Home About Mailing Lists Meetings Newsletter FTP Locate File

MUUG Monthly Meetings for 2020-21

Please note our current meeting location: In light of the current concerns over COVID-19 and the risk of infection, and current directives from the University of Winnipeg, MUUG meetings will take place online (typically using Jitsi) until further notice. Meeting link will be provided on the home page, prior to meeting start time.

September 8, 2020: AWS Quickstart

For the new user, the multitude of AWS services and configurations can be daunting. Wyatt Zacharias showed how to start an AWS account from scratch, including how to properly set up your user credentials, and how to get a VM up and running for the first time.

RTFM: fd(1) - a simple, fast, user-friendly alternative to find(1)

Most Linux users are all too familiar with the find command and its frustrating syntax. This month, Brad Vokey showed us an alternative to the find command, called fd.

Some of the features of fd: convenient syntax: fd PATTERN instead of find -iname '*PATTERN*', colourized terminal output, it's fast!, uses smart case by default, ignores hidden directories and files by default, ignores patterns from your .gitignore by default, uses proper PCRE, and the command name is 50% shorter than find. :-)

October 13, 2020: OpenBSD Traffic Shaping and Firewall Setup

Alberto Abrao showed how to set up an OpenBSD box as a router, with a basic firewall, DHCP server etc., and as a bridging firewall, where it behaves like a transparent barrier. Alberto touched on subjects such as the reasons for doing so, the motivation for the choices made, the hardware needed, OS installation and basic configuration. Then, he gave an overview of both scenarios aforementioned, and how to accomplish them.

November 10, 2020: mkbgpmap

Adam Thompson presented on the mkbgpmap utility. This tool creates a map showing the BGP relationships between Manitoba ASNs. Adam was the original author of this tool, and released it into the public domain in 2019. You can find mkbgpmap at https://github.com/mbnog/mkbgpmap.

December 8, 2020: RTFM: cal(1), Extended Round-Table and Show-and-Tell

We have a tradition of making the December meeting more of an informal, social gathering. This year, because we were meeting online, we've had to let go of some of the traditional aspects of this year-end meeting (like food), but we did try to keep some.

RTFM: cal(1) - A Histori-cal Look at Calendar Reform

As part of the September 2016 meeting, we looked at cal(1), and its ilk (ncal and gcal), mostly from a utilitarian point of view. This time, we looked at some of the historical development of this command, as well as some strange quirks of calendar reform. Why was the year 2000 a leap year, but 1900 wasn't? (At least for most of the world.) Why was 1700 a leap year in many Protestant countries, but not in Roman Catholic ones? What was going on in 1752 for England and her colonies? Gilbert Detillieux answered these questions, as he delve into the politics and religion involved in calendar reform.

More information about the Gregorian calendar reform can be found on Wikipedia, and timeanddate.com. Also, a couple YouTube videos that might be of interest are How Earth Moves, and Leap Years: we can do better.

January 12, 2021: Open Source Solutions for Remote Work

Alberto Abrao and Troy Denton gave an overview of free and/or open source solutions for modern remote work needs.

Topics included:

Troy's slides for his Jitsi presentation can be found here, and his Wireguard presentation slides can be found here. Alberto's Nextcloud presentation slides can be found here, and his installation script can be found here.

February 9, 2021: OBS Studio workflow

Wyatt Zacharias gave an overview of OBS Studio. Open Broadcaster Software is a free and open-source software suite that provides real-time capture, scene composition, encoding, recording and broadcasting!

Have you ever noticed that some live video looks professional? They have multiple camera angles, flashy titles (not to be confused with Adobe Flash), social media tickers and clear audio, while other streams are just painful to watch and look like it's done on a shaky old cell phone? One of the possible reasons for this is the effort put into polishing the video with a software suite like OBS Studio.

So whether you want to take your streaming video business presentations to the next level, enhance your gaming livestream on Twitch or similar platform, or you want to make your live webcam shows appear more professional - this presentation was for you!

Wyatt has made his presentation slides, in PPTX and PDF format, available online.

BIOS vs UEFI Boot

Adam Thompson did a short (RTFM-style) presentation on BIOS vs UEFI boot. In 15 minutes or less (OK, 20 minutes), Adam attempted to give us the good, the bad, and the ugly on UEFI.

Adam has made his presentation slides, in PPTX and PDF format, available online.

March 9, 2021: MeshCentral

Following up on our recent Open Source Solutions for Remote Work series, Alberto Abrao showed how to install and use MeshCentral, a simple and efficient open source solution for management and control of computers, phones and tablets. A web portal provides the tools for managing and controlling all paired devices. The server runs on Windows, Linux, or OpenBSD. These can be hosted on cloud platforms such as Azure and Amazon EC2, or a cheap VPS instance by virtue of its light footprint. It is also suitable for self-hosting, either Internet-facing or restricted to your Local Area Network (LAN). The Agent to be installed on client devices is compatible with Windows, Linux, *BSD, MacOS, and Android.

Alberto has made his installation scripts available online.

April 13, 2021: Calibre

Do you love to read, but your house is running out of space for books? Does your family poke fun at your messy ebook hoarding habits? Take back control of your library - this month, Chris Audet presented an overview of Calibre, the world's best ebook management program.

Calibre can automatically organize books by author, series, etc. You can read directly in Calibre, or convert your books to use a dedicated device like a Kindle. You can even share your library over the web for your friends and family.

The presentation provided a brief overview of Calibre's history and features, and why you might choose to use it to manage your collection.

Chris has made his presentation slides, in PDF format, available online. Chris has has also prepared an anonymous feedback form, which he encourages you to complete if you would like to provide feedback on his presentation.

May 11, 2021: Raspberry Pi Stratum 1 NTP Server

GPS uses extremely accurate atomic clocks to triangulate your position on the earth. Wyatt Zacharias demonstrated how to harness these signals using a Raspberry Pi and GPS receiver to provide extremely accurate Stratum 1 time via NTP to other devices on a network.

Wyatt has made his presentation slides, in ODP and PDF format, available online.

June 8, 2021: Introduction to PeerTube: A Free and Decentralized Video Hosting Platform

The internet continues to trend towards large, corporate owned websites and platforms. No one can deny that large platforms are amazing and convenient! But due to their sheer scale, social networks have difficulty with moderation and preventing abuse. Rules that work well for one set of users might be unacceptable to others, and automated moderation tools perform poorly outside of the culture and language they were developed in.

These concerns have encouraged a wave of federated, decentralized social networks, loosely labeled the "fediverse." Similar to how email servers work today, any admin can run an instance of a social network, which then associates with other servers to share content and hosting costs. PeerTube is the most popular federated video hosting platform in this space, with an active community and many instances.

This month, Chris Audet explored a possible future direction for video driven social networks. Chris discussed why you might want to host a PeerTube instance, the cool underlying tech, and the role of alternative social networks in a world dominated by giants.

Chris has made his presentation slides, in PDF format, available online.

July 2021: No meeting this month

August 2021: No meeting this month

Please note our current meeting location: In light of the current concerns over COVID-19 and the risk of infection, and current directives from the University of Winnipeg, MUUG meetings will take place online (typically using Jitsi) until further notice. Meeting link will be provided on the home page, prior to meeting start time.

Home About Mailing Lists Meetings Newsletter FTP Locate File