Official Publication of the STL!/unix/usr/group

UNIX^® is a registered trademark of the Open Group
Linux^® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
Online version: http://www.sluug.org/cronicle/

Table of Contents

• Next Meeting Details
• Web Application Development in Perl by Michael King
• Tutorial - TBA
• Upcoming Meetings
• Meeting Directions
• Article: Another One Bytes the Dust by Stanley C. Reichardt
• Article: FYI - Library Limited Summer Sale
• Special Interest Groups (SIGS)
  • Linux SIG (SLUUGLS)
  • Computer Telephony Integration SIG (SLUUG CiTI)
  • Digital Alpha SIG
• Steering Committee
• Sponsors
• SLUUG on the World Wide Web
• SLUUG Administration is volunteer based.
• /usr/groups/other
  • St. Louis Java SIG
• Contacts
• Submitting Articles to the SLUUG CRONicle
• SLUUG PO Box

Wednesday, September 9, 1998 at 6:30 PM
Sunnen Products, 7910 Manchester

Web Application Development in Perl by Michael King

A Tiered Deployment approach using shared libraries of Perl Modules will be discussed.

Michael King is an Internet Technology Specialist, dealing with integrating commercial web/Internet business applications (internet-based merchant, retail, community, and credit-card systems) with back-end financial / accounting applications. He has experience in Unix and NT operating systems, Apache, Netscape (Enterprise, Community, Merchant, LiveWire, Taxware), and Microsoft (IIS/Active Server) webservers, Perl, PerlScript, JavaScript/JScript - Client and Server side programming, Active Server Page programming, Dynamic HTML, CSS Style Sheets, web-based applications integrated with databases such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, Informix, Progress, SQL databases, general C/C++ programming and Java (coming soon) flavors. If you would like to know more about Michael, please visit his web resume at http://Walden.MVP.Net/~mike808/resume.htm (note: just cursor past the tirade at the beginning-- ;-)

The STL!/unix/usr/group meets the 2nd Wednesday of every month at Sunnen Products, 7910 Manchester Blvd, just east of Hanley on Manchester.

Directions From Downtown

1. Take 40 West to the Hanley exit.
2. Turn left (south) onto Hanley.
3. Turn left (east) onto Manchester, then turn right ASAP into the Sunnen Products driveway.

(NOTE: A security guard from Sunnen is scheduled to be at the door from 6:20 PM to 7:20 PM to allow entry. After 7:20, the door will be unattended and attendees may not be able to enter.)

The SLUUG Steering Committee meets the Tuesday following the general 2nd Wednesday meeting at 6:00 PM in the 2nd floor training room of Daugherty Systems, One City Place in Creve Coeur.

The SLUUG Linux SIG (SLUUGLS) meets the 3rd Thursday of every month at the Indian Trails Public Library.

Like many others I have more reading to keep up with than I care to admit. Periodicals are quickly scanned upon receipt, later browsed from rear to front, then finally (sometimes weeks later) read from front to end. Sometimes read again to make sure I didn't miss anything.

In the final stage of my eccentric ritual I discovered a single page letter inserted into the July issue of "Byte" magazine announcing to subscribers that "...this is the last issue of Byte you'll be receiving for a few months." CMP Media Inc., acquired Byte and other technical publications from McGraw-Hill. Blah, blah, blah.

This letter insert was not in the newsstand issues. It was not in a separate letter that would have captured my immediate attention. I have not seen it mentioned anywhere else.

This kind of thing always unsettles me. But then, every time my life long favorite "Analog" science fiction magazine changes it's cover layout or size I start to get worried.

I remember when the "PC Tech Journal" (PCTJ) was bought out and it's subscriber list was sucked up by "PC Magazine". PCTJ had just gotten me interested in OS/2 as a viable alternate operating system with it's technically in depth coverage. PCTJ was not a rubber stamp for Micro$oft. It was a real thorn in their side.

I remember when "Unix World" magazine became "Open Computing" magazine and started to die. I think it died; but, not before I lost interest. Going from the best in depth articles on UNIX to obvious press release pabulum was more than pathetic. It was insulting.

Byte was a magazine that began as a very technical magazine that eventually had more advertising space than articles. That is why I dropped it for a number of years. Only recently had I re-subscribed because it was carrying more and more articles on "other" operating systems. It was lean and mean.

A great feature was the "Contents by Platform" index in each issue. Jerry Pournelle's monthly Chaos Manor featured blow by blow real life searching for the next silver bullet and gadgets. He was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with Micro$oft and panned Win98.

In March 1998 at CeBIT'98, StarOffice [ the subject of the August 20th Linux SIG meeting ] was awarded the prize as "Best Application Software" by Byte. Since over 400,000 instances of this package are currently in use and newer versions of this application will run under Linux and Micro$oft Windows 95/98/NT this could really affect some BILLionaire's income. Non-commercial use under Linux is free.

The July issue cover article on Y2K was the best one I have seen this year on the subject and doesn't insult anyone's technical ability or pull any punches. Some copies were still on the racks at Clayton's Barnes & Noble two days ago. Well worth reading by all.

Coming up in August (per page 18) was to have been their Software Lab Report on Free Unixes - to include Linux and FreeBSD to see how they measure up against their commercial cousins.

My next thoughts recall the gist of a quotation that I haven't been able to track down. It was used by my high school history teacher when we covered Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin. Something about how to take over by "first we control the presses". Might even have been by William Randolph Hurst. Could it have been someone else named Bill?

Library Limited Summer Sale is from 4 thru 7 September.

As our membership grows, we have had some inquiries about the possibility of having Special Interest Groups in several areas. If you are interested in starting or participating in a SIG for System Administration, Networking, C, Object Oriented Programming, a specific vendor, etc., please call Dave Mills at 230-5151, extension 103, or contact any officer of the group.

Topic: X Window Desktops by Tom Wheeler, Internet Applications Developer, A.G. Edwards

Visit the Linux SIG home page (http://www.stllinux.org/) for the latest meeting details.

LOCATION DIRECTIONS:
Indian Trails Public Library
8400 Delport Drive
(at Midland)
(314)-428-5424

For more information on SLUUGLS refer to the WWW home page for the group at http://www.stllinux.org/ or contact Matthew Feldt at linux@www.feldt.com.

The CTI SIG is no longer having regular meetings and is currently using a webboard format.

The Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) Users Group is a non-profit organization open to developers, end-users, sales people, and others who share the common interest of melding the telecommunications and computing worlds.

For more information on SLUUG CiTI contact Tony Zafiropoulos at tonyz@ctitek.com or (314)878-9855.

The Digital Alpha SIG is for those interested in Digital UNIX and the DEC Alpha architecture. Visit the Digital Alpha SIG's home at http://www.sluug.org/~newton/asighome.html for more information.

The SLUUG Steering Committee meets the Tuesday following the general 2nd Wednesday meeting at 6:00 PM in the 2nd floor training room of Daugherty Systems, One City Place in Creve Coeur. The guard can direct you to the meeting location. Anyone is welcome to attend. If you would like to become more involved in the planning of SLUUG, feel free to join us at the next Steering Committee meeting. Meetings usually last 1.5 to 2 hours.

• Analysts International
• Andersen Consulting
• Arbor Consulting
• Ask/Ingress Software
• The Charron Law Firm
• CIBER, Inc.
• Computer Task Group
• Cyborg Consulting Enterprise
• Cypress Systems, Ltd.
• Daugherty Systems
• Ferguson Consulting, Inc.
• Gundaker Realtors Better Homes & Gardens
• Hewlett-Packard
• IBM
• Informix Corporation
• Lindenberg & Associates
• Maryville Data Systems, Inc.
• Mastercard International
• Nascote Industries
• O'Reilly & Associates
• Pyramid Technology Corporation
• Rave Computer
• SEI
• Shamrock Computer Resources Ltd.
• Sun Microsystems
• Sunnen Products
• Sybase
• Unisys
• Venmar Systems, Inc.
• WTI Systems, Ltd.

For more information about sponsoring the St. Louis UNIX Users Group, contact Ed Wehner wehner@mail.sluug.org.

The St. Louis UNIX Users Group maintains a WWW page at http://www.sluug.org/. Visit us to learn more about who we are and what we do, visit other UNIX user groups' WWW pages, sign up for a SIG, or just to browse.

SLUUG is looking for volunteers to help with presentations, web page development, managing corporate sponsorships, and many other tasks. If you would like to help out, contact Chris Wanta at cfw1@mail.sluug.org or visit http://www.sluug.org/~cfw1/help.html.

We publish other user group meeting schedules on a reciprocal basis. If you are a member of another non-profit group, please inform them of our policy and invite them to exchange meeting information with editor@mail.sluug.org, or call any of the SLUUG officers.

Next meeting details:

  When:     Thursday, September 10, 1998, 6:30 PM
  Where:    Novell, 600 Emerson Road, Suite 203
  Speaker:  John Peiffer; Sun Microsystems
  Topic:    NetDynamics

For more information about the St. Louis Java SIG, visit their home page at http://www.ociweb.com/javasig/.

If you would like to submit an article to the CRONicle of general interest to the members of the St. Louis UNIX Users Group, email it to editor@mail.sluug.org The deadline for article submissions is two weeks before the next main meeting.

The St. Louis UNIX Users Group has a P.O. box. All official correspondence with SLUUG should now be sent to:

    St. Louis UNIX Users Group
    P.O. Box 1184
    Fenton, MO  63026-1184