TeleFinder Chat Log

Text of TeleFinder Chat from Thursday, June 25, 1998 6 PM PDT.

In attendance:

From SpiderIsland: Rusty Tucker

Sysops: Jim DeHaven, Donald McHose

Rusty Tucker hola!
Jim DeHaven : hi Rusty
Jim DeHaven : not very crowded thus far
Rusty Tucker Hi Jim, do you like this new time?
Jim DeHaven : but this time is great for me
Rusty Tucker I expect a lite crowd tonight due to the new time
Jim DeHaven : I am usually too overwhelmed with work during the daytime to join up though I read the transcripts religiously
Jim DeHaven : (I read them in church)
Rusty Tucker Good! So , any questions tonight?
Jim DeHaven : I can think of some
Jim DeHaven : hope they aren't too far off the beaten track of what is discussed
Jim DeHaven : here
Rusty Tucker Jump right in then... Everything is fair game
Jim DeHaven : let me tell you of a problem I have mentioned before
Jim DeHaven : it is that people who use PC's cannot connect to the BBS using AOL
Jim DeHaven : This upsets them what is hard to understand is that the connection is made
Jim DeHaven : the BBS detects it and shows it as a bad connection likewise
Jim DeHaven : it is possible to connect using Macs
Rusty Tucker Sounds like a "half-up" connection
Jim DeHaven : on AOL
Jim DeHaven : what causes that Rusty?
Rusty Tucker Are they able to use anything other than a browser on their AOL connection?
Jim DeHaven : I haven't tried it but AOL claims that they can use telnet software
Jim DeHaven : and various games boards are supported, thing's other than web browsers
Rusty Tucker It would be worth verifying that (telnet)
Jim DeHaven : if that's what you mean
Jim DeHaven : yes--you mean getting some generic PC telnet program
Rusty Tucker and also trying TeleFinder on port 23 if you support that.
Jim DeHaven : but do you know what causes a "half-connection"?
Jim DeHaven : I already have tried the port 23 thing that doesn't work
Jim DeHaven : I mean--what is meant by the term
Rusty Tucker It means that the client side is not getting the message that the connection was accepted by the server.
Jim DeHaven : and what causes that to happen? If it has a name, it must be a common phenomenon
Rusty Tucker Lost packets are one cause.
Jim DeHaven : how do they get lost?
Rusty Tucker That wouldn't seem to be the case here.
Rusty Tucker This must be an interaction between the AOL TCP stack, and TeleFinder.
Jim DeHaven : You mean on the PC
Rusty Tucker right
Jim DeHaven : you are saying that it is not AOL itself
Rusty Tucker maybe its because TeleFinder 3.x is 16 bit
Jim DeHaven : really?
Rusty Tucker did you have a chance to try the 32 bit TF?
Jim DeHaven : so I should try 4
Jim DeHaven : not yet
Jim DeHaven : I will
Rusty Tucker Winsock DLL's come in 2 flavors 16 and 32 bit
Jim DeHaven : the problem we have
Rusty Tucker TeleFinder User 4 beta uses the 32 bit dll
Rusty Tucker and that's probably what AOL tests and supports.
Jim DeHaven : I will try that--our problem is that we need to chat
Donald McHose joined the chat.
Rusty Tucker Welcome to the chat Donald!
Jim DeHaven : and BIAP chat is still rather cumbersome
Rusty Tucker hey - I'll be back in a minute
Jim DeHaven : Ok
Jim DeHaven : hi Don
Donald McHose : run run run screeeech bang !! East coast reporting in .
Jim DeHaven : ditto
Donald McHose : How's things going ?
Jim DeHaven : I am putting several courses online
Jim DeHaven : including complete videos of a lecture course in physics
Jim DeHaven : so things are busy and you?
Jim DeHaven : I have run in to the same problem that I think you alluded to on the bulletin boards
Donald McHose : Great. I caught the last line on BIAP. Wow you are busy. Just work as usual. 6-12's.
Donald McHose : Oh what was that ? I forgotten.
Rusty Tucker hi again
Jim DeHaven : namely that as our course/distance learning efforts increase
Jim DeHaven : it becomes harder and harder to administer the site
Donald McHose : Ah the county thing.
Jim DeHaven : due to the proliferation of user access groups
Rusty Tucker Just putting Connection Settings files, and a Transfer log into TeleFinder User for Win.
Donald McHose : Oh yeah !!!
Donald McHose : Tis a royal pain ;-) especially the access groups
Jim DeHaven : yes--and everyone wants privacy
Jim DeHaven : and of course you need groups for students and profs
Donald McHose : but of course !
Jim DeHaven : and them special groups for students in more than one course
Jim DeHaven : I have 50 or 60 of them now--groups that is
Jim DeHaven : and I need to think of a more rational way to organize things
Jim DeHaven : Rusty--what is the typical transfer rate over a LAN
Jim DeHaven : what should it be?
Donald McHose : Now you know what I was running into. I just can't wait to tie the High school into it next month ;-)
Jim DeHaven : order of magnitude, is this a stupid question?
Rusty Tucker Sounds like you need to get a program that will compile Access Groups for you
Jim DeHaven : do you have something in mind?
Rusty Tucker I get 50- 100K cps depending
Jim DeHaven : OK we get up to 250,000
Jim DeHaven : chars per sec
Jim DeHaven : so we are doing OK
Rusty Tucker that's real good!
Jim DeHaven : I thought it was but wasn't sure
Donald McHose : bout the same , pending how many are hitting the lan for Encarta CD's
Jim DeHaven : we have a fiber optic ATM backbone
Jim DeHaven : which is supposedly very fast
Rusty Tucker I don't -- but if you make a lot of changes that affect many groups, it would be nice to have a program that would compile the groups according to a set of rules.
Jim DeHaven : OH yes indeed!
Donald McHose : much better than a cotton string. We are 10 baseT right now. Sure would be nice RT
Rusty Tucker The Access Group file format is very simple, and it would be easy (!) to make a C program that would do it.
Rusty Tucker easy for anyone with the time that is :)
Jim DeHaven : where does one find that structure--how to get to it
Jim DeHaven : do I just open it up with BBEdit? and look?
Donald McHose : Would it give the admin structure like ResNova ?
Rusty Tucker BBEdit won't work, its a binary structure
Rusty Tucker I think there is a definition for it in the development kit with v5.6
Jim DeHaven : OK
Rusty Tucker basically its a file header, followed by an array of access paths
Donald McHose : Hmmm..project 9876
Jim DeHaven : heh heh
Rusty Tucker Jon P has decoded it for some of his stuff.
Rusty Tucker maybe you could put a bug in Dan O'Leary's ear now that he has the Suzie code.
Jim DeHaven : that code is now online
Jim DeHaven : true?
Jim DeHaven : Is he writing something?
Rusty Tucker right its now online
Jim DeHaven : I saw in a chat that he was thinking of web based chat with whiteboard--is that project # 9877?
Donald McHose : Oh RT , Speaking of our stuff..Indian Land has reached a new stability level !! Three weeks no restart.
Donald McHose : Heh heh
Jim DeHaven : agreed
Jim DeHaven : the stability of the server is incredible
Jim DeHaven : 2 crashes since the 16th of December
Rusty Tucker way cool!
Donald McHose : that IS WAY KOOL
Rusty Tucker I will be out of town next week, so I am relying on it here too!
Jim DeHaven : I rub it in to our network perons
Jim DeHaven : persons
Jim DeHaven : I bought Timbuktu and that smart clapper thing
Jim DeHaven : but have never used them
Jim DeHaven : actually check that
Jim DeHaven : the plug strip caught one crash
Rusty Tucker Dan said that he would lead the project to make Suzie 3.0. I am sure that he needs some coders to help out.
Jim DeHaven : the silence is deafening
Rusty Tucker I usually only worry about my ISDN going down.
Donald McHose : Haven't written anything since the days of Fortran and punch cards.
Jim DeHaven : We will really give it a test this fall
Rusty Tucker Well guys, looks like this is it for our first evening chat!
Jim DeHaven : since we anticipate there being a dozen or so courses online
Jim DeHaven : OK Rusty
Jim DeHaven : thanks for showing up
Donald McHose : RT has anybody you know used Digichat?
Rusty Tucker Any other q's before we wrap up?
Rusty Tucker No, I don't know about Digichat
Donald McHose : C-above.
Jim DeHaven : what is it don?
Rusty Tucker I've seen a few Press notes about it, but have never seen it used anywhere
Donald McHose : k..I'll let you all know how it goes. Much nicer than BIAP but a lot more proc. intensive.
Donald McHose : A chat server
Jim DeHaven : you know Rusty
Donald McHose : not really a plug in from what I can tell.
Jim DeHaven : I have given your name to a kindly little nun
Rusty Tucker uh-oh
Jim DeHaven : who wants to use your software at her high school, maybe
Rusty Tucker oh! :)
Jim DeHaven : Holy Angels High
Rusty Tucker hah!
Jim DeHaven : they were impressed
Jim DeHaven : the nuns--not the angels
Rusty Tucker That's good. We need more customers!
Jim DeHaven : Well I have also given the info to our local educational/apple distribution co.
Jim DeHaven : but I don't know what they will do with it
Jim DeHaven : it really works well in doing what we do
Jim DeHaven : there are lots of people in education who need an easy way to put course material online and communicate with their students
Rusty Tucker Yes, too many of them got stuck with SoftArc... :(
Donald McHose : NOW they are getting fried on NT ;-)
Jim DeHaven : well there are lots of them who buy prepackaged stuff
Jim DeHaven : like TopClass which actually needs a server to run
Rusty Tucker ?
Jim DeHaven : TopClass
Rusty Tucker I haven't heard of that one
Jim DeHaven : is a WebStar plug in that is specifically adapted towards administering distance learning sites
Rusty Tucker oh?
Donald McHose : Big $$$
Jim DeHaven : yes they want lots of money, 2000 at least
Donald McHose : Does half of what TF does for twice as much ;-)
Jim DeHaven : and more for more concurrent connections, exactly because TF gives more flexibility and has real time chat
Rusty Tucker do they have a web site?
Jim DeHaven : and has better conference areas
Jim DeHaven : yes they do
Donald McHose : Yup !!
Rusty Tucker I'll look into it
Jim DeHaven : and you can download a trial copy
Donald McHose : I get an ad once a month at least you could we have people here who see that and think it is wonderful
Jim DeHaven : until I show them how to use it and what it can't do
Donald McHose : BINGO
Jim DeHaven : Rusty--a whiteboard--even a simple on in the chat room--something where you could easily send a gif during a chat--something simple like that
Jim DeHaven : would really help I think in this market
Donald McHose : Every class room will have a new PC this fall. That's when I hope to rock-n-roll
Jim DeHaven : just the ability to broadcast a gif file to the people online in chat rooms--would be extremely useful and would be a kind of gimmick that u could "show off" to people
Donald McHose : So would a school to school game show ...hint.
Rusty Tucker :)
Rusty Tucker so what's their URL?
Jim DeHaven : I feel like I feel when I am asking my dean for more money to buy software, don't have it--I will send it out to you
Rusty Tucker ok thanks -- I'll look in my email
Donald McHose : I'll give it a look too.
Donald McHose : RT when will topics be able to SPML a hot link?
Rusty Tucker u mean like Jon did in email?
Rusty Tucker I should do something to look for http:// and make a link of it
Donald McHose : Ahh yup. when someone uses the web in a conf and pots a url
Jim DeHaven : couldn't find it using yahoo--I will look in the files on my computer later
Donald McHose : Posts I mean.
Donald McHose : Just a thought.
Rusty Tucker Thanks for stopping in! I will be out next week, but be back for chat July 7.
Rusty Tucker I think I know what you mean DM
Donald McHose : O.K. see ya all then.
Donald McHose : Great.
Jim DeHaven : bye
Rusty Tucker bye