Text 250, 202 rader
Skriven 2005-05-02 14:02:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Kommentar till text 220 av Carol Shenkenberger (6:757/1)
Ärende: Changing FTS-0001.
==========================
Hello Carol,
MvdV>> I still don't know how you do it; runnin a system that keeps on
MvdV>> running in the autopilot for 8 month.
> Grin, long practice with what runs stable has been the answer.
And of course don't fix it if it ain't broke. Unfortunately one does not always
have the choice. Sometimes one can not avoid upgrading software. My system has
become less stable since I upgraded fom AVG 6 to AVG 7. (Virus scanner) Every
once in a while it just locks up after or during the automatic update. It
didn't do that before. Going back to AVG 6 is not an option as it is no longer
supported and a virus scanner MUST be up to date...
Disabling the automatic updates? Well maybe I will do that when I go away for
longer than a few days. I'd prefer not to, but I will have to make a choice.
> I first did this when I was on the Stennis, back in
> 1995-1998. That time was a bit rough as I learned to automate
> everything (and you'd be amazed at what you miss when you get
> back a few months later!).
Been there, dome that, bought the T-shirt. I am the R28 RPC remember. In the
haydays there were 11 nets and 5600 points. Collecting the segments, assembling
it into the R28 pointlist and hatching the diffs, it all was completely
automatic.
And yes, it took a while before I had taken care of all eventualities... ;-)
> Makenl is not automated but that's deliberate.
> When I'm at sea, I'll have to generate from there and if the
> system at home is spitting out a zoneseg, I cant also do it
> from sea without bolluxing up.
Yes, two systems competing would not work very well... ;-)
But there is two sides to it. One part of the job is assembling the Z6 segment
from the subsegment and sending it to the other ZC's, The other part is getting
the segments from the other ZC's and together with your own segment assemble it
into a full nodelist and distribute that in your zone.
The latter part could be fully automated and run without your attention on your
system while you are at sea.
OTOH, instead of assembling your own version of the nodelist, you could simply
use what is distributed by the IC of your choice and distribute that in your
zone too.
MvdV>> It will be difficult to get the same stability as you have now. I had
MvdV>> the same decision to make when I added IP capability. My POTS only sys
MvdV>> has been running on a DOS machine until Sept 2003. There was no way th
MvdV>> I could make it take care of IP too, DOS is ony stable in a single tas
MvdV>> environment, I never could get a /stable/ multitasker for DOS.
> I had DOS doing IREX pretty well, but now and again (every
> month or 2) a semophore would get stuck and have to be
> manually cleared. Didnt work well for long automation.
I found that the DOS version if Irex would only do dial up. That's not what one
wants when you have an adsl connection. ;-)
Maybe I could have found a fix for that, but as I ran into other problems with
DOS I decided it was time to let go of DOS and put no more effort into it.
MvdV>> Maybe you should go Linux.
> That would be optimal but the cable modem is on the dual boot
> box and Don cant use the SuSe partition for any of his games.
Eh? You mean he does not have a machine of his own?
These days computers are so cheap that one can easely afford to let each member
of the family have its own. That is unless you want the latest of the latest,
but most of the time they don't need that.
Rosa has her own machine and she does not even live here. ;-)
It ius a 133 MHz Win98 machine. Good enough for doing e-mail and web browsing.
I gave her a machine of her own so that we would not be in each other's way.
All machine in the LAN have equal access to the InterNet. The dsl modem has a
build in router and that is the core of the LAN.
> He's a lovely man but not a geek and it's too confusing for
> him, so I'm stuck with a WIN XP solution as needed. I also
> want a JAM message base as I'm interested in Jamnntp.
So am I and that is the main reason I finally took the plunge and started
looking for another editor. The one I have been using almost since day one does
not support JAM...
MvdV>> Chinese script in FidoNet?
> I am not sure what script, I called it chinese. Used to be we
> had some 10 or so .ch echos out here. Reputed to be in
> chinese. How did they do it? I do not know.
SO you have never actually seen one f these echos?
> I always presumed they had more than one writing style just like the
> japanese.
I was aware that Japanese has an official transliteration in latin script. I
was not aware it exist for Chinese.
> I know I've seen 'chinese in english script' out
> here from time to time so maybe thats what they did?
Maybe. I doubt if that will be very satisfactory though.
MvdV>> A medium that does not allow decent comunication in one's own
MvdV>> language won'tattrackt many users and those users certainly
MvdV>> won't stay if an alternative becomes available.
> That may be a goodly part of why China seems to have not
> kicked off on the BBS scene.
That may be one of the reasons yes. There may also be political and economical
reasons.
> The average chinese 'bbs' is an internet site, perhaps with shared
> groups,
And that technology supports Chinese....
> but no connect to fidonet.
And so they aren't FidoNet nodes.
>> I am in favor of allowing any codepage to be used as long as the
>> effect is cosmetic on those who do not share the same one. I am
>> adverse to mandating any one if it costs us nodes.
MvdV>> So am I. In fact I am adverse to ANY change that is not
MvdV>> downward compatible. That is why I have problems with numbers
MvdV>> in the phone numbers field that aren't phone numbers. That
MvdV>> is why I have problems with ION hosts.
> Well, I'm close to you on many things although perforce, I'll
> have to deal with ION hosts out here.
No you don't. Now that you are ZC you have the opportunity to reorganise the
zone.
My stance has always been that if a net can not come up with a host that at
least POTS capable, the problem should be solved by merging with a neighbouring
net. Node numbers should be assigned on technical reasons, not social ones, so
says P4.
Throw out all the dead wood and how many nodes are left? Five? Ten? C'mon, how
many nets and regions do you need to take care of ten nodes?
Look at it from a rational POV, discard all non technical arguments and the
only logical answer to that question is: One.
I am sure that you can find a POTS capable host for that one net. ;-)
Sure, reorgenising will require a lot of social engineering. I think you have
the technical AND the social skills to do that.
> If (and only after approval by all ZC's) the new makenl can be
> used to untie pvt and -UnPublished-, you'll see a radically
> different Z6 segment with no 000- numbers and no more bogus
> phone entries.
That would be a good thing, but I still say that ION hosts should be avoided
for the time being. I would support all ZC's allowing the new makenl so that we
are prepaired for when the time comes. With the vast majority of the nodes
still depending on POTS, I say that time has not come yet. Hosts should support
POTS, so that nodes who depend on POTS can drop mail for the net at its host.
> I believe the biggest problem for that would be errflags which
> would have to be adapted to allow for it. Very useful program
> but it may be the main problem with adaption?
Contrary to a lot of other software, the author of errflags - Johan Zwiekhorst
- is alive and kicking and active in Fidonet. I don't think errflags needs to
be adapted, but if it does, I am sure Johan will do it with pleasure. No,
errflags is not a problem.
MvdV>> But I doubt if I will see the day that all of FidoNet goes UTF8...
> Grin, mines embedded and i dont seem to have much option, but
> I can 'display' more than I can quote. I can see cyrillics
> and the umlaut fine,
At the same time in one and the same message?
> This issue is the main one that has me looking at other
> packages at last.
It is what I liked about Msged. It made an honest attempt to properly handle
the CHARS kludge. And then again not. When the native codepage is 850 and
cyrillics are encountered it "transliterates" them into Latin characters. Not
really satisfying....
Then again: I don't really need it. I can't read Russian or Ukranian...
Cheers, Michiel
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