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

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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Hoodies || Downtime || Bletchley || Techweek 2010
by Lotta Mikkonen 30 Jan '10

30 Jan '10

Hey, ==Hoodies== We are back on track with these! We've found another company to do these for us. The quote we received was €25 per hoodie, making them cheaper than the original price we had received from other companies. The hoodies are black with the logo on the chest, large logo on the back and the option to get your username embroidered on the arm. The logos are embroidered. We will start taking payment for these in week 1. 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. We will start taking orders at the first talk of the semester which will be "Real World Low level optimisation" presented by Colm McCarthaigh (colmmacc) on the 11th of February in QG22 (We'll send full details about this again in week 1's announce email). ===Notice of Planned Downtime=== We'll be unavailable next Tuesday from 6am till 8am (if anyone's crazy enough to be awake at that hour) due to ISS downtime. On the weekend of the 5/6/7th February the Redbrick Admin team will be moving all user files from their current location on Minerva to a new direct attached storage array that has been purchased with funds from the SPC (http://wiki.redbrick.dcu.ie/mw/Worf) Redbrick will be offline for a few hours during this period as we move over user files and other data. While the exact time depends on when Estates and Security agree to let us in to the hub, it will likely start on Friday evening or Saturday morning. Updates will be posted to a temporary homepage and the redbrick twitter feed (@RedbrickDCU). All services (including logins and web hosting) will be affected by the outage. Once the new array is in place, there should be a huge improvement in file I/O speed, so things like website access, reading your mail, and using your redbrick account for development, etc, should be far faster. Talks ==Bletchley== A quick reminder that we'll be meeting up outside Starbucks at 6am. Starbucks is located upstairs in the foodhall in the departure area. Remember to read the baggage restrictions I emailed to everyone. My contact details are also in the other email so make sure to read it carefully! ==Techweek== Techweek is planned for week 5 this year so pencil this into your diaries. This is our biggest event of the year. A week of techy talks and events. There is bound to be something of interest for everyone! We'll be keeping you up to date with all the latest news on this. Five weeks to go! See you all next week! Lotta Redbrick Chairperson 09/10

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Week 1 || Hoodies || Bletchley || Botwars || Engineers Week
by Lotta Mikkonen 13 Jan '10

13 Jan '10

Hello Brickies, Hope you've all enjoyed the holidays. We've a fair few announcements to make. This will be a busy spring! ==Week 1== Thursday 11th February at 7pm 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. We will be following this up with food and pints. (Venues TBC) ==Hoodies== Unfortunately due to issues with the hoodie companies we have had to postpone this hoodie order. We will be in touch as soon as we have something else sorted out. ==Bletchley Park Trip== This trip has now been booked. The dates for this trip are 1-3 of February. If you would like to fund your own travel and join us email attol(a)redbrick.dcu.ie for further information. ==NUIG CompSoc Botwars== Always wanted to try your hand at building your own fighting robot? Interested in robotics? http://www.compsoc.nuigalway.ie/wiki/botwars/ This massive robotics event will be held in NUIG on the 5th and the 6th of February in NUI Galway. Competitions that are scheduled : Design Build, Code Challenge -This one day challenge requires you to use all your skill to design, construct and program a robot in less than a day! Intervarsity Wars -Challenge robots from other universities for a chance to win the grand prize. If you are interested in participating please reply to this email asap. If there are enough people interested we can see if we can get funding for this. ==TOG Engineering Workshops== TOG (www.tog.ie for more info) will be hosting a series of events for Engineers Week (8 - 14 February). There are events on each night of the week on many different topics. All of the weekday events are free but require pre booking. The weekend Workshop’s require a fee for participation. The workshops will cover topics such as amateur radio, soldering and robotics. For a full list of events see the following link. Engineers Week @ TOG 8 - 14 February. http://www.tog.ie/2010/01/engineers-week/ As always, if you have any suggestions about what you'd like to see a talk or workshop on or if you'd like to comment in general, please don't hesitate to email us. Best of luck in the exams! Lotta Redbrick Chair 09/10

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Bletchley Park Trip || Intersocs Party || Techweek || Could you be our new Events organiser?
by Emma G 15 Dec '09

15 Dec '09

Hi, So last week in college before Christmas :) I know, I can't wait. == New to Committee == Congratulations to Craig Mac Entee, Credak. He is now a new addition to the Help Desk team. == Bletchley Park Trip == We still have 4 places left for this awesome trip. If you haven't signed up then you're crazy!!! Just a reminder for all you crazy people, It's €30 for the trip which includes hotel and entry fee to bletchley. We'll be leaving on the 1st of February till the 3rd. It's during the inter semester break so don't worry you won't miss any college :) Highlights include lots of drinking and Shopping :) So super happy fun for all :) So again if you haven't signed up. DO IT NOW :) You won't regret it!!! == Intersocs Party == On the 19th of December, Skynet are having a Christmas Party. Eric Michauld, the head of Tool USA, will be there and he's giving a talk on something totally amazing. It's so totally awesome I can't even say. (To find out more ask on irc in #intersocs) Skynet have promised food and beer afterwards. If any one's interested in going email: committee(a)redbrick.dcu.ie == Techweek == Next semester, Tech week is coming and it's our biggest event of the year. We have loads of events planned for yous with loads of great talks, workshops and social events over the course of a week we're also doing it with other techy societies. So there's bound to be something for everyone :) == Could you be our new Events organiser? == If anyone is interested in being our new Events organiser can you email: committee(a)redbrick.dcu.ie Here's a random christmas link enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwbxEfy7fg (possibly NSFW) Ohh and last thing Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from everyone on Redbrick Committee. 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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Downtime || Events position || Next semester || Link of the Week
by Emma G 06 Dec '09

06 Dec '09

Hey everyone, Welcome to week 11. Or Hell Week for some :( == Downtime == There will be downtime this Monday, 7th December, at 9:30am. This is to allow our admins to apply kernel upgrades, access to irc and other services will be unavailable until 10:00am. We apologize for any inconveniences this may cause. == Events position == Unfortunately Carri Fuery has resigned from the position of Events. If anyone is interested in being our new Events person email: committee(a)redbrick.dcu.ie == Next semester == There will be Admin training, intermediate Python workshop, etc.. All next semester. So keep any eye out for them. If there's anything you'd like to see or that you'd like a talk on, we would love to hear your suggestions. Email: committee(a)redbrick.dcu.ie with your ideas. == Link of the Week == If you have a funny quote on someone from redbrick from lobby or what not why don't you post it here --> http://bash.redbrick.dcu.ie/ You never know you might be on it already ;) 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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Bletchley Park Trip - A few spaces left!
by Lotta Mikkonen 01 Dec '09

01 Dec '09

Hello, We still have a few places left for the Bletchley Park trip. The dates for this trip will be Monday 1st February 2010 - Wednesday 3rd February 2010. This is after exams and during intersemester break so you won't miss any college. The total cost will be between E30 - E40. What does this price include? Flights, two night's accomodation (in a hotel, not a hostel) and entry to Bletchley park. Not bad, eh? So what will we be doing? During World War II, Bletchley Park was the site of the United Kingdom's main decryption establishment. Ciphers and codes of several Axis countries were decrypted there, most importantly ciphers generated by the German Enigma and Lorenz machines (Think you can break Lorenz? http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/anoraks/lorenz/index.htm ). We will be able to see these machines and learn more about them. The National Museum of Computing will be giving us our own private tour. What else? Well we'll be in England so food and drink will be a fair bit cheaper, so I imagine that there will be lots of eating and drinking. There's also some time to go shopping if you wish. If you are interested in going or have any questions just reply to this email asap and I'll get back to you with more details. Have fun, Lotta RedBrick Chairperson 09/10

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Bletchley Sign ups || Christmas Party || Help Desk Test || New Putty Upgrade || Link of the Week
by Emma G 29 Nov '09

29 Nov '09

Hey welcome to week 10, == Bletchley Sign ups == Just a reminder that tomorrow, Monday the 30th of November, will be sign ups for the trip to Bletchley Park. We're meeting in the Slipper, Matt Weldon's, at 7pm and we'll be watching the movie Enigma. Make sure you bring a deposit of €20. There's only 16 places for the trip. So it's first come first served. Unfortunately you do have to be over 18 to go on the trip. But if your under 18 don't worry there will be plenty of fun things coming up soon :) == Christmas Party == This Thursday, 3rd of December, is a night not to be missed. Why? Because it's the Christmas party :) RedBrick, Gamessoc, Airsoft, Booksoc, Filmsoc, Artsoc and Strange Things have all joined up to have one epic xmas party :) It's at 7pm in the Slipper, Matt Weldon's. It's going to be an awesome night so you better be there :) == Help Desk Test == There will be an exam held for the position of Help desk on Friday, the 4th of December. If anyone is interested in sitting this exam, please be in the Clubs and Socs office upstairs in the Hub at 1.30pm. == New Putty Upgrade == Putty has now been updated. It is now UTF-8 compatible by default. So everyone should download the new one which can be found on: http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/ == Link of the Week == Here's a cute link that explains all the different type of smiles there are: http://wiki.redbrick.dcu.ie/mw/Smilies So everyone one's in the twilight saga: New Moon craze at the moment. If you haven't already read the link Carri posted around a while ago check it out here : http://theoatmeal.com/story/twilight . It was written by someone who clearly hates twilight FYI. So people who hate twilight should definitely read it :P Enjoy, 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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Downtime || Resignation || Trip Abroad || Qzar || Hoodies || Xmas Party || Python Talk Slides
by Lotta Mikkonen 23 Nov '09

23 Nov '09

Hello everyone and welcome to week 9! ==Downtime== Following ISS's downtime yesterday redbrick didn't come back up, on investigation this morning the admins discovered the new fiber link wasn't up, Redbrick is currently running on our secondary link, there will be some brief network down time, hopefully today to rectify this as soon as the admin team are in touch with ISS. ==Helpdesk Resignation== Austin (Haus) has resigned from his helpdesk position. The committee would like to thank him for his work. This means that there is an opening on the helpdesk team. Anyone who is interested in running for this position should email helpdesk(a)redbrick.dcu.ie ==Trip to Bletchley Park== RedBrick are going to Bletchley Park during intersemester break (February)! Bletchley Park was the home of the UK's code-breaking operations during World War II. "Unbreakable" nazi codes were broken here. Dates are yet to be finalised but will be between the 1st and 6th of February for 2 nights and 3 days. Cost will be about €40 altogether per person for plane tickets, entry to the museum/talk and the hotel. Remember to bring money for food and drinks too! We will be showing the film Enigma (a film about Bletchley Park) in association with Filmsoc and taking sign-ups before the showing. The showing will take place on Monday 30th November upstairs in the Slipper (Matt Weldon's on Ballymun Road) at 7pm. Places are very limited (16). To clarify : Sign-ups for the trip and a showing of the film Enigma will be upstairs in the Slipper (Matt Weldon's on Ballymun Road) at 7pm on Monday 30th November. Bring a €20 deposit. ==Qzar== Signed up to Qzar? Remember that it's on tomorrow (Tuesday 24th November). Bring bus fare! We will be meeting up outside the bookshop (Spar side of the Hub) at 6pm. ==Hoodies== This is your last chance to sign up for a RedBrick hoodie. We will stop taking names on Wednesday. Please email us by Thursday to let us know what name you would like printed on your hoodie. To see what they look like you can check out the following link : https://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/events/signup/?eventid=8 ==Xmas Party== RedBrick, Gamessoc, Airsoft, Booksoc, Filmsoc, Artsoc and Strange Things are getting together to host a Christmas party from 7.30pm on Thursday the 3rd of December upstairs in Matt Weldon's (The Slipper) on Ballymun Road. This is the perfect chance to get into the festive spirit! Mulled wine, mince pies and gingerbread will be on offer. Have a really cheesy Christmas jumper? Christmassy outfits are encouraged! If we deem you to be the Christmassiest person there we may even reward you... Presents and a raffle. We guarantee that you will not be leaving empty handed! Drinks promos on the night. Have a Facebook account? Below is the link to the event page. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179138907943&index=1 ==Python Talk Slides== A few people have asked for the slides from Pooka's Python workshop so here they are : http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~pooka/intro-python-redbrick-notes.pdf Enjoy! Lotta RedBrick Chairperson 2009/10

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Downtime - Today and Sunday 22nd November
by Eoghan Cotter 18 Nov '09

18 Nov '09

Dear All, There was unscheduled network downtime today due to a fault during the upgrade of Redbrick's fiber link to ISS, the upgrade was successful completed and service was restored at approximately 12.30. Following this work we now have a 1 gig link to ISS. Redbrick would like to take the opportunity to thank the ISS networks staff for their assistance in this upgrade. DCU today announced downtime for the student network in DCU this Sunday the 22nd November from 10AM to 2PM. Redbrick will be unavailable during this time, this is network downtime so users sessions and processes should be unaffected. Cheers Eoghan -- Eoghan Cotter DCU Networking Society (Redbrick) Sys Admin

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