The LOPSA Leadership Committee hereby submits a call for Board Candidate Self-Nominations.

The LOPSA Bylaws (http://governance.lopsa.org/index.php/LOPSA_Bylaws) state:
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An eligible member may stand for election to the Board if:
A petition, signed by no less than 10 (ten) members of the Association in good standing, is submitted to the Chair of the Leadership Committee, no less than 30 days prior to an election.
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We request that petitions be sent to leadership-chair@lopsa.org no later than 3/31/2009. This gives the Leadership Committee time to set the slate and start gathering candidate statements. Technically a petition can be sent through the end of April, but candidates are encouraged to submit early to be part of the initial process.

We are happy to announce a LOPSA Birds of a Feather at SCaLE. This is your chance to hang with Jesse Trucks, Chris St. Pierre, and all the other crazy SAs representing LOPSA at SCaLE this year.

The BoF will be from 6:00 - 7:00PM on Friday night in the Logan Room. So be sure to wander over after the ZenOSS happy hour.

See http://scale7x.socallinuxexpo.org/conference-info/birds-of-a-feather for the details on time and locations.

If you have any questions about the BoF or our other activities at SCaLE this year, please email scale@lopsa.edu.

LOPSA board member and instructor Jesse Trucks was interviewed by LXer Linux News about LOPSA and our SCaLE University training classes

Read the interview here.

Attached is the transcript of the December 2008 LOPSA Live session. We mentioned the upcoming SCaLE conference, health insurance and locals.

In this memo:

1. Leadership committee changes
   
2. Annual Membership Meeting
   
3. New Tech Services Committee Chair
   
4. LOPSA Live November 6th at 2-3 PM Eastern
   
5. Sponsor Thank Yous

It's often challenging to find answers for the problems that plague you -- and it's even worse when the folk that you try to ask are frustrated and confused by how you're trying to ask, or simply ignore you completely!

There have been tons of good things written about how to ask questions in a way that gets answers (and how to find answers, or at least things to try before asking).

One of the best articles that I know is Merlin Mann's "Solve problems by writing a note to yourself". Merlin makes the very sensible point that writing things down helps you to understand the problem you're trying to solve -- and also means that you've got all of the information about what you've tried, what you've found out, what results you've gotten et al handy, if you do end up needing to ask somebody else.

Every sysadmin, network admin, and DBA has their own toolbelt of vital timesavers and lifesavers they use to pull themselves out of a jam or avoid problems before they arise. Half the game is finding the good tools - the other half is sorting out how they work.

Plenty of sites help you find the tools you need but few point out the tools that would be elevated from good to great if only the documentation was as good as the tool. I aim to fix that with the first ever LOPSA Underdocumented Tool Challenge!

Send us your nominations for best underdocumented tool by July 6th, we'll publish the top 10. The best nomination will win a prize of my choosing.

Do you have a favorite set of tools? Consider augmenting our Tools database. We hope to build a comprehensive listing of tools by category covering the gamut of system and network administration. This shall be a public work to benefit all and should allow browsing by category and searching. The list is sparse at the moment, but it will grow over time through community contributions. If you have any issues adding or updating tools, please email toolsadmin@lopsa.org. This is a work in progress and feedback to lopsa-tools@lopsa.org is welcome. Features for this area are still being expanded. Click here to add a new tool. The list of current tools can be seen at lopsa.org/Tools or by clicking on Content on the left and then Tools.