Members  attending the meeting included:   Richard Foerster,  Alan Shoemaker, Isaac Saldana, Ken Howells, Gary Taylor, Eugène Clement and new member Dave Reisz.  

Eugène  had not planned to attend the meeting but dropped by to deliver a few goodies, and provide a brief update on late developments at Mandrakesoft.  Instead, he stayed later than planned, and eventually was dragged away by his wife after her patience ran out.   Eugène  told us that Mandrake is opening two new offices: San Francisco {now} and Montreal {in the works}.  Among the goodies he dropped off was a copy of Mandrake 7.1 which we have placed in the library.  

Eugène  also told us that Mandrake has established a forum { http://forum.mandrakesoft.com/ }  where users can record *wants* and *gripes* that will help guide future releases.    A new contribution included in 7.1 is WebMin, which is an html configuration tool.   Incidentally, there is an excellent tutorial on the Mandrake site that is intended for new Linux users and shows how to configure PMFirewall to enable Internet sharing and create a firewall for the home or office.  You can find it at: http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/demos/Networking/IPmasq/pages/

Gary told us about his efforts to set up his secure server, and got a few tips and suggestions to try, when he got back home.   Gary is also working on a couple of new ideas, like internet packages that include hardware and software that he will be marketing to the *nearby* Marines.

Dave Reisz was attending his first meeting with our group.  He is running Slackware on his home systems.  Dave has been involved with the AK-LUG for a number of years, but is now working in the Inland Empire.  He still follows the AK-LUG list, and recommends it as a good source of Linux information.   Interestingly, Alan and Dave both have work experience in Alaska, we discovered.   

Ken mentioned that he has been immersed recently developing an e-commerce update for his employer's web site.  He is using Macromedia Ultra-Dev which has received top reviews lately.  

According to Macromedia, you can build ASP sites for Linux machines running Apache Web Server using ChiliASP which is available for purchase.    You can also run a JSP site on Apache if you download the Tomcat extension for Apache from Jakarta.apache.org.   UltraDev does not include built-in support for PHP but could be extended through the JavaScript API.  

You need to have access to a database on your local  {probably  Win98 unfortunately}  machine to use UltraDev.  Since you can set up a different connection for run-time and design-time database connections, you can use a different database like Microsoft Access for the design time connections, IF you make sure the database field names match the names in your run-time database.   JSP sites can connect to MySQL using any JDBC 1.0 driver for MySQL. You can find a list of drivers for MySQL databases at http://industry.java.sun.com/products/jdbc/drivers.

While discussing some of the e-commerce issues there was also a good discussion of  the likely causes of *abandoned shopping carts*, and the relationship to early price disclosure.  Fortunately for Ken {and unfortunately for us} Ken will not be able to attend our August meeting because he will be on a honeymoon in Europe.   Meanwhile we will be waiting to hear the next installment of his development experience.

Isaac told us he has been working with QT/KDev on an application to manage user accounts.   Dave suggested another development option to explore is Sun's Forte for Java.  The Community Edition is a no-charge, downloadable toolset that enables developers to create simple applications in the Java language. It provides a fully modular environment that delivers integrated visual design, editing, compilation, and debugging capabilities for development on Solaris[tm] Operating Environment, Windows, and Linux platforms.   You can order a CD at $19.95 or download it at: http://www.sun.com/forte/ffj/ce/download.html

To use Forte, you will also need a Java Virtual Machine installed on your system.  If you don't have one yet, you can download the appropriate JDK at the same location.  

Isaac also asked if anyone knew of a good text editor with syntax highlighting.  Dave suggested NEdit.  NEdit is a comprehensive multi-purpose text editor for the X Window System, which combines a standard, easy to use, graphical user interface with the functionality and stability required by users who use a text editor heavily.  It can be found at: http://icewalkers.com/softlib/app/app_00074.html

The next meeting is scheduled for Aug 12th, 2000, so mark your calendar.

The meeting adjourned at noon.