CONTENTS
Introduction
Eighth Layer News
Hacker's Eye View
Improve Your Web Site
Is your Web Site Robot-Friendly?
Is your Web Site Cache-Friendly?
Find broken links to your Web Site!
Finding errors in your web pages.
Not in The Fine(?) Manual
IT Business in the South West
Industry News
Recommended Web Sites
Subscription Details
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Introduction
Hi, and welcome to the second edition of Eighth Layer News.
This edition is focused on web site building, and I'm sure there is much for both the experienced web site builder as well as the beginner.
Those not interested in web site design, or technical stuff, should skip "Improve your website", and "Not in the Fine Manual". Also check out the recommended web sites for some useful hints and tips.
The next edition will be less technical - honest.
Regards
Simon
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Eighth Layer News
What is the first thing a would-be hacker finds when he looks at your company's presence on the Internet?
Find out with Eighth Layer's new product "Hacker's Eye View". This product is aimed primarily at companies with a leased line connection to the Internet.
http://www.wretched.demon.co.uk/hacker.htm
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Is your Web Site Robot-Friendly?
If you want Internet search engines to list your web site on the first page of results returned, you better make sure it is easy for their robots to read.
http://simonwaters.technocool.net/eighth/knowledge/robots.htm
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Is your Web Site Cache-Friendly?
This excellent article by Mark Nottingham explains how your web site can appear faster without sacrificing content.
http://www.mnot.net/cache_docs/
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Find broken links to your Web Site!
There are lots of tools to ensure that none of the links on your web site are broken, but for sites wishing to go one better there is a service which will not only check that links at your site are correct, but will also tell you about broken links from other sites if it finds them.
A reseller service is available to web hosting companies.
http://www.seventwentyfour.com/
Eighth Layer limited does not (yet) use this service, and can not vouch for its quality.
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Finding Errors on your web site.
Even if your web pages are generated entirely by a desktop publishing tool it may not be completely standard-conforming. Standard-conformance can also help ensure web pages work well across Browsers (Web Browsers like Internet Explorer 5 will have a go at interpreting almost any tangled document, which leads to some interesting discussions in the security forums).
A number of people offer tools to check web pages. A free tool is available from the people who set the standards. This tool is very pedantic, and not the easiest to use, but it is free, and comes from the right stable.
http://validator.w3.org/
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Not in the Fine(?) Manual
RTFM is the Internet acronym for "Read The Fine(?) Manual". However Eighth Layer's new technical section contains details on things that are not in the manual, but perhaps should have been. These items are not for the technically faint-hearted. Normal people should skip to the IT business in the South West section.
Still not gone to the next section? Well you were warned....
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Firewalling Oracle Net8 on NT
Explains how to use port filtering with Oracle on NT.
http://simonwaters.technocool.net/eighth/knowledge/oraclent.htm
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HP-UX and rexecd logging
Our experiences whilst ensuring we log all user authentications on a BAAN implementation.
http://simonwaters.technocool.net/eighth/knowledge/hprexecd.htm
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NAT and DNS - the Cisco Application Level Gateway
A more readable explanation of Cisco's DNS_ALG, for the serious Network Address Translation user.
http://simonwaters.technocool.net/eighth/knowledge/dnsalg.htm
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IT Business in the South West of England
Exeter University is busy building an 'Innovation Centre'. Here they plan to house many high-tech companies which wish to utilise the University's research facilities. Exeter still boasts one of the most beautiful campuses in the UK. For more details e-mail business@ex.ac.uk, or contact Sean Fielding on +44(0)1392 263181.
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Industry News
A very biased view of the last few weeks IT news. We tend to ignore the multi-billion dollar takeovers, and focus on the stories that interest us. If you want comprehensive news see our "Recommended Web Sites" section in this issue.
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Solaris 8 Licensing
Eighth Layer's newsflash bought you news of SUN's announcement that Solaris 8 will be free for some commercial users shortly after it broke (Officially). We think it may not make as much difference as you might first think, as LINUX has better support for PC hardware. Solaris will become a niche market free UNIX - where people need some of its more advanced features.
Still, the timing of the announcement, coming the month before the Windows 2000 launch, piles more pressure on MicroSoft.
http://www.sun.com/
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CheckPoint to support LINUX
CheckPoint software, makers of Firewall-1 have announced they will issue a LINUX version of Firewall-1. They also revealed they are very happy with early performance figures for Firewall-1 on LINUX.
CheckPoint have managed to get themselves selected as the firewall vendor of choice for many large corporations. Although judging by the recent financial results, WatchGuard may be overtaking them in terms of number of implementations.
Thus the availability of Firewall-1 on a free operating system will substantially reduce the price of installing Firewall-1, and makes the product much more price competitive.
http://www.checkpoint.com/
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Recommended Web Sites
I've been asked, "Where do you learn all this stuff about computers?". Well the answer is I run up a huge phone bill reading about them on the Internet. Here are some of the sources I use. Some are new, some are old and faithful IT resources.
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http://www.theitportal.com/
"The IT Portal" is designed to be a definitive web site for technical information for the UK IT professionals. It is only just launching, and faces some stiff competition from International sites. We tried it out on searching for information on "Web Caching appliances". Not many hits, but the quality was excellent, with an independent review of CacheFlow product featuring highly.
Early adopters stand to get some nice industry marketing freebies. The site aims to bring information from other sources, rather than be a definitive guide.
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http://www.idg.net/
This site caters for both IT Dummies, and hardened LINUX gurus. IDG is the largest IT publishing house, and this site provides free access to a lot of the material they publish.
For almost anyone who uses a computer, these people have a newsletter specific to your needs. From "Dummies hint of the day on Outlook Express", to more esoteric topics. The quality is variable, but the coverage is pretty comprehensive.
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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@wretched.demon.co.uk
Copyright Eighth Layer Limited 2000. Remember copyright allows exclusions for study, and personal use, I'll ony get upset if you make more money out of my rambing than I do. Archive copies are kept on the website http://www.eighth-layer.com/