After two long days of SmartCard printing, packing and mailing, the first 250 SmartCards are now in the mail, en-route to their Fellows. If you are one of the lucky bunch, your SmartCard should be with you sometime next week.

From now on, there will be weekly mailings of SmartCards to all fully activated Fellows.

If you have not signed up yet, you can do so now.

Here are some impressions from the day in the Hamburg office of FSFE

The first 250 SmartCards, personalised for the quickest Fellows

Packaging and stamping SmartCards

Putting them into boxes according to geographic region

These are rand-full with SmartCard letters

Finally, after weeks of preparation, procedures, scripting, shopping for material and printers, setting up computers in the new office, the Smart Card printing for the Fellowship has begun.

Here are some first-hand impressions:

FSFE intern Karsten Gerloff at the Smart Card printing station.

Karsten Gerloff with the Smart Card of Fellow No 1, Mario Fux from Switzerland.

All these are already fully customised for their Fellows.

Bereits am 02. April 2005 wurde das jährlich 'Anwandern' am Alpstein durchgeführt. Diese Wanderprobe verlief zwar klaglos, es lungerten aber noch Lawinen auf den Wegen herum. Diese Lawinen sollten inzwischen, trotz des schlechten Wetters der letzten Tag, weitergezogen sein. Fraglich bleibt allerdings, in wie weit es bis Ende Mai noch zu Steinschlägen infolge der Erwärmung des Gebirges kommen kann.

Softwareentwickler sollten die Gelegenheit nutzen, am Wochenende am Seealpsee einen Kaffe einzunehmen sowie davon auch ein paar digitale Bilder machen. Später kann man diese Bilder hier vielleicht zeigen und so beweisen, dass Entwickler nicht ausschliesslich vor der Kiste sitzen.

After arduous preparatory work, the mailing of the long-awaited Cryptocards will finally start next week. One of the coolest features of FSFE's Fellowship, the cards require quite a lot of work: This started with writing a driver for the card printer, and did not stop with the careful design of the safety procedures.

Most of this work is done now. The Fellowship team would like to thank all Fellows for their patience. We hope to soon reward it with a real-life, fully enjoyable Cryptocard.

On March 15th, 2005, a small team of six joung people met at Zurich with the goal to translate the Google Main Site into Rumantsch (in English: Rhaeto-Romance), the fourth official languge of Switzerland.

Since March 24, a new link has appeared on Google's home page of Switzerland: http://www.google.ch/ which gives access to its search interface in Rumantsch (direct link: http://www.google.ch/rm).

Thanks to all those who helped in translating and special thanks go to Google Switzerland!

GNU-Rumantsch translation team

When the place started filling up around nine o'clock, tech talk was already going strong. The Free Software Foundation Europe and the Newthinking Network called to celebrate the Fellowship, and about eighty Free Software aficionados flocked to the Newthinking Store in Berlin-Mitte. Among them was a good number of newly initiated people who just started to get interested in the concept of Free Software.

At the center of interest was the Cryptocard Demo, set up and run by Matthias Kirschner. He showed how the card could be used to encrypt e-mail with a maximum level of security. In spite of the high tech behind it, it worked as easy as sliding the card into the reader and entering one's PIN number.

Amid the cool interior design of the Newthinking Store, some people decided to sign up for the Fellowship right there; others got interested, and still others heard about Free Software for the first time. It was an interesting night for everyone. Only the store's computers might have felt relieved as people left. On their RAMs, countless technical discussions were carried out and disputes solved – or not. It was a long night, after all.

Take a look:

More than just small talk alongside the Four Freedoms

Georg Greve on a roll

Flocking to Free Software

Fellowship going up the wall

All in a day's work for SuperMatze

Delivery of Cryptocards will be delayed until mid-april. The Free Software Foundation Europe apologizes for the extended wait. It seems that the time needed for handling the cards and preparing the accompanying material was underestimated at first. Everyone at FSFE is working hard so that personalisation of the cards can start at the beginning of the next month, with them being mailed out to the fellows subsequently.

Among the early birds who registered for the Fellowship before 23:59 on February 27th, Mario Fux, of Switzerland, won the drawing for the honorable post of Fellow #1. We contacted the lucky winner right away.

> Congratulations, Mario. You signed up early, and you were drawn as Fellos #1. Why did you choose to join the FSFE Fellowship?

Because I believe in Free Software and the work of the FSFE. For more than a year, I've been writing a column [1] about Free Software in schools and education under the umbrella of the FSFE. As a part of FSFE Switzerland, I'm active in this area.

> How did you hear about it?

I heard about the project quite early, quasi first-hand.

> How did you become interested in FS?

That's a good question, which I have been asking myself frequently during the last few years. Up to now, my answer would be: On the one hand, I wasn't entirely satisfied with MS Windows and MS DOS any more. I heard about GNU/Linux and wanted to try it. Then, that was also the time when the widely accepted wisdom "These days, you won't even get a kick of the boot for free" was getting on my nerves. That was when I discovered the Free Software movement, where people don't do things for money, but rather for fun. And on top, the product seems (is) better than the proprietary alternatives.

> Have you been working on any FS projects? Which?

Quite a few. I'm the co-founder of various Free Software organisations in Switzerland (ALIS [2] and LUGO [3]) as well as (board) member of others (Wilhelmtux [4] and LUGS [5]. Then I have tried my hand as a translator for some Free Software projects (KSociograma, Freeduc, GCompris, DDTP, etc.) or in coordination (YaST2 for Debian [6], Skolelinux [7]. To name the most important ones.

> What will you use your Cryptocard for?

I don't know yet. There are various ideas, but I won't have time to implement them in the near future. An automatic login for my system (single sign-on) would be great, but it's probably not that easy to do…

> How do you explain the Fellowship to someone who has no idea what it is?

Free information and Free Software are enourmously important in our time. If information and software are to remain free, something has to be done. One can be active or support the FSFE financially via the Fellowship to make this work easier and better.

> Please complete the sentence: When I turn off my computer…

Is that possible? I've heard about it, but I never tried it myself 😉

No, really: …, in summer I go to sit beside my natural pond in the mountains.

[1] http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/education/tgs

[2] http://www.edux.ch

[3] http://www.edux.ch

[4] http://www.wilhelmtux.ch

[5] http://www.lugs.ch

[6] http://yast4debian.alioth.debian.org

[7] http://www.skolelinux.ch

O presidente da Comisión de Formación Ocupacional, Francisco Allegue, fixo unha proposta para que o concello de Fene se implique no Proxecto O Estaleiro, promovido pola Deputación da Coruña. Trátase dunha iniciativa que require a sinatura dun acordo de colaboración entre ámbalas dúas administracións.

Preténdese a creación dun Centro Tecnolóxico adicado ao desenvolvemento, difusión e traducción ao galego normativo de aplicacións de Software Libre. É moi probable que a ubicación deste centro sexa no polígono Vilar do Colo.

Nembargantes, a iniciativa ten moitas vertentes porque axudará ao desenvolvemento económico da ría, ofrecerá alternativa de emprego, contribuirá a fixar a poboación na comarca, revalorizará os ciclos formativos de carácter técnico e tecnológico e difundirá sen ánimo de lucro o Software Libre a través de soportes dixitais.

Para acadar tales metas é necesario investir arrededor de 132.000 euros, tanto para mercar material e equipamento coma a contratación de personal cualificado.

O proxecto pretende dar cabida á comunidade de usuarios, informáticos e internautas, aos traductores de Software Libre, aos centros académicos, filolóxicos e tecnolóxicos de referencia e ó tecido empresarial do sector en Galiza.

Máis en AGNIX

Fixen un documento (PDF, sxw OOo) de 25 páxinas con moitas ilustracións sobre a Historia das GUIs.

"Como acontece coa meirande parte dos desenvolvementos da historia da computación, algunhas das ideas foron pensadas antes de estar dipoñibles tecnoloxías que as fixeran posibles nunha máquina.

Unha das primeiras persoas en expresar estas ideas sobre as GUIs foi Vannevar Bush. Nos primeiros anos 30 pensou nun dispositivo nomeado "Memex", o cal foi visionado coma unha especie de escritorio con dúas pantallas táctiles, un teclado e un escáner."

Inclúe fotos dende aqueles anos ata a actualidade.