barns.blog

With 2009 already under-way, progress is happening in my Masters at a steady pace. With just under six months to go until the end of July, my work is in full swing, with a mixture of writing, algorithmic construction, testing and other activities. Over the next month, most of the development work should be completed. This is, of course, somewhat dependant on my teaching not getting too much in the way.

Thereafter, my algorithms and the sfPortscan algorithm from Snort will be tested and statistically analysed. Thereafter, I plan on finalising my write-up and handing in.

In the interim, I have plans to submit papers to several conferences during the course of the year, the first list includes ISSA, RAID, SATNAC, SAICSIT and CISSE (in chronological order of submission dates). I also hope to get a journal article out during the course of the year.

So, onward with 2009…

I have taken charge of the PGLSC “Postgrad Journal” project, which is something I think I can contribute to. However, I am now fighting with it. What I want, is to be able to typeset the Journal automagically using something like LaTeX or DocBook or something of that ilk. A weekend with Google didn’t help much.

I’m not sure if I am being silly by trying to do this automatically, but I cant see why it isn’t possible. Also, I guess I’m a little lazy. I can probably achieve what I want if I sit down and write a LaTeX class. I know that’s what the Free Software Magazine has done, but they haven’t published their class anywhere.

The project is a good one, but will be a fair bit of work. The most difficult part, I think, will be getting the submissions Peer Reviewed. Hopefully, Departments will cooperate. Once we have overcome that hurdle, I suspect that typesetting will not be the most difficult task, especially as I have a little while to get that bit right before we go to print for the first time. The Journal will be available online and in print, and RUCUS has offered to host the Open Journal System for us.