May 1994 Newsletter

Table of Contents

  1. Next Meeting
  2. The BIG Usenix Conference is Coming
  3. Another Internet Seminar
  4. Interested in Setting Standards?
  5. nh.* Newsgroups Established
  6. MAJORDOMOs Springing Up All Over

Next Meeting

The Northern New England UNIX User Group (NNEUUG) will meet on Tuesday, May 31, at 110 Parker Hall on the Campus of Keene State College in Keene, NH. We will discuss Internet connectivity and the progress of MonadNet. Anyone who wants to learn about money-saving ways to connect should attend. There will be a door prize this time! If facilities permit, we will also watch a video that extols the virtues of the Information Superhighway, as opposed to the Information Highway that we currently have. As always, meeting time is 7:30 PM.

DIRECTIONS

From the East, come into Keene on Route 101 or Route 12. The two join at a big intersection where Main Street is a right turn. From the west, take Exit 3 off I-91 in Brattleboro, cross into New Hampshire on Route 9, and look for the intersection where Route 12 branches off to the right and Main Street is the left (it should be the third traffic light in the built-up area of Keene). Once on Main Street, look for Wyman Way on the left. Turn left from Main onto Wyman Way. (There is a small sign just as you turn onto Main that tells you how many blocks ahead Wyman Way, as the ostensible entrance to the college, is.) Drive down Wyman Way until you reach the parking lot labeled "CC" (it's pretty much the end of the road).

To get from that lot to the meeting place: walk back up Wyman Way toward Main. Turn into the first lot on the left labeled "BB". On the back side of that lot is a short sidewalk that intersects with a wide cement sidewalk named Appian Way. (You've just made a little right angle jog to the left from Wyman Way.) A short distance to the right along Appian Way is the central college green. Parker is the building on the side of the green nearest Main. Actually it is the left hand side of the building on that side of the green.

The BIG Usenix Conference is Coming

In June, New England will host a Full-fledged Usenix conference for the first time in many years. Here's a rough overview:

From: Cynthia Deno cynthia@usenix.org

USENIX SUMMER 1994 TECHNICAL CONFERENCE

June 6-10, 1994/Boston Marriott Copley Place/Boston, Massachusetts

USENIX is the UNIX and Advanced Computing Systems Technical and Professional Association, founded in 1975. It is well known for its major conferences and frequent symposia held in different cities throughout the United States and Canada.. This will be our first Boston biannual technical conference since 1982.

Schedule one yourself by sending email to conference@usenix.org.

Another Internet Seminar

We have heard that there will be a seminar on June 23 that will focus on the benefits that justify getting connected to the Internet. It will run all day on June 23 at UMass-Amherst, and costs $65 per person. For details, call 413-367-0245 or E-mail OGUJGRA@dpc01.dpc.umassp.edu.

Interested in Setting Standards?

Our old friend Jim Isaak sends this along: The IEEE PASC (Portable Application Standards Committee) which is responsible for the POSIX standards as well as X.400, X.500 API, Windowing API's and Open System Environment profiles. Will be meeting the week of July 11-15 at the Clarion Hotel in Nashua.

The meetings are open to any interested persons. There will be about 20 different working groups meeting on a wide range of topics (in the domain of the above, including security, real time systems, fault management, protocol independent communications interfaces, etc.)

There is a charge, $350 for the week, or $100 per day, including lunch (except Friday). $300 if you pre-register with the IEEE Computer Society (contact John Mee for details: j.mee@computer.org.)

PASC is just starting to evaluate the implications of NII for the PASC work. Use of POSIX standards in this context could be an important step towards an Open and competitive NII environment.

nh.* Newsgroups Established

I know you've heard the idea before. This time, a hierarchy of nh.* Usenet newsgroups has been started with a twist: the distribution is defined to cover all of New England, so the wannabe New Hampshirites can participate. It should also help circulation. So far, nh.general is going. Other newsgroups can be added by the standard Usenet consensus mechanism.

MAJORDOMOs Springing Up All Over

All readers of this newsletter are encouraged to obtain some form of E-mail service and notify nneuug-contact@dartmouth.edu of your E-mail address. That way, you can get timely updates on NNEUUG events. Other groups in the region also use E-mail for notices. Some use it exclusively! The Majordomo package is a favorite for automated list maintenance.

BBLISA has just upgraded their majordomo to version 1.90, so they have extra features. To get info about BBLISA, the Boston-based group for UNIX system administrators, send your requests to majordomo@bblisa.org. You have a choice of lists:

    bblisa               The Back Bay Systems Administration discussion list
    bblisa-admin         The list for administrators of Back Bay LISA
    bblisa-announce      The Back Bay LISA announcement list
    bblisa-digest        A digest version of the bblisa list

  Use the 'info < list >' command to get more information about a specific list.

      subscribe [< list >] [< address >]
         Subscribe yourself (or < address > if specified) to the named < list >.

      unsubscribe [< list >] [< address >]
         Unsubscribe yourself (or < address > if specified) from the named < list >.

      info [< list >]
         Retrieve the general introductory information for the named < list >.

      lists
         Show the lists served by this Majordomo server.

      end
         Stop processing commands (useful if your mailer adds a signature).
Commands in the "Subject:" line NOT processed. Note that earlier versions may not support all of the above commands.

The Boston Computer Society has a New Hampshire division that communicates via E-mail. Les Squires administers the list, but I can't tell if and how it's automated. He asks that you send a subscription request to LSquires@world.std.com with a body consisting of either

	BCNH-Yes      (to subscribe) or
	BCNH-No       (to unsubscribe)
There have been stories circulating on the Net that The Computer Museum in Boston is on as tcm.org and has an automated mail server. So far, I have been unable to verify that it works.

Electronic Frontiers-New Hampshire will organize its activities with the help of E-mail. Here's their latest blurb:

The following mailing lists are operated by EFNH for communication and discussion. All lists are hosted by MV Communications and all lists have the address listname@mv.com (ex. efnh-announce@mv.com Subscription information is below the list descriptions. Please note that the descriptions of list activities are only preliminary and will undoubtably evolve. If people are interested in starting another list on an EFNH-related subject, please send a message to efnh@mv.com

efnh-announce
This is the general list for announcements of upcoming events, alerts about impending legislation/hearings, or administrative notes such as this one. It is *the* list for communicating to *all* those interested in EFNH. At some point in the not-too-distant future, this list will also be connected to a USENET newsgroup and FidoNet echo. It is intended to be a low-traffic, announce-only list. Announcements/alerts from the other lists will be posted to this list.
efnh-congress
This group will be concerned with Federal legislation (like Clipper and Digital Telephony). Activities might include communicating our opinions on these to all of our Congressional offices, meeting with Congressional staff, etc.
efnh-state
This group will address what legislation is happening on the state level and/or what legislation *could* happen on the state level. Might meet/talk with state legislators. network-related issues.
efnh-netinfo
This list is for people you want to receive my (Dan York) filtering of e-mail *I* receive from various lists about new Internet services, new ways to access government info, or just other generally interesting news about the Internet or new opportunies available for Internet users. I receive mail from several lists, including the deluge from "net-happenings", and can *very* easily forward mail. Some of this info I was previously forwarding to "efnh-discuss". If you already get "net-happenings", don't bother subscribing to this list - this is just my own view of what stuff I receive I think might be of interest to EFNH folks. I have no idea of the volume to this list - might be a couple of messages each week - might be a message or two each day - all depends on what comes in to me.
To subscribe to any of these lists, simply send an e-mail message to:

    majordomo@mv.com
with a message body of:

    subscribe         (ex. "subscribe efnh-congress")
Please note that if you want to subscribe to multiple lists, you can put multiple "subscribe" lines within the *same* message to "majordomo".

    unsubscribe efnh-listname
For a description of other majordomo commands, send a message to majordomo@mv.com with a body message of "help".