Issue 012 - Desktop News

Day 3 - Webmaster at Networking Conference
As I write this, I am wondering whether this message will make it's way back to Ohio. The network is not passing DNS lookups and all the systems are unable to communicate with the outside world. My hope is the mail will queue and send once the problem is solved.

As you can imagine, putting up a network like this for a one week time span, covering eight buildings and supporting upwards of 60,000 users is an awesome chore. At the Interop NOC (Network Operations Center), there are at least 30 terminals and the same amount of technicians. There are seven full racks of equipment that include the latest technologies. As promised, I will file a report later this week on what makes up the NOC at Interop.

Today's agenda for me is a workshop on Distributed Object Computing. Both Netscape and Microsoft are slugging it out to determine this critical component of the future of computing. It would not be an understatement to say that the way we work will be significantly determined by how this technology plays out. The integration of applications, the desktop, the browser and network components is at the heart of the issue. I'll try and put something together tomorrow after the workshop to further elucidate.

One of the things that is underlying the whole show is that the complete interconnecting of smaller networks is being taken literally for granted. The major theme is bandwidth upgrades and application development. When you can reach anyone, anywhere there needs to be compelling reasons to do so and there needs to be a productive ability to do so. Online banking for instance, seems to be on the verge of becoming mainstream. And as I wrote earlier this week, I am able to manage the NOLA network from miles away.

As I finish this post, I realize it was a little disorganized. That is because this show is so big and there are so many things happening right now in the world of networking.

An area I will try and cover tomorrow is next generation firewall technology. Network administrators will need to deal with security issues as they open up their computers to the general public and the vendors are responding with a vengeance. Security routinely takes a back seat to sexier technologies, but this year it is really on the radar screen.

See you tomorrow,
Ken Bell
Webmaster
NOLA Regional Library System

American Library Association Legislative Day
The NOLA delegates for the American Library Assoications Legislative Day, Deoborah O'Connor, Melissa Lattanzi, and Kathleen Sauline met with Representatives Sherrod Brown, Steven LaTourette, and James Traficant on Tuesday, May 6, 1997. The delegates discussed various items including thanking the legislators for LSTA fulnding ($136 million in the President's budget) and asking for an additional $14 million which has been authorized by the 104th Congress, making the actual appropriation $150 million. All of the representatives were positive in their responses. They asked who would be making this recommendation and were willing to take the initiative. Another concern addressed was the fact that the Title VI Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) which funds school libraries and materials budgets is not mentioned in President Clinton's budget. It was to have been funded at $310 million; however, this Title VI has been zeroed out of the budget. Again, all of our representatives were concerned with this issue and will be investigating this item more closely.

Got a neat idea for fostering communication among members, let us know!


Copyright � 1998 by NOLA Regional Library System. Send comments to Webmaster. URL of this page: http://www.nolanet.org/tdn/issue012.htm Revised: September 11, 1998.