Re: Linux Seminar in Egypt

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

This is absolutely WONDERFUL - words can't describe how great this was
to read and how well put all the info was.  This mini-report is really
a template for others we hope ;-)  More comments below...

--- Mostafa Hussein <mostafa at linux-egypt dot org> wrote:
>
[snip]
> 	The seminar started at 9am in the morning with presentations by IBM,
> American University in Cairo, Oracle and Sun. We were disappointed by
> those four presenters. Alaa said in a post to linux-egypt.org
> about their presentation:
> 
> ``SUCKED BIG TIME'' and ``BORING''

Heheheehehe - you might want to submit a more detailed mini-report on
linuxtoday.com and/or Newsforge and/or slashdot to get the community
buzzing :-)  They tend to publish such stories more readily.

> 	After the first part of the seminar there was a lunch break and thats
> when all the action started. Together Alaa abd el Fatah and me stood infront
> of a machine running Arabbix 0.8. Presenting both Arabbix, GNU/Linux,
> arabeyes.org and linux-egypt.org to the crowds. The Linux-Egypt booth
> was the busiest, like a busy stock market. Even people ignored lunch to
> chat and bombard us with questions. Arabbix was an instant hit.

Sounds like the people are hungry for more contact with you guys.  You
should really consider holding a seminar in a University somewhere and
inviting as many people as you can with as many computers around as
possible (ie. hold the seminar in a computer-lab if possible since Arabbix
will not touch the Hard-drives of any of those computers unless specifically
instructed to do so).  In short, people's curiosity is wonderful to hear
and ought to be engaged with more frequently - this is what 'raising
awareness' is all about.

> 	Most of the questions were very basic, like can linux be installed with
> windows on the same computer ? Will it open my word documents ? Where is
> photoshop ? can I run 3Dmax on it, Printers, hardware, modems,
> price,etc.. Our answers were mainly reassuring and we kept asking people
> to visit our sites for further inquiries.

Sounds like the start of a FAQ - have any of the LUGs started on something
similar ?
 
> 	Arabization was a major issue to most people. Arabbix, Katoob and Gimp
> got lots of praise, specially gimp which made a graphic designer refuse
> to attend the remaining lectures to try it out, she even pointed to us
> some features in gimp 1.3 that are lacking in Adobe Photoshop.

HAHAHahahahaahah - I love hearing this !!

> I have learned that one of the major distributer of linux distros in Giza
> has a copy of Arabbix now.

Could you please give us the necessary contact info to get in touch with
them (unless you want to play the proxy in contacting them) for future
releases (if you opt to use a more private email, you can email the info
to 'contact-at-arabeyes').

> 	This seminar was a success, we think we delivered the message,
> GNU/Linux is here in Egypt, there is an active community and arabic
> GNU/Linux is a reality thanks to arabeyes and others. We reached out for
> helpless users and showed them that they can get support and we met many
> interesting and active people. There are also news about more linux
> seminars and confrences poping around.

Thank you again Mostafa (and Alaa) for a wonderful job and a wonderful
report.  You most certainly delivered the message (esp. in a conference
where you guys were not even meant to speak :-)  Keep us informed and
let us know if there is _anything_ we can help out with.

This is exactly what alot of us work for - hearing reactions like this
certainly recharges our batteries :-)

Salam.

 - Nadim


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