- main - earth.li

Re: [Alug] Todays meeting - report available.
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 24 Feb '03

24 Feb '03

BJ wrote: >A good, if a bit small meeting today. Thanks to all those attending. I'm sorry not to have made it - it's a short story involving not one but two flat tyres. (If i'd known Adam was going I'd have blagged a lift, - thought he was house-hunting. Didn't discover the flats till just after 1 pm though.)(If I'd known Jon was bringing home made biscuits, I'd have cycled :-)) Did you get your samba problems sorted, John? Re. the library - I have the ALUG copy of "Cathedral and Bazaar" still. Wat does the librarian job involve? Jenny

2 1

Re: wireless WANS
by jenny 24 Feb '03

24 Feb '03

Michael Sage wrote: >I would like to make an appeal to all of you without broadband in the area, >how would you feel about setting up a wireless wan (they are doing it all >over the country and in other regions (Suffolk, Cambridge)). Hi Michael, a company called Invisible Networks are setting up the wireless broadband around Cambridgeshire, I'm trying to get it in Burwell at the moment. The CA are supplying grants if you apply in the correct manner to bring down the installation fee. Perhaps IN will come to Norfolk if there is enough interest? Jen.

5 4

Re: wireless WANS
by tom potts 24 Feb '03

24 Feb '03

Sorry if I'm repeating other comments but I've had some major spam and lost a lot of mail but: Have a look at www.consume.net Have a look at http://www.digitaldales.co.uk/edenfaster/ and think whether you might like to buy a 2meg connection in and share it out.... There is a £300 wireless router somewhere... If you wait for the current providers to do it they'l have everyone by the short and curlies and be charging us a lot for a little. Tom __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

1 0

Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 24 Feb '03

24 Feb '03

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

1 0

Todays meeting - report available.
by John Woodard 23 Feb '03

23 Feb '03

A good, if a bit small meeting today. Thanks to all those attending. I have written a short report and stuck it up on the wiki. http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/?here Cheers, BJ

1 0

Re: main digest, Vol 2 #51 - 9 msgs
by David Cartwright 23 Feb '03

23 Feb '03

>From: "Ben Norcutt" <ben(a)plextech.co.uk> >To: "alug" <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> >Subject: Re: [Alug] Wireless WANS (i.e. Norfolk) >Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 12:22:48 -0000 > >I have just started playing with wireless stuff at work and it's great to be >able to wander around with a laptop my boss loves it. I work at Framingham >Earl High School As the Network Mangler and would love to help out if I can. >We have a 2mbit DSL connection going unused during the evening. This would >be fine for general web surfing but there are a number of restrictions that >you need to be made aware of. > >If anyone wants to experiment let me know. Maybe we should have a wireless >antennae building session etc... I have a couple of waps and pcmcia cards at >work. Errrrrmmmm ... I hate to be picky, but wouldn't the education authority or whoever is paying for all this stuff have some kind of problem with you inviting all and sundry to use their network (which presumably contains sensitive information)? If I was the headmaster, the "number of restrictions you need to be made aware of" would include "Connect anyone to this thing without my express permission and you're fired". In last year's UK Networking Industry Awards, of which I'm one of the judges, one of the entries was an educational establishment that was very proud of its new wireless LAN installation. Sadly, at no point did the entry blurb (which was many pages long) include terms like "security" or "encryption" - in fact the implementors were proud that you could surf outside the school buildings on your laptop. They didn't win. By way of a footnote, it's interesting to see how many companies don't turn on security by default. At the Networks Telecom Show at the NEC last June, a friend of mine who runs a super little security product dealership/consultancy was showing me his new toy - a wireless LAN analyser from Vernier Networks. We stood in the middle of the NEC identifying literally dozens of insecure servers on this thing, because the vast majority of exhibitors didn't have security turned on in their wireless installations. Not a problem at a trade show, you'd think, but you must remember that many stands have phone/ISDN links back to the main office, thus giving any old muppet with (in our case) an iPaq and a few hundred quid's worth of software a really nice route into their corporate networks. D.

1 0

Re: main digest, Vol 2 #53 - 10 msgs
by David Cartwright 23 Feb '03

23 Feb '03

> > > Shame Ionica peaked 5 years too early, their technology would be > > > perfect for this kind of thing. > > > > Are you sure it would ? > > > > Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I'm pretty sure that > regarding > > data throughput Ionica's ill fated network was not capable of much more > than > > a regular PSTN line, anyway from memory network coverage was nearly as > bad as > > ADSL. Absolutely correct. Ionica launched back in the mid 1990s, when I was tech ed of Network Week. From day one we were basically writing things like "Neat idea, but the guy running it sounds like a cowboy and they've forgotten to do any marketing". When we asked Ionica whether we could have anything more than a phone line - ISDN, for instance - the answer was always that the current equipment, running in the current radio spectrum (2.4GHz, I believe it was), couldn't handle it but when the new version came out (11GHz or so, if memory serves) we could have anything we wanted. To say that you can't do 128Kbit/sec ISDN in a 2.4GHz spectrum is, of course, nonsense - if nothing else you could mux it like cellular providers do with multiples of 9.6Kbit/sec channels in GPRS. It may have been fair to say that the kit wasn't up to it, but I can't imagine the equipment vendors didn't have an upgrade roadmap. Interestingly, the Ionica service - where it was available - was excellent by all accounts. You could have multiple numbers with a different ring pattern for each (so dad could have a different ring pattern from mum), caller ID, a 1471 equivalent, and so on - they did all of this long before BT. And the coverage area was okay, if not massive. From what I can see, they just didn't spend the marketing bucks, and got a reputation in the press for being a bunch of wide boys trying to take investors for a ride. In fact there's still an Ionica receiver dish on a house up the road from me - maybe they're hoping the service will come back one day!! Regards, Dave C

1 0

Re: [Alug] Incompatibility and what can I do about it?
by BenEBoy 22 Feb '03

22 Feb '03

On Saturday 22 February 2003 14:41, Chris Walker wrote: > I am still trying to persuade my Acorn to talk to my Mandrake box without > success. My son suggested I look at ipchains and having installed it, it > now tells me 'Incompatible with this kernel'. Strange as I installed them > both from the same CD, Mandrake 9. Ipchains is 1.3.10-6mdk and the kernel > is 2.4.19-16mdk but despite having the upgrader look for upgrades for > ipchains, it can't find any. So I'm stuck now. How do I find an upgrade, > assuming one is necessary, to fix this? Or is there another remedy? Have you seen this in your travels through google? http://www.serial-networking.fsnet.co.uk/linux.htm (step by step guide to connecting acorns with linux) BenE

1 0

Re: [Alug] Incompatibility and what can I do about it?
by Richard Kettlewell 22 Feb '03

22 Feb '03

Chris Walker <linux(a)wymondham.demon.co.uk> writes: > I am still trying to persuade my Acorn to talk to my Mandrake box > without success. My son suggested I look at ipchains and having > installed it, it now tells me 'Incompatible with this > kernel'. Strange as I installed them both from the same CD, Mandrake > 9. Ipchains is 1.3.10-6mdk and the kernel is 2.4.19-16mdk but > despite having the upgrader look for upgrades for ipchains, it can't > find any. So I'm stuck now. How do I find an upgrade, assuming one > is necessary, to fix this? Or is there another remedy? You might very well want iptables instead. I can't see how a packet filter will help you talk to your Acorn, though... -- http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

1 0

Reminder: ALUG Meeting @ Syleham Villiage Hall 23rd Feb 2003
by John Woodard 21 Feb '03

21 Feb '03

Reminder: ALUG Meeting @ Syleham Villiage Hall 23rd Feb 2003 I've updated the wiki to confirm this. If you are coming please add your name to http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/?23%20Feb . This ALUG meeting will be from 2pm until about 6pm in the normal place at http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/syleham.html the bar will be open. BJ will be there from about 1:00pm putting up tables etc. Cheers, BJ

2 1