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Southeast Linuxfest 2018 wrapped up

Another great Southeast Linuxfest has come and gone. Had a great time seeing friends and learned about a few more things I want to learn more about.

This year, being the 10th Southeast Linuxfest, I thought it would be cool to show off all of the pictures I’ve taken from previous Southeast Linuxfests. Jeremy let me have a table which I set up just outside the registration area and I set the laptop to run a slide show of 8 years worth of photos (I missed SELF 2015).

SELF 2018 slide show
SELF 2018 slide show

Jeremy’s dog, Fred (a Cane Corso puppy), was one of the more popular attendees at SELF this year. If he was roaming the conference, you could be sure that Jeremy wasn’t very far away.

Fred
Fred
Fred
Fred

New this year was a feedback box in each of the rooms (powered by RPis). At the end of each session, attendees could give their feedback by pressing one of the three buttons on their way out the door.

Feedback box
Feedback box

Also new this year were food trucks for lunch. No more hotel boxed lunches! Hopefully next year there will be more food trucks to help spread the lines out some.

The Hog 'n Dog food truck
The Hog ‘n Dog food truck
Sprinkles Glam dessert truck
Sprinkles Glam dessert truck
Lunch line
Lunch line

Attendance seemed to be about the same as previous years, although there didn’t seem to be quite as many vendor tables this year. Notably absent were the FALE  people and their table of locks that people could learn to pick.

Back this year was the Fiber track, which proved to be pretty popular again.

Fiber track at SELF 2018
Fiber track at SELF 2018
Fiber track at SELF 2018
Fiber track at SELF 2018

Two of the more interesting talks I made it to were by Paul Jones on the Action-Domain-Responder pattern and Dave Stokes‘ talk on Common Table Expressions and Windowing Functions in MySQL. Enjoyed finding out about both of these, and look forward to learning more about them.

Another great time at SELF, and looking forward to next year’s event.

Check out my Google Photos album for all of my Southeast Linuxfest 2018 photos

 

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Podcast: Charleston Time Machine

If you’ve lived in Charleston for any length of time, it’s almost impossible not to develop at least a passing interest into the history of the area. Wandering around Charleston’s Downtown peninsula, you’ll see historic markers, plaques and buildings all over the place.  Driving around the Charleston area, historic markers are more plentiful than Starbucks.

If you want to scratch that itch, the Charleston County Public Library has a relatively new podcast that started in January 2017 called Charleston Time Machine.

The Charleston Time Machine is an imaginary time-travel device created by historian Dr. Nic Butler. It uses stories and facts from the rich, deep, colorful history of Charleston, South Carolina, as a means to educate, inspire, amuse, and even amaze the minds of our community. By exploring the stories of our shared past, we can better understand our present world and plan more effectively for the future.

Did you know in 1706, the French and Spanish invaded the relatively new town of Charleston to force the English colonial settlers out? You’ll learn all about it in the first episode: Invasion 1706!

You can see a list of all the topics covered by the podcast so far (68 episodes so far) here. The episodes are around 15-30 minutes long, so they’re nice bite-sized bits of history to listen to during the commute to work or when you’re taking a break.

Subscribe to the Charleston Time Machine using the podcast software of your choice, listen via the library’s website, or on Soundcloud.

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Resurrected power supply

A couple years ago, the power supply in my computer went belly up because the power switch had corroded and stopped being a switch.

Corroded power switch
Corroded power switch

No idea what caused it to become so badly corroded, but I finally got around to finding a new switch for it. The new switch fit perfectly into the opening, and getting it reconnected was a pretty simple job.

Now I’ve got a couple of power supplies to work with. Plenty of projects out on the web describing how to turn computer power supplies into useful bench power supplies, and I could definitely use a couple of those on the workbench.

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Covering the garage attic opening

With the space over the garage insulated, that just left the opening in the ceiling that gets you into the attic space uninsulated.

I happened to have a section of peg board about the right size, so I attached some drawer pulls I found at the local Habitat for Humanity store ($0.50 each) and glued a couple of the extra insulation batts to the board.

Attic entry cover
Attic entry cover

It lays nicely on top of the attic entry opening.

Attic opening cover
Attic opening cover

Moving it out of the way is a little bit cumbersome, but easy to do. Lift it up, turn 90 degrees and set it down on the rafters behind you.

Not sure how long it will last with repeated handling. At some point I might decide to replace the batts with some pieces of foam insulation. I think this will work well for now though.