Back in February, we broke the news that the One Laptop Per Child charity was set to come down under - which was great news for people interested in helping with the development of its uber cool open source laptop, the XO.
OLPC Australia has just announced it will host its first OLPC Techfest in Sydney on Sunday, 1 June. It will include demonstrations, workshops about the OLPC hardware and software, and developer tutorials.
If you're at all interested in the OLPC, I strongly recommend you attend this event, as a lot of its very cool features are best demonstrated when you can network a bunch of the machines together, as will no doubt happen at this event.
For full details, check out the OLPC website. [via]

A new group has started in Sydney called Geek Girl Dinners. An offshoot of a group which started in London, the Sydney group organises through a Facebook group and has already held several events.
The group exists to get girl geeks together for technical discussion, a meal and some laughs.
If you are a woman geek you are welcome and encouraged to come along - it makes no difference what kind of a geek you are or how small or large your level of technical knowledge. The intention is to learn & share some technical fu, have fun and connect with other women in IT.
 If you're a guy geeks who has a female geek friend willing to escort you are also welcome to attend.
I noticed that this month's Sydney dinner is already booked out but if you watch the blog or join the Facebook group you can go to the next one.

And for Melbourne girl geeks - well, watch this space. :)

Reader Mike just got a "yes" from his girlfriend in reply to The Big Question, and now he's looking ahead to The Big Event. Being a regular reader, a frugal guy, and an "addictive planner," he writes seeking help:

Do you have any suggestions for software (I use Windows, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile platforms) that I can use to keep track of vendors, quotes, and other sundry details?

Having tied the knot less than a year ago, I found some success using Google Docs for multi-user planning, but also spent a lot of time explaining its features to everybody—and ended up losing a few invitations to accidental deletions.

So I turn to our wise readers and ask: What software or organizational tools would you/did you use to plan a wedding, covering as many aspects as possible? How would you keep on top of your tasks, decisions, and deadlines? Give Mike an early gift of advice in the comments.

Earlier this week we pointed you to an interview with security guru Bruce Schneier, who has previously advised Lifehacker readers on how to pick secure passwords. Turns out he'll be visiting our shores as a keynote speaker at Linux.conf.au in January.

LCA is probably Australia's largest open source technical conference. I spoke with conference organiser Donna Benjamin this week and she told me they've closed early bird registrations and the conference is on track to selling out, with 2/3 of the tickets already sold.
The other keynote speakers are Stormy Peters, Director of Community and Partner Programs at Open Logic and Anthony Baxter, the release manager for the Python language.
The main conference programme features an array of speakers from different fields presenting on the Linux kernel, the X Window System, media, applications, desktop, law, security and usability.

LCA 2008 will take place at the University of Melbourne from January 28 to February 2 at the University of Melbourne. You can register online at http://linux.conf.au/register. More information on the conference can be found at: http://linux.conf.au/.

If you go, I'll see you there. :)

Event organizer webapp Fasterplan creates collaborative "billboards" that help users hammer out the details of an upcoming event. Set up a Fasterplan billboard for your event and drag and drop widgets onto it—like polls ("Where should we eat afterwards?"), date finders ("When's good for you?"), images, and text notes. Get your event billboard's permalink and email it out to all your friends to answer the polls and plan your get-together. Check out a sample billboard to see Fasterplan in action.