[clug] CLUG meeting tonight (23rd Jan 2014)

[Paul Wayper]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Wayper" 
Sent:Thu, 23 Jan 2014 13:05:13 +1100
Subject:CLUG meeting tonight (23rd Jan 2014)

I think we'll probably have "lightning talks" about whatever people
have been doing or seeing recently.  I can give a bit of a summary of
what I saw at LCA, which (as Clinton suggested) is a pretty good thing
to get people to participate in.  We may also have a talk about the
Fish shell :-)
OK, just a quick report which I didn't get done last night or this
morning from home (hence the lack of GPG signature, which some may
have noticed :-) ).
Last night we had a pretty good round-the-room discussion.  I started
by talking about the new ideas we're trying at CLUG meetings to make
them more personable and conversational.  So to get to know everyone,
we went round the room briefly introducing ourselves.  I started, and
I set a very good example of how not to be brief - but it worked out
well as we had lots of good discussion about what each of us was up
to.  In the order they come into my head, we roughly discussed:
* the LZO compression method and why not to use it.* the FISH shell
and how its documentation has got a lot better* how sysadmins seem to
spend more time working with integration tools - Chef, Puppet, Vagrant
and so forth - than actually administering single systems, and how
this may be a good thing.* how confusing CALDAV and iCal are, and how
calendaring is a complicated art.* using XBMC as a front-end for
MythTV.* FreeNAS, ZFS, Btrfs and other storage systems.* A new "ICT
Professionals In Schools" project, similar to "Scientists In Schools",
that wants to get people working with computing (at all levels) to
work with teachers and classes.* NBN connections and the many ways
they could be done right.
At that point I went with Joel to get pizza and so missed further
discussion.  I've probably also forgotten some people in the haze of
topics we covered.  If other people who were at the meeting want to
fill in here, be my guest!
As a result, next month (February) we'll be discussing setting up and
running MythTV, how to use XBMC as a front end, and managing storage.
 In March, we'll be discussing the many ways to do backups :-)
Have fun,
Paul