Summary of 2006 Meetings
We hold two types of meetings : Pizza Limes and Tech Meetings.
"Pizza Lime" is the name given to our monthly discussion forum which is usually held at Pizza Hut, Roxy Roundabout, Port of Spain on the second Wednesday of the month. During the course of the year, Pizza Hut increased their prices (for both food and the party room) to a level which we could no longer afford. Fortunately, we were able to hold several pizza limes at F1 Connect #33 Mucurapo Road, St. James, Port of Spain in the fourth quarter of 2006. Pizza was purchased from the nearby Papa John's.
At a tech meeting we have computers (and other equipment where necessary) on site to demonstrate a particular type of hardware or software. These meetings held at Engineering Consultants, 112A Edward Street, Port of Spain or at Handarnold Trinidad Ltd, El Socorro, San Juan.
Wednesday January 11th, 2006 - TTCS Pizza Lime
Main topic for discussion was discussing the release of the TTCS OSSWIN CD online for download.
Saturday January 21st, 2006 - TTCS Podcast #8 recorded
See http://www.ttcsweb.org/podcasts/ for notes and download links
Wednesday February 8th, 2006 - TTCS Pizza Lime
Topics discussed :
- Wireless broadband services over the entire landmass of Trinidad and Tobago by 2010?
http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2006-01-27/business5.html
- The launch of the Business Development Company's B2B portal (http://www.smexchange.com/). Also see
http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2006-01-31/bussguardian10.html
- The Cable Company of Trinidad and Tobago (CCTT) is now Columbus Communications Trinidad Ltd.
http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2006-02-01/business1.html
Wednesday March 8th 2006 - TTCS Pizza Lime
Topics discussed :
- The TTCS OSSWIN CD v1.1 has had more than 2000 downloads since being released on the internet on February 9th, 2006.
- The recent controversy regarding cell phone towers (http://www.guardian.co.tt/archives/2006-03-05/news11.html)
- The new Mac Mini from Apple (http://www.apple.com/macmini/)
- The six versions of Microsoft Windows Vista (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/versions/default.mspx)
- The recent settlement between ICANN and VeriSign re: .com domains (http://www.icann.org/topics/verisign-settlement.htm)
Saturday March 11th, 2006 - TTCS Podcast #9 recorded
See http://www.ttcsweb.org/podcasts/ for notes and download links
Wednesday 12th April 2006 - TTCS Pizza Lime
Held at Pizza Hut, Valsayn, topics discussed :
- Digicel opens for business on April 6th 2006 : http://www.digiceltt.com/
- Apple releases Boot Camp to allow Windows XP to be installed alongside MacOS X : http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/
Saturday April 29th, 2006 - TTCS tech meeting - Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird extensions and themes
Colin gave the first presentation about Mozilla Firefox. After discussing several Firefox myths, he reviewed: how to install and uninstall extensions, themes and plugins for the browser.
Problems that may be encountered (such as conflicting extensions) were discussed along with possible solutions.
Dev T gave the second presentation on extensions for Mozilla Thunderbird.
Wednesday May 10th, 2006 - meeting with ICANN
We met with John Crain and Jacob Malthouse from ICANN, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an internationally organized, non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions.
The meeting was held at Engineering Consultants and lasted several hours. A variety of topics were discussed ranging from what ICANN does and how it functions, the situation regarding the .tt domain and how groups like TTCS can get involved with ICANN
The meeting was recorded, and an unofficial transcript was done by Vasudev and Dexter, with final formatting by Colin : Download transcript : 
Transcription2a.pdf
Mark Lyndersay wrote about the meeting in his 23rd May 2006 BitDepth column.
Thursday May 11th, 2006 - TTCS Pizza Lime
Held on Thursday at Pizza Hut, Roxy to cater for the meeting with ICANN on Wednesday May 10th, 2006. Topics discussed :
- Yesterday's ICANN meeting
- The launch of TSTT's 3G mobile internet service via EV-DO http://www.tstt3g.co.tt/html/home.html
- WASA website hacked
- TSTT wins court case against TATT arbitration panel to set interim interconnection rates between TSTT and Digicel ( http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_business?id=156949781)
- Details of the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo 'Wii'
Saturday May 27th, 2006 - TTCS Podcast #10 recorded
See http://www.ttcsweb.org/podcasts/ for notes and download links
Wednesday June 14th, 2006 - TTCS Pizza Lime
Topics discussed :
- TTNIC lowers cost of .tt domain names by 50% for registrants with a local presence. (http://www.nic.tt/)
- The Internet Bandwidth Management document released by the Ministry of Public Administration and Information
- The ICT-4-BUS program. (http://www.iadb.org/ict4bus/)
Saturday June 24th, 2006 - discussion of Internet Bandwidth Management
Held at Engineering Consultants, to discuss the "Internet Bandwidth Management" proposal document from the
Ministry of Public Administration (http://www.fastforward.tt/media/release_detail.asp?id=4642) and to formulate the response to it.
The TTCS comments on the "Internet Bandwidth Management" proposal 
(PDF ; 140K) were submitted to the Ministry on June 27, 2006.
Wednesday July 12th, 2006 - TTCS pizza lime
Topics discussed :
- The closure of Caribbuy.com and what it means for e-commerce in Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad Express article : http://tinyurl.com/s833f . Also see web archive of Caribbuy in March 2005
- The "Internet Bandwidth Management" proposal document (http://www.fastforward.tt/media/release_detail.asp?id=4642)
from the Ministry of Public Administration and Information and the TTCS comments (http://tinyurl.com/m87jy)
- Planning for up to four TTCS tech meetings in August 2006.
Saturday July 15th, 2006 - TTCS Tech Meeting - Microsoft Vista Beta 2
Dev T gave a demonstration about Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 , Microsoft's upcoming operating system and pointed out
the various features of Vista.
At the end of the meeting, an official version of Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 2 on DVD (which comes with serial code), was given away.
Wednesday August 9th, 2006 - TTCS Pizza Lime
- TATT publishes "Spectrum Plan for the Accommodation of Broadband Wireless Access Services" for comments. This document includes details about the recommended use of Wi-Fi in Trinidad and Tobago. (http://www.tatt.org.tt/newdoc.htm#spbwa)
- Google Maps has higher resolution satellite maps for parts of Trinidad. (http://ttcsweb.org/index.htm#googlemaps)
- News from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060807-7434.html and )
Saturday August 12th, 2006 - OSS LAN gaming
This meeting was a LAN party which focused on OSS (open source software) games for Windows.
The games played :
- Armagetron Advanced : http://www.armagetronad.net/
- Quake III Arena : http://icculus.org/quake3/
- Tremulous : http://tremulous.sourceforge.net/
Saturday August 19th, 2006 - Podcast #11 recorded
See http://www.ttcsweb.org/podcasts/ for notes and download links.
Sunday August 20th, 2006 - test of mobile Wi-Fi hotspot
This scheduled meeting was cancelled due to the sudden unavailability of the required equipment. The concept had been tested earlier however and we can use Wi-Fi for future meetings.
Saturday August 26th, 2006 - TTCS tech meeting - a look at MacOSX
Our first meeting to be held at Hand, Arnold (Trinidad) Limited, El Socorro Road Extension, El Socorro, San Juan.
(See http://tinyurl.com/knbef for a satellite map of its location on Wikimapia)
Ricardo Sandy of F1 Connect showed off several features of the version of Apple's MacOS X operating system, codenamed "Leopard" (http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/), showing the features highlighted by Steve Jobs keynote earlier this year. F1 Connect also bought several Intel-based Mac computers such as the Mac Mini to demonstrate their capabilities.
Mike T demonstrated several of the iLife (http://www.apple.com/ilife/) applications.
Saturday September 16th, 2006 - Software Freedom Day 2006
Also held at HandArnold.
The meeting was to celebrate Software Freedom Day 2006, a global, grassroots effort to educate the public about the virtues and availability of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).
At the meeting, Dev T showed how to dual boot Windows and Linux (using Ubuntu, a popular Linux distro). The steps taken :
- Defrag the Windows partition to create free space at the end of the hard disk which could be used for Linux. Check the free space after that. You should have 5GB to run Linux comfortably at least.
- Next boot the Gparted Live CD. Gparted is a program which can create/resize partitions. Gparted was used to resize the Windows XP partition to create 10GB free space.
- Ubuntu was then installed and pointed to use the free space. Ubuntu created a boot menu so you can boot into either Windows or Ubuntu.
Also, shown on another machine was Ubuntu installed with XGL/Compiz, which uses graphics cards hardware acceleration to show several visual effects not seen in Windows or MacOS X.
Saturday September 30th, 2006 - report about ICANN workshop on Sept 9-10, 2006
After the TTCS meeting with ICANN on May 10, 2006, the TTCS submitted an application to ICANN on August 22nd, 2006 to be designated as an "At-Large Structure."
The application can be viewed at http://www.alac.icann.org/latin/applications/ttcs-22aug06.htm
ICANN hosted a workshop on September 9-10, 2006 in Buenos Aires, Argentina to bring together such groups and lay the foundations for the development of a regional at-large organisation to be called the Latin American and the Caribbean Regional At Large Organization (LACRALO). This organisation would consolidate regional policy advice on Internet management.
Anil Ramnanan attended the September 9-10th meeting and discussed the workshop today at Engineering Consultants.
Also discussed was the Ministry of Public Administration and Information (MPAI) response to the TTCS comments about the proposed "Internet Bandwidth Management Strategy".
Saturday October 28th, 2006 - TTCS pizza lime
Held at ENCO, the topics discussed :
- The MPAI Internet Bandwidth Management, our comments, MPAI's response and info about their upcoming workshop on November 1st, 2006 : http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ttcs_announce/message/540
- MPAI discussion paper "the Role of Open Source Software in TnT " (PDF ; 187K)
- TATT publishes Domestic Market Analysis of the Telecom market from January to March 2006 http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ttcs_announce/message/545
- IT related aspects of the 2006 Budget : http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ttcs_announce/message/544
A machine with MS Windows Vista Release Candidate 1 was also available for anyone who wanted a first look at Vista in action.
Wednesday November 8th, 2006 - TTCS pizza lime
The meeting was held at F1 Connect at #33 Mucurapo Road, St. James, Port of Spain (next to Papa John's).
Topics discussed :
- The workshop on November 1st, 2006 by the Ministry of Public Administration and Information about "Internet Bandwidth Management". http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ttcs_announce/message/540
- Ministry of Public Administration and Information (MPAI) discussion paper on "the role of Open Source Software in Trinidad and Tobago".
Re: the November 1st, 2006 MPAI workshop, Dev T had attended the workshop and discussed the findings from it. At this workshop, the MPAI presented two broad proposals to address the issue of Internet Bandwidth Management :
- Development of an Internet eXchange Point (IXP) :
- how such an IXP be developed and managed
- the best location for an IXP
- local hosting of local content :
- what should be done to promote local content development
- how should domestic hosting be developed and managed
- where would such a local hosting facility be located
After the MPAI did a presentation of both issues, attendees were broken up into two groups to look at each topic. At the end of the workshop, both groups presented their findings.
The MPAI later published an Overview of Internet Bandwidth Management Consultation (PDF ; 72K)
Saturday November 11th, 2006 - discussion of "Role of OSS in TnT"
Held at Engineering Consultants (ENCO).
The discussion focused on formulating our response to the Ministry of Public Administration and Information (MPAI) discussion paper on "The role of Open Source Software in Trinidad and Tobago".
Points raised in the discussion were captured on our wikipage: Role of Open Source Software in TnT
Saturday November 18th, 2006 - "Role of OSS in TnT"
The deadline for comments on the Ministry of Public Administration and Information (MPAI) paper on "the role of Open Source Software" was November 25, 2006, so a second meeting was held at Engineering Consultants (ENCO).
Once again, points raised in the discussion were captured on our wikipage : Role of Open Source Software in TnT
View the Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (TTCS) comments on "The role of Open Source Software in Trinidad and Tobago (2006 – 2008)" (PDF ; 154K) as submitted to MPAI on November 25th, 2006.
Saturday December 16th, 2006 - report on ICANN General meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil
Dev T represented the TTCS at the ICANN general meeting in Sao Paulo, Brazil from December 2-6, 2006.
As one of the ten accredited 'At-Large Structures' (the TTCS received accreditation from ICANN in November 2006), the TTCS
together with representatives from the other nine accredited 'At-Large-Structures' signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with ICANN to create the Latin American and the Caribbean Regional At Large Organisation (LACRALO). Related links :
- Offical ICANN press release about MOU
- Adopted resolution of the MOU at ICANN Board meeting
- Official LACRALO Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and operating principles as agreed by the At-Large Structures in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
You can see a video clip of the signing of the MOU :
And here are some photos taken by Dev T
Photos of the ICANN signing MOU with Latin American and Caribbean At Large Structures
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This album is powered by BubbleShare - Add to my blog
Also see http://flickr.com/photos/bretfausett/314961791/
Onwards to 2007!
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