How can the tech team help?

[joshred]

The subject says it for the most part.

How can we assist you in outreach? I saw that you're looking at possiblities for flyers. We have people skilled with photoshop. What do you guys want to see us do?

[dylan]

Can we have more people updating the facebook page and twitter feed? I would be happy to be added as an admin to the fb page and twitter account to help get the word out about events.

I also think the website design could be improved. Something more like the occupy together page would be nice.

We also were wondering about the possibility of a (google?) calendar for general meetings and working group meetings.

[joshred]

Both good suggestions. I think the universal calendar is especially good. Send me a PM and maybe we can start populating it later tonight.

[joshred]

I don't know who admins fb or twitter, btw. Sunday was my first meeting.

[ihbar]

I just tried to start a discussion elsewhere, but uploading or linking to a source file (rich text, .tex) in addition to pdf would be helpful as it allows minor changes to wording and audience without greatly affecting layout. Especially when other languages are considered. Everything should be editable. Like, GIMP .xcf format with separate layers for all text fields instead of pdf, jpg etc. And open source please! GNU > Adobe, Microsoft.

[dylan]

ihbar

I have mixed feelings about having our flyers being editable. There was some discussion in our group about what message we were sending out, who our audience was, who would be distributing the flyers etc. I think on some level we want to have control over our message when it comes to announcements from the GA such as meeting announcements and hopefully Occupation announcements because we want to make sure our message is positive and inclusive.

If people want to make general flyers about why we are there I think everyone's free to do so.

I am not that into things on the tech side, so I mostly use what I know, which I'll admit is unfortunately Publisher and Adobe. But they work for me and get the job done.

If you want to join the outreach team and help us in these areas, by all means...

As for the issue of languages I think it's an important thing for us to think about and I will bring it up at tonight's meeting.

[dylan]

ihbar

I just got back from an outreach meeting and it looks like our group has been converted to your view of using editable files. Someone in the group had the same thought after some discussion everyone feels it is the right thing to do.

If there's anything you can do to help us convert to this format it would be much appreciated.

I will start by looking up rich text, .tex, GIMP and .xcf as well as GNU.

Do any of these programs aid in layout?

Thanks for bringing uthis up.

[ihbar]

Hey all, glad to see you at the meeting at HudRiver

Dylan, that sounds good and thanks for making physical flyers! Don't worry about tex. There exists a functional open-source equivalent to photoshop as GIMPshop, but it may not work on all OS's, especially OSX.

However, GIMP _can_ for the most part, read .psd files so you don't need to stop working in Photoshop if you don't want to. Layout is pretty much the same using either. However, photoshop _cannot_ read GIMP's native file format, xcf. So maybe just post the template psd's and I can put them on my dropbox/cloud. Stick to saving as psd's and I'll let the media community know.

(btw, ihbar is a reference to the Schrodinger equation from quantum mechanics... in other words maybe you're talking to the same person on the boards and at meetings )

[flashmob]

The problem with working in editable formats is every computer has to have all the same files. Different computers have different preloaded fonts, some are the same but they are often not the most appealing for flyers. What might look great on your computer might be garbled nonsense or new times roman on theirs.

Also they can be large bulky and more susceptible to corruption. Not everyone can zip and unzip files. Often printers won't even deal with them.