== Ubuntu Hour ==
Event Link: http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/ubuntu-qa/2457-ubuntu-hour/

We
[[http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/ubuntu-qa/2457-ubuntu-hour/|scheduled]] an [[Hour|Ubuntu Hour]] for Friday 5th July 2013 from 5pm to 6pm at the [[http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/venues/Qatar/935/detail|Museum of Islamic Art]].   

== Present (in order of appearance) ==
 * Roy Verrips a.k.a. [[rverrips]] 
 * Nino Kader 
 * Shahnoor Ashraf a.k.a. [[kaziweb]]
 * Hyder Mir a.k.a. [[https://launchpad.net/~hyder-hr|hyder-hr]]

== Minutes ==

We had a good meeting.  Nino (first time visitor) was asking questions about how he could change himself and perhaps his company's desktop/laptop environment to Ubuntu.  A general discussion about the benefits and options of Ubuntu went on until about 6pm.   We discussed things like:

 * [[Ubuntu]] vs [[Kubuntu]] vs [[Lubuntu]] and even [[http://sourceforge.net/projects/macbuntu/|MacBuntu]]
 * Office Suites available in [[Ubuntu]] like [[LibreOffice]]
 * Internet browsers for [[Ubuntu]] like [[http://mozilla.org/firefox|Firefox]] and [[https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser|Google Chrome]] and also how Microsoft Internet Explorer can be run if needed using Wine or [[http://virtualbox.org|Virtualbox]]
 * Email clients for [[Ubuntu]] like [[http://mozilla.org/thunderbird|Thunderbird]] 
 * Multiplatform file backup and sharing utilities like [[https://www.dropbox.com/install?os=lnx|Dropbox]] 
 * [[https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnBaer/SoftwareCentreVisualDesign|Ubuntu Software Center]] where various other software packages can be downloaded, mostly free, and sometimes at a cost.  
 * The limitations of Ubuntu were also briefly discussed.  Although software exists for web design like the great graphics package [[http://www.gimp.org/|GIMP]] and various web editors, using them would involve a learning curve away from platforms like Adobe Flasheditor and Dreamweaver.   In the same light though, we also discussed a bit how web development has now moved to a scenario where a team of developers will work on mirrored copies of a website "offline" running [[http://httpd.apache.org/|Apache]] webserver locally (which is setup in minutes on an Ubuntu machine) and publishing changes with versioncontrol systems like [[http://git-scm.com/|GIT]], etc. 
 * Great free website development editors like [[http://jedit.org|jEdit]] and the commercial [[http://www.sublimetext.com/2|Sublime Text 2]]
 * [[Ubuntu]] based website hosting solutions, like the virtual servers running [[Ubuntu]] in the cloud at [[http://www.linode.com|Linode]]
 * How [[Ubuntu]] supports all major VPN standards like L2TP, PPTP and IPSec as used by commercial VPN providers such as [[http://witopia.net|Witopia]] 

It also was great hearing from [[https://launchpad.net/~hyder-hr|hyder-hr]] about his recent move to Ubuntu and how he's been enjoying the change, having purchased a Dell with Ubuntu preinstalled at Sofitel Plaza here in Doha.

After (From about 6:05pm to 6:10pm) that we chatted a bit about opportunities for growing the community but nothing certain as yet.  

We ended around 6:15pm and look forward to having another [[UbuntuHour]] in two weeks time or so.
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CategoryLoco