A Farewell To Kings
Posted on 30th June 2008
The guys over at LUGRadio have just released the latest edition of the show. They also reveal a rather big announcement, in that LUGRadio Live Live & Unleashed will be the last ever show by the team. This also mean that LUGRadio Live in a few weeks time, will also be the last ever LRL. I'm gutted as the show and event has become a staple part of my life for the past 5 years. As I knew the guys before they started the show, I was fortunate enough to be a fan from the very first show. And from such humble beginnings it's been amazing to see what the team have created. It is a credit to everyone who has been involved in LUGRadio, and the whole community that has built up surrounding both the shows and the events, that they have played a notable part of promoting Linux and Open Source. The quality of guest, discussion and inspiration has been excellent. It has always been fun and entertaining, but it has also strived to educate and pass on their passion for the projects, and communities they have introduced us to.
I'm glad I had the opportunity to play even a small part of the experience, and it has always been a joy to listen to the shows. I shall miss them. I'm fortunate in that I live not too far from the guys, so hopefully I will stay in touch and see them at Wolves LUG events in the future. But I will miss the all the LUGRadio Live events, where I get to meet so many other Linux and Open Source enthusiasts from around the UK and the World. Thanks guys, it's been a blast.
|
File Under:
community
/ conference
/ linux
/ lugradio
/ opensource
/ wolverhampton
|
Sweet Home Chicago
Posted on 23rd June 2008
Last week I was in Chicago for YAPC::NA. It was great event and a great city. I was there 2 years ago for the conference, and got to see some of the city then, so this time around I opted to find some other places to discover. I've still left plenty to discover, so next time I return I plan to finally get to go up the Hancock Tower and do the Ganster Tour.
The conference itself was at the IIT, on the south side of Chicago, and a short walk from the L. On the first day I gave a talk entitled "Understanding Malware", during which David E Wheeler thankfully caught me on camera, so at least I have one photo of me speaking :) On the second day I gave my "How To Be A CPAN Tester" talk, which seemed to go down well. I'll write more about the conference on my use.perl blog, but over the next week I hope to get my photos up online. Unfortunately the quality of the photos hasn't been as good as previous efforts, as I seemed to struggle with focus and light most of the time. Looking at some of the guys taking pictures throughout the event, I dearly need a DSLR. Hopefully this time next year my wish will come true.
My thanks to Theory for allowing me to include the photo he took of me at the conference here.
|
File Under:
chicago
/ conference
/ yapc
|
Where The Birds Always Sing
Posted on 4th April 2008
Peter N M Hansteen
This week I was at The UKUUG 2008 Spring Conference, where I gave two talks on testing. While I was there I met Peter N M Hansteen. The name didn't ring any bells, and it was only when I was in conversation with Peter that he happened to drop the snippet of information that he was part of Bergen LUG, who implemented RFC1149.
Okay for most people that probably doesn't mean that much, but for real geeks this is one of the guys that implemented RFC1149!
So what is RFC1149? It's full title is "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers", which also goes by the acronym of CPIP ... Carrier Pigeon Internet Protocol. Yes you read that right Carrier Pigeon. There was a later revision of the RFC which allowed for Sparrowhawks, but in 2001 Bergen LUG took it upon themselves to attempt a practical experiment to prove the RFC1149 actually worked. You can see all the photos and reports of the event, to which they invited Alan Cox along as an impatial witness, on their website. Peter can be seen in this picture, on the far left.
The reason I know all this, is that in the first version of my Understanding Malware talk, I used it as a humous aside. Amusingly, Peter did a talk about Spam and Malware at the UKUUG conference. It's a small world :)
Incidentally my photos for the UKUUG 2008 Spring Conference are now online. Click the links below:
- UKUUG 2008 Spring Conference - Day One
- UKUUG 2008 Spring Conference - Day Two
- UKUUG 2008 Spring Conference - Day Three
|
File Under:
birmingham
/ conference
/ internet
/ people
/ ukuug
|
Route 66
Posted on 7th March 2008
|
File Under:
chicago
/ conference
/ opensource
/ perl
/ yapc
|
Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?
Posted on 20th February 2008
LUGRadio Live 2007
LUGRadio Live UK dates have been announced as the weekend of 19th/20th July.
At the moment the guys are busy preparing for LUGRadio Live USA, so expect more details for the UK event after next month. The US event will be the first time the LUGRadio experience will have been seen on such a major scale outside of the UK. The guys seem suitably excited and I'll be keen to discover if the American event has the same manic and mayhem feel as the UK event. The UK event is very definitely about getting the Linux and Open Source communities together, to hopefully provide an opportunity to meet and greet with fellow developers or just people you meet on IRC or the forums. It doesn't have that corporate feel is much more laid back, thus having a much more social nature about it than many traditional conferences. Not to diminish the value of the talks and presentations, but the atmosphere is much more conducive to discussion, questions and feedback than more formal events. For me that has perhaps more value as I like to get feedback and ideas from others and some more corporate events often don't encourage that atmosphere.
In the meantime, if you're in the US and can make it to the West Coast over the weekend on 12th/13th April, checkout LUGRadio Live USA2008 and try and get along to The Metreon, San Francisco. As a tempter, watch the video trailer created by Tony Whitmore, AV coordinator for the UK event.
I shall be at LUGRadio Live UK, although whether that's as a speaker, attendee or member of the crew remains to be seen. I'm thinking of submitting my Understanding Malware talk, but seeing as it's about an hour long, and I definitely DON'T want to be on the main stage, I'm hoping the guys will agree to hiding me in a smaller room. They guys always manage to put me up against big names (Mark Shuttleworth and Chris Di Bona for the last two years), so this might be my chance to steal some of the audience back for the little guy ;)
As I don't specifically talk about Linux stuff, but more general Open Source stuff, I've often felt a bit of an outsider as a speaker. The Malware talk is again not about Linux specifically, and some aspects are not Open Source (for justifiable reasons), but the content, particularly for anyone interested in understanding what malware is and eager to gain some very basic hints and tips to protect your inbox, it's ideal. Seeing as most of the attendance for LUGRadio are knowledgeable Linux people, I'm hoping the talk will be of interest to a wide variety of people. I've now done the talk twice, for Leicester LUG last week and Coventry LUG last night. Both presentation went down very well and generated lots of interesting discussion afterwards. Seeing as some of these guys are very clueful sysadmins and developers, as a benchmark, I think the LUGRadio audience will love it. We'll see ;)
The UK event will be returning to Wolverhampton University Student's Union, the venue for the 2006 event. Personally I liked the Lighthouse, the venue for 2007, but I know the guys got heavily criticised for a variety of issues, that meant they had to reconsider the venue for the 2008 event. The SU venue is smaller than the Lighhouse too, which might cause some problems, as I can see the event getting a bigger attendance this year. For the past 3 years the attendance appears to have been increasing anyway, but in the last year, I am noticing more and more articles, blogs and posts about LUGRadio. I just hope there is enough space for everyone.
BTW if you're attending LUGRadio Live USA2008, please take a camera and post your photos publically. My site always gets a lot of hits for LUGRadio, and I'm sure the thirst for photos for the US event will be just as popular.
|
File Under:
conference
/ linux
/ lugradio
/ opensource
/ security
/ spam
|
| << Page 6 | Page 8 >> |
