meetings

Main Topic: Python and Turbo-Gears

TurboGears is a rapid web development megaframework toolkit for complete front-to-back web development.

We have 2 presenters:

First, Mark Ramm will do a brief (15-20 min) introduction to Python programming. His intro will cover the why python question, as well as the basic syntax of Python (so we’ll have a running start!). [[http://compoundthinking.com/blog][Mark’s Blog]].

Then, Kevin Dangoor, the creator of the Turbo-Gears framework will educate us with a brief tutorial on Turbo-Gears. I think his plan is to walk through the creation of a real-live wiki with auto-cammel-case linking, and some AJAX goodness. [[http://www.blueskyonmars.com/][Kevin’s Blog]].

TurboGears [[http://turbogears.com/download/nix.html][Easy Installation]] on Linux, Mac OS X and other *nix-Like Systems or visit the [[http://www.turbogears.org][TurboGears]] website to get the fragments of the web development megaframework consisting of,
[[http://www.cherrypy.org][CherryPy]],
[[http://kid.lesscode.org][Kid]],
[[http://www.sqlobject.org][SQLObject]] and
[[http://www.mochikit.com][MochiKit]]

—+++ Secondary Topic: An open discussion about security

We will have an open discussion, and create a wiki on the mug web site, about security. Possible wiki topics, I don’t know, intrusion prevention and detection system tools, rootkit scanner(s), vulnerability scanner, virus scanners, good, better, bestest passwords.

Main Topic: Stocking Stuffers

This month we’ve got several smaller topics to cover. There’s sure to be something of interest for you.

KDE 3.5
Aaron Thul will be on hand to show us the cool new features of KDE-3.5.

OSDL Desktop Architecture Meeting
Mug president Jim !McQuillan attended the first day of the OSDL Desktop Architecture meeting that took place in Portland, Oregon on December 1st and 2nd. He’ll give a glimps of what went on, and what the desired outcome of that meeting is.

Discussion about Podcasting the meetings
Mug member Duane Brown has some awesome information about Podcasting, and how we can use it to make our meetings available to more people.

Novell’s iFolder
Mug member Jorge Castro is just itching to show off iFolder. This is great stuff, so don’t miss it.

Main Topic: Intellectual Property and how it relates to us

We’ve all heard of IP issues. Whether it’s music sharing, patents, TIVO/MythTV, Open Source projects, etc. like it or not, this affects us all. We have 2 speakers who will address some of these issues.

Assistant Professor of Law Vanessa B. Pierce is from the Ave Maria School of Law. A quick glance at her bio on the school’s web site revealed that Professor Pierce began her law career as an associate in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she focused on patent and trademark prosecution. She later was an associate with another firm in Salt Lake City, where she concentrated her practice in the areas of patent litigation, trademark oppositions, and domain name disputes. Her course offerings include Intellectual Property, Trademark Law, Patent Law, and Copyright Law.

To co-host the lecture Vanessa has invited Dan Kelly, a patent attorney at Young & Basile, P.C. based in Ann Arbor.
Dan’s bio revealed his areas of practice include Patent, Trademark, and Copyright Prosecution and Licensing. He is also professionally involved with the Michigan Intellectual Property Law Association. As an interesting side note Dan was a continuation engineer at Seagate Technology,

If you have ideas for topics for Vanessa or Dan please email the discuss list and we will forward them.

—+++ Secondary Topic: The second topic has not yet been decided, but, there probably won’t be time.

If we have time and there is interest

Want to know how to make a unencrypted remote camera sniffer for war driving? Get the video. Duane has downloaded Audio/Video casts from [[http://revision3.com/systm][systm]] if your interested in a brief presentation on the how, what, where (anywhere), when (anytime) and why (I’m a geek).

Main Topic: Asterisk and VOIP in the Real World

You can’t pick up a tech magazine these days without reading something about VOIP and IP Telephony. In fact, even the latest Linux Journal magazine has an article about building a call center using Asterisk, Kphone and LTSP. It turns out that all the pieces you need to play with VOIP at home, or at your office are freely available. Not only that, those pieces are incredibly robust.

We’ll have several people at the meeting who are regularly using Asterisk and other VOIP products, and they’ll show all kinds of tricks, and be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Michael George, the author of the article in the latest Linux Journal magazine about setting up a call center will be with us at the meeting.

Secondary Topic: There probably won’t be time for a secondary topic this month :(

Main Topic: Ruby on Rails
Ruby is an object-oriented programming language developed for the purpose of making programming both enjoyable and fast. While it is a relative newcomer when compared with Perl and Python, it comes with several advantages in the clarity of the syntax, the completeness of it’s object oriented functionality, an now in it’s easy to use web development framework. Ruby has become a language that can be used in a broad range of fields: from text processing, GUI development, build automation, and CGI scripts to professional, large-scale programs.

This month, MUG member Mark Ramm will be giving us an introduction to Ruby and the web application development framework “Rails”, known collectively as _”Ruby on Rails”_. Rails has recently become one of the hottest web development technologies around, promising up to a 10x increase in developer productivity. We’ll talk a bit about all the hype surrounding rails, and how well it lives up to that hype in practice and in comparison to other popular web development frameworks.

The bulk of our time will be spent looking at how the Rails framework works. We’ll also spend a few min. developing a sample application.

Slides and Links

• Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby
• Linux Journal Article
• Ruby-on-rails Sample apps, tutorials, howtos and full API docs
• Mark’s Blog – Is Ruby on Rails the “Silver Bullet” of web development?

Secondary Topic: New MUG Web server
In August, while several of us were at Linux World, in San Francisco, the MUG web server was compromised. We’re pretty sure it was a vulnerability in the !PostNUKE content management system. It was several versions out of date, and the system was running a fairly old version of Redhat. So, when we got back into town, we took the machine down, and took advantage of the opportunity to upgrade the hardware, and load a newer version of Linux on the box.

At this months meeting, we’ll spend some time going over the new system, what hardware we installed, what software we loaded, and what more we can do, to make the new server useful for every member. This will be a chance for everyone to participate in the process, and we’ll have a better, more useful MUG server as a result.

To Be Announced

Topic:

Blogging – what’s all the fuss

SUDO – How to use it effectively

Deploying !OpenLDAP and Kerberos

Network Monitoring tools