Free Software

We'll have 3 presentations at this month's meeting, starting off which what we hope to be an infrastructure series, and what is more basic to our infrastructure than the power itself, so Barbara Cenalmor of SRP will be telling us about the nitty gritty of how SRP makes sure that you have all the power you need at the moment you need it.  Then der.hans will tell us about better protecting ourselves on the web with uMatrix.  Last, but not least Aaron Jones will show us how to better manage our digital fingerprints and to live safer in this world filled with social media .

Barbara Cenalmor: SRP Resource Planning 

Description: 
It’s really easy to take electricity for granted.  You hit the ON button, and the computers instantly turn on.  However, there are a lot of things that go on behind the scenes to get that electricity to you, the main user. 

To keep up with the demand and makes sure everybody can turn on their computers, lights and appliances, utilities use resource plans. 

This presentation explains what resource plans are, why they are important and needed, what resource options are available to utilities, what the trade-offs are between different resources and what considerations are taken into account in the resource strategy.

Biography:
Barbara has 15+ years of experience working for regulatory agencies around Arizona in Air Quality issues. A few years ago she started working at Salt River Project (SRP), working to ensure that the company and its power plants were in compliance with all air quality regulations, and that the company's goals focused on reducing emissions. To get a better insight on how a large utility plans for future generation and more customers, she slightly changed careers and went to work for SRP's Resource Planning group where she participates in siting or acquiring new generation (all types).
In her spare time Barbara likes to hang out with her family, listen to her husband ramble about all Linux things (most of which she doesn't understand), reading, and traveling.


der.hans: uMatrix for web browser protection

Description:
uMatrix is a webextension security and privacy add on for Firefox.

Via a simple interface uMatrix allows personal rules for website cookies, JavaScript, CSS, pictures and video.

uMatrix uses and maintains per site allowlists and blocklists. For example, you can allow cookies, JavaScript, CSS and images for www.example.com and only CSS and images from cdb.example.com while blocking everything from spies.exampleduplicate.com.

Attendees will know what the web components are that uMatrix controls, how to use the uMatrix GUI interface and save rules.

Biography:
der.hans is a Free Software community veteran, presenter and author. He is the founder of the Free Software Stammtisch, BoF organizer for the Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE) and chairman of the Phoenix Linux User Group (PLUG).

As a technology and entrepreneurial veteran, roles have included director of engineering, engineering manager, IS manager, system administrator, community college instructor, developer and DBA.

He presents regularly at large community-led conferences (SCaLE, SeaGL, LibrePlanet, LFNW) and many local groups.


Aaron Jones: Social Media Safety

Description:
How to manage your digital foot print to enhance security while also bringing awareness to some of the issues that social media can exacerbate.

About Aaron:
Aaron is an experienced Linux user with several years of teaching experience. He works in the industry as a software developer while also providing consultancy on cyber security related topics. His discussions are AZ Post certified for training credit for law enforcement and he prides himself on providing quality educational material that is relevant and topical. He has a Masters Degree in Intelligence Analysis with a focus in Cyber Security, is a life long learner, and prides himself on staying up to date with the ever changing field of cyber security.

Join the Phoenix Linux Users Group at their Security Session to learn about why the internet is a terrible place now. We will be discussing how the internet has turned into a tool for surveillance, monitoring, and the constant delivery of malware and other exploits. We will discuss how others are creating alternative 'networks' and how technology from the 70's could be used to help reduce our reliance on corporate backers for access to the web. We will learn about Packet Radio, Mesh Networks, and other forms of digital communication that are effective community builders. Hope to see you there!

* Any discussion of paid services or software will be done for educational purposes only. Neither the instructor, PLUG, or any one involved in this course endorses any paid services or products discussed at this meeting.

Due to the Release of Ubuntu 18.04 we are doing things a bit different for the installfest on Saturday.  We are having a release party with Arizona Ubuntu users at the home of Walter and Ingeborg Mack, 5831 W. Kesler St. Chandler, AZ on 21 April from 2-6pm.  Internet will be available, installs will still be conducted and problems will be solved while we celebrate the release of Bionic Beaver and enjoy some excellent food, great camaraderie, and some serious (and some not so serious) discussions. Everyone interested in Free and Open Source Software is invited.  Please bring a dish to share.

For any questions, please contact releaseparty@componentsw.com or RSVP at questions@azloco.com

Join the Phoenix Linux Users Group at their Security Session to learn about Tor and why it is pretty terrible. We will be discussing how Tor can increase your privacy, enhance your security, and reduce major corporations from being able to track you or use your browsing habits for their profits. We will also be discussing what Tor is not, what vulnerabilities exist, and how it can be used to harm you as well. Hope to see you there!

* Any discussion of paid services or software will be done for educational purposes only. Neither the instructor, PLUG, or any one involved in this course endorses any paid services or products discussed at this meeting.

Title: Linux System Administrator
Status: Full Time
Department: 150 IT
Reports to: Director of IT Operations

We are looking for a DevOps Engineer that is looking to join a company with a proven product. Our company is a full-service cloud solutions provider that delivers critical voice and data technology infrastructure services to the start-up, SMB and small enterprise markets. We are comprised of industry-leading
engineering, sales, marketing and support professionals that combine left-brain logic with right-brain creativity to design, build and deliver world-class cloud services that drive business productivity.

What You Will Be Doing

• Install, configure, and maintain physical and virtual servers.
• Maintain custom, in-house applications.
• Ensure the monitoring and uptime of the infrastructure.
• Participate in the development and testing of internal tools and scripts.
• Help automate repeatable tasks.
• Architect high performance, scalable systems solutions.
• Participate in 24x7 on-call rotation.
• Collaborate with other teams to troubleshoot and resolve any production issues. 

What You Need for this Position
Below are some of the technologies we use:

• Configuration Management: Puppet, Chef, Consul, Jenkins
• Systems Monitoring: Nagios, Logstash, Kibana, Grafana, CheckMK
• Virtualization: Docker, AWS
• Linux Administration: Ubuntu, CentOS, Redhat
• Networking: DHCP, DNS, IPtables
• MySQL Administration: Base MySQL
• NoSQL Technologies: MongoDB, ElasticSearch
• Load Balancing: Nginx, F5
• Version Control: Git, GitHub, Vault
• Scripting: Bash, Perl
• Hardware Platforms: EMC, F5, Dell, Cisco 

What's In It for You

1. Competitive Salary
2. Good Benefits
3. Innovative Company
4. Architecture / Mentorship

So, if you are a Devops Engineer - Build and Release with experience, please apply today!
Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S.

For the first time ever, we will need to cancel the PLUG meeting due to every single person that makes the meeting happen being out of town for the Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE).
We encourage everyone to join us there if you can.  There is still room to carpool with people and possible share rooms to lower the cost of the trip.

If you would will like to get together with some PLUGgers, we encourage you to get together and BJs, where we normally go to eat after the meeting and hang out and talk.

Sorry for any inconvenience... We'll have more great presentations coming your way starting with the security meeting next week.

Join the Phoenix Linux Users Group at their Security Session to learn about I2P and why it is not great. We will be discussing how I2P can increase your privacy, enhance your security, and reduce major corporations from being able to track you or use your browsing habits for their profits. We will also be discussing what I2P is not, what vulnerabilities exist, and how it can be used to harm you as well. Hope to see you there!

* Any discussion of paid services or software will be done for educational purposes only. Neither the instructor, PLUG, or any one involved in this course endorses any paid services or products discussed at this meeting.

Join the Phoenix Linux Users Group at their Security Session to learn about Freenet and why it is pretty cool. We will be discussing how Freenet can increase your privacy, enhance your security, and reduce major corporations from being able to track you or use your browsing habits for their profits. We will also be discussing what Freenet is not, what vulnerabilities exist, and how it can be used to harm you as well. Hope to see you there!

* Any discussion of paid services or software will be done for educational purposes only. Neither the instructor, PLUG, or any one involved in this course endorses any paid services or products discussed at this meeting.

der.hans: Regular Expressions-A guided tour

Description:
Example driven introduction to regular expressions. The talk uses plain English to explain regular expression concepts, syntax and language. Common tools such as grep, sed and awk will provide conduits for demonstrating regular expressions.

Many of our favorite system administration tools use regular expressions for text matching. While using plain English to describe regular expressions the example driven introduction will explain regular expression concepts, syntax and language. Examples will include common tools such as grep, sed and awk.

About der.hans:
der.hans is a Free Software community veteran, presenter and author. He is the founder of the Free Software Stammtisch, BoF organizer for the Southern California Linux Expo (SCaLE) and chairman of the Phoenix Linux User Group (PLUG).

As a technology and entrepreneurial veteran, roles have included director of engineering, engineering manager, IS manager, system administrator, community college instructor, developer and DBA.

He presents regularly at large community-led conferences (SCaLE, SeaGL, LibrePlanet, LFNW) and many local groups.