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Ubuntu Workshop Another Success

March 6th, 2013 | Posted by ToddLewis in IT-oLogy Defined | Promote IT - (0 Comments)

The Open IT Lab at IT-oLogy led another successful Ubuntu workshop on Thursday, January 24.

The workshop was the fifth Ubuntu offering since the Lab opened and served as an introduction to Ubuntu from the desktop users perspective. Ubuntu Linux is a free and open alternative to Windows or Mac OS X, and the world’s third most popular home computer operating system.

Topics such as how to navigate the desktop, install and manage software and software updates, and take advantage of the features that Ubuntu offers the desktop user were covered by Jim Salter. He also discussed how to customize the UI look and feel, what multimedia support options exist, and more about the Linux file system.

As Ubuntu continues to grow in popularity the Open IT Lab will continue to offer workshops. The next offering will take place in April.

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Overflow crowd for Drupal 101 & 102 Workshops

February 26th, 2013 | Posted by ToddLewis in Grow IT | IT-oLogy Defined - (0 Comments)

Nearly 20 people attended the Drupal 101 & 102 workshop on Saturday, February 23 at IT-oLogy. Even with the terrible weather outside, attendees of all ages and experience levels gathered in the Distance Learning classroom to learn more.

The purpose of the workshop was to introduce the open source Drupal content management system and framework, in use by about 2% of the world’s websites, and to provide an opportunity to extend upon that baseline knowledge. The course was a combination of the Drupal 101 and 102 classes offered previously at IT-Ology and gave attendees an opportunity to learn a lot in a single day of instruction.

Those in attendance learned to build their own website using Drupal Gardens, and to take advantage of Drupal features such as content types and views to develop custom applications. Tech-savvy people with no programming experience used the point and click interface to build sites and the API/framework allowed programmers to develop unique applications.

The nearly 20 people for this workshop, combined with the 30 attendees for the separate Drupal 101 and 102 workshops earlier in the month, meant more than 50 unique individuals learned more about Drupal in February at IT-oLogy.

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POSSCON 2013 Tickets Almost Gone!

February 6th, 2013 | Posted by Whitney Williams in World of IT - (0 Comments)

Tickets for the Palmetto Open Source Software Conference  are going quickly! POSSCON will take place at IT-oLogy, 1301 Gervais Street, Columbia, SC from March 27-28th. If you’re a Developer, Sys Admin, Engineer or IT Manager of any type and you’re interested in open source, this is a can’t miss event!

If you’re a high school or college student please register right away.  Because student tickets are limited, and we have almost sold out,  we will send you special code if you are chosen to attend.  Please hurry as we are taking people on first-come-first served basis.  A special thanks to Google for making student tickets available for only $10 per day.

POSSCON is considerably more technical this year and will once again feature some of the best speakers and biggest open source companies in the world.  If you’re looking for a world-class educational opportunity, and an opportunity to meet the people you would otherwise read about, register now! http://posscon.org/get-registered/ 

Just a few of the technologies covered will include:

Drupal, Linux, Cloud Computing, MySQL, FreeNAS 8.3, Javascript, KVM (Virtulaization), Node.js, Configuration Management, Licensing, PHP, Open Identity, Version Control/Git/GitHub, backbone.js, CSS3, Riak, Debugging, Django/Python, Caching & Tuning, LibreOffice, MongoDB, Filesystems (ext4, etc.), Clojure, Ruby, Debian, OpenShift, mobile development with backbone.js and Grunt, Security, Groovy 2.0, and many more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our speakers will again be among the best in the world.  Speakers from 6 countries will attend and participate – Italy, Japan, Belgium, England, Australia and the U.S.

 

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First 100 Tickets Now Available for POSSCON 2013 – World Class Open Source Speakers and Content

January 10th, 2013 | Posted by ToddLewis in IT-oLogy Defined - (3 Comments)

The first 100 tickets are now available for the 2013 Palmetto Open Source Software Conference (POSSCON). The cost is $99 per ticket and includes both days of content. After these are sold, the next 100 will be made available for $149.

POSSCON 2013 will be held at IT-oLogy on March 27 and 28 and will feature track sessions, hands-on training and social and networking events. Tracks will include web development, system administration, education, training, and demonstration.

World class speakers will again be featured, including Bradley Kuhn, Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy; Italo Vignoli, Founder and Board Member, Document Foundation; Jonathan Leblanc, Technology Evangelist and author, PayPal; Steven Vaughn Nichols, Editor and Columnist, CBS/ZDNet, Computer World and Network World; and many, many more.

Top companies like Google, Red Hat, PayPal, Groupon, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and many others will again attend and participate.

Started in 2008, POSSCON is an annual gathering of industry experts, thought leaders, IT decision makers, software programmers and educators around the topic of open source. The conference has steadily grown since it began, and in 2012 approximately 600 people from 20+ states attended, 20 colleges and universities and more than 75 private and government organizations were represented. Open source is a philosophy and methodology based on making source code available and redistributable.

Major sponsors include IT-oLogy, Google, SIOS, Hewlett Packard, Engine Yard, Red Hat, SPARC, GitHub and Life Cycle Engineering.

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23 Attend Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM)

December 10th, 2012 | Posted by ToddLewis in IT-oLogy Defined - (0 Comments)

23 people attended the Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) workshop held Thursday, November 29 at IT-oLogy. KVM is a full virtualization solution for Linux and is open source.

Jim Salter, a nationally known open source expert, conducted the workshop and answered questions from attendees. His talk started with an introduction to KVM and quickly moved to mixed-use environments. Using KVM, one can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images.

Attendees, which included technologists of all ages, learned how to set up KVM and how to install and manage virtual machines (Windows, Linux, or other) under Ubuntu. Several put the newly obtained knowledge to use immediately and began using KVM.

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First Student Android Appathon a Success

December 10th, 2012 | Posted by ToddLewis in IT-oLogy Defined - (0 Comments)

The first ever Student Android App Development Contest was hosted by the Open IT Lab, IT-oLogy and the University of South Carolina on Saturday, November 17. It was a tremendous success with more than 10 teams competing from across South Carolina.

This was the first Android application development contest exclusively for students in the state of South Carolina. Teams from the University of South Carolina, Clemson University, and various high schools entered and demonstrated applications of all types. SCANA, RhythmLink, and Blue Acorn from Charleston were sponsors and made it possible.
Winners Joseph Maley and Jacob Harrelson pictured here with
representatives from SCANA and Blue Acorn, sponsors of the contest.

Winners of the contest were Joseph Maley and Jacob Harrelson of Clemson University. They formed the ‘Cube Steaks’ team and developed an application called ‘Dinosaur Tycoon”. Drew Heavner of USC and Felix Fischer also received special mention. Felix is a 9th grade high school student and developed an impressive Bluetooth TicTacToe application.

 Eight teams from across SC demonstrated applications at IT-oLogy on November 17

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Twenty Five Attend Version Control/Git Workshop

October 26th, 2012 | Posted by ToddLewis in IT-oLogy Defined - (0 Comments)

25 people attended the Version Control/Git/GitHub workshop held at IT-oLogy on Thursday, October 25. The Open IT Lab hosted the event and Jarrell Waggoner, the Lab’s Program Manager, served as the instructor.

The workshop focused on version control, which is a common tool used by software developers to keep track of changes in code or documents. Git is an immensely popular distributed version control system used to manage numerous open source projects, including the Linux kernel. GitHub is a commercial website and service that makes it easier to manager git repositories.

Attendees ranged in experience levels and included students, professors and local IT professionals. Each walked away with information they could put to immediate use, such as how to create a repository, how to use the staging area and manage commits, how to add and remove files, how to create branches, manage tags and view logs, and much more.

The Open IT Lab is planning to offer the workshop again in December. If interested please contact Todd Lewis at todd@palmettocomputerlabs.com for more information and to register. Seating will be limited.

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The Open IT Lab Visits TriLUG in Raleigh

October 22nd, 2012 | Posted by ToddLewis in IT-oLogy Defined - (0 Comments)

Last week Todd Lewis and Jim Salter visited Red Hat Headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Triangle Linux User Group (TriLUG) in the heart of the Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle is one of the largest monthly Linux meetings in the world.

Todd, the founder of the Palmetto Open Source Software Conference (POSSCON) and the Open IT Lab, presented POSSCON’s mission  and invited the Linux enthusiasts to attend the next conference March 27-28, 2013. The visit also served to strengthen ties between Columbia and Raleigh as we work on similar goals of promoting open source education and solutions.

Jim presented the feature talk on the Linux Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM). As a self-employed system administrator, Jim considers KVM to be a critical infrastructure in his business. Virtualization allows one to run operating systems and applications on top of a core host operating system enabling greater reliability, scalability, and maximum hardware utilization. While KVM needs a Linux kernel as the host, it can run any guest Operating System including Windows or BSD. A huge advantage is that the technology is open source and is not subject to proprietary vendor lock-in like many other virtualization products.

You can watch the Google+/YouTube video below. Todd’s talk starts at 19:30 and Jim’s talk is at 25:25. You can also follow along with the slides here.

Jim plans to offer his KVM talk in Columbia soon, perhaps at the next POSSCON.


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The Open IT Lab Celebrates Software Freedom Day 2012

September 20th, 2012 | Posted by ToddLewis in Education | Grow IT | Teach IT | World of IT - (1 Comments)

Cross-posted from the Open IT Lab News

The Open IT Lab joined nearly 300 other teams from over 60 countries around the world in celebrating this year’s Software Freedom Day last Saturday. Software Freedom Day is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software that takes place on the third Saturday in September.

The Open IT Lab offered our flagship “Open Source 101″ workshop. Jarrell Waggoner led our guests on an engaging overview of what it means for software, hardware, and content to be open. Attendees learned how open source has already changed our world and some everyday examples of this “innovation based on sharing” development strategy. We saw how open source software is becoming more and more important to how businesses operate. Finally, attendees were encouraged to participate by either contributing to open projects or starting their own.

After the lecture, we did a drawing and three lucky participants won commemorative t-shirts. The t-shirts, stickers, and balloons were generously supplied by sponsors of Software Freedom Day.

Attendees then were led on a tour of our state- of-the-art Open IT Lab, featuring open software, open content, and open hardware.

Come join us next year for Software Freedom Day! We plan to offer our Open Source 101 workshop again in January.

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More than 30 Attend Linux Administration 101

September 17th, 2012 | Posted by ToddLewis in IT-oLogy Defined - (0 Comments)

More than 30 people attended the Linux Administration 101 workshop held Thursday, September 13 at IT-oLogy. Attendees included high school and college students, as well as current IT professionals from local companies and government organizations.

The  workshop meant to familiarize participants with the basics of Linux systems administration with a heavy focus on Debian and Debian derivatives, such as Ubuntu. Ubuntu was the distribution used.

Attendees learned the basics of using the Bash command shell, about important configuration files that control system behavior, about package management, system backup and restoration, and they got an overview of the directory structure underneath the Ubuntu system. Jim Salter, a well known Linux expert, conducted the workshop and took questions from attendees.

For more information about the Open IT Lab and future open source workshops go to www.open-it-lab.com.

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