Help Us Find a New Home for Warren
Posts: 340
As you may know, Warren (and MEPIS) are currently located in Morgantown, WV. While this is a beautiful area, with mountains, forests, lakes, and rivers galore, it is somewhat lacking in technical people, resources, and opportunities. So we have started the "Help Warren Find a New Home" proejct with a simple goal: find a new home for Warren and MEPIS. He would like to be in a town/city in the US that has more to offer, technologically speaking. It should be near a university where he could develop a good working relationship with people in the university, especially in the computer science department, and where he would have more people available to help work on MEPIS. If you live in or know of an area that meets Warren's criteria, please post your suggestion below.
20070305 Warren says:
Hi everybody.
Thanks for your suggestions. I hope everyone is having fun! I know I am. I see that Austin/UT is in the lead, but Columbus/OSU and Atlanta/GT are close behind. And some of the other locations sound very appealing.
But if you really want me to move to a particular location, maybe you can make me an offer I can't refuse. 
I would say: come to Spain!!
Posts: 2299
I would say: come to Spain!! Linux is hot in spain, with state governments actively developing and deploying their own distros (Linex and Guadalinux). Granada has a thriving university with lots of young, enthusiastic people that coud make a contribution. The first drink is on me!
If Warren decides to stay in the US in spite of this irresistibly luring post, I still would strongly urge for him to issue an iso with a Spanish MEPIS version.
There.... waddayathink of that bridge to make my point 
Newbie or not Newbie, there's always a question
Rochester NY. Home of Kodak
Posts: 484
Rochester NY. Home of Kodak and Xerox.Two great Universities, University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology.Great Summers, but lousy winters. Active Linux Users Group, LUGOR.
Is this for real or tongue in cheek.
I would suggest Pittsburgh,
Posts: 13
I would suggest Pittsburgh, PA first. Many universities there.
Secondly State College, PA (Happy Valley, Home of the Nittany Lions!) More relaxed atmosphere but the University is huge and 2nd to none!
Go West Warren
Posts: 17
Big Sky Country - Bozeman, Montana! Great Natives, Great University and a Outdoor Paradise!
Houghton, Michigan
Posts: 85
Quiet, hilly, rivers, lakes, National Forest, Lake Superior, and Michigan Technological University.
PLUS it's so cold and snow for half the year, there's nothing better to do than stay someplace warm and write code. 
brrrrr
Posts: 4864
PLUS it's so cold and snow for half the year
nah, move to somewhere warm, like Australia.
Charlottesville, Virginia
Posts: 380
Charlottesville, Virginia
As a resident of Charlottesville, that would be convenient for me. I could ask him MEPIS questions in person.
By the way, West Virginia currency is accepted here, so there's no hassle about having to exchange currency at the border.
Columbus, Ohio
Posts: 2
Ohio is located somewhere in the middle where winters are not too harsh, the summers are not too unbearable, but we do have the 4 seasons.
Columbus is no stranger to technology. We have telecommunications companies here as well as Federal and State government offices. As far as universities, we have many, but we are the home of the Ohio State University (one of the largest Universities in the United States and home of the Buckeyes!).
Central Ohio is often chosen as a good marketing testbed because of our size and diversity of people. We also host a Linux expo every year.
There's Also San Diego, California
Posts: 5513
Hey Warren, allow me to officially invite you to California. In San Diego specifically you would be near the UCSD university as well as have easy access to beaches, mountains, lakes.
And you'd be able to share your dreams with movie-star governers, Conservative leaders with Liberal assemblies, enjoy the high property and income taxes, and we have wonderful smog year-round! Oh, the weather's nice too.
I guess you can see why I'm not a member of the California Tourism Board
Jon
Microsoft Windows Vista now on sale!
Buy now, Really Pay Later
Why not start with the Universities that Mirror it
Posts: 1109
Why not start the search looking at cities with Universities that already mirror SimplyMEPIS?
Of course, my vote what be to move to the Atlanta area (since I live in Georgia). lol I'm not sure I'd want to wish I285 traffic on anyone though. I'm in Savannah now, but I lived in the Atlanta area for a number of years.
http://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/MEPIS/ (Virginia Tech)
ftp://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/MEPIS/
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/ (University of North Carolina)
ftp://carroll.aset.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/ (Penn State University)
ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mepis/ (Georgia Tech)
http://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu/linux/mepis/ (Indiana University)
ftp://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/pub/linux/mepis/
ftp://ftp.cise.ufl.edu/pub/mirrors/mepis/ (University of Florida)
http://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mepis (Washington University St. Louis)
ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mepis
Jim C.
Columbus, Ohio
Posts: 1
Why not check out my home town of Columbus, Ohio. I don't live there anymore, but it was an excellent city. They of course have OSU and many other colleges around and near the city. (Otterbein, DeVRY, Capital, CCAD, etc..) The city is home to lots of business including Nationwide Insurance a big Chase Financial Office, and lots of others. The surrounding area is rich with commerce and business too.
The greatest thing is that the city is big enough to provide all of these things, plus major sport teams and an excellent art, theater, and music scene as well. Plus you're not to far from Cincy or Cleveland or PA for that matter.
It's the most excellent big, little city I know..........but I have admit I'm biased.
Hope it all works out!
Thanks
Huntsville/Madison, Alabama
Posts: 1
Huntsville/Madison, Alabama
* Long history as a "High Tech" area
* In 2005, Forbes Magazine named the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area as 6th best place in the nation for doing business, and 1st in terms of the number of engineers per total employment.
* Huntsville is also home for commercial technology companies such as the network access company ADTRAN and computer graphics company Intergraph.
* 42 of the Fortune 500 companies have office here.
* It is home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight.
* Home to the Alabama Space and Rocket Center and Space Camp
* Area is above US average in high school completion, college degree (52% in Madison), individual and family income (census.gov)
* A lot of people move here for work and other reasons. I estimate 50% of adults in the area where not born here.
* Low cost of living
* Mild climate
University of Alabama in Huntsville
* My alma mater
* Emphasis is in Science and Technology
* My first job was at UAH in the late 80s. I supervised UAH students writing educational software.
* UAH is listed as "Very Competitive" by Barron's Profiles of American Colleges, the only public university in Alabama to receive this rating.
* UAH has been named as one of "America's 100 Best College Buys" for ten consecutive years.
* Four UAH research disciplines rank in the top 50 in the nation in federal research funding, according to the National Science Foundation. UAH's computer science program was 20th in the nation in funding
* U. S. News & World Report ranks UAH among the 150 best national doctoral universities. Only seven percent of the more than 2000 four-year colleges and universities in America received this recognition.
* Princeton Review designated UAH as on of the "Best in the Southeast Universities for 2006."
Resources
* Wikipedia
* Huntsville City
* Huntsville Convention & Visitor’s Bureau
* University of Alabama in Huntsville
* Linux Users of North Alabama (LUNA)
Personally, it's a great place to live and work. There are a lot of "bit heads" here, including a lot of Linux users.
Austin Texas
Posts: 10
Beautiful city. People Come and never leave.
There is UT, St. Edwards, Concordia within the city, Texas State, Texas Tech and A&M are a brief drive away. Some other too.
There is Dell, Applied Materials, IBM research center, sun microsystems - I could go on and on and on. It is called "silicon Hills" there are so many companies, and has really been ingrained into the city's culture.
Its also amazingly beautiful and you will meet the most friendly laid back and above all interesting people that you ever have in your life. We have hundreds of miles of parks, and as "the live music capitol of the world" we have an awesome music scene.
Check it out.
I'll toss-in a suggestion
Posts: 1634
I'll toss-in a suggestion for the Southern California/Long Beach area.
California State University at Long Beach is right here with a wonderful engineering department.
CalTech is just up the way from us, with Jorgenson Labs ( http://infospheres.cs.caltech.edu/moodle/ )
USC and UCLA are conveniently close, with CSUDH and two DeVry campuses within easy driving distance.
We really don't lack for programming talent out here.
Then there's the Fuzzy Guy and his family...we'd make ya feel welcome, and drag Jon and Mark into brainstorming sessions at someplace like Claim Jumpers, etc.
My occupation?
Well, computer geek-stuff, mostly. I could tell you all about it; but, then I would have to delete you.
Let me guess, you all want
Posts: 4077
Let me guess, you all want Warren close to you 
Long Beach sounds nice by the way...
--
Check out MEPIS Wiki: www.mepis.org/docs
The Pacific Northwest is the answer
Posts: 17
Seattle and the Eastside (of Lake Washington) are the high tech centers where Google, Boeing, Microsoft, etc. are located. However, you might want to consider Tacoma which is a half hour drive from Seattle, has much lower real estate prices and the Click, http://www.click-network.com fiber optic network. Belfair, WA has fiber, http://www.timwing.com/broadband.htm , even better real estate prices and an industrial park where they would love to have a high tech business.
We have active LUG's here including http://www.taclug.org , http://www.Linux-Now.us and the upcoming http://www.linuxfestnorthwest.org event.
Who Needs A State When You Can Have A Country?
Posts: 5513
Warren, you could always bet your own country. I don't know if it's still available, but Sealand was for sale not too long ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand
Jon
Microsoft Windows Vista now on sale!
Buy now, Really Pay Later
How many programers are in
Posts: 4077
How many programers are in Sealand... or maybe it's the percentage that matters: country with 100% of population programmers... yay!
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Check out MEPIS Wiki: www.mepis.org/docs
Austin, TX
Posts: 110
And don't forget, no state income tax.
An island in SecondLife,
Posts: 1634
An island in SecondLife, maybe....
My occupation?
Well, computer geek-stuff, mostly. I could tell you all about it; but, then I would have to delete you.
Interesting thought...but
Posts: 1634
Interesting thought...but how many programmers does it take to screw-in a light bulb?
My occupation?
Well, computer geek-stuff, mostly. I could tell you all about it; but, then I would have to delete you.
Is that a Linux or Microsoft
Posts: 4077
Is that a Linux or Microsoft bulb?
--
Check out MEPIS Wiki: www.mepis.org/docs
Oh, Canada
Posts: 5
Hey,
what aboot Canada, eh? Superior beer, and, ahem, superior beer. Great broadband coverage though, especially in the east. Foul weather though, but hey, you'd get a workout shoveling the driveway. Toronto has two big universities with 50,000+ students and Montreal is not much behind. The upside is that there is a lot of multilingual people with programming skillz to translate (how do you say MEPIS in French)
Life Is Like a Box Of Chocolates...
You Never Know What You're Gonna Get!
Anne Arundel County Maryland
Posts: 33
Crofton, Maryland might be worth considering (I'm biased: it has been my home for the last thirty-five years). It is one-half hour from the University of Maryland, with its strong departments in Computer Science and Mathematics (Sergey Brin, of Google, did his undergraduate work there), it is an easy drive from Morgantown, so you could maintain your contacts there. It is 20 minutes from Annapolis. Office space is abundant, housing is plentiful and moderately priced - though not cheap. It is within 45 minutes of the "Route 270 technology corridor" of upper Montgomery County and Frederick county, but without the severe traffic congestion. It is near several government agencies. Recreation is plentiful, with easy access for joggers, bikers, and golfers. (No, I'm not a real estate agent). If you want more specifics, send me an e-mail at my e-mail address on the forum and we can discuss it further off-line.
Warren's new home
Posts: 17
I can certainly see you moving to Gainesville, Florida. University of Florida Gators are there, and you would be close to lots of schools and technology. There are some huge university hospitals there, too. Disney World, Sea World and other places are not far from there, either.
New Home for Waren
Posts: 5
Arizona! Phoenix or Flagstaff if he misses the mountains!
FRH
I'd aggree with Jim, start with the universities that mirror it
Posts: 76
and, of course, I'd also agree with Jim to move to Georgia.
Moving to someplace like Thompson or Evans would put Warren in easy reach of I20, which leads to Atlanta, as well as getting close to Athens (UGA). It would also put some of the Augusta Colleges in close access (Augusta Tech, Augusta State, Paine, Medical College of Georgia, and the Medical University), as well as close access to Aiken Tech in South Carolina. From a travel standpoint, Savannah is almost a straight shot on travel as well. (almost, not quite yet, the road is still under construction).
And, of course, like Jim, it's also selfish because Columbia County is where I am at.
Shucks, I'm a transplant
Posts: 330
Shucks, I'm a transplant from sweet Mother South to St. Paul, MN. Hop on a sled and come our way. There are lots of colleges and universities in the Twin Cities. Though, a southern boy has a hard time seeing why someone would want to leave the sweet lands of the south.
May I suggest The Quad Cites
Posts: 153
We have Western Illinois,and a Blackhawk college both with heavy computer agendas to start and within a hours drive of Il U home of Netscape and to the west is U of Iowa and Iowa state and the weather is always changing. All the things that you think of in a large city with a smaller town pace of life. and a lower cost of living than most areas. check it out here
http://www.quadcities.com/
Linux User #266786
http://www.thebarrel.net
Charlottesville, Virginia.
Posts: 145
It is a beautiful area, with mountains, forests, unbridled liberal democrats, lakes, AND the University of Virginia (go hoos!). The night life is particularly awesome, too.
I wish I could live there...
The Tramp