Our Next Session

The next session is called Support Saturday #6. It is scheduled to occur on Sat May 29th, 2010. This page pertains to that session only.

*** Our location has changed to Britannia "Learning Resource Centre" in the lower level of the Britannia Library at Commercial Drive and Napier. ***

Setting The Stage

The goal for SupportSaturday #6 is to get the entire Ubuntu Vancouver community to 10.04. As advocates and Ubuntu enthusiasts, it's in our best interest to ensure that everyone we know is having the best Ubuntu experience possible. 10.04 represents the best chance for that. If you know someone who is running 9.10, 9.04, 8.10, 8.04... bring them in, by force if necessary

Our previous Support Saturdays were, in a word, amazing. Let's continually keep up the momentum. Let's also bring our best ideas into each successive event.

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!

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 May. 29th 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.

SupportHeroes and SupportHeroines

Please add your name and details to this table if you are planning to attend to offer support.

Venue

This is still subject to confirmation. This section will be updated when that occurs. -RR

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 large part of this room will be configured for a Lucid Lynx introduction. (Historically this room is for demos and marketing functions.)

Configuration this time will be a "classroom setting." The presentation will be an "replay" of the "Lucid Lynx Preview" (with tuning and refinements) for those in the group who weren't able to come to the Theme Night. (We may also use the room for a test-run of an introductory Ubuntu course. TBD.)

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

• Identify tech team, energize the support.heroes mailing list - ST

• Post event, finalize overall structure, prepare marketing materials - RR

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.

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) Registration and information session 2) Tech Support, System Testing, and preparation for upgrades to 10.04

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 getting our group ready for the 10.04 release. This will put us in a better position to advocate. Randall will email the group at least 3-4 times to encourage everyone to come and get ready for the Lynx. Scheduled mailings: xx/04, xx/04, xx/04.

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
Inbound Issues will be mailed to the SupportHeroes list as they are reported.