Meetups

• Hacky Hour UQ 
• Virtual HPC User Support
• UQ R Users Group (UQRUG) meetings
• Tips for Using Zoom for Meetups and Training

Hacky Hour UQ

RCC supports Hacky Hour, held on UQ’s St Lucia Campus. Hacky Hour is a weekly meetup, held Tuesdays, for UQ researchers to ask research-related technical issues to do with:

• high performance computing
• cloud computing
• virtual machines
• data storage
• data security
• data cleanup
• automated workflows
• data pipelines
• virtual desktops
• Python
• R
• Linux
• Software and Data Carpentry.

Experts from RCC and QCIF will be at the Hacky Hour to answer your questions, and researchers can also help each other. All UQ researchers are welcome to attend.

When: Hacky Hour UQ occurs each Tuesday, 3–4pm. Occasionally, it is cancelled if no RCC and QCIF experts are available that day. For updates, follow Hacky Hour UQ on Twitter (@HackyHourStLuc).

Where: Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, Hacky Hour will be held via Zoom video conference until further notice. For Zoom meeting details please email hackyhourUQ@gmail.com.

When it's deemed safe to do so, Hacky Hour UQ will return to being held at Café Nano (outside), near AIBN, on the St Lucia Campus (view map).

Any questions? Email hackyhourUQ@gmail.com.

Genomics focus

• First Tuesday of the month: Bioinformatics Hacky Hour — come and ask bioinformatics analysis, software and pipeline questions.
• Last Tuesday of the month: BioLab Hacky Hour — to answer your experimental design and technical sample processing questions to get you started in the lab.

During these special Hacky Hours, all researchers are welcome to attend and ask for help with all the usual research-related IT issues, such as HPC, Python and R.

UQ vHPC (Virtual HPC User Support)

Fridays, 2pm-3pm (AEST)  via Zoom: 535-415-695; https://uqz.zoom.us/j/535415695

As a readiness test for the evolving COVID-19 virus situation, RCC offered a virtual HPC (vHPC) help session on Friday, 13 March 2020, as an adjoint to our usual Hacky Hour sessions.
The session was successful and we will be offering it again on Fridays, 2pm-3pm (AEST) until further notice. 

Please note vHPC won't have the wide scope of expertise that is available at the face-to-face Hacky Hour meetups.

We will focus primarily on HPC access, usage and workflows with a smattering of the other topics that makes Hacky Hour the success that it is.

If you are interested, but you cannot make it this time, please email rcc-support@uq.edu.au with the message subject "vHPC". 

UQ R Users Group (UQRUG) meetings

The R statistical programming language is very popular amongst research computing users at UQ.
A user group for those working with R was launched at UQ in January 2020. 

The UQ R User Group seeks to bring this community together to share ideas and provide a collaborative, problem-solving space for new and experienced users.

The group meets on the last Wednesday of each month from 12pm–2pm (AEST).

Note: The May 2022 meeting has been postponed to June 1st. Book here

The meetings are currently being held online. 

Check the UQRUG webpage and the UQ Library Digital Researcher Lab resources page for more information.

This initiative is supported by the UQ Library and the R-Ladies Brisbane Chapter.Tips for using Zoom for Meetups and Training

A critical component of any video conference is the audio.
To avoid problems for all participants, please ensure that you

• use a headset (earbuds, or something more substantial), or an echo cancelling speaker/microphone device, and that you
• ensure that Zoom is configured to use that audio device for both microphone and speaker functions,
• if you are in a noisy environment keep your microphone muted except when you speak. Zoom has a hot key combination for mute/unmute.

Whether working from home, or at work,

• be conscious of visual distractions in the background (eg. colleagues, family members or pets walking past)
• try to avoid having strong lighting behind you which makes you a silhouette (eg. overhead lights, unshaded windows)
• often the glow from your laptop screen or monitor is sufficient front illumination
• if your network bandwidth is constrained, consider stopping your video and sending a still photo instead.