool gadgety" stall
amongst wide-screen HDTVs and car-racing-driving-wheel
demos, we did quite decently. A lot of technical
people showed up and we attracted some major core
groups like student groups from various colleges.
One memorable incident was that a person from
Baramati travelled all the way to book CDs and asked
for the source code as well. Although we didn't have
source RPMs at the moment, we promised him we would
find a way to get them delievered. It struck me most
of all because he was sincere, hard-working and had
studied as much as he could without internet
connectivity and travelled all the way to come to the
PLUG stall. It somehow feels sad to go to my own
college and see juniors having oodles of free
bandwidth all being paid for by the college and me
having to block certain sites at the proxy. Not one of
them ever came enquiring for the sources of any
package.
BLUG seminars could do wonders at such
colleges. Perhaps the localite BLUGies should have a
discussion on how we can target promotional events
beyond Pune.
Back to the issue at hand, we trained quite a
few senior citizens and they were very cooperative,
taking every statement without question or doubt,
sweet, kind and nice. We showed them e-mail usage, and
stuff like online railway ticket booking.
CD bookings went up heavily on this day.
Day 4:
Devendra was the first to show up in the
morning alone. Dexter joined shortly and then Shirish.
I showed up with a hangover since I was coding for
bill all night. (hey, sometimes temptation comes over
me also :-))
Dexter handled a batch of senior citizens
almost one hour and then Shirish took over the rest of
the day single-handedly.
We were quite jumpy due to the high turnout on
this day. Mostly being a Sunday, some families with
small children showed up (and we were giving all
little children cute little penguin stickers of PLUG).
So we saw a nice jump in the educational Live CD
booking.
Mandrake ruled! Knoppix came in second. Fedora
came in third with some few people. Almost nobody
asked for Gentoo or Debian. I guess those who want to
use them anyway would know better avenues to get than
rather than at an IT Expo.
Gnunify will get a good turnout this year
since almost everyone is desperate to learn about the
FOSS world but has no idea of where to go. So please
register for GNUnify soon. Places will run out
quickly.
The good thing was that apart from some funny
conversations, almost everyone had heard of linux
(though not many knew it was an OS). This made us feel
a lot better. One thing that quickly became apparent
is that people want to know more. The thing is that
they trust "companies" or "corporations" too much. The
minute they hear words like "NGO", just a user's
group, no company - but a community, they get
discouraged. Many wanted to know about the "core
company" behind linux not groups like us.
I hope GNUnify changes all that for most of
the crowd. It felt good that collegians actually spent
some time at the stall and gave us a chance to put
forth our side. Moreover, some asked queries and since
we were easily able to demonstrate the solutions, they
went home quite happy.
Yogesh got a Live CD on Day 4 after seeing
too many people wanting a demo of a "Live CD". The
Live CD was an instant hit. The crowd was unbearable
for our team of 5 volunteers to handle at a time (Each
of us talking to at least 4 people at a time). People
feel secure about Live CDs (duh!).
That about ends the post. Will definately write if I
can think of anything else.
Some funny incidents:
1. A person came asking if we would sell him blank
CDs.
2. A person came asking for Unix-Linux. When asked, he
said that he hated Linux but wanted Unix. I told him
that there are many unices and there is no single
"Unix". He said he would work with any of them. When I
suggested use Linux, he wouldn't agree. But he had
heard of a Unix-Linux, apparently a Unix that was
built free like Linux but was a _Pure Unix_ and _not
Linux_.
3. A person came asking whether the Live CD's would
run on Linux and whether all the other CDs would run
on Linux. When explained that they were all Linux, he
clarified to me that I should have learnt Linux before
volunteering and went on to explain that "Linux comes
with 2 CDs and one source CD" and the others had to
"run on" Linux and that I should get a clear idea of
what "runs on" Linux like Fedora or Mandrake, instead
of "what is" Linux. We were unable to provide him with
the "core linux" CDs on which to run his already
available Fedora CDs.
Apart from a few minor glitches, things went great.
Enjoyed the experience.
Yours faithfully,
Archis
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As Sudhanwa Sir had mentioned, PLUG had been
given a stall at the IT Expo held by the CMDA during
the days of 19th January to 22nd January.
Devendra Laulkar and Shirish Agarwal were the
star performers, being present at 10:00am daily and
waiting on quite late.
To sum it up:
Day 1:
I was sleeping so dont know what happened.
Day 2:
Slightly low turnout during the day and steadily
increasing towards nightfall. We got quite a few
queries and had some time to answer them too. Being
the first day, it was not so boring explaining things
repeatedly. Mandriva was on display for a demo.
We got some good CD bookings but not too many.
Things went well with some minor glitches in the WiFi
connectivity.
Senior citizen's training was fulfilling and
satisfying. Felt good. Mostly people in their 70+ were
there. Had some time to talk to them also. This was a
good fun happy day.
Day 3:
Things were picking pace. Although a Linux stall
doesn't exactly appear to be a "cool gadgety" stall
amongst wide-screen HDTVs and car-racing-driving-wheel
demos, we did quite decently. A lot of technical
people showed up and we attracted some major core
groups like student groups from various colleges.
One memorable incident was that a person from
Baramati travelled all the way to book CDs and asked
for the source code as well. Although we didn't have
source RPMs at the moment, we promised him we would
find a way to get them delievered. It struck me most
of all because he was sincere, hard-working and had
studied as much as he could without internet
connectivity and travelled all the way to come to the
PLUG stall. It somehow feels sad to go to my own
college and see juniors having oodles of free
bandwidth all being paid for by the college and me
having to block certain sites at the proxy. Not one of
them ever came enquiring for the sources of any
package.
BLUG seminars could do wonders at such
colleges. Perhaps the localite BLUGies should have a
discussion on how we can target promotional events
beyond Pune.
Back to the issue at hand, we trained quite a
few senior citizens and they were very cooperative,
taking every statement without question or doubt,
sweet, kind and nice. We showed them e-mail usage, and
stuff like online railway ticket booking.
CD bookings went up heavily on this day.
Day 4:
Devendra was the first to show up in the
morning alone. Dexter joined shortly and then Shirish.
I showed up with a hangover since I was coding for
bill all night. (hey, sometimes temptation comes over
me also :-))
Dexter handled a batch of senior citizens
almost one hour and then Shirish took over the rest of
the day single-handedly.
We were quite jumpy due to the high turnout on
this day. Mostly being a Sunday, some families with
small children showed up (and we were giving all
little children cute little penguin stickers of PLUG).
So we saw a nice jump in the educational Live CD
booking.
Mandrake ruled! Knoppix came in second. Fedora
came in third with some few people. Almost nobody
asked for Gentoo or Debian. I guess those who want to
use them anyway would know better avenues to get than
rather than at an IT Expo.
Gnunify will get a good turnout this year
since almost everyone is desperate to learn about the
FOSS world but has no idea of where to go. So please
register for GNUnify soon. Places will run out
quickly.
The good thing was that apart from some funny
conversations, almost everyone had heard of linux
(though not many knew it was an OS). This made us feel
a lot better. One thing that quickly became apparent
is that people want to know more. The thing is that
they trust "companies" or "corporations" too much. The
minute they hear words like "NGO", just a user's
group, no company - but a community, they get
discouraged. Many wanted to know about the "core
company" behind linux not groups like us.
I hope GNUnify changes all that for most of
the crowd. It felt good that collegians actually spent
some time at the stall and gave us a chance to put
forth our side. Moreover, some asked queries and since
we were easily able to demonstrate the solutions, they
went home quite happy.
Yogesh got a Live CD on Day 4 after seeing
too many people wanting a demo of a "Live CD". The
Live CD was an instant hit. The crowd was unbearable
for our team of 5 volunteers to handle at a time (Each
of us talking to at least 4 people at a time). People
feel secure about Live CDs (duh!).
That about ends the post. Will definately write if I
can think of anything else.
Some funny incidents:
1. A person came asking if we would sell him blank
CDs.
2. A person came asking for Unix-Linux. When asked, he
said that he hated Linux but wanted Unix. I told him
that there are many unices and there is no single
"Unix". He said he would work with any of them. When I
suggested use Linux, he wouldn't agree. But he had
heard of a Unix-Linux, apparently a Unix that was
built free like Linux but was a _Pure Unix_ and _not
Linux_.
3. A person came asking whether the Live CD's would
run on Linux and whether all the other CDs would run
on Linux. When explained that they were all Linux, he
clarified to me that I should have learnt Linux before
volunteering and went on to explain that "Linux comes
with 2 CDs and one source CD" and the others had to
"run on" Linux and that I should get a clear idea of
what "runs on" Linux like Fedora or Mandrake, instead
of "what is" Linux. We were unable to provide him with
the "core linux" CDs on which to run his already
available Fedora CDs.
Apart from a few minor glitches, things went great.
Enjoyed the experience.
Yours faithfully,
Archis
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bcslug/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
bcslug-***@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/