Past And Future

Although my Mardi Gras parade prevented me from attending the paravirtualization show last Saturday, I have it on good authority that Mr. Lightsey provided a wonderful show. There's no way to prove it, however, since the video equipment wasn't present. However, it probably will be next time.

That will be Saturday Feb. the 28th at 2pm at the Hal-PC office and will feature me. Although contact has not yet been established with the Linux Journal staff to allow me to shanghai one of them for a presentation, I've gotta get something on soon regarding the stuff in their recent wonderful Security Issue (one back now). So I'll do it myself, covering at least six quite useful articles.

Plotting continues for the second Saturday in March, at which it is my wish that the programmer who knows about Linux Telephony will finally cave in (she's done such presentations for users' groups before, I'm told). And I understand that encryption issues will come up... always useful.

Didn't think I was gonna update, did ya?

SATURDAY SATURDAY SATURDAY!! Mr. John Lightsey will present an overview of Xen Paravirtualization in Linux. I don't know what that means, but since HE DOES, come hear him Saturday, 2pm, Hal-PC HQ.

AND in two weeks I just might be able to deliver somebody who can do a program on Linux Telephony. Stay tuned.

I didn't make Tech Fest, but a glimpse at their website (linked below) will indicate what subjects their agenda covered. Looks to be more for the programmer than the admin.

Oh, yes - THE SUN BOX. Carlile must read my blog, since he thought it would be funny not to show up last night to the Wednesday lab meeting. So a few of us looked through man pages for likely commands and just as time ran out, we bumped into some promising dhcp stuff. So looks like I'm close to an answer...

AAAAAAND I made gaming night last Sat. and will probably make this Sat's night as soon as I'm released from another commitment. I was flayed, boiled, mangled and impaled. But I got a script into all the attackers and it flipped their language packs to Portugese JUST KIDDING.

Hello There HEY FIX MY SUN BOX

Although registered, I missed Tech Fest and will follow up with testimony from Jim or somebody else that kept that commitment. I did, however, make the convocation of Holtzmann's Helldemons as they Urban Terror'd and card game'd their way into the night. Way, way into the night. Gaming night is BACK.

Program note: I have been informed by my employer that no, I can't have Wednesday to bring my Blade 100 up to HAL so Carlile can fix the network settings (don't think it fails to route due to hardware problems since the local Solaris 10 version of ifconfig says stuff like "up and running". Also, this Solaris load takes note of open network connections at about the 5th line of the boot sequence (in this case having sensed "100mbps"). In the immortal words of John Belushi, BUUUUUUUUUUUT NoooooOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo. I have to work and won't make it until NEXT Wednesday.

Rumblings are rumbling about us assisting the area's AIX club (more details as they develop) and we may be able to get John Lightsey to present what he's discovered about Xen Linux paravirtualization and Katherine Druckman is looking strong for an upcoming (probably February) meeting to tell us about the wonderful Linux Journal operation (great mag; pick it up at Micro Center and other fine purveyors of magazines). Wish I'd made it to Linux Journal's meeting thing at a local coffee house (I think they do that monthly).

Next meeting is on Feb. 14th, and I'll be there PROBABLY. Perhaps late (that's the date for the first day parade of the Galveston Mardi Gras) but we'll see. And the speaker should be announced here within days.

Current Scene

As mentioned earlier:

Jan. 24th meeting IS CANCELED for UH Tech Fest (registration is needed but free).

Also, a speaking event on Linux Journal is in the works. Katherine Druckman is checking to see whether Feb. 14th or 28th would work better for her.

AND remember, if you're a Hal-PC member and are interested in Linux gaming, Allan Holtzmann runs Gaming Night every Saturday from 5pm to midnight. Bring your gear, a load of Unreal Tournament 2004 or/and Urban Terror (latest) and perhaps a large polo mallet for wall hackers.

And a very special Jan. 12th to you

Mr. Lewallen's talk on SANs was just peachy, detailing how his outfit now relies on some firmware-commanded storage, so as to take a bit of load away from any of the OS's concerned (one of the things I particularly liked). He also revisited his virtualization arrangement, viewing status through a Windows client (which in this case is practically identical to the VMware Linux client).

New info: my excuse to cancel the Jan. 24th HLUG meeting (Tech Fest) requires a free registration here:

Houston Tech Fest

Its major sponsors are small-time outfits like Oracle, Microsoft and Sun. It's not a job fair but a seminar series on the various emerging technologies sold by the various participants. The location is the UH Central campus and it's on the 24th of this month (pre-empting the traditional fourth Sunday meeting of our group). Jim Ward and myself will definitely be there, and no doubt many others.

Even more clearer and far more clarificationer post

The presentation for Jan. 10th will be Mr. Lewallen on Storage Area Networks for sure. Of course, we will not shoot video of that presentation since his company uses methods that would not be wise to broadcast. SO SHOW UP.

However, on the 24th, I, by the power vested in me as the Puba Emeritus, hereby cancel the presentation. First of all, I think I need more time to con, er, convince the Linux Journal people that they need to do a presentation for us (Rick has connections on that, of which I'll avail myself) and second, there's a conflict with an event at the University of Houston...

Tech Fest is something on which I'll have more announcements as we approach the 24th, particularly since at least one of our members is working it and a few more of us plan on attending.

NEWS FLASH: Allan has said that I can publish this: the schedule for the Hal-PC Linux Gaming Night is now every Sat. from 5pm to midnight. That's what he said. Now I, the anti-gaming diehard, must close and start up Urban Terror and go get killed some more before my 5:30 appointment.

Clarificational Clarification

OK, gang, the next two Saturday meetings will be as follows:

Jan. 10, 2pm - Dave Llewallen on Storage Area Networks
Jan. 24, 2pm - Pete Jamison (and maybe a surprise guest) on Linux Journal

As always, the program will be preceded by our continuing feature, the "Favorite Flag", introducing new, evolving or unusual uses for common commands.