June General Meeting

Character Encoding and Unicode

Speaker: Wanying Luo, Software Engineering Principal Engineer, Black Duck

You probably thought that character encoding was straightforward, since a character is just a character and that's all there is to it. In the old ASCII days, that may have been true, but support for multiple languages and symbols has made things more complicated than you could imagine.

In this presentation, we'll look at various aspects of character encoding with a focus on Unicode. We'll try to clear up some common misconceptions that folks may have with character encoding. Developing a thorough understanding of the challenges and design rationales of Unicode is beyond the scope of this presentation (and not something one can expect to accomplish with a one-hour presentation). Our goal is to stimulate enough interest and hopefully give some basic knowledge so that folks may feel more comfortable studying the Unicode standard.

Wanying joined Coverity in 2012, initially working on compiler frontends. He later transitioned to the static analysis team, where he has served as a software architect since then. His primary focus and interests lie in utilizing static analysis technology to discover security vulnerabilities in source code.

707 Fifth

707 - 5 St. S.W.
Third floor conference room C

There is $3 parking after 16:00 one block south of the meeting location, at the Centennial Parkade (Lot 54).

5:30 PM, Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Snacks at 17:30. CUUG Annual General Meeting begins at 18:00. Presentation begins immediately after AGM.

Attendance is free for CUUG members, or $10 (cash or e-transfer) at the door for non-CUUG members.

RSVP to office at CUUG if you plan to attend.

Annual General Meeting and Elections

The Calgary UNIX Users' Group is holding its Annual General Meeting and election of the 2025/2026 Board of Directors. Nominees so far include the following:

• Alex Chow
• Alan Dewar
• Greg King
• Dick Miller
• Rebecca Reid

707 Fifth

707 - 5 St. S.W.
Third floor conference room C

There is $3 parking after 16:00 one block south of the meeting location, at the Centennial Parkade (Lot 54).

5:30 PM, Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Snacks at 17:30. Meeting begins at 18:00.

Attendance is free for CUUG members, or $10 (cash or e-transfer) at the door for non-CUUG members.

RSVP to office at CUUG if you plan to attend.

Membership Renewals Due

It is annual renewal time for CUUG memberships. Membership fees remain at $50.00 (no GST), and cheques can be made payable to Calgary UNIX Users' Group.
You can also renew via e-transfer to "office@cuug.ab.ca".
Our mailing address is as follows:

Calgary Unix Users' Group
Box 878, Station M
Calgary, AB   T2P 2J6

Invoices have been sent by email. If you have not yet received yours, please contact office at CUUG.

May General Meeting

Silicon Graphics Pandemic Rescue!

How I saved my dream UNIX retro supercomputer from Down Under

Speaker: Rees Machtemes, President, OT Engineering

Silicon Graphics is now no longer in business, but was once renowned for their hardware-accelerated realtime 3D computer graphics and virtual reality in the 1990s, including pioneering the famous OpenGL software framework. They are most famous for powering animation studios and special effects, like Industrial Light and Magic and Weta Digital, and many more. Of course, they ran UNIX on extremely powerful and expensive custom hardware, with a price tag to match. Since junior high school, I had always wanted an SGI. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I was determined to make my dream happen.

Join me for a fascinating journey on how I found my dream machine, an Onyx2 mini-bar fridge sized "Deskside" graphical supercomputer, in some Aussie bloke's shed. How did it go from being sold "as-is" on eBay for "local pickup only" to a successful power-on at my house in Canada years later? And what do I plan to do with this thing?

Rees is a professional engineer in Alberta with 20 years of industry experience in electric power generation and transmission substation design, food and beverage plant automation, telecommunications, data centres and IT support. He has a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alberta.

For the five years before he founded OT Engineering, Rees was a Director of Industrial Security at Waterfall Security Solutions and a member of their renowned Industrial Security Team of OT subject matter experts.

In his spare time, he tinkers with old Japanese cars and vintage computers.

Slides from this presentation are available (PDF), along with a recording of the presentation.

707 Fifth

707 - 5 St. S.W.
Third floor conference room C

There is $3 parking after 16:00 one block south of the meeting location, at the Centennial Parkade (Lot 54).

5:30 PM, Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Snacks at 17:30. Meeting begins at 18:00.

Attendance is free for CUUG members, or $10 (cash or e-transfer) at the door for non-CUUG members.

RSVP to office at CUUG if you plan to attend.

April General Meeting

2024 Cyber Attacks on OT Systems + Defensive Developments

Speaker: Andrew Ginter, VP Industrial Security, Waterfall Security

The 2025 threat report is out from Waterfall & ICS Strive: 76 attacks with physical consequences in 2024 in heavy industry impacted over 1000 physical sites, nation-state attacks tripled, and more ICS/OT-capable malware was discovered in 2024 than the previous 5 years combined. Andrew covers all this and more, and then digs into the most important defensive developments, including: new cross-agency advice to stop using VPNs for remote access, new guidance asking questions about safety systems nobody else has asked, and a change in how we look at OT cyber risk - no longer "how likely is the attack?" but "how credible is the consequence?" Ask different questions, and we get different answers...

Andrew is a co-author of the threat report, has worked in OT / automation systems for 35 years with the last 20 in OT security, is the author of 3 books on the topic, and co-host of the Industrial Security Podcast, if you'd like to dig deeper.

Slides from this presentation are available (PDF), along with a recording of the presentation.

707 Fifth

707 - 5 St. S.W.
Third floor conference room A (← not the usual C)

There is $3 parking after 16:00 one block south of the meeting location, at the Centennial Parkade (Lot 54).

5:30 PM, Tuesday, April 29, 2025

N.B. This is the fifth Tuesday of the month.

Snacks at 17:30. Meeting begins at 18:00.

Attendance is free for CUUG members, or $10 (cash or e-transfer) at the door for non-CUUG members.

RSVP to office at CUUG if you plan to attend.

March General Meeting

A Brief Introduction to CTFs (Capture-The-Flag)

Speaker: Rebecca Reid, Senior Software Engineer, Black Duck

CTFs (Capture-The-Flags) are competitions where participants try to hack purposefully vulnerable programs to find "flags", e.g. text strings. They're a great way to get into cybersecurity, both on the side of the hackers and of the defenders. In this talk, Rebecca will go over how to participate in CTFs, and if all goes well, a live demo of an ongoing CTF.

Rebecca is a Senior Software Engineer at Black Duck, working in their C++ Compilers team. She has experience with CTFs in university, and has won an internal CTF competition back when the company was still Synopsys, beating the reigning pen-tester (penetration tester, e.g. hackers-for-hire) team. She is also the current CUUG President.

Slides from this presentation are available in PowerPoint and PDF format, along with a recording of the presentation.

707 Fifth

707 - 5 St. S.W.
Third floor conference room C

There is $3 parking after 16:00 one block south of the meeting location, at the Centennial Parkade (Lot 54).

5:30 PM, Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Snacks at 17:30. Meeting begins at 18:00.

Attendance is free for CUUG members, or $10 (cash or e-transfer) at the door for non-CUUG members.

RSVP to office at CUUG if you plan to attend.

February General Meeting

NethServer 8: Solid Foundation for Self-Hosting Web Applications

Speaker: Gabriel Cossette, Senior Linux SysAdmin, Cybera

Self-hosting Web applications is a practice that is useful both in the personal and business context. Depending on the situation, we can enjoy better privacy, flexibility, performance and reduced costs. However, some "boring" aspects we need to think about are backups, authentication, security, scalability and management across servers.

In this talk, Gabriel will present a new multi-server container-based solution that sets a solid foundation for self-hosting, while remaining simple to use and operate: NethServer 8.

• Project page: https://www.nethserver.org
• Source code repositories: https://github.com/nethserver
• Community: https://community.nethserver.org
• Apps (some are in "testing"): https://wiki.nethserver.org/doku.php?id=ns8:applications:applications

Gabriel is a geek with a passion for open source software and its culture! He works at Cybera (Alberta not-for-profit org. focused on digital technology) as a Senior Linux SysAdmin. He likes to experiment with all types of platforms and see how they can be useful. He's also keen to contribute to different initiatives and attend communities of practice.

Slides from this presentation are available (PDF).

707 Fifth

707 - 5 St. S.W.
Third floor conference room C

There is $3 parking after 16:00 one block south of the meeting location, at the Centennial Parkade (Lot 54).

5:30 PM, Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Snacks at 17:30. Meeting begins at 18:00.

Attendance is free for CUUG members, or $10 (cash only) at the door for non-CUUG members.

RSVP to office at CUUG if you plan to attend.

January General Meeting

Case Study: Equipment resiliency in a Critical infrastructure environment

Speaker: Kirk Reid, Industrial Controls & Cybersecurity Specialist, TC Energy

Achieving millisecond failover times in a critical process environment.

Kirk is an Industrial Controls & Cybersecurity Specialist at TC Energy. He has 30 years of experience in IT, specializing for the past 20 years of networking and security. For the last 8 years at TC, Kirk has been leading the modernization of their IT and OT networks across 7000 sites in North America.

Slides from this presentation are available in PowerPoint and PDF format.

707 Fifth

707 - 5 St. S.W.
Third floor conference room C

There is $3 parking after 16:00 one block south of the meeting location, at the Centennial Parkade (Lot 54).

5:30 PM, Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Snacks at 17:30. Meeting begins at 18:00.

Attendance is free for CUUG members, or $10 (cash only) at the door for non-CUUG members.

RSVP to office at CUUG if you plan to attend.

December Holiday Social

CUUG December Holiday Season Social Evening

It's December, and in keeping with our reinstated tradition, CUUG members and their invited guests will get together for a social evening at the Regency Palace restaurant on Tuesday, December 10, 2024. We'll have a private room and have food from the buffet. Attendees pay for their own drinks.

If you are a CUUG member and would like to join us, please e-mail office at cuug.ab.ca so that we can get an approximate count of how many people to expect. If you would like to bring a guest, please let us know your guest's name as well.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Regency Palace Restaurant

5:45 PM, Tuesday, December 10, 2024

This event is for CUUG members and invited guests.

RSVP to office at CUUG if you plan to attend.

November General Meeting

Experiences with 3D Printing and Practical Applications

Speaker: Christian Falkenberg-Andersen, Retired M.D. and tech enthusiast

In this talk, Christian will share his journey into the world of 3D printing, including how he started and why he chose the two printers he currently uses. He'll showcase some of his favorite designs, highlighting their unique and innovative features.

Additionally, Christian will discuss his application of 3D printing in a medical setting, specifically how he used it to create customized splints for his patients before retiring from his medical practice.

As part of the presentation, Christian will introduce OpenSCAD, his preferred design software, explaining why it stands out for creating precise and functional 3D models. To conclude, he will demonstrate the capabilities of his smaller 3D printer, which will complete a print during the course of the talk.

This session aims to inspire creativity and provide practical insights into the versatile world of 3D printing.

Christian Falkenberg-Andersen was born in Denmark and emigrated to Canada at age 14. His parents lived on a farm and solving problems on the farm is likely where an interest in tinkering started. He completed a bachelor of science, majoring in biochemistry (University of Calgary) and taking a course in instrumentation for scientists sparked a very strong interest in electronics. Subsequently he got a second bachelor of science degree (in electrical engineering) and postgraduate master of science degree in biomedical engineering (studying the nerve conduction of a compound action potential traveling down a nerve, and using FFT to calculate the distribution of nerve conduction speeds for the axon). During his work on his master's degree he entered medical school and received a doctor of medicine degree. Subsequently he qualified for practising medicine with specialty in family medicine. He retired 2 years ago from working as a solo family physician since 1999 in Market Mall. Currently, his activities include a lot of tinkering with the Raspberry Pi and Arduino single board computers, as well as 3D printing. Sewing, cycling (electric-assist bike) and kite skiing round out his activities.

Slides from this presentation are available in Keynote, PowerPoint and PDF format.

707 Fifth

707 - 5 St. S.W.
Third floor conference room C

There is $3 parking after 16:00 one block south of the meeting location, at the Centennial Parkade (Lot 54).

5:30 PM, Tuesday, November 26, 2024

Snacks at 17:30. Meeting begins at 18:00.

Attendance is free for CUUG members, or $10 (cash only) at the door for non-CUUG members.

RSVP to office at CUUG if you plan to attend.

Christopher Aziz: CUUG Life Member

Christopher Aziz 1999

Christopher Aziz 2024

In recognition of his 25 years of dedicated volunteer service to CUUG, the Calgary Unix Users' Group is pleased to announce that Christopher Aziz has been named a CUUG Life Member.

Chris first joined CUUG's Board of Directors in 1998, immediately taking on the role of President. He has served as President a total of 11 times, more than any other person. Even when he was not on the Board (CUUG bylaws mandate a break after five consecutive years of service), he remained actively involved in the running of the organization. Our continued success is due in no small part to Chris's contributions.

Thank you, Chris, for all that you've done for CUUG!

October General Meeting

What's With Calgary's Water System?

Speaker: Roy Brander, CUUG Life Member and retired Senior Infrastructure Engineer, Calgary Water Resources

Roy Brander served as "Senior Infrastructure Engineer" for Calgary Water Resources from 1995 through 2015, working mainly on smaller distribution pipes for most of that period. His presentation will be assisted by advice and material from Alan Beairsto, who managed the operations staff at Water Treatment Plants through an even longer period, and Hugh Costello, who sized and designed much of the larger system of feedermains (those over 400mm), pump stations, and reservoirs that move water across the city from the plants.

How that larger system works in Calgary, feeding water evenly to the reservoirs serving over 20 separate pressure zones, will provide context for the problems that arose in Calgary when a particularly critical feedermain had to be withdrawn from service in June 2024, an outage lasting months. We will then present the much-discussed issues in the media, involving the choice of pipe materials, the inspection of large pipes, and the problems of repair, explaining with material from their careers, and developed by Lily Dupuis of CBC following interviews with Roy.

Roy Brander is a CUUG Life Member. He has given a number of presentations on a wide variety of subjects, including the BSDWall project, the MEPIS Linux distribution, the Titanic, management of Calgary's water mains, and the ASUS Eee PC and Moore's Law. Roy has retired from his position as the Senior Infrastructure Engineer for Water Resources, The City of Calgary, and now lives in a Vancouver condo overlooking Stanley Park. He'll be coming to us virtually from there, via Zoom.

Slides from this presentation are available (Part 1 and Part 2).

707 Fifth

707 - 5 St. S.W.
Third floor conference room C

There is $3 parking after 16:00 one block south of the meeting location, at the Centennial Parkade (Lot 54).

5:30 PM, Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Snacks at 17:30. Meeting begins at 18:00.

Attendance is free for CUUG members, or $10 (cash only) at the door for non-CUUG members.

RSVP to office at CUUG if you plan to attend.

September General Meeting

Unix Tips, Tricks, and Quirks

Speaker: Alan Dewar, Software Engineering Senior Staff Engineer, Synopsys

If you've been using Unix for any reasonable length of time, you're familiar with the basics: file system structure, simple commands, etc. There are more advanced commands and utilities with which you might be less familiar, and which could help you be more productive. Then again, there are some things which are obtuse, quirky, or just plain weird.

Join us for a discussion of the joys, frustrations, and amusements to be had with Unix. We'll have time at the end for you to share your own experiences of the good, the bad, and the quirky!

Alan Dewar is a software engineering senior staff engineer at Synopsys, working as part of the Software Integrity Group. He has been using Unix since the early 1980s and its predecessor, Multics, before that. He is also a long-time CUUG member and director, as well as past President.

Slides from this presentation are available in PowerPoint and PDF format.

707 Fifth ← NEW LOCATION!

707 - 5 St. S.W.
Third floor conference room C

There is $3 parking after 16:00 one block south of the meeting location, at the Centennial Parkade (Lot 54).

5:30 PM, Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Snacks at 17:30. Meeting begins at 18:00.

Attendance is free for CUUG members, or $10 (cash only) at the door for non-CUUG members.

RSVP to office at CUUG if you plan to attend.

2024 Board of Directors

At the June 2024 Annual General Meeting, the following people were elected to the Board of Directors for 2024/2025:

• Rebecca Reid (President)
• Greg King (Secretary-Treasurer)
• Alex Chow
• Alan Dewar
• Dick Miller