September 1994 Newsletter
Table of Contents
- Next Meeting
- Future Meetings
- NNEUUG Now Uses Majordomo
- Software New Hampshire Conference and Trade Show
- Another Big Internet Seminar in Burlington
- Business Opportunities
- UNIX Expo is Coming
- Entrepreneurs Group Will Have Internet Presentation
- Local Group for LINUX Fans
- Trade Show Tip
- Net Access Around Vermont
- Net Access on Your TV?
- Valley Net Finds a Home
- Net Access in Littleton (NH)
- Net Access in Concord and NH Seacoast
- Net Access in Biddeford (ME)
- Net Access Around Maine
- More Notes from July 27
- NH High Tech Council Notes
- Any IRC code hackers out there?
On September 29, we will have two different meetings at opposite ends of
New Hampshire, both at 7:30 PM. These are intended as local-area meetings
so that UNIX users in the area can meet each other. If you want to have
a local-area meeting at your site, send out E-mail right away!
At the Southern end, there will be a meeting in the Library of The Dublin
School in Dublin. Essentially Dublin can only be approached from the east
or the West.
If you are to the East, get on NH Route 101 and go West toward Keene
and Peterborough. Pass through Peterborough and continue another
8 miles to Dublin. Take the first right past Yankee Magazine
onto New Harrisville Road. The school is 200 yards on your left.
Parking is on the left past the administration building.
From the West, get to Keene and continue 13 miles on NH Route 101 East to
Dublin. Take a left after the Dublin School sign. Take a
hard right at the little sign and go up the hill. Go back down the
hill and take a left into our parking lot.
The northern end of the state will be covered by a meeting at Lamson
Library on the campus of Plymouth State College in Plymouth. Specifically,
we will meet in the "ITV classroom" so we can see what a high-end
system for distributed meetings looks like.
Plymouth is reached from Exits 25 and 26 off I-93. The campus is in town.
People can park on Main Street -- it's only a block away - but it's up
hill. Parking on campus requires a permit and even that is just a hunting
license.
Our next big meeting will be held on October 25 (Tuesday) at 7:30 PM. We
will meet in the tallest building we've ever used, the PSNH skyscraper at
1000 Elm Street in downtown Manchester, NH. We'll only be on the 8th floor,
but the views are good even from there. The topic is still pending at press
time. To get more details as they emerge, it's best to be subscribed to
our E-mail announcement service (see next item), since we may not be able to
mail out another one of these before then. (If you can subsidize a mailing
to the tune of $50-100, please get in touch!)
Our November 30 meeting will be held over Internet Relay Chat (IRC). 1995
meeting dates will be devised at the October meeting and possibly at a
follow-up planning dinner.
The Majordomo E-mail list maintainer is now in use at Dartmouth College,
which eases administration of our E-mail announcement service, and also
allows us to set up a higher-traffic discussion list. An overview of the
Majordomo system was given in our May '94 newsletter; you can send a
help request to majordomo@dartmouth.edu for full documentation.
The nneuug-announce list will be used at least once a month, but probably
no more than 20 times a year. If you believe that you are subscribed to
nneuug-announce but go six weeks with no messages, you might want to send
a "subscribe" request to be on the safe side. In the first couple months
of operation, we have experienced some surprising alterations. Your E-mail
address may be dropped if there is a temporary problem in reaching you. The
nneuug-announce list is moderated and is the successor to our old list that
was maintained by hand.
A new list, nneuug@dartmouth.edu, is unmoderated. It may be used by all of
you to send queries and announcements, following the usual netiquette for
bulk mail. Pay particular attention to replies: are you replying to the
sender or the whole list?
Requests to Majordomo are always placed in the body of the E-mail message,
not the subject line. Multiple requests may be entered, and the "end"
request tells Majordomo to cease scanning the message. For example, you can
send this three-line message to majordomo@dartmouth.edu:
unsubscribe nneuug-announce obsolete E-mail address
subscribe nneuug-announce newer/better E-mail address
subscribe nneuug newer/better E-mail address
A different address, nneuug-contact@dartmouth.edu, is used to reach humans.
It's happening in Nashua on October 4th! Over 800 NH-based firms in the
software business, ranging from 1 to several thousand employees, have been
identified and invited to participate. The event takes place all day at the
Sheraton Tara, just off Exit 1 of the Everett Turnpike in Nashua.
Costs to attend are modest: $35 per person for the whole thing, less if
you want to bypass either the lunch or the seminars. Here's the brief schedule:
07:30am - 9:00am Registration, Danish & Coffee
09:00am - Welcome Address, Governor Steve Merrill
09:30am - First sessions of the four tracks (Business, Marketing,
Applications, Technical)
10:30am - Second sessions of the four tracks
11:30am - Third sessions of the four tracks
12:30pm - LUNCHEON with Keynote Address by Phil Adams of PC Connection/Mac
Connection (The Marlow-based companies that sell the NH way of life
on the covers of their software catalogs)
02:00pm - Fourth sessions of the four tracks
03:00pm - Fifth sessions of the four tracks
04:00pm - CEO's Panel: Promoting the Software Industry of New Hampshire
05:30pm - Reception and solicitation of opinions
To register or get the printed flyer, call 603-334-6074.
The trade show booths were all taken some time ago, but there are still ways
to get your (relevant) message to the crowds. Space is available on the
literature rack for your 8+1/2x11 printed piece. Several mingling sessions
will occur. You can book a hotel room directly with the Tara (888-9970) and
use it as a hospitality suite. Each position in the literature rack costs
$20.00 (check payable to "UNH"), plus you provide 500 copies or more of
the piece, which show staffers will replenish during the day. For more
details about the rack or to book your slot, call Frank Catanese at
603-271-2591.
The next Internet seminar at the University of Vermont is a two-day one
entitled "Exploring the Internet: New Resources for Strengthening
Business" and its sponsors include MCI, NEARnet, and NYNEX. It will take
place on November 14 and 15 in Burlington. The target audience is owners
and CIOs of all businesses, not just high-tech. There will be hands-on
lab sessions and several prominent speakers. All considered, the cost of
$195 per person (if received before 10/31/94) is quite reasonable. For
details, call 1-800-639-3188 or send E-mail to wverreib@moose.uvm.edu.
If you have good Internet credentials and are looking for consulting work, try
asking nearby libraries if they have plans to get On The Net. Virtually every
library has been hearing about it. If they're public, they have to be open
and public about their acquisition of services, which would mean issuing a
Request For Proposals (RFP) or something similar. That doesn't mean that they'll
tell *us* about their RFP on their own initiative, so just ask them. There
could be lots of RFPs in the next year or so!
This year's UNIX Expo will take place at the Javits Convention Center in
New York City on October 4-6. New Hampshirites should check out the other
events noted in this newsletter and schedule accordingly. Anyone who has
free exhibits passes: please bring them to the September meeting.
The Greater Nashua Software Entrepreneurs Group, formerly the Software SIG,
has been getting bigger and better. One consequence is that they now charge
$3.00 per person at the door to defray costs. At their meeting of Thursday,
October 6, they will have a presentation about doing business on the
Internet, featuring a speaker from NetMarket, the Nashua company that has
been the subject of major national publicity lately. The meeting is at
the Sheraton Tara hotel in Nashua and starts at 7:00 PM sharp.
If you can't make it but want to know more about NetMarket's plan to sell
products over The Net, send an E-mail query to info@netmarket.com. For
more info about GNSEG (pronounced "ginseng" by many), send the request to
wrwced@mv.mv.com or call 603-881-8333.
At our August meeting about LINUX, we heard about the formation of a
local LINUX group centered around UNH/Durham. They plan to share info
and help others get LINUX up and running on their computers. For details,
send E-mail to rwc@acm.org (Robert Curry).
LINUX is the free work-alike to UNIX that our own Bruce Dawson wrote
about in the September '94 issue of Byte (page 167). The bundle usually
includes source code and favorite binaries. The general sense of the
meeting was that it's worth it to buy a good book and a CD-ROM to get
into it easily. You'll probably want to talk to someone as you install
it, which is where the local groups come in.
Maine's Center for Technology Transfer is in the planning stages for the
Maine Manufacturers Tradeshow for this fall. They are looking for people
to demonstrate software which is marketed to manufacturing companies.
Interested people can call Jake Ward at 581-2200 or send E-mail to
jward@umce.umext.maine.edu.
VISTAnet is about to go on line. That's the Vermont Internet Services
[and] Technology Access network, which has already registered vista.net
as their domain. It will be a commercial service all the way: member of
the Commercial Internet eXchange, provider of Domain Name Service and
IP addresses, offering leased-line connections, and so on. They intend
to provide the type of consulting and advice needed by the purchaser of
"wholesale" access to the Net. The fees will include the circuit, so
the deal will be figured based on the volume of bits that must be moved,
and they claim to be distance-insensitive within Vermont. Dialup access
will be offered in the Burlington area to start, but no personal shell
accounts. At press time, the voice phone was 802-434-3732, but they have
a Burlington number on order.
By the time you read this, a Vermont-based company intends to provide
"wholesale" Internet access to anyone in the country who wants to obtain
a line to Williamsville, just outside Brattleboro. Bill Merriam at FEL
Computing is looking to get a few companies signed up for leased-line
connections (56Kbits and up), then grow with the demand. He doesn't anticipate
providing personal accounts, but others probably will. Physical connection
can be to either Williamsville or Boston. (Dial-up PPP is under consideration.)
If you're interested in getting your whole organization On The Net and want
to know more, call 802-348-7171, extension 115.
You may have heard about TogetherNet (together.org), which is based in
Burlington (VT) and provides E-mail capability to their members. They
accomplish that through a FirstClass BBS (see below for other mentions)
and are thus not a full-fledged Internet Access Provider. They have a
monthly membership fee; call 802-862-2030 to get the whole story, or
send E-mail to todd_tyrell@together.org and ask for their blurb.
You may have heard about VermontNet, but probably not, because information
is not being widely disseminated. It's a service of NYNEX that starts with
InfoPath and hopes to build up to either an online service or a gateway to
the Internet, depending on where you hear about it. You could try calling
1-800-845-1240 to get info.
Several news items have appeared implying that Public TV stations are doing
some form of Internet access, either for schools or for the public at large.
The Internet is sometimes portrayed as an information resource comparable
to CompuServe or America On-Line, or there is an implication that banks of
info are out there for the teachers. The collaborative or web-like aspects
seem to be downplayed. The national projects
(PBS Online, etc.) are a foundation for local projects (such as Vermont ETV
Online), as reported in the 8/12 ComputerWorld. Some of our members may
already be using the Vermont service. If you are involved in this as a
provider or as a leading-edge user, please give us your impressions. You
can tell us at a meeting or send in an article.
The project formerly known as the Upper Valley Community Network has
simplified their name to Valley Net. They intend to provide service to
both individual users and organizations. The Montshire Museum in Norwich
(Vermont, just across the river from Hanover, NH) will handle the
adminstrative chores of user contact; the hub computer is already running
in the Kiewit Computation Center at Dartmouth. Numerous volunteers are
assisting in many ways, including exploration of access for those not
within local calling distance.
An interesting aspect of this plan is their attempt to involve the
FirstClass bulletin board system (BBS) software where appropriate. As
the plans were hatched, FirstClass cropped up in other places such as
the PBS project (see above). It seems to be a common choice in BBS
projects that aspire to bigger connectivity and cross-platform operation.
(FirstClass comes from SoftArc, Inc. of Buffalo/Toronto. Call them at
416-229-4723 or send E-mail to sales@softarc.com for info.) Valley Net
intends to serve end users who have Macintoshes and DOS/Windows systems (as
well as UNIX users), so they have devised software bundles that anticipate
customers who ask for "everything I need to get started."
Initial plans include PPP dial-up for DOS machines, PPP or ARA for Macs.
Valley Net will operate a World Wide Web server so that local organizations
can disseminate their info in a nice format. In the future, there may be
a FirstClass BBS and another type of user account to access it. Schools
will be assisted in setting up their own FirstClass BBS and tying it in,
or in having user accounts directly on Valley Net. To get the school
discount for the latter, the account will be subject to limited hours
of availability. At first, they will not provide domain-name service or
subdomains for subscribing organizations.
The target area includes the Connecticut River valley from approximately
Bradford (VT) to Windsor (VT), on both sides. For now, the E-mail contact
is montshire@dartmouth.edu (put Valley Net somewhere in the subject line)
until their domain name is registered. Voice phone to 802-649-2200 for
more info.
You might ask how this affects Telecomp, the commercial service already
operating in the area. Mike Pearson says that he will continue, but focus
his attention more on his consulting/assistance services. He puts out
(via E-mail) a newsletter of tips about the Internet and on-line
collaboration that is specific to the Connecticut Valley area. Send info
requests (and press releases) to editor@telecomp.com.
At our July meeting, Linda Ford of the Littleton Regional Hospital talked
about an Internet access project that's just beginning up there. Many
organizations in the area have heard about the project and the need to achieve
the critical mass that can pay for the connection to the outside world. If
you're near that area and haven't been in the loop, call 603-444-7731 and
ask for the Library.
MV Communications has announced that they will soon have satellite operations
in Concord and Dover (NH), two cities with large free-local-calling areas.
These will be actual computers, not just call-forwarding. Call MV at
603-429-2223 to find out more.
At our August meeting, Fletcher Kittredge announced that he hoped to have
an Internet access service running in Biddeford (Maine) by early October.
Unlike most of the other projects taking shape in Maine, this service will
begin by offering "shell accounts" for individual users, and will deal
with corporate gateways on a secondary basis. Kittredge says customer
service staff is in place, and he used to work for BBN, where he obtained
experience in the technical side. Future plans include providing local
dial-ups in the most strategic phone exchanges. E-mail contact is
fkittred@river.biddeford.com, voice phone is 207-286-3581.
NetMAINE and MaineStreet Communications are going to work together on
a venture called maine.net, with expertise available for both the
technology of connecting and the exploitation of Net services such as
the World Wide Web. Like the FEL project described above, their pricing
model is aimed at organizations that want to have a link to a server-type
machine. They'll quote prices for a leased T1 line if you want, and they
will take customers from anywhere in the USA. Info requests can go to
atr@maine.net or by voice phone to 207-780-6381.
The Androscoggin Valley Community Network is up and running. If you are
near the Lewiston-Auburn area, your local library or BBS can help you
get hooked in. The AVCN doesn't provide shell accounts or other end-user
services, at least not at this time.
The Maine Science & Technology Board is hoping to provide a service that
would fill the needs of business to get business-oriented information from
the Internet. At press time, we have no information about their progress.
One aspect of Internet connectivity became clear at our discussion in
July. Whoever is the first person in the local area to get On The Net
will be getting lots of phone calls from local people who want to feed
off the connection. We've seen this with the debut of decvax in the Nashua
area at the beginning of the Eighties, right on through to all the
attention focused on Keene State College that led to the formation of
MonadNet. Sometimes that pioneering organization will treat the calls as
a hassle, sometimes they'll help out so much it will cost them big money,
and sometimes they'll try to re-direct the energy toward the formation
of a community network or service provider.
Local phone calling areas suggest the Internet service areas. The state-
wide "community" projects that we've heard about don't provide the same
kind of coalescing point as the pioneering local site. Coalescing
around content (similar interests) brings its own issues. At the meeting,
it was pointed out that those who want to provide some kind of on-line
content could just worry about their own connection to the Net, using
E-mail to disperse the content. (An alternative is to set up a BBS, if
the target audience is willing to dial it.) There are many options for
E-mail as opposed to Usenet News or the World Wide Web.
With many projects starting up to provide connections to the net, those
who wish to provide information are getting the highway on which to drive
their trucks. At the meeting it was asserted that there is plenty of
willingness to provide the info once the community seems to be adequately
wired. For example, will the school boards put their agendas on-line
willingly? Our audience said "Sure. No Problem."
We finally got some info back from their automatic E-mail system. Send a
message to computer_info@tcm.org with a subject line of "request" and a
message body that contains the single line "send help instructions". In
return, you will get an explanation of the on-line info system.
In our past IRC-based meetings, we've discussed the possibility of
enhancing IRC to establish the role of discussion leader, as distinct from
a channel operator. The discussion leader would control a "current
agenda item" display, which would probably be a single line of text, and
all the users on the channel could easily see the current agenda item.
That makes it easy to enter the channel in the middle and see what the
current topic is, and it keeps the discussions more on topic. If you
have ideas about how to implement this, let us know.