Text 2783, 97 rader
Skriven 2008-04-02 11:32:17 av Carol Shenkenberger (1105.ftsc_pub)
   Kommentar till text 2772 av Dieter Ringhofer (2:2476/14)
Ärende: Two related questions plus one to the candidates
========================================================
    
 >  >> Carol understood one of issues with DNS. I don't have to look at Asia fo
 >  >> th - Germany is (more than) sufficient. www.mueller.de works fine
 >  >> while www.m^nller.de will cause trouble for many systems.
 > 
 >  CS> Yes.  I gather 'technically' all FQDN's are supposed to follow standard
 >  CS> 'english' character representations, but fact is not all do.
 > 
 > Since several years there is no obligation to do so. Punycode solves the
 > problem for people insisting on english character represantations.

I'll have to look up 'punycode' but I saw your sample of it and like it's
concept there.  Quite workable!

 >  CS> It's getting more and more common too.  Fact is, it's seldom a problem
 >  CS> if your codepage allows for entry of those characters.  But Fidonet
 >  CS> isnt quite ready for cyrillic code in the nodelist <g>
 > 
 > :-)
 > When you have an idea to implement UTF-8 tell it, please. We also have our
 > arabic friends who write from right to left (happy us: nodelist is for
 > machines, not for humans).

Dunno if we will ever get to UTF-8.  So much abandonware out there! Ssdly I
am mono-lingual so am hampered in using some of the newer things.  Oh on
characters, Japanse is right to left and Chinese is top to bottom!  (Believe
they do right to left and top to bottom at the same time?).

 >  >> Let's start to think about one issue after the next:_
 >  >> Problem: We must avoid to recommend a solution causing modems to call la
 >  >> lines or whatever when it is an IP address.
 > 
 >  CS> Absolutely.  The best :long run: answer I have seen is get the IP info 
 >  CS> of the phone field.
 > 
 > Ack. Anything not being a phone number has nothing to do in this field.

I resisted this for the one small set of static IP systems, but now am in
line with others.  POTS/ISDN only.  Nothing else in there in the raw
nodelist.  Subsidiary tools to shift the data locally at need for those who
can handle a FQDN in there.  Mark Lewis doesnt agree with this but he runs
one of the softwares that is fully FQDN in field 6 aware.


 >  >> than of some people. Sysops not being able to understand need of
 >  >> indication of connection info should get a recommentation to update thei
 >  >> stoneaged softwa
 > 
 >  CS> I wouldnt be so hardline on that one, and now we have a simple sweet to
 >  CS> to fix that at the local end.
 > 
 > What platform is needed to use this tool (didn't download it so far)?
 > I have Windows but, it's for bussiness and not for Fido. Machines being used
 > for Fido use real operating systems. ;)

If you can run a DOS box (DOSEMU) then you can run this.  It's a real simple
CLI tool that is highly configurable to match batch processing.  Also,
Michiel tells me I misread the docs and it will in fact wipe out the old .999
nodelist from last run on next run.

It currently has 2 modes and i gather you can run both.  Mode 6 is for those
who want the INA data imported into field 6.  Has many subset options.  I
have not played with that aspect at all.

Mode 3 is the one I asked for and is in the new release.  Has options too but
I took the simple defaults as they are right for me.  This one places the INA
data in field 3.

Note your origional nodelist isnt touched.  It makes a copy to another name
you specify, or by default will use nodelist.999.

I believe you can run it with mode 3 and mode 6 at the same time to get both.

Real sweet, real simple, yet has options to do more than I listed. 
Documentation in english and dutch.  I'm sure if someone else wanted to offer
other translations, he'd be happy to add them into the archive.  Just ask ;-)

 > IMHO we should not depend on local solutions. There should be a defined way 
 > tell people what to do in which case. There has been a consensus about messa
 > transfer and connection protocol in ancient times. Nowadays we have more
 > possibilities and must find a way to tell about it. That's all ... :)

Yes, I really wish they had standardized a long time ago.  I recall writing a
FAQ for R13 on how to nodelist ION's for my NC's (I was RC13 at that time). 
It ended up in Fidonews I think and may have been added to the small FAQ
repository on the FTSC.  It was difficult to write as there were so many
possible variations so I listed them in order of preference.  You won't see
INA mentioned, but only because that came out much later.

Meantime, as long as I run something no longer underdevelopment, I find a
local tool to be useful.  I wouldnt mind checking out the later renditions of
'argus' but so far, I havent found good english documentation which has
haulted me on it.
          xxcarol

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