I am looking for someone local to (Dallas, Tx) that would/could reverse engineer the synchronization board in the GoPro Omni. It appear to have two major components a STM32F401 IC and a Xilinx 6SLX16 FPGA on board.

https://www.onshape.com/

TL;DR.. if you want a free online CAD program and are willing to open source any of your designs beyond 10 you can keep private, it looks pretty good.

Personal/free account has the following details:

FREE $0 User / mo

Hobbyists, Makers & Users Evaluating Onshape CREATE ACCOUNT • 10 Private Documents • 5GB Storage Limit (100MB Private) • Unlimited Public Documents • Full CAD Functionality • Sharing & Collaboration • Version Control • Works on Windows, Mac, Linux, Chromebook & Mobile (iOS & Android) • Import & Export Common CAD Formats

Title says it all. Our annual meeting, and this includes voting for all positions, is 11 June at the space. Voting is online, but most candidates will be on site and there will be a meeting, too.

Oh, and an auction. LOTS of laptops and desktops up for grabs. Come by, bring a beer, bring a friend, elect the board, and buy a laptop! Or three!

I'm not a The Lab member but I'm from the Dallas Makerspace, we are selling our Full Spectrum laser cutter and wondering if you would be interested.

https://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/tls/5527260370.html

As we grow, we need an IT infrastructure that can scale with us. We want to take advantage of technologies that can grow and adapt as we explore what the community needs and what we can offer. This isn't just about where we'll be in a few weeks, but in the next few months and even out to a year or more.

A meeting was held at TheLab.ms Education Center to begin the process of formalizing the design of IT services in anticipation of creating a well-maintained architecture. At this point, we're mostly trying to see what pieces we need to put together before we add details. Covered discussion topics included:

• Standards for hardware, software, and authentication
• Documentation required, including policies, procedures, and diagrams
• Basic services to provide for the core operations and services for members of TheLab.ms

Standards

Hardware

Beggars can't be choosers, so we go with what we have for now without stated preference save that the equipment be safe. Where an option is available, decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis.

Software

Operating Systems

Operating systems should use the latest version where possible, with fallback to previous supported versions where necessary for compatibility. Use of other operating systems is allowed where necessary, but should only be done where necessary.

• CentOS (7 preferred, 6 allowed)
• Debian (8 preferred, 7 allowed)
• Ubuntu LTS (16.04 preferred, 14.04 allowed)
• Windows (where required and no viable open source alternative exists, versions TBD)

Desktop Software

• Libre Office
• Visio for the data flows, network layouts, etc. (Alternatives are believed to be inferior, though we'd like to be proven wrong)

Scripting

• Python (no consensus reached on preferred version, so left TBD)
• Ruby (for automation support)

Web Stack

• TBD -- No consensus could be reached given the current limited use and lack of agreed direction

Authentication

• SSO to be based on OAuth 2 and/or SAML 2 (and/or OpenID Connect?)
• Password storage format TBD (no consensus due to lack of familiarity)

Networking

• IPv6 preferred over IPv4 (all resources to be dual stack where possible)
• Wireless: a/g/n/ac

Documentation

The goal for documentation is to have the minimum size required to meet our goals. No one wants to read a hundred-page policy, but we also don't want to under-size policies. Common sense should be a big part of all policies.

Policies

• Acceptable Use (one each for members, classroom use, and guests)
• Account management (one each for internal and cloud accounts)
• Backups
• Data collection (what we collect and why we collect it)
• Incident response (will probably be simple to start with: isolate, contact handlers, clean up)
• Security (likely to be multiple, starting with IT and physical policies)
• Sensitive data (how we protect data at a high level; might be merged into data collection)

Procedures

• Account management (one each for local and cloud environments)
• Fob issuing
• System deployment
• System updates and upgrades

Diagrams

• Network (multi-layered to account for multiple sites, cloud services, etc.)
• Network cabling with interface identification
• Authentication mechanisms
• Logical data flows for applications, backups, etc.

Basic Services

This is still a fuzzy concept, but it's mostly the services underpinning specific offerings. For example, the 3D printers are not included here, but the network environment is.

• Internet access
• Wireless networking environment
• Wired networking environment
• Video streaming
• Remote participation
• VPN access
• Account management/authentication
• Domain services (think Active Directory, not DNS)
• Classroom environment

Some basic discussion happened around some of these topics (and some unrelated items). Eventually, we'll need input on these topics and many more. Topics not covered today and planned for the next meeting include:

• Network layout
• Resource access
• Monitoring
• Future expansion

Please add your thoughts below. The conversation is not nearly over, and we may have overlooked some things or over-specified other things.

StackIQ is hosting a meetup at Thelab.ms on Feb 17, 2016 at 7 PM.

Learn more about Stacki - "The World's Fastest Linux Provisioning Tool", and see a live demo.

Food & Drinks will also be served.

RSVP for the meetup at - http://www.meetup.com/StackiLab-Dallas/events/227142979/

More info about Stacki at - www.stacki.com

Some of you may have read this in the General chat room of Slack, my work has recently started pushing develoment of some new projects built atop of Linux.

For those of you who don't know me, my background is in Release "Management" and I'm currently working for IBM

I have told anyone that listens that they probably don't want me mucking around any kind of production Linux machine, but apparently they either think I'm a genius or they have no idea of the depths of my own stupidity (more likely the latter).

Can any of you TheLab members make any recommendations on Linux Training programs, certifications, or anything else that I should be demanding that my work provide?

Has anybody done a full home inventory? If so, what did you use?

I've looked at the Allstate app on the phone and PC, which is nice but a bit lacking in the UPC/ISBN data gathering department. I'm looking at picking up a laser scanner and I'd really like something I can use to scan a UPC or ISBN and have it do a lookup which is used to populate the fields.

Is anybody familiar with such a beast?

How many TheLab members used to play the BBS door game, Tradewars 2002?

A couple (few??) years back I got nostalgic and dug up a bunch of old BBS stuff. Which included me buying licenses for the Tradewars 2002 Game Server. I've stood it up a couple times but it never got much traction.

It wasn't until talking in Slack/IRC this morning that it dawned on me that there might be a few TheLab members who also were fans of TW2002.

If I stood it back up, would anybody be interested in playing? If I can get a handful of active players, it might be some good old-school fun.

TL;DR: Want to play Tradewars 2002?

The Website Committee (we need a better name) met for the first time last night and we wanted to summarize/share some of our discussion here on reddit.

Our focus is solely on the website as it appears to the outside-world. Our objective is to make the website more inviting and to engage visitors in such a way that they are more enticed to come out to the space and start working/teaching/learning/creating with us.

Here's some photos of the whiteboards after we were done brainstorming. Sorry for the terrible handwriting and spelling, you can blame that on me (Brian):

11-18-2015 Session -- Left

11-18-2015 Session -- Right

In our discussions from the prior content creators meeting and last night, we've compiled a list of issues that we see on the current outward-facing parts of the website:

1. The CMS (Joomla) is heavy and isn't rendering very well on different devices/browsers.
2. No location information on the main page (thankfully this was recently addressed) .
3. No upcoming event information on the main page.
4. The current main page is not "inviting" enough. There's nothing there to engage users to come out, take a class, teach a class, work on a project, etc...

Throughout the night, we ping-ponged around on different topics and came up with some ideas/approaches for each of these issues:

Issue #1: The CMS (Joomla) is heavy and isn't rendering very well on different devices/browsers.

Based on discussion in the group, we're going to move forward transitioning the outward-facing website onto a static site generator. Pat mentioned Pelican as a possibility, it's a leading open source, Python-based, static site generator.

Issue #2: No location information on the main page

Thankfully, this has been addressed sometime between the original content creation meeting and this week's meeting, but it's important enough we want to keep it on the radar. We definitely want our location information to be featured on the main page.

Issue #3: No upcoming event information on the main page

The next iteration of the main page will include some sort of widget (either from Meetup, or we design our own) to pull data from Meetup's API and poplulates data from upcoming events on the main page.

Issue #4:The current main page is not "inviting" enough. There's nothing there to engage users to come out, take a class, teach a class, work on a project, etc...

The working idea for this is to tackle it with a variety of different approaches. Firstly, we came up with a pretty rough idea for the page's layout. I think the most key part of that new layout is the Rotating Banner of Featured Stuff which is among the things listed there under BANNER IDEAS. The nuts-and-bolts of that rotating banner is to feature some of our prominent projects/events (SlingFest, BSides, etc...), the bi-weekly open houses, an invitation to teach a class, and most importantly an invitation to use the space for your own interests -- we'll rotate some pretty common pairings of verbs/nouns and rotate (within the rotation!) through those. Things like "build your project", "host your usergroup", "teach your class", etc...

Jarrod also mentioned the possibility of getting a coworker/friend with some design experience to suggest some color swatches as well as take a look at the logo and perhaps provide some suggestions on how it can be improved to achieve our goals.

Additionally, we'd like to feature content from TheLab.ms' social media accounts a bit more prominently on the webpage.

Other Ideas

Naturally, we came up with a whole smorgasboard of problems not exactly related to any one of these issues, but could be an enhancement to the main page. In no particular order, here's some of those brainstorms:

• Enable users of the TheLab.ms website to be able to share our content across Social Media accounts both securely and conveniently. We'll be researching options on ways to accomplish this.
• Really encourage TheLab.ms members to create content. Especially their own biographical information and the projects that they're working on. Then curate that content, summarize it, and feature it on the main page.

*Add Press Releases to the menu or a sub-menu on the Mainpage.

Of the people who attended, what things am I missing? What did I gloss over? Leave your feedback and I'll get it incorporated into this post.

TL;DR: We have a lot of good ideas for enhancing the website consumed by the general public.

And, I didn't ask this last night but I figured we should talk about it: When should we meet next?

https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement?language=en

Where do you think we as an org (and you individually) are in relation to this 3 min video? The oldest members of leadership should remember this from awhile back. ;)

All,

A few meetings back I asked if there was interest in an OpenStack class being taught at TheLab. As I recall, there was quite a bit of interest. Is this still the case? I need to do some studying and get my cert, and I'm thinking about running the class sometime in February based on the official openstack.org documentation. Who's interested?

Along those same lines, I'm thinking about coordinating a class on MIT's AppInventor for Android devices. It's pretty similar to Scratch, but runs on a phone. I'm going to try and get a child I know to teach it and we would cover some of the basics of the application. I'm thinking beginning of December for this one. Any parents/aunts/uncles/cousins know of some kids who would be interested in learning about Android app development?