by Jane-Ellen Long
Managing Editor
<jel@usenix.org>



As you read this, we're off to the land of sea otters and Steinbeck for the Annual Technical Conference, held this year in Monterey. If you're joining us, you'll enjoy dozens of exciting sessions, lots of great food, an invaluable chance to talk with people who share your interests, and a reception at the truly outstanding Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Can't make it this time? The scenery changes, but the excitement (and the great food) are S.O.P. for USENIX conferences. Check out our Upcoming Events on the inside front cover and the Announcements near the end of this issue, and remember to visit <http://www.usenix.org/events/events.html> regularly. Coming up next are Mount Rainier and Micro . . . , monuments and mustard mussels (the best appetizer in the world, imho, can be found in Georgetown, if you know where to look), and Silicon Hills and Highland Lakes. You might think of presenting a paper at one of our Y2K conferences — it's a great way to justify attending.

Another way to get to a conference is to offer to write Conference Reports for ;login:. In this issue (I was bound to get to the point eventually) we have summaries of OSDI '99, held in San Diego; our next will include the highlights of the Workshop on Embedded Systems.

And more: See the great advice from Bailey Szeto on how you can let your users select their own anti-spam policies under sendmail. The SAGE How-To series continues with step-by-steps on setting up an Apache server. Other how-to highlights: how to profit from the dauntingly large CPAN archive of Perl modules, how to Tcl choice databites out of files, how to write Java applets that invoke methods on other machines. Don't skip the Letters column, where Open Source wars continue to rage. Or Musings, where Rik Farrow comes out of the (political) closet. Or the takes on certification: Tina Darmohray, Bryan MacDonald, and Dan York all offer plenty to think about. Or . . . but I'm keeping you from the good stuff, and I've got a date with a sea otter. See you next issue!