From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Sat Jan 4 02:54:44 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2020 02:54:44 -0500 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: SSL Certificates, Dhall (Jan 2020) References: <20200104075443.GF957.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20200104075443.GF957@nb-heartburn> Happy New Year! Now that we have all the optometry and Barbara Walters jokes out of the way, how about getting together for a KWLUG meeting? On the beginner-friendly front, John Steel will tell us about SSL certificates and how they work with Public Key Infrastructures (PKI). If you have ever wondered where the little green locks come from on your web browser (and why they deserve to be green) then this may be the presentation for you. On the more technical side, Stephen Paul Weber will tell us about Dhall, a configuration language that overcomes some of the deficiencies of JSON and YAML. The goal is Dhall is to be powerful enough that you don't repeat yourself in configuration files, but not so powerful that it leads to bad side-effects (somebody please inform C++ templates that Turing-completeness is a bug and not a feature). In future meeting news: March's meeting will feature a beginner-friendly presentation on Audacity, the sound editor. Brent Clements is looking for suggestions about what features of Audacity you would like to learn about. You can tell him on the kwlug-disc list, by emailing me so I can forward feedback to him, or even by using the contact functionality on our website. In other future meeting news: we are looking for a beginner-friendly presentation for next month. Presentation slots are 40 minutes long, and we aim to be a friendly, supportive audience. Do you have something to share that might interest new Linux users? Share it with us! In LibrePlanet news tickets are now available for the local satellite edition of the conference, which is scheduled for March 14 and 15. Tickets range from $50 to $285, and you can sign up at https://2020.libreplanet.ca/register . (Since Stephen is organizing this satellite conference, he might tell us a few things about it during the meeting, too.) If you know of people out of town who are interested in the free software movement, please invite them to the conference as well. This month's meeting will be held at our newish home: TriOS College 110 King St E (Market Square, at Frederick) Kitchener The meeting starts at 7pm. Maps and pictures can be found at https://kwlug.org/trios-college . Arrive by 7pm if you can, or bring a mobile phone so we can let you in. - Paul -- Get tech event listings: https://off-topic.kwlug.org/watcamp Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Fri Jan 31 17:15:34 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2020 17:15:34 -0500 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: USB over IP, Ask Us Anything (Feb 2020) References: <20200131221534.GC2969.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20200131221534.GC2969@nb-heartburn> Tim Laurence has a problem (but only one problem). He wants to use USB devices from far, far away. But buying USB cables that run for kilometres and kilometres gets expensive, and also they technically don't work past the first 5km. What to do? How about transmitting USB over the Internet, using TCP? This sounds exciting. How difficult could it be? In this month's first presentation, Tim will tell us how difficult it can be. Unlike Tim, most of us have more than one problem. Some of them may even relate to Linux and free software! It is time for us to hash this out and answer some questions. The second half of our meeting will consist of an "Ask Us Anything" roundtable, where we collectively try to solve free-software issues. Is there some irritation you have been struggling with? Have you been trying to solve a Linux problem, but have been having trouble figuring out where to start? Are you looking for a software recommendation to solve a problem? Bring your questions! Bring your answers! Let's se e how this works out! In other news: Brent Clements is also looking for questions in preparation for the March KWLUG meeting. He is preparing a talk on Audacity, but wants to focus it on the kinds of topics people want to know about. You can contact him directly, or email me and I will forward your suggestions. The Libreplanet Satellite Edition is confirmed for March 14 and 15. The theme of the Boston conference is "Free the Future", and the keynote will be given by Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle. The venue will be the Delta Hotel on Erb Street. Satellite organizer Stephen wants you to know that even though the listed ticket prices range from $50 to $285, the price fields are editable, so you can pay less if finances are tight, or more if you (or your sponsoring company) is generous. (You or your company can also consider sponsoring the event.) Get your tickets here: https://2020.libreplanet.ca/ . Are you sick and tired of me plugging the Watcamp calendar in these announcements? Well, too bad, because there are a few new developments. If you are on twitter, you can now follow the calendar on @WatcampEvents, and get helpful tweets about upcoming tech events. If you are a nerd who uses RSS, you can subscribe to https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org/feeds/watcamp.rss . If you like newsletters or iCal, you can subscribe to those too! Find all the links at https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org . Okay, that's it, except for the rest. We'll be meeting at TriOS: TriOS College 110 King St E (At Frederick/Benton) Kitchener See https://kwlug.org/trios-college for maps and photos of the location. Apparently there is no-cost street parking after 6pm? Arrive early so we can let you in, or bring a pocket computer so you can text or call to get inside the building. The meeting starts at 7pm, and presentations start after meeting announcements. -- Get tech event listings: https://off-topic.kwlug.org/watcamp Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Sat Feb 29 15:45:49 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sat, 29 Feb 2020 15:45:49 -0500 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday, 7pm: Audacity, Saltstack (March 2020) References: <20200229204548.GE947.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20200229204548.GE947@nb-heartburn> Happy March, almost. What better way to celebrate the dawning of spring than audio editing? Lots of us have heard of Audacity, the open source sound editor, but it is not always clear how to use it effectively. Fortunately, Brent Clements is here to rescue us from our ignorance. He will lead us through some techniques for using Audacity to get us better sound. This presentation will be beginner-friendly, so you will probably get something out of it even if you have never used Audacity before. Our second presentation continues Mikalai Birukou's journey to set up infrastructure for his startup. In the past he has told us about lxc for containerization and Docker Swarm for orchestration; in this month's presentation he will demonstrate Salt (aka Saltstack) for configuration management. Configuration management is a powerful concept: instead of twiddling configuration files manually, you program configuration changes in scripts, and then run those scripts to configure and deploy machines quickly. It is a great way to keep all your server tweaks in one place, and to spin up new machines quickly. Mikalai will show us a little about how he used to do things in the bad old days, and how much better his life has become now that he has seen the light. My other announcements this month concern some grassroots initiatives that could use your support. Firstly, LibrePlanet Waterloo is ready to go on March 14 and 15 at the Delta Hotel in Waterloo. The organizers are still hoping for more attendees to make the event a success. The lineup of speakers has been announced, and one keynote speaker will be Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive. In past announcements I claimed that ticket prices ranged from $50 to $280, but there are also pay what you can options. You can register for the satellite event at https://2020.libreplanet.ca/register/ Secondly, our friends at the Maker Expo work hard to put on a great showcase of DIY culture in the region. As part of their ethos the show does not charge admission fees, but that means they need to fundraise in other ways. To that end, they have put up a GoFundMe fundraiser: https://www.gofundme.com/f/2020-maker-expo Looking at the GoFundMe now, it appears that Maker Expo has fundraised the bare minimum they need to hold an event this year, but their hope is to be able to rent two arenas at the Aud and not just one. If you support what they do and have some funds to contribute, please consider donating to them. (Disclaimer: I am distantly involved with both of these events as a volunteer.) I am sure there is more, but that's what I have for this month. Our meeting will be held at the usual place: TriOS College 110 King St E (Market Square, where Benton meets Frederick) Kitchener See https://kwlug.org/trios-college for maps and photos. Please arrive before 7pm if you can, or bring a cellphone so you can call the secret door number and be let in. -- Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Fri Apr 3 22:23:31 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2020 22:23:31 -0400 Subject: [kwlug-announce] (Online) Meeting Monday! LaTeX at the Law Library, clusterssh (April 2020) References: <20200404022330.GL1435.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20200404022330.GL1435@nb-heartburn> Well, here we are. Let's start by acknowledging the elephant in the room, and express hopes that you and your loved ones are keeping safe. Wouldn't it be nice to get out of the house and talk free software with others? Well, too bad. Many of us are stuck at home. But at least we can talk free software. This month we are going to try holding the meeting online. Here is the meeting information: URL: https://meetings.theworkingcentre.org/room/kwlug Access code: 254896 The meeting platform is called BigBlueButton (BBB). At the end of this announcement I will discuss some tips for using it. In terms of topics: we will (finally!) have John Kerr telling us about his experiences using the typesetting language LaTeX at the law library (back when there were law libraries). LaTeX is often used to typeset mathematical and computer science publications, but John puts it to use at his workplace as well. He will show us some of the things he does, and tell us the similarities between LaTeX and Gaelic. This will be a beginner-friendly presentation. Jeff Smith is a sysadmin who sometimes has to run tasks on many different servers. He uses clusterssh to manage these servers in parallel -- writing a command on one console and sending that command to his army of winged monkey servers. He will tell us more about how he uses the software, and (if the webconferencing goes well) give us some impressive demos. Okay. Here is what you need to know about using the BBB instance: - If you have a computer then BBB works pretty well on modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Chromium, Opera, and maybe even Edge). It also works pretty well on cellphones and tablets. - When following the link, you will first be asked for the access code above, and then for your name. Please use your actual name or a handle we will recognise. Our intention is to let everybody (even hypothetical zoom-bombers) in, but only to unlock people who we recognise and trust. - We will not be using webcams, but you will be able to use your microphone. You can also choose to join the meeting in listen-only mode, and you can switch between the two by clicking the button that looks like a telephone receiver (for younger readers: a diagonal clown smile) and reselecting the audio. Audio-only mode works pretty well even on older hardware. - BBB has the option of connecting in via a landline in audio-only mode. We don't intend to enable this, but if you really want to join by telephone then let us know. - BBB is a platform intended for e-learning, and so has some strong moderator abilities. To cut down on Zoom-bombing, you will enter the meeting in locked-down mode. If things get unruly then we will lock down things more (cutting off microphone access and maybe even chat access). Even trolls will be able to learn about LaTeX and clusterssh, but our intention is to minimize disruption. - You will start out muted. Please stay muted unless it is your time to speak. If you have a question please use the "raise hand" functionality (click your name, choose "set status" and then raise your hand). - If we are lucky moderators will pay attention to the chat, but it probably will not be our primary form of communication. We will see how the meeting goes. Hopefully the server will stand up under load and the experience will be smooth even if we get more attendees than usual. Please be patient with us if there are hiccups. If you are worried about being able to access the meeting contact me directly (paul_nijjar on the domain yahoo.ca) and we can experiment. There's no meeting map or location, other than the URL above, and no parking either. But I hope you come out anyways, even if you have not been able to make a physical meeting in a while. - Paul -- Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Fri Apr 3 23:12:25 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2020 23:12:25 -0400 Subject: [kwlug-announce] (Online) Meeting Monday! LaTeX at the Law Library, clusterssh (April 2020) In-Reply-To: <20200404022330.GL1435@nb-heartburn> References: <20200404022330.GL1435.ref@nb-heartburn> <20200404022330.GL1435@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20200404031224.GQ1435@nb-heartburn> Quick update: I forgot to mention the time the meeting starts. It will start at 7pm, as usual. - Paul On Fri, Apr 03, 2020 at 10:23:31PM -0400, Paul Nijjar via kwlug-announce wrote: > > Well, here we are. > > Let's start by acknowledging the elephant in the room, and express > hopes that you and your loved ones are keeping safe. > > Wouldn't it be nice to get out of the house and talk free software > with others? Well, too bad. Many of us are stuck at home. But at least > we can talk free software. This month we are going to try holding the > meeting online. Here is the meeting information: > > URL: https://meetings.theworkingcentre.org/room/kwlug > Access code: 254896 > > The meeting platform is called BigBlueButton (BBB). At the end of this > announcement I will discuss some tips for using it. > > In terms of topics: we will (finally!) have John Kerr telling us about > his experiences using the typesetting language LaTeX at the law > library (back when there were law libraries). LaTeX is often used to > typeset mathematical and computer science publications, but John puts > it to use at his workplace as well. He will show us some of the things > he does, and tell us the similarities between LaTeX and Gaelic. This > will be a beginner-friendly presentation. > > Jeff Smith is a sysadmin who sometimes has to run tasks on many > different servers. He uses clusterssh to manage these servers in > parallel -- writing a command on one console and sending that command > to his army of winged monkey servers. He will tell us more about how > he uses the software, and (if the webconferencing goes well) give us > some impressive demos. > > Okay. Here is what you need to know about using the BBB instance: > > - If you have a computer then BBB works pretty well on modern browsers > (Chrome, Firefox, Chromium, Opera, and maybe even Edge). It also > works pretty well on cellphones and tablets. > > - When following the link, you will first be asked for the access code > above, and then for your name. Please use your actual name or a > handle we will recognise. Our intention is to let everybody (even > hypothetical zoom-bombers) in, but only to unlock people who we > recognise and trust. > > - We will not be using webcams, but you will be able to use your > microphone. You can also choose to join the meeting in listen-only > mode, and you can switch between the two by clicking the button that > looks like a telephone receiver (for younger readers: a diagonal clown > smile) and reselecting the audio. Audio-only mode works pretty well > even on older hardware. > > - BBB has the option of connecting in via a landline in audio-only > mode. We don't intend to enable this, but if you really want to join > by telephone then let us know. > > - BBB is a platform intended for e-learning, and so has some strong > moderator abilities. To cut down on Zoom-bombing, you will enter the > meeting in locked-down mode. If things get unruly then we will lock > down things more (cutting off microphone access and maybe even chat > access). Even trolls will be able to learn about LaTeX and > clusterssh, but our intention is to minimize disruption. > > - You will start out muted. Please stay muted unless it is your time > to speak. If you have a question please use the "raise hand" > functionality (click your name, choose "set status" and then raise > your hand). > > - If we are lucky moderators will pay attention to the chat, but it > probably will not be our primary form of communication. > > We will see how the meeting goes. Hopefully the server will stand up > under load and the experience will be smooth even if we get more > attendees than usual. Please be patient with us if there are hiccups. > > If you are worried about being able to access the meeting contact me > directly (paul_nijjar on the domain yahoo.ca) and we can experiment. > > There's no meeting map or location, other than the URL above, and no > parking either. But I hope you come out anyways, even if you have not > been able to make a physical meeting in a while. > > - Paul > -- > Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org > Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org > > _______________________________________________ > kwlug-announce mailing list > kwlug-announce at kwlug.org > To unsubscribe: https://kwlug.org/mailman/listinfo/kwlug-announce_kwlug.org > or email the sender of this message. > > Can't make meetings? Listen to the podcast: https://kwlug.org/podcasts -- Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Sat May 2 00:06:35 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sat, 2 May 2020 00:06:35 -0400 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday, 7pm: KW Commits, dnsmasq (May 2020) References: <20200502040635.GG6998.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20200502040635.GG6998@nb-heartburn> Welcome to the new reality. To celebrate(?), why don't we all join the KWLUG webconference next Monday? Here is the connection information: https://webconference.kwlug.org/b/pau-2ap-jzy Access code: 932324 Meetup starts at 7pm (Some guidelines: https://kwlug.org/node/1209 . If you want to dial in by phone please contact me offlist: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca.) This month we have a bright idea and a world of experience. The bright idea comes courtesy of Tim Laurence. Tim knows that we are a tech hub, and there are lots of people locally who contribute to open source in some way. Tim also knows that these people do not always get the recognition they deserve. Tim would like to change that, so he has a proposal called "KW Commits" he would like to share. He will pitch his idea and then lead an orderly discussion to explore and refine it. Our second presentation will be all about dnsmasq, a lightweight DNS and DHCP server. It is a popular choice for home routers and other resource-constrained systems. gLori Paniak has been using dnsmasq for 15 years (!) and will share what he has learned via a deep dive into the dnsmasq configuration file. In other news, there is not a lot of other news that I know of. KWLUG member Mikalai Birukou helped organize a successful online summit at https://flattenthecurve.tech/, but that was last week. If you have some news of interesting things happening June or later please pass them along. If you organize a local tech group (or know others who do) and are interested in running your meetup on the KWLUG BigBlueButton webconferencing platform, please get in touch and we can make arrangements. Also, we are looking for presentations from July onwards. If you have something FLOSS-related that you would like to present, please propose it! You can do so on the kwlug-disc mailing list, via the webform on the website, or to me via email. - Paul -- Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Sat May 30 07:13:04 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sat, 30 May 2020 07:13:04 -0400 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday, 7pm: OhMyForm, BigBlueButton (June 2020) References: <20200530111304.GE1379.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20200530111304.GE1379@nb-heartburn> Let's start with the connection details for this month's meeting: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug Access code: 923324 Use Firefox or a Chromium-based browser for best results. We may have a phone bridge set up this month, so if for some reason you can only phone in, let me know at least an hour before the meeting. Not every KWLUG meeting has a theme, but this month's does: self-hosted alternatives to popular cloud software. Colin Knapp will get the starty parted by introducing OhMyForm. Like Google Forms, OhMyForm makes it easy to create webforms that feed spreadsheets. Unlike Google Forms, all the relevant data can live on servers you control. Colin will tell us about the project, how to use it, and the roadmap for its development. Did I mention our web conferencing server? Because that's the other presentation this month. Instead of being sensible and just purchasing a slick, proprietary Zoom subscription for our meetings (or trying to wrestle 40 minute meetings, or forcing everyone onto Google Hangouts, or...) we decided to be stubborn and set up our own self-hosted webconferencing server called BigBlueButton. BigBlueButton is online classroom software that offers quite a few features and reasonable performance. I will discuss some of those features, regale you with some of my misadventures in setting it up, give you the good/bad/ugly, and maybe discuss its architecture. In other news, it looks like the local tech meetup scene is waking up. A number of local tech groups have been announcing online events lately. You know where to find them: https://watcamp.com As usual, our meeting starts at 7pm. Doors will open (aka the conference will start) around 6:45pm. Maybe you need parking somewhere else, but not here. You just need to sit at home on a sunny evening and look at a screen. Let's all look at screens together! - Paul -- Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Sat Jul 4 05:10:35 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2020 05:10:35 -0400 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: Video Editing, MusicBrainz (July 2020) References: <20200704091035.GQ1290.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20200704091035.GQ1290@nb-heartburn> This month's meeting connection info: URL: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug Access code: 019336 (Contact me offlist if you need telephone access) Summer! Summer is finally here! No more school! We can look forward to those glorious vacation days when we don't have to go to the office! Maybe we can shoot some home video of our adventures, or listen to some tunes that are tagged with appropriate metadata. This month's KWLUG meeting has you covered for all (some) of your summer adventures. On the beginner-friendly side, Michael Hitchens will talk to us about video editing with OBS (the Open Broadcaster Project, https://obsproject.com/) to collect video input, and editing that video using Kdenlive (https://kdenlive.org/en/). On the also (?) beginner-friendly side, Andrew Cant will discuss the MusicBrainz project, which might be described like OpenStreetMap, but for music. It started as an alternative, public-domain database for compiling information about CDs (remember CDs?) but it apparently has evolved over the years. In other news, we are still looking for presentations for September and beyond. Do you have something you would like to present? Something that you would like to learn about? (Volunteering to present is a great way to learn about something.) Or maybe you have a topic you would like to see somebody else present? Please get in touch. Okay. That's what I got. The meeting starts at 7pm, on our BigBlueButton instance. I hope you are staying safe and sane as we travel through this bizarre timeline together. - Paul -- Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Fri Aug 7 22:43:59 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2020 22:43:59 -0400 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: WireGuard Installs, YAW-Hooks (Aug 2020) References: <20200808024359.GI8353.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20200808024359.GI8353@nb-heartburn> Once again, we will hold August's meeting over BigBlueButton: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug Access code: 507191 Some months, our KWLUG meetings have a theme. This month's theme orbits around computer security tools. WireGuard is the hottest new thing since sliced pizza. It is VPN software that is intended to be easy to use and easy to audit. Colin Knapp has been using it on his devices, and he will give us a practical presentation about how to get it set up. Although this talk will (probably?) not be an in-depth explanation of how WireGuard works, it should provide enough context so you can start using it. (Also: if anybody would like to present that in-depth explanation for KWLUG, we are all ears. There is lots of demand for this topic.) Do you ever want to write scripts on one machine that will control processes on other machines? The answer is "probably," especially if you do any system administration. Authentication is a big problem here, especially if you are hardcoding passwords into your scripts. Mikalai Birukou has dealt with this pain for long enough. He has started a project called YAW-Hooks (https://github.com/3nsoft/yaw-hooks) to help generate short-term credentials for scripts running on a server. In his presentation he will demonstrate the problem and his solution. In other news, we are still on the lookout for presentations. We will likely be presenting virtually for a while now, so even if you live far away you can share your wisdom with us. Contact me offlist (paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca) or use the website contact form to get in touch. That's all I have for this month. Take care, stay FLOSSy, and see you on Monday at 7pm. - Paul -- Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Sat Sep 12 01:25:23 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sat, 12 Sep 2020 01:25:23 -0400 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: GamerOS, Voting Systems (Sept 2020) References: <20200912052523.GG2224.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20200912052523.GG2224@nb-heartburn> The URL for this month's meeting is https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug . There is no passcode. (Also, of this writing the website is down, but hopefully it will be up again soon. Our gracious webhost has had to do some emergency upgrades, and kwlug.org was a casualty.) Well, summer is over, and that means it is back to school (whatever that means) or back to work (whatever that means) for many of us. It is time for us to put our collective heads down and concentrate and get stuff done. So naturally this month's KWLUG meeting is about fun distractions. If you are looking to slack off at work or ruin your grades at school, is there anything better than video games? Alesh Slovak thinks so, which is why he has put together a Linux distro specifically for gaming. Wait, what? It's 2020 and people are still making Linux distros? Isn't there Steam now? The answers to these questions are "yes", and "yes", and Alesh will use Sonic the Hedgehog to explain to us why this all makes sense. Okay, so maybe you have immense self control and don't like video games. How about another fun distraction, like democracy? Democracy is a fun distraction where politicians pretend to care what we think and we pretend that what we think makes a difference to the systems of power. Democracy often involves voting, and if there is one topic that (so, so many) tech nerds consider a fun distraction, it's voting. Enter Mikalai Birukou. The issues of voting and democracy have personal significance for him, and recently he has been working on schemes to make electronic voting safe and secure. This topic has already generated a lot of interest and traffic on the kwlug-disc mailing list, so I am guessing it will also be a lively presentation. Our meeting will begin at 7pm. In other news: next month's meeting will consist of an open roundtable/Q&A session. If you have topics or questions you would like us to discuss for the meeting, send them along to me (paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca). As always, we are looking for presentations for upcoming months (I believe December and onwards). If you have something to present, or know somebody who might be interested in presenting, contact us. That's all I've got. Hope to see you Monday evening. - Paul -- Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Fri Oct 2 23:03:28 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2020 23:03:28 -0400 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: Ask Us Anything Roundtable (Oct 2020) References: <20201003030328.GC4243.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20201003030328.GC4243@nb-heartburn> Our meeting will be held on our BigBlueButton server: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug . There will be no access code. In the Before Times, a number of KWLUG members would go off for post-meeting chitchat at a local restaurant. I am told that many nerdy conversations happened there, and much FLOSSy information was shared. Seeing as how we are now stuck inside forever and ever, we thought we would spend KWLUG's 19th anniversary meeting recreating some of that magic on our BigBlueButton server. Bring your questions and topics related to free software, and together we will try to work them out. Already KWLUG members have proposed questions about Python programming, dealing with power management, power saving on laptops, and more. Come on out, turn on your microphone and let's have some conversation. In other news, it is fall and soon it will be dark and cold. Also we need some topics for our December meeting. Do you have anything to present? Let us know. Our meeting will start at 7pm. Hope to see you there. - Paul -- Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Sun Nov 1 14:45:42 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sun, 1 Nov 2020 14:45:42 -0500 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday, 7pm: OpenCV, IPv6 and DHCP References: <20201101194542.GM12219.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20201101194542.GM12219@nb-heartburn> https://weconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug No passcode. Oh wow! It's November! It's time to remember amongst politics, stress and strain this month (like every month!) there's a LUG meeting to sustain. Tally ho here we go: Chris Blasko wants to show his vision: His ability for machines to see due to library OpenCV: building on his theme from last January. Also Jon will tell us what's goin' on with IPv6, sharing with us all his tricks setting up DHCP solving conflicts defying skeptics just for kicks. Up for a road trip? Here's a quick tip: 'Rona has us stressed. Ohio is out but what about Ohio Linux Fest? (Rememeber? Remember? Ohio Linux? It inspired LUG members to acquire a fest for Ontario.) We can't go to Ohio but there's still a show. It's a pay what you can with a three day span >From November 3rd to 5th. If you're a fan then make a plan: https://olfconference.org/register-for-olf-2020/ Forthwith. Now you knows how the LUG meeting goes. Off-beat, off-rhyme, bad flows Like one of them 80s TV shows Maybe next time I'll stick to prose. - Paul -- Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Mon Nov 2 18:49:16 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2020 18:49:16 -0500 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday, 7pm: OpenCV, IPv6 and DHCP In-Reply-To: <20201101194542.GM12219@nb-heartburn> References: <20201101194542.GM12219.ref@nb-heartburn> <20201101194542.GM12219@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20201102234916.GC23050@nb-heartburn> Ugh. I got the URL wrong: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug On Sun, Nov 01, 2020 at 02:45:42PM -0500, Paul Nijjar via kwlug-announce wrote: > > https://weconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug > No passcode. > From paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca Sat Dec 5 03:20:37 2020 From: paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca (Paul Nijjar) Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2020 03:20:37 -0500 Subject: [kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday: Python 3, Voting Systems (Dec 2020) References: <20201205082037.GJ1538.ref@nb-heartburn> Message-ID: <20201205082037.GJ1538@nb-heartburn> We were already in the red, but it is starting to look grey. The days are short and the sun is in hiding. The War on Christmas is finally over, and the grinches won. Thank goodness there is a KWLUG meeting to look forward to. This month we have a special treat, courtesy of our friends at WatPy. Special envoy Derek Steinmoeller will be on hand to talk about Python3 for Linux users. If you have realized just how much bash scripting sucks (don't give me that. yes it does), but still want to write scripts and automate things, this is the talk for you. In addition to automating things and writing apps for the desktop, he will also talk about Python scripting for the Raspberry Pi. Also on the card for this meeting is Mikalai Birukou, who will tell us about his work on electronic voting systems. If this topic sounds familiar, it is because Mikalai was originally scheduled to deliver it for September's meeting, but had to cancel at the last minute. Election excitement may have faded, but discussions on whether you can hope to have secure voting online are evergreen. Also from our friends at WatPy: a Talk Club, where people will get together and collectively watch talks relevant to the Python community. If you wish you watched more talks but have been lacking a community to discuss the topics (or the discipline to sit down and watch them when Freecell is calling) then this is the club for you. Sign up for the first event on Dec 10 here: https://www.meetup.com/WatPyMeetup/events/274753500/ Do you know of FLOSS-friendly groups in town? Invite them to send an envoy and give us a talk. COVID has shut many meetup groups down, but they are welcome to join us as we keep trucking along. This month's meeting will be held at our very favourite place in the world: our BigBlueButton instance: https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug There will be no passcode. If you want access via a phone bridge email me. The meeting starts at 7pm. See you then? - Paul -- Events: https://feeds.off-topic.kwlug.org Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org