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You can see an updated list of presentations on the website. This year's fest is packed full of FLOSS goodness.

Hope to see you there.

If you see any topics that grab your interest, remember sign up online to get the early bird rate.

Hope to see you there!

Registration is open! It has been open for a few weeks now, and I've just gotten around to announcing it in my blog here now. Apologies.

This year's event is being held on Saturday, October 24. Just 3 weeks away! If you register in advance at the website the cost is only $40. If you show up at the door, it is $60. Earlier is better.

If you would like your name in lights, and would like to help sponsor the event, you can become an individual sponsor as well. More details on the registration page.

As usual, there's a welcome party on Friday night, and an after party Saturday night. Let us know if you can join us by checking the party options during your registration.

You can see a partial list of speakers here. The final list and schedule is still in progress, and if you want to submit a presentation topic proposal, there's still time to get it in under the wire.

The official Twitter feed for the Ontario Linux Fest is @OntarioLinux. We're using the group tag #oglf09. The 'g' is for GNU.

You can also follow me personally on Identi.ca as @cdfrey. I may post there from time to time as I work on the show guide.

Hope to see you at the Fest! I'll update this blog more regularly as more news becomes available.

We are looking for speakers to present on the following general topics, but of course, it is not limited to these:

• Welcome to (y)our World - Starting out with Linux
• Business and Linux
• Embedded Technologies
• Community: Building and Defending

If you have a presentation you would like to present at the Ontario Linux Fest, please add your proposal using the web form.

Our sponsor page is also open for proposals. If you or your company would like to help sponsor the event and get some publicity as well, please check it out. There are sponsorship levels for every kind of organization.

I'm currently working on finishing the registration pages. I'll blog again when it goes live.

If you have any questions, or if you run into problems on the website, please email me. Stick "onlinux" in the subject line to make sure I see it.

The Ontario Linux Fest for 2008 is being held this coming Saturday 25th in Toronto. The day's schedule has been posted, as well as the detailed table of presentations and topics. Please check it out... there are some pretty interesting topics this year again, from the return of Open Moko, to human-machine interfaces, to legal matters and intellectual property, to OpenStreetMap.

If you haven't registered yet, there is still one more day.... today! Online registration closes on Thursday morning (the 23rd), which means if you want to get the lower rate of $40 (as opposed to $60 at the door), you need to do it today. You can register and pay for the Fest here.

With 27 presentations, birds-of-a-feather sessions, and labs, sandwiched between a Friday welcome party, and a Saturday night reception party, it'll be a fun-packed day of Linux and Free Software.

Hope to see you there!

At long last, the list of presentations at this year's Ontario Linux Fest is now available!

Please have a peek at the list, and then head over to the registration page to sign up in advance.

The Days Hotel, where the Fest will be held, has a special arrangement for the attendees. When you mention Ontario Linux Fest, the room price is only $89. I hear there are plenty of rooms available, but it never hurts to book in advance.

There is a welcome party on the Friday night before the Fest, and an after-party on Saturday night. Both will be held at the Days Hotel as well, so if you're attending the Fest from out of town, you may want to stay for both nights, and meet some of the presenters face to face.

If you or your organization were pondering being a sponsor for the Fest, the deadline for the show guide is in 1 day! The show guide includes your logo and ad, depending on your sponsorship choice. There's still time, but you need to signup quickly, and email me your desired logo and ad right away.

That's all the announcements I have for tonight. Hope to see you there!

For those of you who want to help spread the word of this year's Ontario Linux Fest, we have a poster available in PDF format, in both black-and-white and colour.

There are other ways you can help spread the word too. Here I'll swipe the suggested list from a recent email that John Van Ostrand sent out about the Fest:

• Tell your friends, family and co-workers
• Post on suitable forums, groups and mailling lists
• Tell your fellow students, alumni and professors
• Post flyers at your regular haunts: the water cooler, break room, server room door, classroom or favourite computer store
• Tell your favourite Open Source friendly company about it
• For all those writers, blog it
• For Facebook or LinkedIn users, join the "Ontario Linux Fest" group to show your support
• For users of other social networking sites why not create an Ontario Linux Fest group?
• And if you're hard core about it, add it to your email signature

It is high time I caught everyone up with our progress at the Ontario Linux Fest, so here's a quick status update. As you know, this year it is being held in Toronto, Canada on Saturday, October 25, 2008, at the Days Hotel and Conference Centre.

The two keynote speakers this year are Jeremy Allison and Jon 'maddog' Hall.

We are working on getting the remaining speakers on the main website, so expect more updates over the next few days and weeks.

Registration is open! It involves creating a Drupal account and filling out the contact information and survey. Tickets are $40 in advance, and $60 at the door, so it pays to sign up early! Remember there's the welcome party on the Friday night, and the reception party Saturday night, where you can rub shoulders with the presenters and attendees.

It should be another fun and informative event, and I'm looking forward to seeing you all there.

Till the next update...

The planning stage for the 2008 Ontario Linux Fest is well under way. Richard Weait recently posted an announcement on the KWLUG mailing list, which you can read in detail in the archives. I'll summarize briefly here:

When:

Saturday 25 October 2008

Where:

Days Hotel and Conference Centre - Toronto Airport East
1677 Wilson Avenue
Toronto, ON M3L 1A5

The venue is at "The Days". There is a shuttle from the airport, and it is an easy connection to the Wilson subway. If there is enough interest, a shuttle from the subway to the Fest can be arranged, so let us know. Since the venue is both a hotel and conference centre, there are special deals on rooms, and ample parking on-site.

Who:

The call for papers is now open. See the Papers page to submit your topic. There are spots open for formal presentations, for lightning talks, for Birds of a Feather sessions, for Demo room sessions, and for Vendor room sessions.

How:

There are also various levels of sponsorships open as well, for FLOSS-friendly companies and groups. See the Call for Sponsors page if you or someone you know is interested, from multi-nationals to family businesses to Linux oriented groups.

How To:

If you have a suggestion, idea, desire, or criticism, we want to know!

Mark your calendars. I hope to see you there!

It's going to be a day packed full of Linux goodness. I look forward to seeing you there... I'll be the big guy helping out at the sign-in area.

There are still some slots open for presenters, so if you have a topic you'd like to present, send your proposal via one of the methods on the contact page, for best response. We have some great topics and presenters already lined up, including the likes of Theodore Ts'o and John "Maddog" Hall.

I'm personally looking forward to the OpenMoko presentation. I hadn't heard of this project until recently, but it sounds like everything a cell phone should be.

This Fest is planned in the same spirit as the Ohio Linux Fest: a grassroots knowledge conference instead of a product-based computer show. If you plan to be in the Toronto area in October, do sign up. Registration is cheaper if you do it in advance (only $40, and $20 for students).

Even if you can't make it, you can help by spreading the word to anyone you think would be interested. Help us pack the place.

I hope to see some fellow Advogators there! Drop me an email if you want to meet up.