Experts Exchange Newsletter

What's New at Experts Exchange

The feedback on feedback: Engineering has temporarily pulled the plug on the Feedback feature. We don't have specifics on what will be changed, but we do know that it wasn't being used quite like they anticipated. It will, however, be part of the site when the revisions we mentioned a couple of weeks ago are released.
New Geniuses: Three members of Experts Exchange went over the 1,000,000 point mark in their topic areas over the last couple of weeks.
peter57r became the seventh Genius in the Microsoft Access TA. He also has certificates in Databases and Crystal Reports.

Hilaire is the third member to reach the Genius rank in MS SQL. His other certificates are in Databases and ASP.

lrmoore is EE's first Networking genius. He also has certificates in Security, Broadband, Windows NT Networking, Microsoft Network, VPN, Firewalls and Routers/Switches, and was recently named a Microsoft MVP as well.

Congratulations on the fine work, and thanks for you outstanding contributions to Experts Exchange.
From the mailbag, part 1: One of the Page Editors forwarded to us an email he received from jacobbarnett, regarding a question he had asked at EE. The email says:
"jrb1's solution to my question RE: Rounding positive and negative decimals at http://www.experts-exchange.com/Databases/MS_Access/Q_21338562.html deserves an award, for elegant simplicity and appropriateness. Not to mention it's THE solution zillions of people have been scouring the net for (there are a huge number of inquiries re: this topic, with woefully inadequate responses). Please check it out! Thank you for your work & Best Regards,"

Thank you, Jacob. It's emails like yours that keep us coming back every day.
Does Media Player come with it?: Microsoft announced last week that it wants to have its first cluster version of Windows available in time for the supercomputing conference in November. Certainly not coincidentally, the conference will be held just outside Redmond in Seattle. The company has also announced that the 64-bit version of its operating system will be out next month.
In a related item, the tech support department at MS hasn't decided whether it will be using UPS or FedEx to ship out the service packs. Something about weight requirements...
Song and dance: Microsoft is still having its troubles with the European Union, which doesn't like the way Microsoft is complying -- or not complying -- with antitrust rulings. The EU didn't like Microsoft's name for XP without Media Player (no, it's not called XPLite), but Microsoft insists it is in compliance. With $656 million at stake, we'd say we are in compliance too.
But the news wasn't all bad for Microsoft. On March 1, Bill Gates found out that Queen Elizabeth is going to grant him an honorary knighthood (does anyone envision a new XBox game?), and on March 2, a federal appeals court partially reversed the Eolas decision that could have cost Microsoft another $565 million in damages. The case is going back to the courts.

None of this stopped the browser wars from continuing, as AOL subsidiary Netscape launched the beta of Netscape 8 Thursday. The hook is Netscape's improved security against online fraud, "phishing" attempts and spyware.
From the mailbag, part 2: We're a little surprised that either nobody went, or nobody wanted to report on the RSA conference in San Francisco. Not that we went to it either, but we did have a nice dinner at Tadich Grill. We received only two comments about the resignation of CNN news chief Eason Jordan, who was villified in the blogosphere over some remarks made at a conference in Switzerland.
One member was pretty blunt: "It amazes me that any "normal" individuals would waste their time reading those mindless blogs - products of nameless airheads and space-cadets with nothing better to do in life than "create" or expunge their life experiences in the ludicrous misconception that anyone is really interested in them."

The other was a little more thoughtful: "Overall, I shouldn't think it would hurt to have that many more investigative journalists out there, but then I see good people brought down on innuendo and off-the-record remarks. To me this means that the bloggers taken as a whole have no more credibility as journalists than an angry mob... Then, neither do the networks. To shield themselves against an unpopular opinion, they stay away from judgment calls that an older generation ... would have the guts to make... As a result, news is now 'infotainment'. Modern 'newsreaders' (AKA spokesmodels) offer no analysis or interpretation, serving up the barest of inoffensive facts suited to the short attention span, ahistoric audience."
With six, you get egg roll: We really don't intend to pick on Microsoft, but the hits just keep on coming. Sir Bill and Co. are now offering Windows XP to Chinese users for half price if they tell MS who gave them their bootlegged copy.
And finally, this issue's Signs of the Apocalypse: It's Patch Tuesday, and Microsoft isn't releasing any new ones.
Claria, the adware company formerly known as Gator, was named to the US Department of Homeland Security's privacy board.

Your questions and solutions

Still open: PCI FDDI network connected but not arping

"When I ping from this address, and tcpdump on the far side of the link I get arp requests and see the replies. The replies never return. If I put static arp entries in both sides, I get what looks like standard replies on the tcpdump on the far side, but nothing comes back. It's like my transmit is working but not my receive."

Points: 500 Jan 19 2005 12:44PM PST

Can you help?

Still open: Solaris sysadmin interview questions

"I need to interview several Solaris sysadmin guys to administer a Sun Fire 3800 Cluster with Veritas Volume Management. My knowledge on Solaris can at best be termed 'intermediate level'. Can you please suggest some advanced level questions which will help me to shortlist the final candidates?"

Points: 250 Jan 31 2005 05:12AM PST

Can you help?

Still open: Backup options for SunFire V100

"I have two SunFire V100 with USB interfaces, no SCSI. One IBM Ultrium LTO tape drive connected via ultra-SCSI to a IBM XSeries server. I would like to be able to perform level 0 ufsdumps to tape, or via disk to tape, may be use Flash archive backup/restores. What options to I have?"

Points: 250 Jan 07 2005 10:01AM PST

Can you help?

Still open: Can I have Solaris redirect mail

"I have OSX Macs on my network that Print through a Solaris server. When there is a problem as in a font is missing the server tries to send an email to the person originating the print job. If the user "JACK" logs into an OSX Mac named "EPS" on the domain "building.company.com" the Solaris sends the email to jack@eps.Building.company.com but Jack's email is jack@building.company.com. Is there anyway to tell Solaris to drop the machine name from the email?"

Points: 500 Feb 15 2005 11:32AM PST

Can you help?

Featured Experts

yuzh

You can't say enough good things about yuzh. Shortly after he became the Page Editor for the Solaris topic area, he went to a Sun conference and sent us a complete rundown of the event, including links. He says he's been "playing with UNIX since the Punch-card age", but we don't believe he's that old.

Registration Date: June 21, 2000

Expert Points: 973055

Certificates: Wizard, Solaris; Guru, Unix; Master, Apache, Unix Programming

wesley_chen

wesley_chen is part of the new breed of Expert. He's sharp, he knows his stuff, and he brings a smart professionalism to his work. In less than a year, he's made his way into the Hall of Fame, and has five certificates to his credit already.

Registration Date: May 7, 2004

Expert Points: 873863

Certificates: Wizard, Linux; Master, Linux Administration, Linux Setup, Linux Networking, Solaris

tfewster

tfewster is one of the Old Guard at EE. Most people either love him or tolerate him, largely because he has a wicked sense of humor and describes himself as so lazy he tries to automate everything he does.

Registration Date: July 10, 1999

Expert Points: 345229

Certificates: Master, Unix, Unix Programming, Solaris

PAQ_Man

PAQ_Man is the new kid on the block, as Moderators go; he's been on the job since December 30, 2004. He's not quite as far out there as his colleague OzzMod, but what can you say about someone who has a degree in electrical engineering, has almost completed a second degree in computer engineering, likes both analog AND digital design, considers calculus a hobby, and is a certified fireworks pyrotechnician?

Tip from the Page Editors: If you're new to Experts Exchange, and even if you're not, the Experts don't want to treat you like you're an idiot. They also don't want to overwhelm you with a bunch of information that will go completely over your head. So take the time to fill out your profile; tell us what you do with your computer, and what your goals are, so the Experts can better tailor their comments to your specific situation.

Nata's Corner: Finally, someone's doing something -- maybe

Nata Salambier c|Net calls it "The Perfect Storm." I call it about time. A bunch of security failures over the last week or so, ranging from a leak of data at CheckPoint to a lost shipment of backup tapes by Bank of America, to exposed payroll records from PayMaxx, to the repeated overexposure of Paris Hilton's cell phone, has gotten a bunch of US legislators to jump on the privacy bandwagon.

c|Net's story points out that most US law on the matter is passed as a reaction to a high profile event -- like more pictures of Paris showing up on the web. It also says that state laws, like California's Security Breach Information Act, tend to be a lot more effective than anything the feds ever come up with. And of course, none of the laws ever applies to the information the government itself collects. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now.

I received a couple of emails about the spam filter, SafetyBar, that I mentioned in the last issue. Ande Anderson said that he had found Qurb, a product that includes an automatic verification system built in. That's fine, but personally, if I got one of those from a friend of mine whose emails I've been getting for five years, I'd be a little miffed. The other email was from Marcus Bointon, who pointed out that SourceForge has several programs that work that way for servers. He also commented that 27 false positives isn't very good for a sample size of 1540, but most of those came in the first couple of days. They were also newsletters -- even EE's gets picked up as "spam" occasionally -- and it is a simple matter to let them come through. Thanks for the emails, guys!

To unsubscribe from this Newsletter, click here (you must be logged in) or send an email.

The Premium Services include a number of features not available to "limited" members. Among them:

> Unlimited question points

> VIP Search

> Bookmarks

> Quick Links

> Collapsible menu

> No ads

You can purchase Premium Services on a month-to-month, semi-annual or annual basis, and take full advantage of all that Experts Exchange has to offer!

Inside the numbers

ameba, one of EE's prominent Experts, provides us with a list of newly earned Certificates. His list of all of the Certified Experts is located at his site. The list below covers the period from February 20 through March 6.

Expert	Certified	in Topic Area
peter57r vb_elmar Smallint brettdj apresto seb_gibbs The_Big_Daddy Hilaire adathelad EugeneZ BriCrowe Michael_D archrajan NETTY4 Xxavier Imthiyaz_ph sr75 bloodredsun TheLearnedOne AlexFM graye lrmoore JFrederick29 samccarthy rafael_acc SystmProg sciwriter onedeej LeeTutor	Genius Guru Master Master Wizard Master Master Genius Wizard Wizard Master Master Sage Master Master Master Master Master Sage Guru Master Genius Guru Master Master Master Guru Master Sage	MS Access Visual Basic Visual Basic Visual Basic ASP ASP ASP Microsoft SQL Microsoft SQL Microsoft SQL Microsoft SQL Microsoft SQL JavaScript JavaScript JavaScript Delphi Windows 2000 Java .NET .NET .NET Networking Networking Networking Networking Networking Hardware Hardware Windows XP

Expert	Certified	in Topic Area
SystmProg leew simpswr spiderfix mhambridge luv2smile muzzy2003 melodiesoflife gena17 nbishop1979 MalicUK Idle_Mind JesterToo praneetha djhex NetDeveloper ToAoM jrscherer S-Twilley ldbkutty Batalf matt_mcswain NJComputerNetworks Tacobell777 pinaldave CFDevHead aflockhart roos01 Tintin	Guru Guru Master Master Master Master Master Master Master Master Sage Guru Master Wizard Guru Guru Master Master Master Wizard Guru Master Master Wizard Wizard Guru Master Master Wizard	Windows XP Windows XP Windows XP Windows XP Windows XP Windows XP C# C# C# Exchange_Server Excel Programming Programming ASP.NET ASP.NET ASP.NET ASP.NET VB.NET VB.NET PHP PHP PHP Win Server 2003 ColdFusion ColdFusion ColdFusion MS Office MS Office Perl

Expert	Certified	in Topic Area
stevenlewis crissand Yan_west rindi JR2003 GJParker leew avizit lokus bloodredsun kiranhk richrumble mdiglio ramazanyich amit_g matt_mcswain COBOLdinosaur brunobear SunBow ramazanyich manav_mathur ozo Jan_Franek ahoffmann ghp7000 stevenlewis COBOLdinosaur daveslater damonf	Sage Guru Master Master Master Guru Master Master Master Master Master Guru Master Master Master Master Wizard Master Master Master Master Guru Master Master Guru Master Guru Guru Master	Microsoft Network Microsoft Network Microsoft Network Operating Systems VB Controls Crystal Reports WinNT Net. Linux Mysql JSP JSP Windows Security Windows Security XML HTML PHP and Databases CSS CSS Security Apache Unix Prog. Math & Science Sybase Linux Admin. IBM UDB DSL/Cable Web Languages AS/400 Websphere

1280 experts have 2014 certifications: Genius:32 Sage:87 Wizard:137 Guru:352 Master:1406

Tip for New Members: What's a Member Comment?

The Privacy Policy at Experts Exchange is pretty specific; basically, no one below the level of an employee or a site administrator can see your email address, including the Moderators and Page Editors.

But over the years, it became obvious that the Moderators and Page Editors needed a way to contact Members without violating that policy, so EE developed the Member Comment. It's used for a variety of things: to let Members know that they need to do something, or to send congratulations for some accomplishment.

The Member Comment is a PRIVATE message to a member. It should not automatically considered punishment. It is to INFORM the member about matters considered important by the Moderators without making the issue public.