Re: An idea about mail

["Charles C. Bennett, Jr." <ccb@kukla.tiac.net>]

> Just out of curiousity... what is 'masquerading'?  where can i read about
> it?

Masquerading is using your Linux (or other) box to perform NAT -
Network Address Translation.  It allows a network to hide behind a
single box.  This can be very secure.  There is a mini howto called
IP-Masquerade that can fill you in nicely or send you running for
a copy of the Linux Network Administrator's Guide.

> another question... this is a serious newbie thing...
> when i put './' infront of a file name, (for example ./WMprefs) what am i
> doing?  does the './' have a special (or not special) name?

The . in ./ is the current directory.  You are (redundantly) specifying
a relative path to your current directory.  This is mostly meaningless
except in two circumstances:

       1) you are running a program and . is not in your path.  If
          you are accustomed to running as super-user, DO NOT put
	  . in your path - it opens you up to one of the oldest known
	  traps for the unwary.

       2) you are trying to manipulate a file that begins with '-'.


> I appologize for putting this here, i'm not into one of the IRC's yet, i'll
> have to look into finding one for support. (kinda sounds like an Alcoholics
> Anonymous group (-; )
> 
> James Nichols

I've never been into IRC and I've been around a few 24 hours.  Email
works just fine.

Then again, is there a Linux newbie answer-bot channel out there
somewhere?  Perhaps having a bot that monitors the channel for simple
questions and unobtrusively answers with simple pointers to
information could be a nice thing to have.  Didn't I hear tell of
somthing like this over in #perl land?

Anyone working on Linux start-up tips or the 365 tip-a-day calendar?

ccb


---
Charles C. Bennett, Jr.				Workgroup Technology Corp.
Principal Software Engineer,			91 Hartwell Ave.
Distributed Object Computing			Lexington, MA 02421

"Talking about music is like tap dancing about architecture" - Laurie Anderson