Capital Area Central Texas UNIX Society
CACTUS Newsletter

Volume 15, Number 3 - March 1999


Contents:

March 18th CACTUS Meeting

February Meeting Report

by Darrel Long

Twenty one people attended, including six officers.  Jack opened the meeting by talking about last months officer elections and moved on to talk a little bit about our possible April speaker, Time Warner, before introducing the current speaker George Kraft, from IBM Network Computers Division.

George Craft talked about the IBM Network Station 1000 series. He said it should be out sometime after the first of next year and should cost around $600. While passing around the 1000 series network computer, George talked about some of the advantages. The first advantage is that because there is no hard drive or fan motor, the two parts on a PC that most frequently go out, they claim it is more reliable than a PC.  Another advantage is that all the software is kept on the server
allowing updates to be applied to only one copy of  software. The computer can boot off of at least five different brands of servers. The smart card loads a JAVA script telling it what applications to run and what server to boot from. The best advantage is that it brings the entire enterprise under one umbrella. Such as, it runs UNIX business applications, accesses the Internet, and still lets you run Windows office software. George finished up by talking about different configurations and uses. For more information go to www.ibm.com/nc.

From the Editiod

This paper less edition of the CACTUS newsletter was actually generated from html--the World Wide Web (WWW) using Nestcape Composer.   Because we no longer actually snail mail hard copy,  generating ftp'able postscript to a printer is unnecessary.  Last month's edition was generated using gnu nroff with some hand editing for distribution to Usenet and our mailing list.  Then our WEB master would somehow translate the raw ASCII into html.  This edition began from the February WEB version, with reports pasted in, and some new content edited.  [See here.]

The ASCII version of this newsletter is distributed to Usenet on austin.internet, austin.general, and tx.genreal.  If you're reading this on one of those groups, feel free to flame newsletter [at] cactus <dot> org.  If you'd like to get the email distribution, send a request to cactus-news-subscribe [at] cactus <dot> org.

And remember not to forget your heritage: that discarded tool.  Mike Cheselka our newest member at large, provided the magic to dump a WEB page into ASCII format:  lynx.  Using the -dump option allows you to create an ASCII image of your WEB page.  [It might strip your JavaScript.]   If this reaches you (and it might be late), it actually works!

On another front:  if your private WEB page on cactus.org has suddenly broken, Mike Cheselka has recently upgraded the httpd on cactus.org.  It no longer honors Index.html in your public_html subdirectory.  Link or rename your Index.html to index.html and your clients will no longer get permission denied errors.  Progress engenders some pain. Even Tom Painter, our several times past president, has gone dark:  http://www.cactus.org/ ~painter [don't try to click].

But despite the progress, old tools like lynx shouldn't be discarded.  Who installed it on cactus.org?  I'd never invoked it before.  For extra credit:  which former CACTUS newsletter editor still maintains a WEB page that purports to be lynx compatible?

The Central Texas Linux Organization continues to meet on the third Monday of every month.  See http://www.ctlug.org for how to subscribe to the mailing list.

All errors and omissions are the fault of your humble editor.  Special thanks to Darrell Long, our new scribe, who actually delivered his report before the deadline.  Thanks also to Gil Kloepfer our extraneous member at large, who represents us at the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) at the  University of Texas.  They host our meetings.  May Allah bless them.


 

Membership

To renew your membership, please send check or money order payable to CACTUS ($25/yr for regular membership and $96/yr for corporate sponsorship):
CACTUS
PO BOX 9786
AUSTIN, TX 78766-9786

You can also pay in person at the general meetings. The date on the upper right hand of the newsletter mailing label indicates when your membership expires. Please direct any inquiries or address changes to membership [at] cactus <dot> org.


 

CACTUS Officers

Contact Information

CACTUS Sponsors

CACTUS Meeting Location: Applied Research Labs

CACTUS meets on the third Thursday of each month at the Applied Research Labs (ARL) in the JJ Jake Pickle Research Campus (JJ PRC). We'll meet in the main auditorium located directly behind the guard's desk and main lobby.

Please do not show up earlier than 6:20 pm on the specified day. Enter through the main entrance at 10000 Burnet Road for ARL:UT. Tell the guard that you are here for the CACTUS meeting. You will be required to sign a log book, but not required to wear a badge. The guards will direct you to the auditorium entrance. Limited parking in the front of the building is available, but more extensive parking is available in the large parking lot just north of the ARL building. After 6:30 pm, all entrances to JJ PRC, except for the Burnet Road entrance, are closed and locked. You can still enter the parking lot in front of the ARL building. No parking tags are necessary after 6:00 pm. See map for further details.

Online maps are available at:

As always, please leave the facility as you saw it when you arrived. So let's clean up all pizza and soda items before we leave. Thanks and hope to see all of you there.

Map to the Monthly CACTUS Meeting

                                                  | |     ^
        <---- to MOPAC                            | |     |
                                                  | |     | North
                                                  | |     | to Braker Lane
                                   ---------------+ |
                                   -+ /-----------+ |
                                    | |           | |
                                    | +--------+  | |
                                    |  Parking |  | |
                                    |    Lot   |  | |
                                    +----------+  | |
                                                  | |
                           +------------+         | |
                           |            | +-------+ |
                           |            | |   +---+ |
                           |            | |   |   | | Rutland
                           |    ARL     | |   |   | +---------
                           |            | |   |   | +---------
                           |            | |   +---+ |
                           |            | +---+---+ |
                           +------------+         | |  |
                                                  | |  | South
                                                  | |  | to US 183
                                                  | |  v