Well, I finally got around to emailing at least two people today (Evangi and
Christiana). Me and Sid are planning on chatting with Evangi tomorrow morning
around 11. I had a major headache getting Java under Netscape configured
properly while I was in Pakistan. As soon as Java would start, either the
browser would crash, or the Java class would fail to initialize. Well, I
finally managed to fix the problem after some help from a Pakistani guy on
the #linuxpk channel (of all places!). Additionally, I had to browse through all the old messages on Netscape’s news server before finding a solution.
Anyway, I now have Java under Netscape on Linux configured so that chatting
using Yahoo! chat should not be a problem. At least let’s hope it’s not a
problem tomorrow.

I got the following movies a few days ago:

• Dragonheart

• Dante’s Peak
• Sneakers
• Mission Impossible (x6)

I liked them all, but I think Volcano is better than Dante’s
Peak. I’m going to use x’s next to the name of a movie to denote how many
times I’ve seen that movie. I really like Mission Impossible, as you can see.

A few days ago I read on Slashdot that W. Richard Stevens, the
author of many famous UNIX networking books, and a person whom I (and
a lot of other cool people) personally admired and revered, has passed away.
It was really sad, and a lot of people wrote in to express their sorrow over
his death. I’ve read two chapters of his TCP/IP Illustrated: Volume II and I have to say that few books are written so clearly, and so beautifully.
Stevens really knew what he was talking about when he wrote his books and the
reader can feel this while going through the numerous lucid illustrations and
examples. I should have read more of his work, and I’m going to make sure
that I do. For those of you who are interested, you can go here to read his obituary.

There’s a really cool Internet Mapping Project going on at AT&T. They are working on creating maps of the Internet, based on different criteria, such as Map by network addresses or Map by ISPs or Map by whatever. The maps look awesome, and they are working on creating wall-sized posters and stuff for sale. If you use the Internet (of course you do, how else would you be reading this?!) then you should definitely go check it out. If you click on the map that’s at the top of the main page, it’ll take you to the gallery, where all the good stuff is.

And September 2, 1999 was the date for the 30th anniversary of the Internet! OK, all of you who already read about it in the newspapers, forget everything and get the real information from the following sites:

1. Internet Anniversary at UCLA
2. About the nerds who made it happen
3. A Brief History of the World Wide Web

And finally, the Linux operating system recently celebrated it’s birthday too! Check out this link for more info.