Durham Personal Computer Users' Club: 2017

Saturday, November 4, 2017

October 2017 - Technology and Security

Lloyd Lindsay delved into security measures that all home users should become aware of. [photos by member Farny LeGresley]

September 2017 - ZTree Win

An Introduction to ZTree

By David McComb
[photos by Members Bob Bell and Farny LeGresley]

August 2017 - University of Ontario Institute of Technology

Representatives from the UOIT introduced the club to some of the uses of the Raspberry Pi micro computer and also taught us a little about how to program in Python. [photos by member Bob Bell]

Monday, July 31, 2017

July 2017 - Renewable Energy & the Grid

Fred Fernbach presented solutions for those needing electrical power, in a variety of settings, be it for power outages and backups, small vehicles, or larger installations that may incorporate passive solar, hydro, and wind in the mix of power generation. http://evfern.com/

June 2017 - Canadian Perspective on the Global Semiconductor Industry

Few of us knew that Canadian, university trained, software and hardware engineers were designing and programming a wide variety of chips - mainly GPUs. Mike Alford, was one of the players in the early years of the industry.

John and Mike

Friday, May 19, 2017

May 2017 - Open Source Self-Driving CARS Initiative

Thank you, Marius Slavescu, for taking time from you busy schedule and presenting a most interesting and timely topic. Marius brought a plethora of (mostly) inexpensive sensing devices, all supported by open source software, to 'read the road' intelligently and allow simulated, computer vision controlled, driving of automobiles. This is an aspect of deep learning (artificial intelligence), still in the early stages of development by members of the general public.

http://ossdc.org/

April 2017 - MCM first portable computer

Dr Zbigniew Stachniak, of York University, reviewed the history of this amazing Canadian invention - the first truly portable, battery supported, portable computer. "Ziggy" is proposing an expanded computer museum at York U., which will need funding to more fully display Canadian contributions to hardware development.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCM/70
Toronto Invented the PC, then forgot it... http://spacing.ca/toronto/2015/04/15/toronto-invented-pc-forgot/

Friday, March 10, 2017

March 9 Mtg. Auto Hacks

John Kost introduced various tools allowing car enthusiasts to gain insight into modern automobiles. i.e.; - jacking into OBD-II (Diagnostics Port) and doing simple things like understanding fault codes and even resetting them thus avoiding a trip to a dealership - delving deeper into the typical ECU (Engine Control Unit) and demystifying things even further - disassembly of the ROM firmware and and finding vulnerabilities - snooping the automotive CAN network - some of the threat vectors consumers face with regards to having their car hacked. John's 23 page slideshow will be made available on the club website; his presentation links are below.