TeleFinder Chat Log

Text of TeleFinder Chat from Friday, October 10, 1997 11 AM PDT.

In attendance:

From Spider Island: Rusty Tucker,

Sysops: Michael Davidson, mikael fredriksson, Daniel Parker, Jim Smith, Ken Sutherland, Kevin Shearon, David Rohr

Michael Davidson: Hi Rusty

Michael Davidson: I've been TRYING to test the ETRN, but my new ISP doesn't know how to spool the mail, believe it or not. I'm their first SMTP client, I guess.

Michael Davidson: I did have a few ?? about how smtp works

Rusty Tucker: :)

Rusty Tucker: There's an "O'Reilly" book called 'sendmail'

Rusty Tucker: Any ISP worth their salt should have that book on hand.

Rusty Tucker: It's a few hundred pages on how SMTP works, and how the UNIX SMTP program ( sendmail ) works.

Rusty Tucker: Hi Mikael

mikael fredriksson: Hi!

Michael Davidson: did you guys get knocked off

Rusty Tucker: b4 working well?

Rusty Tucker: Nope, it was only you .

Michael Davidson: Let me ask you this about smtp. It seems that when smtp doesn't successfully connect to the server on the first try, it doesn't try again till the next scheduled "Allow smtp connection",

Rusty Tucker: MD - SMTP spooling should be pretty automatic, as long as your ISP is setup to be your mail host.

mikael fredriksson: Yes

Rusty Tucker: What do you mean "successfully connect?"

Michael Davidson: That's what I thought. They don't know what they are doing but they want to help me (they are friends of mine) and they want to get it working so they can accommodate other smtp clients

Rusty Tucker: They should get the sendmail book and learn it.

Daniel Parker: Morning

Michael Davidson: sometimes it doesn't wait for the ppp connection to complete or if the first ppp connection doesn't go, then it doesn't try again to connect to the host

Rusty Tucker: Hi Daniel! Glad you made it today!

Michael Davidson: They have it now. I think they are making it more complicated than it needs to be

Daniel Parker: These chat sessions should be an Hr later :-)

Rusty Tucker: Oh, you should bring PPP up before starting MS's schedule

Rusty Tucker: Too early over there? :)

Rusty Tucker: Just use a script to bring up PPP before MS starts.

Michael Davidson: Well, ever since I went with FreePPP on server (instead of old MacTCP) I have had problems with the ppp connections (the problem is when ppp tries to work in the background and okey dokey doesn't dismiss problem dialogs)

Daniel Parker: Yep (Although better than a few weeks ago, when it was 6 am. Now it is 7 am because of daylight savings time, but it is harder for me to chat now than it was at 6 am, due to commitments)

Rusty Tucker: Besides, MS will wait a long time to open the connection to your host.

Michael Davidson: I think I will do that Rusty, the script thing

Michael Davidson: It does wait a long time, I agree, but it would be nice if it tried a few times too, if possible

Rusty Tucker: Maybe we can change it, Dan, we need to adjust the schedule anyway, the PM chat has not been popular

Daniel Parker: Why can/does Microsoft put out programs that f*** up existing servers/Operating systems/...

Rusty Tucker: :) :) :) :)

Daniel Parker: I hope Sun burns them for trying to modify Java

Michael Davidson: One thing that it does that's funky is that it still claims its "Ready" in MS when actually it never made the connection to the server at all....not sure that this is really MS's fault, but...in a sense, it's not ready since it won't even try to connect again when mail is waiting to be sent.

Rusty Tucker: show me the log from that, OK Michael?

Michael Davidson: Why do people buy/use Microsoft products?

Daniel Parker: Also, this is a really bad time to be awake on a SATURDAY morning :-)

Daniel Parker: Sheep, The Microsoft Marketing machine convinces them that their products are good

Michael Davidson: Ok Rusty...unfortunately, the only thing for ETRN is that there is never spooled mail....even though I have sent hundreds to the server.

Rusty Tucker: where are they then?

Michael Davidson: lost in cyberspace for all I know

Michael Davidson: I'm getting errors back from the ISP that I SENT them from that they are not being delivered after 4 hours.

Rusty Tucker: OK, then they DO have that message spooled, waiting to be relayed.

Rusty Tucker: It means they've had it for 4 hrs without being able to relay it.

Rusty Tucker: It also means they still have it.

Michael Davidson: yes the server that I sent them FROM, but the server that is supposed to accept them when I'm not online is not spooling them

Rusty Tucker: After 5 days, they'll send it back to you.

Michael Davidson: yes that's the error message 4 hours/try for 5 days

Rusty Tucker: Well, your ISP needs to learn SMTP, Bind, DNS etc...

Michael Davidson: I know, they are just getting going in KS....funny thing is, the other ISP in town is owned by another friend of mine...One of the friends played trumpet on one side of me and the other played trumpet on the other about 20 years ago.

Jim Smith: I think I got a message like "unable to deliver mail for xx hours, as server not excepting mail or down"

Ken Sutherland: hi all

Jim Smith: Hi, Ken:)

Michael Davidson: make that 27 years ago

Daniel Parker: Hi

Michael Davidson: Hi ken!

Ken Sutherland: missed anything?

Michael Davidson: Microsoft bashing

mikael fredriksson: Rusty, any news on OT 1.3 support (multi homing)?

Michael Davidson: is the latest 0T 1.1.2?

mikael fredriksson: 1.2 in System 8.0

Michael Davidson: can non 8 users use 1.2?

Michael Davidson: is 1.2 recommended for 7.5.3?

Rusty Tucker: OT 1.2 works on 7.6 at least

Ken Sutherland: 1.2.1 is out if you can find it

Rusty Tucker: nothing yet on IP multihoming

Michael Davidson: must have 7.6 for O T 1.2; is that what you are saying Rusty?

mikael fredriksson: OT 1.2.1 is for fixing a problem wit AppleShare IP 5.02

Ken Sutherland: ip mail

Rusty Tucker: it probably works on 7.5.5 too, i haven't tried it though

Michael Davidson: how many of you guys use FreePPP and how many use O T/PPP

Rusty Tucker: i use OT ppp from home

mikael fredriksson: OT ppp from home

Michael Davidson: I can't get no satisfaction from either of them

Rusty Tucker: OT/PPP has big problems detecting carrier loss

Daniel Parker: I saw a post yesterday somewhere that Quid Pro Quo Plus will support SSL & Ip Multihoming with the release of OT 1.3

Daniel Parker: Rusty: SSL, SSL, SSL

Ken Sutherland: Rusty, a few details for you

Rusty Tucker: I think it has SSL already, OT1.3 is needed for IP multihoming

Rusty Tucker: get me a license and I'll put it in :)

Ken Sutherland: in the latest CD on mac format there is a 6 week demo of first class's full system, it is very well put together

Daniel Parker: Who from? Nutscrape?

Michael Davidson: I read about carrier loss in a FreePPP faq that you can add Ezero to the string and it reconnects automatically

Ken Sutherland: why not use there setup as an example of how we SHOULD promote TF

Ken Sutherland: Rusty does WS SSL work with TF

Daniel Parker: Is there a SSL Plug?

Rusty Tucker: no SSL plug-in, its a encryption layered on top of TCP

Michael Davidson: I think that a relatively easy thing to do is create Fantastic infomercials for TF and let any TF Web Serving Sysop use it on his site.

Rusty Tucker: Yeah, we talked about SSL a couple weeks ago, the license is several $K

Ken Sutherland: for example , the web demo shows a full flashy web site, not just tech info

Rusty Tucker: I haven't seen the setup, please tell me about it

Rusty Tucker: Yep SSL needs to be licensed from Netscape

Daniel Parker: OK, What is the best web server for doing SSL?

Rusty Tucker: Can you upload it here Ken?

Michael Davidson: Do the whole TF promotion up very well and make it available to TF web sites. The cost is the making of the promo, the advertising is free.

Rusty Tucker: The mac choices are WS and QPQ

Rusty Tucker: maybe the WebTen ( apache ) has it.

Daniel Parker: WebTen Doesn't yet (I own a copy)

Rusty Tucker: Hi Kevin!

Kevin Shearon: Hi Rusty

Kevin Shearon: Hi everyone!

Rusty Tucker: Did you get a chance to try out the Clik-Thru SPML?

Kevin Shearon: Got your click-thru breakdown

Kevin Shearon: yes, I have modified it for our page and am waiting for the ad, we sent them the contract today and should get it very soon

Rusty Tucker: cool- many thousands of pennies to you!

Kevin Shearon: Hopefully they will agree to the changes we made of the contract, the lawyers suggested we change a few things

Kevin Shearon: I am also using the HDS email app. and that is excellent for attachments for TF mailboxes

Kevin Shearon: pennies, don't go to me, unfortunately

Kevin Shearon: Did you get the agenda I faxed you?

David Rohr: hello all from Virginia beach

Kevin Shearon: hi

Michael Davidson: hi David

Kevin Shearon: Such a crowded room, but no one is talking

Michael Davidson: Hey, I saw a commercial yesterday for Sir Speedy and their easy to use graphical publishing setup (using TF)! Are they using TF web capabilities too?

Rusty Tucker: Yep, SS is using TeleFinder in almost all of their stores.

David Rohr: Yea TF!

Rusty Tucker: They're currently moving from W* to TF for web serving.

Michael Davidson: I think they said 800 sites

Rusty Tucker: Mainly Because of SPML

Michael Davidson: Wonderful

Kevin Shearon: So is there a change in TF's status?

Rusty Tucker: No, They've been using TF for a couple years now

Michael Davidson: Sure Kevin, it's getting better and better! :)

Kevin Shearon: I mean you selling, staying or a combination of the above...

Michael Davidson: Jim, any progress on popsicle

Kevin Shearon: You'll be on the Forbes ls it before you know it! :-)

Jim Smith: None, yet; plan to start back to work on it this weekend.

Rusty Tucker: ha!

Michael Davidson: Keep me posted Jim

Jim Smith: Right:0)

Rusty Tucker: I should have a new TF User win later today

Michael Davidson: I thought I had another Tester for you Ken, but he's having trouble getting an ISP where he lives to give him a unified pop account

Michael Davidson: I meant Jim, not Ken...don't know why I wrote Ken

Rusty Tucker: I've FINALLY got my mac icon to Win .ico converter working, so the Win Icons in this new version should look better

David Rohr: Rusty, is there a chance that TF can be registered as a helper app in NS or IE?? sure would be cool to "shell" out and login with the TF GUI

Rusty Tucker: The current 'icons' are really win bitmaps, and don't scale very well

Michael Davidson: Actually David, Netscape should be going thru TF, but that's a long story

David Rohr: lol

Kevin Shearon: Rusty I have asked you this before and I don't think I am expressing it clearly. Can we have Caller Log tracking the people who access the BBS via our web page using the realm, user name and password feature. That way the caller log could say so and so called using Node "Web". I don't want all of the hits or transfers, just the user name tracked in caller log

Rusty Tucker: yes, we'd need to define a "TF URL" format and pass that to TF, so that it could login from the URL info

Rusty Tucker: K- web visitors don't track as easily as bbs visitors

Rusty Tucker: You can do SPML logging on the realm based pages to track user name and so on

Kevin Shearon: but they are using the user name and password in user manager, they could just register the user name in Caller log...

Rusty Tucker: yes, but there is no "login session" as such

Rusty Tucker: there is a login for EACH hit

Kevin Shearon: using the SPML logging gives me the IP address, not the BBS user name, can't track who it is, they all have different IP addresses

Rusty Tucker: v5.6 lets you log user name in #log commands

Michael Davidson: can something be done so when they send the password and username that that is logged in the chat only

Rusty Tucker: using the USER_NAME var

Rusty Tucker: see the 5.6b release notes for details

Kevin Shearon: I have a realm set up at the main BBS page to ask for their user name and password used on the BBS and they can't get in until they have entered it. It's that user name that I need to track

Rusty Tucker: yes, that's the one 5.6 will let you log

Kevin Shearon: ok, that's what I need, will it be in a spml log file page?

Rusty Tucker: you can add it to one,

Kevin Shearon: or caller log?

Rusty Tucker: log file

Kevin Shearon: so it will say date, user name, time, pages accessed on a spml log file?

Rusty Tucker: well, not exactly

Kevin Shearon: ...

Rusty Tucker: for each page you track, you can say: date, user name, time, this page

Rusty Tucker: then you can dump those files into FileMaker and sort out the activity

Rusty Tucker: Have you looked at Bolero?

Rusty Tucker: its another one of those high price utils from Everyware

Kevin Shearon: ok, so I would set it to track, my main page (bbs.spml), so that it would show me the user name used using the realm feature that is used in User manager?

Rusty Tucker: its supposed to do a decent job of user tracking

Rusty Tucker: do they login before accessing bbs.spml?

Kevin Shearon: No haven't looked at Bolero

Kevin Shearon: yes

Rusty Tucker: ok- then you could track THAT page

Kevin Shearon: that's what i mean

Rusty Tucker: of course it would miss anyone Bookmarking within the BBS

Kevin Shearon: to get into bbs.spml they use the realm feature which uses User managers user names and passwords

Kevin Shearon: There must be a way to get those user names to log onto the caller log

Michael Davidson: can a user go to a bookmarked page without going thru the password thing on the main page???!!

Michael Davidson: Can't you force them to the main page

Rusty Tucker: 

Rusty Tucker: that will log what you want

Kevin Shearon: I add that to the bbs.spml page?

Rusty Tucker: yep

Kevin Shearon: and it puts it on the clickthru.log age?

Kevin Shearon: or another log page that I create?

Rusty Tucker: you can make that name anything you want

Rusty Tucker: i just copied that sample from the click-thru sample

Rusty Tucker: leave it blank ("" ) and the log file will be "pagename.log"

Rusty Tucker: ie bbs.log

Kevin Shearon: thanks I'll try it right now

Rusty Tucker: BUT - if a user by-passes bbs.spml and goes directly to a bbs page, they won't be logged.

Rusty Tucker: unless you add logging to the bbs pages too.

Michael Davidson: Again, can't you force all users to end up starting on the main bbs page

Rusty Tucker: like you might want to add the #log to dir.spml or topic.spml

Michael Davidson: so that no matter what page he bookmarks to go to on your web site, he is routed first to your main page. From there he can go to the bookmarked page

Michael Davidson: after signing in and being logged, of course

Rusty Tucker: any last q's before we wrap up?

Jim Smith: CU

Rusty Tucker: ok see you all next week!

mikael fredriksson: ;-) bye!