DFWUUG NEWSLETTER 2003

The mission of the DFWUUG is to promote interest in and an understanding of UNIX All meetings are open to the public without charge.

The group meets the first Thursday of the month, with the exception of those months where the Thursday falls on or near a holiday. Everyone is cordially invited to attend. For current information, please check out the user group's web site http://www.dfwuug.org/.

Main Event (7 PM): Dave Thomas, pragmatic programmer
How to Keep (Get) Your Job

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Dave showed us how to preogram in Ruby a few months back.. Thursday, he will give us some ideas on what to do in this economy to preserve our technical livelihood.

Our mailman software is functional again! Thanks to Jeff Rush, and Steve Lineberger of Texas Metronet.

The place to do your own mailing list maintenance is <http://www.dfwuug.org/mailman/cgi-bin/listinfo>.

The DFWUUG Board has accepted Cynthia Keohane's resignation as DFWUUG Board Member At Large. She and John have moved to Austin, Texas.

The Board has appointed Charles Shultz, Jr. to fill out the balance of Cynthia's term, which ends in March, 2004.

John Dyer (<jdyer@gte.net>) has been doing a great job as our O'Reilly book co-ordinator. Among his other duties is getting members copies of O'Reilly books in exchange for a short review in this newsletter.

Not everybody who has gotten a book from John has given a review in exchange for that book. In fact, 50 books have gone reviewless! Our relationship with O'Reilly is on the line, folks. Get those reviews in!

Reviews need not be long and literary. A review should give an idea of the detailed contents, how readable the book is, what a purchaser might gain from the book, whether the reviewer liked the book, and anything else of interest to someone who reads the book. Reviews should be about one page, single-spaced.

To encourage those of you with reviews outstanding, here is a list of the books you have. Next month, this newsletter will publish the list of books with the dates the books got to the reviewer. The October issue will contain names. Don't be embarassed - get your review to John.

Linux Device Drivers
Essential System Administration
MAC OSX for Unix Geeks
Dreamweaver 4: The Missing Manual
Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience
Managing & Using MySQL, 2nd Edition
MySQL Reference Manual
Linux Web Server CD Bookshelf, The
Networking CD Bookshelf, The
Perl CD Bookshelf, Version 2.0, The
Learning Perl, 3rd Edition
Programming Jakarta Struts
Programming the Perl DBI
Perl for Oracle DBAs
SSH, the Secure Shell
TOAD Pocket Reference for Oracle
UML in a Nutshell
Java Message Service
Learning XML
Perl CD Bookshelf, Version 3.0
The Web Programming CD Bookshelf, Version 1.0
Programming Jakarta Struts
JavaServer Pages, 2nd Edition
Java Network Programming, 2nd Edition
Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices
Perl for Web Site Management
Programming Perl, 3rd Edition
Practical C++ Programming
Solaris 8 Administrator's Guide
Learning XML
Oracle Database Administration: The Essential Reference
Oracle DBA Checklists Pocket Reference
Mastering Algorithms with C
Programming PHP
Windows XP Missing Manual
Windows XP Pocket Reference
Oracle Performance Tuning, 2nd Edition
Using SANs and NAS, Help for Storage Admin
LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell
Essential System Administration
Unix for Oracle DBAs Pocket Reference
802.11 Security
802.11 Wireless Networks
DNS & BIND Cookbook
Incident Response
Linux Server Hacks
Learning XML
Programming Python
Oracle Essentials: Oracle9i, Oracle8i & Oracle8
Oracle Performance Tuning, 2nd Edition

Ah, the wealth of spam that comes into my mailbox these days. I can get a PhD based on my real world work experience. There are all sorts of offers for drugs to solve almost every medical problem. Let’s not forget the omnipresent Nigerian Oil Minister and all his kids who need a helping hand. I haven’t gotten any spam about Iraqi antiquities but, for some unknown reason, I seem to be getting a lot of spam about my septic system. Go figure. Spam has gotten to be a REAL problem. It is consuming lots of network bandwidth sending all these bogus solicitations about. A tremendous amount of disk space is being consumed by ISPs to hold all the received spam before you and I download our mail and eat up the space on our drives. The problem has gotten to be so bad, two of the biggest entities in the world are looking into solving the spam problem. Spam is eating into Microsoft, the owner of both MSN and Hotmail. One of Microsoft’s solutions is to allow its users to send at most 100 email messages a day. Such schemes like this serve only to punish the innocent. Take for instance the investment banker whose ISP got blacklisted by an anti-spam group. He was unable to legitimately conduct his business because spammer relayed spam through his ISP. Congress wants to pass anti-spam legislation. The problem with the proposed legislation is same as what my dear old Dad used to say about chains and locks, “… they only stop honest people.” Do we really expect spammers to play by the rules and put “ADV” in the message subject as some legislation would require? Personally, I wouldn’t trust either Microsoft or the government to get it right.

So what are some things you can do to about spam, I hear you asking? Here are some tips

Block the spam. Spam blocking programs have turned into a full-fledged industry. There are lots of commercial spam blockers out there. For instance there’s MailSifter, Spam Detective and Spam Interceptor. Why pay $$$ for these program when there are Open Source programs that are just great for this. Two I recommend are SpamAssassin and POPfile.SpamAssassin is a mail filter to identify spam. Using its rule base, it uses a wide range of heuristic tests on mail headers and body text to identify spam. POPFile is an automatic mail classification tool. Once properly set up and trained, it will work in the background of your computer, scanning mail as it arrives and filing it however you wish. You can give it a simple job, like separating out junk e-mail, or a complicated one - like filing mail into a dozen folders. Think of it as a personal assistant for your inbox. You can get SpamAssassin at http://www.spamassassin.org and POPfile at http://popfile.sourceforge.net/old_index.html.

Hormel Foods is the maker of SPAM. They do not object to the use of the slang term “spam” to refer to junk email. What they do object to is referring to junk email as “SPAM”. “SPAM” is their trademark for their meat product. They also object any attempt to trademark or copyright the term “spam”.

Use of the term "spam" was adopted as a result of the Monty Python’s Flying Circus skit in which Hormel’s SPAM meat product was featured. In this skit, a group of Vikings sang a chorus of "spam, spam, spam . . . " in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because junk email was drowning out normal email on the Internet. Check out the skit here: http://www.detritus.org/spam/skit.html.

Of Museums, email, and Breakfasts

by John Keohane

Last May, just as the Keohanes were getting ready to move to Austin, the University of Chicago sponsored an alumni event at the Dallas Museum of Art. Though each of us attending spent $15., the event, complete with hors d’ouvres, was heavily subsidized by the university. The speaker was a professor of art at the University of Chicago, and the lecture, well illustrated by slides, was of the history of museums in this country. I learned that museums did not just get started and then flourish. Some of the earliest survived awhile, then went defunct. “Where could you find what a museum can provide?” Perhaps the Internet? In my opinion, museums may be coming on another big dry spell, this one partly because of the success of technology.

Something that still works, still gives meaning to people, is face to face interaction. Face to face interaction occurs at DFWUUG. It also occurs at University of Chicago breakfasts in Dallas and Austin.

We use the technology of email to learn who’s interested, and to get commitment. We meet at a bakery which is already open, with multiple food options for individual choice. It’s something you might want to try with alumni of your school. I never spend more than $4. and don’t require any subsidy from anyone.

Some aspects are very simple:

1) We keep them small, only 6-7 people are invited, so we can have good discussion.

2) We always have them at the same location. No need to do new map reading each time.

3) We have them at a LaMadeleine, so each person buys for her/himself. No money complexity.

4) We limit the time to 90 minutes, when we do them on Saturdays, and 60 minutes during the week. This helps keep conversation focused, and assists the discussion leader. Topics percolate up from the group.

One aspect is not completely simple. That is assuring that the requisite number of people DO show up. We can limit the high end by simply not inviting too many. How can one assure that most everyone comes, while making the administration of all this relatively simple?

We coordinate by email.

1) To get on the breakfast list, one must send an email to the administrator of that city’s breakfast list. This will include phone number(s) and year and degree in graduation from the university.

2) The administrator sends a list of proposed possible breakfast dates about the 20^th of the previous month. These are proposed/POSSIBLE dates. We won’t organize all of them. We’ll organize only when there are 6-7 plus perhaps a pad of 2 others. We organized two last May, but four for August for Dallas, and four for August in Austin (our first month here).

3) When we organize, the discussion leader sends “please confirm” emails to five or six people who have indicated that they like a particular date. A day or two later, the same email goes out again to anyone who has not confirmed. We expect anyone who will not attend, to email the discussion leader as early as possible. There’s almost always a potential substitute available. Emails go to anyone missing a breakfast. Failure to respond will put that individual to the X file.

Might you want to try this with alumni of your university? If interested in more ideas, email me.

--John Keohane, Austin, Texas

keohane@prodigy.net (512) 371-3853

O'Reilly Books
by John Dyer

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John J Dyer
The O'Reilly Guy
Home: 972-790-3311
Cell: 972-977-4228

O'Reilly User Group Program
Newsletter

July 28, 2003

Please share the information your members would be interested in....


Highlights This Week:
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Book News
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-RTF Pocket Guide
-Practical RDF
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Upcoming Events
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-Come See Me at LinuxWorld, San Francisco, CA--Aug 5
-James Duncan Davidson ("Cocoa in a Nutshell"),
Utah Java User Group, West Valley City, UT--Aug 21
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Conferences
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-Call For Participation: The 2004 O'Reilly Life Science
Informatics Conference
-The Second Annual O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference
-Put Up an O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference Banner, Get a Free Book
----------------------------------------------------------------
Safari
----------------------------------------------------------------
-"Go On Safari" Tip of the Week Winner--John Davey,
Philadelphia Area Computer Society, Web Design SIG
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News
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-Amazon Hacks: Beta Chapter available online
-New User Group page and Book Review Guideline section
for the O'Reilly UG Program
-Secure Cooking with C and C++
-Simplify Your Life with Apache Virtual Hosts
-Why Web Developers Need JavaServer Faces
-Why Choose RSS 1.0?
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News From Your Peers
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================================================
Book News
================================================
Review books are available--email me for a copy.

***Please include the book order number on your requests.

Let me know if you need your books by a certain date.
Allow at least four weeks for shipping.
Send or email me copies of your newsletters and book reviews.

Don't forget, your members get 20% off any O'Reilly book they purchase
directly from O'Reilly. Just use code DSUG when ordering.
http://www.oreilly.com/

***Group purchases with better discounts are available***
Please let me know if you are interested.

Press releases are available on our press page:
http://press.oreilly.com/

***RTF Pocket Guide
Order Number: 4753
Any programmer working with text files today needs a way to deal with
Microsoft Word documents and their underlying Rich Text Format. Our
handy quick reference is the only book available on this notoriously
difficult format. Small and easy to use on the job, RTF Pocket Guide
focuses on the "workhorse" codes that programmers can't do without,
including text style codes, paragraph formatting codes, and page
formatting codes--all with real-world examples.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rtfpg/?CMP=EMC-OC5466230545

A Sample Excerpt, "RTF Tutorial," is available online:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rtfpg/chapter/index.html


***Practical RDF
Order Number: 2637
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a structure for describing
and interchanging metadata on the Web. "Practical RDF" explains RDF
from the ground up, providing real-world examples and descriptions of
how the technology is being used in applications like Mozilla, FOAF,
and Chandler, as well as infrastructure you can use to build your own
applications. This book cuts to the heart of the W3C's often obscure
specifications, giving you tools to apply RDF successfully in your own
projects.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pracrdf/?CMP=EMC-79IF02722688

Chapter 8, "Jena: RDF in Java," is available online:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pracrdf/chapter/index.html

================================================
Upcoming Events
================================================
***For more events, please see:
http://events.oreilly.com/

***Come See Me at LinuxWorld, San Francisco, CA--Aug 5
Stop by the O'Reilly booth #1473 and say hi to me on Tuesday, August 5.
The show runs August 5-7. Here is the list of O'Reilly Events at
LinuxWorld:
http://linux.oreillynet.com/linux/linuxworld2003/


***James Duncan Davidson ("Cocoa in a Nutshell"), Utah Java User Group,
West Valley City, UT--Aug 21
Author James Duncan demonstrates techniques for writing clear and
robust code at this UJUG event. For more information and to RSVP please
go to:
http://www.ujug.org/meetings.html

IHC Lake Park Facility,
4646 West Lake Park Blvd.
West Valley City, UT
http://www.ujug.org/location.html

================================================
Conference News
================================================
***Call For Participation: The 2004 O'Reilly Life Science
Informatics Conference
O'Reilly & Associates invites biologists, computer scientists, software
engineers, mathematicians, and experts in other related fields to
submit proposals to lead tutorial and conference sessions at the
O'Reilly Life Science Informatics Conference, slated for February 9-12,
2004 at the Westin Horton Plaza in San Diego, CA.
Proposals are due September 1, 2003.
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/lsi2004/


** The Second Annual O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference
User Group members who register before September 12, 2003 get a double
discount. Use code DSUG when you register, and receive 20% off the
"Early Bird" price.

To register, go to:
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/macosx2003/create/ord_mac03

O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference
October 27-30, 2003
Westin Santa Clara, Santa Clara, CA
http://conferences.oreilly.com/macosxcon/


***Put Up an O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference Banner, Get a Free Book
We are looking for user groups to display our conference banners on
their web sites. If you send me the link to your user group site with
our O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference banner, I will send you the O'Reilly
book of your choice.

O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference Banners:
http://ug.oreilly.com/banners/macosx2003/

================================================
Safari News
================================================
***"Go On Safari" Tip of the Week Winner--John Davey,
Philadelphia Area Computer Society, Web Design SIG
"...Safari dovetails very well with your print library. I have a couple
books that now have second editions. Safari lets me review the new
editions on the Safari bookshelf for reference when I need them. And of
course, when looking to buy a book on a subject, Safari lets you search
the catalogs of several publishers and read as much of each book as you
need to make a decision."

Your group can also participate in this introductory program just for
user group members. To "Go on Safari," any of your members who sign up
for our Safari 14-day free trial can send comments on their
experiences, or tips and tricks for how they used Safari  (it only
needs to be 2 sentences long, but it may be longer) to
safari_talk@oreilly.com.  (Please include your UG name in the email.)

Every week someone will be chosen from the tips or comments submitted
to receive fun stuff from O'Reilly (T-shirts, book bags, or other
surprises). If a member of your user group is selected, your group
receives free gifts, too. Whatever the individual member receives, your
UG will get one, too, to give away at your next meeting, or use however
you see fit. Recipients--and their comments--will be announced in the
User Group Newsletter.

**Please use this special UG URL to sign up for the 14-day trial**
http://www.oreilly.com/safari/ug

For more information on Safari:
http://safari.oreilly.com/

================================================
News From O'Reilly & Beyond
================================================
---------------------
General News
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***Amazon Hacks: Beta
O'Reilly's upcoming "Amazon Hacks" is a collection of real-world tips,
tricks, and full-scale solutions to practical uses of amazon.com and
the Amazon Web services API.
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/amazonhks/chapter/index.html?CMP=EMC-UO999749
8356


***New User Group page and Book Review Guideline section for the
O'Reilly UG Program
We have decided to give the UG page (http://ug.oreilly.com/) a new look
by updating the graphics section, adding a "User Group Programs and
Resources" section, and a "Book Review Guidelines and Suggestions"
section. Writing a review has never been so easy....
http://ug.oreilly.com/bookreviews.html?CMP=NLC-6DT281319197


***Secure Cooking with C and C++
In this first in a three-part series of sample recipes from "Secure
Programming Cookbook for C and C++," the authors offer nine basic rules
for proper data validation, which they recommend all programmers
follow. From their first rule: "Assume all input is guilty until proven
otherwise" to their last: "The better you understand the data, the
better you can filter it," the advice presented here will help
programmers keep unwanted, malicious data out of their applications.
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/excerpt/spcookbook_chap03/index.html


Secure Programming Cookbook for C and C++
Order Number: 3943
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/secureprgckbk/index.html

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Open Source
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***Simplify Your Life with Apache Virtual Hosts
Not every web site needs its own server or IP address. Apache and HTTP
1.1 both allow different sites to share a single box and an IP address.
Russell Dyer explains how virtual hosts can make your life easier as a
web developer and a system administrator.
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/apache/2003/07/24/vhosts.html

***Defending Your Site Against Spam
To users, unsolicited commercial email is an annoyance. To mail server
administrators, it's a threat. Dru Nelson recently had his network
attacked by spammers. He explains the various defenses he considered
for protecting against future attacks.

Part one:
http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2003/06/26/blocklist.html

Part two:
http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2003/07/24/blocklist.html

---------------------
Java
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***Why Web Developers Need JavaServer Faces
Several good frameworks exist to make the Java server programmer's life
easier. Unfortunately, several hard problems still exist, including
multiple output-format support and separation of content from
presentation. In this first Java Q&A column, Chuck Cavaness explains
why JSF matters.
http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2003/07/23/java_qa.html

Chuck is the author of the "Jakarta Struts Pocket Reference"
Order Number: 5199
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jakartapr/index.html

---------------------
XML
---------------------
***Why Choose RSS 1.0?
Part of RSS 1.0's value is in retaining its roots as primarily a
metadata specification. A journal publisher explains why they chose RSS
1.0 as the basis for distributing RSS feeds of their publications.
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/07/23/rssone.html

---------------------
Mac
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***Penny-Pinching PowerBook
Do you need portability for email and word processing, but don't want
to plunk down a pile of cash for a new Apple laptop? Diehard Mac user
Michael Norton describes his penny-pinching Odyssey that explored the
PowerBook 280c and the 1400.
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/07/22/cheap_powerbook.html


***Welcome to Swaine Manor
Swaine Manor is a new column for Mac DevCenter written by technology
veteran Michael Swaine. In this debut, Michael comments on dancing with
Apple, Mac rumors, REALbasic, and more.
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/07/18/swaine.html?CMP=NLC-A5T9913
93753


Until next time--

Marsee

The Employment and Consulting SIG meets from 6:00 PM - 6:45 PM, before
the main meeting. This allows members to attend a technical SIG, and provides
a more convenient hour for recruiters and employers to attend.

Recruiters and employers are encouraged to bring business cards and job lead information.
Members and guests who are looking for work are encouraged, but not required, to bring
current leads.

Please note that this meeting must end promptly so that it does not delay the main event.
Participants, please do your part to support this change.

How would you like to expand your technical library AT NO EXPENSE? You can review up to two books at a time from the O'Reilly catalog http://www.oreilly.com and then keep the books for your technical library. The procedure is to select the books you want to review. Then email John Dyer at jdyer@gte.net with the names of the books, your name and email address(s) and a phone number. John will then order the books and will notify you when the books arrive. When you receive the books, read them, write your review(s) and email your review to John for publication. As you review a book, you can request another one. You can look at the newsletter for a sample of what the reviews should look like..

John J Dyer
Home: 972-790-3311
jdyer@gte.net
Work: 214-951-2220
john.dyer@exxonmobil.com

********************************************************************** O'Reilly User Group Program members receive 20% discount on conference prices. Register early--limited space is available. Please use the discount code *DSUG* when registering. This discount is meant for use by your current UG members only. If posting information about this conference on your website, please do not include discount information. For more details or brochures, please contact Denise Olliffe, deniseo@oreilly.com or 707-829-0515 ext 339. **********************************************************************

O'Reilly is a registered trademark of O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

The question is, or how do you recycle those technical books and journals you never read anymore? The answer is, bring them to the next DFWUUG meeting and put them on display so members can browse through them and take home whatever is of interest. There is no monetary reward but you may find something you want and your stuff may get recycled through another great mind. Due to storage limitations, please be prepared to take you leftover stuff home with you afterward.
John J Dyer
Home: 972-790-3311
mailto:jdyer@gte.net
Work: 214-951-2220
Cell: 972-977-4228
john.dyer@exxonmobil.com