I attended Robert Bolton's presentation on amateur (aka ham) radio. I was excited about this one for two reasons. First, radio is radio and I hope that in learning amateur radio I'll better understand the digital radios I use at work. Second, I've had a desire to be a ham ever since I was exposed to it as a wee little Boy Scout. I'll be taking my test in the next couple weeks, if everything goes according to plan (doesn't it always?). The one thing that came out of this presentation and excited me more than anything was that Asterisk has a radio interface (app_rpt) which you can use to create a phone patch system. I realize it's not exceptionally useful, but it does sound like a great project.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• modulation analog: AM, SSB, FM. digital: PSK, FSK, ASK, QAM. spread spectrum: DSSS, FHSS
• ke7zea
• packet radio built into linux kernel
• very slow speeds
• gordon west book on radio theory
• gpredict - satellite tracker
• aprs - gps-based location reporting
• software radio - gnu radio, universal software radio peripheral
• asterisk app_rpt
• ddwrt - can use more power w/ amateur license. call sign as ssid. no encryption.
• echolink - windows based software
• irlp - internet repeater link project

Git has become my favorite version control of late, so I was very excited about this presentation. With that, I attended Tim Harper's presentation on Advanced Git. We got started 30 minutes late, he had some technical issues with his content, and we ended up with only 15 minutes of class time. That was a real disappointment. I did learn about gitk, a repository visualizer. I think I have a somewhat better idea on how to browse around my branches.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• rebase
• clean commits
• bisect
• always review before you commit
• git add -p - yes/no before it adds
• gitk - repository visualizer. gitk --all
• tig - console visualizer
• git log branch1...branch2 - show changes that are same in both branches
• git reflog
• lose your head

Last presentation for the day was from Gabe Gunderson. We were all a little concerned that Gabe would show up. Turned out due to a miscommunication he thought the presentation started half an hour later. Oh, well. Life goes on.

Gabe gave us an introduction to Twisted which is an event driven networking framework. Sounds like a nice way to abstract away the details of a network application. I was particularly interested in this since I'm using Zenoss, which is Python based. So far I can't see quite how this will fit into anything I'm doing.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• event driven network framework for python
• MIT license
• protocols and transports separated
• network and gui share event paradigm
• event driven means debugging is a pain
• events means you have to save context
• "deferreds" are returned by functions that run asynchronously
• common classes: reactor, protocol
• protocol.Protocol - wire protocol (pop3, etc or write your own)
• protocol.ClientFactory - creates instances of class for each connections
• perspective broker

First session of the day was about VMLB IP Load Balancer, presented by Clint Tinsley of Inductys. It's a formerly proprietary application whose development stopped in 2006. They're now looking to relaunch development and build it as Open Source. Overall sounds like an interesting project which could turn into something if the project works out. At this point it's not something I could actually use, unfortunately. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• project dormant since 2006
• persistent connections to real server
• designed for 2 interfaces
• supports 4 interfaces
• no vlan support
• no snat support
• mgmg ip separate from lb ip
• layer 7 content type awareness
• redundant controllers
• support for ssl processor cards
• http/https/ftp/imap/pop/ldap/smtp
• roundrobin/weighted/least conn/src dst hash/expected delay/never queue
• service checks
• redhat/centos 3.0
• uses ultra monkey - stopped dev in 2005 - or not?
• snort built-in
• built-in help system
• und.cgi - management web app
• ssl proxy for back-end http
• real-time monitoring is missing
• code release next week
• source going in github (ossvmlb)
• release on sourceforge
• custom health checks? does basic alive (ping?). adding new ones might be hard.

As confirmed by Intel, the Blu-ray HDCP master key was leaked the other day. Anybody who is surprised has seriously deluded themselves. The whole concept of DRM is flawed, namely that you'll give people access to watch a video (or whatever) but not give them access to copy it. If you believe that, I'd like to sell you some water that's guaranteed not to get you wet.

One particular thing in the PCMag story stood out to me:

The code to unlock DVDs protected by the Content Scrambling System have been known for years, and are protected by the DVD-CCA, which has sued companies like RealNetworks and Kaleidescape that have attempted to market solutions that rip or store DVD content on a hard drive.

Take note that both RealNetworks and Kaleidescape were DVD-CCA members who paid their license fees and tried to follow the rules. Both were smacked down. This is not about preventing copyright infringement, as evidenced by a visit to any bittorrent site. It's all about preventing anybody from rocking the nice little boat they've got for themselves. It's the medieval guild system re-invented. Nuts to that.