[00:15] <tonyyarusso> Takyoji: bunches - can you get any more specific?
[00:18] <Takyoji> Desktop applications; server applications (such as a VLE, etc)
[00:18] <tonyyarusso> What's VLE?
[00:18] <Takyoji> Virtual
[00:18] <Takyoji> Virtual Learning Environment*
[00:18] <Takyoji> i.e. Moodle
[00:18] <tonyyarusso> oh
[00:18] <tonyyarusso> Well for starters, is money as issue for your district?
[00:19] <Takyoji> Not necessarily; they just burn all the money they can get it almost seems
[00:19] <tonyyarusso> Of course - if they don't spend it they won't get it in the next budget cycle.
[00:19] <Takyoji> for things like gradebook solution, library solution, etc
[00:19] <Takyoji> Everything's pretty much all Windows servers, even for their webserver
[00:20] <tonyyarusso> Honestly, you probably don't have a prayer with the district unless you can make progress in a few schools first.
[00:21] <Takyoji> That's what I figure
[00:21] <tonyyarusso> Unless the idea of showing up to school board meetings and complaining about the wasted money sounds appealing to you.
[00:21] <Takyoji> otherwise I believe I'd be able to sway any of the teachers
[00:21] <tonyyarusso> Do that.  Make the teachers demand it.
[00:22] <_diablo> Moodle is ridiculously popular with teachers.
[00:22] <_diablo> (from my experience)
[00:22] <Takyoji> considering one is already pushing for Moodle; while one of the district technologists try downloading the Moodle-XAMPP bundle and have it run in a Windows server; and thus try to make BOTH Apache and IIS to mystically bind to port 80...
[00:22] <tonyyarusso> XAMPP :(
[00:22] <tonyyarusso> Although at least he was doing it on Windows.
[00:23] <tonyyarusso> There was a guy in #ubuntu recently advising people to install XAMPP on Ubuntu.
[00:23] <Takyoji> heh
[00:26] <_diablo> lol
[00:26] <Takyoji> and then also the district technologist said as a counter-argument to me about being "all that maintenance" if they changed the webserver to a Linux installation rather than a Windows Server installation; and have pretty much everything managed through the package manager.
[00:26] <Takyoji> It's practically almost as if "Get the Facts" campaign must of been their bible growing up or something..
[00:28] <tonyyarusso> Did you press him on exactly what maintenance he was referring to?
[00:29] <Takyoji> I didn't get much of an answer
[00:30] <Takyoji> and another time I was lightly implying the idea of perhaps a Linux distro on a few desktops or something; but he implied that they only have students use things they'll use in the "real world"
[00:32] <_diablo> Takyoji, ugh. this kind of ignorance is the annoyance of linux. It's people being opposed to it. You can at least fight that. It's people being ignorant.
[00:32] <Takyoji> The only thing they have that's Linux-based is a self-maintaining mail spam filter that was pre-installed with a custom Linux installation and so on
[00:32] <tonyyarusso> Takyoji: I would suggest that you aren't nearly aggressive enough.
[00:33] <Takyoji> I also love how he implied that Google Chrome will never really have a role in the browser market.
[00:33] <Takyoji> Yet right now it's pretty much becoming a big competitor to Firefox
[00:33] <_diablo> Takyoji, hahaha, it's already past safari!
[00:33] <tonyyarusso> Takyoji: Remember, if you can't change their mind, humiliate and discredit them in front of their peers and superiors so you don't have to.
[00:33] <Takyoji> Add-on functionality, faster JS, and much better performance on Linux than Firefox
[00:34] <Takyoji> Their boss is probably even more careless or even close-minded as well
[00:34] <Takyoji> the man won't even REPLY to your emails
[00:34] <tonyyarusso> Complain to his boss :)
[00:35] <tonyyarusso> about the not replying to e-mails, not the content (yet)
[00:35] <Takyoji> One of the teachers were asking if they could have simple little laptops for students in a class; just something capable of web browsing. And the technology director implied that would be like approximately $800 or so per laptop
[00:36] <Takyoji> A netbook would do exactly that, with like half the price
[00:36] <Takyoji> It's not like you'd need to run Crysis on it
[00:37] <_diablo> Takyoji, probably even less if you buy in bulk. you can get a solid netbook for 350 retail. if you watch for discounts, you can get it for 325 tops
[00:37] <Takyoji> You can get a Mini 10v for a starting price of 300
[00:38] <_diablo> Ugh. Minis are gross imo. But yeah, as a generic school laptop, you're probably right. it would be fine
[00:38] <_diablo> tonyyarusso, what plans on the t-shirt thing?
[00:39] <_diablo> I would assume all results that matter are in
[00:42] <Takyoji> We need to do more somehow...
[00:42] <Takyoji> it's just too bad that there's not really anyone in my area though
[00:44] <tonyyarusso> _diablo: why are you asking me?
[00:46] <Takyoji> The idea is that supposedly there wasn't a whole lot of demand; and that we'd probably do something custom, correct?
[00:46] <tonyyarusso> _diablo: but the survey has a total of 10 requested.  I don't think it's really gotten enough exposure as an idea yet.
[00:47] <tonyyarusso> Takyoji: pretty much
[00:47] <Takyoji> For those that want a shirt; perhaps they could collaborate on an idea
[00:47] <Takyoji> and if it stands out, more people could have interest
[00:48] <tonyyarusso> I think it would be a very smart idea to get at least 30 people expressing interest before worrying too much about order specifics.
[00:49] <_diablo> tonyyarusso, I thought you were organizing it. Was that not correct?
[00:49] <_diablo> and yeah, that makes sense
[00:50] <tonyyarusso> _diablo: I don't recall agreeing to such at least ;)
[00:50] <tonyyarusso> I'd be okay placing the order and dealing with some distribution aspects and can suggest vendors, but someone else should do the drumming up interest and stuff more first.
[00:51] <_diablo> okay, fair enough :)
[00:51] <_diablo> I'll mention it at each meeting.
[00:53] <tonyyarusso> That won't be enough on it's own.  The mailing list readership is much larger but very little of it is involved enough for IRC.
[00:54] <_diablo> Ah, well... I sent an email to people asking if they wanted a shirt. I guess this answers the question about being enough interest :)
[00:56] <tonyyarusso> You can't just jump right in and ask the question.  You have to propose it, explain it, argue for it, and then ask for support.
[00:57] <_diablo> ehhh, okay, I'm definitely not the right person to be doing this then. I am pretty ambivalent to the idea honestly. I'd buy one if offered, but am not gung-ho about this by any means
[02:46] <tonyyarusso> oh btw guys, you can add Launchpad OpenIDs to your ubuntu-minnesota.org accounts now.
[02:47] <tonyyarusso> Creating new accounts that only use that doesn't work quite yet, but will soon.