August 2008

Geek Austin GeekAustin to offer free SQL classes

Submitted by Lynn Bender on Thu, 08/14/2008 - 12:00am

Daniel and I have been planning this for a while, and are finally ready to launch. Beginning in September, GeekAustin will be hosting a series of free classes on various core skill sets for beginning tech pros. The classes will be held downtown, and will be free. The classes will vary in length, and will cover topics such as SQL, Java certification, and basic object-oriented design.

The first class will be on basic SQL, and will be team-taught by Daniel and myself. This is the same evening class that we taught at Data Junction and Pervasive. The SQL class will begin early in September, and will tentatively consist of one session a week, each Wednesday night, for eight weeks. All materials needed for the class, including sample database, will be supplied. So that attendees will not have to waste time on things they already know, we have a pre-class evaluation test to determine the right session at which to enter.

For more information, or to request a place in the class, send a note to linearb@gmail.com

GeekAustin hosts Rebirth of openSIMS: Tuesday, August 19

Submitted by Lynn Bender on Mon, 08/11/2008 - 12:00am

This is a presentation and party co-hosted by GeekAustin and OWASP-Austin. In the front room at Union Park, we'll have the usual drinks and shenanigans. In the boom boom room, Mando and whurley will have a presentation and discussion on openSIMS. Although openSIMS has a lot of complicated things going on under the hood, Mando and whurley have a knack for expressing it in layman's terms. The recruiters probably won't understand it, but they'll be up front buying drinks for anyone who says they know Java.

openSIMS

If you have any friends/colleagues who do high-level security work, and tell you the tales, you've probably heard statistics to the effect that banks and similar institutions are cyber-attacked millions of times each week. You may also have heard that thousands of those attacks are successful. With the growth of hacking and phishing from bored teenager to organized crime groups, this is the reality.

An institution can have teams of the best IT security, firewall, intrusion detection, and forensics experts. They can employ a range of tools: snort, nessus, nmap, nagios, as well as costly enterprise tools. However, when attacked by an army of bots, it frequently isn't enough. Some attacks succeed.

openSIMS provides a way to integrate Nmap, Snort, Nagios, and Nessus into a common event correlation framework. More importantly, it provides a way for enterprises to selectively share network threat data realtime. Most importantly, openSIMS is an open-source project that is free to install and implement.

OWASP-Austin

The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a worldwide free and open community focused on improving the security of application software. Our mission is to make application security "visible," so that people and organizations can make informed decisions about application security risks. Everyone is free to participate in OWASP and all of our materials are available under a free and open software license. The Austin group meets monthly for a lunch talk. http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Austin

If you are interested in hearing about the state of network security (what the folks who hold your online information don't tell you), and the emergence of the "Community Centric Security" model, I think you will find this an interesting discussion.

Then again, you can also just hang out up front and toss down drinks. Either way, I hope you can make it.

Rebirth of openSIMS - party and presentation
Tuesday, August 19th, 6PM-10PM
presentation at 7PM in the BoomBoom Room
Union Park, 612 W Sixth St.
RSVP (not necessary) at Facebook or Upcoming.

Getting back to GeekAustin roots

Submitted by Lynn Bender on Sun, 08/10/2008 - 12:00am

I launched GeekAustin, as an independent website, shortly after closing Desert Books in 1999. My intent was provide a place to keep in touch with all the programmers/admins/techies/hackers/crackers/wireheads who I had gotten to know over the 10 years that I ran bookstores along the drag. The original GeekAustin site ran on Slashcode, and was more or less an Austin version of Slashdot. Half a dozen people were involved in setting up and contributing to the original site. _fool and The Mighty Robbo helped configure the original server and schooled me on system administration. Orion helped configure Slash, set up the mail server, and contributed many of the original stories. Following the first dot.bust, many of the original crew left the velvet rut of Austin for higher pay and better opportunities. By 2003, I was more or less the sole contributor. In early 2008, because of security vulnerabilities in the ancient version of Slashcode I was running, I converted the site to WordPress. Most of the older stories are offline, but are archived.

Because the original purpose of GeekAustin was to stay in touch with the tech community around Europa/Desert Books, parties were always a big deal. Any significant event in the tech world was sufficient reason for a GeekAustin party: whether it was the release 1.0 of Mozilla, the one billionth second of Unix, or Donald Knuth's birthday. We hosted a somewhat infamous Adult Webmasters' Party at SXSW (Does anyone have pictures?), and before Brad sold it to SixApart, we hosted an annual SXSW Live Journal party each year, where Brad would fly out to be the guest of honor. We also had the pleasure of co-sponsoring Symbiot's Linux Top Gun events -- which gathered the largest group of network hackers ever seen in Austin.

My fondness for throwing tech parties actually pre-date GeekAustin by about a decade. It can pretty much be traced back to Bruce Sterling's first visit to Europa Books in 1990. Soon after his visit, Bruce began telling his friends about the store, and over the next few years, Bruce introduced me to mad scientist Paco Nathan, Steven Levy, Bill Gibson, Mark Frauenfelder, the staff at Wired... and the list goes on. Whenever one of these folks came to town, we'd have a booksigning/party/whatever at the store. We hosted events for Boing Boing (when it was a print magazine) and the EFF, among others. It wasn't until this week, while on my morning walk, that it occurred to me what a huge effect Bruce had upon the direction of the store, as well as my migration into the tech sphere.

The early GeekAustin parties were attended by a pretty hardcore tech crowd. There was a nice mix of brilliant and crazy folks along with the expected zealots, misfits, and CTOs. I did have to ban numerous males who didn't know how to act around women. I also had to ban the recruiters whose vocabulary consisted only of "Do you know Java?". But if you knew how to navigate the crowd, you could always count on fascinating conversations.

I'm making a conscious effort to move the GeekAustin website, and the event themes, back into a more tech heavy direction. Call me selfish, but I would rather have a discussion about grid/cloud computing with someone who understands parallel algorithms, than have a conversation about the Semantic Web with a group of advertising/PR people who have no concept of the difference between relational and hierarchical data models.

The next GeekAustin event is a return to roots.

On Tuesday, August 19th, GeekAustin be hosting, along with OWASP-Austin, a presentation on openSIMS -- a radical new way to deal with network security threats. Presenting will be Mando Escamilla and whurley of the openSIMS project. Although some extremely complicated things go on under the hood, Mando and whurley have a knack for explaining it at the street-level. The event will be held at Union Park. Presentation in the boom boom room, and drinks in the main room. Details will be on GeekAustin Monday. For Facebook users, the facebook page is here.

It is good to be excited.

-Linear

Microsoft seeks Austin-based User Experience Evangelist

Submitted by Lynn Bender on Wed, 08/06/2008 - 12:00am

I don't normally do job posts on GeekAustin anymore. However, I make exceptions. Chris Bernard, (blog) (geekaustin interview), one of the sharpest guys I know (even though he only contacts me when he wants something), just sent me this job rec:

I know, it sounds like a joke right? But think about it, who needs it more than Microsoft? Think how boring this gig would be at a place like Apple, it would be like being the Maytag repairmen. At Microsoft you’ll be challenged everyday and get a chance to play a role in events like our global PhizzPop Design Challenge, SxSW and support local groups that support the design community in the US, like Refresh and the IxDA.

You’ll meet some of the best Web shops, design agencies, designers, user interaction designers, experience architects and technologists in world all from the comfy headquarters of Austin, TX. You'll have to do some traveling for this job but mostly in the US and in the Midwest with the occasional cool trip overseas.

If you're passionate about UX, tinkering, building, and teaching folks about rich technology formats such as AJAX and Flash and have an interest in things like Silverlight and want to work at a place where you can have tremendous influence around design, the standards-based Web and simply making cool stuff this is a GREAT opportunity for those that are passionate about design and technology.

In addition to Austin we've got opportunities in LA, DC and NYC too. We’re moving fast so give me a shout at chris.bernard@microsoft.com if you are interested and you can check out www.designthinkingdigest.com to learn more about my own experiences in this role.

I have the pleasure of knowing and working with several of the regional UX folks at Microsoft. This is an exceptional gig for an exceptional person. Chris told me that they will be acting fast on the position. So if you think you are what they are looking for, take a look at the job post and send a note to Chris (chris.bernard@microsoft.com) today.