Future NIU LUG plans

[Vincent]

Hello NIU Linux users group subscribers and ACM friends,

I have taken the role to organize NIU LUG this year.

Here are my proposed plans:

1. Unifying with ACM
   Both CS groups on campus are small and could benefit from a combination of our membership and efforts. We should be one big happy CS family :)
   
   
2. Changing the tone of the group to a more project-based hands-on computing group (not limited to *nix too)
   Our typical meeting patterns have been finding a topic that one of us knows something about and then demonstrates with some discussion.  This has been extremely valuable, but I would also like to engage our members further in a more hands-on environment.  Perhaps we need another title: NIU Hackerspace.
• Continue to have group topics, but ensure that they provide a more hands-on approach.
  
• Provide time and space to work on and discuss projects alongside our academic colleagues.
  
• Collaborative research, discovery, and problem solving.
  
  
3. Ideas for future topics
   
1. Gentoo / Arch Linux Install Party
• Right now I have a few people very interested in learning how to performing one of the more manual Linux distributions. I also have been meaning to do so for a side project (making a StepMania brain for the local arcade.) The experience is invaluable.
• Bring laptops with VirtualBox and everyone can explore these Linux installs together.
• Zillions of subtopics and projects could come out of this.
  
2. Utilizing open source software to your advantage during the CS curriculum.
• Using ssh public-key encryption
• rsync
• Webpage / blackboard scraping
• Taking advantage of the C preprocessor, GNU make, and other tools to survive mainframe assembly.
• XAMPP / SSH tunneling
• Logisim
3. Configuring and playing with the Julius Open Source Speech Recognition System
4. Exploring game development with SDL
5. Electronic music
6. Rapid development web frameworks / AJAX / Information APIs
7. Raspberry Pi
8. ARM assembly
9. FPGAs / HDL
   
   

What I need from you:

1. Vote on these topics here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dG9ycU9FQmNGcjRGQ1VDVlZhNWpLTkE6MQ
2. Give your availability so best meeting times can be considered http://whenisgood.net/niulughs
• Will be interested in alternating times to accommodate as many as possible.
• I imagine meetings could last a 1-2 hrs depending on the topic.
3. Additional feedback and suggestions.

Cheers,

Vincent Schramer