Tech Info Stuff

The Tech Info Pages are a collection of stuff (authentic tech term) that we have found useful over the years (see also our tech links pages).

Web stuff	Various information on Server Side Includes, our Lightweight Javascript pop-out menus, CSS pop-out menus, DHTML and CSS notes, PHP4, regular expressions, Browser ID strings and other stuff.
Open Guides	Our first Open Guide tries to unravel the mysteries of installing and running (and even understanding) DNS. Our second struggles with LDAP.
Audio Visual Stuff	Bit of a rag-bag of stuff on Digital Audio (some video), formats, priciples of Digital Audio and common frequency ranges, noise levels and other essential - if arcane - stuff if you get into this subject seriously. Now includes an acoustic calculator, stuuff on equalization and some primers. Oh, and yet another glossary on the subject.
Language Stuff	Some information about PHP and Ruby. We are in the process of migrating our development methodology to Ruby - and a painful, but worthwhile, experience it is proving to be.
DOM Stuff	Collection of information about the W3C DOM including the beginning of our in-house reference section.
CSS Stuff	There is a lot more to CSS than getting rid of all those stupid font tags. We missed the whole point. This section documents our contrite journey to a Better Place™. Including CSS based liquid layouts and pop-up, pop-down, drop-down and drop-dead CSS based menus visible to those of you wise, or fortunate enough, to be using any Gecko (e.g. Firefox) or Opera 7+ (post 7.54 version) browser. Well since we also use now them on MSIE 6 and 7 I guess we can't say that anymore, but only on the front page and only a single level and only when consenting adults are present.
Wiring Stuff	Collection of cable pin-outs (RS232, V.35 etc), NULL Modems, LAN wiring standards, USB, telephone wiring standards, cable information. Now includes some PC stuff e.g. DIN and Mini-DINs, monitors etc..
PC Stuff	We get confused real easy. We just bought some new PCs and were staggered by the changes. This is our attempt to keep a modest handle on all that USB, Firewire, DIN, IDE/EIDE/SATA stuff.
Protocol Stuff	Ragbag of protocol information including frame formats and some backgrounders. Includes TCP/IP, 802.3 LAN and VLAN, IP classes and CIDR, IPv6, some VoIP stuff, Video conferencing, SS7, SIGTRAN, H.323, SIP, MGCP (MEGACO) and ISDN protocols.
SS7/SIGTRAN Stuff	Some material on SS7 and SIGTRAN. Includes a walk through the alphabet soup of SS7 and SIGTRAN, layer primitives, SIGTRAN stacks and applicable standards. Fun stuff really.
Wireless Stuff	Collection of stuff about 2.4GHz and 5.8 GHz Wireless, wireless backgrounders, definitions of decibel, our wireless link calculators (budgets, free-space loss, fresnel zones, system power, watts to db conversion etc.), links to some heavy stuff, 802.11 formats, MAC layer etc. Crammed with smutty talk about decibels, DPQSK and power budgets. Ooof. Be still my beating heart.
Survival Guides	We use a lot of software and we forget stuff. When you find yourself, for the third time this week, entering the wrong command into the wrong software for the wrong reason it's time to do something. We tried to bring together in a single page all the stuff that you need on a regular basis - a kind of super memory jogger. The current ones cover MySQL, Postfix, Cron, cryptography, TLS/SSL, X.509 certificates (including self-signed) and updating FreeBSD using a variety of methods. We'll add more one day Real Soon Now™. We can't wait for the next one it's soooo exiciting.
ASCII Stuff	Lots of places to find ASCII tables but we always forget 'em. In case you do as well here is a list of ASCII characters. And IA5 which is almost the same. And a mercifully short character code overview. An apparently simple subject which turns out to be brutally complicated - well to our modest brains.
Speed Stuff	Definition of Telecom Speeds covering T1, E-5 (CEPT5), OC-3, STS-48 etc., etc.
Telephony Stuff	GSTN Network Tones, ring patterns, E&M signaling (North America and RoW)
Mechanical Stuff	Even us electronic guys need to know which screws to use. Screw thread sizes, head types etc.
Security Stuff	Some information about security. Mostly email, anti-spam, at this stage.
Howto Stuff	Paint-by-numbers information about certain topics. We just replaced our Primary Domain Controller (PDC) with a Samba3.x + LDAP configuration. We found it all horribly confusing to configure - but it works like a dream. We also just moved to a FreeBSD 5.x Firewall + NAT + DNS configuration for customer installations. The howto describes roughly what we did. We'll add more as we stumble through a series of major system upgrades. In the meantime we've provided a couple of guides on DNS and LDAP.
Electronic Stuff	Includes a Glossary of electronic terms, information on 3.3V and 5V isolation, BDM interfaces for both the PowerPC and ColdFire ranges.
RFC Stuff	RFCs by topic. All the RFCs relevant to a particular topic, for example, IPSec, NAT. We update 'em from time to time.

Problems, comments, suggestions, corrections (including broken links) or something to add? Please take the time from a busy life to 'mail us' (at top of screen), the webmaster (below) or info-support at zytrax. You will have a warm inner glow for the rest of the day.

Tech Info Stuff

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