January 2014 News

It the continuing trend of recent months we are happy to announce another new addition to our growing Shadowcat denizens. Kaitlyn Pankhurst has joined us as an outside contractor (letting us claim the LA space) to work alongside our growing team of experts.

Kaitlyn is a long-standing associate of the Shadowcat militia, having visited us twice at our Castle (though she hasn't yet been imprisoned in the Developer Dungeon), and spoken twice at successive London Perl Workshops.

We are all sure that she wil fit smoothly into the Shadowcat way of life and ethos and grow to become a valued member of the organisation. Welcome aboard Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn in London

Once again Castle Shadowcat is graced this week by the arrival of two of our distance fellowship. Last year, you might recall if you read these news pages regularly, we started a programme of bringing all the Shadowcat team together at regular intervals.

This week it is the turn of Robert Sedlacek and Paul Evans (who are respectively known as phaylon and LeoNerd on irc) to visit the dungeons and be encased in the suffering embrace of the Iron Maiden.*

I is going to be fun having these two in the office all week and to getting to know them better socially. Phaylon has been a member of the Shadowcat team for longer than either of us care to discuss to all the youngsters in the office and this is his first time in our particular ivory towers.

It is a great week for them to be here in Lancaster when the weather is so typically British and when we will be having other visits.

We are hoping to have the next event in March to coincide with a series of meetings with a potential client who wishes to visit us.

Robert hard at coding

It didn't take Paul long to fit extra screens into his workspace

• A reference to the torture device and the Heavy Metal Band, not the dog.

On Thursday, 23rd January 2014, Ian Norton and Mark Keating, General Manager and CEO of Shadowcat Systems respectively, will give an evening full of lectures at Kendal Engineering Society.

The subject of the talks will be:

An Open Source World, by Mark Keating

The Practical Users Guide to How the Internet Works: An Introduction, by Ian Norton

Mark's talk will broadly cover such themes as:

• What the heck is Open Source?
• Is there an idiots guide to the ideology?
• Who Uses Open Source
• What are the Open Source Tools for Business

The broader focus of this talk by Mark is to introduce Shadowcat Systems and Open Source. What Mark hopes people take away is an introduction to the underlying philosophy and a yearning to use and learn more about the free tools available.

Ian will be discussing the physical nature of the Internet and how elements actually connect to each other. In his practical introduction he hopes to cover:

• DNS
• Ethernet
• TCP/IP
• Sessions
• Hosts
• tlc
• and perhaps a delve into the ISO7 layer model.

Ian will use a wanton disregard to holding an allegory by constructing simple imagery of usage based upon the telephone model and with possibly no reference whatsoever to the Kingston-upon-Hull exchange system of the 1930s.

Both of these talks are aimed at the beginners or the casual listener. Ian and Mark hope to provide an insight that is light, frothy and thoroughly caffeinated.

If you can make it to the Engineering Society event in January, Ian and Mark, will look forward to seeing you there and to perhaps sharing a light amber nectar with you after the event.