[KLUG Members] Looking forward to 2003

[Adam Williams]

This Tuesday is KLUG's last meeting of 2002,  so far the best year yet. 
Thanks to everyone who presented or contributed in some way during the
past year,  which has seen KLUG move into new and nicer digs, provide
Internet access during meetings (including wireless), and setup a new
FTP site on our high-bandwidth connection.  There are more people on our
mailing lists than ever before.  Congratulations are in order for all
KLUG officers, supporting members, and regular attendees.

But a new year presents a fresh challenge - we have to fill all those
weeks with topics, presenters, etc...  The only way we can do that
(again:) is for you to step forward and lay claim to a date.  You don't
need to be an uber-geek,  you just have to know one topic or tool well
enough to have something to share.  And I at least am convinced that
everyone on this list matches that qualification.

If don't have a yen to give back to the Open Source community that
supplies us with so many incredible tools (and you should),  consider
the other benefits of presenting.  

Particularly for job seeks and students, having content on the Internet
is a big plus.  Get your name out there and associated with good
material.  If you go to www.google.com and search on almost any Linux
related topic,  I'll wager that www.kalamazooolinux.org is in the upper
portion of the links returned.  Posting content on our website has
resulted in over the phone job offers.  

Secondly is just name recognition.  Want snappy responses to your
questions on various lists?  Contribute.  When those amazing developers
on high see an e-mail address they recognize, they are more likely to
respond and they take your comments and criticisms more seriously.

Fortunately "getting published" is easy these days.  And it all starts
with an e-mail to programdirector@kalamazoolinux.org

Current 2003 Schedule:
----------------------
2003-01-07 Beginners Meeting and Elections
2003-01-14 Date Available
2003-01-21 Date Available 
2003-01-28 Matthew Benjamin (The Linux Box): Mandatory Access Control 
2003-02-04 Beginners Meeting 
2003-02-11 Date Available 
2003-02-18 Date Available 
2003-02-25 Date Available 
2003-03-04 Beginners Meeting 
2003-03-11 Date Available 
2003-03-18 Date Available 
2003-03-25 Date Available 
2003-04-01 Beginners Meeting

Recently requested topics
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. GIMP: Intro to using
2. StarBasic: Writing programs and macros in Star Office / Open Office
3. SGML: Huh?  (I wanted documentation and they told me they could build
it from the sgml included in the tar ball.....WTFM?)
4. SSL, Public Keys and Certificates
5. CORBA
6. Video / Multimedia with Linux
7. Automating Desktop Tasks in GNOME (Macros)
8. DNS servers: bind and djbdns
9. LTSP
10. Voice over IP, IP telephony
11. Manging large documents in Open/Star Office (table of contents,
indexes, document linking, cross referencing, versioning)
12. ACPI and power management
13. Gconf
14. Fonts: Types, Font server, Font Path, Pango, font config... Ah!


Speaker Guidelines:
---------------------------------
1. Presentations should be 30~90 minutes in length.  Length of 120
minutes for advanced topics is allowed,  but please notify the program
director of your intention to run long.
2. There is typically time after the presentation proper for one on one 
conversations with members of the audience.  The meetings close around
9:15 - 9:30pm.
3. KLUG can provide an SVGA projector that works with most computers.  
The projectors native resolution is 800x600x16bit,  but it will work,
with some negligable loss of quality, at 1024x768.  We have had very
good luck with compatibility but we cannot GUARANTEE compatibility.
4. Please consider that the meeting room is quite large,  if your going
to display text/examples, please plan ahead to use a LARGE and CRISP
font.
5. Presenters should provide a title, one paragraph bio, and one
paragraph topic description for inclusion on the KLUG schedule page. 
Please provide these in plain text.
6. It is appreciated when presenters can provide their presentations (in
some open format), notes, or other content for inclusion on the KLUG
past presentations page.
7. Internet access is available, both RJ-45 and wireless, at the
facility. But KLUG cannot guarantee it's functionality at any given
time.  Presenters are advised to avoid reliance on external resources
when possible.