147 new of 181 responses total.
Just now when I tried to connect to cyberspace.org as I always do, it looks like "the DNS" complained that it didn't know that host. grex.cyberspace.org worked...
Re: 25 My telnet software won't work over my family's proxy server. I have no modem in my computer because it uses an IRQ which I can't afford to spare if I want the sound card and the Ethernet card to work. Maybe I'll just give in to my PC-ness and buy an IMAC
WHen isn't M-nut down?
I use LotusWorks, but I don't think that my windows terminal program is any better, and neither is my alphaworks program. (I gotta check that one...I haven't used it in forever)
A lot. Take now, for instance. And their period of inactivity I was referring to was the conclusion of a new record of up time for them, over 56 days if I recall the statistics correctly. That's a long time.
It was 62 days of uptime. In the last 6 months M-Net's reliability has gotten amazingly better. It's a solid system now. Kevin, where were you telnetting from when this happened?
true, steve .. and the m-b0x even recovered from two (yes, two) vandal attacks within just hours. the attack&wipes were about 3 dyas apart.
Well, I'm now using Alphaworks...and it seems to be working a bit better.
Er, actually M-Net set a new record of 59 days, 10 hours and 33 minutes of uptime before it froze because it overheated. Some really vigorous discussions must have been going on! 8-)
there's something charmingly oxymoronic in the phrase "froze because it overheated"..
Hmmm... sure it wasn't 62 days? Thats what I saw and remembered it as two months. Oh well, either number is impressive. But seeing as this is a the Grex problems item, I have a question which is how many people get severe line noise, usually after being connected a minute or so? I'm trying to determine if I have a problem or if grex does.
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I finally figured out that to get to grex from the website you do not click on Backtalk but on Go to the conferences. And there I found the option of choosing Pistachio backtalk, which requires any browser except lynx, i. e., a graphics-based browser. My only web access is by dialing directly to grex and using lynx. This apparently means that people who dial in to grex and/or are using older computers cannot use Pistachio. Therefore there is no way that I can change the title of an item. Am I wrong? If I am not wrong, could someone correct this situation so that local users who dial in, and telnetters, can do the same things as those who access from the website? Also, I tried to do lynx to www.cyberspace.org/nu/newuser.html and was told it was 'not found on this server'. That is what I was told was a way to create a newuser account directly rather than going to the main website. Did I do something wrong?
re:46 Valerie, it's the best that I have out of three! (pretty pathetic, eh?
Email correspondents have reported intermittant refusals of mail addressed to cyberspace.org. grex.cyberspace.org seems to work fine.
Colleen, that may be because they sent mail to cyberspace.org while mail was down and marcus was cleaning out spam.
What just happened here at noon time with load number to past 36.0 instead of more normal 3.0? It sure made GREX intolerable.
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Actually, the slowdown reminded me of what grex used to be like on the old computer more than anything else.
Got right to the webpage for newusers this time, Valerie. I was using Vanilla to enter a response in Backtalk, after reading that Pistachio could not be used with lynx. I have not tried to use it, since I was told that I could not. Do you want to check if it is possible, and then if it is, change the instructions? I would still like to retitle an item. And why do you have to go to the website to retitle an item instead of doing it directly, after dialing in or telnetting in?
The pistachio interface uses an HTML facility called "frames", which lynx probably doesn't support. Dialup/telnet and web connections use Picospan and Backtalk, respectively, for accessing the conferences. These are entirely different pieces of software. Picospan doesn't support retitling items, and since we don't have source code for Picospan, we can't change that. I would think, though, that it would be possible to write a special purpose standalone privileged program that would do the same retitling that Backtalk does and could be invoked from the shell. So I suppose the real answer to your last question is that nobody has gotten around to doing the necessary programming. It shouldn't be hard to do - it would be a matter of lifting the relevant source code from Backtalk and repackaging it to work as a standalone command.
Do I also have to use Pistachio to kill an item that I started? Or can it be done by a command from the Unix prompt? (Classified items that sold).
I have a Backtalk query-- these days I backtalk more than I telnet and I find it frustrating that when I log into grex via backtalk, backtalk will not tell me if I have mail waiting. Can backtalk not be programmed to check the mail ques just as Picospan does when one logs on via telnet? Why not add a button to the backtalk entrance screen that says "See if you have incoming mail?" Then one could click if he/she wanted to check, and if there was mail waiting, they would know they should log back in via telnet.
I've been kicked off twice now (once in the queue when I was in the queue and only three were ahead of the line and one while readingthe coop conference.) Both times, the result I got from the telnet program (I telnet into a VAX before here) is: %TELNET-I-TRYING, Trying ... 204.212.46.130 %TELNET-E-CONNFAIL, Failed to connect to remote host -SYSTEM-F-UNREACHABLE, remote node is not currently reachable And, in the next minute after I get kicked, I can't reach Grex, but after the minute all is fine and I'm back at the end of the line :-( (all this was was within the last half hour) BTW, lynx does support frames, although you have to toggle back and forth to the frameset page.
Pistachio keeps navigation buttons in a separate frame from item text. In a graphical browser, this is quite convenient, because the navigation buttons remain visible as the text is scrolled. If you have to toggle back and forth to see different frames in lynx, you lose the convenience.
They do? Is this a new modification? I was always annoyed with the fact that I had to scroll to get to the navigation buttons before.
I am using pistachio, and I can say for sure that I am not in any frames. I have never seen frames when using backtalk.
That's what I thought. I've never seen them easier, but I usually use picospan while dialed in.
The frames in pistachio are not visible, but there nonetheless. The buttons at the top are in a frame.
Is it possible to put the buttons in a visible frame that doesn't scroll? It seems that that would be rather helpful.
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Re resp:64 - To enable frames in Pistachio, go to the Entrance Page, click on the "Personal Info" link, then on the "Set Options" link. On the form that comes up, you can select whether or not you want frames. Select "Yes". Then the navigation buttons will appear in a visible frame that doesn't scroll.
Re rest:58 and resp:65 : I've not had that problem with Grex, although I *have* had a problem with being dumped. I start typing something then backspace and then decide to hit CTRL+C and it closes the connection. I've had this happen 2 or 3 times, but I've never been able to recreate the problem. In other words, when I *try* to get booted, it doesn't work, but when I least expect it, boom! Also, there have been times when Grex just stops, but usually it starts working after a few minutes. This is probably due to either (1) some route between me and Grex broke temporarily or (2) Grex's ISDN link dropped and has to redial.. other than that, I have no problems using Grex. (And really I don't consider those untolerable problems.)
Really? I had no idea that Pistachio was configurable.
I'm using Pistachio for the first time right now, having previously always used PicoSpan, and I'm amazed at how smooth it is. This is going to make conferencing a lot easier.
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Does anyone know why today we cannot download, using Ymodem (batch) or Kermit, from home directory or email to our computer? It worked yesterday and suddenly all attempts Abort. We have to get this woring withi two days. Thanks.
Is that on a dialup connection?
Yes, long distance dialup from N. Ohio. I can upload just fine but cannot download. I tried this account and my own (this is Keesan typing). Kermit and Ymodem. Ymodem worked yesterday okay. I could upload a file and then not download the same file, it Aborted. We have only a dialup connection, and an expensive one at that. Any ideas? Kent, can you try sb filename etc and see if you can make it work and email us about what happens? Use this email address, please. Thanks
(Using frames with Backtalk slows it down considerably, but it is kind of nice not to have the buttons scroll off your screen all the time. I made them default off on Grex back when the net connection was really really slow, and still haven't been tempted to change that. Yes, there are several things you can configure in Pistachio Backtalk. Perhaps not as many as one would like.)
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Just in case we are doing something wrong, would someone check out if they can upload with Ymodem or Kermit (dialup) and list for us exactly how they do this, one step after another? Thanks. Jim will check all the settings, or maybe even load another copy of Procomm without settings set.
I just uploaded something successfully. At my UNIX prompt I typed kermit -r then I escaped back to my local communication software's prompt (I use Kermit for DOS) and typed send trip.txt And that was it. I was sending a text file; if I had been sending a binary file, instead of "kermit -r" I would have typed kermit set file type binary
Jim just found the problem, he had somehow told Procomm to download the file to a nonexistent directory, he may have overwritten Procomm at some pooint and forgotten. It was very useful to know that download was working, which means the problem was at this end. Since the comptuer and modem had not changed (Valerie suggested checking theses) it had to be our software. Thanks to everyone for ideas. Hope not to do too many stupid things like this.
re #75: Then we'll have a real "family" of backtalk interfaces! ;)
I get an error when I try to reach Grex using the pistachio version of Backtalk, however the vanilla version works fine. I reported the error in pistachio to backtalk@hvcn.org. I'm noting that the vanilla version works for anyone who would prefer to use Grex via the WWW, but thought they had to use telnet to get in.
Grex was experiencing slowdown earlier today, STeve informed me it was a bomb.
I use pistachio frequently (right now, in fact) and have never had errors. It might be a problem with a config file in your home directory, jep. I think pistachio might use a file called .backtalk, so you might want to have a look at that. Speaking of pistachio, the default background color seems to have changed from pistachio green to a pastel shade of yellow sometime in the last few days. Actually, I consider this an improvement, not a problem.
Yeah, I'd wondered about the color change. I thought maybe I'd broken something. =)
New color is easier on the eyes
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(So then shouldn't it be called something like "French Vanilla" instead of Pistachio?)
The error I reported in #80 appears to be a problem with the Arbortext proxy server, not with Backtalk. I explained this to backtalk@hvcn.org.
Re resp:86 - Indeed. It looks pretty close to french vanilla on my screen.
maybe, in keeping with the nut-theme established with pistachio, you should use "blanched almond" (according to X11's rgb.txt file [maps RGB values to names] BlanchedAlmond is Red:255 Green:235 Blue:205. actually, that makes it a little too pink for my tastes..)
How many colors are color monitors displaying nowadays? I thought 256 was the maximum. I have two colors - amber and black - but can't use pistachio anyway because I access the web via grex/lynx.
Generally the number of colors displayable isn't a function of the monitor (at least not the number of colors you're referring to, though there presumably is a finite number of colors to which the monitor is limited, based on such things as the properties of the phosphors used and the amount of control over the electron gun..) I assume, though, that you're talking about the number of simultaneous displayable colors. Although many people still use 256-color modes most new computers have enough video memory to display millions of colors at high resolutions. (common numbers are 2^16 = 65536 colors, and 2^24 = 16.7 million colors..)
Butter Pecan! Flat-panel displays often do limit the number of colors that can be displayed.....pity those rich enough to own flat panels.
How many colors does a color TV display?
Three.
There can only be One True Color. Chocolate. Learn it, Live it, Love it.
I deleted a nice piece of spam that someone sent to everybody who was on grex at the time asking for help. Are there policies about this?
(And I won't leave until I get my chocolate back.)
I was #85 in the queue this morning. Has a new floodgate opened? :)
re #92: Since she said "monitor" I decided not to go into the limitations of the LCD display devices but yeah, you're right..
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I was #45 in the queue, at 5 in the morning, EST! I'm guessing that at least one person typed the following phrase: "hay u wanna hotchat me? i like sexy!"
(eieio must have tailed the party log looking for my name...)
Re 100, I just did use Pistachio, it works. Some day someone with spare time can remove that statement to the effect that you cannot use it with lynx.
About the only good thing I can say about today... + Well, at least it was *JUST* a month and a half worth of email that was lost.
I have also noticed that the queue has been unusually long lately.
I haven't been able to tel net in today...Is it a problem on my end or are others having the same problem?
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it just stays at the same screen...a blip and right where I was again
Grex is curretly having a lot of packet loss on the net link.
Took an unusually long time an hour ago to send a very short email.
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I'm reading Agora in Backtalk, I tried to find Item 98 because my item list jumps from 96 to 99 (I know 97 is retired, but I can still read it). I couldn't find 98 as being retired or active. Is there an item 98?
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So, then, PICO does not reserve an item number at 'enter' time, but gets the next available number at 'would you like to submit this item' time?
Something like that, with the caveat that when an item is killed, its number remains unavailable.
Valerie: I basically rub two sticks together to grex...windows 95....haha..I'm still using windows 3.1...I am able to telnet from anyplace but the grex welcome page...maybe it's me.....
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Get me some nachos, sombody. I'm sick.
This is the system problems item, not the shivi problems item. :)
I've been dialing in of late and receiving dead air. No "you will be connected shortly" message, no echo, nothing. I think a modem's down or something. I've had to do some creative dialing twice now to get a working connection. Any idea on what's up?
There might be a modem that needs reprogramming. I'll have to check into that.
I had this happen to me this morning, a few minutes ago. Connect, but no message even from the term server.
ditto yesterday.
Did our trunk hunt get messed up when we dropped those two lines?
SHouldn't be. In any case, the numbers were the last 2, and when I got the problem there weren't that many people on thru the modems. I'll have to drop by and reprogram the modems and probably reboot the terminal server as well.
I got the same thing.. Dialed into 761-3000, no login prompt. Hung up and dialed 761-5041 and everything was peachy. Didn't bother to track it down any further in the hunt sequence but I'm sure you've got a flaked-out modem..
761-5041 is now the second modem in the hunt, so assuming nobody else was calling in or logging off at the same time, that will have tracked it down.
It may be intermittant. Last time we had odd troubles, I just reprogrammed all the modei. That's not a big deal, actually, since I've got scripts on my Newton to do the programming. Interestingly, the newer modems without the dumb mode seem to be more stable than the older ones. Mind you, that's a 0.001% problem given how much traffic these modems carry.
5159 works perfectly.
(I'd be much happier if everybody used 761-3000, only going to other numbers as a last resort, BTW)
I had the same problem as the others on the morning of 11/10 when I dialed into 761-3000. I got in on 761-4931, which is the number I always try second, for reasons lost in the mists of time.
Grex was off the net early this morning but is back on again.
5159 works faster than 3000.
With identical hardware?
Could 761-4931 be the old break between fast and slow modems.
Nope, that was 761-5041. We rearranged the hunt group to try to get people to dial into the beginning of the hunt group, which makes various things much easier for the staff.
Last night the grex phones were busy from 8:20 to 8:30 and this afternoon from 4:03 to 4:16. If this ends up adding up to 30 minutes/week for more people than me, I suggest restoring one phone line, or is there some problem with the phone lines at present? Apart from Sunday at 8 and weekdays at 4, what other busy times should I beware of?
I think the problem may have been my dialing 5159, apparently if the numbers near the end of the trunk are busy I do not get routed to the beginning. I will figure out how to change the timeout period in Procomm so as to use 3000.
Right. You only get all the lines if you dial in on 761-3000. That's why people should dial in on 761-3000.
11am-1pm is a pretty busy time to telnet in
i started out as #87 in line... 2.5 hours ago...
I started item:128 for whining about the telnet queue. (Yes, I'm one of the whiners.)
I have been unable to reach grex for two days, after changing to dialing 3000 instead of 5159. Jim set Procomm up to time out after 30 sec, I have not been able to figure out how to make this longer, anyone happen to know? I finally dialed 5159 again and got connected immediately. Sent a couple of files via M-Net and they don't seem to support x or y modem. Is there some way to set up the trunk thing so that if the last couple of numbers are busy it goes back to the beginning?
Sindi, is this DOS Procomm Plus? It's been a long time, but I might be able to check ...
(If it's Windows Procomm, change it thus: open the dialing directory. In the menu bar at the top, click on Options, then on Call Settings. But I think I remember that you're using DOS Procomm ... vague memory says to me that it's somehow through the dialing directory in that, too; could be wrong.)
20 waiting, 26 remote, 4 local users, 72 max remote users, 6735 head Okay, I give up, why are 20 waiting if only 26 are on?
If DOS, try hitting the End key while it is dialing.
I hit the end key while dialing, but also had to hit return key in order for the count to resume. Reset to 60 sec, it still timed out on both 3000 and 5141 at 9600. After five or so tries, I finally tried 3000 at 2400 and connected in 12 sec total. The attempt at 9600 gave me a high-pitched squeal at about 25 seconds that continued to 60 sec. (5059 gets a recording, this number no longer in service). This problem started two days ago. I dialed M-net okay and got through to 3000 at 9600 yesterday, so assume my modem ok. Can anyone explain why the lower speed will connect but not 9600?
Changing the wait time with end is only temporary, it seems. Again I could not get through at 9600, should I wait more than 60 sec? 2400 bps worked in exactly 12 sec. Is there a bad line from here to there? They fixed a break in it in August when it went dead.
You might also try a different modem.
I agree.. Sounds like your modem doesn't negotiate well with at least one of the early trunk modems. Given that you presumably have access to a pool of cheap used modems at Kiwanis, why not try another for a while?
But why did my modem connect okay to Arbornet at 9600 bps in 19 seconds, but not in 60 sec to Grex 3000 or 5041, and just fine at 2400? And why did it work until three days ago? I will try another modem and report back. (Or maybe grex should replace the problem modem? What is the high-pitched squeal that I got after 25 seconds on grex at 9600?
That's the pig.
There are standards for how modems are supposed to communicate at various speeds. If all manufacturers stuck exactly to the standards, all modems would talk to eachother. In practice, that's not the case. Many, perhaps most, modems deviate from the standards in one way or another, but have generally been tested carefully to make sure that they will still talk to modems that do adhere to the standards. However, when you get two modems that deviate from the standards in opposite directions, you start having trouble.
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8:22am up 3 days, 18:31, 3 users, load average: 0.22, 0.14, 0.00
Jim suggested a dirty contact, unplugging and replugging, but just in case we switched modems and connected with a Compudyne in 22 sec. If it had been modem incompatibility I would not have been using grex for the past six months with the other modem.
That's not quite true. Grex has two different kinds of modems in its hunt group. That is, they're the same brand and model and everything, but they made some changes at some point so the newer ones are different from the older ones. It's possible that when you started dialing into the beginning of the hunt group instead of somewhere near the end, you started using a different version of the modem on Grex's end than you had been using before.
I was dialing to both 5159 and 3000 and connecting fine. My new modem does not put garbage on the screen in random places like the old one seems to have been responsible for doing (a screenful when I logged off).
Okay, I'm going to be picky and bring up my text droppage problem again. The difficulty appears to originate from my computer at some point, but it's still annoying. When I recieve text, random parts (in substantial portions) get left out. This includes all characters, including enters or line breaks, so large amounts of text like bbs or party are very difficult to read. If possible, this is even worse when I dial into mnet. It only occurs when I dial in, which is when I'm using hyperterminal. Any ideas?
Sounds like a flow control problem. Check your modem and hyperterminal settings.
It does sound like a flow-control problem. But rather than check your Hyperterm settings I recommend that you junk it entirely. Even if it has nothing to do with your current problem it's practically a no-lose move..
What do you suggest as a freely-available replacement communications program for Win95/8? BTW - has anyone noticed that hyperterm is distributed on the WIN98 CD, but the installation program doesn't download it? I've been trying to get it, or something better, loaded for a friend this week.
The hyperterm private edition you can download from www.hilgraeve.com is decent. It's what I use, but I'm not a heavy telnet user.
I've encountered a minor problem using Backtalk. I posted a response in the Humor item which hadn't formatted correctly, so I erased it and rewrote the response. When I submitted that response (and subsequently a third) they came up as erased immediately, though I did not erase them. What causes this?
That's weird. I don't know what could cause that. I'll put it on my list of things to investigate.
mutt doesn't work :( this is the error message I get: /var/spool/mail/j/e/jeff: No such file or directory (errno = 2) /var/spool/mail/j/e/jeff: No such file or directory (errno = 2)
Try sending yourself mail first.
mutt and jeff?
Just wondering. Is there any way to turn the !clickify command into a page on the Grex Web Site? I think that maybe it should be linked from the backtalk welcome page or something.
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I just got a piece of e-mail whose last few lines were truncated when I read the message using "!mail". However, the message was *intact* in my mbox. The mail was 5 1/2 single-spaced pages. Is this too long? I've sent "staff" the details.
Did it perhaps have a line beginning "From " at about the point it was truncated? To make a random guess.
No, it didn't, sorry.
5:41pm up 11 days, 4:32, 76 users, load average: 26.97, 25.59, 22.48 ?????
Grex isn't on the net right now. Something upwind of us is having problems. We're getting 95% packet loss at the moment.
That problem's evidently been fixed, since I'm conferencing via Backtalk.
about that time, I was having trouble getting to other sites also, but I was too busy to make any attempt to find the bottleneck.
sometimes when i use pico and Pine, i get wierd letters that automaticlly come on my message. Wazzup?
There might be a problem with a modem on line 3000. I just tried to dial in, and was told "no carrier" on that line. Dialing in on 4931 worked just fine.
You have several choices: