Hack (technology) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hack (technology) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hacking (English verb to hack, singular noun a hack) refers to the re-configuring or re-programming of a system to function in ways not facilitated by the owner, administrator, or designer. The term(s) have several related meanings in the technology and computer science fields, wherein a “hack” may refer to a clever or quick fix to a computer program problem, or to what may be perceived to be a clumsy or inelegant (but usually relatively quick) solution to a problem, such as a “kludge”.

The terms “hack” and “hacking” are also used to refer to a modification of a program or device to give the user access to features that were otherwise unavailable, such as by circuit bending. It is from this usage that the term “hacking” is often incorrectly used to refer to more nefarious criminal uses such as identity theft, credit card fraud or other actions categorized as computer crime; there being a distinction between security breaking and hacking, a better term for security breaking would be “cracking”.

Adelaide Hackerspace




Photos of today’s get together

In January 2010 we started a Hackerspace in Adelaide. Over 30 people with a diverse and exciting range of skills and interests are involved.

We are having semi-regular meetings to discuss the organisation and to actually hack. At present we are sharing a space with Format Collective which is working out very well. Anyone interested please join the mailing list and come along to a meeting.

You don’t have to be a hardware or software guru to come along. I’m working on a crochet project involving recycled hardware and hopefully LEDs.

What is a HackerSpace
http://pumpingstationone.org/2009/02/what-is-a-hackerspace/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace

To join the mailing list and see what we’ve been up to:
http://groups.google.com/group/hackerspace-adelaide

Dorkbot Adelaide

Thought I might toodle along to this meeting and see what it’s about. It looks interesting! Here’s the announcement from the website:

The very first meeting of Dorkbot Adelaide will be held on Sunday 29th June 2008 and anyone with a genuine interest in doing something different is welcome to attend. Dorkbot-adelaide is part of a new worldwide movement of artists, engineers, designers, hackers who meet to explore and discuss strange or new ways to use electricity and technology

Dorkbot Adelaide website

The email I received about it has more details:

*Presenters:*
Robert Hart from Air Stream (http://www.air-stream.org.au/)

Robert is secretary of Air Stream – a non-profit community group who use
wireless in combination with free and open source technologies to deploy
a Wide Area Network (WAN) that supports community participation, local
content and communications.

Sebastian Tomczak from Little Scale (http://little-scale.blogspot.com/)

Seb is a technologist and composer who makes music with all sorts of
strange things — lasers and water, videogame consoles and homemade
electronics and he will be speaking about lasers, water, electronics and
music.

*
*When: *
*7:00PM*
Sunday, 29 June

*
Where:
Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide
Schulz Building, Level 5, Room 5.06 (EMU Space)
(Directions – http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotadelaide/?page_id=

*Who: *
Anyone with a genuine interest.

*Cost of entry:*
Free

ADSL2 Gateway Died

My Linksys ADSL2 Gateway & Switch has been playing up for quite some time – intermittantly computers couldn’t see it at all or the connection would come and go. Last week it started getting a lot worse until it finally died yesterday. The modem part was fine (lights on) it’s the ethernet switch part which had the problem noone could ‘see’ or ping it. I’ve had it about 3 years.

I bought a new one yesterday a Billion ADSL2+ Router BiPAC 5200 it was only $70 the prices have certainly come down since buying the Linksys. It was very easy to setup for direct access to the Internet!! I had more problems getting my Netgear wireless access point to work with the Billion. It’s all fine now though 🙂

Monday cont…

Met a nice young man named Jason at the Edu miniconf and we talked with Robyn and another gentleman Roland for about an hour after the conf had ended for the day, about inequalities in life, sexism, Maths and accessibility in all sorts of forms.

So far my fav talk is Liddy Nevile’s on Accessibility. I learnt heaps from Liddy’s talk and wrote more for my talk from what I heard and learnt.

Some thoughts and quotes from Liddy’s talk –
“everyone has a disability of some sort, why do we put only some people with ‘disabilities’ into special ed classes?”

“we are in an elitist information age!”

“The problem of accessibility cant be solved in a general way it is an individual problem.”

“Access for ALL is a focus on the individual, we aren’t generic beings!”

my thoughts “open content is easier to make accessible because more people can see it and work on it” sort of like Linus’ law

My friend Karl Goetz spoke about his trip to Goroka, Papua New Guinea for ItShare SA Inc. ItShare recycles donated hardware and gives it away to disadvantaged and low income earners. I posted this message in haste but I hadn’t actually finished it 🙂 ItShare sent a container load of hardware – servers, pc’s, monitors etc to Goroka to set up a network at the hospital. Karl also trained local staff to become trainers themselves.