Search Results: "mendoza"

4 February 2013

Raphaël Hertzog: My Free Software Activities in January 2013

This is my monthly summary of my free software related activities. If you re among the people who made a donation to support my work (84.25 , thanks everybody!), then you can learn how I spent your money. Otherwise it s just an interesting status update on my various projects. Debian Packaging In one of my customer projects, I had to use libwebsockets and since it was not packaged for Debian, I filed a Request For Package (RFP #697671). I discovered a fork of this library on github and decided to mail the original author and the author of the fork to learn a bit more about the reason of the fork. It turns out that they miscommunicated and that the original author was interested by most of the improvements. The fork still exists but the important fixes and most of the improvements have been merged (and he released a version 1.0 after that!). Furthermore the original author setup a bug tracker to better organize the project and so that the author of the fork can submit patches and be sure that they won t be forgotten (as it happened in the past). I spend quite some time discussing with both parties but at the end I m pleased to see that good progress has been made (although nobody stepped up to maintain this package in Debian). I packaged zim 0.59 (an important bugfix release) and wordpress 3.5.1 (with several security fixes). I updated the dpkg-dev squeeze backports to version 1.16.9~bpo60+1 on request of Daniel Schepler. This backport led me to file #698133 on kgb-client because the bot literally spammed the #debian-dpkg IRC channel for multiple hours by resending old commit notices that got merged in the squeeze-backports branch. BTW, they need help to get this issue fixed. I updated python-django-registration to fix a compatibility issue with python3-sphinx (see #697721 for details). Misc Debian Stuff Serious bug with salt. I filed a grave bug on salt (#697747 ) and prepared the upload to fix the issue on request of the maintainer. In the mean time, the maintainer orphaned the package. Franklin G. Mendoza already announced its willingness to take over but this package deserves multiple maintainers since this is a good piece of software that is getting more and more popular. net-retriever and alternate keyrings. I filed a wishlist bug (#698618) on net-retriever to request a way for derivatives to use another keyring package (i.e. not debian-archive-keyring-udeb) without having to fork net-retriever. Linux 3.7 on armel/armhf. I helped the kernel maintainers to fix the 3.7 kernel on armel/armhf by reporting on IRC the results of successive failing kernel rebuilds on those architectures (this kernel version is only in experimental). Carl9170 firmware. I also pinged the kernels maintainers about a missing firmware for the carl9170 driver (already reported in #635840) and Ben Hutchings took care of re-activating its inclusion in upstream s linux-firmware.git and then uploaded firmware-free 3.2 to Debian. Thanks Ben! New QA team member. And to finish with the miscellaneous stuff, I helped Holger Levsen to be added to the qa group so that he could integrate his awesome work on automated QA checks with Jenkins. Debian France Preparation for Solutions Linux. The people organizing the village of associations in the Solutions Linux conference have asked all organizations to apply for a booth if they wanted one. Last year Carl Chenet took care of organizing this and this time we had to find someone else. I made multiple call for volunteers (on the mailing list, on my blog) without much success but I finally managed to convince Tanguy Ortolo to take care of this. Thank you Tanguy! Get in touch with treasurer who disappeared. During the transition with the former Debian France officers, it has been said that Aur lien G r me another former treasurer of Debian France had entirely disappeared together with some papers that he never gave to his successor. I didn t want to give up on this without at least trying to get in touch by myself so after multiple tries (over IRC, phone, and snail mail), and some weeks without answers, he got back to me, explaining that he s currently in a foreign country and that he will take care of that next time that he comes in France. \o/ New website in preparation. Replacing the single-page website webpage with a more comprehensive website is an important goal. Alexandre Delano provided a basic ikiwiki setup inspired by dsa.debian.org. I cleaned it and integrated it in a git repository on our machine. There s thus a new test website on http://france.debian.net/test/. Tanguy Ortolo and Fernando Lagrange immeditaly made some small improvements but since then nobody stepped up to further complete the website. I ll try to do this in February and put the new website in production. Paypal and handling of members. We installed a paypal plugin in galette so that members can renew their membership online. I asked Christian Bayle to try it out and we found some issues that I reported upstream and that got fixed. But this is only the first step, we want to go much further and automate all the membership handling, from membership renewal mail reminders up to integration in the accounting system. To this end, I filed some new tickets in the Galette tracker and completed some that were already opened: #490, #368 and #394. We requested a quote for those tickets and Debian France is going to fund the work on those tickets so that we have a 100% free software solution for our needs. Thanks See you next month for a new summary of my activities.

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13 April 2010

Gunnar Wolf: Regarding the fatal cycling accident in Ciudad Universitaria

My blog is written in English, even though I sometimes post content relevant locally. Anyway, I want this to be as widely known as possible. We are about to launch a website/community for my University's cyclists, BiciUNAMonos. Please note the site I'm linking is still very preliminary in several ways. But that's the least relevant for now. I am translating here a message written by fellow cyclist (and researcher in the Institute of Astronomy of my University) Sergio Mendoza.
Regarding the fatal cycling accident in Ciudad Universitaria Yesterday night I got home, and was quite surprised to open my mailbox and find a considerable amount of messages under the subject Urgent: Fallen cyclist! I immediately noticed something was very wrong, and was surprised they were contacting me. When I decided to read the first such message, I realized what happened: Dr. Jorge Villanueva was run over by the Puma [internal University service] bus number 14, route 2, which was being driven over the speed limit. This happened last Sunday, April 11. On Sundays, all of Ciudad Universitaria becomes a cycling and running circuit. I was immediately brought back to the moment that, when I was leaving my office in the Astronomy Institute and heading towards Cerro del Agua avenue, a lady driving over the speed limit on the circuit that comes from Metro Universidad threw her car at me. I saw her at a few centimeters distance from her windshield... To the day I don't know how I pulled my bike away, as I was going to hit the windshield with my shoulder. Everything happened in slow motion, I just heard several cars honking at this imprudent lady. I didn't have a scratch, but got excessively close to getting a strong hit, and with the adrenaline raging I gave a kind caress with my closed fist to her brand new car. I had to free my adrenaline somehow... My legs were trembling when I tried to pedal. I told her, lady, I am excessively visible in my bike, why did you do this? , she didn't answer, she just looked despectively at me. This kind of accidents happen every day in the University and its main entries. Precisely today, a University professor threw his car at me entering the University via Cerro del Agua. When I reached him and confronted him, he told me completely sure of his words that I was invading the lane with my bike, and that it was my fault. Anybody would have thought a car-driving university professor is capable of reading the Metropolitant Transit Regulations that clearly states on its 1st article: The priority for using the public space, for the different transport modes will be according to the following priorization: I. Pedestrians; II. Cyclists; III. Users and providers of massive, collective or individual public transport service; IV. users of particular automotor transport; and V. users and providers of freight transport. We are now organizing to put up the first ghost bike in Ciudad Universitaria. This happens few days before the formal inauguration of BiciUNAMonos, the universitary association of urban cyclists; we will do this remembering our university mate. I see every day more people in the University hitting their bike pedals to get to their faculties, centers and research institutes, but what is striking is the lack of University infrastructure. The few cycleways we have are built to use a bycicle system that is open only until 16:00. It is good, but it is in no way useful for those of us who use the bike every day and at every hour, no matter the weather. The main problem lies at the communication points, when cyclists arrive from outside Ciudad Universitaria and have to take the regular circuits to reach the cycleways. The Transit Regulation, in the 1st article I quoted above, defines in an excellent way the priorities that must exist to allow human movility. In this regard we have to mention that:
  1. The pedestrians must be enormously protected with walkways and semaphores to allow them to safely walk. In Ciudad Unviersitaria there are many places that don't even have a walkway or semaphores, and drivers do not respect the pedestrian's preference. Also, now in the central area of Ciudad Universitaria we have the Pumabus system on a confined lane, providing an excellent service to the pedestrians to move within the campus.
  2. The cyclist comes next in this priorization, but there is nothing obvious for him. There are a couple of cyclist ways, usually invaded by pedestrians, and explicitly made to use the Bicipuma system. Cyclists need their own lane for circulation in the Universitary circuit; pedestrians have walkways, Pumab s has its confined lanes, but the cyclists still lack it. The third lane that remains is precisely for the IV and V entries in the Metropolitan Transport Regulations. They can perfectly share the remaining lane in the campus.
The last thing I wanted was to formally announce BiciUNAMonos reminding a fallen cyclist and dedicating a ghost bycicle to his memory in Ciudad Universtiaria, but we don't have a choice. We have to make it very clear to the University community that the bicycle is the best transport system, and that the drivers' imprudence inside Ciudad Universitaria must be strongly punished. Sergio Mendoza
President
http://www.biciunamonos.org
Coincidentally, today I also had a freightening experience. Taking one of my usual routes to work, going up from the sporting area in the Western half of the campus (just before where the map lists the highest point in my ride), just by Investigaciones Biom dicas, I heard a car hitting the breaks behind me and passing me (on my right side) quite narrowly. I was, as always, driving towards the center of the lane, to be able to respond to unforseen events (as this one, precisely). The Universitary authorities had the great(?) idea of placing round, small bumps before the Pumabus stations to avoid drivers parking in front of them. I have seen a strong accident caused by them, and was close to suffering one myself some months ago. I know that just after Biom dicas there are some such bumps, so I never ride too much to the right I don't know what was on this driver's head. Ciudad Universitaria has a 40 Km/h speed limit. Yes, it might seem too low - Circuits are wide and well planned. But there is a lot of cyclist and pedestrian transit, at all times, and I must recognize such a limit is well in place. I often take a longer route to my Institute, bordering the University along Av. Delf n Madrigal. People tell me I'm crazy, as this is an avenue that's often taken at high speed - Usually, cars pass me by between 60 and 80 Km/h. However, I even feel safer going that way than going inside the University. Contrary to the popular belief, Universitary people do not have better driving habits than the bulk of the population. And it's often much easier to drive along a way where the traffic even if it goes at three times my speed runs only in one direction, unlike the swarming of people going in every possible direction inside the main campus. Anyway, last Sunday we lost a University professor, we lost a cyclist. Some people lost a friend, a family member. We have to make this case well known, we have to speak with the authorities so they see the Bicipuma system is good, but not enough. Cycling is the only way to go for a city as complex as ours. A much needed first step is to allow proper vial connections linking the University and the many avenues that surround it. Another one is to make a campaign so the cyclists are not seen as Sergio regards as intruders in the streets The street belongs to us all. Cyclists should never drive on walkways or among pedestrians. Drivers need to learn to share the streets with us.

7 March 2010

Gunnar Wolf: Authoral rights in the editorial world seminar

I must confess I don't remember who I got this invitation from. Anyway, if you are in the right geographic area, you might be interested. I will try to participate: This is a year-long seminar that will be held the second Thursday every month at Fonoteca Nacional (a place I have wanted to visit for a long time!), in Barrio de Santa Catarina, Coyoac n. Among the organizers they have Creative Commons Mexico. Free entrance (but limited space - so they ask interested people to confirm their presence by mail to bvallarta@conaculta.gob.mx). [update] I went with Pooka to the first session. We arrived almost 1hr late (due to me mistaking the schedule :-/ ) but it was interesting. Of course, quite biased towards the Google viewpoints, but interesting. We got the program for the next sessions So, mostly for myself to keep handy, here it goes:
Date Title Speakers
2010-03-11 Google and copyright Manuel Tamez, Hugo Contreras, Mar a Fernanda Mendoza
2010-04-08 Generalities about rights on intelectual property Jes s Parets, Guillermo Sol rzano, Jorge Mier y Concha
2010-05-13 Copyright's nature and competent authorites Carmen Arteaga, Luis Schmidt, C sar Callejas
2010-06-10 Moral and patrimonial rights Guillermo Pous, Eduardo de la Parra, Ram n Ob n
2010-07-08 Reproduction rights for audible material lvaro Hegewisch, scar Javier Solorio, Marco Antonio Morales, Jos Ram n C rdeno
2010-08-12 Licenses and patrimonial right transmission. Works for hire, works done under laboral relationship, or carried out in official service Dolores Franco, Jes s Mej a, Ra l Pastor
2010-09-09 Limits to explotation rights and literary plagiarism Carmen Arteaga, Juan Ram n Ob n, Jorge Mier y Concha, C sar Callejas
2010-10-14 Copyright in a digital setting Jes s Parets, Gast n Esquivel
2010-11-11 Law-regulated intelectual property rights Rosalba Elizalde, Salvador Ortega, Gast n Esquivel, Manrique Moheno
2010-12-09 International protection and collective gestive societies Horacio Rangel, Luis Schmidt, Jes s Mej a

7 June 2009

Gunnar Wolf: Foldable Universo bike

Today I went to the La Merced area to finally buy a foldable bike. There were basically four options: Benotto's 20" Utopia, Alubike 16" Foldingbike, Alubike 24" and a custom-made bike at a smaller store, Bici Universo. In Mexico it is also possible to buy a Brompton, although they are not available in larger stores and their pricing is prohibitive. Sergio Mendoza advised me to look for the Dahon bikes at Benotto, but they have discontinued them in favor of their own making. I ended up buying the Bici Universo one. I must say this: I sincerely hope not to regret this option I got this bike because neither of the other ones satisfied me, and this one was at about two thirds the price (MX$1800, plus some extras I requested, MX$2100 That means, US$187 or 113). First of all, after thinking about it for a while, I decided I didn't want a larger, more normal wheel The Alubike 24 (which I'd have to build shopping piece by piece, as they had only the frame for sale Would be a good ocassion to learn more about the whole process!) is basically a great regular bike you can put in a regular car trunk, but is still too large for taking it into public transport or lugging along when travelling, by bus or by plane. Besides, the manubrium1 is not foldable. So it is basically as portable as this venerable Compaq. The Benotto's manubrium does fold, but the bike does not hold itself together when folded, it is not stable. You have to explicitly keep it folded. Not exactly comfortable. I had tested the smaller Alubike at another bike store closer to my home. It feels a bit freer than the Universo one (I'll get to it soon), but still feels a bit kludgy... And at a price about MX$1000 higher, I decided against it. Now, why am I wary with the Universo? Because after all... It is just a bike for kids age 4-7 and 7-12 (?) cut in half, and with a hinge soldered on: Bici Universo - 4 to 12 year old It is also a heavy bike (I have not weighed it yet, but comparative guesstimates puts it over the Alubikes), so it might be problematic when travelling... I'll see when in Nicaragua in a couple of weeks ;-) I have yet a couple of adjustments to make to it, but I am very looking forward to travelling with my bike on. I hope it turns out to be comfortable. And in any case, I can of course! donate it to my nephews... who are in the right age group. Some photos:
  1. 1. the word seems strange, but that's Google's suggestion The bar you take with your hands to steer the bike

24 April 2009

Gunnar Wolf: Some prefer marathoning... I prefer going to my old workplace

I was invited to talk about Free Software at yesterday's FLISOL. Yesterday? Aren't FLISOLs organized on Saturday? Well, not this one, for various reasons which I won't quote here. And no, I am not a supporter of the installfests idea, but I went gladly to talk about what is Free Software all about - The philosophy behind Free Software. Besides, the talk was at FES Iztacala, where I worked for four happy years, 1999-2003. I have not been often to Iztacala since 2003 (probably I have visited only three or four times), partly because of the distance (~25Km from home in a straight line, but the city's Northern part is quite poorly communicated). The last time I was there, last October, I went by bike, just to test my endurance and... because I could. Yesterday, I also did, not to be outdone by my fellow Debianers Christian and Dirk. Think they are so cool because they can run for 43Km? Well, I had my 55Km yesterday, and I was not even in a competition! (yes, yes, running and biking is not the same. So sue me. I just didn't want to stand still and let them walk away with all of the fun!) I took slightly different routes (my route to get there on Nokia Sportstracker and OpenStreetMap trace, my route back on Nokia Sportstracker and OpenStreetMap trace), crossing diagonally Azcapotzalco, a region of the city (delegaci n) I hardly know... The Sourthern of it seems like a continuation of Tacuba to the North, small and not-very-well-communicated prior villages engulfed by our hungry, huge city. The Northern half is a mostly industrial area, with very sparse population, lots of trucks, and streets that are not in the best shape. You can end up feeling lonely in those regions, and I am glad not to have crossed back by night. And the trip back was interesting as well... Mexico City is home to many more bikers you would expect given its size, and it is very common to find other people doing nice long stretches. In this case, I started cycling quite close to another guy in a white bike more or less when I got to Calzada Camarones. Possibly we had passed each other over and over until after Tlatelolco, arriving to Guerrero, where I approached him at a stoplight:
Hi! Where to?
Near Vocacional 7, Iztapalapa!
Nice! I'm just going to Copilco Every now and then we crossed each other... Turns out he does this ~30Km commute daily between Iztapalapa and Azcapotzalco. Quite admirable, to be honest. I also crossed my road with Sergio Mendoza, fellow Debianer (and co-administrator of our Mexican mirror) around Centro M dico (about 7Km north from my destination), whom I had only seen before around the University. Nice surprise. And yes, getting to know the city by bike is the best way to go! Back to the conference... my first thought when I was invited was to present Qu es el Software Libre?, a talk I have given over and over since... 2002 (although, yes, with updates). I must say it's one of the best structured talks I have prepared and has almost always been very successful - But give the same talk based on the same script over and over (AFAICT, around 20 times), and you will be fed up with it. And yes, yesterday I didn't take my laptop along, and didn't put my presentation on a USB stick - I took a pen and some paper, and during the presentation prior to mine, wrote some points to go over. And yes, it was a refreshing change. The talk was as successful as expected, and it's much more refreshing to talk about the same topics bot on a different way, and without being constrained to a predefined script. I know that organizing formally your ideas makes sure you don't miss out important points and that the audience is sometimes encouraged to pay attention by having some bullet points to look at - But on the other hand, it is much easier to follow your audience's interest if you are not bound by the script. And the few times I've spoken that way, it has felt refreshing and nice.

16 March 2009

James Morrison: Fruit fly

I went to see Fruit Fly at the Castro Theatre tonight. It was a really fun movie and very local. Oh yeah, it's a musical, I don't think I've had that much fun watching a movie since I saw Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter the first time. The opening number is a song about public transit and not needing a car in San Francisco. The previous film by H.P. Mendoza is Colma: The Musical, it's got a lot of the same cast and also look like a lot of fun. Unfortunatly, movies are behind music and I can't find a stream or download on hulu, amazon or youtube of Colma the musical.

Anyway, if anyone wants to go see Fruit Fly it is playing in Berkeley on friday. I don't think I'll make it out to that since the Castro Theatre is having a triple bill "nerds with balls" Midnites for maniacs on friday.

In other good news, I couldn't get either a Petzl size 1 or size 2 harness since my legs are size two, but my waist is size 1.

17 May 2007

Gunnar Wolf: Starting as a mentor soon

After a long time talking this as a mere potential would-be-nice thing, finally we are putting some action behind our words: One week from now, Sergio Mendoza and I will start a ~2 month long extracurricular course on Debian. The students? We have 12 students of the Facultad de Ciencias at my University. The students are pre- and post-graduate (licenciatura and maestr a), from the Phsyics and Astronomy areas. Sergio got this group as he is a teacher and researcher at Instituto de Astronom a.
While this first iteration is completely extra-curricular, unofficial and by invitation only, we expect this pilot course to be later presented as an official course in the Faculty.
Many people will remember I usually don't like general courses on Unix, Debian or whatever. What made me accept this time - even more, be enthusiastic about it? First of all, the requirements: We assume the students already know their way (at least as users) in a multiuser Unix-like system, so we won't be hand-holding them all the way through. Second, the focus: Sergio (who is among the first Debian users in Mexico and who got us our first full Debian mirror - which is actually a bit sick, but awaiting for prompt hardware upgrade ;-) ) wants them to focus on becoming developers. Not only developing science-oriented applications and libraries, but properly packaging and integrating them in Debian (and, hopefully, some of them will become interested in joining the project). We will also spend a good portion of the course on teaching them good practices on system adminsitration, teaching the principles behind what we do (i.e. I'm looking forward to participating, and in this case as one of the more students, in the sessions where different cryptography-related topics will be explained, starting from their mathematical foundations and going all the way up towards the implementation, where I'm more comfortable at).
It will be a nice experiment. I will be away for at least five of the lessons (Blame Debconf!), but I'm really looking towards the process and the results.
We will be making rough documentation of what we teach. We don't have a planned complete program, as we want to go with the group's real skills and interests, planning not more than three lessons ahead. This will be, however unofficial it is, my first time in front of a group in a university-esque setting (i.e. not short sessions, not capacitation built for a company, but with people eager to learn what we want to teach. I'll post again on this topic :)

21 February 2007

Gunnar Wolf: Back from [VAC]?

On January 13, I sent a mail to debian-private saying I'd be on a semi-vacation until around February 10 - And yes, for over a month I've basically not touched my packaging, and for around three months my general profile in Debian has been really low. I sent this message because the Institute I work at moved, and I got the task of taking care of everything related with electrons flows carrying information (namely, voice and data networks).
It's not that I'm really-really-back now - Work is still too absorbing, users still come too often to me expecting me to solve their problems. I can often try to do so on the data network, but I'm far from even having access to the voice equipment (I've done my hardest effort not to get such access, because that'd instantly turn me into the phone operator for life). However, for the first time in many weeks, today I had some quiet time, I catched up with some mailing lists, and... Well, I expect to work on my QA page.
Boy, team-maintainership rules! pkg-perl friends, thanks for saving me from the creepy bugs sometimes too often. I expect to pick up work I haven't even looked at since I committed to doing so with the pkg-ruby-extras team as well, specifically, getting mongrel in shape and into Debian, despite our deep differences with its author. This will make Rails roll smoother and faster in Debian. And of course, there is Debconf. After last year's burnout, I think I recovered - I'm not a core organizator anymore, but I'm back to work my way to Edimburgh ;-)
As for my local activities (Mexican Free Software conferences, meetings and people): Partly because so I decided and partly because so it happened, I've been off the hook with the local community since before Debconf 6. Before, because I was too busy to think about anything besides it, and after, because I was burnt out and somewhat bitter at several facts. I've been to few regional or local conferences, also because I knew that between last October and today I'd be too tied up at work. But last week we had both CONSOL and BarCamp Mexico. Somehow I managed to be at both (well, at CONSOL I was only enough time to do my two talks, for which I miraculously managed to get prepared, and BarCamp was during the weekend). Both were very positive for me, and I'm willing again to find some time to devote to promoting and developing Free Software in our country.
Oh! One more note: Thanks to Sergio Mendoza for pushing me and for co-discussing on the subject, we are getting small but tangible results pointing to a Debian-UNAM project. Not much to see yet, besides having received the domain authority, which for now just means a nicer name for Nisamox, Mexico's main (and only long-running) full Debian mirror.

30 November 2006

Jorge Salamero Sanz: Blog Voyage

Blog Voyage is a game begun by bashflyng with the following rules: you have to travel along the world and along the blogs. You choose a place: a city, a town, a building, a river, a mountain ... The only clue is a picture of the place from Google Earth. The first person to guess the answer gets to choose the following voyage in his blog. This is the current roadmap: Well, here we go: blog voyage UPDATE: george wins. It's New Zealand, the Mount Ruapehu.

19 October 2006

Kai Hendry: Where was I?


School children learning about Free software
I feel a little stupid for my last post about my unstable machine. It was the hardware to blame and my hard drive finally crashed during a Linux conference in Mendoza, Argentina. Typical. At the conference there wasn´t much new for me and I regret that I didn´t get organised enough to give a talk about the Web and WHATWG stuff. Though I did manage to meet good people and talk about some topics that are of interest to me. As usual the fabulous friendly CafeLUG geeks from Buenos Aires were there, led by the wonderful DD Marcela. I also met an inspiring guy from Cordoba who founded a successful software company that works with free software. His brother gave a great talk about it at the conference. I really love to see Free software power people to start a business. Oh and about my thinkpad X40 hard drive replacement. With the help of another new friend Fredrico from Mendoza, we called up IBM in Buenos Aires and arranged a new hard drive and a battery within 5 days! I didn´t know if my machine was under warranty still, phew. Unfortunately IBM called the next day saying they didn´t have any stock and the wait from the US is about 2 weeks. Since I have no idea where I will be in two weeks (ok, probably Sao Paulo, Brazil) I cancelled that request and now I have found a free Windoze (hopefully not trojaned) terminal just over the Andes, in Santiago Chile. Tough life!

Kai Hendry: Where was I?


School children learning about Free software
I feel a little stupid for my last post about my unstable machine. It was the hardware to blame and my hard drive finally crashed during a Linux conference in Mendoza, Argentina. Typical. At the conference there wasn’t much new for me and I regret that I didn’t get organised enough to give a talk about the Web and WHATWG stuff. Though I did manage to meet good people and talk about some topics that are of interest to me. As usual the fabulous friendly CafeLUG geeks from Buenos Aires were there, led by the wonderful DD Marcela. I also met an inspiring guy from Cordoba who founded a successful software company that works with free software. His brother gave a great talk about it at the conference. I really love to see Free software power people to start a business. Oh and about my thinkpad X40 hard drive replacement. With the help of another new friend from Mendoza, we called up IBM in Buenos Aires and arranged a new hard drive and a battery within 5 days! I didn’t know if my machine was under warranty still, phew. Unfortunately IBM called the next day saying they didn’t have any stock and the wait from the US is about 2 weeks. Since I have no idea where I will be in two weeks (ok, probably Sao Paulo, Brazil) I cancelled that request and now I have found a free Windoze (hopefully not trojaned) terminal just over the Andes, in Santiago Chile. Tough life!