Re: [PLUG] Needed - What PLUG talks you'd like to see...and speakers for

Re: [PLUG] Needed - What PLUG talks you'd like to see...and speakers for those talks

On Mon, Jan 28, 2013 at 10:41 PM, Paul L. Snyder <plsnyder@drexel.edu> wrote:

As Eric, Fred and Rich have said...PLUG needs to know what topics
you want to hear about!

While I'm in the final throes of my Ph.D., my available time for
chasing potential speakers and nailing them down is limited.
I can ask for volunteers, and if someone gives a date that they
want to talk, I'll add them to the calendar (or Walt or someone else
will). But...speakers need to feel like someone wants to hear them
speak! There's clearly a lot of interest in the Raspberry Pi, for
example.

Should we put together a series of beginner talks? Are any of the
topics in Fred's list of interest? Anyone want to volunteer for
any of those topics? Or a different one?

Be bold...even if reaction on the list is quiet, nearly any relevant
topic is likely to turn out an interested audience.

At the moment, the calendar is wide open after the March Central
meeting.

Paul

On Thu, 24 Jan 2013, Fred Stluka wrote:

> PLUG,
>
> On 1/24/13 9:37 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> >We actually have had a bunch of suggestions...
> >What I haven't heard much of is _expression_ of interest...
> >... I'd like feedback on what people WANT to HEAR talks on.
> >
> I agree.
>
> I've seen lots of offers to give talks in recent months,
> especially along the lines of novice talks, MythTV talks, and
> and short lightning talks. I haven't seen much interest being
> expressed in the talks, and no one seems to step up and pick
> one to make it actually happen. We seem to be coasting
> along with good intentions, but few results.
>
> I suggest everyone start submitting their suggestions for
> talks they'd like to see, which will inspire more speakers to
> volunteer. Personally, I could give a talk every month and
> never run out of interesting stuff to present, but I don't
> bother because people don't seem interested. I've even
> posted outlines of entire talks and seen zero response.
>
> Personally, I'd like to hear about:
> - Advanced Linux command line tricks
> - Linux hardware gadgets (Raspberry Pi, Arduino, CuBox, etc.)
> - Screen/session sharing tools (join.me, WebEx, GotoMeeting,
> etc. -- GNU screen was a great talk)
> - Sys admin tools (Puppet, Chef, yum, apt, etc.)
> - Monitoring tools (Nagios, etc.)
> - VCS (Version control) tools (Git, Mercurial, SVN, etc.) and
> VCS sites (GitHub, BitBucket, SourceForge, etc.)
> - E-mail in a sea of spam (how to write effective e-mails,
> how to filter spam, how to avoid being filtered, etc.)
> - Android
> - Managing a virtual data center (Lee Marzke)
> - Virtualization/hypervisors (Xen, VMWare, VirtualBox, etc.)
> - Emulators (Wine, CrossOver, etc.)
> - Mixed Windows/Linux/Mac environments (Samba, etc.)
> - Linux/Android tablets
>
> I could easily talk about:
> - Some of the above topics
> - Cloud Computing
> - Security tools (logwatch, fail2ban, tripwire)
> - Automated backups via rsync
> - Advanced piping and redirection
> - Advanced aliases
>
> If someone wants to take the trouble to comb through the PLUG
> archives, there are a ton of recently offered talks, many of which
> were +1'd, but the talks never actually happened. Might be
> interesting to just search for all archived messages containing
> "+1" and "talk". Or just read all of the messages with a day or
> two of 18 Nov 2012 19:41:56.
>
> Also, if anyone's interested, feel free to look through my Tips
> pages:
> http://bristle.com/Tips/Unix.htm
> http://bristle.com/Tips/Internet.htm
> http://bristle.com/Tips/CloudComputing.htm
> http://bristle.com
> There's a lot of material there that I could speak about at a
> moment's notice. Or get ideas from my links page:
> http://bristle.com/~fred
> where many of the rows might be good topics.
>
> --Fred
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Fred Stluka -- mailto:fred@bristle.com -- http://bristle.com/~fred/
> Bristle Software, Inc -- http://bristle.com -- Glad to be of service!
> Open Source: Without walls and fences, we need no Windows or Gates.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 1/24/13 9:37 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
> >On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 9:04 AM, Eric H. Johnson
> ><ejohnson@camalytics.com> wrote:
> >>Alrighty...since no one stepped up to volunteer
> >I have to echo some of what Eric said. We actually have had a bunch
> >of suggestions for topics that could be presented (though not too many
> >presenters - I doubt everybody wants to have Eric and I alternate
> >every other meeting).
> >
> >What I haven't heard much of is _expression_ of interest in actually
> >hearing about these topics. I'm sure many of us could prepare talks,
> >but if nobody actually wants to listen to them there isn't much of a
> >point in doing so.
> >
> >I'd like feedback on what people WANT to HEAR talks on. Otherwise I
> >fear we'll just end up doing general discussion at our meetings,
> >assuming we even hold them. That's the main thing holding me back
> >from perparing any topics - that and the fact that I think I'm still
> >the last to present at North (and that was last summer I think). I
> >don't mind presenting more than once a year, but the group would
> >benefit from more variety.
> >
> >We could just have general discussion (perhaps shortening the meeting
> >when this is the case and retiring earlier to dine/etc). I think the
> >question is what we all want to get out of the meetings. I don't mind
> >general discussion, but it seems like many turn out for the talks as
> >the general discussion turnout has not been terrific. If you're in it
> >for the talks, then please act in self-interest and let us know what
> >talks you'd like to hear...
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