response 68 of 79:

Mar 15 17:52 UTC 1999

Jim would like to make grex available to people who have never been online
before and really need to start with just a few simple things, such as email.
He thinks this was part of the grex mission, to educate people on how to use
computers.  In addition they have to be able to email him for help.  If people
are only supposed to be using grex if they participate in the conferences,
should we dump anyone using it just for email (all of India?).  We have taught
three people how to use email on grex, they are still asking questions.  I
spent a half a year learning to use email, then lynx, and only then did I feel
prepared to look at a conference.
        We would therefore like to give people a simpler newuser program, or
a choice of basic or advanced signup.  The sort of beginners we have been
dealing with would give up immediately if asked to choose and interrupt
character, it is simply too much new vocabulary at one time.  They are capable
of choosing a loginid and password.  One of these new users is now a paying
member and really enjoys using the 'new' (PC) computer and is trying to learn
lynx now.  And teaching friends to use grex.  We are hoping to sign up other
members of the Dexter senior citizens' computer class on grex, who would never
get through newuser unaided.  
        Marcus is understandably proud of PicoSpan, but the conferences are
not all that grex has to offer users.  We would like to see newuser made
easier for total beginners, whether or not they ever join a conference.  And
to see grex made more accessible for local dial-in users who have never used
the internet before and cannot therefore use backtalk.  Grex's newuser program
as it stands is not friendly to beginners.
        You cannot make people use the conferences, but you can offer them what
they are interested in using, and in a few cases you may get a paying member
out of it, and/or a conference participator.  (We became both, eventually).
I think it is wonderful that grex is making it possible for people to
communicate by email, whether or not they pay or use PicoSpan or Backtalk,
and that potential email users (local dialins) should not be discouraged by
a newuser program aimed at people who have previous computer knowledge.  One
of our potential new users had never seen a computer keyboard close up and
was having trouble remembering what the enter key was.  Jim says he does not
even use the conferences, he uses the Unix shell to learn Unix, and email.
He and one other member (paying) do not use the conferences - grex is
different things to different people.  There are probably other people in Ann
Arbor who would like to pay to join grex but not to use the conferences, and
need things kept simple to help them join.  Start slow.
        I would like to point out that these people are not contributing in
this conference, so you are not getting their point of view.  Jim is one of
them, he knows others, he wants to work with beginners.  Is there some
objection to having people use grex for lynx, pine and unix only? If not,
please (soon) offer a beginner's newuser program that assigns defaults to the
erase character and assumes VT-100 terminal.

response 70 of 79:

Mar 15 18:07 UTC 1999

regarding earlier comments by devnull and pfv, kerberos is now supported 
by the free Mac telnet client "better telnet". and ssh is supported by 
the free windows telnet client "Tera Term." Both as free plug-ins. 
See our newly updated telnet info page for details
http://www.cyberspace.org/telnet.html

response 72 of 79:

Mar 16 12:59 UTC 1999

Re #70: People around MIT who seem to know what they're talking about
claim that the ssh plugin for teraterm is probalby illegal to use in the
US, because teraterm does not use the rsaref library, and apparently
one must either use rsaref or else pay a licensing fee if one is using
rsa, to avoid patent infringement.

However, last I heard, kerberos isn't suppored at all on grex, and ssh only
works when there's no telnet queue, so neither of these options is all
that useful for grex at this point.

response 74 of 79:

Mar 16 15:51 UTC 1999

Someone stopped by Kiwanis last night to look at our range of email computers,
and he would also like a little website that people could email him about.
Any objection to that?  I showed him how to look at websites and send email.
He will think about whether to get a Tandy with a CGA monitor or a Mac SE.
I told him that he could get music on his website by putting it onto a
friend's site and linking to it, is that correct?  He likes music.  He would
like to learn more than we know.  People have all sorts of reasons to use
grex, it is educational in many ways.

response 76 of 79:

Mar 17 03:57 UTC 1999

I suppose marcus delibrately failed to mention that doing that probalby
also would increase the load on grex unbearably?

response 78 of 79:

Apr 14 01:09 UTC 1999

Re #76:  I think marcus's point was that the reasons we do not do those things
are not *technical*.  Beyond that, I was lost.  I just read this entire item,
from resp:0 to resp:77, and I think my eyes glazed more than once.  :-)