Setting The Stage

Our previous Support Saturdays were, in a word, amazing. Let's keep up the momentum.

Ubuntu Vancouver uses SupportSaturday to spread Ubuntu all across the city. We show people that great software is made better with great community. People come for help and leave feeling the Ubuntu spirit. Problems solved with a friendly smile. People come for demos and information and leave feeling enthusiastic about Ubuntu!

The goal for SupportSaturday #4 is to strengthen our technical team processes and capabilities. We will focus on providing superb technical support to our members, ensuring that they have the best possible Ubuntu experience. This will position us to offer higher quality help to more people as we expand over the coming months. This will ensure that every member of Ubuntu Vancouver is in a position to advocate rather than to talk about what doesn't work for them.

Speaking of capabilities, we now have a mailing list for support.heroes and are planning regular tech meetings too. More to come on that...

Cheers,
Randall
Ubuntu Vancouver Buzz Generator

Planning Info

If you are planning to help organize the event and/or be at the event as a SupportHero crew member, then add your name to the list below or contact one of the event managers. SupportSaturdays work well because they are organized and planned carefully.

Also please subscribe to this page. VERY VERY VERY IMPORTANT!! Click here to do that.

Please add your notes and information. In general, it's better to add comments and information that clarify what's already here.

Our fourth SupportSaturday is scheduled for March. 27th 10am - 2:30pm. (The crew will begin set-up at 9am. The venue will open at 10am. Support activities need to be fully concluded by 2:30pm to allow tear-down and clean up.)

Planning Meetings

SupportSaturdays work well because they are organized and planned carefully. This is a differentiator. If you are intending to be a SupportHero crew member, please ensure that you are able to make at least on planning meetings. Please join the support.heroes mailing list.

|| 1 || Tech Team Review I || Wed Mar 17th 7:30pm || Pub on Commercial TBD ||

The SupportHero Crew

Please add your name and details to this table.

Venue

The main venue location is Room G219 in Building B of the VCC Broadway Campus (1155 East Broadway). Building B is the brand new building on campus that faces the north parking lot (on 7th). For those who drive to the campus and park in the lot, just walk through the front entrance and go past the Bookstore and elevators to the back end of the building. G219 is just to the left.

For those who enter the campus from Broadway, please walk all the way to Building B and go to the ground floor of the building. Turn to the back of the building and find G220. Note that the VCC main doors on Broadway Ave are sometimes locked on weekends, and you might have to walk down to 7th Ave. entrance to get in.

The VCC website has a map of the campus location: http://www.vcc.ca/about-vcc/contact-us.cfm

Proposed Flow:

Upon arrival, attendees will sign-in. If they are a member of Ubuntu Vancouver, sign-in will be a simple name/email on the clipboard. Attendees coming for help will be briefly interviewed by a "triage" person and the output of that will be a "Support Request" (same forms as last time).
"Support Requests" will be posted on the bulletin board and managed by the triage/registration crew. In the event that a Support Hero/ine is available s/he will grab a "Support Request" that looks promising and get the person needing help.

=== Registration Room === G219. All Signage will point to this room. Staged for greeting people coming in for support. A friendly registration person will greet arrivals, interact with the triage specialist, and manage the event. For this session only, a part of this room will be configured for the Bug Squish. Normally this room is for demos and marketing functions.

=== Tech Room === G220. Staged for technical support, and staffed with tech support people to do installations, configurations, troubleshooting, etc. A room, more conducive to thinking and concentration. Lots of power, equipment, tools, and big brains. No marketing hype. Sign on the door that says "Register First. Tech issues only"

The room is a classroom with a reconfigurable table setup. The size is 9m x 6m (roughly estimated, and roughly the same size as the G219). It has:

• chairs for min. 20-25 people,
• around 9 to 10 tables (each big enough for 4 chairs and a workstation),

• NO LCD projector or AV equipment

• 2x2 power points are on the left and right side of the room in a distance of ~2m,
• One ethernet RJ-45 wall plug that does not work on w/e. However the room is expected to have wireless internet access using a captive portal. Randall and Stefan have the wifi login info. KK will try to set-up the server with two network interfaces and establish wired/wireless routing. (KK can you comment on whether this is done?
• whiteboards, corkboards

ToDo

• Find volunteers in ubuntu-vancouver - RR, ST

• Marketing: meetup.com posting, description, venue, RSVP questions - RR

• (needs owner) Create order of events (checklist/flight-check)
• Gather needed equipment (identify who will supply) We may be able to borrow some from Free Geek.

Lessons Learned

Please document any lessons learned from prior support events (e.g. Windowless Wednesdays, install-fests, etc.). We'll use that information to make SupportSaturdays stronger. No need to repeat mistakes. Please refer to our "Lessons Learned" page for the list.

Equipment List

• Please initial each item you will bring and indicate quantity.

Items listed below this line are from previous event. Please verify that you are bringing

• KK Request for equipment send to Free Geek for pick up. Requested: (1)16 port switch, (12)network cables(2 long), (1)wireless access point, (4)CRT monitors, (4)keyboards, (4)mice

• Server (KK)
  • Update Ubuntu 9.10 mirror for all 9.10 flavours
  • PXE (network boot server)/TFTP/DHCP/DNS
  • Router to Internet if access required.
  • NFS, Samba, FTP for system backups

Materials List

• Please initial each item you will bring and indicate quantity.

• 50 x 9.10 Karmic Koala install CD's (to do live-boot testing, and as take aways) - RR
• (qty) colour dry-erase markers for the white board
• (qty) masking tape (for labeling people's equipment)
  • KK - one roll of masking tape
• (qty) pens (for labeling people's equipment)
  • KK black marker for writing labels.
  • I'll bring a set of colored IKEA labeling markers
• 30 x "Powered by Ubuntu" stickers (for new people, or conversions) - RR
• 1 x sign-in sheet on clipboard, so we know who came, and can follow-up if necessary - RR

• A short guide to "getting help with Ubuntu" as a take-away. A few pages of tips printed for easy reference, especially where to get help afterward (i.e. Launchpad, not Google!)... teaching people "How to Fish." (see next section)

* Last time I noticed that we needed an extra switch. I'll bring a 25 port 10/100 one (NS)

Food/Snacks

Please consider bringing some snacks or drinks (or both) to share. It is a nice way to make people feel welcomed, and also helps keep SupportHeroes happy.

Event Marketing

We have essentially two things going on at the session: 1) Tech Support and installation 2) One-on-one demos (mini-booth style)

The thrust will be to get as many people as possible in the Ubuntu Vancouver Loco signed up for the event (in the spirit of fixing our own group and making it stronger so we can help more people at future events). Randall will email the group at least 3-4 times to encourage everyone to come and get their issues fixed. Scheduled mailings: xx/02, xx/02, xx/02.

Terminology:

SupportHero: A volunteer who is attending the event to offer technical assistance or to provide marketing support, or general organizational event support and has been part of the planning process.
Requestor: A person that has RSVP'd "yes" for the event and has indicated that they need assistance.
Drop-In: A person that saw our poster and just showed up, or was "dragged in" shown in or flagged down.

Suggested Help Procedure (pre-event)

1) "SupportHero" reaches out to Requestor via email, acknowledging the request and asking the Requestor to quickly scan a list of bug reports, if applicable. Outreach targets are documented in the table below. See: Issues Reported at bottom of this page.
2) Requestor responds with more info. This could be a bug number, or more descriptive information about the issue.
3) "SupportHero" asks Requestor if s/he would be comfortable filing a Launchpad Question. If so, Requestor submits question to: If so, skip to step 5. If not, skip to step 4 below.
4) "Support Hero" submits a Launchpad Question describing the issue on Requestor's behalf.
5) "Support Hero" monitors Launchpad responses to question, and conducts further research.

Suggested Help Procedure (at event)

• Refer to the main SupportSaturdays page. Stefan has some great ideas documented there on how to maintain flow, and how to match the best help to each situation.

Incoming Support Issues

When people RSVP for the event at http://meetup.com/ubuntuvancouver, they are asked a series of questions.

1. Are you coming for assistance? If so, please tell us briefly what services you need.
2. Please tell us about your computer. What hardware is it? (Make, model, RAM, CPU, disk space)
3. Are you currently running Ubuntu on this hardware? If so, which version?
4. Do you have a recent backup of your personal data? (If not, we highly recommend that you copy all data to an eternal disk. If you need help doing this, please let us know here)
5. Please specify your email address. This will only be used if we need to gather more information in order to prepare to help you.This is a collection of the RSVP responses from people who are coming for specific help:

We can (and should) also follow-up directly by email where applicable). If you follow-up, please inform the group so we're not 'peppering' the same person with questions.

Issues Reported

John Weintraub

Are you coming for assistance? If so, please tell us briefly what services you need.

• “I may need help reinstalling (even upgrading!). (1) The screen shifts rapidly between desk1 and desk2. (2) If I try & use ctrl-alt-fX to get into a console, I can't get in, I just get code spewed at me and must reboot. (3) Wireless doesn't work.”

Please tell us about your computer. What hardware is it? (Make, model, RAM, CPU, disk space)

• “Sony 1.2ghz laptop; Celeron chip, 1MB ram 30GB hdd, no cd-rom, no built-in wireless” [Larry Reid] What make/model of wireless card do you have?

Are you currently running Ubuntu on this hardware? If so, which version?

• “Yes, I believe it is 8.04 or 8.10”

Do you have a recent backup of your personal data? (If not, we highly recommend that you copy all data to an eternal disk. If you need help doing this, please let us know here)

• “It's "external", not "eternal" disk, btw. No significant data to be saved on this PC”

Do you have any other information that you think we need to know?

• “This laptop came originally from freegeek”

Georges

Are you coming for assistance? If so, please tell us briefly what services you need.

• “Oops - just listed them in my Yes reply. Need to resolve last two from last SS plus shutdown video reset failure. Then, I need assistance documenting language setting errors in OpenOffice.org .”

Please tell us about your computer. What hardware is it? (Make, model, RAM, CPU, disk space)

• “Same as last time. HP 17" notebook.”

Are you currently running Ubuntu on this hardware? If so, which version?

• “9.10 ”

Do you have a recent backup of your personal data? (If not, we highly recommend that you copy all data to an eternal disk. If you need help doing this, please let us know here)

• “Yep - and with a 1 terrebyte external drive - no problem.”

Do you have any other information that you think we need to know?

• “Nope.”

Eddie Lee

Are you coming for assistance? If so, please tell us briefly what services you need.

• “1. Install of Karmic Koala OS. 2. Installation of install the 'free online version of ms office 2010' onto ubuntu os. ”

Please tell us about your computer. What hardware is it? (Make, model, RAM, CPU, disk space)

• “Refurbished IBM, that's all I know. ”

Are you currently running Ubuntu on this hardware? If so, which version?

• “Yes, its the Crane version.”

Do you have a recent backup of your personal data? (If not, we highly recommend that you copy all data to an eternal disk. If you need help doing this, please let us know here)

• “Yes”

Do you have any other information that you think we need to know?

• “nil”

Sid Mickey

Are you coming for assistance? If so, please tell us briefly what services you need.

• “Yes. I want to uninstall Vista, Debian and Ubuntu and reinstall only Ubuntu 9.10(karmic koala)”

Please tell us about your computer. What hardware is it? (Make, model, RAM, CPU, disk space)

• “Compaq Presario, AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3800+ with 4G Memory, 120G Hard Drive”

Are you currently running Ubuntu on this hardware? If so, which version?

• “Yes, karmic koala 9.10.”

Do you have a recent backup of your personal data? (If not, we highly recommend that you copy all data to an eternal disk. If you need help doing this, please let us know here)

• “Yes”

Joseph T

Are you coming for assistance? If so, please tell us briefly what services you need.

• “ I have some legal and techincal questions in the audio area; converting to mp3 format etc. and sound recording. Also have experienced some delay when copying to media library and wonder if more ram memory is neeeded. And also what is safe to delete in J”

Please tell us about your computer. What hardware is it? (Make, model, RAM, CPU, disk space)

• “CPU : dual - core 2.6 GHz HD : sata 240 GHz DVD rewriter ”

Are you currently running Ubuntu on this hardware? If so, which version?

• “Karmic”

Do you have a recent backup of your personal data? (If not, we highly recommend that you copy all data to an eternal disk. If you need help doing this, please let us know here)

• “yes ”

Maxwell Chernoff

Are you coming for assistance? If so, please tell us briefly what services you need.

• “My laptop is eff'd.”

Please tell us about your computer. What hardware is it? (Make, model, RAM, CPU, disk space)

• “HP laptop, a few years old.”

Are you currently running Ubuntu on this hardware? If so, which version?

• “Of course, and it's on Karmic Xubuntu.”

Do you have a recent backup of your personal data? (If not, we highly recommend that you copy all data to an eternal disk. If you need help doing this, please let us know here)

• “Not at all, but if I can get to access the data I have on there, making a backup would be a nice idea :)”

Do you have any other information that you think we need to know?

• “Not really” [Larry Reid] Maxwell, did this computer ever work with Ubuntu? Have you tried booting from an Ubuntu live CD or a USB stick? Does it work when you boot that way?

Ron

Are you coming for assistance? If so, please tell us briefly what services you need.

• “Yes, looking for install help. I fall down with hardware support and dependency hell”

Please tell us about your computer. What hardware is it? (Make, model, RAM, CPU, disk space)

• “Dell Inspiron 6400. CPU Intel T2050, 1.6GHz, dual core Yonah. 2 G RAM, 120 G SATA. DJiO USB audio adapter. and/or ASUS eeePC 701”

Are you currently running Ubuntu on this hardware? If so, which version?

• “No Ubuntu”

Do you have a recent backup of your personal data? (If not, we highly recommend that you copy all data to an eternal disk. If you need help doing this, please let us know here)

• “have external backup of most... will backup remainder”

Please specify your email address. This will only be used if we need to gather more information in order to prepare to help you.

• - I volunteer helping Ron. please forward me his address. Rex

Roscoe

Are you coming for assistance? If so, please tell us briefly what services you need.

• “to see if we can get the wireless Ralink to work with ndiswrapper”

Please tell us about your computer. What hardware is it? (Make, model, RAM, CPU, disk space)

• “AMD64 Lucid”