Building a Hackerspace

A lot of good things are going on lately. Last weekend I was in Nuremberg for the openSUSE Board f2f meeting which when more than fine. I am preparing for oSC15 and on the openSUSE Camp things are better than usual.

We spent a few months talking about making a Hackerspace in Thessaloniki and almost a couple of months some people decided to stop talking and start acting. So we made Tech Ministry , a 180 square meters place in the center of Thessaloniki where everybody can find a home for their projects. Of course we are still building it, literally a hackerspace is never over, but we still need a few things to make it functional. We plan to have it fully functional but the end of next week, but I know really well that everybody has a plan until they get hit, LoL.
If you have some money left in your paypal and you want to help you can do it by donating to our Hackerspace here. We could also use any kind of equipment that you don't need so all you have to do is contact me here by sending a comment or by sending me an email. If you are an FOSS Project Tech Ministry is always happy to support you by promoting your project in our members, so just send us all the information you think we will need for that. 

A dot in the map

I don't ever remembering suggesting a site but to be honest I rarely fall into sites that not many people know and worth mentioning, also most of the times I do, I am a bit bored on blog about it so I eventually never do ;-)

Today though it's different, I am taking a break from a presentation it was supposed to be ready...Well...Yesterday, but I am still looking for the right kittens photos to complete this presentation(...don't ask...). Anyway normally I would just watch a movie or something but I am a bit in a mood to blog and latelly I had too much on my plate and had no time to do it, so here I am.

Anyway a friend of mine, Efstathios Chatzikyriakidis had this briliant and simple idea, to make a map where people around the world would state their possition in the map and the OS they use. Some of you might find this useless but I find interesting the fact that I could see the preferance of people around me on what Open Source or Free Software they use and some of you might too. The site is called OSHACKERS and it is licenced under the GNU GPLv3 and if you are curious I would suggest to give it a look and why no register... 

Πρόγραμμα 1ου openSUSE Collaboration Weekend Camp

Πρόγραμμα 1ου openSUSE Collaboration Weekend Camp

Παρασκευή
17:30 - 17:45  Καλωσόρισμα
17:45 - 18:30  Μεταφράζοντας την διανομή openSUSE - Χρήση του Lokalize και του Gtranslator (Eυστάθιος Ιωσηφίδης - Κώστας Κουδάρας)
18:45 - 19:30  Μεταφράζοντας το weekly news και το wiki - Πως, τι και γιατί
19:30 - 20:30  Βραδινό
20:45 - 22:15 Wiki Hackfest - Διαγωνισμός με δώρο ένα :
22:15 - … Συζήτηση: openSUSE people - From us to us - Διομήδης Αναδιώτης "Καινούργιος στην κοινότητα"

Σάββατο
08:00 - 10:00 Πρωινό
10:15 - 11:00 Χρήση του Yast - Διαχείριση συστήματος εύκολα, γρήγορα και με πολλές δυνατότητες(Ευστάθιος Αγραπίδης-Κώστας Κουδάρας)
11:00 - 12:00 def python_django(tutorial): (Θοδωρής Χατζημίχος)
12:15 - 13:15 "Security and arduino:Multifactor authentication system(voice recognition and rfid technologies)" - Μέρος 1ο (the-hackerspace)
13:30 - 14:30 "Security and arduino:Multifactor authentication system(voice recognition and rfid technologies)" - Μέρος 2ο (the-hackerspace)
14:30 - 17:30 Μπάνιο/ρακετες/Beach Volle/φαϊ/μπύρες
17:30 - 18:15 Qt Signals And Slots (Αντώνης Τσαπαλιώκας)
18:30 - 19:30 "Security and arduino:Wireless devices remote control (client - server control center)"(the-hackerspace)
19:30 - 20:30 Βραδυνό
20:30 - 21:30 Vim introduction (Γιάννης Χατζημίχος)
21:30 - … Συζήτηση: Δουλεύοντας μέσα σε μια κοινότητα Ε.Λ/Λ.Α.Κ

ΚΥΡΙΑΚΗ
08:00 - 10:00 Πρωινό
10:00 - 10:45 Επιβίωση με Gnome 3 στον κόσμο του KDE (Ευστάθιος Ιωσηφίδης)
10:45 - 11:00 OBSάρω, OBSάρεις; (Ευστάθιος Αγραπίδης)
11:45 - 12:30 KDE Frameworks (Γιώργος Τσαπαλιώκας)
12:30 - 13:15 openSUSE Medical project - openEMR (Αθανάσιος-Ηλίας Ρουσινόπουλος)
13:30 ΤΕΛΟΣ ΕΚΔΗΛΩΣΗΣ

TheHackerspace opening: When Great things happen

 I rarely envy people, one of the times I did it was when some guys from Athens announced the creation of a Hackerspace there. I also envied them wen i saw that they started making good work and organizing well. After that I heard about the creation of P-space at Patras and I thought that it was only a mater of time for some people to make something similar to my City.

 A few weeks ago I heard that Efstathios Hatzikyriakidis along with Stavros Kalapothas and Stergios Kalamopoulos where starting a local Hackerspace. I knew Efstathios and he had helped me on the past when I once sent him an e-mail because I wanted some help for Arduino. He was very helpful back then and in a way he had earned my trust.

  So yesterday it was The-Hackerspace opening, and it was an open invitation for everyone to attend and have a talk about our City's Hackerspace. Almost 30 people where there, all curious and all genuine interesting (at least from what I can tell) for it. We had very interesting talks while waiting for the organizers to present us their ideas about the-Hackerspace and you could find all kind of people among us, from hackers to Window users.

At a certain point the people that gathered us all there got our attention and started presenting us their way of thinking of how they would like  the-Hackerspace to work. I was amazed. Their ideas were (are) progressive but at the same time doable. I admit that it was far from what I expected to see in a good way. From what I saw and from the talk we had after their short presentation, other people had the same opinion with me. After that we had a cake and a few hours later we left with the best impressions.

If you are from Thesssaloniki or from a city near there is no excuse for not at least make a visit there. You can find more information about the location of the-Hackespace at http://the-hackerspace.org/location/.

In a city that Great things rarely happen, the-Hackerspace is something at least innovating and it surely deserves our attention and support.