[It-chair-search] Howdy
Howdy! My name is Steven Ball. I've been working on computers and networks for about 15 years now, I think... My background is very heavy into UNIX/Linux systems. 'Professionally', I started out with RedHat systems while I was the senior sysadmin for the Electrical Engineering department at New Mexico Tech. After that, I was a sysadmin for Motorola in Los Alamos, NM for 3 years managing a large linux cluster and etc for the small facility there. I spent a few years as a freelance consultant doing networks and systems for a variety of clients until I settled on a fulltime job in Utah as an electrical engineer for a laser company (and, of course, one of two sysadmins there as well). I still manage a few other concerns, such as the backend for an ISP in Santa Fe, NM (all Linux firewalls and servers), as well as a VoIP startup run from a co-lo on the west coast. I've handled a large variety of systems from RedHat, Debian, etc as well as commercial UNIX systems and BSD systems. I can handle Windows networks just fine, but prefer not to :) As far as linux is concerned, I have meddled with just about everything from kernel hacking to custom embedded versions to day-to-day administration duties. I've done Kerberos/LDAP authentication systems, integrated MacOS systems and Active Directory, and put together a number of things that just shouldn't go together, so I'm no stranger to cobbling together a working solution. I'm very experienced with PHP and MySQL, and have written a number of in-house apps based around them. I'm a pretty good C++ and C programmer, as I spend a lot of time currently doing embedded systems with microcontrollers, and to that end I am pretty good at integrating wacky systems together. I'm also a caver, although I have not been underground enough in the last couple of years! I co-manage the NMCAVER mailing list (although it is not hosted on my kit), as well as run a couple of listserv's for caving grottos I am part of. I'm happy to help in any capacity that is needed, so even if I am not the best fit for the Chair job, please feel free to pawn tasks off to me! -Steve ___ It-chair-search mailing list it-chair-sea...@caves.org http://lists.caves.org/mailman/listinfo/it-chair-search
Re: [It-chair-search] Welcome
Greetings, my name is Charles Goldsmith and while I'll admit that I don't have all of the qualifications to meet the needs, I threw my hat in to see if I could help. I'll gladly help with the committee under whoever the chair is. In my day job, I'm a cisco network engineer, but I do deal with UNIX and Linux servers, I donate server time and admin the TexasCavers mailing list as well as a couple of the local grotto's lists and websites. My professional resume mainly deals with my career but it does touch on my UNIX background a bit. I have dealt with securing UNIX servers, as well as securing networks. I am more familiar with BSD than I am Linux, but I do know my way around, as I use it as my primary workstation at my office, as well as administering a couple of of RedHat and Ubuntu servers. I will admit, I'm certainly no expert on CGI, PHP or Perl, but I am familiar with them enough to know to leave it to the experts. I've programmed in C, BASIC, Fortran, in the past, as well as shell, TCL and Expect scripts as well as a small bit of PHP.. If you need references from the caving community, any of the active DFW Grotto, Cowtown Grotto or TSA members would be a good place to start. I'll be happy to provide any other information you need. Btw, who wrote the previous message? I didn't see a name get posted. :) Charles On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 1:47 PM, wrote: > This seemed like the best way to have an open dialog among all the > candidates, and ensure that everyone received the same information regarding > our server operations. Please take a moment to set up your email client and > add it-chair-sea...@caves.org to your whitelist. >
[It-chair-search] Welcome
This seemed like the best way to have an open dialog among all the candidates, and ensure that everyone received the same information regarding our server operations. Please take a moment to set up your email client and add it-chair-sea...@caves.org to your whitelist. The current list of candidates are: Baird Cowan Brad Bardcom Steve Ball Darryl C. Noye Will Urbanski Charles Goldsmith I'd ask that each of you take a moment to introduce yourself to the list with some basic background on who you are and your experience with the technoligies discussed throughout this email. Please be sure to point out your experience with the server technologies This will also serve as a confirmation to me that you have received the email. The IT Committee Chairman reports to the Organizational Vice President, currently William Shrewsbury, who is on this listserv. William, please also introduce yourself. Next, note that I'm archiving the list so that if we pick up any new candidates along the way, they will be able to read everything that we've discussed and get caught up quickly. The archive can be found at http://lists.caves.org/mailman/private/it-chair-search/ Now for a basic summary of our set-up and common tasks. We're running a dedicated virtual private server (VPS) with MediaTemple [ http://mediatemple.net ]. uname -a Linux caves.org 2.6.9-023stab046.2-enterprise #1 SMP Mon Dec 10 15:22:33 MSK 2007 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux We just transitioned from 1&1 Internet Inc. to MediaTemple in August of 2008. At 1&1, there were 4 separate hosting accounts, with three of them being rsync'd to a central hosting account every 10 minutes. The reason was that each hosting account had a limitation on the number of FTP accounts that could be created. We offer hosting for a minimal price to all of our Internal Organizations (IOs) [ http://www.caves.org/webservices/index.shtml ]. There are over 100 FTP accounts with access to the server. The rsync process with 1&1 was a complete pain to our IOs, and we lost customers. Customers? Yes. NSS Web Server operations are completely paid for by the hosting and advertising on caves.org. Furthermore, our uptime with 1&1 was atrocious, and there customer support was completely lacking. MediaTemple customer support is attentive and responsive to any request, and their price is reasonable for our needs. I urge you not to even consider moving hosting companies. Background: The move to 1&1 occurred when a box housing the NSS Web Server at a colo in Florida crashed. That was before my time. Josh Bailey, my predecessor, had only been on the job for a couple of months and had to deal with that nightmare. When I came on board, all I heard were complaints about the rsync process as it wreaked havoc with PHP scripts such as image galleries etc. People were uploading pictures to the main hosting account, and then the files were deleted by the rsync. So then the rsync process got convoluted with a huge list of directory exceptions. Bleh. So, I'm happy at MediaTemple. I know our hosted IOs are much happier. I announced the end of the rsync, and there was much rejoicing. I think Alex Sproul would agree that we're better off, with one caveat. Alex is our webmaster, and he's on this listserv too. He takes care of all "official" content on the NSS site caves.org. He also administers the creation, removal, and maintenance of @caves.org email accounts. I'm sure he'll tell you more in his introduction. With 1&1, Alex also admin'd the creation, removal, and maintenance of FTP accounts. That is not currently possible via the Plesk control panel with our current server. Parallels has said that they are moving the interface in a direction that would allow that, but for right now, they only have a concept of "Web Users" with directories at ~/user-name. That just doesn't fly with our hosted IOs. And don't even think about symlinking all kinds of web user directories to hosted IO space. Symlinks are evil in a web server configuration. We're still cleaning out symlinks after the move to MediaTemple. find ./ -type l | wc -l 21 That's down from around 100. For the purposes of continuity, I have intentionally NOT made a lot of modifications to the server configuration. That was mainly so we wouldn't end up with a Frankenstein's monster. Basics: MySQL 5.0.22 Apache 2.2.3 PHP 5.2.6 Perl 5.8.8 Perl is not allowed for use by anyone other than in the central /cgi-bin/. Only official NSS operations are permitted to use the central /cgi-bin/. This is for security reasons, and I didn't want to have to maintain a Perl wrapper script. PHP is free to use by anyone on the server. The hosted IOs are jailed by PHP open_basedir directives. The Apache config is the default, managed by Plesk. It only takes a couple of keystrokes to request that Plesk rebuild the entire configuration, so I didn't want to risk my own personal config. Again, trying to keep things as close to the baseline insta
The results of your email commands
The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: Non-digest (regular) members: webmas...@caves.org (Alex Sproul) ad...@caves.org (Darrell Wells) wo...@justfamily.org (Charles Goldsmith) bairdco...@att.net (Baird Cowan) bbar...@bradfordscott.com (Brad Bardcom) n...@psu.edu (Darryl C. Noye) o...@caves.org (Wm Shrewsbury) will.urban...@gmail.com (Will Urbanski) hams...@snurkle.net (Steve Ball) - Done. --- Begin Message --- who moubaxob --- End Message ---
Re: The results of your email commands
who moubaxob
The results of your email commands
The results of your email command are provided below. Attached is your original message. - Results: You can access your personal options via the following url: http://lists.caves.org/mailman/options/it-chair-search/wokka%40justfamily.org help Help for It-chair-search mailing list: This is email command help for version 2.1.9 of the "Mailman" list manager. The following describes commands you can send to get information about and control your subscription to Mailman lists at this site. A command can be in the subject line or in the body of the message. Note that much of the following can also be accomplished via the World Wide Web, at: http://lists.caves.org/mailman/listinfo/it-chair-search In particular, you can use the Web site to have your password sent to your delivery address. List specific commands (subscribe, who, etc) should be sent to the *-request address for the particular list, e.g. for the 'mailman' list, use 'mailman-request@...'. About the descriptions - words in "<>"s signify REQUIRED items and words in "[]" denote OPTIONAL items. Do not include the "<>"s or "[]"s when you use the commands. The following commands are valid: confirm Confirm an action. The confirmation-string is required and should be supplied by a mailback confirmation notice. end Stop processing commands. Use this if your mail program automatically adds a signature file. help Print this help message. info Get information about this mailing list. lists See a list of the public mailing lists on this GNU Mailman server. password [ ] [address=] Retrieve or change your password. With no arguments, this returns your current password. With arguments and you can change your password. If you're posting from an address other than your membership address, specify your membership address with `address=' (no brackets around the email address, and no quotes!). Note that in this case the response is always sent to the subscribed address. set ... Set or view your membership options. Use `set help' (without the quotes) to get a more detailed list of the options you can change. Use `set show' (without the quotes) to view your current option settings. subscribe [password] [digest|nodigest] [address=] Subscribe to this mailing list. Your password must be given to unsubscribe or change your options, but if you omit the password, one will be generated for you. You may be periodically reminded of your password. The next argument may be either: `nodigest' or `digest' (no quotes!). If you wish to subscribe an address other than the address you sent this request from, you may specify `address=' (no brackets around the email address, and no quotes!) unsubscribe [password] [address=] Unsubscribe from the mailing list. If given, your password must match your current password. If omitted, a confirmation email will be sent to the unsubscribing address. If you wish to unsubscribe an address other than the address you sent this request from, you may specify `address=' (no brackets around the email address, and no quotes!) who password [address=] See everyone who is on this mailing list. The roster is limited to list members only, and you must supply your membership password to retrieve it. If you're posting from an address other than your membership address, specify your membership address with `address=' (no brackets around the email address, and no quotes!) Commands should be sent to it-chair-search-requ...@caves.org Questions and concerns for the attention of a person should be sent to it-chair-search-ow...@caves.org - Done. --- Begin Message --- --- End Message ---
[Texascavers] The long awaited return of "The Hole News" is now being published again and is on the web
Greeting Cavers and Spelunkers an other numerous and notorious Troglodyte types, The May 2009 issue "Volume 24 # 5" of the Permian Basin Speleological Society's "The Hole News" is now on the web in Adobe PDF format. It can be found at the URL listed below: http://www.caver.net/pbss/holenews/pbss5-09.pdf And as always more exciting years of back issues can be found at the following URL: http://www.caver.net/pbss/holenews.html Many thanks to Kel Thomas for his return to be the editor of "The Hole News" Please be sure to send him material! Enjoy and Cave Safely, Bill
[Texascavers] articles
The current (25 May) issue of The New Yorker contains an article on extinctions. Bats and white-nose syndrome are dsicussed as one example of current problems. What on earth Australasia Scuba Diver was doing on Barnes and Noble's magazine racks I have no idea. But issue 6 for 2008, also mysteriously labeled vol. no. 5, has a short article about cave (or cavern) diving in the Mt. Gambier area in South Australia.--Mixon - He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in it will be the greatest benefactor the world has yet known. - Sir Richard Burton -- You may "reply" to the address this message came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu AMCS: edi...@amcs-pubs.org or sa...@amcs-pubs.org - Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
RE: [Texascavers] Fwd: 15th ICS - field trip news and only 2 months!
While many trips were cancelled because of WNS, a few trips, like the Maya trip, were cancelled because of insufficient registration. There are expenses and commitments that need to be paid early for the trips, and we need to be sure we have enough people registered for the trips to cover all of the costs. When the numbers aren't there, we have to cancel the trips to avoid going into debt. George From: Nico Escamilla [mailto:pitboun...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 1:05 PM To: Mixon Bill Cc: Cavers Texas Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Fwd: 15th ICS - field trip news and only 2 months! Why was caving with the Maya cancelled? Nico On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 11:19 AM, Mixon Bill wrote: Forwarded by Mixon: Begin forwarded message: From: ICS 2009 eList List-Post: texascavers@texascavers.com Date: May 20, 2009 11:13:57 AM CDT To: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu Subject: 15th ICS - field trip news and only 2 months! Dear Friends, Last month we sadly announced that we needed to cancel and re-examine all of the trips for the 15th International Congress of Speleology (ICS) because of White Nose Syndrome (WNS), the mysterious condition that has recently killed about a half millions bats in the U.S. We hoped to send you news about the trips a couple of weeks ago, but arranging some of the details was more complicated than expected. Here is the final news on the Pre and Post-ICS trips: Confirmed Trips, Full 01: Coast-to-Coast Eastern Segment 02: Coast-to-Coast Western Segment 85: Cenote Karst of the Yucatan Peninsula 88: Giant Caves of Northern Mexico Confirmed Trips, Space Available* 03: Texas Bat Caves 31: Mammoth Cave, Kentucky 41: Black Hills, South Dakota 51: Science in Southeastern New Mexico 53: Caving in the Guadalupe Mountains (post-Congress) 55: Lilburn Cave, California (only 2 slots still open!) 71: Cave Management in New York 86: Deep Pits of Mexico * The numbers of seats available for some trips in may be different from the total trip size originally announced Canceled 04: Endangered Species, Endangered Caves 33: Cumberland Plateau (TAG) 34: Tectonic Pseudokarst of North Carolina 37: Caves and Karst of Virginia 52: Caving in the Guadalupe Mountains (pre-Congress) 56: Cave the Sierra Nevada, California 58: Big Island Hawaii 59: Southeast Alaska 81: Caving with the Maya 82: Caves of the Bahamas I encourage you to register for the available trips soon before they fill. Some of the trips may experience minor changes because of WNS. If you are concerned, please contact the trip leaders as listed on our website at www.ics2009.us. As reminder, to do our best to prevent the spread of WNS in the US and to other countries, all caving equipment and clothing will need to be decontaminated after each caving trip. The decontamination procedures will be announced and posted on our website within 2 weeks. Today is exactly 2 months until the 15th ICS begins. Today our pre-registration exceeded the total number of people who attended the 8th ICS, the previous ICS held in the US in 1981. I look forward to seeing many more registrations in the coming weeks. Remember, the price of registration increases on June 1st so register now and register for the great field trips that will be held before the ICS, after the ICS, and on Wednesday during the ICS. George George Veni, Ph.D. Chairman, 15th International Congress of Speleology Adjunct Secretary, International Union of Speleology Executive Director, U.S. National Cave and Karst Research Institute You have received this message because you are subscribed to the 2009 ICS eList. To unsubscribe, please visit: http://ics2009mail.nfshost.com/pommo/user/ - He who renders warfare fatal to all engaged in it will be the greatest benefactor the world has yet known. - Sir Richard Burton -- You may "reply" to the address this message came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu AMCS: edi...@amcs-pubs.org or sa...@amcs-pubs.org - Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
[Texascavers] Re: Speleofest
>Are any Texas cavers going to SpeleoFest ? Don't bother, David. Unfortunately, the event now dubbed SpeleoMess is but a ghost of its former glory. In the 1970's, it was one of the best and largest caver gatherings in the country (and there were few in those days). But today, though it at last has its own permanent venue and cave, it amounts to about 200 attendees with very little organization, facilities, or fun. The trip from Texas would be much more worthwhile to attend the Southeast Regional Association (SERA) Cave Carnival the following weekend. This year's is hosted by the Nashville Grotto, long renowned for knowing how to put on a helluva party (as Herr Schindel can attest) at the new permanent venue of the TAG Fall Cave-In on Lookout Mountain in the heart of cave country. Alas, there will be little to no caving at either event. All the more reason for Nashville to put on a helluva party. Alex - Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
