Future of the LOPSAgram
Greetings from your Community Manager,
In December we announced changes to the format and tone of the LOPSAgram. The theme we had planned on was ‘core dump’. A major component of that was our QA with the board. We did not receive any questions for the board, and so waiting for some feedback pushed back the release time. Beyond that though, I’ve been beset with another wave of illness after regretfully relocating to a more northerly climate. Apologies for the tardiness.
Among the changes we’ve discussed is to be less formal in our tone and content. Indeed the formality that LOPSA communications have tended towards has been somewhat tone deaf. LOPSA is a small but intimate community, and its publications and other communications channels should reflect that.
I ask that Local Chapters and their leadership endeavor to develop tighter communication with me going forward. I’d like to be in a better position to make the LOPSAgram a voice for the local organizations as well.
Mentorship Program Changes
We have ended use of the Xinspire platform for our Mentorship Program. Though Xinspire is an excellent turn-key solution, in retrospect it was not the right solution for LOPSA. Going forward we will be using the LOPSA Slack for communications between mentors and protege. Details are being finalized and we expect to have a revamped Mentorship area live on the site soon.
Stay tuned to our social media for finalized details
We will be handling matching and communications through Slack channels, and the Mentorship section will be updated to reflect these changes once they've been finalized.
The decision to retire Xinspire ultimately boiled down to value. The platform was under-utilized and more expensive than such low usage justified. Beyond that, however, it was too elaborate. It was realized that a simpler more streamlined communication platform would suit the scope of how Mentorship actually takes place.
Slack is renowned for ease of use and flexibility and we feel confident that it’ll place our mentorship program on firm footing.
Click here to join the LOPSA workspace on SLACK
Mattermost retirement
On February 24th the LOPSA Mattermost will be shut down. Please use SLACK for the same functionality. Special thanks to Bruno Henc for his devoted service in implementing and running this service for LOPSA. The retirement of Mattermost is primarily in the interest of streamlining and centralizing communication.
Local events
Seattle
The February SASAG meeting to be held on the 14th was canceled due to inclement weather.
March SASAG meetup for the 14th will feature Ski Kacaroski and refreshments provided by Fuzzy Logic:
When NSD migrated to O365 over the holidays, we found out that many of our legacy systems did not work with O365. This talk will discuss the issues and the use of the Davmail software to work around the issues.
San Diego
Rescheduled from February, LOPSA-SD presents "Back from the dead- automated install of 1975 UNIX in the Google Cloud."
Tom Perrine will be showing how to automate creating instances in Google Cloud Platform, using SIMH to run V6 UNIX on an emulated PDP-11 as an example.
The main goal is to show how easy it is to automate GCP using just BASH, as well as show what it was like to use UNIX in 1975.
There may be a surprise mainframe OS guest, as well.
