OCNTUG Newsletter        Volume 1 Number 6          December 1, 2003

Season's Greetings!
It's that most exciting time of the year, Shopping Season! People often tell me that I have excellent taste in selecting gifts for others. The secret? I never buy a gift that I wouldn't mind having, myself (assuming I could afford an extra one for me, and assuming also that the blouse and dress I'm buying for my daughter is one that I wouldn't mind borrowing if I were a woman). The point? Buy gifts that would please you! So what about a gift for the whole family... Think about that new DVD writer you wanted. Think about that wireless network you've been wanting to set up. Won't your kids be happy with the wireless network? Get them some network games...they'll be ecstatic! Won't your wife be happy to transfer the kids' dance/cheer/baseball/karate competitions from those old VHS tapes to DVD? Sure she will! Now, let me see, the wireless base station will cost about...
Inside this Issue:
Nogginfest 2.0 Is Here!
Office 2003 Distribution
MS Exchange 2003 LoadFest
Membership Dues Increase: What you didn't want to hear(even though you expected it...)
Meeting Announcement: January 8, 2004
Previous Meeting...
Random Access Department:
3rd Party Tools Department:
Employment Opportunities
Final Notes…
Email the Editor

And Now, The News...

Nogginfest 2.0

Thursday, December 11, 2003 It's here! Well, almost. Ooooh, I can't wait! I'll see you at:
The DoubleTree Hotel
201 East MacArthur Boulevard
Santa Ana, CA 92707
You should be able to find our map, but if you can't, the hotel is just west of Main on MacArthur Blvd, on the North side of the street.

Special Note: If you know of any manufacturers or vendors you would like to see at Nogginfest, and if you can give Ed Roberts a contact name and email or phone number for them, please email it to ed@ocntug.org, ASAP. There's still booth space available for more vendors!

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Office 2003 Distribution

For all those who have been waiting with bated breath, the Office Professional 2003 Suite was ordered during the week of November 17th, and should be distributed at the January meeting. It would be a logistic nightmare to attempt distribution during Nogginfest, so, January it is.
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Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003 LoadFest

Microsoft is sponsoring a Loadfest for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2003, on >>some date of which I haven't received notice, yet!<<. Copies of the new Exchange Server 2003 will be distributed for installation on your Windows 2003 Server. Help with installation will be given, questions answered, problems solved! To register for this event, please register at www.msugevents.com as soon as possible!
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OCNTUG Increases Annual Membership Fee and One-Time Admission Fee

Uh-oh, I know you didn't want to hear about this, but please don't shoot the messenger. Costs have increased this past year. The meeting venue alone, (the Techspace building) costs around $700 a night! Food is, well pizza costs over $300, and sandwiches over $600. (Note: this is why we ask you to RSVP for each meeting, so that we have some idea of how much food to order!) So each meeting costs the organization well over $1000! It also costs to have non-commercial speakers for all those very technical presentations you've been wanting (that we have not yet been able to afford). Now that you have some idea of where the money goes, maybe you won't mind a minimal increase in the dues?

So here it is: Annual OCNTUG Membership Dues increases from $35 to $50.00, effective January 01, 2004. One-Time Admission to our monthly meeting increases from $5 to $10.00, effective January 01, 2004. The increases help cover the cost of food per meeting, and a little more. Other professional organizations have higher dues, and some have per-meeting admission fees on top of that. I, for one, think the increase is reasonable, and I'm a penny-pinching, bargain-hunting cheapskate! Now, here's the kicker: IF YOU JOIN OR RENEW YOUR MEMBERSHIP BEFORE JANUARY 01, 2004, you pay only the $35 rate, and SAVE a whole $15!!! So if you were going to wait until February or March to renew your membership, do it now and SAVE! You can renew or join on the web site, www.SoCalITPro.org; major credit cards accepted. You can join or renew membership at Nogginfest on December 11!!! WOW! I never thought saving money could be this easy!

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Meeting Announcement: January 8, 2004

Oh boy, this is gonna be good, and I'll tell you all about it, just as soon as someone tells me! Hey, guys? Guys...what are the topics for presentation at the January meeting? Guys?

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At the Previous Meeting...

Back on November 13, Joe Schmidt, Business Development Manager, and Nat Edwards, Systems Engineer, from Consera Software, www.consera.com, provided a fascinating demonstration of their premier product, AgileOne, the first in a family of robust software solutions, allowing organizations to optimize their server resources while enabling change and flexibility in file server lifecycle management. The product utilizes an Intelligent Automation System that provides new levels of capabilities and capacities to IT staff when working with their computing infrastructure, including automating repetitive tasks, incorporating best practices and adapting infrastructure management operations to a specific environment. Consera AgileOne fully supports Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 Automated Deployment Services (ADS) and is available directly from Consera Software with complementary services through TeamConsera Managed Partners.
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Random Access Department:

I was wandering through my local office supply store to buy staples, and maybe another CD case, when I suddenly felt myself in the immense grip of a tractor beam, emanating from the display of wireless networking hardware. The array of bright colors riveted my attention (I am easily amused by brightly colored objects). These wireless gadgets, once beyond the price range of mere mortals, were now commodity items. 802.11g? "g???" What's that? I'd heard of 802.11b, and even "a" (since "a" often comes before "b"), and of course, I knew "a" was still on the pricey side.

Well, obviously, I haven't been paying attention. I began to look up some info on this stuff, and ran into a bunch of boring junk. But it all boils down to a few paragraphs of useful information. To set up a wireless network, you need a Wireless Network Access Point (WNAP)(a "base station" to us old radio hacks), which may be wired to a LAN, or to DSL or cable, or may even be a wireless DSL/cable router, itself. Then each desktop or laptop requiring access to the network needs a wireless NIC that transmits and receives data to and from the base station (excuse me, the WNAP). Of course, there are other considerations, such as ease of installation, security, and network speed.

Brands will vary as to ease of installation, and I haven't installed any of them, yet, so I can't speak to that aspect. Security was a problem, early-on, with hackers describing how to make an antenna from an empty Pringles can, so you could drive through neighborhoods, and hack into people's system, or Internet connections. Nowadays there's something called a Wired Equivalent Privacy protocol (WEP), that encrypts data packets, hopefully making your wireless network safer. (I wonder how soon the hackers will hack that?) (Of course, if your network really need maximum security, you'd better be running fiber-optic cable! But hey, for most people...) WEP is something you have to turn on by choice, and of course, encryption and decryption routines are going to slow down an already slow network!

Slow? Well, wired networks once ran at 10 Mbps, which wasn't particularly speedy, but many have now been upgraded to at least 100 Mbps, which makes even huge graphics files on a server miles away seem like their on your own hard disk, the transfer rates are so fast. And a few have even upgraded to Gigabit Ethernet, so files should transfer even faster than if they were on your own disk. (Of course, the server's disk transfer rates may be a limiting factor.) So now that we've all gotten used to high network speeds, wireless is introduced with SLLOOOWWWW transfer rates again. The 802.11b equipment maxes out at 11Mbps (if you're lucky, usually it's about 4 to 7 Mbps, just like IBM's old token ring stuff). The 802.11g standard blazes along at 54 Mbps (IF you can believe it, and IF you're close enough to the base station, and IF the network's not crowded with traffic, in which case you'll get about 20 to 27 Mbps). Note that maximum range for these standards is 330 feet, which is probably not bad for most homes and small offices today. Bluetooth, another standard, runs at 721 Kbps (Note, that IS a "K", not an "M!"), a veritable snail's pace. If you have to transfer AutoCad blueprint files over Bluetooth...well, it's probably faster to copy them to CD and walk them to the other workstation!

Cost? You can get an 802.11b base station and a couple NICs for around $150, maybe less. If you want the faster 802.11g devices, or a Multistandard Wireless Access Point (MWAP?) that can handle two or more protocols (a, b, and g!), plan on spending between $300 and $500. Either way, the PC gamers in the family will be pleased. Their friends can bring their wireless laptops over for a Doom III party, and your potato chip, taco chip and salsa budget will go through the roof. You'll have the neighbors' kids in your house at all hours...
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Favorite Third Party Tools Department

VNC: Virtual Network Computing v 3.3.7
Some companies are too cheap (financially disadvantaged?) to purchase pcAnywhere. Windows Terminal Services? Yeah, you can use that if the company pays the license fees per terminal. So, what's the work-around if you need to view and control a user's desktop for a few minutes to help them with a problem? VNC! This is a freeware product developed originally by Olivetti labs, and now distributed as open source software under the GNU License through AT&T. It consists of two tiny programs, a viewer for your console, and a server that resides on the remote machine. Once configured and activated, the viewer displays on your console an image of the remote users screen (which is why I haven't reproduced it here. You know what the screen looks like!). You can move his mouse, type, access anything on the remote system, even reboot it.

The VNC server program can be installed as an application, or as a service, in which case it starts when the system boots. (That enables you to regain contact after a reboot.) VNC is a true cross-platform viewer system. You can view a Linux desktop running on a Sun from your PC, and vice versa. Now, don't expect a great amount of speed from VNC, because it transmits a whole bit-mapped image of the remote screen, rather than sending only those parts of the image that change. (And here he was griping about speed in the article above!) Yeah, well, speed isn't always everything, but it helps.

There are VNC Servers for Win32 systems, UNIX, and MacIntosh. There are VNC Viewers for Win32, X, Java, Mac, and even Windows CE! You can download Virtual Network Computing v 3.3.7 for x86 computers through http://www.download.com (which then transfers you to http://www.realvnc.com for the actual download). The .zip file is only 535K! I said it was tiny, didn't I?

One more thing, for those who were intrigued by 2xExplorer, discussed in the issue of the Newsletter, I found the latest version, 2xExplorer Z1 at http://www.download.com, and it's even better than before! In older versions, when you switched between panes, the panes would scroll uncontrollably back to the top. Now they scroll, completely independently! Synchronizing panes works beautifully! You can set the panes to resort instantly after a copy or move, bring you right to where the file was inserted, in alphabetical order! And you can insert grid-lines (for those of us who have difficulty seeing straight at three in the morning)! What more could you ask?!
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Employment Opportunities

Employers, please note, we will publish job opportunities in the OCNTUG Newsletter. This publication is released once per month, and can be found at www.SoCalITPro.org.
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Final Notes…

It's not too late! If you know of a company, manufacturer or vendor you'd like to see at Nogginfest, get the name of a contact person and send it to ed@ocntug.org! ASAP!

Remember to pay your membership dues before January 1, 2004, and SAVE $15!

See you at NOGGINFEST 2.0 on December 11, 2003, enjoy!

Robert Holtzman, Editor
rholtzman@netzero.net
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OCNTUG Newsletter                                     Volume 1 No. 6                               12/01/03

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