Members  attending the meeting included:   Richard Foerster,  Alan Shoemaker, Gary Taylor, Tad Peters,  Dave Reisz, Jim Vassilakos and Jim's visiting friend, Brian Chrisman.

We were happy to welcome Jim Vassilakos and Brian Chrisman to our meeting this month.  Both are graduates of UCR, and got to know each other there.  Brian, who lives in San Jose, was in the area visiting Jim and they decided to catch our meeting.   Interestingly, Bryan now works in outside sales for VALinux, and is also active in the SJLUG.

Tad brought a Mac CI that he is configuring to act as a firewall in front of his network.   It was set up with BSD on a 200mb hard disk.   Initial configuration and testing showed that it could talk to systems on the network behind the firewall but not to systems outside.  Dave Reisz was able help work through the remaining configuration, by adding a default route to the outside systems.

Members also had the opportunity to experiment more with the Caldera "2.4 Kernel Technology Preview"  including the new KOffice suite.    The KOffice Shell provides an integration of the separate components that is reminiscent of MS-Works.  Although time did not permit an extensive examination, KOffice applications load quickly and seem to provide the basic functions people most often need and use.  In addition,  The interface seems very *natural* and easy to use.

We also looked briefly at Omnis Studio, which was set up and running on the 2.4 Kernel system.   It is an interesting, package, that in some ways seems a lot like MS-Access.   It has a runtime tool bar that is always present, which seems unexpected as compared to other Linux applications.  However when you think of the package  as being *like* Access then it seems more acceptable.   It includes an application generation tool that can quickly build applications based on "templates".  Several application templates are provided, and others can be downloaded from the Omnis web site.   Tables can be customized to suit specific requirements.   The development environment is "kind of"  like Delphi or Visual Basic, with property inspector and a component store.

Omnis Studio is cross-platform, and currently available on Windows-9X/NT,  Mac-OS, and Linux.  Another feature of Omnis is the web client that allows you to access Omnis runtime  remotely using a browser plug-in.  The problem is that you still need to do the HTML screen forms in *something*, and Omnis suggests FrontPage.  Frankly it is hard to see this as much of an improvement over a  php/mySQL  solution.   

Other packages such as Tango, even if  more expensive initially might provide a more satisfying alternative for rapid web application development.  Unfortunately, the development environment for Tango runs only on windows or Mac-OS, while a application server allows the finished product to hosted on a Linux server..  

Some reviews have compared the Omnis product to Delphi or C++ Builder which seems misleading as saying Access applications are equivalent to Visual Basic Applications.   For those who really want a Delphi/C++ Builder RAD package had better wait for Kylix, the code name for Inprise's port of its C/C++ IDE to Linux.   For the latest developments concerning Kylix try: http://www.drbob42.com/kylix/ 

Gary Taylor, brought a laptop and a cell phone to test an idea he is working on.   He wants to set-up a two to 4 systems that he can take to swap meets, malls, and other remote locations where he can demonstrate and let people experience using the Internet.   At the moment, he plans to use a cellular link.   He had intended to demonstrate the set-up to members.    Of course the *bomb shelter* we meet in prevented us from getting a cell signal, so we went outside.  The signal was better, but then we had a problem getting a connect on the number.    One of the *demo* pages Gary planned to show can be found at: 
http://www.wwclass.com/Loans/loancalc.wwc   It is a php Loan payment calculator that produces a nifty amortization table.

The meeting actually adjourned at 12:30, but a number of members stayed and continued discussions until a good deal later than that.   Even meeting monthly, it sometimes seems that there is *not enough time* to get everything discussed.  I think that is a *good sign*.   The next meeting October 14th.