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UNIGROUP OF NEW YORK - UNIX USERS GROUP - JANUARY 2005 ANNOUNCEMENTS
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1. UNIGROUP'S JANUARY 2005 GENERAL MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT
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      When:  THURSDAY, January 20th, 2005    (3rd Thursday)

     Where:  Alliance for Downtown NY Conference Facility
             Downtown Center
             104 Washington Street
             South West Corner of Wall Street Area
             Downtown, New York City
             ** Please RSVP (not mandatory) **

      Time:  6:15 PM - 6:25 PM  Registration
             6:25 PM - 6:45 PM  Ask the Wizard, Questions,
                                Answers and Current Events
             6:45 PM - 7:00 PM  Unigroup Business and Announcements
             7:00 PM - 9:30 PM  Main Presentation

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     Topic:  Wireless Access Around NYC and Introduction to WiFi
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  Speaker:   Ben Serebin
             NYCwireless.org  


   INTRODUCTIONS:
   --------------

   Greetings and Happy New Year!

   Unigroup's first meeting of 2005 will be this week, on
   Thursday 20-JAN-2005.  Sorry for the short notice, but it is on
   our regular 3rd Thursday meeting night, and the date was
   pre-announced months ago.

   Please keep an eye out for a series of _MONTHLY_ meetings which
   we have confirmed for January, February, March and April 2005.
   The meeting schedule is posted below (all on the 3rd Thursday).

   Regular attendees know that we have been trying to put together
   a meeting on WiFi for some time.  We also were trying to arrange
   a repeat Field Trip to Sun Microsystems, now that Solaris 10 has
   been released.  Due to various timing issues and release schedules
   at Sun, our Solaris 10 Part 2 meeting is scheduled for March.
   This will allow Sun to talk about a handful of very interesting
   topics for new software they are releasing just a few weeks
   earlier than our meeting date.  Our hosts at Sun _really_ wanted
   to discuss the new software and features, so we pushed the
   meeting back to accommodate them.  The repeat trip to Sun was a
   highly requested meeting, so we're glad its been scheduled.
 
   Regarding WiFi, we are planning a series on WiFi this year.  To
   kick things off, Ben Serebin of NYCwireless, agreed to present
   to us this month.  Our thanks go to Ben for agreeing to do this
   on very short notice.  NYCwireless promotes WiFi access around
   NYC.  We are still fine-tuning the meeting, so additional
   speakers and demonstrations may be added in the next announcement.

   ** If you will be attending our WiFi meeting and can demo
      features of Linux/Unix/*BSD WiFi, please let us know!
      (If there is time, I may demo some Knoppix WiFi Tools.)

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   UNIGROUP ELECTIONS:
   -------------------

   Unigroup holds yearly elections for our Board of Directors...
   and its that time again!  Most of the current directors will
   be running again this year.

   If you are a Unigroup Member and you would like to run for the
   board, please contact us ASAP, and we'll add you to the election
   ballot!  Unigroup is a volunteer organization, and we do need
   your help.

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   SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS:
   ---------------------

   To REGISTER for this event, please RSVP by using the Unigroup
   Registration Page:
         http://www.unigroup.org/unigroup-rsvp.html
   This will allow us to automate the registration process.
   (Registration will also add you to our mailing list.)

   Please continue to check the Unigroup web site and meeting page,
   for any last minute updates concerning this meeting.  If you
   registered for this meeting, please check your email for any
   last minute announcements as the meeting approaches.

   Please try to RSVP as soon as possible.

   Note: RSVP is not mandatory for this location, but it does help
         us to properly plan the meeting (food, drinks, handouts,
         seating, etc.).

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   OUTLINE OF THE MAIN PRESENTATION:
   ---------------------------------

   This month's meeting will be an informal presentation on WiFi,
   and WiFi Connectivity Around NYC.

   Introduction to Wireless Communications (802.11 that is...)
     - Brief History of the beginning.
     - What we have now (802.11a, b, g, pre N, etc).
     - The Hype (WiMax, wireless taking over Ethernet and fiber, etc)
     - Basic Home User Equipment.
     - Basic Company (Real Quality) Equipment.
     - Mobile Wireless Gear (Intel's Centrino, Cisco,
       Dangers of Built-in) & Software (netstumbler).
 
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   Web Resources:
   --------------

   NYCwireless
     http://www.nycwireless.net

   NYCwireless Meeting Presentations
     http://www.nycwireless.net/wireless_presentations.html

   Community Wireless NodeDB Project
     http://www.nodedb.org

   Vendor Links:

   Proxim White Papers
     http://www.proxim.com/learn/library/whitepapers

   Cisco White Papers
     http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/index.html
     (or search for "Wireless" or "Access Point" or "Aironet")

   WiFi Tool Links:

   NetStumbler (windows)            http://www.stumbler.net
   Kismet                           http://www.kismetwireless.net
   Wi-Foo WiFi Security Tools       http://www.wi-foo.com/index-3.html

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   Speaker Biography:
   ------------------

   Ben Serebin is...

     a) A Technology Consultant assisting small to medium
        size companies.
     b) A Board of Director for NYCwireless
     c) A member of Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, Technology Committee
     d) Created New York's only Microsoft Exchange User Group
     e) All of the Above

   The Answer is E.

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   Company Biography:
   ------------------

   If you are interested in exploring wireless solutions and learn
   about wireless, become a member of NYCwireless and attend our
   monthly meetings and join our mailing list.  If you are
   interested in deploying enterprise class wireless networks or
   seek a technology consultant for your small to medium size
   company, contact REEFsolutions.com.

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   Giveaways:
   ----------

   O'Reilly has been kind enough to provide us with some of their
   books, which we will continue to raffle off as giveaways at our
   meetings.

   Addison-Wesley Professional/Prentice Hall PTR has been kind
   enough to provide us with some of their books, which we will
   continue to raffle off as giveaways at our meetings.

   Unigroup would like to thank both companies for the support
   provided by their User Group programs.

   Note: The chances tend to be about 1 in 5, that any attendee of
   our meeting will walk away with a fairly valuable giveaway
   (ie. most books are valued between $30 and $60)!

   ** We have a pile of WiFi related books to raffle off!

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   Fee Schedule:
       Yearly Membership (includes all meetings):      $ 50.00
       Non-Member Single Meeting:                      $ 20.00
       Student Yearly Membership:                      $ 20.00
       Non-Member Student Single Meeting (with ID):    $  5.00
       Payment Methods: Cash, Check, American Express.

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   Complimentary Food and Refreshments will be served.  This includes
   sandwiches such as turkey, roast beef, chicken, tuna and grilled
   vegetables as well as assorted salads, cookies, bottled water and
   assorted beverages.

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   Directions:

     Alliance for Downtown NY Conference Facility
     Downtown Center
     104 Washington Street
     Wall Street Area
     Downtown, New York City

   This building is located on the West side of the street, the
   second building north of Rector Street.  Cross Streets:
   Between Rector (South) and Carlisle (North) Streets.

   Our meeting location is in the Lower West Corner of Downtown,
   North of the Battery Tunnel, South of the Downtown Hotel,
   East of West Street, and West of Greenwich Street.  Walking West
   on Rector Street from Broadway, you pass Church, Greenwich then
   Washington Streets.

   There are multiple blocks of parking lots right there, between
   Washington and Greenwich Streets, starting at the Battery Tunnel
   and extending North for a number of blocks.

   Nearest mass transit stations, in order, are the '1/9' (Rector
   Street), 'R/W' (Rector Street) and the '4/5' (Wall Street).

   -----

   Please mark this meeting on your calendar and join us!
   Please tell your friends about Unigroup!

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   -----------------
2. UPCOMING MEETINGS
   -----------------

   We have a series of meetings in the works:

   - 20-JAN-2005 : Wireless Access Around NYC and Intro to WiFi
                   Ben Serebin / NYCwireless

   - 17-FEB-2005 : Zope / Web Page Development
                   Rob Page / Zope Corporation

   - 17-MAR-2005 : Solaris 10 Part 2
                   Field Trip to Sun Microsystems

   - 21-APR-2005 : AFS and OpenAFS
                   Jeff Altman / Secure Endpoints

   - IPsec
   - Samba
   - Field Trip to HP  - Invited
   - Unix 35th Birthday Celebration
   - DNS
   - Unix Clusters and Clustered Databases
   - Linux Clustering Part 3: Beowulf version 2
   - Building a Firewall using FreeBSD and Linux
   - High Performance Internet Servers / Web Acceleration
   - Unix Office Tools: Word Processors, Spreadsheets, Accounting Packages.
   - PKI
   - GNU Development Environments
   - iSCSI, Serial ATA, and other new peripheral technologies

   Please let us know about any other meeting topics that you may be
   interested in.  Potential speakers on Unix related technology topics
   should contact the Unigroup board at uniboard@unigroup.org.

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4. PRIOR MEETINGS
   --------------

   November 2004: Apple OS/X - Field Trip to Apple Computer

   Unigroup would like to thank Apple Computer for hosting our meeting
   on Apple OS/X.  Apple's speakers: Patrick Dennard, Leslie Schwartz,
   Ed Eigerman, Kevin Boland showed off their Hardware and Software.
   We learned that Apple OS/X is highly similar to FreeBSD 5, and the
   various closed-source differences in the operating system were discussed.

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   --------------------
5. UNIGROUP INFORMATION
   --------------------

   Unigroup is one of the oldest and largest Unix User's Groups serving
   the Greater New York City Regional Area since the early 1980s.  Unigroup
   is a not-for-profit, vendor-neutral and member funded volunteer
   organization.  Unigroup holds regular and special event meetings
   throughout the year on technical topics relating to Unix and the Unix
   User Community.  Unigroup is also the Greater NYC Regional Area Affiliate
   of UniForum - an International Unix Users Group.

   Unigroup holds regular meetings planned for (at a minimum) the Third
   THURSDAY of Odd Months.  We generally try to hold Field Trip or
   Vendor Specific Meetings on the Even Months, although we do have
   the ability to hold monthly meetings at our new downtown meeting location.
   Recently, we have been holding meetings on a more monthly basis.

   Planned meeting dates are: 1/20/2005, 2/17, 3/17, 4/21, ...
   Watch for our Special Event meetings at the various trade shows in NYC
   as well as "Field Trips" to the facilities of local hardware and
   software vendors.

   =========================================================================
   = For Unigroup Information, Events and Meeting Announcements be sure to =
   = visit our World Wide Web Home Page:                                   =
   =       http://www.unigroup.org                                         =
   =========================================================================

   For further information or to get on the Unigroup Electronic Mail Mailing
   List send an EMail message to:
        unilist@unigroup.org

   To contact the Board of Directors of Unigroup, send an EMail message to:
        uniboard@unigroup.org

   If you have recently attended a meeting and you are not receiving
   Email announcements, please send us an Email and we will make
   corrections to our lists.

   Please Email the Board with any suggestions, especially potential
   meeting topics and speakers.  Unigroup welcomes contributions and
   content suggestions for our newsletter.  Unigroup is a volunteer
   organization and we need your assistance!  Please let us know if you
   can help!

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I hope to see you all at our next meeting!

-Rob Weiner
 Unigroup Executive Director
 unilist@unigroup.org
 http://www.unigroup.org

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