The SLUUG CRONicle

November 2003

St. Louis UNIX Users Group


HTML version: http://www.sluug.org/cronicle/


Table of Contents

November Open Source Calendar
DateDayMeetingTime
Nov 3MondayStLAdvLUG7:00pm - 9:00pm
Nov 4TuesdayElection Day
Nov 4TuesdayMOSLUG - Kirkwood MO7:00pm - 11:00pm
Nov 4TuesdayGateway Java Users Group7:00pm - 8:00pm
Nov 5WednesdaySLUUG - Steering Committee6:30pm - 8:30pm
Nov 5WednesdayExtreme Programming www.xpstl.org7:00pm - 10:00pm
Nov 6ThursdaySLACC - Creve Coeur MO6:30pm - 9:00pm
Nov 6ThursdaySILUG - O'Fallon IL7:00pm - 9:00pm
Nov 11TuesdayVeterans Day
Nov 11TuesdayJob Fair www.ajilonconsulting.com3:00pm - 7:00pm
Nov 11TuesdayCCSL - Dinner Meeting5:30pm
Nov 11TuesdayGateway Mac Users Group (GAMUG)7:00pm - 8:30pm
Nov 11TuesdayLUCI - Springfield IL7:00pm - 9:00pm
Nov 12WednesdaySLUUG - General Meeting6:30pm - 8:30pm
Nov 13ThursdaySt. Louis Java Users Group6:30pm - 8:00pm
Nov 16SundayCentral West End LUG1:00pm - 5:00pm
Nov 17MondaySILUG - Carbondale IL7:00pm - 9:00pm
Nov 18TuesdaySTLWEBDEV -6:30pm
Nov 19WednesdayBDPA - www.bdpa-stl.org6:00pm
Nov 20ThursdaySt. Louis Linux Users Group (LUG)6:00pm - 9:00pm
Nov 24MondaySt. Charles LUG (Holiday Schedule)6:30pm - 9:00pm
Nov 25TuesdaySTLWEBDEV - Wireless SIG5:30pm - 9:00pm
Nov 25TuesdayHazelwood LUG 6:30pm - 9:00pm
Nov 25TuesdayLUCI - Springfield IL7:00pm - 9:00pm
Nov 27ThursdayThanksgiving Day

Next General Meeting is Wednesday, Nov 12


6:30 pm Tutorial RPMs: what they do and where to get them by Todd Schiller
7:00 pm Announcements Standard Introductions & Procedures
7:05 pm Q & A An opportunity to ask technical questions
7:15 pm Break Social, off-line conversations, book sales
7:30 pm Presentation Digital ham radio communication by Colin R. Wright


Tutorial

RPMs: what they do and where to get them
by Todd Schiller

Abstract:

RPM Tutorial

Presentation

Digital ham radio communication
by Colin R. Wright

Abstract:

Digital HAM Radio Methods and Operations Ham radio operators have used digital methods of communication for as long as there has been radio. The simplest of these, Morse code, has served the ham community well for many, many decades. With the advent of inexpensive, high speed personal computers and sound cards with digital signal processing capabilities, revolution after revolution has taken place in digital communications used by hams, taking us far beyond what Morse code could give us. We will talk about a variety of digital modes, past and present, that have been used by hams and examine some of the details behind how they work. We'll also talk about some more esoteric uses for these digital modes, and some real world implementations.

Bio:

Colin Wright has been working with computers since his first involvement with an HP-2000 at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga at the age of 12. Around that same time, he obtained his amateur radio license. He has served in the US Air Force, worked for IBM, Mutual of Omaha, Provident Life and Accident and, most recently, at the world headquarters for Enterprise Rent-A-Car as a Senior Middleware Engineer.

Ideas, questions and suggestions are welcome; please contact Terry Linhardt (presentations@sluug.org).


Book Sales

The O'Reilly and Associates line of books is available at each monthly general meeting as a convenience to our members. Proceeds from the book sales go toward running the organization. Most months we feature special offers on titles related to that month's presentation or tutorial topic. Discounts off retail prices are offered to all attendees.

(booksales@sluug.org).


Next St. Louis LUG Meeting Is Nov 20

Sun Java desktop system
by Jeff Logullo

Abstract:

Sun Java Desktop System

Sun has recently announced their Java Desktop System, formerly known as Project Mad Hatter. Aimed at the enterprise desktop, the system consists of a fully integrated client environment based on open source components, including a Linux kernel and OS, GNOME desktop environment, StarOffice, Mozilla browser, Evolution mail and calendar, and Java 2 Standard Edition. Key features include a well-defined, integrated look and feel, familiar desktop themes, as well as file, folder, and print interoperability with Microsoft Windows and Linux/UNIX environments.

In this presentation, Jeff will show off the features of the Java Desktop System, and explain how it can benefit enterprise desktop users. He will also explore some of the Open Source technologies used in the product, and explain how Sun intends to leverage these technologies to compete with Microsoft Windows.

For more information on Sun's Java Desktop System, check out http://www.sun.com/software/learnabout/desktopsystem/ and http://www.sun.com/2003-0805/feature/.

Comments, questions, and ideas for the St. Louis Linux Users Group are welcome; please send email to linux@sluug.org.


Meeting Locations

SLUUG - St. Louis UNIX Users Group (http://www.sluug.org)
General Meeting

Meets the 2nd Wednesday of the month, 6:30pm to 9:00pm. Free and open to the public. For the year 2003, we are meeting at:

Graybar Electric Co, Inc.
11885 Lackland Rd.
St. Louis, MO 63146

Directions: Take I-270 to Page east. Take first exit (Concourse). Turn right at stop light (Lackland). Turn right at stop light into Graybar parking lot. Enter building at main entrance and sign in with security guard. Proceed down 1 level to lake level and cafateria training room.

Map:   http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?address=11885+Lackland&zipcode=63146

SLUUG - St. Louis UNIX Users Group Steering Committee (http://www.sluug.org)

Meets the 1st Wednesday of the month, 6:30pm to 8:30pm. Open to the public. This is where we make decisions on what topics to cover and other administration of the group. If you want to get involved, this is a good place to start. We now meet at:

Malones
11660 Administration Drive
Saint Louis, MO 63146

Map:   http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?addr=11660+Administration&csz=63146

St. Louis Linux Users Group (STLLUG) (http://www.stllinux.org)

Meets the 3rd Thursday of each month, 7:00pm to 9:00pm. The room is reserved starting at 6:00pm. (Ask a librarian to let you in if it is locked.) Members are encouraged to come early to mingle and/or give informal demos or presentations. Free and open to the public. (Formerly known as the Linux SIG.)

Indian Trails Library
8400 Delport Drive (at Midland)
St. Louis, MO
Directions:   Take I-170 to Page east. Turn left at North-South. Turn left at Midland. Drive 2 blocks and turn left on Delport. The library is on your left.

Map:   http://www.stllinux.org/directions/

St. Charles LUG (http://www.sluug.org/~stclug)

We expect that meetings will usually be held at 6:30pm to 9:00pm on the 4th Thursday of each month, except during December, which will probably not have a meeting.
This is a SIG of SLUUG, intended for all Linux users in the Western and Northern parts of the greater metro area.

Ponderosa
513 South Main St. (just north of I-70)
O'Fallon, MO

Security UG

Tentatively 4th Thursday of each month, with alternative dates and locations under discussion

EPC
2941 Harry S. Truman Blvd. (Cave Springs exit, Interstate 70)
St. Charles, MO

Hazelwood LUG (http://www.sluug.org/~hzlug)

Generally meets the 4th Tuesday of each month, 6:30pm to 9:00pm. Free and open to the public. This is a SIG of SLUUG, intended for Linux newbies.

Prairie Commons Library
915 Utz Lane (between Howdershell and Dunn)
Hazelwood, MO

CWE-LUG - Central West End LUG (http://www.sluug.org/~cwelug/)

Generally meets on the third Sunday of the month from 1:00pm to 5:00pm. Meetings are held at the ACLU building.

ACLU
4557 Laclede (just east of Euclid)
St Louis, MO 63108

Advanced LUG (http://stladvlug.org/)

Meetings are held on the first Monday of each month. This group is intended to be a venue for advanced topics as well as a time to work on Open Source projects as a group. Free and open to the public.

WDT Solutions
9450 Manchester, Suite 204
Rock Hill, MO

Extreme Programming (http://xpstl.org/)

Meetings are held on the first Wednesday of each month at CAIT (Center for Application for Information Technology). This is an active group that reserves the perrogative to change times and locations, so check the web site often. RSVP @ xpstl@agilestl.com to assure adequate treats.

CAIT, Room 22
5 North Jackson Ave at Forsyth
Clayton, MO

MOSLUG - MO Open Source LUG (http://www.moslug.org/)

Meets on the 1st Tuesday of the month, from 7:00pm to 11:00pm. Meetings are free and open to everyone. This is a Linux Users Group (LUG) for all levels, from new beginners to the more advanced users.

Culpeppers Restaurant (basement)
312 S. Kirkwood Road
Kirkwood, MO 63122

STLBSD - St. Louis BSD Users (http://www.stlbsd.org)

Group meets generally on the second thursday of the month. Consult website for current meeting information.

St. Louis Java Users Group (http://www.ociweb.com/javasig/)

Meets the 2nd Thursday of every month, 6:30pm to 8:00pm. Attendance is free, and you do not need to sign up -- just show up.

CityPlace One Auditorium
One City Place
Creve Coeur, MO 63141

Gateway JUG (Java Users Group) (http://www.gatewayjug.org/)

Meets 6:00pm to 8:00pm. Meets on the 1st Tuesday of the month. Please RSVP if you would like to attend.

Maryville Technologies
540 Maryville Centre Dr., Suite 300
St. Louis, MO 63141

STLWEBDEV - St. Louis Web Developers (http://www.stlwebdev.org)

Meets the 3rd Tuesday of the month from 6:30pm to 9:00pm. Meetings are free and open to everyone. This is an open group to facilitate communications between diverse professions involved in Internet/Intranet design and development. STLWEBDEV is also the St. Louis chapter of the International Webmasters Association and the HTML Writers Guild (IWA-HWG).

SAVVIS Auditorium
One SAVVIS Parkway (Highway 40 and 141)
St. Louis, MO 63017

GAMUG - Gateway Area Macintosh Users Group (http://www.gamug.org)

Meets the 2nd Tuesday of every month at 7:00pm. GAMUG has a number of active SIGs, so be sure to check out their web site. Of special interest is the Mac OS X SIG (which meets in Fenton). Membership is $30 a year for individuals.

Parkway Central High School
369 N. Woods Mill Rd. (Hwy. 141, between Olive and Ladue) Chesterfield, MO 63017

CCSL - Computer Consultants of St. Louis (http://www.ccsl.org)
Monthly Dinner Meeting

Meetings are held the second Tuesday of each month at Cheshire Inn. RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED. Cost is $20 for members, $25 for non-members. Call 314-995-4652 (by the previous Friday) or email meeting@ccsl.org for reservations. Social hour starts at 5:30pm, meeting starts at 6:30pm.

Cheshire Inn
6306 Clayton Rd.
St. Louis, MO

SILUG - Southern Illinois LUG (http://www.silug.org)
O'Fallon meeting

The SILUG O'Fallon meeting is generally on the 1st Thursday of the month. It runs from 7:00pm to 9:00pm.

O'Fallon City Library
120 Civic Plaza
O'Fallon, IL 62269

SILUG - Southern Illinois LUG (http://www.silug.org)
Carbondale meeting

The SILUG Carbondale meeting is the 3rd Monday of the month, from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. The location can vary due to scheduling issues, so be sure to double-check their web site.

Morris Library, Room 325
SIU-Carbondale
Carbondale, IL

LUCI - Linux Users of Central Illinois (http://www.luci.org)

All LUCI meetings are held at the same location, from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. General meetings are on the 4th Tuesday of the month, and Newbie night is held on the 2nd Tuesday of the month.

Illinois State Museum Research & Collections Center
1011 East Ash St.
Springfield, IL 62703

CORCC - County Older Residents Computer Club (http://www.a-zuc.com/corcc/)

Meets (almost) every Friday from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. Provides free classes for seniors 55 or older. For info, contact Tom Kimber (t.kimber@worldnet.att.net) or Arthur Hollman (ajhollman@juno.com).

Prairie Commons Library
915 Utz Lane (between Howdershell and Dunn)
Hazelwood, MO

We publish meeting schedules of groups in the St. Louis region that may be of interest to our members. If you would like to have info added about your group, please mail the newsletter editor (editor@sluug.org) or call any of the SLUUG officers.

Articles:

WARNING: These articles may express personal opinions and SLUUG exerts no more editorial control over such content than does a public library, bookstore, or newsstand. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers, or other information or content expressed herein are those of the respective authors and not necessarily supported by SLUUG. SLUUG does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any content, nor its merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose.

Ajilon Job Fair and Open House

[Editor's note: Ajilon is a SLUUG sponsor. We feel that this may be of benefit to our members.]

IT JOB FAIR

Ajilon Consulting Open House:

Ajilon Consulting offers a full range of IT business solutions, including help desk, systems development, software quality assurance, outsourcing and staffing. We invite you to attend our Open House to discover more about specific opportunities:

Please email your resume prior to the job fair to recruit.stlouis@ajilon.com

If you are unable to attend our Open House, you can still forward your resume for consideration.

http://www.ajilonconsulting.com

Sponsors

For more information about sponsoring the St. Louis UNIX Users Group, contact (sponsorship@sluug.org).

Quotes

Microsoft et al must know they are doomed to become a software services
company in time. Economics 101 tells us that the equilibrium market value
of a good whose incremental cost of production is zero, is zero. This is
exactly the situation with a mature software product. A software release
that fulfills customer needs has a (nearly) zero incremental cost of
production: the cost of producing the next unit is the cost of downloading.
Only when feature sets are still in flux is there any money to be made in
software.
 -- radtea on Slashdot


Almost nine of 10 execs say Microsoft hasn't done enough to promote
Windows-Linux compatibility.
 -- InformationWeek
http://informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=15202136

Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

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 contact any officer of the group.

Volunteering

SLUUG administration is volunteer based. We're always 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 Christine Wanta (volunteer@sluug.org).

Contacts

  President president@sluug.org Christine Wanta
  Vice-President vice-president@sluug.org Ed Wehner
  Secretary secretary@sluug.org Derek Polston
  Treasurer treasurer@sluug.org Mike Kriz 
  Linux Users Group Chair linux@sluug.org Craig Buchek
  Board of Directors board@sluug.org Ed Wehner
Craig Buchek
Robert Citek
Stan Reichardt
Christine Wanta
  Presentations presentations@sluug.org Terry Linhardt
  Corporate Sponsors sponsorship@sluug.org Open
  O'Reilly Book Sales booksales@sluug.org Carl Fitch
  Newsletter Editor editor@sluug.org John House
  PR reporter@sluug.org Stan Reichardt
  Steering Committee Info info@sluug.org Gary Meyer
  BBS Questions bbs@sluug.org Gary Meyer
  Official Correspondence SLUUG Mailing Address PO Box 411302
St. Louis, MO 63141

Submitting Articles to the SLUUG Cronicle

If you would like to submit an article to the Cronicle of general interest to the members of the St. Louis UNIX Users Group, send your info or complete article to editor@sluug.org. The deadline for article submissions is the second last day of the month. Plain HTML format is preferred.

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