HR Geeks

Erik and myself headed down to CarolinaCon in Durham a few weeks ago. Have to say, it was fun! It’s a very small con, perhaps 100 people. There were some great presentations ranging in subjects from the McColo story (a co-location facility that housed a large number of servers used by people committing fraud and spamming).  The story included how people got them de-peered so they were disconnected from the internet and why it’s gone. TXS spoke on reverse engineering subjects, and some other talks that slip my mind at the moment. Sorry for the late update, but I had to say it was fun! Had hoped to make NotACon this year, but once  again missed it. Perhaps more locals will make Carolina Con next year?

A camera truck taking street level imagry was spotted in downtown Norfolk on Thursday. The truck carried the Windows Live Local logo on the back, and FaceT logo on the door. This is most likely a Google street-view competitor. Interesting means they have for mounting the cameras! Not only was there the panoramic “stove pipe” looking part, there was also a number of other sensors mounted on the luggage rack.

Original images are on my Flickr Account.)

FaceT/Windows Live Local camera truck in Freemason area of Norfolk

FaceT / Windows Live Local truck in Norfolk

1st place was taken at the 2009 Shmoocon Hacker Arcade for the skeebot modified skeeball machine! A conventional skeeball machine was upgraded. Features added include RFID authentication of the wooden balls, a 19″ widescreen LCD display, 1980 music videos, dollar and coin validation, 16.7 million color computer interfaced lighting, 750 watt strobe (also computer interfaced), seconardy LCD for digital ticket system (using USB port for thumbdrive), ground effects (also RGB LED based), and more! It was by far the largest, and technically only entry at this years arcade. Thanks to David of Outer Banks Amuseuments for the machine. The machine was given to Bruce & Heidi of the Shmoogroup (minus most electronics). We hope to see it in the future modified in all new ways. We’ve already got a list of new ideas for next year’s hacker arcade.

Eventually all source code and docs will be posted under skeebot at www.757labs.com. Video was also recorded to make a short video about the project.

Thanks to Remad and Enferex for much help in transportation, testing, and setting it up! Enferex wrote some code for a web component that unfortunately wasn’t finished. It might find it’s way into a future project though!

Chatter is making it’s way around that NCIS paid a visit to KIS Computers. This raid wasn’t a redundant array of inexpensive disks! The news came to us by way of neighbors of the business, but evidentially it has made it to one of the local television stations. No farther details are known. Goth hacker girl Abby wasn’t spotted.

HRGeeks has a group started by Sean on LinkedIn (needs a logo!). For those un-aware (I hope everyone knows what LinkedIn is by now), LinkedIn is a social network site for business. Plaxo was first, but LinkedIn grew to great popularity recently, after activity has slowed for a year or two. Now Plaxo is making a comeback. If you did not know, www.linkedin.com and www.plaxo.com.

HRGeeks also has a group profile on the new local directory site Connect321. Go to www.connect321.com, search for HRgeeks group (or browse). Feel free to join the group there. Also feel free to add businesses or reviews! Take note that unlike LinkedIn and Plaxo, Connect321 is a local company so let’s show them some love!

In addition to this marketing, t-shirts are in the works (hopefully by Thanksgiving).

It’s finally happened. Being geeks, many of us have grown up around HAM radio people. A number of us have owned various pieces of radio equipment for other projects. But some of us just never gotten around to actually taking the HAM test.

At the HOPE conference in NYC, it was announced that HAM tests would be given. Some of the people surrounding 2600 really promote it. Erik and Jeff managed to study up enough and take the tests, both earning a license. I brought study materials and hyped it, but actually didn’t take the test myself. Another local (Bill) actually took the test, but Erik & Jeff didn’t know him at the time. Congrats to all 3!

Once back in Hampton Roads, I managed to take and pass tests as well. I encourage others to do so as well. It wasn’t too difficult and the practice tests at www.qrz.com help greatly. Once you’ve studied up, then find the next testing date at www.arrl.org.

Be sure to check out the Virginia Beach Amateur Radio Club (www.w4ug.com) as well as the Chesapeake Amateur Radio Service (www.qsl.net/cars) .
At some point HRGeeks may look into standing up a repeater, but this is still in discussion. Most likely we would look to do HAM (data capable), GMRS and possibly a Motorola business band UHF or VHF repeater capable of moving DES encrypted traffic (just because encryption is cool, not that we have secrets).

A number of locals participated yet again in assisting with 2600 magazine’s HOPE conference at the famous Hotel Pennsylvania, located in New York City. The additions provided DVD quality video streaming from the 18th floor to the 2nd floor over a fiber optic network connection (provided by the network guys – props to Dragorn, Binary, Porkchop and their assistants). The big new feature this year, implemented by Erik as we drove to Manhattan was a comment system. Members of the audience in front of the large projection screen had the ability to anonymously post comments on a web page that would scroll across the bottom of the large display. Being anonymous, one can only imagine what ended up on the scroll (full analysis pending). While it was only active for a periods, it still racked over 7,000 comments.

There is the possibility we will be working on a rapidly deployable media management system intended for “hacker” conferences, and usable by other groups.

HOPE 2008, the 7th Hackers on Planet Earth conference was great fun, and we are glad to hear there will be a 8th HOPE in 2010.

Two Hampton Roads companies have made it into the best business category at Linux World 2008. One is xTuple (www.xtuple.com) with xTuple ERP 3.0, and the other is Concursive with ConcourseSuite 5.3 (www.concursive.com). Times must be ripe for name changing, xTuple used to be called OpenMFG and Concursive used to be called CentricCRM. Congrats to both Norfolk, VA based companies and good luck winning against Drupal!

Norfolk Wire & Electronics has acquired Priest Electronics in Chesapeake. The Chesapeake store was closed and consolidated into the Cain Electronics store in Norfolk. Cain Electronics was also a fairly recent acquisition by Norfolk Wire & Electronics.

Dataline Consulting Services changed names to Planit Technology Group and moved to Virginia Beach from Norfolk. You can see the building (Former TAF Group?) along 264, sporting a very nice but underutilized full color LED based “jumbotron” style display.