SEMiSLUG Notes
10 December 1998
Question & Answer Sessions
- IPV6 mythology/literature available?
- There's one called "IPV6" by Chris Huitema.
- IMAP - is there a version that can prune old messages?
- A client of a client is talking about switching from Groupwise,
which allows the user to delete messages older than N. It would be
nice if IMAP could handle that, but it more of a mail storage issue
rather than a transport protocol issue.
- Any source for 10base5 cable + vampire?
- Paul Haas would like a couple feet and a vampire tap to show
someone.
- CG12 (a 24-bit Sun video board) with Solaris 2.7?
- Solaris 2.3 was the last version to support it. The 2.3 drivers may
work with 2.4 or 2.5, but that's still only a rumor.
- Beowolf from dumpster diving - can you help?
- Talk to Intel about old equipment; it's worked for others.
Rmach@umich.edu may have some more ideas.
- Getting a vacation program to work with with sendmail for a dinner --
fair trade?
- Check the permissions on the directory up-tree from the file
causing the problem.
- Jobs and/or housemates wanted.
- Contact Troy if you want to live near the mall or want to hire him.
- Why did it take 15 hours for Becki to figure out Exchange sucks?
- She's stuborn. She was looking for a way to export mailboxes on the
server. Troy has some ideas, if you're curious.
- X windows today -- who's using it?
- Anyone using graphics under windows. It's also handy for doing lots
of text interfaces togethers.
- Should I upgrade to ssh 2.x?
- MJO has had problems with it (under Irix, presumeably).
- Samba 2.0? Any one seen it? Touched it?
- MJO has. Use the old smb.conf. If you use the new one, you'll be
sorry.
- Variable HTML links?
- Never mind.
- How's WINE these days? Does it run anything?
- There's a -w95 option that gets some W95 applications to run.
Older windows versions of Quicken will run. Starcraft and
Warcraft. Word 6. http://www.winehq.com/ has a compatibility list.
- To NT domains want to share resources, but don't trust each other. Is
there a way to do this?
- If the link is unreliable, the trust is lost often and re-establishing
takes a while. Let Ivars know if you have any suggestions.
- Any form of radius+ndis that runs on Linux that can authenticate against
a Novell server?
- Talk to troy if you have any info.
- Net sniffer for NT? Preferably free.
- NT networking is terribly slow and will drop packets all over
the place. Put up a unix box and run Network Flight Recorder
(http://www.nfr.com/) to monitor the network. XNI is also a
suggestion (http://www.xni.com/).
- How many bogomips is a Sparqserver 10000?
- A.
-
Presentation
"Tcl/Tk comes of age" and
"Why Would You Ever Want to Write a Book?"
------------------------------------------ Clif Flynt
The State of Tcl/Tk
Success Stories:
NBC runs on Tcl/Tk. It was used to prototype the new digital broadcasting
studio. The system worked so well . . .
NBC prides itself on being the first with new technology.
Bigital technology has become mature enough to replace analog systems.
Nobody really knows ...
Tcl/Tk and XML
XML allows a document writer to define tags with data-driven meaning, instead of
presentation-driver meaning.
A C based XML parser (expat) has been written
C based code is relatively easy to merge into Tcl
Tcl/Tk and NeoWebScript
Based, to some degree, on N.B.'s SafeTcl.
[... Clif's going pretty fast; ask for slide contents later ...]
Books
Getting a Contract
Review someone else's book
Brint Welch put his book on the net, and I reviewed that
while he was writing it. He was kine enough to acknowlege
my input in his book. It's a toe-hold.
Folks I met at the Tcl/Tk Workshops asked be to be technical
editor for their book. That got me an intro to the
acquisitions editor at APP, and a good reputation.
Construct an outline
Chapter titles, rough contents, and approximate page counts
are enough for this stage.
Have you done a major spare time project before?
One of the things that sold me and my book idea to APP was
TclTutor ...
Planning your book's Contents
What is the target audience
Is this a "For Dummies" style introductory book ...
Do you like/believe in the application you'll be writing about?
You'll be living with this package for something between 3
and 12 months. If it has warts you disliek, be prepared to
deal with them, either by decrying them in print, or finding
ways to gloss over them or work around them.
If you are indifferent to the package ...
Executing the Book
Can you take time off to write the book?
Can you consult while you write the book?
That's what got me the extra cash to make the year off feasible.
The next trick is to choose your consulting ...
Mechanics of Writing the Book
Marry an english major
If you can get one with a technical bent who likes to cook,
...
Think about automation
I spent too much tupid time merging examples from the code
files back into the text, breaking the subroutines up into
the various places they belonged, changed > and < to ...
Do as much correcting as you can up front.
Do you have a collection of friends or colleages you can tap on
to review the manuscripts? Failing that, will the publisher
allow you to make the manuscript available on the net for
review?
Get the publisher to pay for a technically adept reviewer.
Find out about page format, font size, page width, final
processing steps.
Are you making a CD-ROM?
Consider getting a CD-ROM burner.
Think about revision control.
Good advice I got from Michael McClennan: Write examples,
then text.
Don't be afraid to throw something away.
Rumor & Innuendo (No names, please)
ml.org has shutdown their free services.
SGI is joining Linux International.
Sun is going to officially support Linux on multi-CPU servers.