BarcampCHS 2014

Another BarampCHS is in the bag. I haven’t seen any numbers yet, but attendance seemed lower this year, and there weren’t quite as many sessions. The ones that were presented were pretty good though.

Once again, I was wearing my Star Trek bathrobe 🙂

I pitched my amateur radio session again, and it got put on the schedule in the first time slot. Had a pretty decent turnout of people who didn’t have their licenses yet and were actually interested in getting one. I recycled my amateur radio talk from a couple of Barcamps ago and answered a bunch of questions. Tom/AJ4UQ stopped in towards the end and helped out a bit with the questions too. Then throughout the day, I had a few people stopping me to ask about how and where they could get licensed.

Joe/@joel8x got a picture of me giving my presentation

Joe did another great job wrangling Barcampers for the group photo just before lunch.

Having my talk in the first session of the morning meant I could spend the rest of the day attending sessions, and I was able to make it to some pretty good ones. Clay McCauley gave a nice talk on basic automotive maintenance. There was a short informative talk on the Shellshock vulnerability, and the last one I went to was a packed room talk on genetic programming by Ted Tanner.

Once again, another good BarcampCHS year where I learned a few new things.

Celebrating My US Citizenship with a Meetup

On September 30, I will become a naturalized US Citizen. Connie and I will be celebrating the occasion over at Fiery Ron’s Home Team BBQ in West Ashley. You’re welcome to stop by at your leisure to join us for drinks and some of their yummy BBQ. We’ll be there from 7:30 PM to 9ish. Stop by and hang out with us a bit!

Citizenship Meetup.jpg

Southeast Linuxfest 2014 soon!

Just a little over a week to go before the 6th annual Southeast Linuxfest kicks off. The final schedule is now out and I’m looking forward to catching a few of them as I roam around being the photographer.

New this year is the Craft Beer Bottle Share (not an official part of SELF though). Bring a bunch of your favourite craft beers along, share them with other craft beer afficionados, and try the brews other people bring.

Still time to register, and as usual SELF is free to attend.

Southeast Linuxfest 2014 registration now open

After much anticipation, registration for Southeast Linuxfest 2014 is now open!

As usual, SELF is free to attend (registration recommended). There’s also the supporting attendee package for $65 which gets you lunch, a shirt, drink tickets for the parties and the undying gratitude of the organizers.

There will also be ARRL VEs administering the amateur radio license tests (I’ll be one of them) so if you’ve been thinking about getting or upgrading your license, now’s your chance. You still have a month to study!

This year’s schedule includes Puppet training, an information security track put on by BSides Charlotte, BSDA and LPI certification exams in addition to the regular SELF tracks.

Book your hotel soon, because the $99/night SELF rate expires May 29.

Get ready for Southeast Linuxfest 2014

Southeast Linuxfest is coming up in a few months. This time around there’s a new website, new location and new date!

This year will be the sixth installment of SELF, and I’m pleased to have been part of it from the very first one. SELF2014 is happening June 20-22 this year, a couple of weeks later than previous SELFs have been. The Sheraton Charlotte Airport will be the location for SELF 2014, and rooms are already available for booking. The SELF2014 rate is $99/night and also includes internet access.

The call for talks is currently open. Deadline for submitting talk proposals is March 31.

Some particular areas we’re really looking for talks this year include desktop linux, gimp, inkscape, ruby, python, perl, java, security, drupal, wordpress, and bash. That being said, please don’t be discouraged from submitting a talk outside of those things listed. We will continue to look for, welcome, encourage, and accept talks pertaining to enterprise, BSD, and all things FOSS.

SELF 2014 is also looking for sponsors. If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor, check out the sponsor prospectus.

For all the latest updates, stay tuned to the website, hang out with us on irc.freenode.net/#southeastlinuxfest and/or follow @selinuxfest on Twitter.

Should be another exciting Linuxfest! Can’t wait!