Announcement of MPLUG: An Open Source Education Group

[Warren Togami]

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MPLUG and ALOHA - Associate Groups
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After the first ALOHA meeting on Thursday, Feb 22, I engaged in a dialogue
with John Christian, the current interim President.  We have come to
agreement that our plans for Open Source Groups differ in goals and focus.
We explored the possibility of ALOHA meeting at Mid-Pacific Institute, but
our schedules simply could not coincide (seemingly trivial but problematic).

For these reasons, I have decided to go ahead with my plans for my own group
under the name of MPLUG - Mid-Pacific Linux User's Group.  This name gives
indications to both our physical location in the world, and the school which
hosts the meetings.  This group will be very different from previous groups
with the following two goals.  Education of the community in Linux and Open
Source Technologies through community seminars and events, and proactive
advocacy of OSS toward Non-Profit Organizations.

Yes, I know some of you are concerned about duplication of effort in two
Open Source groups in Hawaii.  I do not think this will be a problem.
Initially John Christian's ALOHA Group will be mainly a meeting of Open
Source advocates and enthusiasts, who will meet and discuss open source
issues on a monthly basis.  Over time they will eventually grow into
education and advocacy.  The initial focus of MPLUG is education and newbie
oriented, in order to generate interest in OSS, especially in State
Education where they would be most needing and receptive of such cost
effective technologies.  Eventually both of our groups will converge into
common territory and goals.  Then we will merge.  Until that time, John and
I have agreed that ALOHA and MPLUG will work together toward the common goal
of the Open Source cause.

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MPLUG Organization - Mid-Pacific Linux User's Group
Homepage: http://www.mplug.org (just registered today, server not yet up)
Temporary Homepage: http://mplug.togami.com
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A monthly organizational meeting will be held once a month at the
Mid-Pacific Institute Technology Lab, on a Tuesday at 6:30pm.  Seminars will
be held at  announced dates and times throughout the month.  Please refer to
the homepage for announcements and (soon) event calendar.

These monthly organzational meetings will commence AFTER a few initial
Seminars.  This will be to first generate interest for there to be a good
turnout at the first monthly organizational meeting.

HELP WANTED!  We need your expertise.  If you feel that you have an
interesting presentation for a future MPLUG Seminar, please contact me at
warren at togami.com and we will put together a Seminar.

We currently are planning the following Seminars to be held at either the
Mid-Pacific Institute Technology Lab or the University of Hawaii ICS
Department.  These events will be open to the public on an RSVP basis.
Dates and times will be announced at a later date.

"Linux Installation and Basics"
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Basic overview of how the Linux operating system works, installation, and
usage of the Linux CLI, Gnome and KDE.

"Introduction to Open Source Software"
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Targeted toward Educator/Business Administration and IT Staff, and anybody
else interested in learning about the capabilities of Open Source.  This is
not a technical seminar, but rather a hands on overview demonstration of
what is available in the world of OSS.  Topics Include:
Operating Systems - Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, etc.
Server Systems - Web, E-mail, SQL database, NAS, NFS, NIS (YP), Samba,
Winbind, Netatalk
High Availability - RAID, Journaling Filesystems, Fail-Over Clustering
Multimedia - Broadcast 2000, Blender and other 3D Rendering suites,
Sampling, Music Trackers, Gimp
Productivity Applications - StarOffice, OpenOffice, Corel WordPerfect
Office, Applix, etc.
Web Applications - PHP, Perl, CGI, Java Servlets, etc.
Remote Access - VPN, SSH, PPTP, VNC, X, etc.

"Linux Terminal Servers and Thin Clients"
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How to build computer labs with tons of useful software, good performance,
and low maintenance at roughly $300 per seat using Open Source Software.
Mostly of interest toward school educators and some businesses, but the
technology behind it is pretty cool and interesting for most geeks.


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Please send any questions, comments or flames to Warren Togami
<warren at togami.com> or contact me on ICQ: 11780053.