From pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org Wed Mar 14 15:08:08 2007 From: pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org (Paul Nijjar) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:08:08 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [kwlug-announce] Test of the KWLUG Meeting Broadcasting System Message-ID: *beeep* This is a test of the KWLUG Meeting Broadcasting System. It is only a test. If this was a real use of the Broadcasting System then there would be a Linux meeting on Monday. (Mods and admins: you should be asked to approve this message. I can set it so that my moderator flag is off, but in general you shouldn't approve everyone blindly.) - Paul -- Paul Nijjar - http://www.fairvotecanada.org/WaterlooRegion SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org (This is my new personal account. Please send personal correspondence here.) From pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org Wed Mar 14 19:29:21 2007 From: pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org (Paul Nijjar) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 23:29:21 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [kwlug-announce] Test two Message-ID: Unsolicited is now a mod! - Paul -- Paul Nijjar - http://www.fairvotecanada.org/WaterlooRegion SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org (This is my new personal account. Please send personal correspondence here.) From pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org Fri Mar 30 22:56:50 2007 From: pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org (Paul Nijjar) Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 22:56:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: E-mail Security Message-ID: SCENE 1: (ALICE and BOB are in a broom closet, crammed inbetween the mops and buckets and cleaning supplies. ALICE is twisted around a mop. BOB is hunched over an overturned bucket. The only light seeps dimly under the broom closet's door.) ALICE: We can't keep meeting like this. (A bottle of toilet bowl cleaner falls on BOB's head.) BOB: Ow. ALICE: ... but what can we do? Our adversary EVE has the rest of our office bugged! How else can we communicate privately? BOB: Maybe we can send e-mails. ALICE: Don't be silly. Emails are sent through the Web in plaintext! EVE can sniff our network traffic and read all the messages we send each other! (A can of floor wax falls on BOB's head.) BOB: Ow! These secretive meetings are going to give me a concussion. I say that we go to this month's KWLUG meeting! LUG member Andrew Cant will explain the principles of e-mail encryption using GPG. With GPG we can sign, encrypt and send mails while making it difficult for EVE to listen in. ALICE: But you use Thunderbird and I use Mutt to send mails. Surely setting up GPG on those systems is different! BOB: That's okay! Andrew will show us how to set up GPG on both! He'll also give us a primer on public-key cryptography, so we can learn why it works. (A bottle of window cleaning fluid falls on BOB's head.) BOB: Ow. Yes! Let's go to the meeting for the sake of my head! The presentation will start at 7pm, but if we get there between 6pm and 7pm we can engage in some pre-meeting discussion and training for new Linux users. We can sign out KWLUG library books to make us smart, too. ALICE: You've convinced me! Where do we meet? BOB: At the Working Centre in Kitchener: 43 Queen Street South (Between King and Charles Streets) BOB: You can visit the KWLUG website to get pictures and maps. ALICE: Sounds like a plan! SCENE 2: (EVE leans against the outside of the broom closet door, her ear flush against a glass cupped against the closet door. She is dressed in a top hat and a Snidely Whiplash moustache.) EVE: Ha! So those two are going to learn about GPG, are they? I'll go to the KWLUG meeting as well and discover all their secrets! (EVE twirls her moustache in glee, cackling quietly to herself.) EVE: While I'm there maybe I will sign out some library books or contribute to the KWLUG FLOSS Fund. Last month the fund raised $155.00 to the Open Source Labs, and this week they will collect money for FreePBX, a standardized implementation of the Asterisk phone box system featured in KWLUG's January meeting! Bwa ha ha ha ha ha! ALICE: (Muffled, from inside the closet) Was that your evil laugh, Bob? A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR: P.S. We've moved this announcement list to GNU Mailman. If you have to update your address information or play with options, you can visit the interface page at: http://www.kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-announce_kwlug.org -- Paul Nijjar - http://www.fairvotecanada.org/WaterlooRegion SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org (This is my new personal account. Please send personal correspondence here.) From pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org Fri May 4 23:16:09 2007 From: pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org (Paul Nijjar) Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 23:16:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: Social Night Message-ID: Ah, May. When the daffodils bloom and people start wearing skimpy clothing in public (elbows! ankles!) you know sprint has arrived and it's time to be social. Not fake Web 2.0 social, like MySpace or Slashdot karma. Real social. Like, meeting people and talking with them and stuff. Just because we use Linux doesn't mean we have to be outcasts! As proof, this month's KWLUG meeting is devoted to the socialization of Linux enthusiasts. For those of us not used to socialization[0], here's how it works: we show up. Instead of listening to a talk and heckling the speaker we listen to each other and heckle nobody. If we want, we can bring short demos to show off, questions for others to answer, computers to install Linux onto, Freedom Toasters to set up, cool ideas to share, suggestions for future meeting activities, systems to troubleshoot and other fun stuff. Then we entertain each other for a while. This is a great opportunity for us to meet and greet (and maybe eat). Also, Richard will campaign for future meeting presenters and topics, despite rumours to the contrary. Best of all, this fun starts at 7pm, after the intensity of the sun's harmful rays have diminished somewhat. My understanding is that there will be no pre-meeting meeting this month, but next month we will be starting a series of Real Live Tutorials for new users. There will, however, be an opportunity to donate to the KWLUG FLOSS Fund if you so desire. Last month, we raised $160 for the FreePBX project. In tune with the theme of "socialization", the nominee for this month is the Free Software Foundation, which has been a driving force in getting us great free software. As always[1], our meeting will be held at The Working Centre 43 Queen Street South Kitchener (Between King and Charles) As always, there are maps and photos of the meeting location on the website. As always, parking for internal combustion engine vehicles is free in the back lot after 6pm, and parking for bicycles is free always. - Paul [0] I'm not pointing any fingers, although I probably should claim my Section 11(c) Charter rights. [1] By which we mean "most of the time" -- Paul Nijjar - http://www.fairvotecanada.org/WaterlooRegion Next electoral reform info night: Tuesday May 8, 7pm From pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org Fri Jun 1 20:04:09 2007 From: pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org (Paul Nijjar) Date: Fri, 1 Jun 2007 20:04:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: Hacking the WRT54GL Message-ID: Kids these days. You do them a favour and give 'em an operating system licenced to allow derivative works, and they start installing it everywhere! Phones, video game consoles, wrist watches... the next thing you know we'll all be sshing into our clotheslines to run lint(1). Back in the good old days we used to put Linux on *computers*, and we'd like it! At most we'd give an old machine some new life by using it as a Linux firewall or router. These days it's all backwards: whippersnappers buy perfectly good routers and turn them into Linux desktops! Cedric Puddy is one of those whippersnappers, and at this month's KWLUG meeting he'll be giving us a tour of how to install the OpenWRT distro on a Linksys WRT54GL router. Before your very eyes, he will flash BIOSes, manage packages with ipkg, show off some scripts he wrote to make flashing boxes easier, and discuss the differences between the OpenWRT distribution and the stock Linksys configuration. (He says that if any of you whippersnappers want to try this at home, he will have some WRT54GLs on hand that he can sell at cost.) If there is time and interest Cedric will show off another toy: the Wi-Spy 2.4 GHz spectrum analyser that he uses for all kinds of wireless mischief. All of this fun will start at 7pm. At 6pm we will have some newbie training time. Brent Clements will show us how to update packages using package management tools (on a variety of distros, I believe.) As usual, we'll be holding our nerd meeting at The Working Centre: The Working Centre 43 Queen Street South (Between King and Charles Streets) There be maps and booty on the website, and pirate-ship parking in the back lot (after 6pm for motorized ships, and always for dingies). - Paul (Yarr! I be changing metaphors partway through the message! That'll learn them whippersnappers!) -- Paul Nijjar - http://www.fairvotecanada.org/WaterlooRegion Next electoral reform info night: Tuesday June 12, 7pm From pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org Thu Jul 5 23:29:21 2007 From: pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org (Paul Nijjar) Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2007 23:29:21 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: IPCop (and RMS on Friday!) Message-ID: Dear Rock-n-Rollers, Since when was July supposed to be a slow month? There's so much going on this month I feel like I'm at some summer rock festival, surrounded by muddy hipsters and screaming teenaged girls. On the main stage is our usual KWLUG meeting, this Monday we'll be holding our July meeting. Joe will be telling us all about IPCOP, a task-based firewall distribution aimed for home and small business use. It can be used to filter out bad guys, set up Virtual Private Networks, and more. Joe will show us how to set up an IPCop and configure ut over the web. This presentation will begin at 7pm. There will be no formal Newbie Night activities at 6pm this month. However, there will likely be nerdly chatting, computer troubleshooting and general discussion. In addition, to the main event, there's lots happening on the side stages. Among the most exciting are two upcoming talks being organized by the Computer Science Club at the University of Waterloo. On July 6 (that's this Friday!) Free Software Foundation founder Richard M. Stallman will be giving a talk entitled "Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks". This talk will be held at the University of Waterloo in the Arts Lecture Hall, room 116 at 4:30pm. This talk is free as in beer. On July 17, C++ designer Bjarne Stroustrup will be giving entitled "C++0x - An Overview", which will cover new features coming in the C++ programming language. This talk will also be held the Arts Lecture Hall, room 116, but it will begin at 7:00pm. This talk is also free, but probably not free as in free() (or delete). You can find out more about these talks by visiting http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/events/ As if this wasn't enough, some KWLUG members are also involved in organizing the first (annual?) Ontario Linux Fest (at http://onlinux.ca). The conference is not until October, but they have already lined up some good speakers and registration is now open. They are also looking for papers and volunteers. And that's not all! From July 20 to 23rd is the annual ICFP programming contest, and LUG member Brad Smith is looking to put together an amazing team of adventurous programmers to participate. You can learn more about the contest by visiting http://www.icfpcontest.org/ , and you can get in touch with Brad by emailing bnsmith at gmail. Now that we've lost the rock show analogy, let's turn to the merch table and report on the FLOSS Fund. Last month we raised $87.57 for Drupal, and this month we are raising money for the fine folks at OpenStreetMap.org, who are taking on the humble task of voluntarily MAPPING THE ENTIRE WORLD! (A presentation on OpenStreetMap should be coming sometime this year.) As always, our usual meeting will be rocking at the Working Centre: The Working Centre 43 Queen Street South (Between King and Charles) Kitchener There are maps (although not OSMs...) and pictures on our website. You can park your groovy VW van in the back lot after 6pm for free, and park your groovier tie-dyed bicycle at the bike racks always. - Paul -- Paul Nijjar - http://www.fairvotecanada.org/WaterlooRegion Next electoral reform info night: Tuesday July 10, 7pm From pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org Sat Aug 11 01:24:07 2007 From: pnijjar at sdf.lonestar.org (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 01:24:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: Command Line Carnival Message-ID: ** This announcement message has been rated M for Most Mailing Recipients. Contains nerdly scenes and frightening alliteration.** Yes, as summer winds down and the MPAA makes its final attempts to use up our entertainment dollars before Labour Day, we've got a KWLUG meeting, and along with it a blockbuster cascade of command line creations. This set of presentations has been unscientifically formulated to be suitable for a wide range of command-line customers, from catechumen to connoisseurs. This special one-night production stars John Van Ostrand, who has earned rave reviews for his knowledge of network piping and diagnostic tools (strace, tcpdump, hexdump, ldd, ls -lu). John will follow up this virtuoso performance with a suave introduction to package querying using rpm. The second feature will be a low-budget production by me, a documentary entitled "Three Ways to Rename Files from the Command Line". Also, be on the lookout for a SECRET SPECIAL PRESENTATION on interesting aspects of the wc command, presented by a SECRET SPECIAL PRESENTER. This cavalcade commences at 7:00pm. If movie analogies are not your idea of a good time, perhaps you can curl up with a good book from the LUG library? Or you can lighten the load in your wallet by making a donation to the KWLUG FLOSS Fund. The featured project this month is Software in the Public Interest (http://www.spi-inc.org), an organization which serves as a legal and financial umbrella organization for a number of free software projects, including the Debian distribution. Last month conscientious contributers collected $56.70 for openstreetmap.org Or perhaps you're tired of staring at screens and book pages and your wallet? Then maybe you would enjoy the face-to-face excitement of a real live Ontario Linux Fest on October 13? Certain KWLUG members are pouring their hearts and souls into making this conference fantastic, and registration is now open. See http://onlinux.ca for more info. We'll be screening our meeting at the usual theatre: The Working Centre 43 Queen Street South (Between King and Charles Streets) Kitchener Assuming a certain somebody does not break the website tonight, pictures and maps are available from http://kwlug.org - Paul -- Paul Nijjar - http://www.fairvotecanada.org/WaterlooRegion Next electoral reform info night: Tuesday August 14, 7pm From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Fri Sep 7 21:12:50 2007 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 21:12:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: VMWare! Message-ID: <80381.90218.qm@web57603.mail.re1.yahoo.com> I don't know about you, but I have had quite enough of reality. Other people look forward to September: the tomatoes are ripe, the kids are re-incarcerated, and people are packing up their string bikinis. Me? I'm ready for a vacation -- or maybe an emigration -- from existence. Fortunately, there is a solution. Those of us who can't afford Second Life memberships can turn to VMWare instead, and live in the virtual world of fake computers running on real computers. At this month's KWLUG meeting, representatives from VMWare will tell us some stories about life in the world of virtualization. Here's their agenda in their own words: * Introduction to VMware and a little about our culture * Most Interesting Cases we have faced * Strangest Cases we have faced * Most Challenging Cases we have faced * Recognizing when and when NOT to use VMware products This presentation will start at 7pm. We don't have any newbie night activities planned, but there will likely be casual discussion between 6-7pm. The head of steam for Ontario Linux Fest is heating up. The lineup is growing and there are cute posters you can distribute. Go visit http://onlinux.ca/ and get yerself excited. In FLOSS Fund news, last month we raised $46 for Software in the Public Interest. This month's nominee is the Public Patent Foundation, a nonprofit organization that combats bad patents by getting them overturned, surrendered or rejected. You can see some of the good work they have done by visiting http://www.pubpat.org/. As almost always, we'll be celebrating embodiment at The Working Centre: The Working Centre 43 Queen Street South (Between King and Charles) Kitchener There is free parking in the back lot after 6pm, free bike parking always, and the Kitchener Bus Terminal just a block away. Maps and photos of the location are available on the website. - Paul -- Paul Nijjar http://www.fairvotecanada.org/WaterlooRegion Next Referendum Info Session: Sept 11, 7pm (Please use this Yahoo! account for future correspondence.) Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail at http://mrd.mail.yahoo.com/try_beta?.intl=ca From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Sat Sep 29 21:23:54 2007 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:23:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: Hardware Horror Stories Message-ID: <56757.99415.qm@web57614.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Remember the good old days? You would spend three days figuring out how to configure your network card driver only to find out its IRQ conflicted with one of the four demanded by your soundcard? Or the joys of figuring out whether your mouse supported the Microsoft or Logitech protocols? Or of trying to understand why your USB connections would lock up when you piped music through the sound card? As the old saying goes: "Linux is only free if your time is worthless." [0] Improved Linux installers (not to mention improvements in hardware protocols -- USB, anyone?) means that many in the younger generations do not grow up intimately familiar with these joys. All too often these whippersnappers install Linux on the latest doodads and everything Just Works. But sometimes... sometimes the installer can't handle our demands (hello wireless! hello auto-suspend!) and then we get to relive the good old days. At this month's KWLUG meeting we'll be bonding through shared suffering. Brin g your troublesome laptops and leprous PCs, and regale us with tales of what it took to get Linux running on that machine. Better yet, bring in your obstinate hardware and we will crack our heads to solve the problem together. This group therapy session will begin at 7:00pm. There is no formal pre-meeting presentation planned, but people meet starting at 6:00pm or so to hobnob. In other exciting news: The discussion list is abuzz with all of the great talks and events happening at Ontario Linux Fest on October 13. The KWLUG team has been organizing like mad to bring all kinds of goodies to the event: half-price LPI certification tests, a demo lab, an additional two breakout rooms, and more great speakers than you can shake a bucket of herring at. The hotel rooms are all booked, but you can still register for the conference itself: http://onlinux.ca . In other other exciting news: last month generous KWLUG members donated $157.27 to the Public Patent Foundation via the KWLUG FLOSS Fund. The FLOSS Fund project for October is LaTeX3, a project which is working on updating the wildly successful (and open source) typesetting software LaTeX. Achtung: after October's meeting the FLOSS Fund queue is EMPTY! In order to keep the initiative going, we need YOUR suggestions for worthy FLOSS projects that will take our money. Make a suggestion by posting to the discussion list, the website or by e-mailing the secret cabal (Andrew: acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca and Adam: adamglauser at wlualumni.ca) . As usual, we'll be therapizing at the Working Centre: The Working Centre 43 Queen Street South (between King and Charles) Kitchener The central GRT stop is a block away, there is free car parking in the back lot after 6pm and free bike parking in the back always. Maps and pictures of our meeting location are at http://kwlug.org - Paul [0] Often attributed to Jamie Zawinski, who used "has no value" and not "is worthless", but also linked to dozens of other famous people, quite possibly including you and anybody else who has struggled with getting the penguiny OS to configure troublesome hardware. -- Paul Nijjar http://www.fairvotecanada.org/WaterlooRegion FINAL Referendum Info Session: Oct 2, 7pm (Please use this Yahoo! account for future correspondence.) Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail at http://mrd.mail.yahoo.com/try_beta?.intl=ca From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Sat Nov 3 22:33:02 2007 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sat, 3 Nov 2007 22:33:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: Beryl/compiz Message-ID: <274294.22469.qm@web57614.mail.re1.yahoo.com> If there's one lesson Hallowe'en teaches us, it's that you can never have enough candy. Ever. All those stories you have heard about tooth decay and stomachaches and losing your job after 4-day sugar benders are dirty lies propagated by Communists. When it comes to candy, more is better. Even black jellybeans and those so-called "caramels" wrapped in the Hallowe'en waxed paper have their niches in this sugary ecosystem. Unfortunately, after a few reprimands from our bosses (not to mention a few pounding headaches) some of us have to find our fixes in other ways. Fortunately, free software comes to the rescue once again. Don't believe the haters; far from being the black jellybean of the computer world, Linux has a lot of sweet sweet eye candy to offer. The offering in this month's meeting is the set of Beryl/compiz family of window managers, which offer gooey 3D goodness that make your windows wiggly-jiggly and your virtual desktops cubic. And in the spirit of open source, it is plugin-oriented so users can make it even more delicious. In this month's KWLUG presentation, we'll learn more about this funky window manager and what it can do. Drop by at 7pm and you could end up the envy of your workplace, with your coworkers spending hours staring at your screen instead of leaving you alone with your sugar migraines. In other news, how about that Ontario Linux Fest? And Ohio Linux Fest before that. What? You were too busy snarfing Snickers bars to go? Me too. I am not sure Richard will ever forgive us, but I'll bet that some people who did go might give us a report of the escapades. While we're talking about candy, how about that FLOSS Fund? Last month we donated $55.91 to the LaTeX3 project, and this month we'll shower donations at the Vim project (in particular its designated charity). You may have heard of Vim. It's a little text editor that started out as a vi clone and ended up as modal Emacs, complete with plugins and embedded programming languages. A ridiculous number of people have typed out a ridiculous amount of text using this editor, so this month we will show our appreciation. In other FLOSS Fund news, we appear to be out of project suggestions. Do you know of an open source project that takes money and is worth the LUG's financial support? Then make a nomination! See http://kwlug.org/node/410 for details. Finally, there's a new confection in town: the Waterloo Libre Software Group (http://wlsg.uwaterloo.ca) has recently molded itself into existence. They are based out of the University of Waterloo, but everybody is welcome to attend their meetings and participate in their projects. I've spent so long composing this message that the candy canes have started to come out. Hopefully you'll receive it in time to attend our meeting, which will be held at the usual place: The Working Centre 43 Queen Street South (Between King and Charles Streets) Kitchener It's only a block away from the Kitchener bus terminal. There is free car parking at the back lot after 6pm, and free peanut-brittle vendor cart parking always. - Paul Ask a question on any topic and get answers from real people. Go to Yahoo! Answers and share what you know at http://ca.answers.yahoo.com From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Sat Dec 1 00:16:32 2007 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 00:16:32 -0500 (EST) Subject: [kwlug-announce] Musical Meeting Monday Message-ID: <224931.61901.qm@web57608.mail.re1.yahoo.com> ABBA had it right: Who can live without it? Without a song or a dance, what would life be? But recording like a rock star takes money, money, money -- or does it? Once again, Linux answers our SOS: all kinds of great open source multimedia tools have been written. This month, Mixmaster Brent will walk us through 64 Studio, a Debian subdistribution optimized for multimedia workstations. Brent will be doing some live recording and editing in the presentation, so bring your singing voices and instruments -- really! -- and be prepared to let the music speak with no restraints. This presentation begins at 7pm, with casual conversation and help scheduled from 6:00pm. Adding to the multimedia theme, Richard and Charles are going to experiment with videotaping this month's presentation, but they promise to refrain from blackmail and extortion with the results. In other news, last month FLOSS Fund contributers raised $94.05 for the Vim project. Our nominee this month is the pilot-link project, at http://www.pilot-link.org . This group writes libraries and utilities that allow Palm Pilots (including smartphones like the Treo) to work with Linux, and forms the backbone of Palm synchronization tools such as jpilot, gpilot, and kpilot. As such, the project falls into that set of underappreciated but vastly important tools: the ones that make free operating systems Just Work with the other gadgets in our lives. If you like this project but can't make the meeting, don't go wasting your emotion: contact Andrew (acant at alumni.uwaterloo.ca) or Adam (aglauser at wlualumni.ca) to arrange a donation. You can also suggest new projects for the FLOSS Fund: visit http://kwlug.org/node/410 for more information. And where is our Waterloo? In Kitchener, actually: The Working Centre 43 Queen Street South (Between King and Charles) Kitchener The building is one block from the Kitchener Bus Terminal, and there's free tour bus parking in the back lot after 6pm, and free winter bike parking in the back bike rack always. - Paul Ask a question on any topic and get answers from real people. Go to Yahoo! Answers and share what you know at http://ca.answers.yahoo.com