[kwlug-announce] Meeting Monday, 7pm: Home Assistant, ProxySQL (Feb 2026)

[Paul Nijjar]

If your fingers are too frozen to be able to press buttons or turn
keys, maybe it is time for some home automation? Over the past few
months intrepid KWLUGers have been giving talks on how we can design
our own personalized HAL 9000s, and this month Khalid Baheyeldin
continues his series on sensors and notifications with Home Assistant.
This month he will be telling us how he set up voice to text
functionality, email and voice alerts, and a custom light sensor for
his pod bay that tells him when he has left the light on. 

Then, Shravan Dwarka will show us how to use ProxySQL in front of his
MariaDB databases. This can be used for firewalling sensitive servers,
for load balancing, and more. 

We will also have a restaurant-only meetup on Monday, Feb 16, but it
will be at a new restaurant: Yo Sushi in downtown Kitchener. RSVP to
dinner at kwlug.org if you would like to attend, and get more details
here: https://kwlug.org/node/1469

In other news, we are currently looking for presentations for March
and beyond. If you have something you would like to talk about without
the stress of waiting months and months for your presentation date,
this is your chance! Use the contact form on the website or email me
directly. We welcome both virtual and in-person presentations. 

If you are interested in some Black History Month events that
intersect with technology, you might be interested in this lunchtime
event from the Balsillie School of International Affairs on Feb 3:
https://balsillieschool.ca/event/black-heritage-month-panel-black-resistance-digital-memory-and-transnational-futures/

That's all I got for this month. Our meeting begins at 7pm. It will be
held online at https://webconference.kwlug.org/room/kwlug , and
in-person in DC 1568 at the Davis Centre library at the University of
Waterloo. See https://kwlug.org/node/1455 for more location
information. 

- Paul