Booth planning.

[Colin McGregor]

Back on July 16th a number of GTALug folks meet to
consider GTALug and future trade shows, and other
"events" (notes about that are below). In particular
consideration was made about the upcoming Ontario
Linuxfest. Since that meeting the GTALug board has
meet, and while a final decision has not yet been made
it looks likely that GTALug will be at Ontario
Linuxfest (final call will likely be made on the basis
of costs, for space, furnishings, handouts, etc.).
Even if we are not at Ontario Linuxfest, it does
appear we will be at more than just the likes the
IT360 shows.

There will be a follow-up meeting on GTALug and events
Monday, July 30th, 7:00 PM at the Starbucks coffee
shop inside the Indigo bookstore, 2300 Yonge Street.

Once I clear away night school course (last class
August 2nd), and a few magazine articles (5 due in the
next 2 weeks) I will plan to spend some time on the
electronic name badge question (which attracted a lot
of positive attention). A few things I already know:

- the Atmel ATtiny 2313 appears to be the way to 
  go for a CPU.

- Can wire an LCD module -> control board with with as
  few as 8 wires (4 data wires, 2 control wires, power
  and ground). To simplify the control software it
  would be better to go to 8 data wires (total of 12
  wires) but this is not required.

- Not sure how to go for badge power. When I did the
  BASIC stamp based badge, part of the problem was the
  weight of a 9 V battery. So, I have checked 9V
  battery vs. 3 x AAA batteries. The 3 x AAA batteries
  were lighter 34 grams vs 37 grams (not enough
  difference to matter). May go with 2 x CR2032
  batteries, but ideally I would like to use
  rechargeable easily changed batteries...

- Keeping the badges thin is a concern. Again, a
  problem the BASIC Stamp badge where the stamp was
  behind the display, meant the badge always wanted to
  tip forward (and thus away from the viewer).

As a point of interest this past week I attended a
talk out near the airport, after which I rode the
number 58 bus which went past the Toronto Congress
Centre (site of the Ontario Linuxfest) to the Lawrence
West subway station. This was around lunch time, and
from passing in front of the Toronto Congress Centre
to stopped inside the Lawrence West subway station bus
bay was just under 33 minutes.


Colin McGregor

--- July 16 quick meeting notes:

Okay, here are quick rough notes from the meeting:

Key areas discussed:

-What is our message:
  - GTALug
  - Linux
  - CLUE
  - Certification in general - vendor Independence
  - User support

- CLUE partnership, yes or no? 
  - Consensus was yes.

- Past issues, volunteer training
  - Dress code
  - Booth practises and etiquette
  - Keep the focus on the crowd, not each other 
    (don't let the booth become a clubhouse)
  - Windows developer package - make sure volunteers
    can deliver info on moving from Windows to Linux.

- Candy / goodies

- Committees
  - Booth Furnishings
    - Focus on supporting a 10' x 10' booth or 
      10' x 20' booth (highly unlikely we will ever 
      get anything larger).
    - Ask  Bill Thanis and Drew Sullivan to run this.
  - Badges
    - Build prototype, 
    - Must be kept small/light.
    - First try to be LCD based (easier to wire than
      LED based badges...).

Colin McGregor
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists