Linux Gazette

June 2004 (#103):

     * [1]The Mailbag
     * [2]More 2 Cent Tips!
     * [3]The Answer Gang
     * [4]News Bytes, by Michael Conry
     * [5]How Linux is Changing the Face of Education in Africa, by A.J. Venter
     * [6]A Bare-Bones Guide to Firewalls, by John Murray
     * [7]Firewalling with netfilter/iptables, by Barry O'Donovan
     * [8]Design Awareness, by Mark Seymour
     * [9]Getting a better browsing experience with Mozilla, by Jimmy O'Regan
     * [10]Plots, Graphs, and Curves in the World of Linux, by Ben Okopnik
     * [11]Experiments with Kernel 2.6 on a Hyperthreaded Pentium 4, by Pramode
       C.E.
     * [12]Ecol, by Javier Malonda
     * [13]Qubism, by Jon "Sir Flakey" Harsem
     * [14]Linus not the author of Linux?, by Jimmy O'Regan
     * [15]The Foolish Things We Do With Our Computers, by Ben Okopnik
     * [16]The Backpage, by Ben Okopnik

   or read [17]TWDT

The Mailbag
     _________________________________________________________________

                         HELP WANTED: Article Ideas
   Submit comments about articles, or articles themselves (after reading
   [18]our guidelines) to [19]The Editors of Linux Gazette, and technical
           answers and tips about Linux to [20]The Answer Gang. 
     _________________________________________________________________

     * [21][Lgang] linuxgazette.net down......
     * [22]Best of not so best but please update it?
            ____________________________________________________

[Lgang] linuxgazette.net down......

   Thu, 20 May 2004 23:03:09 +0100
   Thomas Adam ([23]thomas_adam from bonbon.net)
   Question by lgang (lgang from linuxnj.com)

     This is a discussion that took place about the decline of e-mails to TAG
     and possible reasons why this is. In this discussion, a number of issues
     have been raised, and we would value your input, gentle readers. -- Thomas
     Adam

   Hi all, 

   I am also deeply concerned by the lack of e-mails that we are receiving. To
   date, we only have one (possible) TAG thread and that will only be of any
   use and that is only if I pad the contents out at publishing time. Truth
   is, I have noted a considerable drop in e-mails over the months, ever since
   the move... 

   Now  it  may  well  be down to the time of year that we're at -- it is
   approaching  summer  for  most  people,  and so maybe people aren't as
   computer-oriented as they might normally have been. But if things continue
   in this way.... 

   Luckily we have a little stash of backlogged e-mails. The only danger with
   these though is that some of the information may well be out of date, but
   that's something that we can either correct, or ignore. Depends. :) 

   Maybe we need to "advertise" more somehow? 

   -- Thomas Adam 
                                  _______

   I am also deeply concerned by the lack of e-mails that we are receiving. To
   date, we only have one (possible) TAG thread and that will only be of any
   use and that is only if I pad the contents out at publishing time. Truth
   is, I have noted a considerable drop in e-mails over the months, ever since
   the move... 

     [Ben] [Nod] That's a huge, primary concern for me; Heather and I had a
     longish conversation about it when I decided to take this gig, and I
     expressed it to her then. She had a few really good suggestions, and I had
     a couple of small ideas of my own; it's going to require some cash - which
     I'm willing to toss at the problem - and a fair bit of getting pro-active
     in getting the word out, something I haven't had much time to do lately
     and is a somewhat bitter pill for me because of that. I've never been
     particularly good at marketing - which, of course, is what's involved here
     - bit I'm going to have to grit my teeth and learn somehow.

     [Sluggo]  There  was  a  significant drop in mails with the move to
     linuxgazette.net. My opinion is not to stress out about it but just adjust
     the zine accordingly. Maybe combine the three TAG columns into one. Maybe
     focus more on articles and less on TAG. The article supply is still
     holding steady, even though it doesn't look like it till the last couple
     days of the month. But it's always been like that.

     One thing Margie did that I gradually lazed out on was sending an email to
     all the authors who had published in the last three issues reminding them
     about the next article deadline. Maybe that could be combined with an
     encouragement for articles. Certainly there are several strong authors
     like Rob Tougher and Mark Nielsen that we haven't heard from recently.
     Maybe Mark has some already-written articles he can send us. There's also