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steercom:2008-08

SLUUG Steering Committee Minutes - August 2008

NOTE: Minutes posted on the wiki are always unofficial. Schedules for upcoming presentations are always tentative. (Some more tentative than others!)

Location

Saint Louis Bread Company,
(at Old Olive and Olive),
10550 Old Olive Street Road,
Creve Coeur, MO 63141

Date and Time

  • Wednesday, August 6, 2008
  • 6:30 pm - 7:55 pm

Attendees

  • Carl Fitch
  • Craig Buchek

Secretary Report

  • Need to print out minutes from April onward.

Treasurer Report

  • Balance: $1,384.17 as of 6/30/08
  • Receipts:
  • Carl - Turn in cash drawer funds to treasurer. DONE!!
  • Carl - Annual registration fee to State of Missouri
  • Craig - Submit receipt for voice recorder.
  • Gary - Turn in receipt for domain registration.
  • Open issues:
    • Lee - Follow up drafting reply to Wash U.
    • Final bill from Wash U. - need to complete reply
  • Need suggestions for following up with and attracting potential Sponsors.

Attendance Report

  • Some numbers, as of end of July 2008:
Meeting Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
Steercom 5 4 3 5 7 4 5 5 No 6 3 6 2 4 4 4 7 4
SLACC 6 7 ? ? 8 6 10 7 5 8 4 7 4 (4) ? x 6 9
SLUUG 12 23 22 18 16 27 36 21 24 25 20 14 12 23 17 31 18 17
Solaris 4 No 18 15 6 8 No 11 No 5 No 13 No 6 No 20 10 No
SNUG NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 5 4
STLLUG 12 14 18 23 20 31 31 23 19 25 20 17 No 16 17 29 22 20
HZWLUG 7 9 8 9 No 11 11 10 10 15 9 10 11 14 11 11 10 11
STCLUG 10 10 6 ? 8 11 17 10 11 No 11 9 11 3 13 5 6 3
  • No - indicates no meeting.
  • () - Numbers in parentheses are head count.
  • ? - Question mark indicates attendance not taken or sheet missing.
  • xx - attendance numbers not yet recorded.
  • Dropped reference to LDAP meetings.

Mailing List Report

  • Subscriber numbers (approximate) as of end of July 2008:
List May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
ANNOUNCE 917 925 900 915 885 877 877 866 857 856 853 854 843 835 830
DISCUSS 184 190 188 190 190 192 192 185 185 185 186 1?? 188 188 192
STEERCOM 32 32 33 32 32 32 32 32 31 31 31 ?? 29 32 33
SYSADMIN xx xx 18 18 18 17 17 17 17 17 17 ?? 15 15 16
  • Numbers will now be as end of each month.
  • Blocking of mailing list attachments not completely configured yet.
  • ANNOUNCE mailing list.
    • Still no volunteer editor to do a Quarterly or monthly newsletter.

Presentation Libraries Report

  • Stan R. and Ted P.
  • Stan uploaded several presentations.
    1. SLUUG MAY 2008 MythTV by Jason Clark
    2. STLLUG MAY 2008 MythTV by Jason Clark
  • Have not received materials from recent presenters:
    1. SLUUG APR 2008 Mac OS X Leopard by Don Benne
    2. SLUUG MAR 2008 The Skills Nerds Need to Know - Send 2nd Request to Scott Granneman

Annual Report to State of Missouri

  • Last annual report (5 June 2007) is now on file
    • It showed old registered agent and address.
      • Change of registered agent would get items from state mailed to a valid address.
      • Changing a registered agent requires the enclosure of a written consent.
    • We needed to correct Craig's name and address.
    • Last year (July 2007) we had considered just making a "registered agent change", but it would cost money.
    • Last year (July 2007) we said that we would make changes next year.
    • It is now "next" year.
  • Carl filed annual report for 2008 during the meeting.
    • Cost was $10.00, paid on Carl's credit card.
    • Craig's name and address were corrected.
  • Corporation Info
    • Official name: ST. LOUIS UNIX USERS GROUP, INC.
    • Charter number: N00046271
  • Still need to change registered agent.

Meeting Review and Comments

July 2008

     July 2008      
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
       1  2  3  4  5
 6  7  8  9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31      

SLACC - July 3

  • Linux Configuration Workshop - No presentation.

SLUUG - July 9

  • BASE: Sitebar [web-based bookmark management] by Lee Lammert
    • Could have used more details.
  • MAIN: OpenSolaris - Production Ready! by Jeff Logullo
    • Good. We would like Jeff to present more in the future.

Solaris - July 15

  • TOPIC: NO MEETING - Summer Siesta

SNUG - July 16

  • TOPIC: NO MEETING - Summer Siesta

STLLUG - July 17

  • TOPIC: Keyboard Karaoke (Tips, Tricks and Favorites) by Various Members
    • New attendees were very happy with the variety
    • Experienced attendees learned a lot of tips

HZWLUG - July 22

  • TOPIC 1: Exploring the /etc directory.
  • TOPIC 2: Using gvim and kate editors
  • TOPIC 3: Other stuff
    • Had projector problems.
    • A lot of questions on various topics were asked and answered.

STCLUG - July 24

  • TOPIC: Open Topic (Informal)
  • Speaker: Called In Sick
    • Very small group, multiple topics.

Presentation Schedule

August 2008

    August 2008     
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
                1  2
 3  4  5  6  7  8  9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31                  

SLACC - August 7

  • Linux Configuration Workshop - No presentation.

SLUUG - August 13

  • BASE: Commands You Might Have Missed by Carl Fitch
  • MAIN: Linksys NAS NSLU2 by Jeff Logullo & OpenWRT by Jeff Muse

Solaris - August 19

  • TOPIC: TBD

SNUG - August 20

  • TOPIC: TBD

STLLUG - August 21

  • TOPIC: Open Source Language Technology Using Statistical Methods
  • Speaker: Assoc. Prof. Kevin Scannell, PhD. Director of Computer Sci @ SLU
  • Confirmed via Gary Meyer

HZWLUG - August 26

  • TOPIC: Usually determined by attendees
  • OPTION1: Exploring the /home directory.
  • OPTION2: Partitions
  • OPTION3: Anything else.

STCLUG - August 28

  • TOPIC: TBD
  • Speaker: TBD (Carl will be out of town)

September 2008

   September 2008   
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
    1  2  3  4  5  6
 7  8  9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30            

SLACC - September 4

  • Linux Configuration Workshop - No presentation.

SLUUG - September 10

  • BASE: Commands You Might Have Missed by Carl Fitch
  • MAIN: Virtualization and the POWER Architecture by Sammie Allam, IBM (via Lee)

Solaris - September 16

  • TOPIC: TBD

SNUG - September 17

  • TOPIC: TBD

STLLUG - September 18

  • TOPIC: TBD

HZWLUG - September 23

  • TOPIC: Usually determined by attendees
  • TOPIC1: Exploring the /var directory.
  • TOPIC2: Partitions
  • TOPIC 3: Anything else.

HZWLUG meeting date will be switched to 30 September

STCLUG - September 25

  • TOPIC: Nagios Demonstration
  • Speaker: Carl Fitch

October 2008

    October 2008    
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
          1  2  3  4
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31   

SLUUG - October 8

  • BASE: TBD
  • MAIN: VMWare 6.5 & Server 2.0 by Matt Skipton, VMware (via Lee)

STLLUG - October 16

  • TOPIC: TBD

November 2008

    October 2008    
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
          1  2  3  4
 5  6  7  8  9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31   

SLUUG - November 12

  • BASE: TBD
  • MAIN: Booting PC Style! by Rich Seibel (via Gary - need to confirm the date)
    • ABSTRACT: This is what happens BEFORE GRUB or LILO on x86 PC hardware with standard BIOS - stages 1, 2, and 3. A hardware talk, but some references to how it varies from OS to OS. NOT PXE or EFI.

Potential Presenters

These are some people who can present, and possible topics they can speak about.

  • IBM (via John Hodge)
    • TOPIC: AIX 6
    • TOPIC: POWER 6 CPU architecture
  • Wehrenberg Theaters (via Gary)
    • TOUR/DEMO: Digital cinema projectors
  • Sanjiv Bhatia (or someone from UMSL, via Lee)
    • TOPIC: Open Grid Computing
    • December or January
  • John Hodge
    • TOPIC: APV (Advance POWER Virtualization) Overview
  • David Letscher (Prof of CS at SLU) (via Gary)
    • TOPIC: TBD
    • Still gone for summer. Awaiting details.
  • Rick Clark (Ubuntu) (via Craig)
    • TOPIC: TBD
    • Not available until October
    • Might be able to talk to STCLUG and STLLUG
  • Matt Skipton (via Lee)
    • TOPIC: VMware
  • Jeff Logullo (Sun)
    • TOPIC: MySQL - now a Sun product
    • TOPIC: Project Indiana, a new package mngmnt system ala apt/dpkg
    • TOPIC: Versioning filenames (snapshots?) in ZFS
    • TOPIC: New release of ZFS
    • TOPIC: Belenix & other live CD's based on Open Solaris
  • Scott Nesler
    • TOPIC: GIMP (follow-up from previous presentation)
  • Jeff Muse
    • TOPIC: various Solaris topics
  • Ed Howland (via Gary)
    • TOPIC: Last.fm, Amarok, etc. - free music downloads
    • TOPIC: Building a modern kernel
  • Stan Reichardt
    • TOPIC/DEMO: Using Scribus
  • Tim Dreste (via Stan R)
    • TOPIC: Untangle Gateway Platform
    • TOPIC: CentOS Linux
  • unknown (via Carl)
    • TOPIC: EnterpriseDB (packaged version of PostgreSQL)
    • Would be a video-conference, so requires solving logistics problems

Potential Topics

These are some topics that we've had requested, or brainstormed, but need to find speakers for.

  • Technology and Politics
    • Where do politicians stand on issues important to our group?
    • Issues - intellectual property, privacy vs surveilance, subsidies & incentives, Common Carrier
    • National, state, and local candidates and parties
    • Would need to do in Sept or Oct.
    • Tim Dreste might be able to get someone from Todd Akin's office to speak with us.
    • Craig is talking to someone involved w/ the Obama campaign.
    • Scott Nesler offered to present Do Good Gauge concept as a main topic or lead in.
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (RHEL 5)
    • Still looking for volunteer; tried Clark Smith at Red Hat
  • Fedora recent releases
  • SuSE or OpenSUSE recent releases
    • Someone from Novell?
    • Gary Hollingsworth?
  • HP-UX current release, features, future
    • Dave Mills?
    • HP corporate?
  • iSCSI
  • Using git
  • CPUs
    • Features of modern Intel/AMD CPUs
    • x86-64
    • x86, x86-64, IA64, Sparc, PowerPC, ARM, POWER
  • iPhone
    • Developing for (web, native)
  • iPhone competitors
    • LG Dare
    • Samsung Instinct
    • Other Linux-based phones
    • LiMo versus Google Android

Sponsorships

  • Current paying sponsors have been asked to renew with nice letter in April.
    • Gary - Ask Ajilon about continuing $200 sponsorship.
    • Craig - Ask S3 - Strategic Staffing Solutions (follow up)
  • Potential sponsors
    • Sun - Jeff Logullo
    • IBM - (John Hodge may have a contact)
    • Red Hat - Clark Smith (Craig to follow up)
    • Canonical/Ubuntu (Craig to follow up)
    • VMware - Matt Skipton
    • We should review them once or twice annually and establish an end date on recognition.
  • Need sign about sponsoring our group for booth/table display at meetings and trade shows.
  • More effort should be directed to find new sponsors.
    • No effort means no more new sponsors.
  • Syllogistics paid twice for a corporate sponsorship,
    • the 2nd check will be returned with a nice thank-you letter

Server Admin

  • Need to break into the Sun machines again and reset passwords so they do not expire!
    • Carl suggests connecting serial ports on bud to serial console on Sun boxes.
      • Could then boot into single user mode.
      • Would need to install minicom to access serial TTY.
  • Need to setup our own DNS on Bud/Budlight & switch over.
    • Make our own servers authoritative for our own domains.
    • Would allow us to publish reverse records.
      • Primary has said they can allow this.
    • Would allow us to publish SPF records.
    • We could offer dyanmic DNS services to our members.
      • On a subdomain, such as users.sluug.org
  • We have 2 Sun E250s, which are currently racked but not connected.
    • Carl proposed parting out those boxes.
    • Craig concurred.

Server Migration Project

  • Craig has updated some of the documentation recently, as he built systems based on our docs.
  • Backups
  • Craig was to get together with Mike and/or Carl to work on tasks in July
  • Work left to do:
    • Make sure docs are up to date.
      • Add documentation telling users how to configure mail clients to use Bud.
      • Started documenting client email configurations, to help users migrate.
      • See users and mail_setup pages.
    • Craig - Work on finishing server builds.
      • Document changes to PAM to correct MAIL variable. (Craig)
      • More security, for SSH and otherwise.
      • Get offsite backups working. (Mike)
      • Publish SSH host keys on web page.
      • Standardize/regularize user accounts (IDs, password expirations). (Mike)
  • Other work to do:
    • Better web site management tools
    • Document useradd process.
    • Develop standardized 'Membership List' & same UIDs on all production machines.

SLACC as a SIG

  • Noel asked that we allow current email users to keep their SLACC.com email addresses.
  • The registration is paid up until 2009.
  • Carl - follow up with Noel about transferring the domain to us.

SNUG as a SIG

  • SNUG attendance sheets and temporary web page made.
    • Still need to add SNUG members to Discuss & Announce.

Membership (and Shell Accounts)

  • Membership drive
    • Need to print out name tags.
      • Omnitec will print them out and bring to SLUUG meeting.
  • Cafe Press merchandise
    • Carl/SLUUG/Lee need to reconcile demo merchandise
  • Lee has proposed to sell pizzas as fund-raiser if continued insufficient Memberships & Sponsors.

Manage The Group

  • Need new STLLUG chairperson.
    • Craig can not do anymore
  • Structure/timing/flow of meetings
    • Need MC to run schedule at meetings
    • Need to leave enough time for "off-line interaction".
    • Plan on tutorials being planned for ~20 mins.
    • Main presentations should plan for ~1 hour (1.5 hours at STLLUG)
    • Has been running more smoothly lately.
  • Lee suggested we create a Rails app on Bud to manage the group.
    • Member data - payments, expirations, etc.
    • Sponsors - expirations, etc.
    • Attendance
    • STL Ruby Group is writing a similar application.
      • RAMS - Rails Association Management System
      • We should leverage that, and guide it to our needs
    • Scott Nesler has built an app for attendance
      • Stan has plugged data into it for the year
      • Not sure if the app fits any of our other needs
        • (app is developed on CakePHP MVC architecture).
        • Member Payment, expiration would be simple addition to existing table/screens.
        • CRUD functionality simplifies expanding the application with additional tables.
        • Compartmentalization of CSS and layout templates simplifies changes to the look and feel.

Other Old Business

  • None.

New Business

  • None.

Small Business Expo - 1 October

  • SBE will again be at St. Charles Convention Center.
  • SBE is on same day as usual STEERCOM meeting
    • This may be a problem as usual suspects won't feel like doing both.
    • Can we provide alternative?
  • SBE support:
    • Need BUSINESS ORIENTED demos - e.g. Accounting.
    • Need dedicated SERVER to use and demo office functions (wiki, file sharing, ..).

Follow-up and Action Items

  • Carl - Follow up w/ SLACC and SNUG leaders.
  • Lee - Need list to print out name tags for paying members.
  • Barry - Follow up w/ John Hodge about a presentation in the near future.
  • Lee, Barry - Get someone from IBM to talk about POWER6, AIX 6.0, etc.
  • Craig - Email Jim Leingang @ S3 about $200 sponsorship.
  • Craig - Print out change of registered agent form, forward to Carl for submission.
  • Everyone - Talk to someone about coming to meetings.
  • Everyone - Talk to someone about sponsorships.
  • Everyone - Talk to someone about giving a presentation.
steercom/2008-08.txt · Last modified: 2008/08/11 15:46 by 70.242.159.89