TeleFinder Chat from Tuesday, September 29, 1998 11 AM PDT.
In attendance:
From Spider Island: Rusty Tucker
Sysops: Bob Nunn, Mikael Fredriksson, Kenneth Kump, Jim
DeHaven, Ken Sutherland, Jim Leary.
Rusty Tucker Hey there!
Bob Nunn : Hey RT!
Bob Nunn : I finally talked our MIS dept. in to letting me
have control of the Wang's server. With Bryan gone there was no one
doing maintenance. I need to see if I can get it crashing 2 or 3
times a day.
Rusty Tucker :) - hey now, none of that!
Bob Nunn : It runs for weeks now :-)
Rusty Tucker Just keep FM Pro off, and I think you'll be
fine.
Bob Nunn : I have FM Pro on it with several databases. I am
just using the Lasso ACGI and v3.0
Bob Nunn : I either need to get FM4 off of Headgap to another
system or go back to Lasso.
Rusty Tucker seems like it
Rusty Tucker I've got new Web Server docs online now... and
new SPML docs coming later today
Bob Nunn : I will look for them. Converted to PDF yet or are
you looking for someone to check them out a bit first.
Rusty Tucker No PDF this time, all HTML
Bob Nunn : Even better. Will you make the source available
for mirroring?
Rusty Tucker yep
Rusty Tucker they are all at www.spiderisland.com/docs/
Bob Nunn : Great. Like having them on my server for my
convenience but I post them so other can use them as well.
Bob Nunn : I read thru the mail docs the other day. Looking
good. You appear to have abbreviated your style a bit but perhaps I
am seeing them with more experienced eyes.
Rusty Tucker I'm using PM 6.5 to convert the old files to
HTML. Then I run them thru Claris homepage 3 to reformat them.
Rusty Tucker I'm trying to stay away from having too much info
on a single page.
Rusty Tucker That's probably the biggest difference.
Rusty Tucker In the SPML docs, each command has its own
page.
Bob Nunn : I sure like Homepage. with the exception of some
spml conflicts I use it almost exclusively. It makes them appear
simpler. White space is nice sometimes.
Kenneth Kump joined the chat.
Rusty Tucker Welcome to the chat Kenneth!
Rusty Tucker It has some quirks, but better than Pagemill
1.0., and better for this than something like DreamWeaver
Kenneth Kump : hi Rusty and thanks for fixing that local flag
problem
Bob Nunn : At Wang's we are really cranking into PDF's now.
Since they are so easy to produce with Distiller from Pagemaker I
have the girls put up their catalog pages as they complete them.
Rusty Tucker I've had some problems -
Rusty Tucker like PgUp and PgDown keys don't work, you can't
create a Font Style button, and the spell checker crashes.
Rusty Tucker But it produces pretty clean code.
Kenneth Kump : can I break in with a question about document
makers
Rusty Tucker easy to mop up in BBEdit
Rusty Tucker u bet
Kenneth Kump : what is a good doc maker that is usable at the
end for both Mac TF users and Win TF users?
Kenneth Kump : reasonable priced.... (g)
Rusty Tucker I'm tending towards HTML these days, I used to
use PDF
Kenneth Kump : you mean for the Web browser end.
Kenneth Kump : What about for the BBS end????
Rusty Tucker just text on the BBS, or download HTML and view
it offline.
Jim DeHaven joined the chat.
Rusty Tucker Welcome to the chat Jim!
Bob Nunn : HTML for cheap and simple and a lot of shareware
comes that way. PDF for anything big time with sophisticated users
and fancy graphics etc.
Jim DeHaven : hi
Jim DeHaven left the chat.
Rusty Tucker c-ya Jim DeHaven
Bob Nunn : Hey
Kenneth Kump : is Adobe the only one that produces PDF
files?
Jim DeHaven joined the chat.
Rusty Tucker Welcome to the chat Jim!
Jim DeHaven : Rusty--you are unerringly polite
Jim DeHaven : or was that a computer program welcoming
me?
Rusty Tucker so far, but you can use their "PDF" writer to
create PDF from any application.
Rusty Tucker right, its my chat bot
Kenneth Kump : the PDF writer; costs about what???
Rusty Tucker not sure, it came with PageMaker
Kenneth Kump : ouch!
Bob Nunn : Acrobat Exchange is about $110. It has PDF writer
with it.
Kenneth Kump : Thanks Bob, sounds good. I'll probably try
it
Bob Nunn : They have just into'd searching over the web with
the reader pi.
Bob Nunn : You have to have the files indexed. I am still
learning.
Jim DeHaven : So has anyone here seen this "palace"
thing?
Rusty Tucker Dan O. uses it I think
Rusty Tucker: btw - you all can keep up with the new docs as I
finish tthe conversion to HTML and v5.7 they are at
www.spiderisland.com/docs/
Rusty Tucker: I'll have updated web server and SPML docs
online today
Jim DeHaven Rusty--is it my imagination or has the automatic
quoting for selected text gone away from the mac client?
Jim DeHaven It seems to quote all the text no matter what you
select
Rusty Tucker: it is still there, how the quting actually works
is a preferece, adn that is one of the options.
Rusty Tucker: Edit->Preferences/General
Jim DeHaven ok--missed that--
Jim DeHaven also--something I brought up last night--we have
lots of windows users who would like to be able to logf their
chats
Rusty Tucker: I saw that in the topic area -- it would be a
good add.
Jim DeHaven yeah--it would be a real help--even if it was just
cut and paste
Jim DeHaven what is cool about p[alce--well there are two
things
Rusty Tucker: Welcome to the chat Jim!
Jim DeHaven graphics in the rooms you can draw and it is
relatively easy to change the desktop appearance
Jim DeHaven i know that sounds like nagging
Jim DeHaven but it is nice
Jim DeHaven weak point is that you can do little other than
chat--but thatr is what theproducxt is for Rusty Tucker: Does
Time/Warner still produce palace?
Kenneth Kump excuse a dumm question?? but what is palace?
Rusty Tucker: and did it ever get past 1.0?
Rusty Tucker: Its an avatar based chat program from what I
remember
Rusty Tucker: I saw it a couple years ago, but not since. Dan
O runs (did?) a palace server
Bob Nunn: Hotline's chat server allows custom icons. Kinda
like avatar, and they have a wealth of icons available. You can run
in concurrently (maybe) since it uses a different port for people
that want to chat? Rusty Tucker: c-ya mikael fredriksson
Bob Nunn: Perhaps an alternative to a Palace type program that
is supported an inexpensive.
Bob Nunn: Change subject?
Rusty Tucker: <PalaceServer 4.0 supports Unix &
NT.>
Rusty Tucker: http://www.thepalace.com/products/index.html
Rusty Tucker: I guess its an independent co. There is a
"personal server" that runs on MacOS
Rusty Tucker: Welcome to the chat mikael!
Bob Nunn: Have you ever heard of Monolith (ml.org) - they
offer free domain name services?
mikael fredriksson: Im back had to reboot our com server at
work
Bob Nunn: You can get a name like yourname.ml.org for free and
they act as the DNS. They also have a way to support people with
dynamic addresses.
mikael fredriksson: BN (ml.org) yes its popular with hotline
servers
Rusty Tucker: yes, Jonathon P. has a domain with them I
believe.
Bob Nunn: It was news to me. It does give people an
alternative to an address like www.headgap.com/~bill_starkey/
Jim Leary: Yes, jon's mail ends with that
Jim Leary: anyone know what URL offers info on those free
domain names?
Rusty Tucker: You can give them an address like
"bill_starkey.headgap.com" if you want too, not much difference
Bob Nunn: http://www.ml.org/ml/
Bob Nunn: But he can have starkey.ml.org which is shorter and
some say sounds better.
Bob Nunn: The price is certainly right for someone wanting
that. Unfortunately it is limited.
Rusty Tucker: yeah, headgap is weird :)
Bob Nunn: But unique. Search for it. spiderisland isn't too
common either.
Jim Leary: starkey.ml.org is much shorter and does sound
better, I do some sites for others but to keep costs down have to use
my domainname/their name. If ml.org gives free domains with their
extension it would be much better
Jim Leary: limited in what way?
Rusty Tucker: :) - just kiddin ya, i like it
Bob Nunn: 2 per
Rusty Tucker: " FreeDNS service is ONLY for administrators who
have their own machine on the Internet with a static IP address. "
Rusty Tucker: Sounds like they might not give it up if you
just a "user" at someone elses server.
Jim Leary: I see
Bob Nunn: They actual do for the hotline boys but they limit
it to two names.
Rusty Tucker: "..and have permission to do so from your local
network administer. "
Rusty Tucker: so they'll give it up with the OK of the admin
Bob Nunn: If I understand it I don't have to do anything but
give them the actual address headgap.com/~username/ and they point
that username.ml.org to that address.
Rusty Tucker: its probably just reguler IP -> name mapping,
you need to do the ~username mapping your self
Rusty Tucker: as a "virtual host"
Bob Nunn: I really don't completely understand and that is why
I started the conversation.
Rusty Tucker: DNS just maps a domain name to an IP address,
just like your DNS for headgap.com Rusty Tucker: What happens
from there needs to be handled at your site.
Rusty Tucker: so you can have ww.headgap.com and bob.ml.org
point to your machines IP
Bob Nunn: So if I was to register hg.com I could give out
names that would be username.hg.com for example. What are the
limitations?
Rusty Tucker: none
Rusty Tucker: just like TFNet.org
Bob Nunn: I can enter names the same as they are doing for
free?
Rusty Tucker: right
Bob Nunn: Diabolical.
Rusty Tucker: That makes you MASTER of your own domain :)
Rusty Tucker: I don't think that's what JS had in mind tho...
Bob Nunn: I think you may have made my day. Now I have to
figure out how to effectively use this information. Just have to
figure out some cool initials and register the domain.
Rusty Tucker: There is another DNS service around that Don
McHose got hooked up with
Rusty Tucker: for $50 per year, you register a domain with the
NIC, and these other guys serve it from their own IP
Bob Nunn: I can register directly with NIC right. Ihave always
used an ISP.
Rusty Tucker: when there is a web request for that domain,
they do the redirect to a URL of your choice.
Rusty Tucker: Right, go straight to the NIC and register there
Bob Nunn: I can only redirect to my server though the way it
stands. They must be using other software or are they?
Rusty Tucker: sorry, my applescript locked up
Bob Nunn: I can only redirect to my server though the way it
stands. They must be using other software or are they?
Rusty Tucker: depends on how you do it. If you get your own
domain, and do your own DNS, you can point it directly to your web
server, and use virtual hosting.
Rusty Tucker: It seems there will soon be an agreement to open
a slew ot top-level domains soon.
Bob Nunn: No DNS here. Using ISP's but I get how it works. I
could use a forward from one of my internal addresses but it would be
slow.
Rusty Tucker: ?? no, you'd need to get the 2rd level dom in
the ISPs DNS server first
Rusty Tucker: and the 2nd level dom ( hg.com ) too for that
matter
Rusty Tucker: If you're going to hand out a bunch of names,
you'll need to do your own DNS probably.
Kenneth Kump did you mean the 2rd or 3rd level dom in the
ISP's DNS server first???
Bob Nunn: I ll have to read up a bit more but I think I
understand. I could have hg.com sent my IP address like headgap.com
is and use virtual to serve it. Then any address *.hg.com would come
to my server for routing.
Rusty Tucker: You get a 2nd level name from the NIC ( like
hg.com ), you tell them where the primary DNS server for that name
is.
Rusty Tucker: The database of that DNS server needs to map the
3rd level domains ( like bob.hg.com ) to IP addresses.
Rusty Tucker: You also need a secondary DNS server, your ISP
might do that for you. Like a back up for your promary server.
Rusty Tucker: Changes to DNS usually take a while going
through your ISP, and you may have limits on the number of names
thery will serve too.
Bob Nunn: Not sure I understand now. I thought that virtual
hosting would handle anything.headgap.com if I mapped it to an
internal address.
Rusty Tucker: That is why we chose to server tfnet.org from
our own DNS server instead of netcom's.
Rusty Tucker: Yes, BN that is correct
Bob Nunn: So my ISP doesn't have to know about
anything.headgap.com address for it to work. Rusty Tucker: But
you need to get a request to anything.headgap.com to you rIP address
first
Rusty Tucker: thats what DNS does
Bob Nunn: ISn't my DNS set up for like a wildcard
*.headgap.com?
Ken Sutherland: morning
Rusty Tucker: ;; Query: www.headgap.com, type = ANY, class =
IN ;; ANSWERS: bbs.headgap.com. 86400 IN A 206.30.217.170
;; AUTHORITY RECORDS: headgap.com. 86400 IN NS ns.wspice.com.
headgap.com. 86400 IN NS wsp4.wspice.com. ;; ADDITIONAL
RECORDS: ns.wspice.com. 86400 IN A 206.30.216.3 wsp4.wspice.com.
86400 IN A 206.30.216.5 • DNR Query complete •
Rusty Tucker: no, it has to be specific.
Rusty Tucker: ;; Query: anything.headgap.com, type = ANY,
class = IN DNR Query error: -3170 •Can't resolve host name:
anything.headgap.com•
Rusty Tucker: see ^
Bob Nunn: Yes thought it was different. I though the
headgap.com part meant I got anything.
Bob Nunn: Its the other way headgap.com/anything/ goes to my
site always.
Rusty Tucker: no, the headgap.com part just means that the DNS
server responsible for headgap.com will resolve DNS requests.
Rusty Tucker: I guess you could write a DNS server that would
provide a "default" response for names it did not have in its DB.
Bob Nunn: So I have to run my own DNS to make that part work.
Oh well just thought it was a way to give users a more personal
address.
Rusty Tucker: Well, back to documentation for me!
Rusty Tucker: Let me know if there are parts of the docs that
need more in depth info.
Bob Nunn: Thanks RT. Got a credit card for Kagi Ken. Watch for
my order.
September 29, 1998 -- ©Copyright 1998, Spider Island
Software