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24 February 2024: Visit to AirNav Ireland

Along with the National Shortwave Listeners Club (NSWLC) of the Irish Radio Transmitters Society (IRTS) I visited the AirNav Ireland site at the North Atlantic Communications Centre in Ballygirreen, Co, Clare. It was an awesome visit and a radio persons dream with all forms of High Frequency (HF) antenna, 5 kW transmitters and a redundant backup control centre for the eastern half of the North Atlantic. From here contact is maintained with all flights in Oceanic Airspace mainly via HF Radio but also Very High Frequency (VHF) Radio as well as Satellite.

I would like to thank Ray Whitsell for facilitating us and Simon Kenny, EI7ALB, for organising it.



15/01/2024

Start of Semester 2, AY23/24

Well the apprentices were back good an early, on the 2nd January for term 2. I started the semester with a visit to Estonia, the Tallinn University and the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), CybExer and CR14. This was a really interesting trip, not just for the visits but to see how a fully digital society works. Estonia is really a front runner in this space with 99+% of public services online and private sector benefiting through managed access to information under the control of the individual.
This semester I have two new modules to lecture, Data Modelling Tools with 4th year Robotics and Automation Engineering students as well as Cybersecurity for Industrial Networks with the postgraduate programmes in Industrial Networks and Cybersecurity.


21/12/2023

End of Semester 1, AY23/24

Well the first semester of academic year 2023/24 flew by. Lots of work behing the scenes with regard to the direction of travel to the new single apprenticeship model. In the mean time TUS is set to significantly expand its apprenticeship offering next year, driven by the imminent opening of a new Coonagh Campus in Limerick and further development of additional capacity on the Athlone Campus. This expansion will bring the total number of apprentices at TUS to 2,200.
In January I am part of a visit to Estonia, the Tallinn University and the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). Looking forward to that.


31/11/2023

ClareFM radio interview

TUS launches new apprenticeship strategy


26/10/2023

Apprenticeship Event

Today the Technological University of the Shannon launched an Advanced Quantity Surveyor Apprenticeship at Masters level, a new Apprenticeship Strategic Implementation Plan and celebrated our three World Skills Ireland winners.


10/09/2023

New Academic Year

Well a new, and I hope, exciting academic year has started. My new apprenticeship co-ordination role, at the Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest, has lots of potential, particularly with the resent focus on Generation Apprenticeship and with World Skills 2023 happening next week. Additionally I have two new subjects to teach this semester. For the 4th year of the BEng (hons) in Robotics and Automation degree in Moylish I will teach Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and for the MSc in Industrial Networks and Cybersecurity, at the South East Technological University, Carlow campus I will teach a Cybersecurity module.


07/06/2023

Rediscovered Radio

Well way back in the 1980s I did a Wireless Telegraphy (WT) Operators course in the Signals Corps of the Irish Defence Forces. That involved learning Morse Code to transmit on the High Frequency (HF) band radios. Well after my recent work move back to the MidWest I came across the Limerick Clare Amateur Radio Club (EI4LCR) who operate a radio station Shannon Aviation Museum with the callsign EI4SAM.

I decided to join the Irish Radio Transmitters Society (IRTS) which involved dusting off the radio principles and procedures books, a bit of study with the excellent classes provided by the National Short Wave Listeners Club (NSWLC), an exam to earn the Harmonised Amateur Radio Examination Certificate (HAREC) as well as a Morse Code test managed by the IRTS for the Irish Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg). Next step I need to apply for a European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) Class 1 licence.


31/03/2023

End of chapter, looking forward to something new

I have reached the end of a, 21 year, chapter of my life, learning, lecturing and researching at the Institute of Technology Carlow (ITC) and South East Technological University (SETU). I may have left today but the Faculty of Engineering in SETU is my academic home and I am very proud of it. Thanks to all the mentors, colleagues and friends I have worked with over that time. Is mise ag tnúth le TÚS nua tar éis na Cásca.


21/12/2022

End of a year, looking towards 2023

Well the end of the year is nigh. I just upgraded my desktop to Linux Mint 21.1 Vera. Such a pleasue to upgrade, it took about 10 minutes and it did it in the background while I worked away. I like the new Aqua themed Desktop look too.

~$ cat /etc/os-release | grep 'VERSION='
VERSION="21.1 (Vera)"

On the server side I am happy with Bullseye.


~$ cat /etc/os-release | grep 'VERSION='
VERSION="11 (bullseye)"

05/11/2022

Launch of SETU, a graduation ceremony and the end of a 15-year block of research

Well we had the official launch of SETU across the campuses, with the Minister down for the day, it was an appropriate ceremony. Last week was followed up with the level 8 graduation ceremony, the first in the new university. Some changes with everyone graduating with the same hood, dark green on one side, dark blue on the other with a white border. Apart from what looks like a pair of masonic throne chairs for the university president and pro-chancellor everything else had a familiar feel about it.

On a personal level I came to the end of an MA in Teaching and Learning and the end of a block of work that included an MSc, a PhD and an MA. Glad to be finished with all that.


16/09/2022

A new semester in a new university

A new semester in a new university. The second to fourth year students started this week and we welcome in new first years and postgraduate students on the 19 Sept 2022.


17/06/2022

Death of my father, Jimmy O'Brien

At 09:02 hrs, 13 June 2022 I lost my father after a three month battle with illness following a heart attack. It has been a very tough week indeed. Here is a some memories of the life and death of Jimmy O'Brien.


26/05/2022

OTSec Cybersecurity MasterClass

Yesterday was the final MasterClass in our OTSec series 2022. In March we had Dr David Formby, the CEO/CTO of Fortiphyd Logic, present on Securing the Bridge between Cyber and Physical Worlds: Cybersecurity for PLCs and yesterday, 25 May, Mr Buky Carmeli, former head of the Israeli National Cyber Security Authority (NCSA), present on National Cyber Defence - from Traditional data security into a deep National Protection Programme.


01/05/2022

Ollscoil Teicneolaíochta an Oirdheiscirt

After years of arguing the toss, planning, arguing the toss and eventually knuckling down to the project the Institute of Technology Carlow and Waterford Institute of Technology came together and formed South East Technological University on 1 May 2022. Looking forward to moving positively into the future with Ireland's youngest university.


04/04/2022

Visit to Nenagh CBS

Diarmuid Ó Briain,
Nenagh CBS,
1985
obriaind[at]itcarlow.ie

My first visit to Nenagh CBS, since I did my leaving certificate in 1985, 37 years ago now. A lot has changed, yet a lot remains the same. I was very impressed with the changes over the years, much brighter, more light and space. Lovely indoor square meeting area where the Construction Studies yard was. Fantastic computer/technology centre built where the cold miserable prefabs were at the back. Not sure about uniforms though, no room for an Róisín Dubh, the Thin Lizzy Black Rose, I had on the back of my jacket back then. I guess with the purple colour it matches the badge.

Presentation
Slides
....

30/03/2022

The Faculty of Engineering at IT Carlow hosted an OTSec MasterClass: Securing the Bridge between Cyber and Physical Worlds: Cybersecurity for PLCs, delivered by Dr David Formby of Fortiphyd Logic.

This talk explored a range of approaches that operators can take themselves without relying on the vendors to harden their PLCs including secure PLC coding practices and program anomaly detection.


09/01/2022

Well, Happy New Year and hopefully we will see off this wretched Covid-19 this year. The IT Carlow graduations happened this week, in person, and while there were significant no-shows those that did attend appeared glad of the experience, it will be the last IT Carlow graduation as the next will be part of the new Technological University in the South East. Getting ready for IT Carlow's last semester starting tomorrow.

In preparation for the new semester I decided to upgrade my laptop from Linux Mint 20.2 "Uma" to 20.3 "Una" and it proved painless indeed, took all of 5 minutes. Best of luck to the students in semester II, 2022.

~$ cat /etc/lsb-release 
DISTRIB_ID=LinuxMint
DISTRIB_RELEASE=20.3
DISTRIB_CODENAME=una
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Linux Mint 20.3 Una"


3/11/2021

Do you work with Operations Technology in a Utility or Manufacturing environment? Are Interested in the growing field of Cybersecurity applied to Industrial Networks and Systems? Then consider the Postgraduate Diploma/Master of Science in Industrial Networks & Cybersecurity.


8/10/2021

A couple of weeks into the new semester and for the first time I have 1st years for Electronics, I still have the brewing and distilling course for control at undergratuate level. The MSc in Industrial Networks and Cybersecurity continues to go well and I have another Makerereian, Alfred Ocaka, join Conrad Ekisa, on the Cybersecurity in Industrial Control Systems (ICS) postgraduate research team. Additionally, we managed to get the new Faculty of Engineering, networking lab built out at last, now to make sure it gets lots of use.

Well this is Cybersecurity awareness month and in the wake of the Health Service Executive (HSE) attack there is no less than three big conferences. The Innovation Technology AtlanTec Gateway (ITAG) Cyber Forum are bringing together Cyber Security experts, Technologists, Enthusiasts and Business Leaders across industry, Academia, and Government on the 14th October while Cyber Ireland are hosting its 1st annual Cyber Ireland Conference on 21st October 2021. There was already, an earlier, commercial Cyber Security Summit, orgainsed by iQuest held on the 5th October. With all of Ireland's heavy hitters involved in Cybersecurity conferences it is a wonder who is leading the cyber defence of the nation and their organisations this month.


11/07/2021

Nice, simple upgrade to Linux Mint 20.2 Uma , took only 10 minutes.


01/01/2021

Well, the British have left the EU, Covid-19 cases are rising due to the Christmas excesses and the Ollscoil Teicneolaíochta na Mumhan (MTU) launched in Cork and Kerry; hopefully IT Carlow and Waterford IT will together have a similar launch in 12 months.

So 2021 sees the Faculty of Engineering launch the MSc/PGDip in Industrial Networks & Cybersecurity programme. Looking forward to considering Cybersecurity from the perspective of Operations Technology (OT). Anyone still interested can apply for this funded programme here.

Well let us hope 2021 is a better year that the one just gone and we can leave Covid-19 behind us.


16/11/2020

Well 2020 may be a lame duck for students contending with only on campus for labs and taking lectures from home on Blackboard Collaborate. However, it is very busy and more so with the Government's Human Capital Initiative (HCI) that aims to increase provision in areas of identified skills need and future proof graduates with industry relevant skills for emerging technologies.

With that in mind I am programme director for a new MSc/PGDip in Industrial Networks & Cybersecurity. This course is free to those who meet the entry criteria and unfortunately find themselves out of work due to Covid-19 or if you are working you will only be liable for 10% of course fees.

The programme is particularly well suited to those with an engineering or technical background, particularly those with Operations Technology (OT) experience that wish to expand their skillset in Industrial Networks and the Cybersecurity aspect of the manufacturing zone. It will be delivered by blended learning, one day in the institute and two evenings online.

Modules include:

  • Industrial Control Systems
  • Advanced Automation Systems
  • Programming I & II
  • Industrial Networks I & II
  • Cybersecurity I & II
  • Work Based Project & Professional Development

If you are interested please click here and apply.


1/07/2020

Thanks to all of you that voted for me in the Engineers Irelandi Council elections over the last week. I promise that I will do my best while representing you at council over the next three years.


9/06/2020


29/05/2020

Well the day started with a Virtual Open Day for prospective first years. It was an interesting concept forced upon the institute due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I do feel for those finishing secondary, they are in a funny place right now with predicted grades and all that goes with that.
I came across the coolest of tools in the form of scapy a python tool for forming, sending and generally manipulating networking packets. I wrote a primer which can be accessed here for anyone who is interested.


16/05/2020

Well the exam season is upon us at the Institute of Technology, Carlow, a strange set of exams as the exam halls are empty and all is moved online, for this year at least. Best of luck to all those doing them. It has given me some time to finish a project I wanted to do for some time and it coincided with the release of Ubuntu's latest 2 year Long Term Support (LTS) platform v20.04. I developed a Software Defined Networking (SDN) testbed, based on Mininet and the Ryu SDN Controller and the Python language. Notes, Slides, Virtual Machine and Scripts can be found here.
My trusted Lenovo Thinkpad E550 is in its fifth year, it served me well through four years in Uganda and a Ph.D. so I guess it was time to put it out to pasture. I invested in a shiny Lenovo P1 Gen-2 laptop to replace it; however, when I installed Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia, the network card wouldn't work and I couldn't attach a second screen. It was annoying but fixed now, the solution is here for anyone who is interested.


10/04/2020

Sergeant Christy Geraghty, AGS, Retd. R.I.P.


It is with great sadness that I heard of the death of Sergeant Christy Geraghty, AGS, Retd. It is 35 years since I met the good Sergeant when he gave me a reference to join the Defence Forces, yet I vividly remember his strong stature as he stood in uniform and exhibited all the qualities one would expect of a Garda Sergeant. The Sergeant didn’t need to rely on the word of the law, his stature and demeanour was the law.
I remember as a young teenager cycling the dark road from Dolla handball alley to home (about 5 Km). I had stayed and played too many games and it was dark. I had no light on my bicycle and decided to cycle anyway, jumping off the bicycle each time I heard a car approaching. Then one stopped, the window rolled down and it was the Sergeant who questioned me as to why I was cycling without a light, I mumbled that I was walking. He then got out, took hold of the bicycle, opened the boot and placed it inside. He said 'get in' and nothing was said all the way to my house. I was petrified that he would say something to my father. Instead, he stopped at the bottom of the lane, took out my bicycle and told me to get a dynamo and a light.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam

Diarmuid Ó Briain


It is with great sadness that I post this message from Jim and me. Christy has been a close friend since his arrival in Dolla. He carried out his duty with discretion, caring and common sense. He was always only on loan to us in Tipperary because his heart never left his beloved Galway.
Our deepest sympathy to Ann.
To Micheál, Francis, Matthew, Liam and Mairead.

Jim & Sarah O'Brien, Ballincur


02/04/2020


Declaring myself on LiDA101

#LiDA101

I started looking at the resources of the Open Educational Resource university (OERu). The OERu share many interesting courses and micro-courses that are free to use and follow Creative Commons (CC) licensing. It is a fantastic initiative that mirrors my personal interest in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), making education available to everyone, not just those that can afford it.


25/03/2020

Well the Covid-19 pandemic hit like a whirlwind. Teaching in the middle of the semester and then, work from home. What has that meant, well the Blackboard Collaborate tool is really good and I recommend it. It could do with a mechanism for pausing recordings, but other than that it is robust and works well. Can't say that about the broadband at home though. Eir fibre powered broadband my arse, I am doing most of my classes via a hotspot on my mobile phone and that is working really well, well done Vodafone. I returned to look at a net-test script I wrote back in Uganda and though it was a small bit clunky as it uses speedtest-cli so here is a simple script I wrote this morning that records 3 pings per second and time-stamps the result. It is output to a log file and to the terminal. You can find it here if you want to check on your providers performance. Make the script executable and leave it run in the background. Above all, stay at home and observe social distancing.


02/03/2020

I delivered a talk at the eduCORE Lightning Talks series on An engineer's, reluctant, journey through the realm of a qualitative study.


05/01/2020

Well Semester 1 at the Department of Aerospace, Mechanical and Electronics of the Institute of Technology Carlow went by in a flash. New subjects for me in Mathematics year 3, Brewing & Distilling Engineering year 3 with some labs in Digital Communications, Signal Processing and Instrumentation with IP Networks with LifeLong Learning presenting me with some familiarity. Semester 2 has a more familiar feel to it with Computer Networks labs for year 3 replacing Digital Communications and Instrumentation, some supervision of projects and a new Python Programming Course.


01/11/2019

The first few months home from Uganda have proved to be so busy. Finalising my thesis, the Ph.D. Viva, a job interview for the Department of Aerospace, Mechanical and Electronics of the Institute of Technology Carlow. Making the thesis changes, starting the new job, graduation with a Ph.D. on the 31 October followed by Conor’s graduation the following day in Cork.


04/01/2020

Well Semester 1 at the Department of Aerospace, Mechanical and Electronics of the Institute of Technology Carlow went by in a flash. New subjects for me in Mathematics year 3, Brewing & Distilling Engineering year 3 with some labs in Digital Communications, Signal Processing and Instrumentation with IP Networks with LifeLong Learning presenting me with some familiarity. Semester 2 has a more familiar feel to it with Computer Networks labs for year 3 replacing Digital Communications and Instrumentation, some supervision of projects and a new Python Programming Course.


08/08/2019

So our African adventure for the last four years comes to an end. Packing tape screeching in the background surrounded by packed boxes and it will all be empty in a few hours. I have made lots of Ugandan friendships since coming here, from Eng. Dr Dorothy Okello, the dean of the School of Engineering at Makerere University, Dr Roseline Akol my former boss as head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, my room-mate at Makerere, Dr Jonathan Serugunda and of course Gerald Budigiri who introduced me to King James and was the first “enforcer” at netLabs!UG. To Frank Ssemakula who follows us to Ireland in September for his MSc. Thanks to Kyle Spencer, Brian Masiga, Mike Bernard and Conrad Ekisa at UIXP, Ken Stober and Ambrose Ahurra at Simplifi Networks, Alfred Ocaka in Gulu, Rodney Angel Ekachellan for all the projects you supported, Jovia Margaret Nanyonjo, Calvin Kakeeto and Brenda Agnes Tugume for your great work as the original Africa Code Week ambassadors without whom I have no doubt that project would have faltered, instead it has gone from strength to strength. Ronald Mukundane and Valentina Lokol my great friends in Karamoja. To the many other lecturers and students that I do not have the room to mention individually but I will remember. Again the many in the Irish Society, the diplomatic community, the High Commissioner for the Isle of Man and of course the Irish Embassy in Kampala, thank you for your support.


22/06/2019

The African Internet Summit (AIS) from 9th - 21st June 2019 was a great experience. There was the week long Advanced Routing workshop training from the African Network Operators Group (AfNOG) as well as IPv6 workshops from the African Network Network Information Centre (AfriNIC). I would particularly like to thank Nii, Nancy and Badru for your organisation, Simon Michelle and Noah for the Advanced Routing and Stephen for the IPv6 Certi6.


10/06/2019

The first full day of the African Network Operators Group (AfNOG) training workshops as part of the African Internet Summit (AIS) after interesting boot camps and the AfNOG 20th anniversary dinner last night. I had an enjoyable day in the Advanced Routing module with plenty of Intermediate Systems - Intermediate Systems (IS-IS) and Border Gateway Protocol version 4 (BGPv4) labs. Looking forward to the rest of AIS. Here is a copy of the Advanced Routing notes I took.


06/06/2019
Pythonians

The netLabs!UG pythonians at the end of the python3 course conduced as part of their internship. Notes: Python3 Programming.


02/06/2019

Updated Python3 programming course for the netLabs!UG Industrial Training programme, added arrays, data-frames, generators, graphical interfaces, webpages and RESTful APIs using Flask and Jinja2.


27/02/2019

Ryu SDN Controller framework is ideal for learning SDN principles, it is python based and the 'switch_13' sub-class is a great learning aid. Here is a Testbed document that can get someone started.


05/02/2019

Netgear don't make it easy to configure OpenFlow, they don't even mention it in their "User Manual" or their "Software Administration Manual", the commands are referenced in their "CLI Command Reference Manual". Here is a short primer on how to configure it.


02/02/2019

I unexpectedly found myself fighting with some Catalyst 3750G's who appeared to have corrupt software, this brought me back to XMODEM and other terminal fun to rectify the problems. Here are some primers I should have written years ago for such eventualities. With a Linux computer and some patience the switches can be recovered simply enough.


30/11/2018

Python3 notes got a bit of a makeover with the addition of generators, an introduction to Object Oriented Programming (OOP), the use of Tkinter for Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) and Flask/Jinja2 for web development.

Python3


02/10/2018

Last week (24 - 28 September 2018) I participated in a week long training course on Statistical Data Analysis using R-software that took place at the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training (DRGT), Makerere University. The excellent course was ran by Associate Professor Matthew Low and Dr. Matthew Hiron of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) to develop the programming aspect of R with a focus on the analysis of quantitative data sets.

Programming & Data Analysis with R


19/09/2018

Today I participated in the Irish Respect & Loyalty parade for our Defence Forces. Unfortunately what one would consider to be the strongest organ of the state, equipped to defend the nation has no voice, in fact it is muffled. Today the veterans associations and the families made their voices hear above gale force winds at the national military monument and before Dáil Éireann on behalf of the serving military. Being in Kampala, Uganda I obviously couldn't join the parade there so to do my small bit I met with Ambassador William Carlos who received me in a most respectful and dignified way (see photo above).

Considering the words of An Taoiseach and Minister for Defence last night at the Data Summit 2018 I decided to research Ireland's preparedness for an attack on the Tech industry he so passionately talked about.

Cyber Defence Ireland


05/07/2018

Migration to Linux Mint 19, codename Tara completed.

dobriain@riomhaire-E550 ~ $ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	LinuxMint
Description:	Linux Mint 19 Tara
Release:	19
Codename:	tara

28/06/2018

Industrial Training in full flow at netLabs!UG with 13 interns participating in the miniNet mini-company. Skills in GNU/Linux, MikroTik, Python Programming, Robotics, Wireless Tools, TV White Spaces (TVWS). The group are preparing for trips to Karamoja, Western Uganda and to the South West next week to carry out site surveys.

I updated my one day Introduction as part of the training with the miniNet interns. It can be fould at Python3 programming.


15/05/2018

The r-project is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. It has is a network of ftp and web servers around the world that store identical, up-to-date, versions of code and documentation for R called the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN). One of the packages R Qualitative Data Analysis (RQDA) is a free software for qualitative text and PDF document analysis.

It is particularly useful for deductive thematic analysis however for inductive analysis it is necessary to upload Categories and Codes one by one. To resolve this I have created a Python3 rqda_code_builder.py script that will upload such categories and codes based on a simple Yet Another Markup Language (YAML) format.


09/05/2018

Attending the IST Africa 2018 conference in Gaberone, Botswana. Started the week with a few days with my wife exploring the Gaberone area, the Mokolodi Nature Reserve, etc.. Botswana is impressive and much farther along the road to development than a lot of its neighbours.


30/01/2018

I was delighted to attend the first East African MikroTIk User Meeting (MUM) in Nairobi, Kenya. Great to see a former netLabs!UG researcher open the presentations on his "Load balancing and failover in RouterOS" with his new company Simplifi networks. I also presented on Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and connecting to an Internet eXchange Point (IXP).


11/12/2017

LinuX Containers (LXC) and the Linux Containers Hypervisor (LXD) provide an interesting alternative to Virtual Machines and particularly the Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) on GNU/Linux. They achieve 14.5 times greater density, launches instances 94% faster and provide 57% less latency than KVM. Why wouldn't you want to try them out. Here is a short primer to get one started.


15/11/2017

Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Ardvark has come storming in over October. One thing it brought with it is a new way to do networking. The ifupdown has been replaced netplan a Yet Another Markup language (YAML) based configuration to replace the /etc/network/interfaces file that has been around for some time. I created a netplan primer on it to cover the main points of how to configure Artful Ardvark.


10/11/2017

The last two days have been massive at the Uganda Internet eXchange Point. Finally after a couple of years trying ALL the members are gone from the cabinet I liked to call UIXPv1.0. All members are now moved to the Peering Rack #1 and a new Akamai Cache has been installed. Later this month we look forward to the visit of the Google team to install their Google Edge Network node. The eXchange has entered what I like to call UIXPv3.0.


08/11/2017

Dr. Karthikeyan, Dean Faculty of ICT (FICT) at International Business, Science And Technology University, Kampala making a presentation to me after my guest lecture on the Internet, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) & Autonomous Systems (AS) and the rebuilding of the Internet eXchange in Uganda.


21/10/2017

Africa Code Week - Uganda is over for 2017. Unbelievable work over the three weeks bringing coding to the Kampala, Entebbe, Kasese, Fort Portal, Hoima, Yumbe, Moroto, Napak, Nadunget and Nakapiripirit regions of the Republic of Uganda. I am really proud of this achievement this year and cannot praise the volunteer students of netLabs!UG, CEDAT, Makerere University enough. They gave their time and knowledge to the eager youth of the schools, institutes and colleges up and down the country over the last three weeks. Well done all and have a relaxing week-end, you deserve it.

Thanks to SAP, Galway Education Centre, Cape Town Science Centre, Irish Aid and Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC) for the support to make it happen.

The final report can be found here.


12/10/2017

Africa Code Week - Uganda 2017

Africa Code Week - Uganda 2017 is flying at this stage on the second week with visits to the schools in Kampala and Entebbe. We had an official launch at Lohana Academy on Wednesday last with the Irish Ambassador designate as chief guest and representatives from the Ministry of Education & Sports as well as the Ministry of ICT. This year has seen an increase in the number of schools from last year. Tomorrow Friday, 13th October we will host schools at Makerere University for ACW day.

Next Sunday, 15th October we dispatch teams from Makerere University across Uganda to sites in Kasese, Kabarole, Hoima, Yumbe and Karamoja. I am heading to Karamoja where we will engage students on a week long programme in Moroto High School, Moroto Core PTC, St Daniel Comboni VTI, Nakapiripirit VTI, Kangole Girls School, St. Andrews SSS and Nadunget SS. I did a reconnaissance visit to Karamoja last month and found that Kangole Girls had a nice computer lab funded initially by Irish Aid was not functional due to the lack of solar batteries. The Galway Education Centre (GEC) kindly donated 2,800,000 /= to replace them and the school will support two days (1 for Kangole and 1 for St. Andrews) during the ACW in the sub-region.

We also started the process of trainer trainers in the region (6 so far) and are running a Train the Trainer on Monday 16th to increase that number. All in all we will train ~300 kids in Karamoja (well, give the a good lunch and a t-shirt and introduce them to coding). In the over all project this year we plan to exceed 1,500 students across the 10 towns and we have already trained 201 trainers to supplement those trained last year. A good number of these new trainers are staff from schools and VTIs across the regions.

Financially we continue to be supported by SAP, Irish Aid, Belgian Technical Co-operation (BTC) and the GEC.

Here is a short video from Bwaise Exel School, one of the most challenged in the Kampala slums to the North West of the city. The kids opening experience to computing was scratch on Ubuntu Linux and after 2 hours they were indeed coding. Calvin we call them folders Kakeeto, ACW Youth Ambassador is seen leading the session.


02/09/2017

Well it is all go at Makerere University again. Thusfar the only blip is the students protesting the presidential age limits. Openstack Pike hit the streets and I completed the update of the Openstack Training Laboratory Guide (Pike Edition) v5.0.1..


31/08/2017

Gave a presentation on an Introduction to Penetration Testing at a Cyber Security event called Managing Cyber Security as a business risk, this event looked at building a cyber smart Uganda.


15/08/2017

I spent a week in Karamoja performing a reconnaissance for Africa Code Week (ACW) which we intend to run there in October. A very interesting experience seeing the Karamjong, a very proud people who have been dealt a difficult hand. This is further hindered by the effects of climate change on the delicate eco-system in the sub-region.


11/07/2017

Attended a course on Advanced Research Methods at the College of Education and External Services (CEES) supported by the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training (DRGT), Makerere University. Two weeks of qualitative, quantitative, univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis, to give me some direction for a socio-political study I need to do. Here is the Advanced Research Methods material from the course.


03/07/2017

Back in Uganda after a few weeks in Ireland where I present a paper on the re-building of the Ugandan Internet eXchange (UIXP) at the 28th Irish Signals and Systems Conference OS-1A - Communication Systems in Killarney. Back in Uganda CEDAT students have completed their exams and the initial round of project presentations are complete. The industrial training has started, a little shorter this year due to the strike last year, programme content still focused on practical skills and problem solving. Linux Mint 18.2 "Sonya" has just been released so looking forward to upgrading my laptop over the next few days.


13/06/2017

Well the month started in Windhoek, Namibia. The trip to Namibia from Uganda highlighted the sheer scale of Africa, it took me over 24 hours to get there, flying to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia then to Johannesburg in South Africa and then Windhoek. IST-Africa was a well run conference with very interesting thematic areas like Next Generation Computing, Cyber crime and eGovernment. I presented a paper Elastic Everything - What of the Developing World?. I am now in Ireland to present a paper on the re-building of the Ugandan Internet eXchange (UIXP) at the 28th Irish Signals and Systems Conference OS-1A - Communication Systems in Killarney on the 20 June.


05/05/2017

Hon. Frank Tumwebaze | Ugandan Minister of ICT congratulating me on best paper at conference

I have updated the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) notes to take account of some new developments. I have also completed work on the Ocata release of the OpenStack training-labs. I was lucky enough to have my paper A report on the status of Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) placed as best paper at the recent International Conference on ICT (ICICT-2017) in Kampala. Looking forward to bringing another paper to a conference in Namibia at the end of the month.


18/4/2017

The AFRINIC's renowned IPv6 and Internet Number Resource Management (INRM) Courses conducted in Kampala from the 4 -7 April lived up to its billing. Excellent training indeed. I have been doing some work with Border Gateway Protocol version 4 (BGP-4) so I put together this short BGP-4-primer.


29/3/2017

An absolutely mad month of March, Uganda Laser Sailing Open (ULO), the launch of the netLabs!UG Research Centre by HE Dónal Cronin, Ambassador of Ireland, the visit of my little sister Edel for two weeks, the Irish Society three days of celebration over the 16 - 18th March for the Irish national holiday and then preparation for a Green ICT programme for the East African Communications Organisation (EACO) at the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC). Next up is AFRINIC's renowned IPv6 and Internet Number Resource Management (INRM) Courses in Kampala, Uganda, from 4 -7 April.


23/2/2017

Time flies, January passed quickly and I somehow ended up on the Irish Society of Uganda committee. This involves organising the St Patrick’s Day celebrations for the 3rd week in March. In parallel the Uganda Laser Open (sailing) is on the 1st week-end in March. On the technical side I have been working on Heat Orchestration using YAML templates as well as general networking problems on OpenStack. There I have documented in version 3.0 of my OpenStack Training Laboratory Guide (yes it is well past the point of notes and I renamed it to a guide. They can be found here.

The end of Semester I at Makerere came at last after industrial strife at the end of last year. Happily all my students studying CMP4103 Computer Systems and Network Security performed well in the final examination. This week is a funny week with graduations in the University and no one around the college. Semester II starts next week with TEL3214 Computer Communication Networks and CMP4204 Wireless Technologies in the pipeline.


30/12/2016

Last bit of work in 2016 was the completion and posting of a UIXP Network development report for 2016/17 in the UIXP blog.


29/12/2016

Well December was busy and I am finishing up the year with version 1.5 of my OpenStack Training Laboratory notes. I enjoyed this project, it certainly got me thinking of cloud orchastration and how the nuts and bolts work.


23/12/2016

Christmas is upon us and a busy December has me looking forward to the break. I put up a number of primers relating to txt2tags, BIRD Internet Routing Daemon, Running IPERF as a daemon, a Minicom break problem with USB Convertors, a Proxmox primer about Accessing VMs and Containers from host shell, detecting MAC address duplicates, a quick primer on the use of GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) and a primer on the use of Reverse SSH tunnelling. I have also added a OpenStack Training Laboratory.


02/12/2016

I was working with GNU/Linux VMs behind a NAT and was forced to use the hypervisor console to access the CLI. It started to annoy me no end that I couldn't use Copy and Paste and I obviously couldn't SSH directly to these VMs due to the NAT. Well the solution is Reverse SSH Tunnelling.


08/11/2016

Makerere University shutdown by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. Some mad stuff going on at the top tier I read from the newspapers, apart from that I am puzzled by it all. Asked my netLabs!UG project students to keep focus on their projects in this lean period as the Gods only know what happens from here. I spent some time in the Uganda Internet eXchange Point (UIXP) this week with Kyle Spencer building a Proxmox cluster as well as tidying up the servers. Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) is an open source server virtualization management solution based on QEMU/KVM and LXC. Next for me is a trip home to Ireland to watch the All-Black Maori play Munster Rugby in Thomond Park and then spend some time with family. Hopefully the Makerere mess will be resolved by the time I come back.


06/11/2016

Posted some notes I put together while playing with Ansible for automation. The can be found here.


16/09/2016

Completed a course with the African Doctoral Academy ran by Stellenbosch University on Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. A great team from Stellenbosch ran an excellent course. Thanks to Prof. Magda Fourie-Malherbe and Dr Sonja Strydom.


07/08/2016

I am presenting on my paper "The move to a software defined future and the implications for Uganda" at the National Conference on Communications (NCC) 2016 in Mbarara University of Science and Technology on 15/09/2016 next.


07/08/2016

I was having connectivity problems at my apartment and didn't feel like installing a smokeping server, so here is a BASH script that I wrote to deal with the problem of identifying the problem.


07/08/2016

Well back to KVM for a play, here is the process of my install on Ubuntu. KVM on Ubuntu


04/08/2016

Well I decided to look at Docker and containers some more, very interesting indeed, here is the running doc I was doing over the last day or so Container based Virtualisation with Docker.


07/07/2016

The latest versions of the Network Training Emulators (NTE) version 1.0.4, based on Debian 8.5 are posted to the website at NTE.


04/07/2016

US independence day saw me install Linux Mint version 18, codename "Sarah" on my laptop, I have not been dissapointed yet. Additionally Smile Communications Uganda added a real unlimited product to their portfolio. Their previous attempt at an unlimited producted had one of those "Fair usage policies" i.e. it was not unlimited, once 35 GB was passed it dropped to ISDN BRI speeds. So looking forward to seeing how the Premium Unlimited fairs, particularly as I reach the tail end of the month.


01/06/2016

Reading William Stallings new book, Foundations of Modern Networking, SDN, NFV, QoE, IoT and Cloud, it is a great read. William includes a great resource for computing students at Computer Science Student Resources, check it out.


31/05/2016

Well back to the grindstone after a trip to Murchison Falls, great spot by the way. On Monday 6 June we start miniNet a netLabs!UG mini-company. It facilitates industrial training for students selected recently who will join as under-graduate researchers. miniNet will deliver 4 weeks of intensive technical skills training across a number of areas, MikroTik, GNU/Linux, Python programming, MathLab, IP Telephony and Wireless. On completion of this foundation skills training under-graduate researchers will perform as part of a 4 person research teams to develop one solution each week to customer problems using the training gained in the first 4 weeks. These solutions will be documented and presented to the ‘customer’ at the end of each week.


24/05/2016

Coming to the end of the academic year 2015/16 and getting ready for Industrial Training with netLabs!UG for a selected bunch of undergrads. We also made a short video to promote netLabs!UG Research Centre.


11/05/2016

Well it is happening again, social media turned off until 18:00 tomorrow Thursday 11 May 2016 in Uganda while the swearing-in ceremony for President-elect Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is on. If you have a computer outside Uganda running a 'real' OS then use ssuttle to bypass. ssuttle primer here. If you are still sad enough to be using Windoze on a server then in true Ugandan fashion, I will pray for you.


10/05/2016

I needed to do a proof of concept for an enterprise doing multipath routing over two independent carriers. The main purpose to provide resilience but also to double throughput when both links are available. Here is the PoC completed on the Network Training Emulator (NTE) from netLabs!UG here.


04/05/2016

Python capstone completed, I really enjoyed the course and in particular the capstone which consolidated what had been taught throughout the course. Thanks to Dr. Chuck and his team. I have created a blog page for the my capstone here.


14/04/2016

Had to make a video on a Data Analysis idea I had for a MOOC course I am doing. Had a bit of fun with this so here goes, enjoy here.


25/03/2016

After building a VM for my class on VirtualBox I found I needed to use it on my KVM Server. Here is how to convert the OVA output from VirtualBox to build a VM on a Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM).


08/03/2016

Some work I had intended posting before now on Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM).


08/03/2016

Well yesterday I turned my laptop on to be met with the most annoying problem. I had performed an aptitude update followed by an aptitude full-upgrade on Friday and was away for the week-end. When my laptop booted on Monday I was presented with no login screen but a X-Server fail due to a Fatal error: no screens found (EE). After a bit of work I managed to get the X-Server running again and found I couldn't login to the Mint Display Manager (MDM) so even more work to finally solving that problem also. The solutions are posted: Linux Mint X-Server; Fatal error: no screens found (EE) and Mint Display Manager (MDM) login problem.


03/03/2016

Needed a means of teaching networking so I worked with the Common Open Research Emulator and from that put together the Network Training Emulator (NTE). This tool allows students to build networks, configure them and learn without the recourse to large laboratories of equipment.


20/02/2016

Playing around with VirtualBox for i386 machines. Using VMs in headless mode is a great way to reduce the pressure on the VM to emulate graphics.


18/02/2016

Well the Ugandan elections presented me with a bit of a problem when they blocked access to Internet services for a few days. Thankfully sshuttle came to my rescue so I decided to write a primer on it.


17/02/2016

netLabs!UG, the new research centre to replace the Community Wireless Resource Centre at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering becomes the new focus. Hope to get started on the business plan for it this week. Any and all ideas welcome.


10/02/2016

I have been considering Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISP) in a Software Defined world, looking at the options as the appear to me today.


05/02/2016

I was really happy with the Symposium of Transformative Digital Technologies (#STDT2016), it went off pretty well. Looking forward to a break in Ireland afterwards.


26/01/2016

I am working on a Symposium of Transformative Digital Technologies (#STDT2016) with College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT) at Makerere University, Nokia Bell Labs and the Marconi Society which is on 3 February 2016. If you are interested the website is at: STDT2016


26/01/2016

I am busy writing a couple of new courses, the first being CMP4204 - Wireless Technologies at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT) at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Material for the course will be posted at CMP4204


05/12/2015

Well the final Linux Mint v17 version is here. I just installed 17.3 codename Rosa, pretty painless install, well done to all at Linux Mint.


30/10/2015

A presentation looking at matching the key specifications of a wireless system to the practicalities of setting up such a system. Practical Wireless


03/09/2015

I am delivering a new course CMP4103 - Computer Systems and Network Security at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT) at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Material for the course will be posted at CMP4103


25/04/2015

The Free Technology Academy (FTA) - Open Networks v2.0 course material posted.


23/02/2015

The Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator (LFCS) Course material has had a number of updates and is currently at version 1.5.


28/01/2015

The Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator (LFCS) Course material has had a number of updates and is currently at version 1.4.7.


03/01/2015

Well I was using Drupal as a CMS for the website and previous to that I had used Joomla as well as messing around with Wordpress. I go fed up with having to watch for vunerabilities to ensure it was updated regularly. So I decided to make a trip back into the past and build a simple site using nothing more than VI and txt2tags. So here it is.


30/03/2014

Apart from Free Software, Scouting Ireland and Scouting has played an important part of my life. Therefore when I read a pair of articles written by Marco Fioretti in Linux Journal a few years ago, it peaked my interest. The first entitled "Bit Prepared: A Missing Link? - Building the case for turning the Boy Scouts into a worldwide advocate of free software" links the teachings of Sir Robert Baden-Powell to the Free Software freedoms 0-3.

In the second article entitled "Bit Prepared II: Richard Stallman Meets the World Scout Bureau" Richard Stallman from the FSF, Ray Saunders from the World Scout Bureau and Marco discuss the connections between free software and Scouting philosophies. Well worth a read.


10/02/2014

I have enrolled on the Free Technology Academy Advanced Linux module. It is being hosted by Marco Fioretti the well known freelance writer, trainer, populariser of Digital Rights, Open Education, Open Standards and Free Software based in Rome, Italy. Looking forward to it.

Well heading from week 1 into week 2, looking at co-coexistence strategies for GNU/Linux with other operating systems.

 

I am posting my notes from the course, here >>  FTA Course Notes


10/01/2014

Raphaël Hertzog and Roland Mas have assembled the definitive guide to Debian Administration. The The Debian Administrator's Handbook is freely available. You can read it online, though I would suggest buying a copy in support of this fantastic work. It is very handy to have by your desk as a reference. You can also install the handbook on you system via apt.

$ sudo apt-get install debian-handbook

You will find the manual installed in: /usr/share/doc/debian-handbook/html/index.html


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