On which note, I’ll re-iterate the recent call for presentations: we’re still looking for people to give short & informative talks. You don’t need to be an expert, nor do you need to have previous experience of giving talks to an audience. Any topic related to Networking will be well received and appreciated. 🙂
Hot on the heels of July, and on to a second event. NetMcr #2 was held on August the 11th 2016, and once again at 57 Thomas Street.
The evening started again with the usual hellos, welcomes & introductions, and then moved swiftly on to our line-up of presentations.
The first talk of the night was given by NetMcr’s co-founder Thom Seddon, on ‘GPON, for Fun and Profit‘.
Thom delivering the first of NetMcr 2’s talks, to an eager audienceAnother angle of Thom’s GPON presentation. Credit for this photo to @davidareader
Thom’s presentation proved to be an extremely engaging topic, and we actually had to make a point of re-focusing the queries following the talk!
This was not without basis, however, as we were then precisely lined-up to be on time for our next talk of the evening: ‘A talk on Oxidized‘, by returning speaker (and NetMcr captive) Neil Lathwood.
Neil. Once again proving to be the world’s finest, as-yet-undiscovered, public speaker.
What was really great about the Oxidized talk, was that even in a room of die-hard RANCID users, not a single item of mouldy fruit was thrown. But given that Neil once again delivered such an enigmatic talk, I doubt it was even possible to conceive of such things.
Hot on the heels of such a revelation, we were lead towards our final talk of the night, and perhaps the most anticipated; ‘Experiences usingFastNetMon‘ by Jon Nield.
Jon giving his talk on FastNetMon. The credit goes again to @davidareader for getting a good snap.
Jon gave a stellar talk on FastNetMon, despite being a newbie to NetMcr (and a late-comer to the speaker’s line-up for the evening) he’ll certainly be welcome back to speak at any point in the future.
Once again Thom & I would like to thank all of those that came, and made NetMcr an enjoyable evening. All three presentations were fantastically delivered, and made for great discussion over the course of the evening.
For those interested, here are the slides for the talks, in the order they were presented on the evening:
Tom Hill & Thom Seddon, ‘Welcome to NetMcr #2‘ (PDF)
On the 14th of July 2016, the inaugural NetMcr meeting was held at 57 Thomas Street, a lovely little pub in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. We’re hoping to be back here every 2nd Thursday from now on until they get tired of us.
Upstairs at 57 Thomas Street, before the chaos began.
So without much further ado, here’s what we got up to…
We spent a little time socialising, saying hello to everyone. Pretty soon it was time to get down to the presentations. First, a little introduction from Thom & myself; what NetMcr’s about, what we hope to achieve, and our respect policy.
Thom & Tom introducing NetMcr, and what we hope to achieve
Then we had some the real presentations, from some wonderful volunteers. First up (in his first public presentation ever) was Neil Lathwood with a talk on LibreNMS.
Neil speaking about LibreNMS, to a packed-out audience.
And it was a great start, for NetMcr as a whole. Neil set the tone for the rest of the evening with his presentation. Unsurprisingly, he was so good, we even convinced him to come back and talk again… Next month.
For the next talk, I gave a little intro to Interconnection in the UK. However, due to circumstances entirely outside of my control, we don’t seem to have any photos of that talk… But the slides will be available to download below, if you’re so interested.
The final talk of the night was ‘10 Things You About VoIP‘, given long-time stalwart of the VoIP world, Tim Bray.
Tim telling us all the ways of VoIP.
And that was that. What was wonderful to see (and hear) were the questions following each talk over the course of the evening. There was a feeling that we’d stirred some good conversation with these talks, and this was definitely ‘mission accomplished’ for Thom & myself.
Fresh from the teachings of Tim, some of us settled into a little more beer, food & conversation, and a few more of us even kept the Networker’s oil burning long towards midnight.
With lots of positive feedback – and constructive criticism – NetMcr was born. Our thanks to everyone that came, and made it happen.
For those interested, here are the slides for the talks, in the order they were presented on the evening:
Tom Hill & Thom Seddon, ‘Welcome to NetMcr #1‘ (PDF)
Neil Lathwood, ‘An Introduction to LibreNMS‘ (PDF)
Tom Hill, ‘An overview of Interconnection in the UK‘ (PDF)
