Blog Entries - December 2004

Viruses

tcallway — Sun, 12 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0100

OPEN For Business! is all about how you can replace proprietary technologies with superior Open Source alternatives, slashing your costs, vastly improving speed and reliability and, perhaps even more important, allowing you to wrest back control of your IT infrastructure from the proprietary IT suppliers.

Let's make this month's OPEN For Business really topical after all, they're in the news yet again, in the papers, on the TV.

Yep, we're talking about VIRUSES. And I'm going [...]

Routing

tcallway — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Reality check

If you're connecting a couple of networks together, or connecting a network to the Internet, most people would instantly reach for a Cisco router (or, if you were really radical, maybe go for something from Juniper Networks). It's what you do, right?

Wrong!

Have you ever taken a router apart? I know I have. If you were expecting to see real cutting edge hardware for your money in that nice black plastic box you've yet to find it right? Hmmm, wonder what all my m [...]

Directory Services: Part 2

tcallway — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0100

This month's OPEN For Business! is the second in our LDAP mini-series. The series is about using directory services to make the administration of your network easier, and potentially, how to replace every bit of proprietary software you may have in the network with better Open Source software, plus how to tie it all together. Last month we covered what a directory is, and hinted at what you could do with it. This month we will look at the creation of a single user account base and single sign [...]

Directory Services: Part 1

tcallway — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0100

This month's OPEN For Business! is the first in a mini-series. The series is about how to use Directory Services to make the administration of your network simpler and easier. We'll look at how to replace every bit of proprietary software you may have in that network with what we all know is a far faster, far more reliable solution, Open Source software. Then finally, and most importantly, I'll show you how to tie it all together into a network that really delivers, and that really provides, [...]

Samba

tcallway — Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 +0100

Providing printing for a network is quite different to providing it for a single machine. On a single machine you simply attach a printer to the 'USB port' or 'parallel port'. However, for a network you have a dedicated machine (called a 'print server') that collects print jobs from any machine on the network, holds that job until a specified printer is ready (known as 'spooling'), and then feeds it to that printer. A good print server may also do a number of other useful things - like keepin [...]