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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.

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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 Ê ;;
ANSWERS: bbs.headgap.com. 86400 IN A 206.30.217.170 Ê ;; AUTHORITY RECORDS:
headgap.com. 86400 IN NS ns.wspice.com. headgap.com. 86400 IN NS
wsp4.wspice.com. Ê ;; ADDITIONAL RECORDS: ns.wspice.com. 86400 IN A
206.30.216.3 wsp4.wspice.com. 86400 IN A 206.30.216.5 Ê ¥ DNR Query complete
¥ Ê
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.
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	September 29, 1998 -- ©Copyright 1998, Spider Island Software