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Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, August 3, 2020)

Hello, Tampa Bay techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds! Welcome to the weekly list of online-only events for techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds based in an around the Tampa Bay area.

Keep an eye on this post; I update it when I hear about new events, it’s always changing. Stay safe, stay connected, and #MakeItTampaBay!

Monday, August 3

Tuesday, August 4

Wednesday, August 5

Thursday, August 6

Friday, August 7

Saturday, August 8

Sunday, August 9

No tech, entrepreneur, or nerd events have been listed for this date…yet!

Do you have an upcoming event that you’d like to see on this list?

If you know of an upcoming event that you think should appear on this list, please let me know!

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Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!


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What I’m Up To

Supplementary UC Baseline notes #3: Videos to prep for this week’s Linux program

Logo: UC BaselineWeek 3 of The Undercroft’s UC Baseline cybersecurity program is about to begin, and it’s all about operating systems! From Monday to Wednesday, it’s Linux from a cybersecurity point of view, and we’ll close out the week with Windows.

Not all of us are programmers, and not all of us live in the command line. I’m also not so smug that I can’t benefit from a review of T3H LUN1X!!1!!1, and unlike my normal Linux use case, where I use a desktop installation (I run Mint, Peppermint, and Raspberry Pi OS), we’ll be booting into a server setup.

For the benefit of my fellow classmates — and hey, it’d do me some good as well — here are some videos that will come in handy over the next couple of days.

Linux Terminal Introduction (ExplainingComputers, Jan. 2020)

In the Windows world, it’s called the Command Line. In the Unix world — which includes Linux and macOS — it’s the terminal, and it’s where we’ll be living for the next three days. Here’s a tour.

Beginner’s Guide to the bash Terminal (Joe Collins, Mar. 2017)

Ready for a longer intro to the Linux command line? Here’s a good one:

Linux File System/Structure Explained! (DorianDotSlash, May 2018)

You’re no longer in Windows’ C:, Program Files, and Documents folders any more! You’re in Linux, where the directories are cryptic, with names like /bin, /sbin, /etc, /dev, /usr, /var, and more! This will give you a quick intro to what they are and what they’re for.

 

Linux File System | Complete Overview (Chris Titus Tech, Sept. 2019)

Also worth checking out.

Vim Basics in 8 Minutes (tutoriaLinux, Oct. 2018)

We’re going GUIless, so all text editing will be done on some command-line editor — most likely Vim. If you’re new to Vim, you’ll find its modes maddening, as it’s a direct descendant of a program that traces its roots back to 1970s computer terminals. You’ll definitely want to watch this video.

Introduction to Linux for Cybersecurity Crash Course 2020 (Grant Collins, Jan. 2020)

Here’s a more in-depth introduction to Linux from a cybersecurity point of view.

Linux for Ethical Hackers (FreeCodeCamp, Jul. 2019)

Here’s another course on Linux as seen from a cybersecurity point of view. This one focuses on Kali Linux, a distribution specifically made for the purposes of ethical hacking, penetration testing, and general cybersecurity-related stuff.

The mind behind Linux (2016)

This won’t be covered in the course, but it doesn’t hurt to find out more about Linux’s creator, Linus Torvalds. This TED conversation from 2016 is a pretty good introduction.

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Tampa Bay What I’m Up To

Next week’s “UC Baseline” courses cover Windows and Linux, and I’m ready!

Photo: Joey deVilla and Steve Ballmer, who is wearing a Canadian flag hat
Me and Microsoft’s then-CEO Steve Ballmer at the Canadian Windows 7 launch in Toronto, 2009.

Logo: UC BaselineToday marks the end of the second week of The Undercroft’s 5-week cybersecurity training program, UC Baseline. This week was a quick but in-depth (we each had a Cisco switch to configure) introduction to networking. Next week, we look at Windows and Linux from a security perspective.

I have some familiarity with the operating systems in question.

Photo: Joey deVilla, with his accordion, poses with Linus Torvalds, who is holding a pool cue.
Me and Linux creator Linus Torvalds at LinuxWorld Expo NYC 2000.
Photo: Richard M. Stallman and Joey deVilla onstage.
GNU/Free Software Foundation founder Richard M. Stallman and me at the CUSEC Conference in Montreal, 2009.

If you’re bored: When I was a Microsoft developer evangelist (they hired me from the open source/free software world), I won Stallman’s auction for a plush GNU gnu — and paid for it with my Microsoft corporate card. Here’s the story, titled Winning the GNU.

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

This Saturday: The Suncoast Developers Guild Conference — FREE and ONLINE!

Banner: Suncoast Developers Conference - Saturday, August 1, 2020

The Suncoast Developers Conference, a free online conference for developers organized by Suncoast Developers Guild, happens this Saturday, August 1st, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.! Register here to join in on the geeky fun.

The conference will be made of bite-size (15 minutes or shorter!) presentations by Tampa Bay techies and demos of capstone projects by Suncoast Developers Guild alums. Here’s the schedule, which is subject to update:

Time Presentation
10:00 a.m.
  • Opening ceremony
    (Suncoast Developers Guild)
  • Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!
    (Jason L Perry)
  • Will it Scale?
    (Robert Bieber)
11:00 a.m.
  • Demo: Smash Bros Combo
    (Kento Kawakami)
  • Your Friendly Neighborhood Type System
    (Dylan Sprague)
  • Demo: Evolution X
    (Cody Banks & Abtahee Ali)
  • The Rubber Duck Pal Program
    (Daniel Demerin)
12:00 p.m.
  • Furry Friends
    (Colter Lena)
  • Demo
    (Trent Costa)
  • Don’t Crash! CSS-Modules in React
    (Dylan Attal)
  • How to start your own Coding Podcast 101
    (Vincent Tang)
1:00 p.m.
  • Pull Requests, and the Developers Who Love Them
    (Michele Cynowicz)
  • Demo: Rollerblade Buyers Guide
    (Abe Eveland)
  • Post Bootcamp Reflections: Rebuilding my capstone in React Native
    (Liz Tiller)
  • Create games, visual novels, and fast food dating sims (and learn programming) with Ren’Py!
    (Joey deVilla)
2:00 p.m.
  • Demo
    (Rob Mack)
  • “You do belong here” and other affirmations and ways to beat imposter syndrome.
    (Michael Traverso)
  • A Taste Of Docs As Code
    (Kat Batuigas)

Once again, it’s free-as-in-beer (and not free-as-in-mattress) to attend, and all you need is an internet connection! Register here.

Since opening their doors in the summer of 2018, Suncoast Developers Guild’s coding school has graduated over 100 students, and before that, they taught people to code in their previous incarnation as the Tampa Bay branch of The Iron Yard.

In another life, I was a developer evangelist who travelled across North America and I saw tech scenes from Palo Alto to Peoria. I can tell you that one of the signs of a healthy tech community in a small- to medium-sized city is a coding school that acts as a social/technical/gathering place. If your city had one, things were looking up for local techies. If not, it was a safe bet that the place was experiencing a brain drain.

Here in Tampa Bay, Suncoast Developers Guild fills that vital role, and it does so spectacularly. They’re a key part of the heart and soul of tech in the area, and it shows in their efforts, such as events like this.

Thanks, Suncoast Developers Guild! I’ll see you on Saturday!

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Current Events Tampa Bay

Online workshop TONIGHT — “Hackathons — Who owns the IP?”

Photo: Brett C.J. Britton

Here’s the TLDR:

  • What: An online workshop where Tampa Bay’s best-known tech lawyer and IP attorney, Brent C.J. Britton, will talk about the intellectual property issues surrounding hackathons.
  • When: Tonight! As in Thursday, July 30th, 2020, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.
  • How/Where: This Zoom meeting.

Let’s face it: The purpose of many (but not all) hackathons — even if it’s not the primary purpose — is to promote one or more tech company’s wares or services, or to act as a scouting exercise to find new talent. This is especially true when a hackathon is organized or sponsored by a for-profit company and especially when they encourage or require you to use one of their products, services, or APIs.

What if you participate in a hackathon held by a for-profit company and your idea is a really good one? Who owns it?

This workshop will be led by Brent C.J. Britton, local IP/techie lawyer, and generally the first guy I run to when I face some kind of intellectual property issue (and yes, I have, when a copyright troll was getting up in my business).

Check it out tonight!

Here’s Brent’s bio:

Brent Britton is the only graduate of the prestigious MIT Media Lab to become a lawyer. Brent holds degrees from the University of Maine, the The Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Boston University School of Law. He is Managing Partner for the Tampa office at De La Pena & Holiday LLP, where he advises companies on emerging business and technology law, intellectual property, complex commercial transactions.

 

Brent is the author of Ownability, How Intellectual Property Works and one of the most interesting and entertaining speakers in the Tampa Bay area on Startups, IP and related matters. He is recommended on Linkedin by a futurist as: “Visionary, pragmatic, insightful and full of life with a capital L”.

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Process Tampa Bay What I’m Up To

Scenes from UC Baseline’s “Networking 101” class

Here’s my daily view for seven hours a day for the next little while, as I’m part of the inaugural cohort of UC Baseline, the 5-week cybersecurity training program from Tampa bay’s security guild, The Undercroft:

Tap to see at full size.

Last week was devoted entirely to the “Hardware 101” part of the program. Here’s a video summary of what happened that week, and Yours Truly’s in a fair bit of it:

This week is “Networking 101”, which is all about how the bits gets transferred across wires and air to our hardware.

One of the exercises is making our own Ethernet cables. I can do it — just, very, very slowly…

Tap to see at full size.

We spent a good chunk of time setting up virtual LANs on our individually-assigned Cisco Catalyst 3750 programmable 48-port switches (alas, we don’t get to keep them), hooking up our Raspberry Pi 4 boxes (which we do get to keep) to them, and wiring our VLANs together via trunks:

Tap to see at full size.

It’s a strange world, where IOS doesn’t Apple’s refer to “iPhone Operating System” — part of my usual stomping grounds as a developer — but in the world of network administration, it’s Cisco’s Internetwork Operating System:

Tap to see at full size.

This is way outside my normal experience with networking, which I do at the application level, where I deal with data structures like arrays, dictionaries, base64-encoded data, and maybe the occasional data stream. This is the world of packets, frames, switching, and routing. I would still probably ruin a server room if left in charge of it, but after this course, I’d ruin it less.

I do have a refreshed generalized concept of what happens at the lower levels of the network, and that’s the important thing for me and the sort of work that I do.

Tap to see at full size.
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Humor Programming

Me, with my calls to print() vs. you, with your fancy debugger

print() (or printf()) works for these pros…

…and it works pretty nicely for me, too.