Our Principals

1) Honor before all else. 
2) The difference between a winner and a loser is that the winner tried one more time. 
3) K.I.S.M.I.F. 
4) Y.C.D.B.S.O.Y.A. 

Our Web Page:

http://www.venturingbsa.com

E-Mail Us!

Our Creed

Exploring: Enthusiasm, Energy, & Excellence 

Venturing Crew 369

Venturing Crew 369 was chartered on December 31, 1994 to the Reformation Luthern Church. 

Venturing Crew 369 specializes in UNIX for Programmers while emphasizing a deep theme of Engineering Computer Information & Science;

Membership in Venturing Crew 369 is open to young men and women between the ages of 14 [and in high school] and not yet 20.  Annual Membership fees are $25.00. 

Calendar of Events:

6/6/00  Garage Sale Flyer Pass-Out

6/9/00  Sleepover

6/10/00  Garage Sale

6/13/00  Membership Open-House

6/24/00  Wyandot Lake

6/27/00  Book Making Meeting #1

7/2-8/00  Summer Camp

7/4/00  No Meeting

7/11/00  Book Making Meeting #2

7/27-30/00  Gettysburg Trip $50.00

9/10/00  Court-of-Honor at Park

9/12/00  Open House Dress Rehearsal

9/19/00  Open House [First Nighter]

10/8/00  Bike Hike, Granville

10/13-15/00  Book Binding Campout [Exchange Lodge]

10/24/00  Pizza Party

11/3-5/00  Deer Creek Campout

11/12/00  Church Dinner [We Cook]

12/15/00  Silver Beaver Apps Due

12/19/00  Christmas Party

12/26/00  No Meeting

Quote of the Month

But men do not seek the truth. It is truth that purses men who run away and will not look around.

Dave Foran of Charles Schwab donated Venturing Crew 369 28 hard drives, 3 monitors, 6 modems, cables galore, a complete UNIX manual set, 2-3B2/500, 2-3B2/600 and 1-3B2/1000 computers...

Thank you Mr. Foran!

I must admit that I was not looking forward to getting the systems up-an-running. There would be between 5 and 8 hours per system. Not how I would want to spend a sunny afternoon. But we can't let such marvelous donations go to waist. Ok, we are a Christian Educational Group. By-the-way, we do Computers too:-) Hence a computer competition!

We allowed the Crew to choose up two sides. It became the OSU vs. UA teams. Each were given a 3B2/600 computer, hard drive, boot tape, hardware manual, and the race was on. The youth could not ask the adults for help, not even a question! They had to find the answer out for themselves. Face it, a good Systems Administrator knows how to use their resources. They were given only 6 hints:

1. comp.sys.att
2. FAQ
3. MCP
4. Magic Mode
5. Network Termination
6. SCSI Termination

Mr. Drake, the chief technologist of Nationwide Insurances' International Division, will be the contest judge. The team that builds a system that would operate as the best server, most user friendly, most professionally loaded will win a pizza party paid for by the Crew.

Now, what to do with the systems?

PHP: My Latest Discovery

About 3 months I became vaguely interested in HTML code, found a book, and mastered all I needed to know to make a (in my opinion) awesome web site. That coupled with my growing interest in UNIX moved my interest to web scripting. Just the idea of not copying and pasting over and over again changing minute details was enough to drive a passing interest to great heights. I had been using some CGI scripts and playing around with the ideas when I was shown PHP (thanks to Ho-Sheng Hsiao). PHP is a web scripting language that has a syntax very close to C++ and is embedded in the HTML code. The link between the two is simple: "<?php" indicates the start of PHP code and "?>" ends it, variables are defined on use, and the loops are the same. "$VAR" is a variable, "$VAR[FOO]" is value "FOO" in array "$VAR", etc. Your web server takes the code, processes it, then creates HTML. PHP can handle everything from forms to authorization to page creation.

A feature that's very helpful is the ability to include code from other files to the one you're currently using. For example if you had another PHP script that housed the look and any universal HTML called code.inc and it had a block of code defined as a function named InsertHTMLHead, to include into a PHP script you would do this:

  include(`code.inc') ;
InsertHTMLHead defined like this:
  function InsertHTMLHead($title, 
$subject) // Defines function 
named InsertHTMLHead with 2 
internal variables that are 
defined when the function is 
called
  {
  $metaname[0] = "Author" ; //
assigns a value of Author to the 
first value of $metaname
  $metaname[1] = "Keywords" ;
  $metacontent[0] = "Ian Cunnyng
ham" ;
  $metacontent[1] = $title . ", " . 
$subject . ", " . $metacontent[0] 
; // This combines variables and 
text and would produce "Cool 
Title, Cool Subject, Ian Cunnyn
gham"
  ?> // Breaks into HTML
  <HEAD>
    <TITLE><?php echo $title 
; ?> - <?php echo $subject ; ?> 
</TITLE> // Resulting HTML would 
be "<TITLE>Cool Title - Cool Sub
ject</TITLE>"
  <?php // Breaks out of HTML
    for ($i = "0" ; $i <= "1" 
; $i++) // Standard for loop
    {
  ?>
      <META 
NAME="<?php echo $metaname[$i] ; 
?>" CONTENT="<?php echo $meta
content[$i] ; ?>">
  <?php
    } // Ends for loop
  ?>
  </HEAD>
  <?php
  }// Ends function code

produces this:
  <HEAD>
    <TITLE>Cool Title - 
Cool Subject</TITLE>
    <META NAME="Author" 
CONTENT="Ian C.">
    <META NAME="Key
words" CONTET="Cool Title, 
Cool Subject, Ian C.">
  </HEAD>
and used like this:
  <HTML>
  <?php
  InsertHTMLHead(`Cool Title', 
`Cool Subject') ;
  ?>
  ...

While this is example is more of a waste then not it gives you an idea of the syntax of PHP. For me I use PHP as a page development tool. Instead of generating the HTML on the fly I have my web server generate it once. I use WGET to retrieve it with the command "wget -r http://localhost/ ". This way there is one file with all the HTML and the rest are pure content. Therefore there is only one file to change to for HTML and the content is a lot more accessible. Plus wget turns them into HTML files with the right directory structure and all so It's not such a server burden. I have used PHP for many things so far and I think that it is a great code learning tool. To get the full manual for PHP go to http://www.php.net/.

http://www.venturingbsa.com

Our web page has:

• 5,124,683 hits
• 3,177 Images
• 919 Web Pages
• 5,186 Files

In the Past Year we have had:

• 1,409.007 hits
• We served 13.3Gbs
• We had 54,341 unique hosts visit our page. Therefore, the average visitor viewed 27+ pages.

Not bad for a Boy Scout Web Page:-)

Teleconferencing

The PC world has many choices for using the World Wide Web to share audio and video. Some companies have been taking advantage of this technology, by targeting it like the RealAudio* Web cast of the Victoria Ssecret's Fashion show, they can swarm viewers to their site. RealAudio requires serving software to send data, but the client software can be downloaded as free-ware, or share-ware for more features, on all platforms.

Microsoft distributes free to all Windows users program called Net-Meeting which allows anyone to look people up via directory services or just direct TCP-IP connections to share program views, white boards, audio, and video on connections as low as 28.8.

CU-See-Me is another software package that is available and cross platform compatible. This program offers similar features to Net-Meeting, but is more focused as an alternative to telephone communications. It also offers a complete package solution for video conferencing.

Picture Tel, Live Lan, and Live 200 are Business scale alternatives for teleconferencing. This package is proprietary and requires both machines to have the software. To share audio and video you must install a PictureTel video card and drivers. This is mainly focused on ISDN as a medium for communications but provides High quality connections and audio. Curently, Picture Tel is only for PC, and normally is used in a dedicated teleconferencing station.

These are a few of the options to communicate with people around the world; and are going to influence how we see and hear each other in the future.

some sites of interest include

The Cost of doing business on the web!

I have been a long time UUCP user. Of the past 1000 times that I have contacted my provider 25% have resulted in a busy signal. This has driven me to find a new way to connect to the InterNet.

Up until Al Gore created the Internet, the Internet was free. In fact, it wasn't until two months ago I started paying for my Internet connectivity. Just a note in passing, I have been on the Inter net since the `70s.

My Connection Speed

• Year-Modem-Actual
• 1980-300bds
• 1984-1200bds
• 1988-2400bds
• 1990-9600bds
• 1994-38kbds
• 1996-56kbds-33kbds
• 2000-1.4Mbs-4kbds

On March 11, 2000 I installed a cable modem for $45.95 a month. Then the nightmare began! The technician arrived and installed my cable, complaining that there wasn't a cable to my house. Hmm. I don't have cable TV... I was his last call for the day and he was looking forward to get home. I was going to do a self install. Hay, I don't want someone else on my system as root! He saw green lights on the modem and he left.

I stayed up the day before configuring my second network card for DHCP. I thought I had done everything. A quick "dhcp start"

	ifconfig le0 up
	route flush
	snoop -d le0 [to find the router]
	route add default ##.##.##.##
	ifconfig le0 auto-dhcp
	ifconfig le0 dhcp start
	

"and we are off" WRONG!

I called tech support, they said they would not support me since I not was running under the evil empire or Mac. So I carried forth. Like a fool, I called some of the people that I new that used the same cable modem and provider. But they too were overly influenced by the dark side of technology. I persisted.

When I called my provider and said please remove the modem from my home, in emotional despair thinking that I failed at beating those looking through rose colored windows, they finally escalated me to level 2 support. This highly gifted youth proclaimed that he heard of Solaris and knew nothing about it. But, he asked me if I had 3 little green lights lit on my modem. "No" I replied. The Power and PC lights were lit but not the Cable led.

All of the time that I spent attempting to get my system to work there was nothing wrong with it. I did everything correctly. They did not install the cable properly. There is a little "T" in the basement that was installed backwards! I flipped the "T" and it worked.

They were not happy that I messed with their cable, and they had to check out my work. I am glad that I work out of my house. Wow, if I had a job I wouldn't be able to afford the time off. The new tech that came out attached an oscilloscope to the line and was not happy with the response but said it was almost in acceptable limits so that was fine enough with him.

Several times I have turned off my cable modem and PPPed with my 56K modem where I average 33kbs to its provider, because it was faster than my 1.4Mb cable modem:-( I was told not to expect full service in my neighborhood because the cable lines are saturated but sometime soon they will upgrade the area.

Since I refused to give my Social Security number to the Cable Provider they required me to pre-pay 3 months. It looks like as soon as that is gone, so am I!

I called my UUCP provider, and asked if they have SDSL in my neighborhood. They said no that you don't want ADSL since it is a shared line with other ADSL users and that the upload speeds are only ~400kbs. They suggested that I use their new IBM equipment that would give me 56kbs with a modem or 128kbs with an ISDN line. Moreover the savings for 25% of the capacity of an ADSL would only be 5 times more than the cost of ADSL. In fact thier new services was more costly than a full 700kbs SDSL line.

They went on to atempt to sell me a T1 for $2,700.00 a month [1.4Mb] or an OC3 [64Mb] for $5,000.00 a month

It is my pleasure to congratulate you on achieving the Award of On-line Excellence Our Judges have viewed your web site, and they have decided, that your site is a great example of upholding the Scouting traditions, and ideals on the world wide web. Proudly display the "Scouting Award of On-line Excellence" on your site, you deserve it!!!

Co-Location Charges as of 05/15/00
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Access        Base Rate 1 year term   - 5%  3 year term    -10%  5 year term    Setup   
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
128Kbs                           $150/mo            $140/mo             $130/mo    $150  
256Kbs                           $250/mo            $240/mo             $230/mo    $250  
512Kbs                           $500/mo            $450/mo             $400/mo    $600  
1024Kbs                          $900/mo            $810/mo             $720/mo    $600  
10 Mbps Shared                 $1,800/mo          $1,710/mo           $1,620/mo    $600  
10 Mbps Switched               $7,500/mo          $7,125/mo           $6,750/mo    $600  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SDSL
--------------------------------------------
  DSL Speed   Price   Installation   Equipment   
--------------------------------------------
DSL 144/160K   $79        FREE*       FREE*    
DSL 200K       $119       FREE*       FREE*    
DSL 416K       $169       FREE*       FREE*    
DSL 784K       $179       FREE*       FREE*    
DSL 1.0M       $215       FREE*       FREE*    
DSL 1.5M       $299       FREE*       FREE*    
--------------------------------------------

ADSL
--------------------------------------------------------------
      DSL Speed       Price (monthly)   Installation   Equipment   
--------------------------------------------------------------
DSL (upto 784K/392K)           $39.95         FREE*      FREE*  
DSL (upto 1.5M/384K)           $79.95         FREE*      FREE*  
--------------------------------------------------------------

Corder Co-Locations Charges as of 05/15/00 [On an OC3]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IP Address   Contract Cost   Install Charge   Monthly Charge   Disk Space   
---------------------------------------------------------------------
1               $3,050.00         $650.00         $100.00       1.0Gb  
5               $3,700.00         $700.00         $125.00       1.0Gb  
10              $4,350.00         $750.00         $150.00       1.5Gb  
20              $5,000.00         $800.00         $175.00       2.0Gb  
30              $5,650.00         $850.00         $200.00       2.5Gb  
40              $6,300.00         $900.00         $225.00       3.0Gb  
---------------------------------------------------------------------

So, to the InterNet I go for price comparisons. Most DSL users don't understand the difference between ADSL and SDSL. So, when they see the price for ADSL they think they are getting a great deal. Ok, if you are not going to serve anything, that you are only going to down load, no uploads, under 5 e-mail accounts are fine for you, and you are happy running some stupid caned software to connect to your provider, then Cable Modems and ADSL are fine. In-other-words, the average Windblows users will be more than happy with ADSL.

But, I would like to put up my own commercial web page: corder.com and corder.org. I own the domains and they are sitting there going to waist. So, I trudge along to find a location. The questions then becomes, do I want:

• speed of connection
• speed of serving

The 33kbs modem was fine enough for my personal use. But I want to put up a web page.

"Your" web page is more important than your resume or your corporate perspective. One never gets a chance to make a second first impression. Therefore, if you are serving your web page from a 392k ADSL modem and 10 people are on your web page at the same time then you are slower than a 56k modem. Moreover, if you are serving from a Cable Modem or a shared ASDL line then your speed is also divide by the numbers of users in your neighborhood. Not-to-mention, how good is your power? I loose power at least once a week for under 3 seconds. Enough to crash the computer and at least once a quarter for an hour or more.

I am contemplating getting ADSL for my home. It is $10.00 a month cheaper than my cable modem and most likely faster actual through put vs. maximum through put and putting one of my servers on an OC3 line. To justify the cost I am going to sell web space on it. So for $650.00 installation and $100.00 a month for two years you get a static [no dhcp] IP address, one gig of disk space, your own domain, on an OC3. Once I find 5 takers, I am off:-)

I thought it would be easy to find 5 takers. The cost is unbelievably inexpensive. Currently the going cost is about $25.00 a month for 5Mbs of disk space. Or about $5,000.00 for a Gig. Not to mention the RU costs of co-locating your own server. I thought I would give them ssh and scp so they can maintain their own disk space without my services. But, most people falsely think they can put up a commercial quality web site for around $49.95 a month. Yea right! This system would be fore techie people only. I don't want the aggravation of the dank smell of PCs. I want good UNIX people!

The dilemma is that there are so few of these people that the market is extremely small. Moreover, most of them think of downloading not uploading:-(

What is aggravating is that when you know you are right and no one else cares that they are wrong and they are happy to go floating down stream with all the other dead fish. It is not true that if you build a better mouse trap they will come. It is and always has been that the best marketing plan wins. Case in point: the Monopoly Microsoft.

It does not matter, if you want something bad enough you will find a way to make it happen. Hay, look at Kernel Sanders!

*After rebate. One year minimum required. Actual speed may vary due to distance limitations.

Why Outlook Stinks the ILOVEYOU virus

Microsoft Exchange administrators all over the world were combating another virus this month. You may be saying to yourself, "Geesh, I know Microsoft sucks, but even my dog moves when I kick it twice." This is the second virus in six months to attack Microsoft Outlook clients, and there doesn't appear to be a solid fix in place yet.

The "ILOVEYOU" or "Melissa" virus comes in to your computer through an attachment from someone you know. If you know nothing about computers or don't care about the integrity of your PC, you doubleclick on the attachment, and wonder why it doesn't appear to do anything. If you're running Windows, the program you just clicked runs in the background sending e-mails (with the virus as an attachment) to everyone in your address book. Why does this keep happening?

News alert, the typical Microsoft user doesn't know much about computers. They don't understand that by opening an attachment that they weren't expecting or didn't ask for is dangerous. Furthermore, they don't understand that by compromising their computer, they may be compromising the integrity of the entire network, or in this case, the Exchange Server.

Knowing that the average Microsoft user doesn't know much about what goes on behind the the mouse click, a logical step would be to make it easy for them to execute foreign untrusted software, right? To execute an attachment in Outlook (also Netscape Messenger, Eudora, etc.), the end-user simply doubleclicks on the icon. The "ILOVEYOU" virus was just a visual basic script attachment, nothing fancy. ("Melissa" was a macro within a word document.) End-users didn't think twice about running it. Microsoft needs to make it impossible for an end user to execute an attachment simply be double clicking on it, or make the attachment run in a secure space (Run as a user who has no write privelages, and cannot access mail components, or other vulnerable space.)

Microsoft has realised a security patch that starts to address the issue, but it doesn't do nearly enough on some issues, and goes in the complete wrong direction on others. The security patch changes outlook so that certain attachments can't be executed from within Outlook (visual basic scripts and others.) It also makes it very difficult for coders to access Outlook functionality through outside code. For example, when someone tries to access the address book from code, Outlook will display a five second warning. The disabling of attachment execution is certainly a step in the right direction, however, it needs to be an all or nothing fix. In the future, some executables will slip through, if only for a while, and virus writers will take advantage. Also, the disabling and complication of coding features will make two things happen. First, people won't install the patch. Second, if they do, they will figure out ways to get around the security features because they are so annoying and inhibiting. Then, we're back to square one.

Microsoft should take the inhibition of code execution within attachments to the next step, and back off on the feature disabling. About 15 companies have already announced their software will not work with the patch because of its coding restrictions. (Maybe this is intentional?)

If this is Microsoft's final solution, expect to see another Outlook attacking virus in 6 months to a year. Microsoft will yelp like a kicked dog, not move, and disable more features and call it a security patch, and I will be writing `Why Outlook Stinks A Lot' article.

A Waste of Time?

It seems now that more and more the internet is growing to include every type of people as users and web-masters. So much so that when you enter a site where there are people with your same interests, you become hooked. Especially if it has a chat room or BBS where you can talk to these people. When you find people just like you, that you can talk to and relate too you can't break away. I recently found a place like this and LOVE it!

Now I have seen people spend hours and hours on chat rooms, on instant messaging services, or on e-mail doing nothing but telling stories or cracking jokes and it's apparently the best time of there life because they will go back every day and do it again (like me). When I'd seen people doing it before I didn't understand it. Now that I'm doing it I *really* don't understand it.

Maybe I do it because These people seem incredibly interesting and seem to find me the same way. Maybe it's a sense of belonging. Maybe both or neither, I really don't know, but what I wonder more than this is: is this a bad thing? I don't think so. I think it gives people an outlet for anger, a source for laughter, and good place to make friends.

Music Swapping

In a cyber world virtually anything can be exchanged on the internet and currently the popular thing to trade is MP3's. MP3's have became the most sought after thing on the internet replacing sex as the number one entered thing in search engines. MP3's are so popular that Napster, a popular MP3 trading program, has a user growth of 5% - 25% a day. The problem with something like MP3's is that more often then not they are copyright protected and millions of times a day those copyrights are being violated.

Artists have begun to take notice as well. Metallica, a rock group, was the first band to sue Napster for providing there software, and then Dr. Dre, a popular rapper and Record label owner, followed suit. Some legal experts say that this is mostly a stunt, they believe that there is no way to convict Napster inc. because all they due is provide a service and they had no obligation to police the network. But even if they did successfully sue Napster inc. and bankrupt them there are still a handful of other file trading software packages. It would be almost impossible to stop MP3 trading by suing everyone who is doing it so the record companies face a dilemma, people seem to have no problem violating copyright laws. The citation is comparable to a looting at a mall, because are no consequences and you can take whatever you want.

So what is the solution? Well if there was an easy one we would get to right this article. Either people need to develop a better respect for the artist work or there needs to be a more efficient system of policing the internet. People have a tough time giving 14-20 dollars to a artist for a CD that they could download for free. Especially since that artist might have three or four Ferraris in there garage and they are paying for breakfast with pocket change. Now policing cyber space is a challenge none have been able to come up to. Since the internet has been based around anonymity and there are millions of people committing crimes every day, it would be a difficult challenge. So in the end there is no clear solution and internet crime is likely continue on its exponential curve until either people realize the moral issues involved or someone forces them to stop.

Quantum Computing -- True, False... and Maybe?

Picture this, if you can, a new type of computer, one that uses qubits, or quantum bits, instead of classical bits. Ok, now consider this: while the classical bit can hold only 0 or 1 as values, the qubit can hold these and a "superposition (1)" of the two. You can think of it as have three values, True, False, and Maybe. By using these superpositions you can do math on all numbers at once, Huh? That is to say instead of computing 1 + 1 = 2 and then doing 2 + 2 = 4, you could do this (and many other calculations) at the same time, in the same space think of each set of ()'s as being only one number and you get (1,2) + (1,2) = (2,4). Each () set contains a superposition of its integer components.

Wow! This sounds great, really fast math, and we know that's all computers really do, so we just made and incredibly fast computer. There's only one problem with all of these superpositions, you can't measure them. That's right, currently any interaction with the environment, including attempts to measure, forces one of these quantum states to collapse back in to a classical state, a process known as "decoherence (2)".

Here's a way to see the performance gain of quantum computing: "Not long ago IBM researchers took a snapshot of the entire web, more than eight trillion bytes of data. Searching for the word using a conventional computer would take a full month, Chuang said. However using a simple quantum computer would reduce the search time to 27 minutes. (3)"

Sources for this Article:

• http://qso.lanl.gov/~gottesma/QComputers.html
• http://qso.lanl.gov/~gottesma/QECC.html
• http://squint.stanford.edu/nytimes/
• http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/~oemer/qcl.html

  OK, the last one didn't realy give much to my article, but it may be entertaing for those with a degree in Physics.

A Helping Hand (with a Green Thumb)

The Crew has been keeping busy over the last month. One of our projects that started two years ago is going out to Murfield Golf Course and planting flowers for the tournament. Not only is it good physically for the crew (since it is nice to get outside every now and then, computers aren't everything), it helps us to build as a team. Other groups that Murfield has hired in the past would spend hours arguing over where exactly (within the centimeter) to put a plant. Using teamwork, Crew 369 can cover an area in a few hours that it would have taken a gardening group an entire day. So far our best description of our work is the reverse locust effect.

Leader Board

Most importantly, this project is all about fun. You're on a golf course, how can you not have fun? (I'll give you that having your ball go in the water isn't much fun, but we weren't the ones golfing). This is one of the projects that the Crew takes their toads (members of the troop that want to join the crew after achieving the rank of eagle) along. Just hanging out with the 11 year olds makes you remember your own youth, and usually you can't stop laughing when they're around (which might not be a good thing when on a golf course).

When it's all over, it's gratifying to sit back and look what you've accomplished. These will be seen by millions of people (Though people are really tuning in to see the golfers). All in all, Crew 369 ended up planting about 17,000-18,000 flowers (my best estimate) during our two weekend stay. It just shows you what you can accomplish with hard work, teamwork, and cut the complaining out. I look forward to next year when we will be planting the flowers at Murfield again. I'll also be looking forward to seeing them on TV. "Hey, I did that!"