Some updated list stats, etc.:
A fair increase (7.5% increase in total uniques) since I last checked
(see references),
list subscribers (does include also those with delivery disabled):
$ wc -l */memb*`date -I`
28 balug-admin/membership_2007-12-28
336 balug-announce/membership_2007-12-28
261 balug-talk/membership_2007-12-28
$ sort -u */membership_*`date -I` | wc -l
518
e-mail addresses that are subscribed to "talk", but *NOT* subscribed
to "announce".
$ { sort -u balug-talk/membership_`date -I`
> cat balug-announce/membership_`date -I` \
> balug-announce/membership_`date -I`; } | sort | uniq -u | wc -l
177
That will soon get "corrected" ... policy has been changed, and for those
that don't ask to be excepted, if they're on "talk" (or "admin") but not on
"announce", they'll get added to "announce" unless they follow
the procedure to get added to the exception list (this has been mentioned
now on the "talk" and "admin" lists ... I'll wait a few days or so for
folks to ask to be "excepted" - and then add those that don't ask to
be excepted to the "announce" list - I plan to do this *early* next year -
before we do our next send to the "announce" list).
I also restricted access of the list roster to the list admins - to prevent
potential abuse (e.g. by spammers). Those that have access to the balug
group on new.balug.org can also read periodically archived copies of the
list roster and backup copy of the archives (
file://new.balug.org/home/balug/e-mail_lists/
)
references:
http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-admin-balug.org/2007-October/000419.…http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-talk-balug.org/2007-December/004105.…http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-admin-balug.org/2007-December/000470…
Hi BALUG volunteers:
Chrisitan Einfeldt is curious to know whether or not he can film BALUG's
January meeting. I see no problem with this, but I do know that SVLUG had
a bit of an uproar when some of their sessions were recorded by Google and
posted on Youtube w/o a free licenses.
I would want to ensure that the BALUG community had access to the film.
For me, posting to Youtube (or preferably another higher quality site)
would be good enough, but having witnessed the SVLUG spat, it might be
better to request the film be licensed under the creative commons or
something like that.
If we don't hear back from anyone on this issue, the default is going to
be to let Christian film so long as he makes it accessible to BALUG in
some way.
-Andrew
----------------------------------------
Andrew Fife
Untangle - Open Source Security Gateway
download.untangle.com
650.425.3327 (O)
415.806.6028 (C)
afife(a)untangle.com
_____
From: Christian Einfeldt [mailto:einfeldt@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2007 7:19 PM
To: RSVP(a)balug.org
Subject: RSVPing for January BALUG dinner
hi,
please put me on the list!
Also, would it be okay if I film there? I am not sure that I will, in
fact film, simply because the lighting at that restaurant is too dark.
But it would be nice to know if I could film there. Maybe just shoot a
few people having dinner with Eric and the other BALUGers.
Thanks either way.
--
Christian Einfeldt,
Producer, The Digital Tipping Point
Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that we've already gotten 18 RSVPs
for the BALUG meeting in January. I expect a few more RSVPs to trickle in
over the next couple of days from the mailings that I did on 12/24. As a
marketing guy, I'm a bit embarrassed that I picked such a bad day to blast
the mailings, but life got in the way of it happening any earlier.
Additional promotions include...
1)Forums (already posted to gentoo, ubuntu & linuxquestions.org... more on
the way)
2)ESR blog mention? ...a long shot, but there is no harm in asking
3)2nd Email blast in January (planning to be a bit smarter about timing
and targeting Tuesday, January 8th)
4)Flyers to be put up at SF city college (by Andrey) and Stanford (by me)
None of the RSVPs are from BALUG regulars, so I'm optimistic that we are
going to draw a big enough crowd (40+) for the Four Seas Restaurant to let
us eat buffet style upstairs. Personally, I think 50 is a realistic
number and I'm hoping for closer to 100.
I'll contact the Four Seas over the next couple of days and request that
they let us sit upstairs and eat buffet style.
----------------------------------------
Andrew Fife
Untangle - Open Source Security Gateway
download.untangle.com
650.425.3327 (O)
415.806.6028 (C)
afife(a)untangle.com
Balug Volunteers:
I just received an RSVP for Balug's December meeting. I replied directly
back to the person explaining that there was not December meeting but
encouraging them to attend our January meeting an letting them know about
a couple other LUGs that are meeting this month.
I think that we should mention on our talk & announce lists that there is
no meeting this month. Any objections? If not, I'll do this in the next
day or two.
-Andrew
----------------------------------------
Andrew Fife
Untangle - Open Source Security Gateway
download.untangle.com
650.425.3327 (O)
415.806.6028 (C)
afife(a)untangle.com
Dear All:
Based on a couple of email conversations that I had with Rick Moen last
week (both on the balug_admin list and privately), I'd like to touch base
with the rest of the group regarding the use of other LUG's mailing lists
for BALUG announcements. As such I'm not going to do a reminder email
blast of other LUG's lists for tomorrows event.
The basic concern is some people on specific LUG lists don't like other
LUGs posting their events. The rational is "If I wanted BALUG
announcements, I'd subscribe to the BALUG announce list." I have
personally only heard this complaint from Rick, and my gut tells me that
his in the minority, but I don't want to be naive to the fact that others
may share his sentiment so advice/opinions here would definitely be
appreciated.
The problem is that other LUGs mailing lists are a great way for BALUG to
get the word out and abandoning them will make it quit difficult to let
folks know about all of the great speakers we have lined up for 2008.
My proposed solution, that I believe Rick supports, is to contact the
organizations individually and ask them how to handle their lists.
Thoughts?
-Andrew
----------------------------------------
Andrew Fife
Untangle - Open Source Security Gateway
download.untangle.com
650.425.3327 (O)
415.806.6028 (C)
afife(a)untangle.com
Hi, could someone who has the template create a poster for the month
of January 2008.
That way I can print it out and present to the computer lab at CCSF,
and see where I can post it with the example on hand.
Thanks
--
deathowl(a)gmail.com - http://kandrey89.dyndns.dk
Live Long and Prosper,
by Andrey Kuznetsov aka "Death Owl"
Still a work in progress, but ... check it out:
http://www.balug.org/http://www1.balug.org/http://www2.balug.org/
So, what's going on?
http://www.balug.org/ is legacy site (hosted by DreamHost.com)
http://www1.balug.org/* is (new.balug.org.) on the sf-lug.com. box
http://www2.balug.org/** is virtual host I installed Sunday (on
resources provided by Untangle.com)
Excepting some legacy materials, contents from
http://www.new.balug.org/
automagically*** propagate to the two other sites.
The longer term goal (hopefully not too horribly far off) is to
complete successful extraction of legacy content we care about from the
DreamHost.com site (along with smooth migration of mail lists), and to
have (at least) two hosts provide the BALUG services (for failover
and/or relatively high availability). Anyway, we're a few steps closer
to that now, with our third (and second non-DreamHost.com) host
(virtual host in this case).
Note that the DNS names shown here may be subject to change (e.g.
www.balug.org should persist, most other names may be subject to change).
* I haven't adjusted its redirect rules since I added www1.balug.org,
so it takes that host name it doesn't recognize, and redirects to its
default canonical name for that webserver on that IP
** still lots more configuration to do there ... it just serves up the
pages loaded there with a nearly default configuration.
*** via some rsync scripts and use of ssh with ssh keys; in general,
changes should propagate within approximately 15 minutes or less
Thanks for the updated flyer.
It's now available on-line at:
http://www.balug.org/flyers/2007-11-20.pdf
PDF is "fine" (or at least okay) format, ... and relatively defacto
standard for presentation format (generally quite consistent rendering).
For some odd reason though, GIMP (at least version I was dealing with) wasn't
handling it okay ... but xpdf (also open source) would render/display it
just fine. And as "attachment" is fine too.
Quoting Andrew Fife <afife(a)untangle.com>:
> I think PDF is pretty common way of sharing documents across various
> platforms, but if attaching the flyer causes confusion, I'm cool with
> leaving it off.
>
> The new(er) version of the November flyer is attached. My version of the
> text is a mix of several people's, but I've included copies in both .pdf &
> MS Publisher so that folks can make changes if they wish. MS Publisher
> licenses aren't that common and I don't know of an open source equivalent,
> but if anyone else does, please let me know and I'll convert &
> redistribute the file.
My comments/replies in-line, some of the referenced stuff very slightly
edited (e.g. some personal information removed)
And I'm putting this one on the list (so, use due care if one hits Reply-all,
as the list is publicly archived) - see also one of my comments towards
the end of this e-mail (one is also not obligated to reply on list).
Andrew - I'm also Bccing you - you ought to be subscribed to the "admin"
list, but it appears you're not subscribed.
Quoting Andrew Fife:
> Hi Xavier & Michael:
>
> Just a quick note to check in regarding website issues and ask whether or
> not you guys have been able to figure out getting Xavier root access to
> the dreamhost box so that he can help work on the website.
Well, you might want to check with the technical folks / sysadmins on some
of this stuff first ...
None of us have nor will we have root access on DreamHost.com ...
period. Only DreamHost admins have that access. It's a hosted service.
There's a lot of stuff we *can't* do there, and *don't* have access to
change - or in some cases even view/inspect (e.g. http.conf) there.
Nevertheless there's still a fair amount we can do there to get by
at least semi-reasonably until we're set to completely move off of
DreamHost.com.
Work is significantly progressing - though it may not be
highly visible at the casual glance. I alluded to at least some of this
in some e-mail(s) I sent approximately last weekend or so. For those that
might have bothered to peek (e.g. any and/or all of BALUG's webmasters
(Andrew - you're on the alias to keep you informed of that stuff too,
but you don't have the access to the stuff (and probably best that way,
as we can much better use your skills and time in other areas)), things
*are* changing. E.g. the webmasters now have much more freedom
to change stuff on:
http://[www.]new.balug.org/http://[www.]beta.balug.org/
I've also added subdomain test.balug.org, and there's also
http://[www.]php.test.balug.org/ (for our PHP volunteer(s) to muck around
with trying some PHP fixes and such there (the PHP environment is also
definitely not yet fully configured/available)).
Though it might not be readily apparent, if one peeks a bit closely and/or
looks at the configurations, they have separate DocumentRoot, so their
pages can be mucked about with relatively independently. I did also set up
earlier mechanism to automagicly update main page on
http://[www.]balug.org/
from
http://[www.]new.balug.org/
... that's still in place, but I have in mind mechanism to expand that, so
that "all" (with some very limited and clear exceptions) changes/updates
including changes on pages and also adding/droping pages on
http://[www.]new.balug.org/
would get relatively quickly (e.g. within 15 minutes or less)
have their same changes made to
http://[www.]balug.org/
It's still a work in progress, but it's not too horribly far away from
having those capabilities (fairly likely I'll get that wrapped up this coming
weekend). For those webmaster(s) that haven't peeked and/or played with it,
poke around on the new.balug.org. host - you can change *most* stuff
in
http://[www.]new.balug.org/
and
http://[www.]beta.balug.org/
... do note however that if something is changed on the main page of
http://[www.]new.balug.org/ it *will* cause that change to get propagated
to
http://[www.]balug.org/
I may also setup
http://[www.]test.balug.org/
as an additional area (e.g. for doing non-production (and non-beta)
tests (http://[www.]new.balug.org/ should be treated like production,
as it does (presently a bit) and will (quite a bit more not too horribly
far into the future from now) automagicly (at least by default)
propagate most all its changes to the production
http://[www.]balug.org/
web site.
Anyway, I'll provide a bit more details on that stuff once it's slightly
more settled (it's still a work in progress - much of that work
having gotten done between last weekend and this week).
> Also, I recently bought the following urls:
>
> Bayarealinuxusersgroup.com/.net/.org
> Bayarealinuxusergroup.com/.net/.org
Uhm, ... I presume you mean domains, ... but in any case, ...
well, we might be able to do *something* with those, ... but perhaps not
nearly as useful to us as you might have guessed/presumed. You might
want to ask "us" (technical / sysadmin) folks a bit more about that
first ... but that's a slightly moot point now. We could point those to
the new.balug.org. host, or the to be hosted by Untangle virtual host
or wherever ... could point them at one of the already separate areas
on the new.balug.org host, or create yet additional separate
NameVirtualHost setups on that host as may be desired. I think we
should create as many separate areas as makes sense for their respective
separate functions/uses ... but probably not more than that, otherwise
we have inactive unnecessary gunk hanging out there.
> Maybe we should forget about <registrant> and just setup a redirect to one
> of these URLs. That way the legacy web server issues won't get in the way
> of effectively switching hosts and at least getting up cosmetically
> prettier interim site up.
A) Catch-22 - redirect won't remove dependency, can't do an HTTP
redirect without httpd.conf access - and we don't and won't have
that on DreamHost.com, and meta redirect wouldn't work very well and
has all the preceding problems and more. We can't move balug.org.
off of DreamHost.com without a bit of assistance from <registrant>
(I need to do a bit more follow-up on that again ... not critical to
us *yet*, but will be at some point in our future).
B) As noted in some earlier e-mails, I think we've got a good game plan
for being able to do a much better site, while still allowing us to
recover the legacy stuff and migrate critical legacy stuff (e.g. lists)
without inducing undue pain for over 400 BALUG list subscribers.
> What do you guys think?
A) Have some patience, we're getting there, but not overnight. I'd
guestimate by late this year / early next year we'd be set to fully
migrate off of DreamHost ... but that's an approximate guestimate.
I'd think a fair bit sooner than that (e.g. mid to late this month,
perhaps significantly sooner) we'll be well poised to be able to make
lots of changes to our web pages - and rather easily (add/drop
changes pages, with any of the webmasters being able to do so). I
also anticipate we'll soon have much better access "completed" for
webmasters to be able to pretty darn freely muck about with most any
relevant content that they should be able to change.
B) Xavier - have a poke around
http://[www.]beta.balug.org/
You should be able to go relatively hog wild changing things on there
as the whim may strike you (I had in mind to plop copy of the pages
you did there as one reference starting point ... but haven't gotten
around to it yet, ... I think I've an older copy sitting around
somewhere, but not sure if that matches whatever current version you
may have on your ftp site). Also keep in mind (we'll probably want
to "discuss" this) I've also got some ideas on how to do the web
pages ... I really like much of what Xavier's done (and stuff Mae
Ling Mak has also drafted), but I've got some ideas too, ... I think
by combining a number of features of both we can probably get what's
likely a "best of both worlds" - or at least nearly so. If you have
a peek at the relevant configuration files (world readable) and
sudo -l, you should get a pretty darn good idea of what you can do
and where (feel free to ask me/us if anything isn't particularly
obvious - between BALUG trying to keep things sufficiently separate
from SF-LUG to avoid accidental interference, and multiple
NameVirtualHost setups, and some redirects, there may be a few
layers to look through to get familiar with how things are
configured and where the various pieces are).
C) Andrew - those bayarealinuxusers?group\.{com,net,org}\. domains you
acquired - we should have a discussion about what you may wish to do
with them, and what's technically feasible ... then figure out from
there what we may care to do with them.
D) Those domains you bought - as long as they're already bought and paid
for, we probably ought to at least point them to something useful, ...
in the meantime they basically look like a highly unimpressive parked
site page (mostly a bunch of advertising). ... they're using DNS
wildcard records too, ... so, ... we've got an exceedingly large number
of (sub)domains that all lead to quite unexciting web pages.
E) I also think, where feasible, we should do more of these
communications on applicable publicly archived lists (dropping
specific bits as/where appropriate, etc.). I think, where feasible,
having the conversations in "public" has several general advantages:
* others can catch up more quickly (point them at the archive)
* it's often easier to find/reference earlier items (search out /
provide URL)
* it's more visible:
* more folks see it, others might suggest useful stuff that we
might not have considered or may have forgotten or overlooked,
etc.
* other folks can lean from what we do/attempt (what works, what
doesn't, what is/isn't feasible (and why), etc.
* and (e.g. for the "admin" list) folks can generally be more
informed of some of the bits and pieces that are going on "inside"
BALUG (e.g. this may be one of the more public items I've done in
quite a while that gives folks a better "feel"/understanding of
where we are (and aren't, and have yet to go) on doing many of the
balug.org changes we wish to do.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat,
and wrong."
- Henry Louis Mencken
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."
- Albert Einstein