Back to Newsletters DAVROM CONSULTING Newsletter - Issue # 12 - Dated: Sun Aug 11 20:37:19 EST 2002 From the desk of David Clark I have recently been to a few sites which were upgrading to the latest version of OpenServer 5.0.6. I can't count the number of times I go to get the previous version of the software licences at such sites only to find the very history of the site stashed in a cupboard somewhere there: a previous version of OpenServer, then some older media such as SCO UNIX 3.2v4.2 or even back to the old Xenix software. These sites are a testimony in themselves of the un-equaled legacy of the reliability of SCO and UNIX/Linux in general. When I ask customers (yes I dare to ask) how have they found running UNIX they always tell me that they wouldn't use anything else - it doesn't break and if there is some issue it only happens once in a blue moon unlike other platforms. Seems like the last few weeks for me have been ISP and Domain related - for DAVROM that is. If any of your e-mails have been bouncing or you haven't been able to get to our website, please try again. Here are some new/updated local links on our website you may like to look over: http://www.davrom.com/openserver.html http://www.davrom.com/lscrharticle.html http://www.davrom.com/solarisintel.html I would like to thank the reader for their time in reading this newsletter. David.M.Clark SnapGear I recently had the pleasure of installing a SnapGear Lite server for a customer. The SnapGear Lite is a robust and low priced Internet gateway/firewall product that offers you ease of setup (via web browser) for ADSL, cable and/or serial modem connections to the Internet. All this for less than $500. In this instance I was connecting the customer via ADSL and was amazed at how quickly and easily the product installed and ran in the local LAN environment. This particular customer was running a few Windows PCs that were using a specific Windows PC to route to the Internet, but this was not reliable. By simply installing the SnapGear Lite and then pointing all the PCs to the SnapGear Lite as their gateway, they were surfing the net in seconds. The plus for me is that these devices are modeled on a Linux based firmware so extra rules and command line functions are available in addition to the comprehensive web browser options. SnapGear offer a range of products from the Lite model up to the Pro+, each giving you further options like integrated switches, more serial ports and higher levels of VPN throughput. Where would you install these devices? Virtually any site that requires a broadband connection or modem dialup (dynamic or static IP) would install a SnapGear device but you still need to purchase the modem (ADSL/Cable/Serial) from your ISP or supplier as the SnapGear is the interface between the modem and the local network. For more information on SnapGear products, please do not hesitate to contact us. I'm Gaim In DAVROM Newsletter #4 I touched on online messaging for the Linux desktop and indicated that I had used ICQ Java, Licq and then Everybuddy all in an attempt to keep in touch with customers, colleagues and friends on the Internet. I wanted to combine my ICQ and MSN contacts under one product instead of running multiple apps so I tried out Everybuddy with varying success. I found with Everybuddy that ICQ doesn't always communicate and ICQ users don't always get my messages. As for MSN, I could only see one user on-line, the original one I added at the start and no-one could see me. Having recently upgraded my Linux desktop I stumbled across a multi-protocol messaging product modeled on AIM called Gaim (Gnome-AIM). This product allows you to communicate with other users on ICQ, MSN, AIM and TOC all via one single screen. The screen contacts are grouped into their specific protocol (ICQ, MSN etc) but can be further put into individual groups such as "Buddies". Nice on-line messaging product and it runs under KDE beautifully. See you on the net: ICQ: 16595618 MSN: dmcrmc@hotmail.com Tech Tip A nice utility that allows you to download files from websites using the command line is "wget". Consider the following example: wget http://www.davromproducts.com/files/drivers/intelpro100b.gz the above line will download the file "intelpro100b.gz" from the location on the server "www.davromproducts.com". wget comes with a host of options such as allowing you to specify a proxy server but the main feature of wget that I really like is that it allows you to retry loading partially downloaded files using the "-c" option: wget -c http://www.davromproducts.com/files/drivers/intelpro100b.gz The wget utility is normally found on your Linux installation media CDs but you can also download it from places such as "rpmfind.net" or "freshmeat.com". One useful suggestion for wget is if you need to download files non-interactively with a cron based script for example, wget will do all the work for you and you could even use it to download files on your local network as well. wget will retrieve files from "ftp" based servers as well as HTML based servers. Back to Newsletters 
Website design by Davrom Consulting Pty Ltd This site is fully tested with Google Chrome and Firefox web bowsers Home Page | Support | Misc | David's Pages | Podcasts | Contact Us | Blog |
