Compsoc Exec Minutes

Present

• Richard Wilson
• Chris Boyle
• Phil Stoneman
• Sadiq Jaffer
• Christian Bates
• David Buckley
• Euan MacGregor

Money

NeXuS7 has been paid, now waiting for union finances to act.

Activity day

Next meeting: 6:30pm Wednesday.

Socials

Matrix Reloaded social happened, although wasn’t that publicised so not that many people turned up. Other social events’ arrangements haven’t changed.

Portsmouth visit

Phil could do the minibus driving.

Society description

DCS existing description is preferred over the existing description on the Union site. DCS booklet description doesn’t need much changing.

Room booking

Need to book rooms for various social events in the next year:
* Saturday week two 2pm – 4pm for first social and then follow up with gaming.
* Tuesday week one 6pm – 7pm for LUG firewall tutorial.
* Wednesday week four 2pm – 3pm for LUG command line tutorial. (two rooms)
* Wednesday week six 2pm – 3pm for LUG graphical tutorial.
* Someday week four Afternoon for activity afternoon.
* Sunday every week 8pm – 9pm for OSP meetings.

Open Source Project

Will probably need a new OSP in the next year as two of the main contributors will be leaving at the end of this term.

LANs

In the first term, we’re provisionally planning to hold them on end of week four and end of week eight.

LUG

Tutorial planning has moved forward slightly. OSP design was also fleshed out.

Servers

Phil has spoken to filmsoc about getting a backup DNS for when tov is being upgraded. Could move tov into DCS and then put the new LAN server in the Union. Tov provisional downtime Monday 9th June.

IRC

IRCd has been changed to “Unreal”, which has a larger feature set, no longer does reverse-DNS and has SSL built-in. Half-ops are problematic with some clients, and we have no real need for it so they’ll be removed. One controversial usermode now available is +I, which cloaks users to the point where they can join channels and be in channels without being detected until they say something. #welcome is to be set up and the Java IRC client to be pointed to there instead.

Compsoc Exec Minutes

25 May 2003

Present

• Richard Wilson
• Christopher Boyle
• David Buckley
• Euan MacGregor
• Sadiq Jaffer
• Phil Stoneman

Cat5/Network Cards

Phil has spoken to Warwick Piazza, who said they were going to enforce dabs type prices at GeTech/LazerLizard, so nothing to gain from selling our own cards.

Piazza leaflet

Piazza agreed to let us include something in the pack for people moving onto campus. The pack is compiled in August so there isn’t as much of a rush to get it done.

BBQ

The BBQ has been booked. Sadiq is supposed to take the appropriate first aid course, although there are no such courses being run between now and then, so we’ll need to find someone who has done this course. Richard has had some training, but not probably of the right type. Fire extinguisher has to be obtained from Gibbet Hill on the Friday before. Also need to get a first aid kit. The BBQ will be held at site 2 (same site as before), from 4pm until about 10pm (this includes time required to set up/clean up).

LAN

Leaching power from ITS isn’t likely to happen. Richard has looked at lighting; there are two groupings: one for the lights at the front (shining onto the board) and one for the other lights. When the lighting is at its lowest (but not off), it uses about 10W instead of 18W. As this isn’t that much, plus the lack of extra power sources, it will be at most 20 people per room. Signups: midday two weeks before for members, one week for guests (Monday week 8/9).

Servers

Insomnia

Insomnia has been upgraded; it handled about 20 players in CS with less than 10% CPU, and most of that was the proxy. David has a friend who was written kernel modules for iptables, which might be worth looking into with respect to doing packet forwarding more efficiently.
h5. LAN server

Henry is donating case, David could donate a hard drive. Richard can build the LAN server in a day or so. We’ll need a video card for the new LAN server. Phil has said he may have one available.

Society jobs

Polis website has disappeared, so can’t do anything about that until it reappears. Squash is reportedly “dead” this term due to exams.

Sponsorship

Sadiq hasn’t gotten around to contacting potential sponsors due to exams.

LUG

Had a fruitful discussion, produced a nice long list of things cover in talks/workshops currently have a list of topics, and possible groupings.
* Gateway should be early, i.e. week one.
* Tutorials on the command line might work after CS120 started (Wednesday week six).
* Desktop would be a good followup for the command line stuff (could use the Knoppix CD to demonstrate things). (Wednesday week seven).
* Securing a multiuser server best to have at the end of the first term.
* OSP: Have a list, and CVS with stuff in it: the server libraries, the clients (web and Delphi) and documentation. Need to spec a Java interface API.
Linux User and Developer Expo on the 26th-28th, could go on the 27th. Should go in next newsletter.

ISE

Could provide CVS for ISE students.

Office

We are applying for office space in the National Grid house.

Computer fairs

Worth expanding site details about this, plus mailing the members about pending fairs.

Website

Sidebar needs redesigning.

Fresher’s Fair

Need a 100 word description for the fair.

Activity Day

Have spoken to various lecturers about topics, potentially have Steve Matthews to be involved. Next meeting Wednesday 2pm.

Cousins meetings

Phil and Sadiq spoke to Leslie Goldberg. “Cousins” meeting scheme of having everyone in some large room failed before, so DCS is trying a new approach of holding meetings with smaller groups. We’ll have a presence at them, but we need to come up with something to do which isn’t directly CompSoc related. One idea was to demonstrate some CS stuff, such as the towers of Hanoi, the moving arm equipment or the oscilloscope used in COA.

Matrix reloaded

Friday next week, time to be determined.

First year social

Could get two meeting rooms joined and get some food delivered. It needs to be booked at end of this term if possible, otherwise book it at the start of the year.

T-shirts

Could get t-shirts for the exec, and the guest lecturers.

Newsletter

Draft to be done after Chris finds out when the Reloaded showings are.

Compsoc Exec Minutes

17 May 2003

Present

• David Buckley
• Richard Wilson
• Christian Bates
• Euan MacGregor
• Sadiq Jaffer
• Phil Stoneman
• Chris Boyle

First year social

Phil and Sadiq are going to talk to Leslie Goldberg this Wednesday.

Things to do at the social

This to be discussed at a later date. The main constraints are that our presence as a society would be purely a coincidental one, i.e. not a recruitment drive.

Pub social

Phil hasn’t mailed the members yet, although the issue of transportation was raised: only a few of the regular attendees take the bus, so getting more to come would involve some coordination with those few.

Warwick Volunteers

A housemate of Phil is on the exec for this society, which has good links with local companies. Some of these companies require a website, so the idea of a joint venture between CompSoc and Warwick Volunteers was raised: they would find projects for us, and we’d find members willing to carry them out.

LUG Stuff

Chris went to AFFS.
The LUG has been discussing ideas on things to actually do, e.g. holding workshops and a new OSP on which people can actually work. Possible workshops include setting up a gateway and using Linux on the desktop. The new OSP is to extend/improve the playlist program that Henry uses at LANs (assuming Henry doesn’t mind).

Programming Competition

Mailing list has been set up.

Activity day

This will probably be held during week four of the first term of next year.
Phil has mailed Steve Matthews and will talk with him about ideas.

BBQ

The form requires someone to be responsible, so Sadiq will be the designated scapegoat^Wpoint of contact. The BBQ should be held on the 22nd of June, just before the BFL.

Hardware

New hardware for Insomnia has been ordered, and should arrive at the University on Monday (and then be extracted from the postal service). Insomnia will then be removed from ITS for the upgrade.

Sponsorship

Who to approach was discussed again. Going for larger names has the added bonus of adding credibility, although getting money from them would require some planning (so they know exactly what their donation would be used for). One possible use would be to provide a small financial incentive for people to write revision guides, but the notes provided by the CS department are pretty good anyway.

Compsoc Exec Minutes

10 May 2003

Present

• Christian Bates
• Richard Wilson
• Christopher Boyle
• Sadiq Jaffer
• David Buckley
• Phil Stoneman
• Euan MacGregor

Compsoc and DCS

Meeting with Mike Joy

On Thursday, Phil and Sadiq met Mike Joy to discuss future ideas that involve the CS department. The idea of providing Linux desktop sessions over VNC has been shelved for now (mainly due to hardware requirements). We have also been offered some space to host new servers if we obtain some.

First year social

Phil and Sadiq are to meet with Leslie Goldberg to discuss a potential social event for the first years at the start of the new term.

Publicity

We should be able to get mentioned in the appropriate CS lectures.

Sponsorship

Sadiq spoke to the person at the Union related to sponsorship, and compiled a list of potential sponsors to approach.

Perl tutorials

First tutorial happened, there will either be another one or two tutorials, depending on demand.

Servers

Molotov will have various services upgraded on Monday morning at 3am. Richard will mail the members beforehand to ask that any services running on Molotov may be disrupted during this time and to inform him of any services they run that will need restarting.
We have also budgeted for upgrades to Insomnia, with the old parts from there going into Molotov and the old parts from Molotov being appropriated for other uses (possibly for the new LAN server).

Cat5

The Union have given us permission to make the Cat5 sales official, so it can be advertised more prominently. A followup to this service to our members is to look into the feasibility of selling network cards, especially since Lazer-Lizard are charging significantly more than the value of the cards they sell.

LANs

We need the exact power ratings for each room and the location of the 13A sockets. The BFL will be 76 hours (including the pre-LAN), the longest LAN held by Compsoc (two more hours than the previous BFL). Given the length, it was recommended that we obtain a Macro card and use it to purchase bulk amounts of food and drink. Due to one of the rooms being in use at the desired start of the LAN, there will be a pre-LAN, starting on Monday at 5pm. The LAN will probably feature a DHCP server (and DNS).

LUG

In order to raise the profile of the LUG, other activities to do were brainstormed. One idea was to do a tutorial/workshop on how to setup a gateway machine to share the internet connection in a house, which can tie into the installfest. The Association for Free Software is holding a conference in Birmingham next week, so it might be worth organising a trip down there as part of the LUG.

BBQ

The site needs booking, and the equipment apparently didn’t last the winter.

Guest Lecture

About 80 people turned up. Phil has mailed the BBC about two of the topics they do lectures on (“Walking with Dinosaurs” and “How Linux is used at the BBC”). Other possibilities include Peter Cochrane (from The Telegraph) and Kevin Warwick. It was decided that the best time to hold more talks would be next term.

Socials

The Matrix: Reloaded is released in this country on May 23rd. It was recommended that we organise a visit to the cinema about a week afterwards to avoid (some of) the rush.

Activity day

The working group of Phil, Euan and Christian will meet next Thursday to discuss it.