Augustina's Technological Blog

I’m not really a “hacker” in the network security sense, nor am I really into network security.  I went to Defcon last year because a coworker who was planning to attend convinced me I would have fun.  I have other friends who attended in the past and enjoyed it.  I mentioned it to a few friends, they were interested, so we went!

I discovered that Defcon is not just for Internet Security Geeks!  There are different types of “hackers” not all of them computer related.  Defcon hosts a Lockpicking lounge and a Hardware Hacking lounge in addition to a variety of talks covering a variety of subjects, not all internet security related.
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I went to <a href=”http://www.linuxfest.org”>linuxfest</a> this past weekend and really had a great time.  I had volunteered to help out at the Ubuntu Lo-Co team table but they had it pretty well covered.  I think a Pacific Northwest Lo-Co is a bit broad since we’re too spread out to really meet.  Several people and groups in Seattle do use Ubuntu so I think it’s a shame there really isn’t a LUG or Seattle Ubuntu Lo-Co.  Being at the conference also, to me anyways, emphasized a need for a Linux Chix chapter in Seattle, and I might just have to revive it  (as if i don’t have enough on my plate already).

My favorite sessions were Copyright, XUL, One Laptop Per Child, and Asterisk.  A few big names had sponsored some events which made it fun – SecondLife, Google, and Pogo.  I’d really love to get involved with some game programming on OLPC, especially since they are using PyGame, but I have no idea where or how to get started, there wasn’t much info on their wiki.  XUL was neat as well as an alternative to Adobe’s Apollo/Air.  When I started playing around with the samples, however I realized it’s a mess.  Air is way easier to use out of the box and is better documented.  Hopefully Mozilla works to improve this because XUL could really be a decent Free alternative.