June 29th 2011 - Open VPN, Truecrypt, Bitcoin...

At last night’s meeting we discussed OpenVPN, Truecrypt, Bitcoin and Tomboy Notes.

The slides from the talk on OpenVPN are available from Github, but probably don’t make any sense on their own.. We covered the use-cases for OpenVPN, along with discussion on problems setting it up people had encountered and tricks and tips. We also quickly installed a server on the night, so hopefully people feel more comfortable setting it up now.

Brian showed us how to use Truecrypt, right from the basics. Truecrypt is a cross-platform tool for encrypting filesystems. He showed us how to setup an encrypted vault, and we discussed setting up encrypted partitions, cross-platform compatibility issues and security. We briefly covered how it compares to other disk encryption tools, but there is scope for a wider discussion around that.

Brian also showed us Tomboy Notes, which follows on from the article he has written for the Bradford CVS newsletter. Tomboy Notes is a cross-platform application for storing information which can then be shared across multiple computers and also mobile devices. We very briefly mentioned alternatives such as Dradis.

Olly’s talk on Bitcoin generated lots of interest, and we discussed the technical and political issues around Bitcoin. Websites shown on the night included Bitcoin Market Charts - http://www.bitcoincharts.com/markets/ where people watch the value of Bitcoin. http://mining.bitcoin.cz/ Which is a popular mining pool and Britcoin https://britcoin.co.uk which is probably the best place to buy and sell bitcoins in the UK right now.

We also had a short quiz and a clear out of Alice’s spare parts cupboard.

There was an interest in hearing talks on media (especially video editing) in Linux as well as Git and Github in the future. A 20 minute talk or discussion on either of these topics would be appreciated.

Finally, a couple of dates for your diary:

Leeds Hack - 6th August http://leedshack.com/ A weekend of creating things and learning new skills.

Haworth Jelly - 15th July http://www.bradfordjelly.co.uk An afternoon of co-working at a café in Haworth, designed to encourage collaboration and skill sharing.

Past Meetings