February 2010 - Announce-RedBrick - lists.redbrick.dcu.ie

Pints || Admin training || Botwars || Techweek || Upcoming events
by Emma G 28 Feb '10

28 Feb '10

Hey Everyone, Hope all those who were in Limerick over the weekend had a good time. So here's what's happening this week. == Pints == We haven't had a good drinking session in a while so we felt we deserve one. So tomorrow in the NuBar at 7pm, be there :) Will be a fun night. == Admin training == Have an interest in computing? Want to manage your own server? Looking to improve your chances at a technical job interview? Then come along to our admin training session on Tuesday, 2nd March, at 6.30pm. Meet in clubs and societies office (upstairs in the Hub). We'll bring you from the level of a novice Linux user to a system administrator with a set of tutorials and workshops on server setup, system management, services, network security, web hosting and more. This year we can offer a far more hands-on approach than last year by giving participants virtual machines to experiment and learn on, break, fix and break again. We’ll be mostly covering administering servers running the Linux operating system, but we’ll also have introductory sessions on OpenBSD and maybe FreeBSD or Solaris, depending on interest. We’ll be showing how to host services such as e-mail, IRC (chat), Apache (web services), DNS and LDAP, and how some of these systems are used in the real world by Redbrick, DCU and other small, medium and large organisations. So again. Tuesday. 6.30pm. meet in the Clubs and Societies office (upstairs in the Hub). == Botwars == There's still 3 places left. Again it's in Galway and we'll be going on the 12th of March. It'll cost about €10 which covers your accommodation for two nights, your entry fee to the competition and 60% of your Bus Eireann ticket. Email committee(a)redbrick.dcu.ie if you want to go. Here's what will be happening: 1. Design Build Code Challenge In this contest competitors must design, build and program a Lego NXT Robot to solve a set problem in less than 8 hours on location in NUIG on Saturday, the 13th of March. The tools used are the Lego NXT Kit(supplied) and the Microsoft Robotics Studio (you will need a laptop with it preinstalled and with bluetooth). A starter kit will be supplied on the day so do not worry if you are not fluent in C# and the MS Robotics Studio. Full details check out: http://www.compsoc.nuigalway.ie/wiki/botwars_designbuildcodechallenge 2.Botwars : In this contest competitors are asked to expand a starter kit with weapons and armour to create the ultimate Battle Bot. Rules: http://www.compsoc.nuigalway.ie/wiki/_media/nuig_bot_wars_rules.pdf Other events that will be held over the two days include a LAN, Metal Gear Solid drama production, games room and movie room. So basically an awesome weekend for next to nothing, you'd be crazy not to come. DO IT!! EMAIL TODAY :D == Techweek == Next week is techweek and we have loads of stuff planned for all of you. >From talks to Qzar. There will be a link is the next announce where you can sign up. So it will be an awesome week. == Upcoming events == March 8th - 13th Techweek (Week 5) yeay :) Tuesday March 30th Annual Redbrick Tablequiz (Week 8) That's all for this week. I haven't given a random video link in a while. Here for your viewing pleasure is my favourite link at the mo. Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5wDq_DRtXg Till next week, Emma :) -- Redbrick - Secretary 2009/2010 If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, why practice? Save the Earth. It's the only planet with Chocolate :)

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Announce Correction
by Lotta Mikkonen 22 Feb '10

22 Feb '10

Hi everyone, A correction to what was said in the announce. The part about jobs at Google is incorrect. It should say "We have been given the details of someone at Google who is offering to help people and give advice on how to apply for jobs. If you would like her details email us and we will forward them on to you." Apologies for any confusion. Lotta

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First Irish Collegiate Programming Competition - IrlCPC
by Lotta Mikkonen 21 Feb '10

21 Feb '10

We thought this may be of interest to our members. Would you like to put together a team? -----Original Message----- From: Dr Sabin Tabirca [mailto:tabirca@cs.ucc.ie] Sent: 12 February 2010 16:15 To: David.Abrahamson(a)scss.tcd.ie; Mike.Scott(a)computing.dcu.ie; gerard.lyons(a)nuigalway.ie; joe.carthy(a)ucd.ie; annette.mcelligott(a)ul.ie; adamw(a)cs.nuim.ie; eecs-hos(a)qub.ac.uk Subject: First Irish Collegiate Programming Competition - IrlCPC Importance: High Dear Head of School/Department, We will be very grateful to you if you can forward this email to your school/dept's students. This is a call for participation to the first Irish Collegiate Programming Competition for teams of students. I hope you can encourage some good students from your undergraduate degrees to participate into. Best Regards, Sabin, Barry and Anne ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dear Student, This email is to invite student teams from the Irish Universities and Institutes of Technologies to participate to the first Irish Collegiate Programming Contest. There is no limit for the number of teams from the same institution. The competition requires the students to have knowledge of algorithms, good programming skills and abilities for problem solving. Irish Collegiate Programming Contest (IrlCPC) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The UCC ACM Student Chapter and the Department of Computer Science, University College Cork are hosting the 1st annual Irish Collegiate Programming Contest (IrlCPC) on the 17th of April 2010. Rules ~~~~~ The IrlCPC competition is based on teams of 3 students and a coach, all from the same third level institutions. The students must all be registered on undergraduate degrees, while the coach can be either a full time researcher or member of academic staff. The team will have only one computer to solve a set of 10 problems within 4 hours. The difficulty of the problems will vary from simple (course work level) to challenging (ACM competition level). No internet connection is allowed to the teams. The teams may use any programming language they like, however Java and C/C++ are favoured. Each problem will be tested against several data input tests and will receive up to 100 points. The team that scores the highest number of points will win the IrlCPC competition. Registration ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Online team registration must take place before Friday 19th of March 2010. Online registration will open shortly available at http://acm.ucc.ie/irlcpc/registration. The registration requires to each team to provide the names of the 3 students and the name of the coach. A registration fee of 50 euro is also required for each team which is payable during the competition day. Competition Day Program (17/04/10) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The most likely program for the competition day will be as follows: 09.30 - 10.00 Registration and welcoming of the participants 10.00 - 14.00 Competition and internal meetings for coaches 14.00 - 15.00 Break 15.00 - 16.00 Problem Solving Discussions 16.00 - 17.00 Final Conclusions Important Links + Emails ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The IrlCPC contest page http://acm.ucc.ie/irlcpc/ The IrlCPC registration page http://acm.ucc.ie/irlcpc/registration University College Cork page http://www.ucc.ie Computer Science Dept @ UCC page http://www.cs.ucc.ie Organiser Emails: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anne Magner, Chair of UCC ACM Student Chapter, annemagner(a)acm.org Dr Barry O'Sullivan, Computer Science Dept, b.osullivan(a)cs.ucc.ie Dr Sabin Tabirca, Computer Science Dept, tabirca(a)cs.ucc.ie _________________________________________________ Dr Sabin Tabirca, Senior Lecturer National University of Ireland, Cork Dept of Computer Science, Western Gateway Building College Road, Cork, Ireland +353 21 420 5915 http://www.cs.ucc.ie/~stabirca _________________________________________________

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Ragweek|| Botwars || Links from Talk || Events Officer || Hoodies || Spaces for Limerick trip || Jobs in Google || Events coming up
by Emma G 21 Feb '10

21 Feb '10

Hey Everyone, What's happening this week: ==Ragweek== Dare day: will be happening this Tuesday, 23rd February, at 4pm. For those who don't know what's involved in dare day: . Basically it's teams of 2 or more. . Teams are given a list of tasks to complete, these will range from swapping clothes with a member of the opposite sex to doing a good deed, and for every task completed teams need photo evidence as proof. . First team back with the shorest time, all tasks done and photos shown wins. . Awesome prizes to be won :) Note: Cameras won't be supplied so best to bring your own. Even use your phone's camera, if it has one. Adopt-a-brick: All this week you can adopt your very own brick. We came across a very sad looking bunch of bricks that need loving homes. For only €1 will you "Adopt-a-brick"? Guaranteed cuteness :) and all money is going to Ragweek. Look out for us around campus selling them :) Tech Advice: Computer problems? Need help with something Techy? We'll be giving Tech advice all this week. Make a donation and see what we can do :) ==Botwars== The ultimate finale to Techweek. Redbrick and Gamessoc will be heading to Galway on Friday the 12th of March to compete in Botwars, NUIG's robotics competition. 1. Design Build Code Challenge In this contest competitors must design, build and program a Lego NXT Robot to solve a set problem in less than 8 hours on location in NUIG on Saturday, the 13th of March. The tools used are the Lego NXT Kit(supplied) and the Microsoft Robotics Studio (you will need a laptop with it preinstalled and with bluetooth). A starter kit will be supplied on the day so do not worry if you are not fluent in C# and the MS Robotics Studio. Full details check out: http://www.compsoc.nuigalway.ie/wiki/botwars_designbuildcodechallenge 2.Botwars : In this contest competitors are asked to expand a starter kit with weapons and armour to create the ultimate Battle Bot. Rules: http://www.compsoc.nuigalway.ie/wiki/_media/nuig_bot_wars_rules.pdf Other events that will be held over the two days include a LAN, Metal Gear Solid drama production, games room and movie room. The cost? About €10. Your accommodation for two nights, your entry fee to the competition and 60% of your Bus Eireann ticket will be covered. If you would like to compete please email committee(a)redbrick.dcu.ie as soon as possible. This is an all ages event. == Links to slides and vids from the talk == Links to Tobi's slides and vids from last weeks talk can be found at: http://redbrick.dcu.ie/~muelli/stuff/26C3-publicviewing.pdf The Links to the talks can be found by browsing http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/events.en.html. We watched : http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/events/3596.en.html http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/Fahrplan/events/3567.en.html" ==Events Officer== We would like to congratulate Stephanie Coleman (steph) who is now our new events officer. == Hoodies == Just a quick note: Hoodies have been ordered and should arrive in the next 2 weeks. == Spaces left for Limerick trip == Two spaces have opened up for the Limerick trip due to drop outs. Again it'll be on Friday the 26th of February and we'll be coming back on Sunday the 28th. So anyone who wants to go email: committee(a)redbrick.dcu.ie == Jobs in Google == Anyone looking for a job or tips on how to get a job in Google. Email us at: committee(a)redbrick.dcu.ie and we'll forward on your details to our people at Google and see what they can do. == Events coming up soon == Feb. 26th - 28th Limerick Intersocs trip to see Matt Zimmerman/Ubuntu and opensource talks Admin Training starts (Week 4) March 8th - 13th Techweek (Week 5) Tuesday March 30th Annual Redbrick Tablequiz (Week 8) That's it for this week. Enjoy Ragweek and be generous :) Till next week, Emma :) -- Redbrick - Secretary 2009/2010 If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, why practice? Save the Earth. It's the only planet with Chocolate :).

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Web Server Maintenance, Saturday 20th Feb 21:00
by Andrew Martin 17 Feb '10

17 Feb '10

Hey, Apologies again for the second announce mail this week. We'd just like to make members aware that the Redbrick web server will be undergoing maintenance from 9PM on Saturday evening. Websites will remain mostly available during that time (we have a backup web server that will be running for the duration of it) but users will not be able to log in to murphy. When murphy comes back online, it will be running Linux (instead of Solaris 10). This will allow us to better meet the needs of users in terms of software they might require to build web applications, among other things. Any users who are crazy enough to have compiled CGI programs will need to rebuild them for Linux afterwards :) Thanks, -Andrew

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26C3 Viewing || Limerick Trip || Hoodies || Google || Botwars - Galway Trip
by Emma G 14 Feb '10

14 Feb '10

Heya, Here's Redbrick's news for this week! Oh and reminder only 3 weeks to go to tech week :) ==26C3 Viewing== The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual event that takes place in Berlin right after Christmas. It is held by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) in Germany. This years iteration (26C3) made headlines by having GSM cracked or LegicPrime security subverted. Talks of the conference were recorded and the best ones will be shown at DCU! :-) Tobi will also introduce you to German hacker culture and answer your questions about the CCC. The Public Viewing will take place on Wednesday, 2009-02-17 in LG26 (School of Computing) from 4.30pm, followed by traditional post talk drinks. ==Limerick Trip== We will be going to Limerick on Friday the 26th of February and will be coming back on Sunday the 28th. We will be attending a talk by Matt Zimmerman, the technical leader of the Ubunti project on the Saturday. Skynet (Limerick's networking society) will then be bringing us out so we can experience University of Limerick's nightlife. To sign up for this event follow this link and click on the sign up link at the bottom of the page : https://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/events/signup/?eventid=11 == Hoodies == If you'd like to order one then bring €25 and remember to tell us what size you'd like and if you'd like your username on the arm. The final date for placing your order is this Thursday as we will be placing the orders on Friday. Times we will have a table set up in the Hub to place orders : Monday : 1 - 2pm Tuesday : 12 - 1pm Wednesday : 1 - 2pm Thursday : 1 - 2pm We will also be taking orders at our talk on Wednesday and you can grab a random committee member and place your order at any time as well. == Google == Redbrick met with Google last week and were given some useful links to Google projects that may be of interest to our members. Google's Code University has tutorials on topics such as C++, Java, Python, Ajax and algorithms. http://code.google.com/edu/ Summer of Code is a programme where students are paid to work on open source projects. The 2010 programme has been launched and you can apply through the following link http://socghop.appspot.com/ == Botwars - Galway Trip == This was rescheduled to the weekend of Techweek ( Week 5 - March 12th - 14th). We're still working out the final details but if you're provisionally interested you can email committee(a)redbrick.dcu.ie and we'll keep you posted on updates. All all for this week till next time, Emma :) -- Redbrick - Secretary 2009/2010 If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, why practice? Save the Earth. It's the only planet with Chocolate :)

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Week 1 || Hoodies || Admins || Engineers Week || Future Events
by Emma G 07 Feb '10

07 Feb '10

Hey everyone, Welcome back to college. Here's some of the things we've lined up for you this week. == Week 1 Talk and Welcome Back Drinks == This Thursday , 11th February, at 7pm in QG22 we will be holding our first talk of the semester. The title for this talk is "Real World Low level optimisation" and it will be presented by Colm McCarthaigh (colmmacc). This talk will cover optimisation and performance hacks that are rooted in low-level details of how systems work, but are also applicable and usable in high level programming languages such as Java and Python. Caching, pipelining and probing strategies, performance-oriented data-structure design and statistical profiling. But don't worry, each topic will be covered in plain language and explained from the ground up, and hopefully we'll have some fun along the way. After the talk we will be heading out to the NuBar for some "Welcome back" drinks and food :) == Hoodies == Hoodies will cost €25 each. They are black with the logo embroidered on the chest, large logo embroidered on the back and you have the option to get your username embroidered on the arm. We will start taking payment for these this week. You can pay with Paypal (remember to say what size hoodie you would like and what you would like on the sleeve) or you can give your order details and payment to a committee member at designated times. The first such time will be at the first talk of the semester so if you'd like to order one then bring €25 and remember to tell us what size you'd like and if you'd like your username on the arm. We will organise a table in the Hub and will have someone there for a few hours during Week 2 as well. == Admin notice: Clear out your /fast-storage == To all members who have space under /fast-storage (if you don't, or you don't know what that means, you can ignore this section) - We'll be shortly removing the /fast-storage space from carbon as the main storage array is now faster. We recommend that if you have anything that you'd like to keep there, you move it back to your home directory as soon as possible. We're removing the space as we'd like to wipe and put a newer OS on carbon to support its role as a user development server. We will of course double check to make sure nobody has anything stored there before we go and wipe it, but it'd make things go more smoothly if members clear out their space in advance. If anyone needs assistance with any of this, please email admins(a)redbrick.dcu.ie and we'll try to help. == Engineers Week == TOG's Engineers Week is this week. For those of you that don't know "TOG is a hackerspace based in the centre of Dublin. It is a shared space where members have a place to be creative and work on their projects in an environment that is both inspiring and supportive of both new and old technologies." For more information on TOG or to see the details of events coming up check out www.tog.ie == Upcoming Events == . Videos from the 26th Chaos Communication Congress (26C3) - Wednesday week 2 (details tbc) . Intersocs trip to Limerick (karting, drinking, socialising) . Botwars (http://www.compsoc.nuigalway.ie/wiki/botwars) - Rescheduled to March 12-14th. . Techweek - Week 5 That's all for this week. Till next week :) -- Emma :) Redbrick - Secretary 2009/2010 If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, why practice? Save the Earth. It's the only planet with Chocolate :)

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Redbrick downtime this evening (Friday 5th)
by Andrew Martin 05 Feb '10

05 Feb '10

Hi all, Apologies for the extra announcement this week. As mentioned in the last announce mail, we're planning to take Redbrick offline for a period over the weekend to migrate storage to a new, fast disk array. We're planning this for this evening (Friday the 5th of February), starting from 6PM. The work is expected to take a few hours, but if all goes as planned then services should be back online sometime over Friday night, with everything online again by Saturday morning. All services will be affected. We'll keep you up to date via twitter (@RedbrickDCU) and via a temporary homepage that will appear at http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/ for the duration of the outage. Thanks, -Andrew

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