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NOTE: UNIGROUP MEETING IS ON THE 4TH THURSDAY THIS MONTH!
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UNIGROUP OF NEW YORK MAY 2002 ANNOUNCEMENTS
===========================================

   ------------------------------------------------
1. UNIGROUP'S MAY 2002 GENERAL MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT
   ------------------------------------------------

      When:  Thursday, May 23, 2002
             **************************
             Note: +1 Week From Normal!
             **************************

     Where:  The Chase Manhattan Bank
             55 Water Street (enter at Old Slip)
             South Tower
             13th Floor, Conference Room C
             **********************************************
             YOU MUST RSVP TO GET PAST SECURITY, SEE BELOW!
             **********************************************

      Time:  6:15 PM - 6:30 PM  Registration
             6:30 PM - 6:40 PM  Ask the Wizard,
                                Questions, Answers and Current Events
             6:40 PM - 6:50 PM  Unigroup Business
             6:50 PM - 9:30 PM  Main Presentation

             -----------------------------------------------------
     Topic:  Internet Collaboration: How do SysAdmins Write Books?
             -----------------------------------------------------

   Speaker:  Tom Limoncelli,
             Lumeta Corp. 


   SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS:
   ---------------------

   * IN ORDER TO PASS THROUGH SECURITY AT CHASE, WE NEED YOU TO RSVP
   * PRIOR TO THURSDAY, SO WE CAN GET YOUR NAME ON THE ATTENDEE LIST.
   * ADVANCE REGISTRATION AND PHOTO ID ARE REQUIRED!
   * RSVP DEADLINE 23-MAY-2002 08:00AM.  <<<< PAY ATTENTION, DEADLINE!

   Please RSVP if you know you are attending or if you think you may
   be attending.  This will help us arrange for a letter to security
   for all of Unigroup.  It will also help us to determine the correct
   amount of food and refreshments.

   To REGISTER for this event, please RSVP by:

   a) If at all possible, please use the Unigroup Registration Page:
         http://www.unigroup.org/unigroup-rsvp.html
      This will allow us to have some automation in the RSVP process.

   b) If you must Email us, send an EMail containing the FIRST and
      LAST NAMEs of the persons attending to the Unigroup RSVP address:
         unigroup-rsvp@unigroup.org
      The Email subject should start with "RSVP".
      You may optionally include your contact phone number (that day)
      or other current information.

      DO NOT simply reply to this email, sending us back the entire
      announcement (we already have it); leaving the subject as it
      was, and NOT containing the phrase "RSVP" as requested.  In
      that case, your message just looks like failed mail and it
      makes it impossible to automate the RSVP process and get
      you registered for our event.

   Please continue to check the Unigroup web site:
        http://www.unigroup.org
   for any last minute updates concerning this meeting.  Please
   check your email for any last minute announcements prior to the
   meeting.  Note that only the Attendee First and Last Names will
   be provided to Chase Security.


   Description of Talk:
   --------------------

   It's easy to do a new project: Just take everything you've learned
   before, and reuse it the best you can.  When Tom Limoncelli and
   Christine Hogan wrote the new book "The Practice of System and
   Network Administration" they had a couple challenges: They didn't
   know each other.  They were five time zones apart.  They had to
   share and interact with gigabytes of data.  Their solution was to
   apply their sysadmin tools to the process.  To solve their Internet
   collaboration needs, they used the tools commonly found in Open
   Source collaborations (CVS, SSH, Make, Apache, and so on).  To
   deal with the fact that they didn't know each other, they applied
   the "soft skills" concepts presented in the book.

   This talk will cover the techniques they used to collaborate on a
   project that would envelope their entire lives for more than two
   years.  Amazingly enough, the book was completed, nobody went crazy
   in the process, and they've still only met in person 7 times.

   The book can be previewed at:
       http://www.EverythingSysadmin.com

   or it can be ordered here:
       http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201702711/safocus-20

   While this talk sounds like it's about collaboration, it's really
   about system administration.  The project had security requirements,
   reliability requirements, bandwidth requirements, processes to be
   defined, and tons of scripting.  The talk will cover all of these
   issues and more.  Tom had commented that he can't imagine how a
   non-sysadmin could ever write a book!


   Web Resources:
   --------------

   1. EverythingSysadmin           http://www.everythingsysadmin.com


   Giveaways:
   ----------

   O'Reilly has provided us with various giveaways (books, t-shirts,
   discount coupons, etc).  We will continue to raffle off items to
   our meeting attendees.


   Speaker Biography:
   ------------------

   (borrowed from http://www.everythingsysadmin.com/abouttomchris.html)

   Thomas A. Limoncelli is Director of Operations at Lumeta
   Corporation, a venture startup that focuses on intranet security.
   Most of Tom's experience comes from his seven years at AT&T Bell
   Labs (later Lucent Bell Labs) where he supported the network used
   by the researchers and scientists, and lead the effort to separate
   the Holmdel Bell Labs network between AT&T, Lucent and NCR when
   the company split into three.

   He got his fundamentals from his three years at Mentor Graphics,
   Corp.  Prior to that he was at Drew University in Madison, New
   Jersey where he received his B.A. in Computer Science.

   Outside of work Tom is a grass-roots civil-rights activist, from
   which he gains experience that directly applies to his career in
   computers.  Tom's first published paper extolled lessons that SAs
   can learn from activists.  His activism has been recognized on the
   state and national level.  Tom doesn't see a much difference
   between his work and activism careers.  They are both about
   helping people.

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  Complimentary Food and Refreshments will be served.  This now includes
  salads and sandwiches (eg. turkey, roast beef, chicken, tuna, grilled
  eggplant, pasta salad, Caesar salad)!

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Directions:
     55 Water Street is between Water Street & Front Streets at Old Slip...
     about 7 blocks south of Fulton St. and the South Street Seaport.
     Take 4 train to Bowling Green & Walk Due East;
     Take 2/3 trains to Wall Street, Walk East to Water St.
          then walk South 5 blocks;
     Take M/J trains to Broad St., Walk East to Water St.;
     Take N/R trains to Whitehall St., Walk North East to Water St.
     Walking from Wall St., follow William St. south which bends around
          and leads you to Hanover Sq. and Old Slip is across Water Street.
     ** Note the parking situation is TOTALLY UNKNOWN.
        We believe that the parking lot inside Chase will be OFF LIMITS.

  Room Location Specifics:
     Enter the building at Old Slip.  To get to the South Tower of the
     complex, you enter the building at Old Slip at the "North Tower"
     doors.  This entrance is is immediately to the right of the main
     entrance, towards Water Street... ie. Use the right-most side doors
     rather than walking straight ahead at the Old Slip entrance.
     Go past the guard's desk (mentioning you are heading for Unigroup,
     sometimes there is a sign-in) to the elevator bank and go to the 13th
     floor.  When you get to the 13th floor, follow the signs leading you
     to the meeting room.

     The signs will lead you from the elevator, through a set of doors
     (soda machine will be on your left), then past the cafeteria.  After
     the cafeteria, you see another "lobby" area.  Walk past the cash
     machines, make a left and look for a sign marking the meeting room.
     Conference Room C will be on your left.

     If you come very early, we may not have the signs in place yet, but
     hopefully these directions will get you to the meeting room.
     If you arrive before Unigroup Board Members, please be patient and
     wait for us to arrive.

  -----

  Fee Schedule:
         Yearly Membership (includes all meetings):      $ 50.00
       * Non-Member Single Meeting:                      $ 20.00
         Student Yearly Membership:                      $ 20.00
         Non-Member Student Single Meeting (with ID):    $  5.00
         Cash, Check, American Express.
       * Employees of Chase (with ID) can attend general meetings at no charge.

    ==>  Unigroup is the Greater NYC Regional Area Affiliate
         of UniForum - an International Unix Users Group.
         Our Joint Membership Program with UniForum is currently
         on hold due to circumstances at UniForum.
         For information about UniForum visit http://www.uniforum.org.

  -----

  Please mark this meeting on your calendar and join us!
  Please tell your friends about Unigroup!

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   -----------------
2. UPCOMING MEETINGS
   -----------------

   We have a series of meetings in the works:

   - Zope  (Web Page Development)
   - High Performance Internet Servers / Web Acceleration
   - Unix 30th Birthday Celebration
   - IPsec and IPv6
   - Linux Clustering Part 3: Beowulf version 2
   - Building a Firewall using FreeBSD and Linux
   - Unix Office Tools: Word Processors, Spreadsheets, Accounting Packages.
   - Emacs
   - PKI
   - GNU Development Environments
   - Meetings on a variety of Sun/Solaris/Java topics

   Please let us know about any other meeting topics that you may be
   interested in.  Potential speakers on Unix related technology topics
   should contact the Unigroup board at uniboard@unigroup.org.

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   -------------
3. PRIOR MEETING
   -------------

   a) Our March 2002 meeting was a very lively meeting on the topic of
      LTSP - The Linux Terminal Server Project (including EtherBoot).
      Our speaker, Andrew Williams and his other colleges from VarTech
      Solutions set up a nice demonstration of LTSP using a series of
      small and inexpensive computers that they were able to bring to
      our meeting.  Andrew is a member of the LTSP project and an active
      user of LTSP for commercial applications.  The meeting was technical
      and a lot of information was transfered by our speakers and other
      members of the audience.  Thanks Andrew!

   b) O'Reilly provided us with a couple of boxes of giveaways.  We have
      been raffling off prizes such as O'Reilly books, t-shirts and
      playing cards, at our past meetings.  We also gave out O'Reilly book
      catalogs as well as User Group Discount Coupons for use when
      purchasing from the O'Reilly web page.


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   -------
4. PC EXPO
   -------

   PC EXPO, now part of the overall TECHXNY show is coming to the Javits
   Center in NYC on June 25-27, 2002.

   The listed show hours are:
       Tue  10am - 5pm
       Wed  10am - 5pm
       Thu  10am - 4pm

   Visit:
       http://www.techxny.com
   for further information and online registration.

   Note that if you have JavaScript disabled in your browser, as of the
   time of this writing, their home page displays as a totally solid orange
   colored background with absolutely no foreground at all.  Also, the
   online registration process fails to operate when Javascript is disabled.

   The web site contains a Show Contacts page at:
       http://www.techxny.com/contact_us.cfm

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   --------------------
5. UNIGROUP INFORMATION
   --------------------

   Unigroup is one of the oldest and largest Unix User's Groups serving the
   Greater New York City Regional Area since the early 1980s.  Unigroup is a
   not-for-profit, vendor-neutral and member funded volunteer organization.
   Unigroup holds regular and special event meetings throughout the year on
   technical topics relating to Unix and the Unix User Community.   Unigroup
   is also the Greater NYC Regional Area Affiliate of UniForum - an
   International Unix Users Group.

   Thanks to Chase, Unigroup holds regular meetings planned for the Third
   THURSDAY of Odd Months at The Chase Manhattan Bank, 55 Water Street, NYC.
   Chase has been a long time sponsor of Unigroup, allowing us the use of a
   meeting room and presentation equipment.

   Planned meeting dates are: 5/23/2002, 7/18/2002, 9/19/2002, ...
   Watch for our Special Event meetings at the various trade shows in NYC
   as well as "field trips" to the facilities of local hardware and
   software vendors.

   =========================================================================
   = For Unigroup Information, Events and Meeting Announcements be sure to =
   = visit our World Wide Web Home Page:                                   =
   =       http://www.unigroup.org                                         =
   =========================================================================

   For further information or to get on the Unigroup Electronic Mail Mailing
   List send an EMail message to:
        unilist@unigroup.org

   To contact the Board of Directors of Unigroup, send an EMail message to:
        uniboard@unigroup.org

   To contact the Newsletter Editor, send an EMail message to:
        editor@unigroup.org

   If you have recently attended a meeting and you are not receiving
   Email announcements, please send us an Email and we will make
   corrections to our lists.

   Please Email the Board with any suggestions, especially potential meeting
   topics and speakers.  Unigroup welcomes contributions and content
   suggestions for our newsletter.  Unigroup is a volunteer organization and
   we need your assistance!  Please let us know if you can help!

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I hope to see you all at our next meeting!

-Rob Weiner
 Unigroup Executive Director
 unilist@unigroup.org
 http://www.unigroup.org

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