Kingston Linux Users GroupKingston Linux Users Group

The Fifteenth Meeting

Ahmad Khayyat — Sun, 06 May 2012 21:36:23 +0000

We would like to invite everyone to our fifteenth meeting, despite the fact that our last meeting announcement was for the thirteenth meeting.

It was not a matter of simply skipping the announcement, it was a matter of simply skipping the meeting! Somehow, we inadvertently agreed that we shall not have a fourteenth meeting. Recognizing that we missed a meeting, we moved to the next number, hence the fifteenth meeting. Proof available on request.

Fifteenth Meeting Details

Where: Queen’s Grad Club (Google Map), second floor.
When: Thursday May 10, 7:00 PM.

For reference, here is our Group Calendar.

Announcing the Thirteenth Meeting

Ahmad Khayyat — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 17:42:26 +0000

Where: Queen’s Grad Club (Google Map), second floor.
When: Tuesday March 13, 7:00 PM.

For reference, here is our Group Calendar.

Announcing the Twelfth Meeting

Ahmad Khayyat — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:43:11 +0000

Where: Queen’s Grad Club (Google Map), second floor.
When: Tuesday February 14, 7:00 PM.

For reference, here is our Group Calendar.

Announcing the Eleventh Meeting

Ahmad Khayyat — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:06:34 +0000

We would like to invite everyone to our first meeting of 2012.

Where: Queen’s Grad Club (Google Map), second floor.
When: Tuesday January 10, 7:00 PM.

For reference, here is our Group Calendar.

Tenth Meeting Summary

Ahmad Khayyat — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 20:25:29 +0000

This was our tenth and last meeting of 2011. Ten meetings in our first (half) year. I am glad we made it this far. Though I wish there were more of us to share the joy!

This one was more of a casual meeting in the Grad Club. We had a good time, and discussed various issues.

One issue was whether we should set a topic of technical discussion for each meeting, as it may scare beginners off the meetings, especially at this (somewhat long) early stage of the group’s life cycle. We also, favorably, considered a proposal to participate in a program for the Kingston community youth that involves introducing youngsters to computer hardware and using Linux to make hardware useful!

As this year wraps up, we look forward to meeting more people interested in Linux and other open-source technologies in the Kingston area in the next year.

Happy holidays, everyone..

Announcing the Tenth Meeting

Ahmad Khayyat — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 01:50:46 +0000

The. Tenth. Meeting.
We are still here!

Where: Queen’s Grad Club (Google Map), second floor.
When: Wednesday December 14, 7:00 PM.

For reference, here is our Group Calendar.

/var/log/meeting.9

ravi — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:27:10 +0000

Ahmad was kind enough to present on the topic of RAID storage technology.

RAID, an acronym for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. It is an approach to implement replication and data storage across multiple physical drives. The implementation can be done via software or hardware. There are range of schemes, we discussed RAID 0-5. The implications for efficiency and redundancy. For computationally intensive raid modes (for example raid 5), software implementation will have significant overhead as compared to hardware implementation.

There was a discussion of the redundancy built into RAID 1 using Hamming code parity check and this moved to a discussion of hash functions and the purpose of checksum and md5sum as tools to confirm the reliability copied data. This allows for the total failure of one drive or repair of corrupted data using the parity check. In addition RAID 10 (1+0 and 0+1) and the features of each for dealing with redundancy were looked at.

There were brief asides on the emacs undo-tree package and using top to find virtual memory culprits.

Announcing the Ninth Meeting

Ahmad Khayyat — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:03:05 +0000

Our Ninth Meeting is coming up next Wednesday. Everyone is most welcome to join in. Bring your friends along.

Where: Douglas Library, Room 405.
When: Wednesday November 9, 7:00 PM.
Topic: Software Raid.
Speaker: Ahmad Khayyat

For reference, here is our Group Calendar.

/var/log/meeting.8

ian — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 00:06:34 +0000

This month’s meeting featured a wide ranging discussion of recent and upcoming events. The passing of Steve Jobs prompted a discussion of the importance of aesthetics of form versus utility and functionality of interfaces. Naturally the meeting’s proximity to the release of Ubuntu 11.10 led to a somewhat onesided appraisal of the merits (or otherwise) of Unity. The distributions dabbled with recently were discussed, including Bodhi, Lubuntu and the Openbox window manager. Different calendar and ‘to do list’ software was discussed, and circuit diagrams of single electrode voltage clamp equipment (a biophysical technique of some repute) were presented. Some interesting intricacies of getting complex written languages like Chinese from a Roman-charactered keyboard were discussed, along with facets of LaTeX and the functional properties and uses of a re-configurable class of smart chips.

Eighth Meeting Announcement

Ahmad Khayyat — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:41:44 +0000

Our Eighth Meeting is upcoming next Wednesday. Everyone is most welcome to show up and join the conversation. Bring your friends along.

Where: Douglas Library, Room 405.
When: Wednesday October 12, 7:00 PM.
Topic: Casual conversation.
Speaker: Everyone!