But, what I want to share with you right now is a quick script I whipped up to backup my Google Calendars nightly. This is one of the steps in my on-going process of making sure all of my personal data is backed up by me on machines I control with an eye to migrating to self (or friend) hosted services. Yes, I want services I use to follow the Franklin Street Statement.

Until the day that all of the services I use follow the Franklin Street Statement recommendations, I will just have to make sure I make personal backups of my information. So tonight, I finally did that for Google Calendars. It was pretty simple, really:

#!/bin/sh
# Backup my Google Calendars

# Remove files that are older than 1 week
find /home/greg/backup/google/*.ics -mtime +7 -exec rm -f {} \;

That’s it. Create the filenames for the various calendars I’m backing up, including today’s date. Then wget them. Then, delete any .ics file that is older than a week. Not sure why I need 7 days of backup, but better safe than sorry, I guess.

Well, along with this long list of US LoCo Teams, the Michigan LoCo is having an event on our east-coast. Our LoCo Directory event page has all the details.

I hope to see a lot of new faces!

[btw, that was really tedious to link to all of those US team events... glad there are so many, but ...]

First the details from the original ubuntu-us-mi mailing list announcment:

• What: Michigan LoCo’s Global Jam
• When: October 3rd from 12 (noon) to 6pm
• Where: SRT Solutions in Ann Arbor
• Why: To rock out on Ubuntu before the release of Karmic Koala.
• Who: YOU! Your friends! Your neighbors! And all of the wonderful members of the Michigan LoCo team.

Now, the great looking banner from Leandro Gómez:

See you there!

I started off with a quick background on Creative Commons and what we do, in general. Then, after answering a ton of questions which were raised in the first 5 minutes, I went on to discuss CC’s role in the Free/Open Source Software community. Specifically, the FLOSS projects we develop and/or work on and how we can help others create awesome things.

If you weren’t there, you missed the opportunity to be a part of a great conversation between some great MUG members and I. But luckily, my slides are available online:

And, since Craig was nice enough to use my photo camera to record the presentation, we even have video! We only have 34 minutes of video, but that gets the majority of the talk. Apparently my camera records at a 1 gig per 10 minutes rate, we only got 34 minutes because it filled up my 4 gig memory card.

Thanks to everyone who came out, you made it fun.

Those in the Southeast Michigan area are more than welcome to attend our release party THIS SATURDAY. We’ll be toasting to the next great Ubuntu release. Bring your friends, bring your laptop (free wifi!), bring your questions. I’ll bring stickers!

Important Details:
What: Jaunty Release Party!
Where: Corner Brewery
When: 7pm – ???
Why: Because Ubuntu is awesome! Because we’re awesome! Right on.
How: Need a ride? Join the mailing list.

Thats right, the Michigan LoCo Team will be hosting our biannual Ubuntu Release Party on April 25th in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The venue of choice is The Corner Brewery as it provides ample seating and ability to move tables around to have bigger groups. Plus, if you know where to sit there are power outlets!

And you know the Michigan LoCo can throw a party, we even had people come up from OHIO last time because they knew our party was better. I wouldn’t be surprised if this year we even had people from CHICAGO make the drive over. I don’t even see Ohio or Chicago on the list of Release Parties yet.

Important Details:
What: Jaunty Release Party!
Where: Corner Brewery
When: 7pm – ???
Why: Because Ubuntu is awesome! Because we’re awesome! Right on.
How: Need a ride? Join the mailing list.

Be sure to check out what other teams are having parties on the nice JauntyReleaseParties wiki page.

Hope to see you there!

First, we all traveled through the blizzard conditions to get to the event. No one was hurt.

When we arrived we set up quickly and got to work. The only hitch was the wireless at the library was effectively non-existent. Luckily, we had a hub and cables. Our turn out wasn’t the highest (I blame the weather) but our spirits were high.

Everyone there was really putting a lot of good effort into doing some quality triage today. Had lots of good questions asked (and answered!) and judging from the stats at the end of the event, we kicked some butt!

(sidenote: I’m not sure what is up with the stats now, because I’m pretty sure the michigan team did not touch over a thousand bugs today).

Be sure to check out the pictures taken by Craig, another Michigan LoCo member, and his blog post about the event: linky.

And speaking of pictures, so far I am the only one to have uploaded pictures to flickr with the tag of “ubuntu-global-bugjam-february-09” as outlined on the GlobalBugJam/Stories page; get your photos up there!

But after figuring out the networking situation (thanks Clinton-Macomb Public Library for the ethernet cable!) we had the first big reward of the day.

A guy walked by our conference room and popped his head in, “Hey, is this a Linux User’s Group?”
Me, “Yeah, pretty much.”
Guy notices I am running Ubuntu, “Is this specific to Ubuntu?”
“Yep, we’re the Michigan Local Community Team for Ubuntu.”
“Oh, cool!”
“Yeah, we doing a Bug Jam right now.”
“Good deal”
Guy walks away to go be with his kids.
A little later he walks back by the conference room with his wife and kids and says “Hey kids, those people in there are who make Ubuntu better. They’re working on the new release, 9.04.”

Wow! That is a reward in and of itself.

Of course the Michigan LoCo Team will be participating with the Global Bug Jam, once again.

Here are the details:

• Place: Clinton Macomb Public Library
• Address: 40900 Romeo Plank Road – Clinton Township, MI 48038
• Contact: Craig Maloney
• Hours: 2pm – 6pm
• Non-residents, please be prepared to register for a one-day card. Cost is minimal (under $5)
• Wired ethernet will be available

For more information check out our event page.

Also, see what we did last time: first story on this page.

Be ready for another awesome and rocking bug jam with the Michigan LoCo!