Chaos Corner V03 N05 9 August 1993

Copyright 1993 by Robert D. Cowles; Ithaca, NY 14850.  Permission is
hereby granted to republish complete issues in unaltered form.
Republication of partial issues must reference the source and state
that subscriptions to Chaos Corner are available (free) by sending
electronic mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.

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Slow Mail Distribution Possible

This issue my be distributed more slowly than normal.  There is
currently a mail loop on the Internet due to a host in Japan rejecting
some of the White House news summaries and the Listserv responsible for
distributing the summaries doesn't appear smart enough to stop it.  Dr.
Chaos would dearly like to turn this situation into some lesson but I
think the situation speaks for itself.

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Mailbag - What does .gz suffix on files mean?

Thanks to Gerhard Rentschler in Stuttgart and Achim Dreyer in Paderborn
for informing me that the .gz suffix on files means that they have been
compressed with the GNU version of the ZIP software.  Achim even sent
along the Unix MAN documentation pages for the gzip, gunzip and zcat
commands.  By the way, Dr, Chaos points out that gunzip can handle file
compressed with gzip, and also zip, compress, and pack.   Looks like a
handy command to have around on a Unix system.  Vielen Dank!

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Mailbag - E-mail to Antarctica

David Coughran pointed out that when his brother was stationed at the
South Pole, they exchanged mail through a machine that was supposed to
have a satellite relay for messages.  The technique was to send the mail
to spole@atsvax.rsmas.miami.edu and put the name of the person you were
sending to in the subject line.  It certainly is another technique and
the one you use MAY depend on where you are stationed.

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CHAOS CORNER is WORLD-WIDE

Ron McCoy happened to see someone from McMurdo Sound post something to
the weather list (wx-talk) and gave Dr. Chaios his electronic mail
address.  Within 24 hours, Matt Stinson responded to the call and is now
our first subscriber from "way-down-under" (or "way-up-on-top").  Chaos
Corner now goes to all 7 continents.

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Apologies for the Garbage

If your last issue of Chaos Corner came through looking a little
garbled, we had a slight problem in getting "smart quotes" turned off
soon enough in Word4Windows (running under OS/2, of course).  It seems
that some mail transports detected the non-standard ASCII characters in
the file and converted it to some other encoding scheme.  We can send
you a "clean copy" of the last issue if you need one.

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IBM ThinkPad 720c

One reason that this issue is a little later than normal in coming out
is that I have invested significant time the past month in becoming more
productive (and if you believe that .... ); and am now the proud owner
of an IBM ThinkPad 720c, with 12 MB RAM (before memory prices went
out of sight in the past month), 160 MB disk, and two PCMCIA cards: and
IBM Ethernet adapter, and a MegaHertz X-Jack 14.4 data/fax modem.  Dr.
Chaos and I fight over who gets to play with the new toy all the time.
The machine is really a dream; from the large active-matrix color screen
(we have read that it is the only laptop that meets German standards
because there are requirements for how large the letters must be on a
24x80 screen that can only be met by one that is at least 10.4 inches
measured diagonally.  The machine has OS/2 2.1 and TCP/IP for OS/2
installed on it ... so using the Ethernet adapter we have achieved file
transfers with FTP of 250KB to 320KB per second to pelican on the same
network (no gateways in between).

The X-Jack modem is nice ... it has a retractable connector that the
RJ-11 plug fits directly into.  The only problem is that MegaHertz has
yet to develop the necessary software drivers to (1) get the modem to
operate under OS/2; and (2) to get the modem to operate in a fashion
that is consistent with the "Card and Socket Services" that is supposed
to be used as the interface to all PCMCIA cards under OS/2.  According
to the BBS that MegaHertz runs, they expected to have OS/2 drivers in a
couple of weeks ... and that was 7 weeks ago.

This file is being written on the ThinkPad while I am accessing my
stored files via slip through a Zoom V.32bis modem.  I will be sending
it out using LaMail that comes with the IBM TCPIP package.  Look
carefully at the "From:" line if you want to get some clue as to how
secure Internet mail transport really is.  We point that out not so you
will try to send mail as your boss, but so you will maintain some degree
of healthy skepticism about the origin of mail files you receive.  By
the way, for those of you looking for a way to move from a VM/CMS
version of mail to a more politically correct one, LaMail under OS/2
will use your CMS NAMES file with almost no changes.  There is also an
add-ins available from ftp-os2.cdrom.com in os2/2_x/network:
lampop11.zip gives an interface to POP3 mail servers; nistime.zip
provides an interface to the Internet time service and allow you to set
your PCs clock correctly; os2gofer.zip and os2wais.zip provide gopher
and wais clients, respectively; and ltimes11.zip (LaTimes) provides
an interface to NNTP Usenet News servers.

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IBM Support BBS

One great source of information that has been very helpful, especially
for a machine as new as the ThinkPad 720c and an operating system just
recently released as OS/2 2.1 (we're real gluttons for punishment here)
is the IBM Support BBS.  If you have a modem, you can always get the
latest versions of reference diskettes, diagnostic diskettes, drivers,
etc. from this bulletin-board system ... it's at (404) 835-6600 for
right now ... but as of August 27, 1993, locate it at (919) 517-0001.
The OS/2 drivers for the IBM Ethernet adapter card were not available
when we picked up the machine, but on July 17th they appeared on the BBS
and we have been using them ever since.

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Downsizing Expo

We have just returned from this year's Downsizing Expo.  There are some
interesting changes in what appears to be the conventional wisdom this
year as opposed to last year.  We will soon be announcing the
availability of our notes (thanks to having a laptop) ... if you would
like a copy, just ask for it at chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu
... and they're guaranteed to get out ssoner than the notes from last
year (which never got out at all).

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Open Vendors and Open Specifications

We listened to a number of vendors talk about how "open" they were.  It
appears that vendors like Microsoft and Novell believe that they are
open because when they make up a new standard, they publish the specs
"openly" so that anyone can follow them (of course, they still retain
control over the spec and feel free to make any changes they want to).
Other vendors support the open standards that are not under the control
of a single vendor ... and that seems to be what we really want when we
talk about open systems.  Hats off to those vendors!  (As usual, IBM is
a large enough company that it does both at the same time!)

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KERMIT faster than ZMODEM?

It has always beeen common wisdom that if you wanted to used the fastest
PC file transfer protocol, you used Zmodem ... with the standard DOS
implementation being available as the shareware program DSZ from Omen
Technologies.  If you wanted to use a more solid and universally
available protocol, you used Kermit, a freeware program available from
Colombia University ... and you paid for that by having to live with a
slower form of file transfer.  No More!  According to the latest Kermit
Digest, the newest versions of MS-DOS Kermit (3.13) and C-Kermit 5A(189)
(available for VMS, Unix and OS/2) now understand a fast transfer mode
that can allow them to meet or exceed the speed of Zmodem transfers!  To
get the latest version of Kermit, look in the /kermit/bin directory at
watsun.cc.columbia.edu.  For MS-DOS Kermit, get the file msvibm.zip
(don't forget to use 'binary' transfer mode), for OS/2 2.x get the file
ckoker32.exe (get ckoker16.exe for releases 1.x).  If you want the Unix
version for a particular machine look for files of the form
ckuker.<system-name>, e.g. ckuker.sparc.sunos41c or ckuker.unixware for
binaries that have already been compiled for the appropriate system.

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Educational Software Guide

A Parent-Teacher Association in Maryland has put together a guide to
educational software that may serve as a good starting point for getting
kids to work with computers.  Not only are programs given a score, but
the guide includes vendor addresses and telephone numbers.  If you woud
like a copy, ask Dr. Chaos at chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu.

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CERT Advisory for Anonymous FTP Providers

The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) has been receiving an
increasing number of reports of people misusing anonymous FTP.  To
protect anonymous FTP as a resource service on the net, CERT has issued
some configuration guidelines on the accepted ways to set up your system
to provide an anonymous FTP service.  For your own copy of the CERT
advisory send electronic mail to chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu
or get the original (or any CERT advisories) from /pub/cert_advisories
of the machine cert.org (192.88.209.5) by anonymous FTP (we assume that
they have their directories set up correctly).

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Need Translation between IP Address and Hostname?

The University of California at Berkeley has an experimental server
available that allows one to do searches of host nametables, BITNET node
tables, etc.  Just issue the telnet command to host netinfo.berkekey.edu
and specify port 117 (usually that is the second parameter on the telent
command line).  Entering a ? will get you a list of the commands.  Of
course, you might need to know the IP address to get there ... so use
128.32.206.12 or 128.32.136.12.

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Like Directory Viewer in "Jurassic Park"?

It can be yours ... that is if you use (or know someone who uses) a
Silicon Graphics machine.  The binaries for the program are on the host
sgi.sgi.com in the directory /sgi/fsn.  Look for file fsn.tar.Z and
check out the README in the same directory for more information about
the program.

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Images from "Jurassic Park"

If you would like GIF or JPG images from some scenes of the film
Jurassic Park, look in the gifserv/jurassic/gif or gifserv/jurassic/jpg
directories of merlin.etsu.edu ... there are about 15 jpg files and
twice as many gif files there for your enjoyment.  The machine is at
East Texas State University (Central Time Zone) and they restrict the
number of anonymous FTP users from off-campus during prime hours.

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Get you Free Subscription Here!

Just send a message to Dr. Chaos - chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu
and ask to be put on the subscription list.  It's that easy.  Don't
delay ---- act now!

Dr. Chaos (I have a Master's degree ....)

.
