The Ontario Linux Fest is a non-profit event that brings together professionals, students and enthusiasts who share a common interest: Linux and Open Source software.

First and foremost the Ontario Linux Fest is a conference designed to present compelling topics of interest to users of Linux and Open Source software. These topics will span a full range of interests that may be technical, motivational, social, legal or essentially topics that hold current interest. Attendees will find out what is happening in the Open Source world from the people directly involved.

It's also a social event. With a Welcome Party and Wrap-up Reception there will be lots of time to network and socialize with like-minded professionals. It's a great event to find new friends, or business partnerships and perhaps employers.

The event was years in the making and was born from the organizer's inspiring experiences at the Ohio Linux Fest. Those two future organizers, Richard Weait and John Van Ostrand, contemplated staging a complementary event in Ontario. It took years for the ideas to coalesce as the Ontario Linux Fest.

If you want to know more about the Ontario Linux Fest contact us.

Postal Address

Internet Addresses

Phone

http://www.osalt.com/

Couple of suggestions and tips:

• Add file extentions that you commonly use to the preferences
• Add commonly used folders to those being indexed
• ALT+SPACE to make launchy appear or dissappear
  

http://www.launchy.net/ 

The US Patent Office yesterday ordered a re-examination of the patent that was granted to BlackBoard for a variety of eLearning related "innovations". Lots has been written about Blackboards claims to have invented many of the commonly accepted features that most learning management systems have, and their subsequent law suit againt Canada's own Desire2Learn.

The really interesting turn about yesterday is that an application by a consortium of open-source LMSs (Moodle, ATutor, Sakai) was accepted and the USPO will re-examine BlackBoard's claims.

The pdf of the order is here...

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/publications/blackboard_reexam_order.pd

/shawn 

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Athabasca University and it's partners are busy behind the scenes organizing our FIRST Canadian Moodle Moot.  Here's what we've been up to this past couple of weeks:

1. Presenters / Discussion Leaders

We are proud to announce that we have confirmed Martin Dougiamas's attendance and participation.  YES -- he'll be with us in person!,  and of course he'll be particpating online with us.  . http://moodle.org and http://moodle.com

Jason Cole is the author of O'Reilly's 'Using Moodle'. It's a how-to guide for teachers on using the world's most popular open source course management system.  His current interest is in the intersection between Moodle and open content.

Richard Wylie will be presenting about the New Zealand Open Source Virtual Learning Environment Project and the benefits for his country.   https://eduforge.org/blog/blog.php?/archives/285-NZOSVLE-and-related-projects-an-Overview.html

Michael Penney has just confirmed his participation with us.  Michael is from Humboldt State University in California and has been administering the Moodle project at HSU since 2002.  He manages student and staff programmers and support staff to develop and deploy Moodle as an enterprise level system.

We're still confirming more, but I can only imagine how incredible it is going to be to rub shoulders with these people at our FIRST Canadian MoodleMoot!

2.  Change of Venue

We'll be gathering in Edmonton, Alberta for the face-to-face portion of our Moot and are finalizing the details now.

3. Registration

This will be open in another couple of weeks, but meanwhile we have been working on the budget trying our best to keep the costs low.  The early bird registration fee (prior to April 06) is $275.00 for face-to-face (includes the virtual) and $100.00 for virtual participation  (Some additional discounts will apply).

4.  Call for presenters/Discussion Leaders

We have received a few proposals from Australia, New Zealand, inquiries from Hong Kong and Libya and of course we have some proposals from the different corners of Canada.  We're still looking forward to receiving more.   The deadline is Friday, February 16, 2007.  Don't be shy!  Our streams are:

• K-12 and Post Secondary issues
• Moodling for Business
• Moodle Administration
• Moodle Tools and Techniques
  

One of the weaknesses of using this open source tool (Audacity) is that it does not work with MIDI files.  I'm wondering if there is an open source MIDI editor that anyone is using instead of audacity or in association with it?

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Edubuntu is a complete Linux-based operating system, freely available with community based support.

The Edubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Edubuntu Manifesto: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customize and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.

These freedoms make Edubuntu fundamentally different from proprietary software: not only are the tools you need available free of charge, you, and thousands of developers around the world, have the right to modify and build upon your software until it works exactly the way you want it to.

Many people around the world exercise this right. And you can expect many improvements with each new release of Edubuntu.

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