BALUG: TOMORROW: 2016-09-20: letsencrypt.org/SSL/TLS dicussion; 2016-10-18: Fred Moyer - Better service monitoring through histograms; & other BALUG News

[Michael Paoli]

BALUG: TOMORROW: 2016-09-20: letsencrypt.org/SSL/TLS dicussion;  
2016-10-18: Fred Moyer - Better service monitoring through histograms;  
& other BALUG News

------------------------------

items, details further below:
BALUG meeting TOMORROW Tu 2016-09-20: letsencrypt.org/SSL/TLS dicussion
BALUG meeting Tu 2016-10-18: Fred Moyer - Better service monitoring
   through histograms
giveaways (Books & other titles, CDs/DVDs, ...)
Upcoming BALUG list changes?!
help BALUG! :-) - volunteering, venue, ...
Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/BALUG_org

------------------------------

For our 2016-09-20 BALUG meeting:

Discussion Topic:
We do have some suggested discussion topics for this meeting:

o letsencrypt.org[1] and SSL/TLS[2] certificates
"Of course" that doesn't mean we're limited to the above, but expect
we'll probably be at least touching upon those. Feel free also to bring
your own topics/suggestions to meeting, and/or suggest for upcoming
meetings.

So, come meet with us and enjoy interesting Linux, etc. discussion.
Bring questions, answers, interesting stuff to share, learn stuff, hear
and share cool interesting stories and meet cool and interesting people!

1. https://letsencrypt.org/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security

                         rsvp at balug.org

**Why RSVP??**

Well, don't worry we won't turn you away, but the RSVPs really help
BALUG and our venue plan for the meeting and accommodations, so please
let us know.

    6:30pm Tuesday, September 20th, 2016 2016-09-20
    Henry's Hunan Restaurant
    110 Natoma St. (between 2nd & New Montgomery)
    San Francisco, CA 94105-3704
    1-415-546-4999
    http://www.henryshunanrestaurant.com/
    Easy Transit/Parking Access: short walk from BART, MUNI, parking
       Trip planning:  http://www.511.org/

Delicious Hunan cuisine and reasonably priced.

Meeting Details...

Cost/Dining:
     The meetings are always free, but dinner is not (unless you are our
     guest speaker, in which case we also treat you to dinner).  For
     Henry's Hunan Restaurant, if folks are agreeable, we'll share and
     dine "family" style, and split up the costs, and typical cost per
     person including tax and tip (but not including beverages beyond
     complementary tea) would be in the $13.00 to $17.50 range, and
     commonly around $15.00 to $16.50.  Cash may be preferred to ease
     splitting up the check.  One can also specifically order the
     dish(es) one needs/prefers (e.g. for dietary considerations) - and
     we also commonly order some dish(es) that may meet various dietary
     considerations) (e.g. vegetarian, non-pork, ...).  Please arrive by
     7:00 P.M., we expect to order entrees at that time, and may order
     appetizer(s) and/or soup(s) anytime after 6:30 P.M.

------------------------------

For our 2016-10-18 BALUG meeting:

Fred Moyer - Better service monitoring through histograms

Fred Moyer will introduce us to statistical based service monitoring.
If you've used something like Nagios[1], Graphite[2], or Zabbix[3] to
monitor your systems, you're probably familiar with threshold based
alerting. Specifically, that it often results in you waking up in the
middle of the night for false positives. This talk will show you how to
implement quantile based service monitoring with histograms, so that
you can understand how your service is actually doing, rather than just
guessing based on metric averages.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagios
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphite_(software)
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabbix

------------------------------

We typically have various giveaway items at BALUG meetings.  We'll
likely have at least the below plus additional items.

Books and other titles!
have a look/read here:
https://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:books_and_publications

CDs/DVDs/ISOs, etc. - have a peek here:
http://www.wiki.balug.org/wiki/doku.php?id=balug:cds_and_images_etc
We may also be able to "burn" images per request or copy to USB flash,
etc.  Donations of blank or +-RW media, USB flash, or funding thereof,
also appreciated.  See the above URL for details (and the inventory
(qty.) of what we specifically have "burned" and available on-hand does
also frequently change).

------------------------------

Upcoming BALUG list changes?!

Yes, for the past many years, much of BALUG, including our lists, has
been and is still presently hosted on DreamHost.com.  We will be
changing that in the not-too-horribly-distant-future.  (primary
volunteer on this has been buried under some other stuff to attend to,
so taking a bit longer.) We'll update on status when that's about to
change and when it does change.  We'll provide more details as we
approach and go through that transition, and we'll make it as painless
as feasible.

------------------------------

help BALUG! :-) - volunteering, venue ...

You can do useful and cool stuff volunteering to help BALUG,
e.g. following up on many leads for possible venue, among many other
possibilities.

Quite a variety of opportunities to help BALUG.  Come talk to us at a
meeting and/or drop us a note at: balug-contact at balug.org
These opportunities may include, among other possibilities:
o venue arrangement (e.g. followup on potential leads
   on-site coordination/preparations), see also:
http://lists.balug.org/pipermail/balug-admin-balug.org/2014-July/001504.html
o chief/assistant cat herder
o assist on speaker coordination/procurement, etc.
o assist on publicity
o Linux Systems Administration (e.g. do/assist/learn, with/under some
     quite experienced and skilled Linux systems administrator(s)).
o webmaster, assistant webmaster, designer, graphic artist
o archivist/history/retrieval/etc.
o and other various/miscellaneous tasks BALUG would like to be doing
     (also feel free to suggest ideas!)

------------------------------

Twitter - you can also follow BALUG on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/BALUG_org

------------------------------

Feedback on our publicity/announcements (e.g. contacts or lists where we
should get our information out that we're not presently reaching, or
things we should do differently): publicity-feedback at balug.org

------------------------------