[This SIG is defunct]Washington Apple Pi Power Users' SIG* Please note the new e-mailing list address belowThe next meeting is tentatively set for November 3rd, 2003 7:30 PM. Discussion topic is open. A summary of what we did in the past two meetings given below thanks to one of the members of the SIG: The September Power Users SIG meeting began with a discussion of the Virtual Network Computing (VNC) software called Share My Desktop. We tested out the product with laptops that a couple of members brought. Back-up strategies, a common topic at the SIG meetings, was discussed for a short period of time. At least a couple of members believe that having a boot-able back-up is critical. Various aspects of the TCS was discussed as well as recordable CD-ROM technology. The October Power Users SIG meeting started out with a discussion about networking. Specifically the roles that two technologies, Network Address Translation (NAT) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. The world has run low on IP addresses. One way to deal with this shortage is to only give one IP address to a home or a business and have all their computers use addresses intended to only for local area networks. NAT is a process where a single device like a router sits on a network like the Internet and acts as an agent for all the devices on another network, like a home area network. When a computer on the home network wants to contact something on the Internet like a web site it sends network traffic to the router and the router forwards that traffic to the web site as if it came from the router's own address. When the web site sends a message back to the router, the router then forwards the message to the computer. DHCP is used to provide network configuration information to computers on a network. As computers join a network they might request information like what their IP address should be from a DHCP server. Many products such as routers and wireless access points like Apple's Airport Base Station act as DHCP servers. The discussion turned to instant massaging and video conferencing. As an experiment we set up an ad hoc network and used the technology built into Mac OS 10.2 called Rendezvous to find each others' iChat client. One member of the group asked about using iChat to talk to people with ICQ clients. After some experimentation we discovered that it is indeed possible but noted that the ICQ client software has to be of a fairly recent vintage. While discussing video conferencing, the following URL was offered as a good starting point for more information http://homepage.mac.com/john_kenn/video.html . We plan on bringing in camera's and experimenting further with video conferencing at the next meeting.
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