TeleFinder Chat Log

Text of TeleFinder Chat from Tuesday, May 19, 1998 11 AM PDT.

In attendance:

From SpiderIsland: Rusty Tucker

Sysops: Bob Nunn, Bill Gram-Reefer, Andy Daws, Jim Leary, Michael Davidson

Rusty Tucker hola!
Bob Nunn joined the chat.
Rusty Tucker Welcome to the chat Bob!
Rusty Tucker hi!
Bob Nunn : Hey!
Bob Nunn : We are losing Brian Akey here at Wang's :-( Going to work for a consulting firm.
Bill Gram-Reefer joined the chat.
Rusty Tucker Welcome to the chat Bill!
Bill Gram-Reefer : yada yada
Rusty Tucker good for Brian! (?)
Bill Gram-Reefer : RT can you vouch for the new PI's?
Rusty Tucker which ones?
Bob Nunn : Perhaps he will consult a few to install a TF Server instead of NT :-) Good for RT...
Rusty Tucker mine?
Rusty Tucker that'd be cool
Bill Gram-Reefer : yes..mandel, SI, hit
Rusty Tucker The new ones I released have not displayed any problems so far
Bob Nunn : I will vouch for them as well. No probs here.
Bill Gram-Reefer : what'd Brian do?
Bob Nunn : Brian was our Network specialist for the MIS department
Rusty Tucker I'm trying out using GIF instead of PICT for the Windows thumbnails
Rusty Tucker Full circle to the original plan 3 or 4 yrs ago :)
Bill Gram-Reefer : RT, is there any CPU memory hit with the PI's? Should I raise memory like one does for threads and nodes?
Rusty Tucker No, those PI's allocate their own memory out of the System! Very slick. IIMSSM
Bill Gram-Reefer : cewel
Rusty Tucker I'm taking a look at using similar techniques for the web server. Say goodbye to setting the app memory size when changing the number of threads!
Bob Nunn : Why do you suppose the highlander folks went to JPG on the image pi for the web?
Rusty Tucker Cuz the browsers already support JPG
Bill Gram-Reefer : So I sent Ric Ford a polite email demonstrating that the Reconnect PPP script still demands enduser attention by presenting modal dialogues, No response...I should get a medal...some crosse de guerre for getting humiliated in public on behalf of TF sysops!
Rusty Tucker Not just TeleFinder Sysops, but sysops everywhere!
Andy Daws joined the chat.
Rusty Tucker Welcome to the chat Andy!
Andy Daws : Hello All
Bill Gram-Reefer : yo
Bob Nunn : hey
Rusty Tucker I guess running servers over PPP is just not important enough.
Bill Gram-Reefer : I don't think any of those guys ever use the stuff they kludge together
Andy Daws : Hay I'm running PPP into work from home then out from work to you cool
Andy Daws : But getting the modem to dial me back
Rusty Tucker Mikael Fredriksson is trying to setup a "hits per second" test using TeleFinder 5.7, G3's and 100 base T net.
Bill Gram-Reefer : excellent
Andy Daws : Any results yet
Bill Gram-Reefer : I can hear the "whoosh" now
Rusty Tucker BTW- "From around the Web" Kicks ass today :)
Bob Nunn : Perhaps set some new kind of records. Need a big pie chart with hits per $ invested.
Rusty Tucker nope, still putting the HW together
Bill Gram-Reefer : so everyone at WWDC was peeing their pants over the prospect of Apache on Rhapsody.
Bill Gram-Reefer : maybe SI should get a NO APACHE NEEDED logo
Rusty Tucker Meet the new boss...
Bill Gram-Reefer : like a profile of an Indian chief in a circle with a line crossed thru it
Andy Daws : Has anything happened with the digital signature problem rusty
Rusty Tucker No Andy, I still need to get 2 exact messages sent through each server.
Rusty Tucker So far, the one sent through Exchange is a different message than the one sent through TF. I can't correlate that.
Andy Daws : The problem seems that any alteration to the headers causes problems can't the headers be left alone.
Rusty Tucker I was not able to confirm that.
Andy Daws : I.e. you rewrite the headers
Bill Gram-Reefer : This just in...Fed decides not to change rates
Andy Daws : When I put a POP3 message from a PC direct into TF everything is OK
Rusty Tucker I manually modified the headers, and the Exchange client seemed to accept the message OK.
Andy Daws : Hmm
Andy Daws : It should have caused a problem
Andy Daws : As someone could be faking the signature
Rusty Tucker no, the headers should not affect it.
Andy Daws : So if I drop in a different address everything is still fine?
Rusty Tucker I think the dig signature authenticates the body of the message, the headers -must- be able to change to some degree.
Rusty Tucker TeleFinder doesn't change the address anyway.
Andy Daws : I'm just using that as an example if someone was tampering with the message illegally
Rusty Tucker Why can't I get the exact same message as sent to Exchange and TeleFinder?
Rusty Tucker just compose a message and address it to 2 different addresses, one a TeleFinder address, the other a MS address.
Rusty Tucker route it through MS -> to TF.
Rusty Tucker Then I can just diff the files and move on.
Andy Daws : When TF receives stuff it seems to change line endings adds tabs etc. also the time changes so the two messages can never be identical
Andy Daws : I sent you messages that were as identical as I could get them
Rusty Tucker Of course, don't worry about that.
Andy Daws : I.e. the same message sent to a PC POP server and TF
Rusty Tucker Set up your exchange client to use the PC SMTP server
Rusty Tucker - address a message to 2 names, one on TF-POP3, the other on MS POP3.
Rusty Tucker then the content will be 100% identical
Rusty Tucker then send me those files?
Andy Daws : I have a better SMTP/POP server that let me get at the POP messages much easier. I thought I sent it to you?
Rusty Tucker I just need the files.
Andy Daws : I'll repeat the exercise again and send you the results. But it may be delayed very busy at the moment
Rusty Tucker no problem, me too :)
Andy Daws : Everyone seems very silent have we scared them?
Andy Daws : ;-)
Rusty Tucker Lemme know when you've got the time, and I'll help you setup the experiment to get the right data.
Bill Gram-Reefer : So RT, has the dust settled sufficiently for you to evaluate WWDC Mac OS X announcement and your thoughts on signing onto a Carbonized TF?
Rusty Tucker been there, done that!
Bill Gram-Reefer : ???
Rusty Tucker TeleFinder will be carbonized, I said that on day 1.
Bill Gram-Reefer : ok I recall seeing that on FATW
Michael Davidson joined the chat.
Rusty Tucker Welcome to the chat Michael!
Bob Nunn : Ok what is carbonized?
Andy Daws : Hi Michael
Bill Gram-Reefer : RT..you gonna take that one?
Rusty Tucker check out www.spiderisland.com/fatw/
Rusty Tucker for the details,
Rusty Tucker but basically Apple has announced that MacOS API's will be part of "Rhapsody"
Bob Nunn : Glad they did that. Makes the future seem a lot smoother.
Bob Nunn : Does B16 fix my PDF problem? I noted you made a change. Was it the file size?
Rusty Tucker They are trimming out the garbage from Inside Mac, and the remaining 90% will be preserved and move forward as a first class citizen in the modern OS.
Rusty Tucker Yes, B16 fixes your PDF problem.
Rusty Tucker The page was overly complex for my byte-range server....
Rusty Tucker it asked for too many small bits of the file, and TeleFinder complied, but just partially
Bob Nunn : It is overly complex for about anything. Our cat pages are mostly images with little text.
Rusty Tucker This new version will support serving up to 60 ranges per request, up from 20
Rusty Tucker Your pages needed something like 30
Bob Nunn : I have hopes for PDF technology now that 3 is out. It almost works most of the time now. Makes transferring pages to the separators nice.
Rusty Tucker You all probably wouldn't notice, but I've added a nice little feature to my "unauthorized" template.
Rusty Tucker It now lets you bring up a form requesting a higher level of access!
Bill Gram-Reefer : BN what is 30? Acrobat 3.0?
Andy Daws : Cool
Michael Davidson : Nice Rusty!
Michael Davidson : Can I call up that form any other time
Bob Nunn : Yes Acrobat 3.0 I attended a few local seminars. The print boys really are hep on it since it fixes the PC font problems and my missing graphics problems etc.
Rusty Tucker I need to refine it a bit, but its very helpful to sysops that signup via the web, but then don't understand why they don't have immediate access to the goods.
Rusty Tucker Yes ask for /templates/unauthorized.spml
Michael Davidson : or a template that allows any user level user to ask to raise his level...a universal level change request form
Rusty Tucker I'm getting a number of wannabes asking for sysop access, so I need to ask for Real Name and TeleFinder Serial number
Bill Gram-Reefer : that makes sense
Michael Davidson : then have a reply that says something like " the sysop will get to your request as soon as he has time"
Rusty Tucker Yep, I have just 2 basic levels: User and Sysop. It's an easy form to make. I'll post the source once I tweak the mods.
Rusty Tucker or " go away and be quiet!"
Michael Davidson : ...or as soon as he has his bills paid"
Bill Gram-Reefer : or one could ask for credit card info!
Andy Daws joined the chat.
Rusty Tucker Welcome to the chat Andy!
Michael Davidson : :)
Andy Daws : There is definately one problem with using home phones people pick them up
Andy Daws : I've got a clone
Michael Davidson : I was late, did you just post the new MS & TFS & User files
Rusty Tucker just TFS for today, the others are new from last week
Bill Gram-Reefer : duct tape
Andy Daws : Any way must go before my other half kills me.
Andy Daws : Bye All
Michael Davidson : how many sysops here use Retrospect
Rusty Tucker bye
Rusty Tucker I do
Andy Daws : I Do.
Andy Daws left the chat.
Rusty Tucker c-ya Andy Daws
Bob Nunn : I do
Bill Gram-Reefer : I don't believe in backups
Rusty Tucker I'm starting to lean towards CDs for some back up chores tho.
Bill Gram-Reefer :
Rusty Tucker Cheaper than Zips and tapes anymore.
Andy Daws left the chat.
Rusty Tucker c-ya Andy Daws
Bill Gram-Reefer : I just drag everything over to the Jaz drive before I go to lunch on Fridays
Michael Davidson : Retro 4.0 does CD's too
Rusty Tucker plus- you can FTU after writing them
Rusty Tucker err - can't
Michael Davidson : That's the way I would like to go
Bob Nunn : You may think it odd but I back up to an 8.4 gig Hard Drive. I found it to be cheaper that all other solutions for a system my size. Faster too.
Rusty Tucker I'm getting good CDs for $1.50 now
Michael Davidson : I thought about backing up to a 9 GB myself Bob...kinda been doing that now
Michael Davidson : but CD's would be my preference
Bob Nunn : At $400 about it is about the only solution. I have my scripts set up to do small portions of the system at slow traffic periods and us MS to run them. Monthly I replace all the smaller archives with one file using Retro.
Michael Davidson : I do it by images..make all partitions 1 GB and all HD's to be backed up 1 GB
Bob Nunn : I do hit the maximum file limits on retro on my newsgroups periodically. I seem to miss getting the max. set on the new ones I add so they don't get trimmed.
Michael Davidson : Guys, I'm gonna go ...I think I've made a big break thru on my chat bot...simplifies it considerably
Rusty Tucker good deal!
Bill Gram-Reefer : PIXAR annual report from Jobs says they have 5 terabytes of disk storage to hold production work and is backed up nightly!
Michael Davidson : Unfortunately, it has taken a back seat for a few weeks lately
Rusty Tucker that's a good thing to let your investors know.
Michael Davidson : see ya all
Michael Davidson left the chat.
Rusty Tucker c-ya Michael Davidson
Rusty Tucker oops, we lost Toy Story 2, sorry dude.
Bill Gram-Reefer : hee hee
Bill Gram-Reefer : heads would roll
Rusty Tucker Bill, tell me more about the Apache buzz...
Bill Gram-Reefer : so what CD writer did you get RT
Bill Gram-Reefer : ok
Rusty Tucker It's something from Club Mac
Rusty Tucker about 2 yrs old now.
Rusty Tucker it comes with Toast, and its' easy to use.
Bill Gram-Reefer : just a lot of geek programmers wheezing about oh boy...apache on Rhapsody as if that's the end-all be-all to web serving because it is UNIX.
Bill Gram-Reefer : BTW
Rusty Tucker ic
Bill Gram-Reefer : a very tacit understanding is that with apple commitment to rhapsody OS X
Rusty Tucker There was a similar buzz around prior to the release of WebTen as I recall.
Bill Gram-Reefer : means all of higher ed. is gonna sign off and standardize on Rhapsody OS X
Jim Leary joined the chat.
Rusty Tucker Welcome to the chat Jim!
Bill Gram-Reefer : I heard from one guy that the deal is already signed with about 10 key Univ. already
Rusty Tucker Buying TONS of iMacs no doubt.
Bill Gram-Reefer : can't make them fast enuf...that $6399 14.1 inch color power book looks awesome, too.
Bill Gram-Reefer : that's my new desktop
Rusty Tucker too rich for me right now
Rusty Tucker BGR - toss the eMac into the mix, and its a very hot combination!
Bill Gram-Reefer : Anyways...there was this whole undertone of Apple taking over leadership of UNIX community, and education comes with it, and hey Apache is free and you can kludge some kind of MACish user interface over it
Bob Nunn : Wait a year and it will be half that price ;-)
Bill Gram-Reefer : eMac?
Rusty Tucker The missing Box in Jobs keynote.
Rusty Tucker the new Mac based on the eMate - due q1 of next year
Bill Gram-Reefer : I think real audio pooped out on me and missed that bit...tell all
Jim Leary : Rusty, any plans yet to fly to the east for MacWorld Expo in July?
Rusty Tucker I'd like to, but its not in the budget right now.
Bill Gram-Reefer : uhoh another Newton or real Mac OS to go after Palm?
Rusty Tucker A real MacOS
Rusty Tucker so they say
Bob Nunn : This time with a processor they can depend on keeping the source.
Jim Leary : That's too bad. It would have been nice to go over some TF stuff in person
Rusty Tucker ?
Rusty Tucker what source?
Bob Nunn : I heard the real reason the Newton died was the sale of the company that produced the processor for it.
Rusty Tucker oh, you mean chip source, that strong ARM is now Intel
Rusty Tucker I don't buy that.
Jim Leary : I've got a while to go before getting everything set to go over here but I'm very glad that Cumulus will work within TF
Bob Nunn : Perhaps then they were just going the wrong way?
Rusty Tucker The Newton had the same problem as Rhapsody -- devs needed to learn a new API and language to write for it.
Bill Gram-Reefer : oh boy a handheld quake machine
Bob Nunn : Too expensive and too small a market then. Make sense.
Rusty Tucker If -every- Mac application will run on it, $1k is not too expensive.
Rusty Tucker The problem is that for $1K you don't have any software either.
Bill Gram-Reefer : So RT, the overhead for a Mac OS system would be what kind of RAM requirements you guess? 32 MB vs. Win98 or NT?
Bob Nunn : Well I read the fatw page. I gotta get out more. This carbon thing snuck up on me.
Bill Gram-Reefer : OS X
Rusty Tucker The Mac application base, while often sneered at by Wintel types, is still HUGE.
Bob Nunn : Been looking at MacWEEK to much. Did Quicken make any new announcements?
Rusty Tucker They bought a Tax s/w firm.
Bob Nunn : I heard that after looking over Job's shoulder and what was coming they had some change of thinking.
Rusty Tucker yes, they recommitted to the Mac too.
Bill Gram-Reefer : they're not idiots
Rusty Tucker some think that whole deal was a stunt
Bob Nunn : Of course the real reason I think their sales have slowed as that most people were disappointed in their upgrades.
Bob Nunn : No such thing as bad publicity except no publicity at all.
Rusty Tucker BGR - a color classic ran beautifully in 8 MB..
Bob Nunn : Of course I still remember new Coke. That might be the exception.
Rusty Tucker but 32 MB seems to be pretty common on handhelds now
Bill Gram-Reefer : Yeah but you get a Wintel CPU with 32 MB and you're still looking at needing to get up to 64
Rusty Tucker I just don't see how an Apple board member could be so out of the loop ( Quicken
Rusty Tucker s Campbell )
Bill Gram-Reefer : a lot of people were out of that loop.
Rusty Tucker is that right BGR, Tom Campbell?
Bill Gram-Reefer : Even Rhapsody Manager in Europe had no idea
Bob Nunn : Does seem a little fishy n that you mention it. Of course all that most will remember is the first announcement.
Bill Gram-Reefer : Jobs wanted to keep things quiet..only 8-10 people knew the deal
Rusty Tucker u mean Carbon.
Rusty Tucker hmm, maybe that's right, I was thinking more iMac
Bill Gram-Reefer : the Europe Rhapsody manager said it was because they didn't have money to do a rolling 2 yr. introduction like win 95
Jim Leary left the chat.
Rusty Tucker c-ya Jim Leary
Bill Gram-Reefer : and Jobs' penchant for event marketing...spill it all at once
Bill Gram-Reefer : instead of dribbling it out piecemeal
Bob Nunn : Coulda picked a better time with Uncle Bill stealing the headlines.
Rusty Tucker A 1 yr. intro instead? X is really still a ways out there
Rusty Tucker but, you gotta keep the troops on board.
Bill Gram-Reefer : well...keeping the lid on X...took a lot of people by surprise and caused a lot of confusion until everyone got details on YB and other stuff midweek
Bill Gram-Reefer : Monday was mayhem and nail biting for developers that had invested a lot of time into Rhapsody like my client Helios
Bill Gram-Reefer : then by midweek they got most of the answers that Rhapsody would live on as X but Apple added a way for everyone else to carbonize apps over as well
Rusty Tucker I bet. X is gonna be cool. A bit like Be, except with a lot of good apps.
Rusty Tucker - and a mature UNIX core.
Bill Gram-Reefer : OK, gotta run...work on that apache logo Rusty
Rusty Tucker and multi-user.
Rusty Tucker see ya
Bill Gram-Reefer left the chat.
Rusty Tucker c-ya Bill Gram-Reefer
Rusty Tucker lunch for me 2
Bob Nunn : Need to go to. Thanks.