AustinTek homepage

Austintek does sysadmin for unix computers (and clusters of computers).

Austintek can do contract programming, benchmarking and data analysis. We can program in -

Computer Programming for Middle School students: An introductory course with Python as the high level language.

Class lessons for a group of 7th graders with no previous exposure to programming (as of Aug 2008, now 8th graders - in the US 5-8th grade are called Middle School). The students are doing this after school, one day a week for about 90min, on their own time and not for credit. My son's school didn't want me to teach the class using any of the school facilities, as they thought it would compete with a class in Java given to advance placement math 12th graders. However I could use the school facilities, if I didn't teach anything which would fullfil a requirement (which I assume meant anything practical). So the class is at my home and is free. Since this is a hobby activity for the kids, I don't ask them to do homework.

The course is finished (Oct 2009) and the kids are now learning C. I thought I would cover more material than I did in this course. I can see, with a year's hind-site, that the material could be clearer. There wasn't time for any projects. One student gave a 20min lunch time presentation to his teachers on using numerical integration to determine the value of π

Note

Google stopped indexing the programming class page about Aug 2008, when the class notes reached 1M (the other indexing services seem to have no trouble with it). There is no mention of size limits on google's guide to author's page e.g. google's addurl and associated pages. I've divided the sensible single page into smaller pages in the hopes that google can handle the material. If you want the material I'm using in class, go to the link immediately above. Here below is the same material divided into what I hope are google sized pages. Introduction, Primitive Data Types (http://www.austintek.com/python_class/python_class.sect_1.html) Variables, Conditionals, Iteration, Functions, Modules, Stru ctured Programming (http://www.austintek.com/python_class/python_class.sect_2.html) Real Numbers, Square Roots, Numerical Integration (http://www.austintek.com/python_class/python_class.sect_3.html) Reference Material, Future Classes (http://www.austintek.com/python_class/python_class.sect_4.html)

Material the wasn't used in the Introductory Course. Presumably some of it will go into the C course.

Complex Numbers. This course provoked the most interest of all the non-programming courses.

Computer Programming for High School students: C as the high level language.

Class lessons for a group of 9th graders who have taken my introductory programming course.

Computer Programming for High School students: Electricity.

This short course was added in the middle of the C class, when the students found that their lack of knowledge of computer hardware was making it difficult to learn C.

Computer Programming for High School students: Mechanics.

This course was added in the middle of the electricity course, so that students would know about forces and energy. This course became progressively larger and took over all the class time. I was quite happy with this as I think mechanics is more fundamental than electricity or programming.

A 30min video of me teaching a science class to 3rd graders (http://www.austintek.com/icosahedron_class/) at my son's school. I've been doing this since 2003 and it's lot of fun.

	Note
	I haven't got a good video of this yet. A 30min video of me teaching a science class to 4th graders (http://www.austintek.com/orrery/) at the school where my son used to go.

I've been doing this since 2015.

In the summer of 2009, the python class took an end of year field trip to the DIVE (http://www.austintek.com/DIVE).

Every man needs a fancy car. Performed at the No Shame Theater, Carrboro, NC, 21 Feb 2015.

The protagonist goes to the car dealership to buy a car, in the hopes of impressing women.

The Burlesque Dancer. Performed at the No Shame Theater, Carrboro, NC, 21 Feb 2015.

I was at a writer's workshop recently. One of the other participants was a female burlesque dancer.

Robots. Performed at the No Shame Theater, Carrboro, NC, 17 Jan 2015.

The movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" from the point of view of robots.

The Linux Virtual Server (LVS) Project is a GPL'ed layer 4 router for Linux, which allows you to combine low cost servers (e.g. web, database) into a single highly available, high throughput server.

Here's the Linux Virtual Server (LVS) HOWTOs.

	Note
	Mar 2014. I am no longer maintaining these HOWTOs.

For my write-ups on LVS (performance, meeting note, trivia quiz, iron-on labels, presentations, configure script), please see my LVS page.

Gnucash is a GPL double entry accounting package. Here's my Gnucash tutorial. This tutorial is referenced from the Gnucash website documentation page. This tutorial was delivered, on 9 Jul 2001, to the North Carolina Sysadministrator's Association (NCSA), an organisation based in RTP, NC, USA. I was the treasurer of NCSA from Dec 2000 to Dec 2003.

dual booting Linux and WinXP from a flash drive

This projection produces maps of the world in which you are at the center. Great circles through your location are straight lines enabling you to determine bearings to anywhere in the world.

The software was co-authored with Michael NV3Z and released in 1994 under the GPL. I maintain the AZ_PROJ on-line map server, which has been online since 1996, generating 10,000 maps/year.

A 50yr plan for ham radio in response to the ARRL's plan for restructing for ham radio.

Aurora Opening of 15-16 Jul 2000: Analysis of Amateur Radio VHF and UHF logs

Analysis of the 1999 Spring Sprints (the sprints are a VHF/UHF contest on the US east coast).

A talk (http://www.austintek.com/outsourcing/outsourcing.html) given to the North Carolina Systems Administrators (http://www.ncsysadmin.org/) 12 Jul 2004. Outsourcing is the replacement of American workers by cheaper labor from overseas. The labor can be imported into the country, e.g. by giving the worker an H1-B visa, or by contracting the job to workers overseas.

How I recovered a disk with the undocumented Critical 19 error.

What I learned from attempting to see the shuttle launch.

Hiking Trip to area near the Mt. of the Holy Cross, Colorado, 8-15 Jun 2002 with an old friend Steve. Steve and I were post-docs together at Yale in the '70s. Steve, not to be outdone, has written his version the trip (also available doc format). Steve has a scientific web site `Carson science and a photography site Natural Photography by Steven D Carson.

The Larapinta Trail, McDonnell Ranges, Northern Territory, Australia, Aug 2002.

Hiking in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Oct 2010.

Leaving Earth (the Russian manned space program) and Genesis (the Apollo 8 trip to the Moon) by Robert Zimmerman.

It would be wrong to steal my sister's boyfriend (wouldn't it?) by Sophie Ranald.

Use of historical cloud data to select a date for a star party in North Carolina.

Wifi in the Wilderness: Setting up internet connectivity for observers at the Mid-Atlantic Star Party using wifi.

Yet another home analemma project: the Mack family driveway analemma .

Moon 22° complete halo (photo).

Restoration of a Tasco 8V Telescope.

Fixup of a Meade LX-10.

Paint it Gloss Black.

Figure of merit for mirror materials.

Weather at Staunton River State Park. This is the location for the Staunton River State Park Star Party run by the Chapel Hill Astronomical Observing Club

Whenever I go hiking, I see rocks everywhere. Rocks are great. I'm the VP and webmaster for the Central North Carolina Mineral Club.

In Feb 2013, I lead a field trip to Pilot Mountain State Park, NC. Here's a talk I gave on 5 Feb 2013 to prepare people for the trip Pilot Mountain Field Trip (http://www.centralncmineralclub.org/field_trips/pilot_mtn/).