[kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday, 7pm: Audacity, Saltstack (March 2020)

[Paul Nijjar]

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.

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Blog: http://pnijjar.freeshell.org