Termcard for Hilary Term 2005

OUCS: Security

Thursday 20th January, 20:30
Comlab

Patrick Green from OUCS will tell all about the Oxford Security Team - how network security has changed over the last few years and what the team does to keep us secure from the variety of threats that the network faces.

Martin Michlmayr: Quality Issues in Free Software Projects

Wednesday 26th January, 20:30
Comlab

The nature of open source software means that it faces unique quality-control issues. Martin will give an overview of common quality issues found in both large and small free software projects, and discuss strategies and techniques which can be implemented in a free software project to ensure quality and to maintain a stable quality process. Martin Michlmayr is the current Debian (Linux) Project Leader and has been involved in various free software projects for about 10 years.

BCS: The Past, Present and Future of Academic Networking

Thursday 27th January, 19:30
Comlab

JANET, the UK's education and research network is 20 years old and connects over 16 million users in universities, colleges, research councils and schools.

The speakers will outline the history of the network and look at the challenges that they face in running and developing JANET including the technologies that JANET employs and developments in network engineering.

Sun: Identity

Wednesday 2nd February, 20:30
Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College

Tired of filling in registration forms? Interested in the debate about ID cards? Identity is a major growth area in the IT world today. The new emphasis on security and reporting standards in the business world means that positive security and identity is very important. Paul Tempest-Mitchell from Sun will be talking about their "Liberty Alliance" project and the issues surrounding identity.

IBM: Source Control

Thursday 3rd February, 20:30
Lower Lecture Room, Lincoln College

Anyone who has ever developed software as part of a team will know that multiple developers working on the same application can be a headache. Sunny Chan and Lakshmi Shankar will be explaining some of the basics of collaborative software development and the tools in IBM's Eclipse that can help.

VBUG: Cross platform computing with web services

Wednesday 9th February, 20:00
Talk cancelled

Graham Parker, Chairman of VBUG - "the UK's number one developer group for Microsoft Products" - will be explaining how Linux can integrate with the Windows platform through the use of Web Services, in a joint meeting with Oxford's Linux User Group.

This talk has unfortunately been cancelled. We will be doing our best to ensure that it is rescheduled next term.

BCS: Auto Id: A Sixth Sense for Big Brother?

Thursday 17th February, 19:30
Comlab

Forget bar codes - RFID is the future! By embedding tiny radio transmitters into all of our everyday items, we can be tracked like never before. This technology will help reduce theft and fraud, improve public safety and provide much better management reporting. Like all new technology it can be a force for good or misuse. What impact does this have for Civil Liberties?

Annual General Meeting

Wednesday 23rd February, 19:30
Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College

Out with the old and in with the new! It's time again for the Annual General Meeting. Make a note in your diaries - we'll be voting in a new committee, and of course retiring to an Oxford curryhouse for the traditional meal.

Microsoft: Whidbey

Wednesday 2nd March, 20:30
Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College

Whidbey is the codename for the next version of Microsoft's flagship Visual Studio product, currently in development. Get a sneak peek of the new features of both the programming languages and the IDE from Microsoft themselves!

e-Government Unit

Wednesday 9th March, 20:30
Oakeshott Room, Lincoln College

The e-Government Unit works with government departments to deliver efficiency savings while improving the delivery of public services by joining up electronic government services around the needs of customers (that's us as UK citizens!). Government IT projects traditionally have a poor reputation, so come along to find out what the unit is doing to try and improve things. Mark Gladwyn, Director of Infrastructure Services, will be telling us about the work of the unit and the massive challenges faced in public sector IT.