Friday, 4th May was the 'Drupal Versus Plone' Workshop at the Agileware office in Mitchell.

There were two mini- workshops comparing the world-class Plone and Drupal website content management systems.

Dave Symons from Ingenious Software kicked off the meeting with general introductions and then delivered some killer features and generally wowed the audience with the Plone system.

In my opinion, if you are looking for a content management system that provides minute traceability and auditability, then Plone is definitely the solution.

Following on Dave was Alex Chapman from Agileware who demonstrated the rapid delivery and customisation of Drupal and demonstration of how Drupal can be used as a rapid web application platform.

It was definitely interesting to have the two systems compared side by side and all attendees agreed that they were able to gain a deeper appreciation of both systems and how they can be used in the real world.

Try it yourself & Presentation

VMWare Player images of Ubuntu with Plone and Ubuntu with Drupal pre-installed were provided and are still available on request should anyone else want a copy.

Dave also kindly made available the Plone presentation, which you can download here.

Thanks!

A big thanks goes out to Dave and Alex for taking the time to present to the group as well as Andrew from Cool Chilli for supplying a case of beer on the day :)

Want to find out more?

If you want to find out more about Plone or Drupal then contact:

• For Plone please contact Ingenious Software.
• For Drupal please contact Agileware.

Meeting notes from Thurs, 5th April at Hotel Kurrajong. Facilitated by David Symons, presentation by Evan Leybourn of LG Solutions and Kristy Bennett.

Introductions

David welcomed all, introduced FOSSACT, explained what it's all about and trying to achieve, sponsorships and upcoming events.

News

We had a lot to get through that day, so we skipped the news, although there were open discussions after the talk.

Presentations

1. Evan Leybourn from LG Solutions talks about Data Warehousing. Evan kindly gave permission for us to record his presentation. Download the 50 minute audio on Data Warehousing.
• Download OGG audio 26MB
• Download MP3 audio 40MB
2. Kristy Bennett presenting - SWAT then what? Kristy talked about SWOT analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT) and marketing practises using the 'P's' of marketing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing#Four_Ps

Thanks!
A big thanks to Evan and Kristy for taking the time taking out to speak to the group on the afternoon before the Easter break. Thanks!

Meeting notes from Wed 31st January 2007 at Hotel Kurrajong. Facilitated by Justin Freeman, presentation by Pia Waugh from Waugh Partners.

Introductions

Justin welcomed ALL of the new attendees, introduced FOSSACT, explained what it's all about and trying to achieve, sponsorships and upcoming events.

Sorry for changing the date at such short notice, still we had about 15 people rock up, mainly new which was great.

News

Meeting notes from 1st December 2006. Facilitated by Justin Freeman, presentation by Luie Matthee from Red Hat.

Introductions

Justin introduced FOSSACT, the committee members in attendance, sponsorships and upcoming events. There will be no January 2007 meeting. Next meeting is 2nd February 2007.

Everyone seemed to like the later start time, which also enabled people to hang around more after the presentation, relax and chat. It was good :)

Presentation - XEN Virtualisation & JBoss

Luie Matthee presented and demonstrated XEN Virtualisation on Red Hat Fedora Core 6 running Windows XP & Office.

There was an extensive discussion about the difference between para-virtualisation (XEN) and full virtualisation (VMWare).

Following this there was a very brief overview of JBoss Application Server, which for many was a first time introduction into this technology.

There is a great Web Cast and other information on Xen Virtualisation on the Red Hat website.

Next Meeting

• Please see next meeting schedule.

Thanks for your support!

A big thanks goes out to Red Hat & Novell who provided the hot food and drinks for the last FOSSACT meeting of 2006.

See you all for the next meeting in February 2007!

Meeting notes from 3rd November 2006. Facilitated by David Symons, presentation by Andrew Smith.

Introduction

David introduced FOSSACT, the committee members in attendance, sponsorships and upcoming events. There will be no January meeting.

Presentation - Asterisk

Andrew presented Open Source Telephony, Asterisk in particular. The presentation included real demonstrations with a temporary network setup and was extremely well received. Andrew has provided additional information relevant to the presentation here.

Meeting notes from 6th October 2006. Facilitated by Neill Cox, presentation by Finn Blucher.

FOSSACT introductions

Neill introduced the FOSSACT committee members and invited attendees to introduce themselves.

FOSSACT Sponsorship

FOSSACT Sponsorships are scaled according to company size:

• 10 staff or less = $250/year
• more than 10 staff = $500/year

More details on sponsorship and its benefits can be found here.

Meeting notes from 1st September 2006. Facilitated by David Symons, presentation by Justin Freeman.

FOSSACT introductions

We had just over 30 people attend this months meeting, with at least 20 new faces. So quite a good turn-out. David introduced the FOSSACT committee members and then each attendee introduced themselves.

FOSSACT discussion items:

1. What FOSSACT aims to be:
• A forum: One that facilitates FOSS services providers and users to get to know each other so that collaborative relationships may form.
• An advocacy group: Taking the message regarding Free and Open Source Software to the Canberra business and government community.
• An information provider: Introducing members to FOSS technologies that may be of interest to their own business and/or offerings.
• A point of contact: A place that people/organisations can come to for information regarding providers of local support for their own FOSS endeavours.
2. FOSSACT Business Services Register: Call-out to list of service providers to register for listing on fossact.org.au
3. Mailing list: Do we need one? YES! Register here.
   
4. FOSSACT association: Registering FOSSACT as an association with paid memberships, just an update that this is being investigated and why paid membership is important (paying for room hire primarily)
5. Software Freedom Day: Information to attendees and service providers wanting to be included on the flyer. Read more here.

30min presentation - Email and Calendar alternatives to Microsoft Exchange using Open Source Software

Justin Freeman from Agileware discussed the alternatives to Microsoft Exhange using open source software and demonstrated Zimbra and discussed Scalix. As well as a bit of OpenSUSE XGL and VMWare goodness.

Unfortunately, the Scalix demonstration would not work so that'll be another presentation in the near future!

Feedback from attendees on the Zimbra demonstration could be summed as simply: WOW!

CD's of the Zimbra source code and documentation library were given away at the end of the presentation.

Presentation resources are listed below:

1. Agileware Presentation (PDF)
2. Zimbra website
3. Zimbra Presentation (PDF)
4. Scalix website
5. Scalix Whitepaper (PDF)

Other Items

• Open discussion, problems, questions/answers, help required, requests for future presentations
• Presentation for next meeting - AppArmor on Friday, 6th October
  
• Reminder to register and post news on the fossact.org.au website and join the mailing list!
• Special thanks gpes out to Andrew Smith from Cool Chilli who paid for the room hire. Beauty mate!
• Thanks and see you next month.