General Meeting June 10: NBLUG 10th Anniversary!

That’s right, 10 years ago (almost to the day) NBLUG held its first meeting. Come hear the founders discuss NBLUG, what the group was like then, and how it has changed through the years. We’ll also be providing cake!

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.

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.

Slides

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.

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.

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.

The takeaway will be that beyond the pre-packaged solutions hitting the market, there are other viable options for creating a home “appliance” that can act as a router, firewall, and file server all in one small, yet reasonably powerful box.

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!

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.

There will be a demonstration and also a look at some RAID controllers and a NAS drive, with performance critiques.

I’m very sorry to announce that, due to a lack of sign ups, we’ve chosen to cancel the upcoming installfest (scheduled for Sat. 10/20). Our hope is to schedule another in the spring.

We still want to open the ‘fest up to issues beyond simply installing, so if you have suggestions, please send them along. We’d also like to advertise the ‘Installfest+’ to a wider audience, so please feel free to chime in with your ideas.

Thanks,

-dave. (Installfest coordinator)

Tom works for Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, etc. as a Systems Administrator for Launchpad and Landscape.

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.”

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.

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.

Amazon spent ten years and over $1 billion developing a world-class technology and content platform that powers Amazon web sites for millions of customers every day. Most people think “Amazon.com” when they hear the word; however developers are excited to learn that there is a separate technology arm of the company, known as Amazon Web Services or AWS. Using AWS, developers can build software applications leveraging the same robust, scalable, and reliable technology that powers Amazon’s retail business. AWS has now launched ten services with open API’s for developers to build applications, with the result that over 200,000 developers have registered on Amazon’s developer site to create applications based on these services.

Bio

Mike Culver joined the Developer Relations Group of Amazon Web Services in May, 2006. Mike brings with him fifteen years of technology leadership experience, including at companies such as Microsoft. In addition Mr. Culver has a strong background running an IT organization, with over a decade of experience in the Electrical Wholesale Distribution industry. As a Web Services Evangelist at Amazon, he helps developers take advantage of disruptive technologies that are going to change the way we think about computer applications, and the way that businesses compete.