ALE Mailing List: ale@ale.org
The feature presentation at the ALE Central Meeting
at 7:30pm on Thursday, Aug. 20th, 2009 will be:
“Open SUSE: The State of the Disavowed Distro”
with Chuck Payne, Atlanta regional OpenSUSE Ambassador
==
Synopsis:
— Despite extensive concerns and criticisms from the Free Software
community regarding SUSE’s partnership deals with Novel and the
dangerous precedents of their concessions to the extortionist FUD
campaigns of MicroSoft, the OpenSUSE project has continued to be
an important contributing developer in the global GNU Linux and
Open Source arenas. SUSE’s recently appointed volunteer ambassador
for our region, Chuck Payne, will bring us up to date on the features
and strengths of current OpenSUSE 11.1 offering and talk about
enhancements scheduled for the pending 11.2 release.
Bio:
— Chuck “PUP” Payne has been working with computers since
his parents gave him an Atari 130XE for his 16th birthday
[ed – (: presumably misunderstanding his actual requests for
a Commodore Amiga :) ]. He has since worked with personal
computer platforms ranging from Atari and Apple to Mac and
PC, and has explored various operating environments including
Linux, BeOS, Solaris, FreeBSD and others. He has been
working with GNU Linux since 1998, when he bought a book on
Slackware ’96. After Slackware he tried out Red Hat, then
moved to openSUSE with their 1998 5.3 release and he has
stayed with the SUSE choice since.
Computers also became central to Chuck’s career, and he has
worked as a System Administrator since 1998. He is currently
employed by Travel Channel Media as a Unix Systems Admin,
where day to day tasks include managing TCM’s DNS, 70+ Red
Hat Linux Servers, 20 Solaris Servers, and a handful of Mac
XServers. He also helps out with web development in the areas
of Apache and JBOSS administration.
In April 2009 Chuck’s application to be a regional volunteer
ambassador for OpenSUSE was accepted, facilitating his goals
of helping people discover the benefits of Free Software,
GNU/Linux and the OpenSUSE distributions. In his free time he
bolsters his geek cred by writing bash scripts or php code,
hacking hardware in his home gadget lab, and watching any
and all Zombie flicks that cross his path.
Related Links:
— OpenSUSE.org
=============
We will be meeting at Emory Law School in our
usual Gambrel Hall, room 1C venue.
Meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found
via the side bar link.
===
SPECIAL NOTE:
The July 16, 2009 ALE Central meeting will be
immediately preceded by a Tailgate Swap Meet
from 6:00pm to 7:15pm in the Law School parking
lot. Please see full details on this and the Saturday,
July 18th, Build Party Road Trip to FreeIT
in Athens in the separate posting below.
===
The feature presentation for the ALE Central Meeting at
7:30pm on Thursday, July 16th, will be:
“GroupWise: Commercial Enterprise Email
and Collaboration on Linux”
as presented by James (not the singer) Taylor
Synopsis:
— GroupWise is one of the best kept secrets in the Linux email
and collaboration space. It is the third most widely used
commercial collaboration software in the world, and has
been scaled to support is organizations numbering from two,
to hundreds of thousands of users. Though Groupwise is not
a Free Software offering, it does run best when run on
Linux. This presentation will provide an overview of the
GroupWise system and capabilities with an emphasis on
demonstration with Q&A.
Bio:
— James Taylor has been absorbed by technology for over
thirty years, including sints with Xerox, Wang Laboratories
and Inacom Information Systems. He is currently President
and Principal Consultant with the East Cobb Group, an
IT Consulting and solutions provider. James has imposed
an openSUSE Linux reign of terror over his family for the
last ten years, and they love it… or else. ;-)
Related Links:
Novell Groupwise Site
=============
We will be meeting at Emory Law School in our
usual Gambrel Hall, room 1C venue.
Meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found
via the side bar link.
The feature presentation at the ALE Central Meeting
at 7:30pm on Thursday, May 21st, will be:
“The Wonderful Widgets of Wx, Python Style”
as presented by the often distracted
but always erudite Charles Shapiro
Synopsis:
— Follow our intrepid coder into the dark thickets of cross-platform
GUI programming as we explore the exciting world of wxPython,
a Python interface to the excellent WxWidgets C library. This talk
will feature a close look at some toy programs and a demonstration
of an actual, complete WxPython application.
bio:
— Charles Shapiro is a fan of fencing, juggling, gadgetry, RC toys
and most anything the lesser world considers “geek” or “gear head”.
Consistent to this calling he has been a professional programmer for
over 10 years, specializing in C and unix with a couple years of C++,
Perl and a plethora of Python in the mix. He can type faster than
most people can talk, is a Linux Lunacy Cruise alumnae, a liberty
minded friend of the EFF and a seriously committed GNU Linux zealot
since 1996.
=============
We will be meeting at Emory Law School in our
usual Gambrel Hall, room 1C venue.
Meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found
via the side bar link.
Our feature presentation for the
Thursday, March 19, 2009, 7:30pm
ALE Central Meeting will be
“The Brave New World of IPv6”
presented by Michael Warfield
Synopsis:
— This presentation is an introduction to the Internet Protocol
version 6, IPv6, a topic of interest to everyone involved in
growing or supporting Internet delivery technologies, as well
as to anyone involved in designing, authoring or accessing
Internet content.
— IPv6 is the newer, widely available, version of the Internet
Protocol that carries a number of significant performance and
security advantages over earlier versions. IPv4 administrators
may be unaware that IPv6 is available nearly anywhere IPv4 is
available and that IPv6 traffic can pass through their networks
and firewalls without their awareness. Because they have
ignored IPv6 as something to worry about in the future, they
frequently lack the expertise to manage it and they assume it
is not present on their networks. But IPv6 and IPv6 transitional
mechanisms offer new security issues and open new avenues
of attack even on IPv4 based networks.
Bio:
— Michael Warfield is a Senior Researcher and Analyst for the X-Force
Managed Security Services of IBM Internet Security Systems.
— With computer security experience dating back to the early 1970s and
Unix experience dating back to the early 1980s, Mike is responsible for
doing research into security vulnerabilities and intrusion protection
techniques for IBM-ISS X-Force.
— Prior to joining ISS, now IBM-ISS, Mike has held positions such as, a
Unix systems engineer, Unix consultant, security consultant and network
administrator on the Internet. He is one of the resident Unix gurus at
the Atlanta UNIX Users Group and is one of the founding members of the
Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts. He is also an active member of the Samba
development team and is a contributor to the Linux Kernel and numerous
Open Source Software projects. Mike has published articles on both
Samba and on Security and is a respected cryptographer in the Open
Source community.
============================
Our meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found
HERE (or via the side bar link).
Our feature presentation for the
ALE Central Meeting on Thursday,
February 19, 2009, 7:30pm, will be
“Getting to Know Cobbler”
presented by
Derek “Goozbach” Carter,
Certified Linux Instructor
Synopsis:
— Debian’s “preseed”, RedHat’s “kickstart”, SUSE’s “autoYAST” and similar
Linux based installation automaton systems are all very useful. However,
setting up and maintaining the environments that enable these systems
to work properly can be time consuming and prone to error.
— Cobbler is an installation provisioning and automation system which
leverages these existing system tools to create a powerful installation
server which allows for rapid bare-metal provisioning of a myriad of
Linux distributions and lesser operating systems. This presentation is
an opportunity to learn the basics of Cobbler and see how easy it is to
use this powerful tool in your own environment.
Bio:
– Derek Carter (goozbach as his online friends know him) is active
participant in the Open Source community. Part-founder of two
Linux users groups and a former Linux instructor for Guru Labs (The
industry leader in hands-on Linux training). He has taught Linux
classes all over the United States and the world for such companies
as Red Hat, IBM, Novell, HP, Lockheed Martin and others. Derek
has been actively using Linux as his primary OS since 1999. He’s a
certified RedHat instructor and examiner. He’s also a Star Wars
geek who has been known to dress up as obscure characters and
wait in line for the premiers.
============================
Our meeting time frame is 7:30pm to ~9:30pm
Directions to Emory Law School can be found
HERE (or via the side bar link).