North Bay Linux Users Group -

Introduction to KDE 4

Thu, 01 May 2008 21:13:50 -0700

Start: 2008/05/13 - 7:30pm

End: 2008/05/13 - 9:00pm

description:

Introduction to KDE4

KDE 4 was released on April 2, 2008 and is the newest version
of the K Desktop Environment.

Fabio Locati will speak on the history of KDE and Qt(the toolkit
behind KDE) and he will also discuss the framework of KDE.

Plans for the upcoming 4.1 release will be revealed and there
will be a live KDE demo.

Speaker:
Fabio A. Locati

General Meeting -- OpenVPN

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 21:32:47 -0800

Start: 2008/04/08 - 7:30pm

End: 2008/04/08 - 9:00pm

description:

OpenVPN - Adding Trust to Untrusted Networks

Virtual Private Networks allow you to connect two networks securely.

A traveler with a laptop frequently uses a random internet connection but
wants to connect securely to a home or office network.

Traditional solutions are not well suited to the random connections of the
traveler with a laptop.

OpenVPN is a versatile cross-platform open source solution that's easy to set up.

This presentation will have an overview of the lingo and components of VPN and
a how-to demonstration of an OpenVPN server and laptop client.

Location:
O'Reilly Media, Sebastopol

Speaker:
Bob Blick

URL:
bobblick.com/nblug_openvpn

General Meeting -- Scaled-Down Laptops - Asus EeePC and OLPC XO

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:46:12 -0800

Start: 2008/03/11 - 7:30pm

End: 2008/03/11 - 9:00pm

description:

The Asus EeePC and the One Laptop Per Child XO are two small laptops with very
little in common. This month we have two presenters, Allan Cecil and Brandon
Williams.

Allan will talk about the One Laptop Per Child Project XO laptop, which
is technologically very unusual and supports some exciting educational and
networking applications. A mesh networking demo of multiple XOs is planned, so
if you are one of the lucky ones to already have an XO, bring it along and join
in the demo.

Brandon will be discussing the EeePC, its hardware specifications,
capabilities, the default operating system, and its great suite of open
source software. He'll discuss some of the niche distros popping up
specifically for the EeePC, some of the popular hardware hacks floating
around the web, and discuss some available options to the potential
buyer. We'll also hear about upcoming Ultra-Mobile Pc's, why their popularity
will continue to grow, and upcoming technology that are going to keep making
them cheaper, smaller, and more portable.

Location:
O'Reilly Media, Sebastopol

Speaker:
Brandon Williams and Allan Cecil

General Meeting -- Introduction to Forensics

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:41:53 -0800

Start: 2008/02/12 - 7:30pm

End: 2008/02/12 - 9:00pm

description:

In this talk Kyle Rankin will provide an introduction to performing forensics analysis on Linux machines using the popular Sleuthkit tools with their easy-to-use Autopsy web-based front-end. The talk will cover initial installation and configuration of Sleuthkit and Autopsy, basic concepts and considerations for a forensics investigation, and at the end there will be a demo with a compromised Linux image.

Location:
O'Reilly Media, Sebastopol

Speaker:
Kyle Rankin

General Meeting -- Advantech FWA-660 Network Appliance

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 08:37:17 -0800

Start: 2008/01/08 - 7:30pm

End: 2008/01/08 - 9:00pm

description:

Paul Stagnoli and Brian Davidson, of Exchange Bank, will be discussing
hacking the Advantech FWA-660 network appliance. The FWA-660 specs
include four Ethernet ports, a Celeron processor, up to 512 meg of ram,
on-board USB and printer support, compact flash support, and a 30 gig
hard drive.

Paul will demonstrate how to install Ubuntu server onto the box via PXE.
Brian will discuss case mods he made to add USB and Printer support to
the box.

Location:
O'Reilly Media, Sebastopol

Speaker:
Paul Stagnoli and Brian Davidson

General Meeting -- Virtualization Panel

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:51:20 -0800

Start: 2007/12/11 - 7:30pm

End: 2007/12/11 - 9:00pm

description:

Curious about virtualization? In this talk a panel of NBLUG members will highlight a number of different virtualization technologies including but not limited to VMware, OpenVZ, Solaris zones, and more!

Location:
O'Reilly Media, Sebastopol

Speaker:
NBLUG Panel

Board Meeting Minutes

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 06:02:27 -0800

Meeting attendees: Frank, Bob, Kyle & Dave.

Not much on the Agenda this month, just upcoming meeting topics:

December: Panel discussion on various Virtualization methods, such as vmWare, OpenVZ, Xen and more. Panel participants will include Kyle, Frank, Aaron, and a co-worker of Aaron's whose name escapes me.

January: Paul Stagnoli and Brian Davidson have volunteered to talk about a net-bootable device that they hacked at his work.

Storage, Sharing and Backup: Samba, Rsync, and the MyBook World NAS

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:54:39 -0700

Start: 2007/11/13 - 7:30pm

End: 2007/11/13 - 9:00pm

description:

This talk covers storage and backup in a home or small office where files
are stored on a single server running Linux or on a Network Attached
Storage device. Files are shared to Windows, Linux, and OSX using Samba.
Every day all files are backed up to an external USB hard drive using
Rsync.

Network Attached Storage drives can save space and electricity by serving
files to multiple clients without the need for a computer. The Western
Digital MyBook World is a NAS with gigabit ethernet, a USB host port, and
500GB to 2TB of storage. It runs Linux internally and has a full system
and GNU development environment preinstalled.

Location:
O'Reilly Media

Speaker:
Bob Blick

General Meeting -- Tom Haddon from Canonical

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:41:58 -0700

Start: 2007/10/09 - 7:30pm

End: 2007/10/09 - 9:00pm

description:

Tom works for Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, etc. as a
Systems Administrator for Launchpad (https://launchpad.net) and
Landscape (https://landscape.canonical.com).

From Tom :

"The main topic of the talk will be about a volunteer project undertaken
by the SF-LUG to resurrect a housing authority's computer lab using
Edubuntu. How the project started, where we are now, and where we go
from here. Possibly with a demonstration of LTSP (the Linux Terminal
Server Project) on my laptop. I'll also be happy to answer any questions
I can about Ubuntu, Canonical, Launchpad, Landscape, etc."

Location:
O'Reilly Media

Speaker:
Tom Haddon

Board Meeting Minutes - 9/18/2007

Sat, 22 Sep 2007 06:11:54 -0700

The board meeting was attended by Paul (VP), Aaron (Treas.), Dave (Scribe), Bob (Dir. @ Large) and Frank (Dir @ Large).

I forgot to post the last minutes, so I'll congratulate Frank now for stepping up and accepting the 2nd Director at Large position (hooray!).

Our upcoming General Meeting Topics:
- October: Tom Haddon of Canonical will talk about Ubuntu.
- November: Our own Bob Blick will give a talk: 'Storage, Sharing and Backup: Samba, Rsync, and the MyBook World NAS'
- December: This one is still undecided, but could be a new Knoppix talk by Kyle, Paul might give a talk about linux servers, or perhaps a lively panel discussion.

We selected a date for the next Installfest - Sat. October 20th. I am awaiting confirmation from O'Reilly that the conference room is available before I announce the 'fest officially.

We also reaffirmed that we want to make this an Installfest-Plus. This just means opening up the event to help with configuring hardware or applications in addtion to the traditional OS installs.

General Meeting -- How DNS Works

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:20:14 -0700

Start: 2007/09/11 - 7:30pm

End: 2007/09/11 - 9:00pm

description:

In this talk Kyle will cover the basics of how DNS (Domain Name System) works. The talk will include a short history of the service, how it works today, and a step-by-step walk-through of what happens between entering a domain into a web browser and getting back an IP address. Also covered is how you could use this new-found knowledge to take down the Internet. Specific implementations of DNS (BIND, djbdns, PowerDNS) will not be covered.

Location:
O'Reilly Media

Speaker:
Kyle Rankin

General Meeting -- Amazon Web Services

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:35:25 -0700

Start: 2007/08/14 - 7:30pm

End: 2007/08/14 - 9:00pm

description:

What’s possible in a post Web 2.0 world?

Innovation continues at a mind-bending pace, and this presentation will showcase some thought-provoking new directions that Web Services are headed in. The presentation will provide an overview of Amazon Web Services, including a Web Service named Mechanical Turk that allows computers to make requests of people, an online storage service, a Virtual Server controlled by a Web service, and more. There will also be a demo showing how to set up a virtual server. But mostly this will be an opportunity to have a discussion about innovation and entrepreneurial tools.

Location:
O'Reilly Media

Speaker:
Mike Culver

Board Meeting Minutes - 7/17/2007

Sun, 22 Jul 2007 07:18:16 -0700

Roll call: Kyle (pres.), Paul (v. pres), Aaron (treas.), Dave (scribe), Bob (dir @ large)
Results of the Board Election, held at the previous General Meeting:
- President: Kyle Rankin
- Vice President: Paul Peterson
- Treasurer: Aaron Grattafiori
- Scribe: Dave Sisley
- Director at Large: Bob Blick
...not a major shake-up this year. Mostly the same personnel, but some at new positions (Paul & Aaron), and one new face: Bob Blick (welcome!).
Please note that the second Director at Large position is still open. Anyone interested in the position can nominate themselves (or someone else) on the mailing list or at the next General Meeting.
Upcoming Topics:

August: Speaker will give a talk on Amazon, specifics to follow.
September: Kyle will talk about DNS. This is a general talk about how DNS works, as a follow-up to Augie's recent PowerDNS presentation.
October/November: Augie has offered to do another presentation (topic tba) and Paul is planning a discussion of LAMP. The order of these presentations has yet to be determined.

Installfest: it was briefly discussed that we should schedule one soon... Stay tuned.
There was agreement among the board that the Wii is pretty cool.

PowerDNS

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 08:18:26 -0700

Start: 2007/07/10 - 7:30pm

End: 2007/07/10 - 9:00pm

description:

The PowerDNS Nameserver is a modern, advanced and high performance authoritative-only nameserver. It is written from scratch and conforms to all relevant DNS standards documents. Furthermore, PowerDNS interfaces with almost any database.

In this talk August will discuss how PowerDNS can serve your Name Serving needs, some of its advantages and disadvantages, how it can play well with other Name Servers and how you can migrate to it.

August is the Senior System Administrator at Sonic.net; more information about him can be found at his personal website: www.schwer.us.

Location:
O'Reilly Media

Speaker:
Augie Schwer

General Meeting - Gamba

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 21:27:26 -0700

Start: 2007/06/12 - 7:30pm

End: 2007/06/12 - 9:00pm

description:

Visual Basic allows anyone, even beginners, to do Windows programming.

You can create powerful graphic applications just by dragging and
dropping widgets onto a form and typing a couple of lines of Basic.

Gambas takes rapid application development even further, and makes it
more powerful - with access to QT and KDE functions just a couple of
mouseclicks away - and it's for Linux!

In this presentation you'll get a quick introduction to the Gambas
development environment and see how easy it is to build a webcam
application.

Location:
O'Reilly Media

Speaker:
Bob Blick