From sulrich at botwerks.org Fri Jun 3 08:16:03 2005 From: sulrich at botwerks.org (steve ulrich) Date: Fri Jun 3 08:18:05 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] administravia - ora newsletter (02-jun, 2005) References: Message-ID: for your perusal ... ================================================================ O'Reilly UG Program News--Just for User Group Leaders June 2, 2005 ================================================================ -Put Up an O'Reilly OSCON Banner, Get a Free Book -Put Up an O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference Banner, Get a Free Book -Promotional Material Available -Looking for Web Site or Newsletter Content? ---------------------------------------------------------------- Book Info ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***Review books are available Copies of our books are available for your members to review-- send me an email and please include the book's ISBN number on your request. Let me know if you need your book by a certain date. Allow at least four weeks for shipping. ***Please send copies of your book reviews Email me a copy of your newsletters or book reviews. For tips and suggestions on writing book reviews, go to: http://ug.oreilly.com/bookreviews.html ***Discount information Don't forget to remind your members about our 20% discount on O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, Pragmatic Bookshelf, SitePoint, and Syngress books. Just use code DSUG. ***Group purchases with better discounts are available Please let me know if you are interested and I can put you in touch with our sales department. ---------------------------------------------------------------- General News ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***Put Up an O'Reilly OSCON Banner, Get a Free Book We're looking for user groups to display our conference banner on their web sites. If you send me the link to your group's site with our O'Reilly 2005 Open Source Convention banner, I will send you the O'Reilly book of your choice. OSCON Banners: http://ug.oreilly.com/banners/oscon2005/ ***Put Up an O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference Banner, Get a Free Book We're looking for user groups to display our conference banner on their web sites. If you send me the link to your group's site with our O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference banner, I will send you the O'Reilly book of your choice. Where 2.0 Conference Banners: http://ug.oreilly.com/banners/where/ ***Promotional Material Available: The following items are available for your next meeting. Numbers are limited so please don't wait too long. Let me know the type and the amount you would like and I'll do my best. -O'Reilly Open Source Convention Brochures -O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference Brochures -MAKE Magazine ***Looking for Web Site or Newsletter Content? Web site and newsletter editors--you can use the sample chapters or sample hacks we provide online for your group's web site or newsletter. Just reprint the article and include a URL back to the original page. You can find these chapters (if available) on the catalog page for each book. They are also included in the new release section of each UG newsletter. Chapters are added weekly. New titles include "eBay Hacks," "Project 2003 Personal Trainer," "Web Mapping Illustrated," and "Learning Perl." http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/ug_sample_chapters ================================================================ O'Reilly News for User Group Members June 2, 2005 ================================================================ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Book News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Essential Sharepoint -Killer Game Programming in Java -Classic Shell Scripting -Infosec Career Hacking -Learning Java, 3rd Edition -DHTML Utopia SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition -Degunking Linux -Designing Embedded Hardware, 2nd Edition -Database in Depth -MySQL in a Nutshell -MAKE Subscriptions Available ---------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming Events ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Adam Goldstein ("AppleScript: The Missing Manual"), SoHo Apple Store, New York, NY--June 3 -O'Reilly at Tech Ed 2005, Orlando, FL--Jun 5-10 -O'Reilly at Apple WWDC, San Francisco, CA--June 6-10 -Sinan Si Alhir ("UML in a Nutshell"), UML & Design World 2005, Austin, TX--June 13-16 -James Avery ("Visual Studio Hacks") Dayton .NET Developers, Fairborn, OH--July 25 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Conference News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Registration is Open for the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, Portland, OR--August 1-5 -Where 2.0 Conference Registration Open, San Francisco, CA--June 29-30 ---------------------------------------------------------------- News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -"Cult of Mac" and "Degunking Windows" Win IPPY Awards -E3 2005: War of the Consoles...Almost -Mapping the 802.11 Protocol -Embedded-system Programmers Must Learn the Fundamentals -Rendering Everything as Text -A Simpler Ajax Path -Rexx: Power Through Simplicity -Learning Lab: Linux/Unix SysAdmin Certificate Special -An Introduction to Tiger Terminal -Japan Primer for the Mac Techno-Tourist -20 Cool Tiger Features You Might Not Have Heard About -Refactoring Support for Visual Basic 2005 -Ferreting Out Near-Identical Records in Access -Building Web Parts, Part 1 -Constructing Services with J2EE -Wire Hibernate Transactions in Spring -Look Ma--Hands! Choosing and Using MIDI Controllers -Steve Turnidge: Turning Weed into Green -Consumer Camera Time-Lapse Movies -DHTML Utopia: Modern Web Design -Search Engines Know More Than You Think -MAKE: Audio, Flickr, and del.icio.us ================================================ Book News ================================================ Did you know you can request a free book to review for your group? Ask your group leader for more information. For book review writing tips and suggestions, go to: http://ug.oreilly.com/bookreviews.html Don't forget, you can receive 20% off any O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, Pragmatic Bookshelf, SitePoint, or Syngress book you purchase directly from O'Reilly. Just use code DSUG when ordering online or by phone 800-998-9938. http://www.oreilly.com/ ***Free ground shipping is available for online orders of at least $29.95 that go to a single U.S. address. This offer applies to U.S. delivery addresses in the 50 states and Puerto Rico. For more details, go to: http://www.oreilly.com/news/freeshipping_0703.html ---------------------------------------------------------------- New Releases ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***Essential Sharepoint Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596008805 This comprehensive guide covers all the key topics for getting you started with Microsoft SharePoint. Learn everything there is to know about creating a team-oriented website: how to turn it on, set it up, and set your applications to work with it. Covering hosting choices, administration, customization, and more, it's ideal for anyone who wants to improve productivity through information sharing and document collaboration. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/essentialsp/ Chapter 1, "Why Use SharePoint?" is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/essentialsp/ ***Killer Game Programming in Java Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007302 This comprehensive guide has everything you need to program Java games. It offers the most thorough coverage of Java 3D available, and clearly details the older, better-known 2D APIs, 3D sprites, animated 3D sprites, first-person shooter programming, sound, fractals, and networked games. This practical book is a must-have for anyone who wants to create adrenaline-fueled games in Java. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/killergame/ Chapter 22, "Flocking Boids," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/killergame/chapter/index.html ***Classic Shell Scripting Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596005954 The ability to program and customize the shell quickly, reliably, and portably is important for anyone operating and maintaining Unix or Linux systems. This book gives you everything you need to master these essential skills. The authors provide the tips, tricks, and organized knowledge necessary to create excellent scripts, as well as warnings of the traps that can turn your best efforts into bad shell scripts. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/shellsrptg/ Chapter 5, "Pipelines Can Do Amazing Things," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/shellsrptg/chapter/index.html ***Infosec Career Hacking Publisher: Syngress ISBN: 1597490113 Do you code for the sheer joy and challenge? If you want to refine your skills and learn new ones to build an InfoSec career, this book is for you. The authors have all applied their inherent hacker skills to build successful InfoSec careers. From them, you will learn about the variety of available jobs and the skills required to excel in each one. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1597490113/ ***Learning Java, 3rd Edition Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596008732 This bestselling hands-on tutorial delivers a no-nonsense approach to Java 5.0 features, such as "generics," loops, and threads. It addresses all of the important uses of Java, such as web applications, servlets, and XML, that are increasingly driving enterprise applications. The accompanying CD includes the Java 5.0 SDK for Windows, Linux, and Solaris, plus the Eclipse IDE, the NetBeans IDE, and the many example programs from the book. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learnjava3/ Chapter 8, "Generics," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/learnjava3/chapter/index.html ***DHTML Utopia Publisher: SitePoint ISBN: 0957921896 "DHTML Utopia" is a unique book about using JavaScript, HTML, and CSS together to create extremely usable, standards compliant and modern websites as well as updating your current designs to enhance the user experience. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/0957921896/index.html ***SSH, The Secure Shell: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596008953 Written for a wide, technical audience, this book covers several implementations of SSH for different operating systems and computing environments. Whether you're an individual running your home system or a corporate network administrator with thousands of users, our indispensable guide has you covered. It starts with simple installation and use of SSH, and works its way to in-depth case studies on large, sensitive computer networks. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/sshtdg2/ Chapter 8, "Per-Account Server Configuration," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/sshtdg2/chapter/index.html ***Degunking Linux Publisher: Paraglyph ISBN: 1933097043 This book will help users get their Linux configurations working efficiently by providing them with a proven and time-saving 12-step program to get rid of clutter and organize everything from user files to system upgrades. This is the only book that is completely focused on helping Linux users learn the causes of sluggish performance and how to apply smart solutions to improve overall system performance. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1933097043/ ***Designing Embedded Hardware, 2nd Edition Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007558 This book steers a course between books dedicated to writing code for particular microprocessors and those that stress the philosophy of embedded system design without providing any practical information. Loaded with real examples, it also provides a roadmap of the pitfalls and traps to avoid. If you want to build your own embedded system, or tweak an existing one, this invaluable book gives you the understanding and practical skills you need. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/dbhardware2/ Chapter 6, "Building Hardware," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/dbhardware2/chapter/index.html ***Database in Depth Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596100124 This concise guide sheds light on the principles behind the relational model, giving you an unbiased view that's not influenced by any vendor or product. Featuring an extensive set of exercises, this book is ideal not only for database developers and designers, but also for a diverse field of professionals and academics, including database administrators, information modelers, database consultants, and more. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/databaseid/ Chapter 1, "Introduction," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/databaseid/chapter/index.html ***MySQL in a Nutshell Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596007892 This book clearly documents every detail you need to master MySQL. In addition to providing a thorough reference to MySQL statements and functions, the administrative utilities, and the most popular APIs, this book even includes several tutorial chapters to help newcomers get started. This wealth of information is conveniently packed into a concise, comprehensive, and easy-to-use format. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mysqlian/ Chapter 6, "Date and Time Functions," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mysqlian/chapter/index.html ***MAKE Magazine Subscriptions Available The annual subscription price for four issues is $34.95. When you subscribe with this link, you'll get a free issue--the first one plus four more for $34.95. So subscribe for yourself or friends with this great offer for charter subscribers: five volumes for the cost of four. Subscribe at: https://www.pubservice.com/MK/Subnew.aspx?PC=MK&PK=M5ZUGLA ================================================ Upcoming Events ================================================ ***For more events, please see: http://events.oreilly.com/ ***Adam Goldstein ("AppleScript: The Missing Manual"), SoHo Apple Store, New York, NY--June 3 Author Adam is a featured speaker at the SoHo Apple Store from 7:00-9:00pm. http://www.apple.com/retail/soho/week/20050320.html ***O'Reilly at Tech Ed 2005, Orlando, FL--Jun 5-10 Stop by our booth (#1046/1048), check out our new titles, and say hi to our authors while you attend Tech Ed. Some of latest books include ".NET Gotchas" and "Visual Studio Hacks." http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched2005/default.mspx ***O'Reilly at Apple WWDC, San Francisco, CA--June 6-10 On Tuesday, June 7, grab a tasty bag lunch and spend your lunchtime with founder and CEO of O???Reilly Media, Tim O???Reilly. Tim will talk about the innovations that are on his radar, and how Mac developers can begin distributing the future today. http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/ ***Sinan Si Alhir ("UML in a Nutshell"), UML & Design World 2005, Austin, TX--June 13-16 Author Sinan Si Alhir leads two sessions at this event: "Enterprise Business Modeling" and "The Agile Unified Process (AUP)." http://www.cmpevents.com/SDUM5/a.asp?option=G&V=3&id=84520 ***James Avery ("Visual Studio Hacks") Dayton .NET Developers, Fairborn, OH--July 25 Author James discusses getting the most out of Visual Studio's Integrated Development Environment with his talk titled "Pimp your IDE." James is the founder of the Cincinnati .NET Users Group and is the founder and president of InfoZerk, a software consulting company. http://www.daytondevgroup.net/schedule.htm ================================================ Conference News ================================================ ***Registration is Open for the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, Portland, OR--August 1-5 OSCON 2005 explores three deep trends affecting open source: the commoditization of software, network-enabled collaboration, and software customizability. Join us at this essential gathering of open source leaders and practitioners of every persuasion to exchange ideas and push the boundaries of vital open source technologies. This year, we introduce the Open Source Business Review, along with a host of other exciting presentations and events. http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon/ User Group members who register before June 20, 2005 get a double discount. Use code "os05grpusr" when you register, and receive 15% off the early registration price. To register for the conference, go to: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2005/create/ord_os05 ***Where 2.0 Conference Registration Open, San Francisco, CA--June 29-30 Join us at the first O???Reilly Where 2.0 Conference. Location-based services and mapping are becoming mainstream technologies. Meanwhile, innovative new software makes it possible to apply the wealth of new data to old business problems. Come explore the emerging consumer and enterprise ecosystems around location-aware technologies that increasingly impact the way we work and play. http://conferences.oreilly.com/where/ Use code "whereug" when you register, and receive 15% off the registration price. To register for the conference, go to: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/where2005/create/ord_where ================================================ News From O'Reilly & Beyond ================================================ --------------------- General News --------------------- ***"Cult of Mac" and "Degunking Windows" Win IPPY Awards Congratulation to No Starch Press and Paraglyph Press for winning the 2005 Independent Publisher Book Awards. No Starch's "The Cult of Mac" by Leander Kahney won for Most Unique Design and Paraglyph Press's "Degunking Windows" won in the Computer/Internet category. http://www.independentpublisher.com/ ***E3 2005: War of the Consoles...Almost E3 is the world's largest video game trade show, which means a lot of networking and deal brokering. However, E3 is also the first chance for the average gamer to get a sneak peek at the video games in development. In a hardcore gamer's world, the flashy and elaborate E3 exhibits are like Christmas morning--only in May. Stephen Cawood offers this report on E3 2005. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2005/05/23/E3expo.html ***Mapping the 802.11 Protocol A trip to London and a bit of unique inspiration gave Matthew Gast the ideas that would lead to the first draft of a visual map describing the relationship between the various components of the 802.11 standard and related security standards. Matthew details the road he took to the final version of his 802.11 protocol map. Matthew is the author of "802.11: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition." http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2005/05/20/80211map.html ***Embedded-system Programmers Must Learn the Fundamentals No Starch's Randy Hyde's article in the new issue of "EDN Magazine." Randy is the author of "Write Great Code" and "The Art of Assembly Language." http://www.edn.com/article/CA601846.html --------------------- Open Source --------------------- ***Rendering Everything as Text Ah, the days of plain-text everything are long gone, what with media files (hooray!) and encumbered binary blobs (boo!). Is the solution to give up your comfortable, efficient, and effective text-based tools? No way. Philip Hollenback proposes that you can render any data format to meaningful text for mail reading, indexing, and more. Here's how. http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2005/05/26/textonly.html ***A Simpler Ajax Path After years of hacks, tricks, and workarounds, there's finally a cross-browser, cross-platform way to communicate between client and server in web applications. Matthew Eernisse demonstrates how to send and receive structured data with XMLHttpRequest and shows off some tricks to make debugging and error handling easier. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/05/18/swingxactions.html ***Rexx: Power Through Simplicity The P-languages get most of the press these days, but they're not the only dynamic languages in the world. Arguably, Rexx is the grandfather of them all. It's received little attention in the open source world, despite several good open source implementations. Howard Fosdick shows off some of the features of the language with practical examples. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/05/26/rexx.html ***Learning Lab: Linux/Unix SysAdmin Certificate Special Learn system administration skills online and receive certification from the University of Illinois Office of Continuing Education. Courses include: The Unix File System, Networking and DNS, Unix Services (including email and web servers), and Scripting for Administrators with Sed, Awk, and Perl. It's all at the O'Reilly Learning Lab. Enroll and save 40%. http://www.oreilly.com/redirector.csp?link=UASys&type=news --------------------- Mac --------------------- ***An Introduction to Tiger Terminal Now that you've had a chance to enjoy all of the GUI goodies in Mac OS X 10.4, you might be ready to check out what's happening with the Terminal app. This article will introduce you to Tiger's Terminal app and CLI (command-line interface). http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/05/20/terminal1.html ***Japan Primer for the Mac Techno-Tourist Many of us believe that Japan is the land of geek nirvana. If you're contemplating a visit to the gadget promise land, you'll enjoy Todd Ogasawara's report on everything from cell phone coverage to buying Mac accessories. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/05/27/japan.html ***20 Cool Tiger Features You Might Not Have Heard About Even though Tiger has been out for a while now, many of its major features have nuances that haven't received much press--and there are a zillion minor tweaks to discuss. Scott Knaster takes you on a tour of clever, and sometimes even obscure Tiger goodies. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/05/13/tiger_tips.html --------------------- Windows/.NET --------------------- ***Refactoring Support for Visual Basic 2005 Microsoft recently announced that they have teamed up with Developer Express Inc. to release Refactor! for Visual Basic 2005 Beta 2, a free plugin for Visual Studio that enables Visual Basic developers to simplify and restructure source code inside of Visual Studio 2005. Wei-Meng Lee walks you through the new refactoring. http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2005/05/31/vbrefactoring.html ***Ferreting Out Near-Identical Records in Access Working with lists of contacts is a common database activity, but as a list grows, so do the chances for duplicate records. Ken Bluttman shows one technique for ferreting out these near-identical records in Access using the InStr function to find when one value in one field is inside the value of the same field in another record. Ken is the author of "Access Hacks." http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/05/24/ accesshacks.html ***Building Web Parts, Part 1 Web sites today contain a wealth of information; so much that a poorly designed site can easily overwhelm users. To better help users cope, portal web sites today (such as MSN) often organize their data into discrete units that support a degree of personalization. In this first of three articles, Wei-Meng Lee discusses how to use Web Parts for user customization in your ASP.NET 2.0 web sites. http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2005/05/23/webparts_1.html --------------------- Java --------------------- ***Constructing Services with J2EE Web services are a popular means of deploying service-oriented applications, and the standards in J2EE 1.4 make it easier to develop services that are portable and interoperable. Debu Panda shows you how, and takes a look at how things will get easier in J2EE 5.0. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/05/25/j2ee-services.html ***Wire Hibernate Transactions in Spring The proper handling of transactions across multiple data stores, supporting multiple application flows, is the kind of heavy lifting J2EE servers were built for. But what if you're using the lighter-weight Spring framework? Binildas C.A. shows how you can wire Spring and Hibernate together to achieve the transaction support you desire. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/05/18/swingxactions.html --------------------- Digital Media --------------------- ***Look Ma--Hands! Choosing and Using MIDI Controllers If you really want to play today's wonderful software instruments, drop that mouse and grab a dedicated MIDI controller. In this MP3-enhanced tutorial, you'll hear the dramatic difference controllers make in musical expressivity, then get buying and usage tips. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/06/01/controller1.html ***Steve Turnidge: Turning Weed into Green Go behind the scenes with the co-founder of Weedshare.com, the service that pays you--and the original artist--to share music. Driven by ex-Microsoft and Real Networks employees, Weed is totally legal, and even supports surround sound. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/05/25/weed.html ***Consumer Camera Time-Lapse Movies Pocket digicams are great for still photos, and some of them even record quality video. But you can push the envelope even further with these devices. Here's how two photo novices created their first time-lapse production. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/05/18/timelapse.html --------------------- Web --------------------- ***DHTML Utopia: Modern Web Design What do Flickr, Google Suggest, Google Maps, and GMail have in common? They all employ some of the latest methods in modern, unobtrusive DHTML. http://www.sitepoint.com/article/dhtml-utopia-modern-web-design ***Search Engines Know More Than You Think Learn how Google's personalized web search and Yahoo's Mindset work and how they take searching to a whole new level. http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=268282 --------------------- MAKE --------------------- ***MAKE: Audio The MAKE Team thought it would be fun to talk with pal Richard Giles in Australia. They chatted about MAKE Volume 02, E3, Astromechs, VoIP for the Nintendo DS, NASA's O2 challenge, the XBOX 360, Broadcast Flag part 2, and more. Next up, they interview Jordan Kanarek and Jim Garretson from roadcasting.org. What's roadcasting? Interactive, collaborative, mobile radio stations for cars. It could be a glimpse of what's to come for our daily commutes! http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/make_podcast/ ***MAKE Flickr Join the MAKE Flickr photo pool today. You never know what you'll see or what we'll be giving away next! Where else can you see a potato cannon in action? http://www.flickr.com/groups/make/pool/ ***MAKE del.icio.us On the MAKE bookmark page, there are over 1,500 links to hacks, mods, DIY projects, and all-around tinkering goodness. Be a MAKE voyeur and read what we're reading. http://del.icio.us/makemagazine This week's faves include: Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/ Abusing Amazon Images http://aaugh.com/imageabuse.html WSJ on Gaming http://www.oreilly.com/go/wsj_on_gaming How to Stock Your Bar for a Party http://www.degraeve.com/howto/stock-your-bar.php ***The MAKE blog is available at: http://www.makezine.com/blog/ ================================================ From Your Peers =============================================== ***Don't forget to check out the O'Reilly UG wiki to see what user groups around the globe are up to: http://wiki.oreillynet.com/usergroups/index.cgi -- steve ulrich sulrich@botwerks.org PGP: 8D0B 0EE9 E700 A6CF ABA7 AE5F 4FD4 07C9 133B FAFC From sulrich at botwerks.org Fri Jun 17 18:05:28 2005 From: sulrich at botwerks.org (steve ulrich) Date: Fri Jun 17 18:06:25 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] administravia - ora newsletter (17-june, 2005) References: Message-ID: <26BE6762-F860-4AE1-92D3-195C7B817CF7@botwerks.org> this must a record for turnaround on this for me. ================================================================ O'Reilly UG Program News--Just for User Group Leaders June 17, 2005 ================================================================ -Going to OSCON -Need a Speaker? -Put Up an O'Reilly OSCON Banner, Get a Free Book -Promotional Material Available ---------------------------------------------------------------- Book Info ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***Review books are available Copies of our books are available for your members to review-- send me an email and please include the book's ISBN number on your request. Let me know if you need your book by a certain date. Allow at least four weeks for shipping. ***Please send copies of your book reviews Email me a copy of your newsletter or book review. For tips and suggestions on writing book reviews, go to: http://ug.oreilly.com/bookreviews.html ***Discount information Don't forget to remind your members about our 20% discount on O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, Pragmatic Bookshelf, SitePoint, and Syngress books. Just use code DSUG. ***Group purchases with better discounts are available Please let me know if you are interested and I can put you in touch with our sales department. ---------------------------------------------------------------- General News ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***Are you going to OSCON in Portland, OR this year? Please let me know! ***Need a speaker? "Digital Audio Essentials" author Bruce Fries is looking for speaking opportunities. If you are interested, send me an email and let me know how many members attend your meetings and where you meet. ***Put Up an O'Reilly OSCON Banner, Get a Free Book We're looking for user groups to display our conference banner on their web sites. If you send me the link to your group's site with our O'Reilly 2005 Open Source Convention banner, I will send you the O'Reilly book of your choice. OSCON Banners: http://ug.oreilly.com/banners/oscon2005/ ***Promotional Material Available: The following items are available for your next meeting. Numbers are limited so please don't wait too long. Let me know the type and the amount you would like and I'll do my best. -O'Reilly Open Source Convention Brochures -O'Reilly Where 2.0 Conference Brochures -MAKE Magazine (limit one per group) -JavaOne Pavilion Guest Pass ( San Francisco, CA) ================================================================ O'Reilly News for User Group Members June 17, 2005 ================================================================ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Book News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Assembling Panoramic Photos: A Designer's Notebook -Ending Spam -Toad Pocket Reference for Oracle, 2nd Edition -Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks -Firefox Secrets -Ship It! -eBay Hacks, 2nd Edition -Digital Video Hacks -Essential Mac OS X Panther Server Administration -.NET Gotchas -MAKE Subscriptions Available ---------------------------------------------------------------- Upcoming Events ---------------------------------------------------------------- -O'Reilly at JavaOne, San Francisco, CA--June 27-30 -James Avery at the Dayton .NET Developers Group, Fairborn, OH--July 25, 2005 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Conference News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Early Registration Ending Soon for the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, Portland, OR--August 1-5 -Last Chance for Where 2.0 Conference, San Francisco, CA--June 29-30 ---------------------------------------------------------------- News ---------------------------------------------------------------- -Historical Maps Online -Creating a Textbook My Way: An Interview with Charles Anderson -Wire Frame Your Site -Live Backups of MySQL Using Replication -Ajax on Rails -Top Ten Data Crunching Tips and Tricks -What's New In PHP 5.1 -An Introduction to Tiger Terminal, Part 2 -Ten PowerPoint 2004 Tips to Beat Tight Deadlines -It's True! Jobs Switches to Intel: A Review of the WWDC 05 Keynote -Using Tabbed Browsing in Internet Explorer 6 -Using Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool -Porting a Project from Visual Studio .NET to Mono -How to Talk About Jini, J2EE, and Web Services at a Cocktail Party -Exploring Laszlo Classes, Attributes, and Events -Adam Williams: Massive Guitars, Micro Computers -Bring Your MIDI Music to Life -MAKE's Rebellious Credo: Void the Warranty! -MAKE: Blog ================================================ Book News ================================================ Did you know you can request a free book to review for your group? Ask your group leader for more information. For book review writing tips and suggestions, go to: http://ug.oreilly.com/bookreviews.html Don't forget, you can receive 20% off any O'Reilly, No Starch, Paraglyph, Pragmatic Bookshelf, SitePoint, or Syngress book you purchase directly from O'Reilly. Just use code DSUG when ordering online or by phone 800-998-9938. http://www.oreilly.com/ ***Free ground shipping is available for online orders of at least $29.95 that go to a single U.S. address. This offer applies to U.S. delivery addresses in the 50 states and Puerto Rico. For more details, go to: http://www.oreilly.com/news/freeshipping_0703.html ---------------------------------------------------------------- New Releases ---------------------------------------------------------------- ***Assembling Panoramic Photos: A Designer's Notebook Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596009755 Reflecting the very best of French photography, graphic design, and digital artistry, this book is dazzling in concept and design. Part art book, part how-to guide, this Designer's Notebook sits you down next to renowned digital artists as they work step-by-step to create high- quality panoramas and 360-degree virtual reality scenes. It's a goldmine for any digital artist who wants to learn new Photoshop techniques for maximum effect. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/assemblingadn/ Chapter 6, "On the Boulevards," is available online: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/assemblingadn/chapter/ch06.pdf ***Ending Spam Publisher: No Starch ISBN: 1593270526 This landmark title describes, in-depth, how statistical filtering is being used by next generation spam filters to identify and filter spam. Readers gain a complete understanding of the mathematical approaches used in today's spam filters, decoding, tokenization, the use of various algorithms (including Bayesian analysis and Markovian discrimination), and the benefits of using open-source solutions to end spam. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1593270526/ ***Toad Pocket Reference for Oracle, 2nd Edition Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596009712 This new edition, revised to reflect Toad for Oracle V8.0 and V8.5, is packed with quick-reference material. It covers new features (e.g., CodeXpert and Script Debugger), shortcut keys, productivity tips, and more. If you're a developer needing to streamline code development or a DBA trying to simplify day-to-day administrative tasks, this pocket- sized guide is the one book to have by your side. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/toadpr2/ ***Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0596009127 This is the book for Mac command-line fans. Completely revised and updated to cover Mac OS X Tiger, this invaluable resource helps you quickly and painlessly get acclimated with Tiger's familiar-yet-foreign Unix environment. 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It begins by introducing the common technical infrastructure that every project needs, letting readers choose from a variety of recommended technologies according to their skills and budgets. The next sections outline the necessary steps to get software out the door reliably, using easy-to-adopt, best-of-breed practices that actually work. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/0974514047/ ***eBay Hacks, 2nd Edition Publisher: O'Reilly ISBN: 0-596-10068-X This second edition has been completely revised and updated with 30 brand new hacks, plus tons of expanded, deepened, or otherwise completely rewritten hacks. Learn clever tricks and shortcuts, such as advanced searching techniques, selling strategies, photography tips, and even research techniques for PowerSellers. 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At O'Reilly's Where 2.0 Conference, David will draw on his personal map collection, as well as his work with geographic information systems, to discuss how information of all kinds has been mapped and will be mapped in the future. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2005/06/02/davidrumsey.html ***Creating a Textbook My Way: An Interview with Charles Anderson Charles Anderson is an assistant professor in the Division of Computer Science at Western Oregon University, teaching mostly networking and operating system courses. Being very particular about the materials covered in his classes, he's had difficulty finding appropriate and timely textbooks. Learn how Charles used SafariU to create his custom textbook, while avoiding copyright fair use limitations and the time-consuming process of gathering appropriate materials. Check out the SafariU homepage for details and a demo. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/news/safariuanderson.html ***Wire Frame Your Site Many elements of a site affect how successfuly it communicates with users. Wire frames can untangle your site's layout from its graphical communication, to help boost usability, logical content flow, and support the creation of a compelling graphic design. http://www.sitepoint.com/article/wire-frame-your-site --------------------- Open Source --------------------- ***Live Backups of MySQL Using Replication One of the difficulties with a large and active MySQL database is making clean backups without having to bring the server down. A simple method to ensure reliable backups is to set up replication for MySQL. Russell Dyer, author of "MySQL in a Nutshell," walks through the process of using replication for data backups. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/16/MySQLian.html ***Ajax on Rails XMLHttpRequest and Ruby on Rails are two hot topics in web development. As you ought to expect by now, they work really well together. Curt Hibbs explains the minimal Ajax you need to know and the minimal Ruby you need to write to Ajax-ify your Rails applications. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/rails_ajax.html ***Top Ten Data Crunching Tips and Tricks Every day, programmers perform unglamorous but necessary data crunching: recycling legacy data, checking configuration files, yanking data out of web server logs, and more. Knowing how to crunch data with the least amount of effort can make the difference between meeting a deadline and making another pot of coffee. Greg Wilson, author of Pragmatic's "Data Crunching," offers ten tips for crunch time. http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/datacrunching.html ***What's New In PHP 5.1 Explore the new features and changes to the popular open-source web development technology. http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=272086 --------------------- Mac --------------------- ***An Introduction to Tiger Terminal, Part 2 In this second tutorial on Tiger Terminal by MacinTech UG member Mary Norbury-Glaser, you'll learn how to use the terminal app to look at external volumes, then enable ssh to access files, scp to securely copy them remotely, sftp for secure ftp, and finally how to use rsync to synchronize files between two computers. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/06/14/terminal2.html ***Ten PowerPoint 2004 Tips to Beat Tight Deadlines PowerPoint 2004 lets you turn text, graphics, sounds, and movies into dazzling presentations that get your message across in high style. But what if you're on a short deadline? Franklin Tessler, author of "Office 2004 for Mac: The Missing Manual," shows you ten ways to use PowerPoint to put together slideshows in no time. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/06/10/office04forMac.html ***It's True! Jobs Switches to Intel: A Review of the WWDC 05 Keynote Don't get too comfortable after making the transition to Mac OS X. Steve Jobs decides to keep things interesting by announcing during his WWDC 05 keynote that Apple will switch to Intel processors. Here's what he said and how he plans to make it happen. http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2005/06/07/wwdc.html --------------------- Windows/.NET --------------------- ***Using Tabbed Browsing in Internet Explorer 6 You don't need to wait for Internet Explorer 7 for tabbed browsing--with the latest MSN Toolbar, you can use it in IE 6. Wei-Meng Lee shows you how to use it. http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/06/14/ie_tabs.html ***Using Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool The Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool can rid your PC of malware, even if you're already protected by antivirus software. Mitch Tulloch shows you the ins and outs of how to use it. Mitch is the author of "Windows Server Hacks." http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2005/06/01/ malware_removal.html ***Porting a Project from Visual Studio .NET to Mono Three years ago, when .NET was still in pre-release status, Kevin Farnham developed a C# application to automatically generate stock market web pages. Recently, he ported the project to Mono and Debian Linux. Follow along to see how the port went. http://www.ondotnet.com/pub/a/dotnet/2005/06/13/vs2mono.html --------------------- Java --------------------- ***How to Talk About Jini, J2EE, and Web Services at a Cocktail Party Heard about distributed technologies for Java, but not sure what they are or why they're important? Kathy Sierra and Bert Bates, authors of "Head First Java, 2nd Edition," present this cocktail-party overview. Hold your own in conversation with Java geeks. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2003/08/27/cocktails.html ***Exploring Laszlo Classes, Attributes, and Events Laszlo offers an interesting option for rich client-side GUIs--XML markup of widgets and their event handling, which is then converted into a Flash executable that is run with the Flash plugin in the user's browser. Satya Komatineni introduces Laszlo and shows how to get started writing web applications with it. http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2005/06/15/laszlo.html --------------------- Digital Media --------------------- ***Adam Williams: Massive Guitars, Micro Computers The former Powerman 5000 guitarist reveals how to make huge guitar sounds on a home computer--without waking the neighbors--then shares loads of MP3 examples. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/06/15/williams.html ***Bring Your MIDI Music to Life Jim Aikin shares numerous tips on getting the best musical expression out of them--both through playing technique and crafty computer editing. http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/06/08/controller2.html --------------------- MAKE --------------------- ***MAKE's Rebellious Credo: Void the Warranty! "New York Times" columnist Lawrence Downes recently touted the virtues of O'Reilly's new MAKE magazine. Downes salutes MAKE's renegade DIY spirit, noting, "In this world, to tinker--to open the case, to fiddle with wires, and see what happens--is to rebel." Are you ready to rebel? (Free registration required) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/12/opinion/12sun3.html? ***MAKE: Blog Phillip Torrone kicks the tires on the iPod photo connector. The iPod photo connector is a neat little accessory ($29) that you plug in to your iPod photo and to your supported camera; it can transfer all the photos off your camera and to the iPod, giving you 40/60 gigs of storage. The connector charges the shuffle and you can make a super-cheap DIY version of the Belkin media reader, too. http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/06/ipod_photo_conn.html ***For more information on MAKE, go to: http://www.makezine.com/ ================================================ From Your Peers =============================================== ***Don't forget to check out the O'Reilly UG wiki to see what user groups around the globe are up to: http://wiki.oreillynet.com/usergroups/index.cgi -- steve ulrich sulrich@botwerks.org PGP: 8D0B 0EE9 E700 A6CF ABA7 AE5F 4FD4 07C9 133B FAFC From tim at politalk.com Thu Jun 23 00:00:36 2005 From: tim at politalk.com (Tim Erickson) Date: Thu Jun 23 00:01:41 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event Message-ID: Don't miss this unique chance to mingle with experts and practitioners of E-Democracy and E-Deliberation from around the world (and our own backyard). Ciceron (web marketing - http://www.ciceron.com), is hosting a public reception and "show and tell" of some of the latest tools for online deliberation / e-democracy. Come - hang out, ask questions, have fun....... ------------------------------------------------ "Deepening Online Deliberation" Public Reception and Demonstration of Tools For Online Citizen Engagement FREE Thursday - June 23rd, 7:00 PM Ciceron (http://www.ciceron.com) 126 North 3rd Street, Suite 309 Downtown Mpls MAP: http://www.ciceron.com/contact_map.asp RSVP = (Optional) To tim@politalk.com Please, mention "ODDC Reception" PARKING: We recommend parking in a public parking ramp on 2nd Avenue North, between 3rd and 4th Streets. This is only a short block from Ciceron. Questions: Call Tim at 651-246-5045 ------------------------------------------------- Who will be there: Mike Weiksner, E-ThePeople.Org New York, New York http://www.e-thepeople.org/ Bob Carlitz, Information Renaissance Washington DC http://www.info-ren.org/ Steve Clift, E-Democracy.Org Minneapolis, Minnesota http://www.e-democracy.org http://www.publicus.net/ Dan Randow, Groupsense / Groupserver New Zealand http://www.groupserver.org http://www.groupsense.net/ Jose Carlos Vaz, Polis Institute Sao Paulo, Brazil http://www.polis.org.br/ Joseph Peters, Ascentum Canada http://www.dialoguecircles.com/ Todd Davies, Stanford San Francisco, California http://www.stanford.edu/~davies/ David Stein, MyBallot.Net St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.myballot.net Alexandra Samuel, Vancouver, Canada http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/ Andrea Kavanaugh, Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Virginia http://java.cs.vt.edu/public/users/kavan/Home Michael Maranda, Association For Community Networking Chicago, Illinois http://www.afcn.org/ Jerry Michalski, Sociate http://www.sociate.com/ Andrew Haeg, Minnesota Public Radio Minnesota http://www.mpr.org Tim Erickson, E-Democracy.Org & Politalk St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.e-democracy.org http://www.politalk.org And more........... From mgenelin at fastcomputerserviceco.com Thu Jun 23 02:00:04 2005 From: mgenelin at fastcomputerserviceco.com (mgenelin@fastcomputerserviceco.com) Date: Thu Jun 23 02:01:41 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event In-Reply-To: Message-ID: *cough* *sniffle* With all due respect, is this on-topic for this list? What does this have to do with WiFi? Regards, ---Matthew Genelin--- -----Original Message----- From: tcwug-list-bounces@tcwug.org [mailto:tcwug-list-bounces@tcwug.org]On Behalf Of Tim Erickson Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 12:01 AM To: tcwug-list@tcwug.org Subject: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event Don't miss this unique chance to mingle with experts and practitioners of E-Democracy and E-Deliberation from around the world (and our own backyard). Ciceron (web marketing - http://www.ciceron.com), is hosting a public reception and "show and tell" of some of the latest tools for online deliberation / e-democracy. Come - hang out, ask questions, have fun....... ------------------------------------------------ "Deepening Online Deliberation" Public Reception and Demonstration of Tools For Online Citizen Engagement FREE Thursday - June 23rd, 7:00 PM Ciceron (http://www.ciceron.com) 126 North 3rd Street, Suite 309 Downtown Mpls MAP: http://www.ciceron.com/contact_map.asp RSVP = (Optional) To tim@politalk.com Please, mention "ODDC Reception" PARKING: We recommend parking in a public parking ramp on 2nd Avenue North, between 3rd and 4th Streets. This is only a short block from Ciceron. Questions: Call Tim at 651-246-5045 ------------------------------------------------- Who will be there: Mike Weiksner, E-ThePeople.Org New York, New York http://www.e-thepeople.org/ Bob Carlitz, Information Renaissance Washington DC http://www.info-ren.org/ Steve Clift, E-Democracy.Org Minneapolis, Minnesota http://www.e-democracy.org http://www.publicus.net/ Dan Randow, Groupsense / Groupserver New Zealand http://www.groupserver.org http://www.groupsense.net/ Jose Carlos Vaz, Polis Institute Sao Paulo, Brazil http://www.polis.org.br/ Joseph Peters, Ascentum Canada http://www.dialoguecircles.com/ Todd Davies, Stanford San Francisco, California http://www.stanford.edu/~davies/ David Stein, MyBallot.Net St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.myballot.net Alexandra Samuel, Vancouver, Canada http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/ Andrea Kavanaugh, Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Virginia http://java.cs.vt.edu/public/users/kavan/Home Michael Maranda, Association For Community Networking Chicago, Illinois http://www.afcn.org/ Jerry Michalski, Sociate http://www.sociate.com/ Andrew Haeg, Minnesota Public Radio Minnesota http://www.mpr.org Tim Erickson, E-Democracy.Org & Politalk St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.e-democracy.org http://www.politalk.org And more........... _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota tcwug-list@tcwug.org http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list From tim at politalk.com Thu Jun 23 02:36:12 2005 From: tim at politalk.com (Tim Erickson) Date: Thu Jun 23 02:37:42 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At 2:00 AM -0500 6/23/05, wrote: >With all due respect, is this on-topic for this list? What does this have to >do with WiFi? Good point. I should have elaborated. In attending conferences and meetings on E-Democracy or E-Deliberation, I'm finding increasing interest in the issue of municipal WiFi projects, such as what is being proposed in Minneapolis (and also St. Paul). Some might say, that municipal WiFi systems are the infrastructure for the E-Democracy of the future (or at least one possibility). I know, that as a member of E-Democracy.Org - I'm very interested in the WiFi project being proposed in St. Paul and feel as if this is something that E-Democracy activists need to pay close attention to. Its been my impression, that this group is very interested in public accessible WiFi networks. To me, this is very relevant to the work that I do in the field of E-Democracy. That's why I've followed this list for the last year or two. I know at least one of the guests at this International E-Democracy event is very interested in city wide WiFi networks and would love to chat about what is happening in Mpls. Bob Carlitz of Information Renaissance. I hope that this helps, Tim Erickson E-Democracy.Org 651-643-0722 -- ================================================= Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722 tim@politalk.com iChat/AIM: stpaultim ================================================= From poptix at poptix.net Thu Jun 23 04:09:06 2005 From: poptix at poptix.net (Matthew S. Hallacy) Date: Thu Jun 23 04:09:43 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20050623090906.GR3467@momentum.poptix.net> Some might also say that municipal wifi is communist. How about we keep this crap off the list? On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 02:36:12AM -0500, Tim Erickson wrote: > At 2:00 AM -0500 6/23/05, wrote: > >With all due respect, is this on-topic for this list? What does this have > >to > >do with WiFi? > > Good point. I should have elaborated. > > In attending conferences and meetings on E-Democracy or > E-Deliberation, I'm finding increasing interest in the issue of > municipal WiFi projects, such as what is being proposed in > Minneapolis (and also St. Paul). > > Some might say, that municipal WiFi systems are the infrastructure > for the E-Democracy of the future (or at least one possibility). I > know, that as a member of E-Democracy.Org - I'm very interested in > the WiFi project being proposed in St. Paul and feel as if this is > something that E-Democracy activists need to pay close attention to. > > Its been my impression, that this group is very interested in public > accessible WiFi networks. To me, this is very relevant to the work > that I do in the field of E-Democracy. That's why I've followed this > list for the last year or two. > > I know at least one of the guests at this International E-Democracy > event is very interested in city wide WiFi networks and would love to > chat about what is happening in Mpls. Bob Carlitz of Information > Renaissance. > > I hope that this helps, > > Tim Erickson > E-Democracy.Org > 651-643-0722 > > > -- > ================================================= > Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com > St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722 > tim@politalk.com iChat/AIM: stpaultim > ================================================= > > > > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, > Minnesota > tcwug-list@tcwug.org > http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list -- Matthew S. Hallacy http://www.poptix.net GPG public key 0x01938203 From benn0254 at umn.edu Thu Jun 23 06:35:52 2005 From: benn0254 at umn.edu (Jessica Bennett) Date: Thu Jun 23 06:37:32 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event In-Reply-To: <20050623090906.GR3467@momentum.poptix.net> References: <20050623090906.GR3467@momentum.poptix.net> Message-ID: <118768bfdb743bbb3da8787bf420dc0c@umn.edu> This seems totally on topic to me, and knee-jerk conservative attacks seem like the crap I'd like to see off the list. On Jun 23, 2005, at 4:09 AM, Matthew S. Hallacy wrote: > Some might also say that municipal wifi is communist. How about we > keep this crap off the list? > > > On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 02:36:12AM -0500, Tim Erickson wrote: >> At 2:00 AM -0500 6/23/05, wrote: >>> With all due respect, is this on-topic for this list? What does this >>> have >>> to >>> do with WiFi? >> >> Good point. I should have elaborated. >> >> In attending conferences and meetings on E-Democracy or >> E-Deliberation, I'm finding increasing interest in the issue of >> municipal WiFi projects, such as what is being proposed in >> Minneapolis (and also St. Paul). >> >> Some might say, that municipal WiFi systems are the infrastructure >> for the E-Democracy of the future (or at least one possibility). I >> know, that as a member of E-Democracy.Org - I'm very interested in >> the WiFi project being proposed in St. Paul and feel as if this is >> something that E-Democracy activists need to pay close attention to. >> >> Its been my impression, that this group is very interested in public >> accessible WiFi networks. To me, this is very relevant to the work >> that I do in the field of E-Democracy. That's why I've followed this >> list for the last year or two. >> >> I know at least one of the guests at this International E-Democracy >> event is very interested in city wide WiFi networks and would love to >> chat about what is happening in Mpls. Bob Carlitz of Information >> Renaissance. >> >> I hope that this helps, >> >> Tim Erickson >> E-Democracy.Org >> 651-643-0722 >> >> >> -- >> ================================================= >> Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com >> St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722 >> tim@politalk.com iChat/AIM: stpaultim >> ================================================= >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, >> Minnesota >> tcwug-list@tcwug.org >> http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list > > -- > Matthew S. Hallacy > http://www.poptix.net GPG public key > 0x01938203 > > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, > Minnesota > tcwug-list@tcwug.org > http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 2551 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tcwug-list/attachments/20050623/279dc078/attachment-0001.bin From nryberg at uspsoig.gov Thu Jun 23 08:46:43 2005 From: nryberg at uspsoig.gov (Ryberg, Nicholas) Date: Thu Jun 23 08:47:47 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event Message-ID: <1652DD5E809D1A4596FB352C4C9ABC7C030B6A@eagan-ex.uspsoig.gov> Talk about a tempest in a teapot. Jeez you folks... how about a cold shower of reality here? A) Municipal Wifi does not equal Free Wifi. With the exception of a few small communities, a city-wide wifi project on the scale of Minneapolis or Saint Paul will never be free to either the end users like you and me, nor to the cities themselves. From what I hear about proposals for the Mpls project, end users will have to pay a fee, just like they do to use wireless at Starbucks and Caribou, and that fee will be more than typical DSL broadband service. B) Municipal Wifi is a glitzy, technical solution to a political problem that doesn't exist (yet). There are hundreds of ways for citizens to get involved in democracy without using a mouse. I find the prospect of providing access to democracy through a communication channel that requires at least some investment up front to defeat the purpose. You have to have money to own computers. You have to have money to buy internet connectivity. You have to have money to at least buy the coffee at Dunn Brothers to use their wireless, and most places charge much more. Democracy (little d) should not be limited to those with credit card$. C) Municipal Wifi isn't going to destroy small ISP's. Wifi, just in case you hadn't noticed, is just a networking methodology and not a very good one at that. It's slow, it's unreliable, and it's insecure as hell. Somebody has to provide the link up to the cloud on the back end, and carping about about "communism" sounds more like someone who wasn't there when the contracts were being signed. Now - Municipal WiMax...that's a whole different ball of wax. Give us ten years of technology growth with corresponding drops in Wimax NIC prices, and then maybe you've got something that'll border on a true community effort. ________________________________ From: tcwug-list-bounces@tcwug.org [mailto:tcwug-list-bounces@tcwug.org] On Behalf Of Jessica Bennett Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 6:36 AM To: tcwug-list@tcwug.org Subject: Re: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event This seems totally on topic to me, and knee-jerk conservative attacks seem like the crap I'd like to see off the list. On Jun 23, 2005, at 4:09 AM, Matthew S. Hallacy wrote: Some might also say that municipal wifi is communist. How about we keep this crap off the list? On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 02:36:12AM -0500, Tim Erickson wrote: At 2:00 AM -0500 6/23/05, wrote: With all due respect, is this on-topic for this list? What does this have to do with WiFi? Good point. I should have elaborated. In attending conferences and meetings on E-Democracy or E-Deliberation, I'm finding increasing interest in the issue of municipal WiFi projects, such as what is being proposed in Minneapolis (and also St. Paul). Some might say, that municipal WiFi systems are the infrastructure for the E-Democracy of the future (or at least one possibility). I know, that as a member of E-Democracy.Org - I'm very interested in the WiFi project being proposed in St. Paul and feel as if this is something that E-Democracy activists need to pay close attention to. Its been my impression, that this group is very interested in public accessible WiFi networks. To me, this is very relevant to the work that I do in the field of E-Democracy. That's why I've followed this list for the last year or two. I know at least one of the guests at this International E-Democracy event is very interested in city wide WiFi networks and would love to chat about what is happening in Mpls. Bob Carlitz of Information Renaissance. I hope that this helps, Tim Erickson E-Democracy.Org 651-643-0722 -- ================================================= Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722 tim@politalk.com iChat/AIM: stpaultim ================================================= _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota tcwug-list@tcwug.org http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list -- Matthew S. Hallacy http://www.poptix.net GPG public key 0x01938203 _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota tcwug-list@tcwug.org http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tcwug-list/attachments/20050623/2a09d0fe/attachment.htm From jon at oldmanriver.com Thu Jun 23 09:24:30 2005 From: jon at oldmanriver.com (Jon Kerr) Date: Thu Jun 23 08:54:33 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event References: <20050623090906.GR3467@momentum.poptix.net> Message-ID: <002901c577ff$453934f0$0201a8c0@jon8ccf99e8512> Which crap are you referring to? Maybe I've misunderstood the point of this list, but I would hope it is intended to share a range of perspectives on the use of WiFi. I'd also hope it might result in some kind of positive community end-result from the use of WiFi. If it's only a techie interest only forum or a right-wing idealogue only list then I guess we should all know that. Jon Kerr ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew S. Hallacy" To: "Tim Erickson" ; Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 4:09 AM Subject: Re: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event > Some might also say that municipal wifi is communist. How about we > keep this crap off the list? > > > On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 02:36:12AM -0500, Tim Erickson wrote: > > At 2:00 AM -0500 6/23/05, wrote: > > >With all due respect, is this on-topic for this list? What does this have > > >to > > >do with WiFi? > > > > Good point. I should have elaborated. > > > > In attending conferences and meetings on E-Democracy or > > E-Deliberation, I'm finding increasing interest in the issue of > > municipal WiFi projects, such as what is being proposed in > > Minneapolis (and also St. Paul). > > > > Some might say, that municipal WiFi systems are the infrastructure > > for the E-Democracy of the future (or at least one possibility). I > > know, that as a member of E-Democracy.Org - I'm very interested in > > the WiFi project being proposed in St. Paul and feel as if this is > > something that E-Democracy activists need to pay close attention to. > > > > Its been my impression, that this group is very interested in public > > accessible WiFi networks. To me, this is very relevant to the work > > that I do in the field of E-Democracy. That's why I've followed this > > list for the last year or two. > > > > I know at least one of the guests at this International E-Democracy > > event is very interested in city wide WiFi networks and would love to > > chat about what is happening in Mpls. Bob Carlitz of Information > > Renaissance. > > > > I hope that this helps, > > > > Tim Erickson > > E-Democracy.Org > > 651-643-0722 > > > > > > -- > > ================================================= > > Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com > > St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722 > > tim@politalk.com iChat/AIM: stpaultim > > ================================================= > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, > > Minnesota > > tcwug-list@tcwug.org > > http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list > > -- > Matthew S. Hallacy > http://www.poptix.net GPG public key 0x01938203 > > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tcwug-list@tcwug.org > http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list From dieman at ringworld.org Thu Jun 23 10:01:49 2005 From: dieman at ringworld.org (Scott Dier) Date: Thu Jun 23 10:03:48 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event In-Reply-To: <1652DD5E809D1A4596FB352C4C9ABC7C030B6A@eagan-ex.uspsoig.gov> References: <1652DD5E809D1A4596FB352C4C9ABC7C030B6A@eagan-ex.uspsoig.gov> Message-ID: <42BACEDD.2090500@ringworld.org> Ryberg, Nicholas wrote: > themselves. From what I hear about proposals for the Mpls project, > end users will have to pay a fee, just like they do to use wireless at > Starbucks and Caribou, and that fee will be more than typical DSL > broadband service. > 'typical DSL broadband', meaning narrowband 256kbps or 1.5mbps/256kbps? $25-30 (depending on modem rental or purchase) a month is the cheapest narrowband in the area as far as I know (excluding taxes and fake provider imposed tax-fees). This is also via Qwest which may not even be servicing the entire city depending on the state of the wire plant. City officials are targeting $18 to $24 a month. There also seems to be a city area fiber network component, I'm not sure how this is to be operated, it would be interesting to see how this compares to in-city loop charges by local providers. Time Warner got in a bit of a tiff with Minneapolis by using their cable franchise to deploy telcom services via another department of their business. > B) Municipal Wifi is a glitzy, technical solution to a political > problem that doesn't exist (yet). There are hundreds of ways for > citizens to get involved in democracy without using a mouse. I find > the prospect of providing access to democracy through a communication > channel that requires at least some investment up front to defeat the > purpose. You have to have money to own computers. Yes, and computers cost along the lines of $335 from Wal-Mart. Are we going to start carping about the TV coverage of the Minnesota House and Senate because it requires an up-front investment for end-users? You also have to have money to own a car, etc. I don't see this as a access to democracy issue, I see this as an access to society issue. Much is happening online that will not happen in meatspace. Access to news outside of the mainstream. Sites like wikipedia that share knowledge. Having library access is nice, but much of the time people want to ask the question and have the question answered now, rather than later. > C) Municipal Wifi isn't going to destroy small ISP's. Wifi, just in > case you hadn't noticed, is just a networking methodology and not a > very good one at that. It's slow, it's unreliable, and it's insecure > as hell. Somebody has to provide the link up to the cloud on the back > end, and carping about about "communism" sounds more like someone who > wasn't there when the contracts were being signed. > Depending on implementation. They aren't targeting hotspot users but home and buisnesses more likely. Licensing software that can easily handle this issue is not out of the question. Also, the 'link up to the cloud' for the back end is included, see above. I would be interested in anyone who thinks that WPA2 with either TKIP or CCMP alongside a EAP-PEAP/EAP-TTLS authentication implementation is unworkable for security. Yes, this does mean that anything older than XP or Windows 2000 needs a client. OS X users would be forced to use panther or a client. Unless you've actually tried this stuff out its very hard to say its 'insecure as hell'. The harder part is making sure that whatever is implemented is able to handle roaming, coverage planning, etc. It would be a shame if the city picked someone who just plans on smacking a bunch of hardware on poles without the experience of actually providing for either a campus or a large building in the past. In any case, more than one hardware vendor has been drastically improving 'real-time' radio management and its a bit harder to say that its completely unreliable. Some vendors are even looking at mesh-based abilities on their outdoor equipment (or already have such ability). My feeling is that even the commercial providers here will admit that technically its possible to have high quality networks -- my worry is that the only way to get to the price target is to shoot for the worst equipment and expertise, so it may not be worth it in the first place if its just about price and not about infrastructure. > Now - Municipal WiMax...that's a whole different ball of wax. Give us > ten years of technology growth with corresponding drops in Wimax NIC > prices, and then maybe you've got something that'll border on a true > community effort. As great as mobile wimax sounds, I think its really going to be a niche. Most places will end up using 802.11g or n whenever it comes out and when the whole muni wifi market is saturated there wont be much need for wimax yet. True 'mobile' users who need wide area access will be buying into HSPDA or EV-DO. Sprint is already rolling out EV-DO in over 50 markets (albiet only on clusters of towers supposedly) and supposedly in 2007-2008 land we will see T-Mobile starting to roll out UMTS/HSPDA. T-Mobile has to buy the spectrum they need first from the FCC which won't happen until 2006, but they definately have the capitol from their parent company to do what they want. T-Mobile also added additional outstate coverage via roaming[1] that is already EDGE enabled. Verizon should have EV-DO shortly, too. Cingular, a more minor player in this market since they do rely more heavily than others for outstate coverage, is also looking at HSPDA but it is unkown when that will be forthcoming. But with all this EV-DO and eventually HSPDA coming, its hard to say any wimax mobile plans will pan out to be worthwhile. Wimax fixed may be useful if they can undercut price and give more performance than Cable has, especially for businesses where Comcast charges $150-200 for connectivity. [1] http://members.aol.com/mysocalledchaos/850.jpg -- Scott Dier From dieman at ringworld.org Thu Jun 23 10:12:43 2005 From: dieman at ringworld.org (Scott Dier) Date: Thu Jun 23 10:13:46 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] Re: ricochet boxes In-Reply-To: <42BACEDD.2090500@ringworld.org> References: <1652DD5E809D1A4596FB352C4C9ABC7C030B6A@eagan-ex.uspsoig.gov> <42BACEDD.2090500@ringworld.org> Message-ID: <42BAD16B.4090305@ringworld.org> Scott Dier wrote: > > The harder part is making sure that whatever is implemented is able to > handle roaming, coverage planning, etc. It would be a shame if the > city picked someone who just plans on smacking a bunch of hardware on > poles without the experience of actually providing for either a campus > or a large building in the past. > Speaking of smacking a bunch of hardware on poles, is anyone ever going to take those damn ricochet boxes down? My dad still has one rusting on the electricity pole in his backyard. Ugh. -- Scott Dier From nryberg at uspsoig.gov Thu Jun 23 10:14:45 2005 From: nryberg at uspsoig.gov (Ryberg, Nicholas) Date: Thu Jun 23 10:16:25 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] Security and wireless - was E-Democracy discussion Message-ID: <1652DD5E809D1A4596FB352C4C9ABC7C030B6E@eagan-ex.uspsoig.gov> Scott - I'll bow to most of your expertise and destruction of my straw man arguments. I'd like to change the topic of the conversation to something a lot less political, and much more a current problem for current wireless users. You said: "I would be interested in anyone who thinks that WPA2 with either TKIP or CCMP alongside a EAP-PEAP/EAP-TTLS authentication implementation is unworkable for security. Yes, this does mean that anything older than XP or Windows 2000 needs a client. OS X users would be forced to use panther or a client. Unless you've actually tried this stuff out its very hard to say its 'insecure as hell'. " Until just last week, my experience with wireless has been coffee shops that provide "free" connectivity. Generally speaking, I've been nervous about using them unless I'm either just browsing the net and don't really care what anyone sees me doing, or I'm locked into the corporate VPN that theoretically makes my airborne traffic secure anyways. I just upgraded my Qwest/Actiontec DSL modem to the latest that includes a built in wireless A/P. Security is configurable in the standard Actiontec browser based management console, but as far as I can tell, I've the choices of WEP, 802.1x(?), and WPA. (Forgive me if I goof - I'm working off of memory here). As a home user who wants to lock down his home wireless network, what's the easiest way to do this? I would guess that WPA2 with the alphabet soup of accompanying acronyms is secure, but is it workable for a normal end user? Is WPA sufficient? Do I need a backroom server to manage all that stuff? I'd like to know because I don't want to turn this on and render the rest of my home net vulnerable to anyone driving by with a wireless NIC and a bad attitude. I appreciate your experience on this issue, and anyone else that'd care to contribute, 'cuz I'm really in the dark about it. (I'm in the dark about politics too, but that doesn't stop me from making an ass out of myself). - Nick -----Original Message----- From: Scott Dier [mailto:dieman@ringworld.org] Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 10:02 AM To: Ryberg, Nicholas Cc: tcwug-list@tcwug.org Subject: Re: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event Ryberg, Nicholas wrote: > themselves. From what I hear about proposals for the Mpls project, > end users will have to pay a fee, just like they do to use wireless at > Starbucks and Caribou, and that fee will be more than typical DSL > broadband service. > 'typical DSL broadband', meaning narrowband 256kbps or 1.5mbps/256kbps? $25-30 (depending on modem rental or purchase) a month is the cheapest narrowband in the area as far as I know (excluding taxes and fake provider imposed tax-fees). This is also via Qwest which may not even be servicing the entire city depending on the state of the wire plant. . . . Remainder clipped for brevity From leif at utne.com Thu Jun 23 09:48:58 2005 From: leif at utne.com (Leif Utne) Date: Thu Jun 23 10:20:25 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event In-Reply-To: <118768bfdb743bbb3da8787bf420dc0c@umn.edu> References: <20050623090906.GR3467@momentum.poptix.net> <118768bfdb743bbb3da8787bf420dc0c@umn.edu> Message-ID: <2EECE64E-1DF6-41F9-84D9-F69EE35927F5@utne.com> Tim, Thanks for posting that to this list. It's completely appropriate. Do you have any more info on Bob Carlitz or his organization? -- Leif Utne Associate Editor, Utne Magazine 612.338.5040 x348 www.utne.com http://public.xdi.org/=Leif.Utne -- "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a NEW model that makes the existing model obsolete." ~Buckminster Fuller On Jun 23, 2005, at 6:35 AM, Jessica Bennett wrote: > This seems totally on topic to me, and knee-jerk conservative > attacks seem like the crap I'd like to see off the list. > > On Jun 23, 2005, at 4:09 AM, Matthew S. Hallacy wrote: > > >> Some might also say that municipal wifi is communist. How about we >> keep this crap off the list? >> >> >> On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 02:36:12AM -0500, Tim Erickson wrote: >> >>> At 2:00 AM -0500 6/23/05, >>> wrote: >>> >>>> With all due respect, is this on-topic for this list? What does >>>> this have >>>> to >>>> do with WiFi? >>>> >>> >>> Good point. I should have elaborated. >>> >>> In attending conferences and meetings on E-Democracy or >>> E-Deliberation, I'm finding increasing interest in the issue of >>> municipal WiFi projects, such as what is being proposed in >>> Minneapolis (and also St. Paul). >>> >>> Some might say, that municipal WiFi systems are the infrastructure >>> for the E-Democracy of the future (or at least one possibility). I >>> know, that as a member of E-Democracy.Org - I'm very interested in >>> the WiFi project being proposed in St. Paul and feel as if this is >>> something that E-Democracy activists need to pay close attention to. >>> >>> Its been my impression, that this group is very interested in public >>> accessible WiFi networks. To me, this is very relevant to the work >>> that I do in the field of E-Democracy. That's why I've followed this >>> list for the last year or two. >>> >>> I know at least one of the guests at this International E-Democracy >>> event is very interested in city wide WiFi networks and would >>> love to >>> chat about what is happening in Mpls. Bob Carlitz of Information >>> Renaissance. >>> >>> I hope that this helps, >>> >>> Tim Erickson >>> E-Democracy.Org >>> 651-643-0722 >>> >>> >>> -- >>> ================================================= >>> Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com >>> St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722 >>> tim@politalk.com iChat/AIM: stpaultim >>> ================================================= >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. >>> Paul, >>> Minnesota >>> tcwug-list@tcwug.org >>> http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list >>> >> >> -- >> Matthew S. Hallacy >> http://www.poptix.net GPG public key >> 0x01938203 >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. >> Paul, Minnesota >> tcwug-list@tcwug.org >> http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list >> >> > _______________________________________________ > Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. > Paul, Minnesota > tcwug-list@tcwug.org > http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tcwug-list/attachments/20050623/4dbd791a/attachment-0001.html From dieman at ringworld.org Thu Jun 23 12:00:17 2005 From: dieman at ringworld.org (Scott Dier) Date: Thu Jun 23 12:03:48 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] Re: Security and wireless - was E-Democracy discussion In-Reply-To: <1652DD5E809D1A4596FB352C4C9ABC7C030B6E@eagan-ex.uspsoig.gov> References: <1652DD5E809D1A4596FB352C4C9ABC7C030B6E@eagan-ex.uspsoig.gov> Message-ID: <42BAEAA1.7080906@ringworld.org> Ryberg, Nicholas wrote: >Until just last week, my experience with wireless has been coffee shops >that provide "free" connectivity. Generally speaking, I've been nervous >about using them unless I'm either just browsing the net and don't >really care what anyone sees me doing, or I'm locked into the corporate >VPN that theoretically makes my airborne traffic secure anyways. > > Ahh, yes, I would recommend VPN in this case. Also, T-mobile hotspots support 802.1x/WPA but I'm not sure exactly which EAP protocols. (I know at least EAP-SIM, but I'm guessing EAP-PEAP too). >I just upgraded my Qwest/Actiontec DSL modem to the latest that includes >a built in wireless A/P. Security is configurable in the standard >Actiontec browser based management console, but as far as I can tell, >I've the choices of WEP, 802.1x(?), and WPA. (Forgive me if I goof - >I'm working off of memory here). > > Home network routers generally use WPA-PSK, which is able to be cracked in an 'offline' attack after enough packet capture. However, this offline attack is ineffective if the key length is long enough. I've heard recommendatations of 30 characters. Remember, this is a 'full text' key, so you can use nearly any characters (much like passwords) to make it very complicated. You may want to just use a random password generator. Smaller 'typical' passwords can be cracked in minutes with WPA-PSK. Thanks, -- Scott Dier From earl at jarosh.org Thu Jun 23 12:41:15 2005 From: earl at jarosh.org (S. Earl Jarosh) Date: Thu Jun 23 12:44:10 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event References: <20050623090906.GR3467@momentum.poptix.net> Message-ID: <006701c5781a$c1f07010$a50e000a@D32B5L01> There is nothing wrong with a public infrastructure; water, sewer, roads are good examples of necessity based infrastructure (the botched Mercedes lane program on 394 was bad use of necessity public infrastructure). Pools, water parks, beaches, and golf courses are good examples of non-necessity base infrastructure or services that are successful both as public and private. Wifi falls into the ladder. Public infrastructure can become saturated hence the reason that private up-charge facilities exist. When the system becomes saturated there will be a market for the paid providers just like always. This is not communistic, it is competition. A municipality can not prevent a provider from setting up a paid provider system. S. Earl Jarosh N0HZ (ex. KA0VYB) No Hertz, No Gain www.moneycenters.com "It may not be the answer you desire but reality seldom equals desire." -- Anonymous ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthew S. Hallacy" To: "Tim Erickson" ; Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 4:09 AM Subject: Re: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event > Some might also say that municipal wifi is communist. How about we > keep this crap off the list? > > > On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 02:36:12AM -0500, Tim Erickson wrote: > > At 2:00 AM -0500 6/23/05, wrote: > > >With all due respect, is this on-topic for this list? What does this have > > >to > > >do with WiFi? > > > > Good point. I should have elaborated. > > From earl at jarosh.org Thu Jun 23 12:47:57 2005 From: earl at jarosh.org (S. Earl Jarosh) Date: Thu Jun 23 12:49:49 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] Re: ricochet boxes References: <1652DD5E809D1A4596FB352C4C9ABC7C030B6A@eagan-ex.uspsoig.gov><42BACEDD.2090500@ringworld.org> <42BAD16B.4090305@ringworld.org> Message-ID: <008901c5781b$b1a35a50$a50e000a@D32B5L01> Is Ricochet even still running? If they are dead and gone I would like the box. S. Earl Jarosh N0HZ (ex. KA0VYB) No Hertz, No Gain "It may not be the answer you desire but reality seldom equals desire." -- Anonymous ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Dier" To: Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 10:12 AM Subject: [tcwug-list] Re: ricochet boxes ....snip.... > > Speaking of smacking a bunch of hardware on poles, is anyone ever going > to take those damn ricochet boxes down? My dad still has one rusting on > the electricity pole in his backyard. Ugh. > From kaze0010 at umn.edu Mon Jun 27 15:28:59 2005 From: kaze0010 at umn.edu (Haudy Kazemi) Date: Mon Jun 27 15:30:51 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] Re: [TCWUG] microcasting within the twin cities In-Reply-To: <20041108144425.GA1796@botwerks.org> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20050627152859.033b2b00@127.0.0.1> At 08:44 AM 11/8/2004 -0600, steve ulrich wrote: > >all- > >this is tangentially related to some of the discussions that have >taken place here in the past, but i figured i'd float it by folks here >as well. lately, my curiousity has been piqued in community radio and >community media. however, there's a shortage of options available to >folks in this domain. > >loosely related to the notion of creating a wireless data network >within the twin cities metro area is the notion of microcasting >content onto the FM spectrum in support of a larger community effort. >i've attached some musings in this regard, with the hopes of searching >out likeminded/interested folks who might be interested in such a >project. > >for those of you who've secretly longed to be a DJ or host a talk >show, or just admire pirate radio operators, this might be just the >thing for you. > >-- >steve ulrich sulrich@botwerks.org >PGP: 8D0B 0EE9 E700 A6CF ABA7 AE5F 4FD4 07C9 133B FAFC Steve Ulrich's article 'microcasting in the twin cities metropolitan area' is available at http://www.botwerks.org/microcasting/ --- I know this is a really really late followup message, but I say better late than never! Here is another microcasting discussion and implementation: http://fm.thing.net/ Web page text: Welcome to fm.thing.net THE THING in collaboration with r a d i o q u a l i a, and Jan Gerber started on May 5 2002 to build a radio network in NYC using internet audio (via wireless and wired connections) and miniFM. Initially the network will consist of 2-5 transmitters based around New York. Each of these transmitters will be less than 1W output and will source their audio live from the internet using the Frequency Clock scheduling system. This partly adopts the ethic of microradio as founded by Tetsuo Kogawa where many low powered FM transmitters are coupled to create an effective broadcasting entity that 'falls beneath the radar' of the communication authorities. fm.thing.net combines this ethic with that of net.radio which is a relatively new phenomenon focusing on the use of the internet as a carrier signal and is best illustrated by the practices of the Xchange network. By combining the net.radio and microradio we hope to build an efficient radio network in New York that uses the internet as a primary carrier of the audio for re-broadcasting on legal or almost legal microFM broadcasts. (0) | (0)--net--(0) | (0) We also hope to hang other transmitters off the 'core' transmitters, making a daisy-chain of transmitters. This would work by placing receivers coupled to transmitters so the signal gets picked up by the reciever and re-transmitted by the transmitter attached to it. Tetsuo Kogawa has a nice picture of how this looks on his microradio site: http://anarchy.k2.tku.ac.jp/radio/micro/index.html In addition to building and placing these transmitters the project is intended as research, and documentation will be created in the following areas: 1. What is the legality in the USA of this type of network? 2. How is it possible to build a transmitter? 3. How can internet audio and miniFM effectively work together to create an effective audio distribution mechanism? What is the legality in the USA of this type of network? Well, in the US the airwaves are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC website (http://www.fcc.gov) specifically states "Unlicensed Operation Prohibited." and continues with : "A very common question asked to the FCC is whether broadcasting at very low power requires a license. Please be aware that unlicensed operation of radio broadcast stations is prohibited, even at such low powers such as 1 watt or less. The only unlicensed operation that is permitted on the AM and FM broadcast bands is covered under Part 15 of the FCC's rules, and is limited to a coverage radius of approximately 200 feet. (See the Commission's July 24, 1991 Public Notice.) Unlicensed operation is also not permitted in the television bands (including 87.9 MHz, which falls within the 82.0 to 88.0 Channel 6 television band). Fines and/or criminal prosecution may result from illegal operation of an unlicensed station." http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/audio/howtoapply.html However when we rang the FCC the representative of the Radio Frequencies division said anything under 1W is ok....confused? If you dig a little deeper its easy to find the following document which clearly states that any FM broadcast under 0.01 microwatts (a radiated diameter of 200 feet) is ok. http://www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/decdoc/scandoc/910724/1.jpg Sound ok? Well just be a bit careful...in an email we received from the FCC, they state : "Presently, the maximum penalty for operating an unlicensed or "pirate" broadcast station (one which is not permitted under Part 15 or is not a Carrier Current Station) is set at $10,000 for a single violation or a single day of operation, up to a total maximum amount of $75,000." There is another section of the FCC which looks at licensed broadcasts with FM for lower power (1W-100W). More information can be found here: http://www.fcc.gov/mmb/prd/lpfm/ If you do go ahead with transmitting unlicensed then you should prepare incae the FCC do knock on your door. Some information about what to do can be found at: http://www.freeradio.org/legal/legal.html o And if you really want to study some case histories, then check out the site of the Center for Democratic Communications (http://www.nlgcdc.org/) How is it possible to build a transmitter? We initially started with a transmitter that was half built by Walter and Jan turned a capacitor upside down, and it worked...what did we learn? We learnt that none of us knows anything about electronics ;-) [x] ...so, Wolfgang brought a very nice transmitter from Ramsey Electronics. It is a 1W transmitter with digital frequency lock and nice professional casing etc. The exact model is the Ramsey Electronics FM100 : http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=FM100 Looking at the nice picture of the transmitter is the easy bit...making it is the hard bit. Wolfgang [x] started the process and Jan [x] spent over a week building [x] it and we finally got it to work on Monday May 10. So on this day we have 2 working transmitters which is the basis for the start of the network. Next we need to plan a machine dedicated to receiving the content from the net, and how we will launch fm.thing.net In addition, as Tetsuo Kogawas work is central to this idea, we really want to make the network 'viral' - in the sense that anyone should be able to build a transmitter and hang it onto the same network. So, we have discussed this with Tetsuo in Japan and he couried us all the parts for making a 1W transmitter from the very basics. We then had a workshop with Tetsuo streaming from Japan and we built the transmitter according to his guidelines. If you want to build your own transmitter like this then please have a look at this page to see how its done or you can watch the workshop that Tetsuo gave (RealVideo). How can internet audio and miniFM effectively work together to create an effective audio distribution mechanism? So, once we had the transmitters built we moved on to getting the streams set up. This bit was also tricky because we had to use some older machines that didn't have much 'grunt'. We managed to get our hands on an old 333mhz Pentium II machine with 32MB memory. In addition it had an ethernet card and a soundcard. So we installed Windows 98 (yeeesh) on it and download the following softwares: Winamp (http://www.winamp.com) RealPlayer 8 (http://www.real.com) Frequency Clock (http://www.klari.net/radioqualia) Shoutcast DSP (http://www.shoutcast.com) Virtual Audio Cable (http://spider.nstu.nsk.su/music/software/eng/vac.html) We used the Winamp and Shoutcast plugin to stream to Things Icecast Server. At the moment we are using this plugin as it streams MP3 very efficently. We wanted to use the Oddsock plug in so we could stream the unpatented Ogg Vorbis audio codec, but we found it was very inefficient when encoding directly from a line-in. The Frequency Clock is a stream scheduling software created by r a d i o q u a l i a. Sources for the Frequency Clock can also be downloaded at Source Forge (http://openfc.sourceforge.net). The Frequency Clock is used for creating a schedule of the program from files on the local drive of the encoding machine, and from streams from the net. The Winamp/Shoutcast software (which is on the same machine) then re-encodes this as a single MP3 stream. We used the Virtual Audio cable as it allows us to feed the audio out (Frequency Clock Player) into the audio in (winamp) without using analog cables...it does it 'virtually'.... Then the encoded stream goes to the Icecast server at Thing and you can listen to it if you use a MP3 compatable media player and enter this url : http://audio.thing.net:8000 This stream is then picked up by machines that are connected to the net around NYC, as much as possible we want to use the free wireless nodes (802.11b) that are located around the city, and the audio-out of these computers feeds into the audio-in of the transmitters... (0) | (0)--fm.thing.net--(0) | (0) More Information There is of course a long history of microradio in the USA. The following sites provide excellent resources: General radio4all http://www.radio4all.org An excellent site covering the basics of microradio inclusing a great section on how to set up a station (http://www.radio4all.org/how-to.html) Free Radio Berkeley Probably the most famous US case, and an excellent site for microradio info, especially if you want to know the US legal issues. http://www.freeradio.org/ How to be a Radio Pirate An irational.org site full of great basic information. http://www.irational.org/sic/radio/ Polimorphous Space Tetsuo Kogawas site, full of great information including how to make your own FM transmitter from the most basic beginnings. http://anarchy.k2.tku.ac.jp/ Prometheus A very informative site about community radio. They have a good section on pirate radio too (http://www.prometheusradio.org/alt_pirate.shtml) Freespeech.org A good section on the basics of low powered transmitting. http://free.freespeech.org/lowpower/guide.html How to Build Transmitters Free Radio Berkeley FRB sell transmitters. http://www.freeradio.org/store/frb_kits.html Ramsey Electronics Some good kits. http://www.ramseyelectronics.com/ Veronica Based in the UK http://www.veronica.co.uk/ How to Solder http://www.irational.org/sic/radio/solder.html From sulrich at botwerks.org Tue Jun 28 09:41:33 2005 From: sulrich at botwerks.org (steve ulrich) Date: Tue Jun 28 09:43:01 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] microcasting within the twin cities and other stuph ... In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20050627152859.033b2b00@127.0.0.1> References: <3.0.5.32.20050627152859.033b2b00@127.0.0.1> Message-ID: haudy, et al - interestingly, i've received a few emails about this little notion of mine recently. i don't know where the resurgence in interest has come from but there's some really good info in that link you've provided. btb - i've killed the mailing list that was in place for this microcasting discussion along w/the tc-unwired content and lists. given the apparent dearth of activity in this arena in the twin cities, it seemed only reasonable. i can resurrect a microcasting list if there's interest. at the risk of being nosey, what's been going on locally? it's been months since i've been able to attend a meeting, has the group died on the vine? am i talking into a vacuum? On Jun 27, 2005, at 3:28 PM, Haudy Kazemi wrote: > At 08:44 AM 11/8/2004 -0600, steve ulrich wrote: > >> >> all- >> >> this is tangentially related to some of the discussions that have >> taken place here in the past, but i figured i'd float it by folks >> here >> as well. lately, my curiousity has been piqued in community radio >> and >> community media. however, there's a shortage of options available to >> folks in this domain. >> >> loosely related to the notion of creating a wireless data network >> within the twin cities metro area is the notion of microcasting >> content onto the FM spectrum in support of a larger community effort. >> i've attached some musings in this regard, with the hopes of >> searching >> out likeminded/interested folks who might be interested in such a >> project. >> >> for those of you who've secretly longed to be a DJ or host a talk >> show, or just admire pirate radio operators, this might be just the >> thing for you. >> { snipped - misc. signatures } >> > Steve Ulrich's article 'microcasting in the twin cities > metropolitan area' > is available at http://www.botwerks.org/microcasting/ > --- > > I know this is a really really late followup message, but I say > better late > than never! > > Here is another microcasting discussion and implementation: > http://fm.thing.net/ > { snipped - web page text, it was long } -- steve ulrich sulrich@botwerks.org PGP: 8D0B 0EE9 E700 A6CF ABA7 AE5F 4FD4 07C9 133B FAFC From mgenelin at fastcomputerserviceco.com Thu Jun 30 09:43:20 2005 From: mgenelin at fastcomputerserviceco.com (mgenelin@fastcomputerserviceco.com) Date: Thu Jun 30 09:43:31 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] FW: [tomanddarryl] The Launch of Roadcasting Message-ID: In the same vein as the recent posts... Regards, ----Matthew Genelin--- -------------- Forwarded Message: -------------- From: "Leo Ashcraft" (by way of Duane Whittingham ) To: Media News Cc: TomandDarryl Mail List Subject: [tomanddarryl] The Launch of Roadcasting Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 03:45:13 +0000 The Launch of Roadcasting Pittsburgh - Jun 23, 2005 - Touted as collaborative, mobile radio, Roadcasting allows each listener to have his own radio station, broadcast among wireless-capable devices. The system can become aware of individual preferences and is able to choose songs and podcasts that listeners want to hear on their own devices from sources around them. The developers state that a listener can scan and access playlists from other vehicles within a 50km range and share hi! s audio files with the same network. The service uses a long-range peer-to-peer wireless network in which each car is its own radio station. The prototype runs on an 802.11g wireless network. Currently a prototype, the system was designed to provide a community-driven, interactive medium. The prototype is the result of a seven-month project at the Carnegie Mellon Human Computer Interaction Institute. The project was funded by a major automaker and has a targeted release of 2010. Roadcasting uses a listener's preferences to make decisions about what a listener might want to hear. The system can read Itunes XML and MP3 data to gather information. For use in a car, a Roadcaster will need an in-dash interface unit and an antenna. As an added feature, drivers can share information about road conditions and emergencies through the network. The source code for Roadcasting is available to encourage developm! ent. More information is available at www.roadcasting.org. ---------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Duane Whittingham (N9SSN) - Producer Tom and Darryl Radio Shows Heard on C-Band Analog Satellite (W0KIE) - GE7-CH5-7.5 mHz Also on WTND-LP Macomb 106.3, WQNA FM, WBCQ 7415 kHz & the Internet. Heard Fridays 9pm ET, Sundays 12am ET and Tues 2am ET (Folk) An Independent Freeform Eclectic Radio Show. http://www.tomanddarryl.org http://www.wtnd.us -----------Thank you for using the Tom and Darryl Mail List from http://www.yahoogroups.com We are heard on C-Band (W0KIE) GE7/5-7.5 mHz, FM (WQNA Springfield 88.3), Shortwave (WBCQ 7415 kHz), and Internet Audio on RFD/Duck and DSLRA. Go to http://www.to! manddarryl.org for Info. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS a.. Visit your group "tomanddarryl" on the web. b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: tomanddarryl-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://shadowknight.real-time.com/pipermail/tcwug-list/attachments/20050630/b20942b5/attachment.htm From josh at joshwelch.com Thu Jun 23 11:21:47 2005 From: josh at joshwelch.com (Josh Welch) Date: Thu Jul 14 11:23:45 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] Security and wireless - was E-Democracy discussion In-Reply-To: <1652DD5E809D1A4596FB352C4C9ABC7C030B6E@eagan-ex.uspsoig.gov> References: <1652DD5E809D1A4596FB352C4C9ABC7C030B6E@eagan-ex.uspsoig.gov> Message-ID: <42BAE13C.8020204@joshwelch.com> Ryberg, Nicholas wrote: > > As a home user who wants to lock down his home wireless network, what's > the easiest way to do this? I would guess that WPA2 with the alphabet > soup of accompanying acronyms is secure, but is it workable for a normal > end user? Is WPA sufficient? > > Do I need a backroom server to manage all that stuff? > Fascinating...technical questions on a technical list. WPA for a home user should be quite sufficient. You can use pre-shared keys and still be in the good enough realm if you use a somewhat strong key. Pre-shared keys would remove the need for some sort of backend server. Josh From steve.gowdy at sbw.us Thu Jun 23 13:15:47 2005 From: steve.gowdy at sbw.us (Steve Gowdy) Date: Thu Jul 14 11:23:47 2005 Subject: [tcwug-list] Re: ricochet boxes Message-ID: <99CCC32BF89DB34084E435AFA8F2BB471CA0DB@sbwserver.sbw.local> S. Earl They (Ricochet) are up and about 40 to 60% are still being powered and still transmitting at 900 Mhz ... which pretty much destroys the 900 Mhz in the TC area where the power poles are still powering the units. The main transmission points at the water tower are shut down due to non-payment ... you can pick up subs on e-bay. Has any one seen.... Thought you might be interested in hearing this ... City of Orlando Pulling back on Free Wireless Internet http://www.local6.com/news/4632893/detail.html Stephen ... StoneBridge Wireless, Inc.