Hi everybody,

From this issue onwards, I will carry out the editorial tasks and responsibilities of CISN Newsletter. As we have been doing previously, we will continue to share with our readers the hottest issues and up-to-date news of information technology sector.

As in the previous issue, we launched the CISN Newsletter content in Turkish as well to communicate and share the essential information technology news with as much curious readers as possible. Please visit the following link if you'd like to see the content of CISN in Turkish;

http://cisn.odtu.edu.tr

The statistics of the year 2002 reveals that the number of accesses to the content in English is 1322, and accesses to the content in Turkish is 920. It is a great pleasure and source of real motivation for us to see that we are able to reach a wider audience in every issue.

The questionnaire results reveal that readers mostly visited "Long Reach Ethernet" and "Addresses with 'tr' Extension are on the Increase" articles in our last issue. We are committed to improve our newsletter according to the answers you will provide us with in our reader questionnaire. Please feel free to convey us your suggestions via CISN's e-mail address cisn@metu.edu.tr about any kind of info tech issue that you would like to see in the next issue.

I'd like to gratefully acknowledge and thank the following people for their perpetual contribution from the very first issue; CC Webadmin Evrim Akman; graphical designer Yasemin Saatçioğlu; statistician Ulaş Sunata; translator Deniz Yönter and CC User Support Group Administrator Cengiz Acartürk.

The following CC staff has provided the articles in the second issue of 2002, which we strongly believe will attract the attention of our readers;

Ahmet Öztürk; Technical Support Group system administrator, provides information about "Free Software",

Altay S. Özaygen; Administrative Applications Group member gives detailed information about the GnuPGP that replaces PGP; one of the secure techniques that could be used to protect the privacy of your communications and archives on computer environment,

Cihan Yıldırım; Informatics Group Administrator who administered the launching of the New Web Pages of Computer Center (METU-CC),

İbrahim Çalışır; the User Support Group member and the new Virus and Network Security Specialist of CC who prepared the two articles "Viruses" and "Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer",

M. Suna Yılmaz; Network Group Member who has provided an article about "IEEE 802.11a Protocol", one of the standards of wireless networks that has already become an inseparable part of modern life, Özgür Orgun; Administrative Applications Group member who prepared an article about 'Thesis Advisor Assignment' program, which is available among the applications on web-based Postgraduate Information System that is implemented for the first time in Turkey,

Selçuk Han Aydın; Administrative Applications Group member and Technical Support Coordinator of PC Rooms/Administrative Units, who provided the article about free, reliable & secure and ever-evolving operating system "Linux".

I'd like to thank all these people who has contributed to this issue. See you in the next issues, which will hopefully be shaped with your ideas...

Esin KIYMAÇ