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).
Our feature presentation for the
ALE Central Meeting on Thursday,
January 15, 2009, 7:30pm, will be
“Fedora 10: Looking at Features,
Fixing the Flaws, and Planning the Future”
presented by David Nalley,
Regional Fedora Ambassador
Synopsis:
— This talk will be a casual exploration of, and an open
dialog about, the many new design and package features
found in Fedora 10, the latest release of the Linux community
development distribution from which Red Hat Enterprise
Linux is derived. Supporting the goal of continuing to improve
Linux tools for the future, any audience questions, comments,
critiques or observations regarding Fedora Linux will be
welcome and encouraged.
Bio:
— David Nalley is a Linux Sysadmim, a Fedora Developer
and the Regional Fedora Ambassador for the South Eastern
U.S. working out of Greenville, South Carolina. David travels
frequently to technology events throughout the region to
promote Fedora Linux distributions specifically and the FLOSS
philosophy in general. He recently journeyed to Atlanta for
the Software Freedom Day & Linux Fest 2008 celebrations in
September, where he graciously agreed to visit with ALE
again once Fedora 10 was released.
============================
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 regular ALE Central Meeting venue is unavailable for the
third Thursday of December, so we found this a great excuse to combine
short form ALE presentations with some ALE tasting at our first ever…
ALE Solstice Celebration
& OSS Pecha Kucha Contest
Thursday, December 18th, 7:30pm to 11:30pm
at the Emory area facilities of
Railroad Earth
1467 Oxford Rd. NE, Atlanta, GA 30307
SEE MAP HERE. See Location Details* below for more.
The ALE Solstice Celebration:
Our December meeting will be an open social event where we can
all relax, have fun, chat and get to better know our fellow Linux
enthusiasts. All friends and family are welcome and there is an open
invitation for anyone who is interested in learning more about Linux
and GPL Open Source Software in a casual setting. Provided
refreshments will be limited, so guest contributions of snacks and
beverages, adult and otherwise, will be welcome. Coolers, ice and
utensils will all be available.
The OSS Pecha Kucha Contest:
As topical entertainment for the evening everyone is invited
participate in our Geek version of a Karaoke contest and provide
a (modified) Pecha Kucha style presentation on a Linux or Open
Source related topic. Presenters will be alloted 10 minutes at
the microphone and 20 computer slides** to fully enlighten the
audience with every single item of information there is to know
about their Open Source related topic. After all the Pecha Kucha
performers are done, the audience will select their favorite and
the winner will receive a copy of the recently published
Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible,
rated as 10 of 10, 5 Star, “Top Stuff” by Linux Format magazine.
(Pecha Kucha participants should also see AV Support** notes below.)
Additional Festivities:
The RRE facilities include a full audio recording studio (with two pianos,
a few guitar amps, a PA, an analog synth, a trap kit and various hand
drums and percussion toys), so jamming and drum circles can be enjoyed
in the later half of the evening. There is also a large, private back yard
with a fire pit, so weather and firewood supplies allowing, an outdoor
warming fire may add “s’more” to the festivities and Solstice sacrifices
of SUSE swag may also be offered to the flames.
=====
* Location Details:
The RRE facility is a large stone front house that is located a block West of
Emory law School and a few doors down Oxford Road from Everybody’s
Pizza, Domino’s delivery station and the Saba restaurant. Street parking
on the curbs is acceptable, and there is an adjacent paved lot where
parking in spaces not reserved for Saba is allowed. Google maps has
some good views of the street where you can see what’s what before
you get there.
** AV Support:
A VGA RGB data projector, a microphone and sound system connection
(1/8″ mini stereo) will be provided for Pecha Kucha presenters. A Linux
laptop with Ubuntu 8.04 install and a Mac G4 iBook (with DVD player) will
also be available to support slide shows compatibly formated as OOo Impress
presentations or as a series of jpg, png or pdf files. Up to 2 minutes of DVD
video clips will be allowed in exchange of some of the computer slides at a
ratio of trading 1 slide for every 10 seconds of video.
=====
Questions or offers to provide an ALE meeting presentation
should be directed to Aaron@pd.org // 404.315.0406
Our feature presentation for the
Thursday, November 20, 2008, 7:30pm
ALE Central Meeting will be
“Toward a Robust Domain Naming System”
presented by Michael Warfield
Synopsis:
— As automatic and invisible as they may seem to the average
internet user, reliable network Domain Name Services don’t just
happen. From enterprise service providers to home networks,
good design in domain naming and DNS management are essential
components of a stable and secure network. Drawing on recent
papers presented for IBM-ISS, the talk will cover the design and
implementation considerations of setting up robust deployments
of Domain Name Services, including some forensic thoughts on
the AT&T debacle of a few months back.
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).
The feature presentation at our ALE Central Meeting for
7:30pm, Thursday, October 16th, will be:
*The Joy of Coova”
— or —
“How I Learned to Stop Worrying
and Love Radio Networking”
as presented by the mildly paranoid but
always radiant Charles Shapiro
Synopsis:
— During this program you will witness how our intrepid narrator
conquered his paranoia and installed a WiFi hotspot on his network,
exposing it to the nefarious wiles of all hackers, spammers, and
other evil characters within a 100-yard radius of his home, protected
only by the fig-leaf of a click-through agreement form.
Featuring coova, a build-your-own-hot-spot kit built on OpenWRT,
the linux distribution designed to run on your WiFi router.
With explicit, never-before-shown details on troubleshooting
and other digital hilarity.
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 committed 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.