Quad Cities Linux Users Group
Meeting Minutes 4/9/14
Icons in Rock Island, IL

Introductions: Aaron (Pres), Dan (auto IT guru) / , Lee (Treasurer), Alex (VP), Tom (First Timer), Travis (PR – marketing@qclug.com), Chris (new to Linux), Brad (passing the time avoiding home alone time), Robert (he brought Linux to Deere – last been to a meeting a couple years ago), Ryan (secretary), Mike (web master), Brian (enthusiast), Kevin, Harmon (started with Linux on a floppy – stand up fella), Jim (claims to be oldest member of the group – does not lead exciting life but excited to be back for the first time since October).

Have a job / Need a job: Looking for a VM ware administrator as a contract job with Deere (CECinfo.com). May be new administrator job coming up through Deere as well – we will be updated as it becomes available.

Old Business: We have a laptop signup sheet for those interested in taking the QCLUG laptop to exand their knowledge base, play with, break, and fix (if possible). You get the laptop for a month and at the end we highly encourage an invigorating presentation when you return it, but this is not a deal breaker. Anyone interested is free to sign up.

Tom has twenty laptops in his closet that he is willing to let the group use. This brings us to our next topic of old business – We would like to facilitate a hardware swap of sorts and/or a build fest that invites the public to bring in their windows PCs that they aren't happy with and they leave with a Linux PC that they are happy with. We may be able to reach out to schools, libraries, churches, or other groups that are interested in working with computers. Deere has a hand-me-down program where they donate computers to the schools. DRMO is not able to give us the computers, we will have to bid on them. Tom can bring in laptops, Travis can bring in switches. We can make it kind of like a lab.

We may consider fundraisers, drawings, etc.

VOTE: Majority vote that we will host a build fest / hardware swap. There are at least 5 members willing to organize and participate in this event. 

We need to start promoting to colleges, high schools, flyers, business cards, etc. According to Tom, Blackhawk College will likley let us use computer labs. Augustana has a group that may be interested in this. We will post in newspapers, online, and anywhere else to continue to build a group and credibility. We can reach out to techs at big box stores. We will discuss this in more detail at the board meeting. 

Altruhost.com will be our VPS (just like a VM). Root password is xxxxxxxxx. This an open VZ VPS. We have already paid for the year – we will try this out and see how it goes. If need be we will move it elsewhere later. 

This is a Debian 7.4

We thought about a wordpress with Wiki plugin – turns out these suck – real bad. Aaron indicates we will try out dokuwiki – Mike has some experience with it. Perk – there is no database which minimizes our vulnerability to spam. Alex (VP) volunteered to man the mailman portion if needed. 

New Business:
In case you didn't know – preferences lets you “zoom”. 
Aaron walked us through (with screen capture softwre and a USB lapel mic) getting the VPS set up with Apache, getting dokuwiki set up, and how enhanced gnu tars work. There was some discussion of the evolution of computers and software – brief, but very intriguing. 

Aaron uses Chromium – it is the open source version of Chrome – he gets to keep his street cred – he's lucky – losing street cred is dangerously disappointing. 

We had a discussion about licensing with regards to the Wiki – we decided to use the default. As far as anonymous usage data being shared with dokuwiki, we VOTED to share that information (some people didn't vote – you know voting is pretty important - if you don't vote you really don't have a right to complain about anything... ever).

Aaron also walked us through how to get WordPress up and running approriately - fairly simple if you follow along. Fun fact - it automatically supports mobile devices as well if the theme you chose is so equipped. We may get things set up so people can have individual access as well. We may be able to set it up with Google authentication, Facebook authentication, or otherwise. 

Things to note - make sure you are typing things correctly - especially if you are going to copy and paste those things multiple times. (Apache vs Apache2, so on so forth...). That's not to criticize the presenter - merely noted for the rest of us (I'm a self proclaimed novice with this - any pointers are appreciated).

**We are locked out of QCLUG Facebook because Travis doesn't remember the birthdate of QCLUG. Robert seems to think we drink too much, but that is a matter of opinion. This writer tends to disagree. We tossed around the idea of hacking into the QCLUG facebook account. Travis again brought up wearing a penguin suit to promote the group, and to encourage to break into the facebook account.**

Teachable Moments:
Do install SSL 1.01 revision G or later.
You may be better off not encrypting your information.
Don't create an LP print server that will last 10 years.
When using a screen capture service, make sure that you are capturing the right screen. This month we have recorded the wrong screen, however the audio is fine. The 45 minute video is about 129MB.

Upcoming Events of interest: Annual Linux Kernel Summit Chicago, IL August 18 - 20, 2014. Cloud Open North America Chicago, IL August 20 - 22, 2014. LinuxCon Chicago August 20 - 22, 2014.

Next meeting: A group of people meet up to eat dinner before the meetings – next month we will meet at Old Chicago for the pre-meeting dinner if you are interested. It helps to kill time before the meeting – you can partake in libations, eat delicious food, and enjoy pleasant company. The next Board Meeting (open to all) is next Wednesday, April 16 at  5:30PM Icons in Rock Island, IL. The next group meeting will be Wednesday, May 14 at 6:30 PM at the Bettendorf Library.