keeping the community informed...

This month our sponsor is AT&T, who have been gracious enough to provide DaniWeb users with access to white papers related to business networking and mobility.

DaniWeb members can download totally free AT&T white papers including:

Key Elements to an Effective Business Continuity Plan
Effective planning cannot begin without a clear understanding of the business functions that need to be supported and the scope of what that support will entail.

RFID: A Business Revolution Providing Strategic and Competitive Advantage
Advances in radio frequency identification technology are causing big changes in supply chain management.

Improving the View with IP Videoconferencing
New videoconferencing technologies are poised to benefit the enterprise.

Linking the Global Supply Chain
Advanced IP applications enable closer collaboration with partners.

Next Generation Network Series: Virtualization
Virtualization can be applied to many networked IT components, to minimize expenses and provide flexibility in the implementation and scalability of resources.

Laying the Groundwork for WiMAX
Early trial results show wireless performance on par with T1 technology, and expose early network integration considerations.

Vertical Applications for Wireless LANs
New applications enabled by wireless networks show great promise for industries such as manufacturing, retail warehousing, healthcare and education.

The Age of the Wireless LAN
Wireless LANs provide access to shared information on the fly, enabling real-time connectivity to network resources. Businesses should consider security, bandwidth, and interference in the network design.

Integrating Mobile Access into your VPN Environment
If you haven't already done so, you're likely to integrate a variety of access services and devices onto your corporate VPN in the near future. This article tells you how.

Understanding VPN Technology Choices: Comparing MPLS, IPSec and SSL
For most enterprises, an intelligent combination of IP VPN technologies is the best approach for an optimized network infrastructure.

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introduce yourself to the community…

DaniWeb is, without doubt, the greatest IT discussion community on the Web today. If you have an IT related problem then our network of programmers, web developers and IT professionals can usually provide a solution before you pull your hair out. Yet DaniWeb is more than just a collection of questions and answers, what really makes us special is you. It is the community that drives DaniWeb, that keeps our forums and blogs alive.

The trouble is, with so many forums you may find yourself only ever chatting with a small handful of DaniWeb members within whichever one or two you frequent. One way to broaden your network of forum friends is to head over to the Geeks' Lounge where you can experience the social side of DaniWeb. But why not start by telling us a bit about yourself, or simply saying hello, in the Community Introductions forum? We might not be as big as Facebook, but we sure are just as friendly…

every month one member makes the DaniWeb hall of fame…

The latest entrant to the DaniWeb hall of fame is MattEvans who earns the much sought after 'Featured Poster' badge for his 700 postings in the 15 months since he joined us. In this time Matt has been most active in the Web Development and Software Development forums. Listing his interests as reading, writing and coding, with sleeping occasionally in there as well, Matt has all the attributes of the perfect DaniWeb member.

How old are you?

I am 21 years old, 22 in November. Maybe that's young to some, but I sure don't feel young anymore…

Where are you from?

I'm from the Greenwich/Deptford area of South East London. Greenwich sounds nicer but Deptford is more accurate. I haven't lived here my whole life, but I was born here, and I moved back here about 2 years ago. I have lived in London most of my life, and I now live with my girlfriend of about 2 years. She'd kill me if she knew I couldn't remember exactly how long it's been.

What is your occupation?

I'm a student at Greenwich University, studying Computing with Games Development. If I'd stayed on at education consistently I'd have finished my degree by now, but, I quit the last 2 years of school for various reasons, and then had to wait a year to do a college course. For money, I've been doing contract web development work lately; usually for the same company, although I've done other contract IT work in the past. I worked for Alcatel UK in the year between school and college, writing test modules in VisualBasic for the circuits on their undersea networks. But, I don't really have a real occupation yet. At the moment; I'm just about to go back to uni for my final year, so I just sit at home programming privately. I like to call it `working on my portfolio'

What brought you to DaniWeb?

I had a problem with a Delphi application that I was writing, and I needed some one-on-one advice from an expert in the field. I haven't really touched Delphi since writing that application, but the advice was very helpful. I started posting in the Perl, and then Web Development / HTML and CSS / Javascript boards when I started writing web applications, which was relatively recently.

What were your first impressions of DaniWeb, and have they changed during the time you have been with us?

My first impressions were honestly, "oh it's just another forum", but, I was quite surprised that there's such a rich set of boards. Most forums I'd frequented in the past were very specialized, like the Armageddon Games forum which focuses on development/help for two of their own applications; or the Xtreme Visual Basic forum, which is, unsurprisingly, pretty focused on VB development. I've come to realize each board on DaniWeb is a very different place; with its own group of regulars, own etiquette even. It's nice to talk to different people, and the same people in different contexts, without having to go to loads of different sites.

What makes you stay here?

I'd have no-one to talk to if I went away! As true as that may be, it's not a big reason. I don't really ask for much help myself anymore, not that I never need it, just that I prefer to read cold hard specifications/documentation than to ask for help, so when I do ask for advice, it's usually out of curiosity rather than necessity. I don't really post frequently in any of the coffee house boards either; although I do like to say something random in the geek's lounge every once in a while... Erm, I guess that in-between pedantically quoting guidelines and pseudo-standards, and starting and maintaining heated debates about the benefits of HTML tables over CSS in web dev; I think that I have helped, at least a few people. Plus, I just like technical conversation; I can't really have decent `tech talk' with my girlfriend, most of my friends, anyone in my family except my brother, and rarely even any of my colleagues. I just get blank looks.

What are your interests within IT?

Although I have posted mostly in web development, that's not my main interest, at least not at the moment. The HTML sort of crosses over with my interest in XML generally, and things like Apache/JS/Perl/CSS comes from working on websites myself, but, to say again, it's not really a primary interest these days. I am back into trying to write a big 3D game; which is something I stopped doing for a while last year. The game's C++/OpenGL based with XML datafiles, I think I stopped working on it because it's so life-consuming. I do like quite abstract things as well; I spent nearly a year working on an interpreted XML server-side language, to surpass PHP by default; I stopped because it got a bit too silly; I'd spent most of the time perfecting the parser without even looking seriously at something like SAX for the job. That sort of echoes with the first version of the 3D game; it was in Java, and I spent most of the time working on a system comparable to but less stable than Java's `generics'.. Hey, I didn't realize they were coming. I try and keep a bit more `on the wire' these days, and check out existing solutions before trying to do everything from scratch.

What are your interests outside of IT and outside of DaniWeb?

Music I suppose is my only other big interest. I'm in a band, where I play drums. That's not really my instrument of choice in terms of the sound, or the discipline itself; but, they are very fun to play. I like to get a break from the IT stuff when I can, and not much else holds my attention. We did record a couple of our songs, but we haven't played any live shows, and it's got difficult for us to practice these days now that the band's members are dispersed. I don't have many other interests outside IT, because, since I found computers, most of my interests (art, writing, even music) transferred themselves onto digital media, and programming effectively superseded all of those other interests.

Name the best thing about DaniWeb, and one thing you would change if it were in your power?

Best thing; has to be the people there. DaniWeb wouldn't be DaniWeb without the people who post there. It would be like my old forum site where only me and an automatic maintenance program called `Drone' ever posted. Pretty boring! The administration team and Dani herself do a great job of keeping the site on track, albeit often unobtrusively; and big props have to go out to them; but it is the regulars and regulars-to-be who actually make the site a nice place to be. It's like my Christian parents once said to me, "it's not the building that makes the church it's the congregation". To change; I would make the user control panel pretty again. It went all square one day and never went back. I can't remember exactly what it looked like, but I'm sure it was nicer. Perhaps, I would get more `game developing people' into the Game Development board since it's always pretty sparse on actual conversation, or any topics in general.

How long do you spend, on average, on DaniWeb every day?

Erm, depends on the day; I usually refresh my usercp.php first thing when I wake up and then maybe I'll wander into my favorite forums a few times throughout the day. I have spent way too long reading and posting for a single day before, and also way too little time sometimes. Often, I go to DaniWeb for a while as a break in-between doing something time consuming and not immediately rewarding, like optimizing/recompiling code or writing an XML DTD, so I can't really measure that accurately in hour/minute time.. Let's say, one hour at the minimum, but sometimes that time is all spent reading.

Windows, Mac or Linux? And why?

Linux, Linux, Linux with a capital L and an optional exclamation mark. I use Mandriva 2007 Free. It's free, and it's got everything Windows XP has, and more, for free, yes, free! I don't buy into the GNU/GPL philosophy 100% by all means, but I appreciate NOT having to download naff trial applications for everything; I sometimes like to work in a shell for a long period of time; I find that Linux is, and Linux applications are, generally more consistent than those on Windows, which is surprising considering Linux has many contributors; and I assure any reader, that on a purely visual level, KDE (my preferred window manager) has been ahead of Windows for years. I don't think I'd get on well with a Mac. I use Windows XP sometimes. Vista looks silly.

by happygeek

According to a report at The Register it would appear that Dell is making life difficult for UK customers who want to buy a Dell PC running Linux. Being a snooping journalist myself, I went to have a look for myself and indeed it is a lot harder to buy a Linux powered Dell than all the hype, fuelled in no small part by the Dell PR machine of course, would lead you to believe.

I particularly like the way that you are given the impression that Dell really doesn't want to sell you a Linux machine, with plenty of negative commentary when you do finally discover the information hidden away in the darkest corners of the UK site. Want to know more about Ubuntu? No problem, and the most important thing to note, according to Dell, is that when you choose it "you don't get a Windows operating system." If that hard sell didn't persuade you to go with Linux, how about the advice that it's not compatible with lots of other software, maybe that will help?

As The Register says "you might be forgiven for expecting the same even-handed approach from Dell to its Vista-based machines" but you would be wrong, because there are no similar warnings about software compatibility, just lots of loud chest beating in favour of Microsoft. And that was exactly what the reporter experienced when calling the Dell helpdesk to get advice on an OS for a Dell machine. A sales support person is quoted as saying that most people want Vista or XP, and eventually came up with an option for a Red Hat Inspiron 530, but no mention of Ubuntu at all. Oh, and for the record, the PC with Red Hat would 'only' cost £20 ($40) more than the same machine if it were supplied with Vista.

I can reveal that it actually possible to buy a Dell Ubuntu machine, you just have to go to the right Dell site. In this case that would be Dell Ubuntu for UK consumers, for example. It would be nice if Dell made a bit more of a song and dance about it of course, I found it by going to the Ubuntu site first and following the links from there. Personally, I would be inclined to buy the Vista version for £20 less and then install my own Linux distro and save a lot more money in the process.

Of course, let's not be too hard on Dell here. It does have to make a profit on its machines, and given the volume if sells the margin on each is slim. You can be sure the volume discounts it gets from Microsoft are generous, and it still has to provide support for the Linux machines it sells no matter how much the OS costs. Training staff to deal with those calls carries a cost, and this will be passed on to the consumer, that is the way of the world. I still salute Dell for bringing Linux, and choice, into the mix. But I would salute Dell more if it made that choice a little easier to make...