From pjf at perltraining.com.au  Mon Jan  9 17:26:11 2006
From: pjf at perltraining.com.au (Paul Fenwick)
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2006 12:26:11 +1100
Subject: [Brisbane-pm] PerlNet: Australian Perl Portal Opens
Message-ID: <43C30D33.5040609@perltraining.com.au>

G'day Everyone,

PerlNet, the Australian Perl Portal, is finally live.  You may be particularly
interested in editing and improving
http://perl.net.au/wiki/Brisbane_Perl_Mongers , or even using it as your main
Brisbane.PM page (Sydney.PM is already doing this).

The full press release follows.  Enjoy!

== PerlNet: Australian Perl Portal Opens ==

10th January, 2005 (Australia) PerlNet (http://perl.net.au/), the Australian and
New Zealand Perl portal, is announcing its doors open to the world. PerlNet is
focused on all aspects of Perl in Australia and New Zealand, including
user-groups, business, education and development. The content of PerlNet can be
freely edited and distributed, and the site uses MediaWiki, the same software
that powers Wikipedia.

PerlNet's goal is to be a resource for all users of Perl, and to bring the
community together to collaborate and share ideas. Businesses that support Perl
are encouraged to provide listings. User-groups are encouraged to host their
pages and content. Individuals are encouraged to write about their projects and
experiences.

Stephen Steneker, the leader of Sydney Perl Mongers, has already moved his
group's content across to the new site. "PerlNet just makes it much easier for
our members to get involved," said Steneker. "It's easy for members to write
meeting reports, plan new events, and discuss ideas and projects."

While PerlNet is aimed primarily at the Australian and New Zealand communities,
it's free for anyone to use and edit. "We've been seeing a wide range of
contributors," said Paul Fenwick, the founder of PerlNet and director of Perl
Training Australia. "We've had material submitted from editors in Europe, China,
Israel, North America, as well as locally."

All contributions to PerlNet are made under a creative-commons license, allowing
everyone to use, distribute, and make derivative works. Registering as an editor
takes only a few seconds, and both a mailing list and IRC channel exist to help
further discussions.

-- 
Paul Fenwick <pjf at perltraining.com.au> | http://perltraining.com.au/
Director of Training                   | Ph:  +61 3 9354 6001
Perl Training Australia                | Fax: +61 3 9354 2681


From jarich at perltraining.com.au  Tue Jan 17 17:28:19 2006
From: jarich at perltraining.com.au (Jacinta Richardson)
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 12:28:19 +1100
Subject: [Brisbane-pm] Next meeting?
Message-ID: <43CD99B3.8000102@perltraining.com.au>

G'day folk,

Back at the end of the September last year, Damian suggested organising a social
gathering involving beer and pizza, and Sarah suggested Trolltech would be happy
to provide a venue for another technical meeting.  I think Sarah said she also
had a speaker in, although if you haven't heard Sarah's excellent talk on
modelling earthquakes and resulting waves, you should encourage her to give that
as well!

Unfortunately Paul and myself aren't going to be in Brisbane any time soon, so I
can't prod you into a meeting time to suit us, but I'd hate the enthusiasm for
meetings to just fade away because of other commitments.

One of the really great things of regular meetings is the sharing of ideas
outside those presented in any talks.  It gives members a chance to discuss
challenges that have come up ( "I was using DBI, and found that ... ", "Oh, you
should remember to...." ) and learn from each other.  You'll probably also find
that meetings beget meetings.

If monthly technical meetings seem a little ambitious, how about trying a social
gathering at a pub/cafe/restaurant, every second month, with technical meetings
in between?

A good way to increase attendance, and membership, is to advertise these
meetings other user groups who may also harbour Perl programmers.  For example,
HUMBUG, Brisbane PC User Group, MySQL Users Group Brisbane, LUG Vegas,
Apple-MAQ, Apple Q, SAGE-AU Qld, AUUG Qld Chapter (might not exist)...

You probably won't get a huge response from these various groups, but even 2
extra Perl Mongers from half the groups, is still 8 more Perl Mongers, or 8 more
potential speakers.  :)


On another note, I'd like to extend a personal invitation to you all to visit
PerlNet ( http://perl.net.au/ ) and get involved.  It's purpose is to bring
together all Australian and New Zealand Perl entities.  We'd love to see Perl
user groups collaborating, Perl businesses listing themselves, Perl developers
looking for hire putting up their resumes and all other good uses.  We have a
Collaboration of the week going.  This week is Catalyst:

	http://perl.net.au/wiki/Catalyst

Do you have anything you could add?  There's also and IRC channel, if you'd like
to chat.

All the best,

	Jacinta

-- 
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    `6_ 6  )   `-.  (     ).`-.__.`)  |  Perl Training Australia    |
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