Please join us as Phillip Rhodes gives us a glimpse into the future of the internet - the Semantic Web.

The Semantic Web is the name given to Sir Tim Berners-Lee's vision for the next generation of the World Wide Web. On today's web, most data is provided in a format which is easy for humans to understand, but which computer programs have trouble understanding. This makes it difficult for us to program computers to perform useful, time-consuming tasks for us, using data retrieved over the Web.

Daniel Chen is a Master of the Universe. No, not like "He-Man". He contributes significant time to the Ubuntu project, helping make audio applications and infrastructure "just work". This is a huge undertaking, since there are so many sound card drivers and so many audio frameworks that have come and gone over the years. This work has earned him the title of MotU from the Ubuntu team.

Tyler McAdams has been researching ways to fine-tune systems to run extremely fast. He is involved with a global project called "LinuxDNA", which aims to optimize the binaries which run on a machine, with special emphasis on the kernel. His team employs a compiler from Intel that is very good at producing optimized code for the x86 family of processors.

Bonus points if you can tell which distro Tyler likes to run (see below).

Come hear Tyler tell his secrets and his war stories about making Linux run FAST.

The April meeting will be a chance for members to share tips and tools with each other, in the form of "Lightning Talks". Each speaker will be given 10 minutes to discuss an indispensable tool to the group, including time for questions. Bring your ideas, and be ready to "share and enjoy".

WHAT: March TriLUG meeting
WHEN: Thursday, March 12th, 7:00pm
WHERE: Red Hat HQ, NCSU Centennial Campus
MAP: http://www.redhat.com/about/contact/ww/americas/raleigh.html

This month, our very own Doug Newcomb will give us an introduction
to the fascinating world of Geographic Information Systems. It's
the ultimate form of representing the world around us using computers.
Literally, we're mapping out our entire planet for use online.

We've all used Google Maps and Mapquest. But have you heard of the
collaborative effort at OpenStreetMap.org [1] to produce a complete

Since we had a break-in on pilot recently, I thought I would bring up a
couple of points.

(1) WHAT HAPPENED

First of all, it appears that what happened to pilot was that a
vulnerability in "RoundCube", a fancy web mail package, was exploited by
a script that installs a "bot" (part of a botnet).

As far as I can tell, no files or emails were damaged. Everything
appeared to be intact. It looks to me like it was just talking to a lot
of other machines via an IRC channel (and that's how we noticed it).

The bot was running as user 'www-data'. So technically, we were not

CAcert.org is a community-driven certificate authority that issues free public key certificates to the public (unlike other certificate authorities which are commercial and sell certificates).

At the February TriLUG meeting, we will learn about certificates and certificate authorities, and we will have a chance to become "certified" to issue our own certificates through CA Cert. These certificates can be used to enable SSL on a web server or a mail server.

In January, we will welcome Justin Parker into the LUG in the harshest way we know how... by inviting him to be a speaker.

Justin recently moved to the Triangle. His previous job was with VMware, one of the pioneers of virtualization. He will give us an overview of virtualization, and the features of the various VMware products. And he will guide us through setting up a virtual server. All of this, he says, without trying to sound too much like a "fanboy".

Slides available here (OpenOffice ODP format).

Following the TriLUG tradition, the December meeting will be a social event, with no formal program. Members and friends are invited to gather, eat, and blow each other to bits (in bzflag or any other game of your choice).

Dinner will be potluck. Bring a dish to share. Sign up on the wiki.

From classic arcade game emulators to the latest frag-fests, Skip Grube will give us an overview of the state of the art in Linux gaming.