Driest November Newsletter on record + Christmas present ideas !!!!

CONTENTS

Introduction

Eighth Layer News

Not in The Fine(?) Manual

Typing European Characters in Linux

BIND Patch Release

IT Business in the South West

Karat Krunchers

Eurobell Sold

Industry News

Domain Names - more and foreign

Recommended Web Sites

Wireless Networking

Wireless Networking and Commercial Products

Statistics of Server and Web Server Varieties

Christmas Presents for the Geek who has Everything....

Subscription Details

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Introduction

November is dull and depressing - so I have brought the Christmas issue

forward to help cheer everyone up.

I even have some Christmas present ideas for the Geek who has

everything. Christmas present inspiration is even rarer than technical

know-how.

Enjoy,

Simon

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Eighth Layer News

Well Eighth Layer will soon celebrate it's first birthday. It has been a

good year, not exactly Microsoft like growth, but then we wouldn't want

to be like Microsoft, although the odd billion wouldn't go amiss. We had

fun, paid the bills and made a small profit.

Plans are well in hand to spend the profits on experimenting with

Wireless networking and other potential products.

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Not in the Fine(?) Manual

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Typing European characters in Linux (with a US/UK keyboard).

Someone asked how to do this - and having pondered overly complex

HOWTO's the answer is....

X Windows supports the concept of a compose key to allow you to

construct characters from components. Alas IBM, unlike SUN, decided not

to have a 'compose' character on their PC keyboards (The old IBM

terminals use to have them).

Microsoft have been busy extending the standard PC keyboard with

meaningless logo ridden keys - so we can make one of them compose.

All US and UK keyboard users need do is add the line:

keycode 117 = Multi_key

To the ".Xmodmap" file in their home directory - then log out and in of

their X windows desktop to make the key with a funny menu picture on

'compose'. (Use Xev is the key mapping doesn't work, to find out what

number you wanted in place of 117).

With the compose key defined...

a Umlaut is typed by pressing 'compose', 'a' and '"' in sequence.

c cedilla is type by pressing 'compose', ',', 'c'.

Hopefully you get the idea, and no I don't know how to turn the ? upside

down. But you could always redefine another key using Xmodmap.

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BIND Patch Release

Mentioned in many placed including www.isc.org - couple of DoS bugs in

the most widely used version of Bind have been patched recently.

Internet facing DNS servers should be patched or moved to version 9.

This is the first BIND patch for ages.

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IT Business in the South West of England

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KaratKruncher's

Local IT and business types meet occasionally as part of an organisation

known as Karat Krunch. Alas I missed the last meeting so can't report if

they are any good. The next meeting is on the 14th December in Plymouth

and I hope to attend.

More details on http://www.karatkrunch.org/

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Eurobell sold to Telewest

Eurobell got three scattered Cable TV franchises (Including the South

West) and was always regarded as a potential take-over target. Rather

later than some analysis have predicted Deutsche Telekom have sold it

for 200 million GBP.

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Industry News

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Domain names seem to be the topic of the moment, with ICANN making

decisions on what new top level domain names will be allocated and who

will manage them, as well as deciding on how they will proceed with

multilingual domain names.

Whilst the various proposals for new top level domains haven't grabbed

my attention, the multilingual domain names are long overdue in my

opinion.

Without an agreed way forward, non-English speaking web users have been

forced either to type in web site URL's in English characters, or rely

on systems like iDNS which whilst good wasn't guaranteed to become the

official standard or widely used. So they might find themselves in a

Internet Cafe unable to visit there favourite sites because they didn't

know the English name for the site.

http://www.icann.org/

http://www.i-DNS.net/

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Recommended Web Sites

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Wireless Networking

Wireless networking may seem a contradiction, but it is possible to

network office PC's together without the expense of traditional wiring.

This is especially convenient for Laptop users, who can take the Laptop

where ever they go, and don't have to fiddle around with wires.

In environments where people are often plugging Laptops in and out of

Office networks wireless can even offer security benefits, by ensuring

all users have an appropriate encryption key before they can see any

data on your network. Contrast conventional Ethernet where any connected

machine can sniff packets or scan servers without any authentication.

Wireless networking received a big boost with the 802.11b standard

taking performance up from 2 Mbps to 11Mbps. The WiFi initiative also

helps ensure that different manufacturers products interoperate

smoothly.

I am currently investigating some possibilities with the technology,

especially in anticipation of forthcoming 55Mbps versions of the

technology.

Wireless LANs delivered the equipment ordered from their web site the

next day, since this was by UK Post Office the Post Office deserve a

little credit.

Their current web site is business-like in appearance. My transaction

went through first time - no reloads, no fuss, no errors. A new web site

is planned for launch in December with discussion groups and bulletin

boards etc.

http://www.wirelesslans.co.uk/

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Wireless Ethernet and Commercial Products

The Wireless Ethernet technology uses the part of the radio Spectrum

reserved for industrial, scientific and medical uses. This includes

everything from Microwave paint drying equipment to those devices that

let you watch you video from TV's in other rooms.

Supplying commercial services over this part of the spectrum requires a

license - although some 'not for profit' groups are using the technology

to build community networks. Internal corporate or private use is

restricted only by an upper limit on the transmission power.

Spectrum Issues in the UK are dealt with by Annette Henley at the Radio

Agency.

http://www.radio.gov.uk/

Henry O'Tani has been building a web site dedicated to community

Wireless projects and technologies.

http://www.wlan.org.uk/

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Statistics of Server and Web Server Varieties

Here is an interesting source of information on the market penetration

of various products into the web server market. Like all statistics it

is worth examining the results, and looking at how the data is gathered.

http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/index.html

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Christmas Presents for the Geek who has Everything....

Okay everybody hates Christmas shopping as you never know what to buy.

Technical people seem to be perpetually after expensive gadgets so some

ideas for cheaper things to get them.....

Techie Tee-Shirts that don't come free from big vendors

Buy a Christmas present and contribute to the Open Source movement at

the same time. Lots of witty tee-shirt designs and other Open Source

merchandise - I particularly liked the spoof Nostradamus prophecy - from

'copyleft'.

http://www.copyleft.net/

If you like Copyleft's humour, O'Reilly Books, or the Bastard Operator

from Hell column, try the 'Bastard Operator from Hell Cam' website.

http://bofhcam.org/

Non Techie tee-shirts and mouse mats

Even struggling artists have reverted to e-merchandising this Christmas.

No this doesn't have anything to do with Eighth Layer I just thought

Paul would like the free advert. Most of Paul's other websites are

suited to an adult audience only - you have been warned.

http://www.cafepress.com/pfrh

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Subscription Details

Eighth Layer News subscription is still done the old fashion way by

hand.

The newsletter is free, and you are welcome to pass it on to colleagues,

but please do encourage them to subscribe, so I know who I'm writing

for.

To subscribe or unsubscribe e-mail

Simon.Waters@eighth-layer.com

Archive copies are kept on the website

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