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25 new of 115 responses total.
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response 38 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 20 17:26 UTC 2010

Connecting to a computer system via a telephone line is a self-limiting phenomenon. The more time passes, the fewer persons there are who would be willing to do so, even if they had both the equipment and the knowledge to do so. Unless the purpose is to maintain an intentionally archaic technology (which would be completely incompatible with the goal of operating a community with any commonality other than a strong interest in a very specific archaic technology), there is no logical justification for keeping a direct dial-up connection available.

There is no wisdom in keeping a direct dial-up connection to Grex. I even doubt there is any wisdom in keeping Grex hosted directly on a hardware platform when it's capabilities compared to those of modern commodity hardware suggest that Grex should exist in an entirely virtualized machine environment.

There, I said it. If Grex is to be maintained, set it up as a virtual machine hosted on a contract basis with a company who will provide and maintain the hardware and the connectivity, and allow Grex users and staff to customize the inside of the virtual environment unendingly without having to worry about phonelines, dying disk drives, i/o capacities, etc. Backups of the entire system could be simple and automated, and downtime would be practically nonexistent.

katie
response 39 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 20 17:37 UTC 2010

(where's the 'like' button?)  ;-)
mary
response 40 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 20 18:30 UTC 2010

I strongly agree with Eric's #38.
slynne
response 41 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 20 20:49 UTC 2010

I also agree with resp:38. 
lar
response 42 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 20 21:14 UTC 2010

grex will be dead in a year anyway. Might as well spend some of cash 
it's got
tonster
response 43 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 20 22:05 UTC 2010

resp:29: Like I said, you're doing it wrong.  I've used dial-up to ssh
and telnet for work on and off for over 10 years.  It's pretty much the
same dialing in directly as it is sshing in.  I suppose perhaps it's not
if you're using a cheap/free service to do it since they're going to be
overloaded, and, well, you get what you pay for, but otherwise it works
just as well.
keesan
response 44 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 21 00:09 UTC 2010

I never managed to get what I see on the screen to print to my local printer
except when dialed directly (with DOS, don't recall if linux works).
richard
response 45 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 21 00:27 UTC 2010

What a change from the time when there were active users here who did 
not want Grex on the 'net and would call for Grex drop its 'net 
service and add more dialins.  They said Grex should never have gone 
on the 'net to begin with, that all it ever needed or would ever need 
was enough dialin lines.
rcurl
response 46 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 21 04:33 UTC 2010

Re #44: you don't have a "print screen" app? 
cross
response 47 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 21 05:18 UTC 2010

resp:38 I agree with most of it, but I still am hesitant about the
virtualization side of things.  The offerings aren't there yet.

That said, valid points about community support with respect to virtualization
have been raised, and should not be ignored.

resp:44 Sounds like a problem on your end.
dropcap
response 48 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 21 05:42 UTC 2010

you should use the cash to buy beer at your lunches.

mary
response 49 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 21 13:11 UTC 2010

Second. ;-)
remmers
response 50 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 21 14:25 UTC 2010

Re resp:47 - "I agree with most of it, but I still am hesitant about
the virtualization side of things.  The offerings aren't there yet."

What's missing?
cross
response 51 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 21 14:59 UTC 2010

Ugh; the connection is too slow to type it all from Afghanistan.  But the
comments are already on Grex, and hav been largely unaddressed.
keesan
response 52 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 21 20:00 UTC 2010

I don't want to print screen.  I want to print the text on the screen, as
text.
kentn
response 53 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 22 00:44 UTC 2010

Use an xterm or similar terminal from your Linux box and then cut and past
the text into an editor and print from there.  I can do the same thing
from Windows.  It's not all that difficult or time-consuming.  And you'll
have a copy of what you are printing in the editor in case the printer
fails.
tonster
response 54 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 22 03:26 UTC 2010

Any way you put it, the operator is broke on keesan's issue.  1 person's
inability to figure out how to print is not a good enough reason to keep
dialin's, IMO.
cross
response 55 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 22 04:57 UTC 2010

I agree.
rcurl
response 56 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 22 05:10 UTC 2010

I either cut-and-paste directly from the screen to (say) textedit, or save
to my directory to edit it slightly before doing the same. 
keesan
response 57 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 22 13:28 UTC 2010

I think dialed-in linux also did not print.  In DOS there is a simple command
that lets you print your mail from Pine (Ctrl-Y?).  I can of course save and
then do a file transfer but it takes longer.  

You don't need X to cut and paste in linux.  Screen and splitvt let you do
it with the keyboard.  It was much quicker in DOS.  I can access grex via
TCPIP from DOS.  
keesan
response 58 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 22 13:37 UTC 2010

The print command in the current version of Pine is %.  Can anyone get it to
work with their local printer in linux?  It prints to screen for me.  
kentn
response 59 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 22 17:15 UTC 2010

If you're on the console, then yeah, sure you can cut and paste.  But
X is much better to use if you want multiple windows open such as for
programming, (and yes, you can have multiple consoles, just that you
can't see them all at the same time).

What I don't get is why all the issues with problems that were solved
decades ago?  Move on, already.
rcurl
response 60 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 22 18:51 UTC 2010

"I can of course save and then do a file transfer but it takes longer."

Everything you do now seems to take longer. 8^}
keesan
response 61 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 22 19:28 UTC 2010

Can you print what you see on the screen, in text mode, to your local printer,
by typing one character?  

This problem is not related to dialup, just the Pine printing command.

I can use splitvt or screen for multiple windows and I am not usually
programming while reading email at grex.  
tonster
response 62 of 115: Mark Unseen   Apr 22 20:10 UTC 2010

It's likely a terminal program issue.
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