F I D O N E W S Volume 18, Number 19 07 May 2001 +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | The newsletter of the |Fido, Fidonet and dog-with-diskette are | | FidoNet community | Registered Trademarks of Tom Jennings | | Copyright through | San Francisco, California, USA | | 2007 | | | _ | Crash Netmail Attach Articles To: | | / \ | Editor@1:1/23 (1-972-562-8064) | | /|oo \ | flv@texoma.net | | (_| /_) | or | | _`@/_ \ _ | Frank Vest@1:124/6308 | | | | \ \\ | | | | (*) | \ )) | Editor: Frank Vest | | |__U__| / \// | | | _//|| _\ / | | | (_/(_|(____/ | | | (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. | | | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ Copyright 2001 by Frank L. Vest, Editor for Fidonews Globally. Table of Contents 1. FOOD FOR THOUGHT ......................................... 1 2. TOP STORIES .............................................. 2 The number you have reached is not in service ............ 2 What Happened To WWW.FIDONET.ORG? ........................ 3 3. GENERAL ARTICLES ......................................... 9 The future of FIDONET? ................................... 9 4. EDITORIAL ................................................ 11 The first week as Editor. :-) ............................ 11 5. QUESTION OF THE WEEK ..................................... 13 Copyright or Trademark? .................................. 13 6. ANSWERS OF THE WEEK ...................................... 14 Answer to: "Why not carry?" From Bob Seaborn ............. 14 Answer to: "Why not carry?" from Renato Zambon ........... 15 7. INTERVIEWS ............................................... 17 Interview with George Roberts of Nexus BBS Software ...... 17 8. FRANK'S COLUMN ........................................... 19 Networks ................................................. 19 9. GETTING TECHNICAL ........................................ 21 Expanding a Theme on ERN ................................. 21 10. COMIX IN ASCII .......................................... 23 Cow View ................................................. 23 11. RECIPES ................................................. 24 Xxcarol's Lamb Soup ...................................... 24 12. CLEAN HUMOR & JOKES ..................................... 26 What Will Our Son Be? .................................... 26 13. CLASSIFIED ADS .......................................... 27 Rotating Ads ............................................. 27 Reporters Wanted ......................................... 27 14. FIDONET BY INTERNET ..................................... 29 Fidonet-related sites .................................... 29 15. FIDONEWS INFORMATION .................................... 33 How to Submit an Article ................................. 33 And more! FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 1 7 May 2001 ================================================================= FOOD FOR THOUGHT ================================================================= If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around. -Texas Bix Bender ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 2 7 May 2001 ================================================================= TOP STORIES ================================================================= The number you have reached is not in service Carl Austin Bennett 1:249/116 Much has been said over the last two weeks about all the various route lists. Entries were flagged with TOMBSTONE or MISSING HOP in one of the lists where routes once pointed to nodes that no longer exist; the other list had defaulted all of these to respective RC's. All too easy to point fingers when it came to questions of accuracy. Unfortunately, the need for a more accurate route list is only part of the problem. The nodelist itself is too often incorrect. For instance, behind a routing entry like: ; 1:1/117 No route available TOMBSTONE or the more euphemistic default route: ; 1:1/117 1:297/11 1:140/1 14 20010316 RC14 hides the rather embarassing reality that the underlying node most likely just does not exist and has been dead for more than a year. 1:1/117 was ex-RC14 Ray Brown's support site for Tom Jennings' original FidoBBS[tm] package. FidoBBS[tm] was created in the early 1980's and has long since been abandoned. It didn't survive Y2K. TomJ had left the network many years ago; the RC14's FidoBBS site at 1:1/117 dropped offline in early 2000 never to operate again. The node's still in the nodelist, although Ray's been gone for a year. While an empty FIDOBBS support echo is still on the backbones, the original FidoBBS[tm] package itself is now virtually unusable. Despite the efforts of subsequent co-ordinators, not only was an updated ROUTELST.R14 last seen in late 1999 but the nodelist itself contains a most awkward mix of some live nodes, many disconnected lines and even some just plain wrong numbers. It's in this context, with both nodelists and regional routelists severely inaccurate in places, that the creators of these ERNROUTE and DIFF files attempted to determine who's still connected where. As much as I hate to have to say it, that isn't going to be an easy task. The problems go beyond the routelist. In many places FidoNet has no idea whether some systems or even entire nets even still exist. The use of a regional "default route" - sending their mail to RC's or REC's if no valid path exists - might help to hide the problems, but FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 3 7 May 2001 it is not a solution. The original idea when the St. Louis-format nodelist was created in the mid-1980's was to split the task of maintaining nodelists among various co-ordinators so that each could ensure the accuracy of their local segment. For many years, this system worked well. It's beginning to break down now, largely because as ever-increasing numbers of BBSs silently close their doors the co-ordinator positions become vacant without warning. It's too easy now to find systems like NC293 or NC299 that respond with "the number you have reached is out of service" despite being listed in the nodelists as active sites. Any routelist built from this info could well be attempting to route mail to BBSs that are long gone. Any nodelist depending on updates from these missing NCs also breaks. In the very early days of FidoBBS, there were two key Fidonet sites: TomJ's site Fido #1 in San Francisco (his local net 1:125 has long since folded) and the nodelist keepers' site Fido #51 in St. Louis (net 1:100). Tom can be found on the Internet, but please don't bother calling the telephone number listed for 1:100/0 in this week's Fido nodelist. It's someone's voice line. A wrong number. Of ten systems listed for 1:100 St. Louis, at most one or two are still valid. A few answer voice but most of the numbers are now disconnected. It was one and a half decades ago that the group of sysops in St. Louis had split Fido's growing nodelist into local net/node entries so that it could be more readily maintained and be kept accurate. Perhaps, before anyone creates yet another route list to try to route mail to yet another local net that no longer exists, the nodelist should be repaired. The nodelist was the glue that holds Fido together. It's come apart now. The number you have reached is not in service; please check the number and dial your call again. This is a recording. ----------------------------------------------------------------- What Happened To WWW.FIDONET.ORG? By Lawrence Garvin Over the past several weeks, participants of the FIDONEWS echo (and a few others) have observed problems reaching the website at WWW.FIDONET.ORG. There has been a lot of conversation, accusation, innuendo, and confusion about this situation. I'm going to attempt, in this article, to walk back through the whole situation in some sort of organized fashion and explain what the situation is and what it will FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 4 7 May 2001 take to fix it. In the old days (this is prior to approx Feb 2000), Pennsylvania Online operated on the IP Network 198.69.90 -- a number I know well as I was an Fidonet/FTP client of PAOnline at that time. In February, 1988, the FIDONET.ORG domain was created. To the best of my knowledge it has always been hosted at Pennsylvania Online, though for our purposes that information is trivial. What is significant is what exists in recent years. As of June, 1997, and perhaps earlier, though I cannot verify that information, there existed a computer system at Pennsylvania Online called FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG at IP Address 198.69.90.5. Among other things this machine was the FTP server for the FTPHub at Pennsylvania Online. It also hosted the website for WWW.FIDONET.ORG. Sometime recently, and I'm speculating February, 2000, based on dates recorded in transactions in the Whois databases of Network Solutions, Inc., new IP Network Addresses at Pennsylvania Online were added. The new network(s) included 216.220.160.0. As a result of this addition, and perhaps for other reasons I'm not aware of, the FIDONET.ORG systems were moved from the 198.69.90 network to the 216.220.160 network, apparently in February, 2001. Perhaps because the connection upstream from 216.220.160 was better than the one from 198.69.90. It really matters not why, just that they were. Under normal circumstances moving a computer system from one IP network to another is a trivial issue; especially when both networks are owned and operated by the same entity, as in this case. The changes normally necessary to effect this switchover involve changing the IP Addresses listed in the DNS Servers for the affected domain, in this case FIDONET.ORG, and waiting a few hours. These changes were completed correctly. They can be verified by using a DNS utility called 'nslookup' and directly issuing a query to the Domain Name Server that is authoritative for the FIDONET.ORG domain to list the addresses registered. On my OS/2 system, the process goes like this: [G:\temp]nslookup - dns1.paonline.com Default Server: dns1.paonline.com IP Address: 216.220.160.7 > ls -t A fidonet.org. [dns1.paonline.com] fidonet.org. server = dns1.paonline.com fidonet.org. server = dns2.paonline.com z2 server = ns.bofh.it z2 server = ns0.fido.net z2 server = ns1.fido.net z2 server = ns4.fido.net z2 server = ns.datanova.se z2 server = ns2.corbina.net z3 server = verdi.tardis.net z3 server = fidonet.fidonet.org z4 server = dns1.paonline.com FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 5 7 May 2001 z4 server = dns2.paonline.com z5 server = dns1.paonline.com z5 server = dns2.paonline.com z6 server = ns.shim.org z6 server = ns2.shim.org z6 server = fidonet.fidonet.org gnfido server = ns.gn.apc.org gnfido server = ns1.igc.apc.org fidonet 216.220.174.11 www 216.220.174.11 ftp 216.220.174.11 n340.z1 server = ns1.spydernet.com n340.z1 server = fidonet.fidonet.org www.z1 216.220.174.11 ftp.z1 216.220.174.11 You can see from this list that the three FIDONET.ORG systems are listed and assigned to IP Address 216.220.174.11, and in most other circumstances this would end the conversion process. However, a couple of unique conditions exist that are complicating the process for some people to access WWW.FIDONET.ORG, and, unfortunately, only George Peace can fix them. The first condition is that although WWW.FIDONET.ORG points to the same IP Address as FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG, apparently WWW.FIDONET.ORG has been created as a Virtual Web Server on that machine and is configured to redirect all web service requests to FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG. Even this would not be a real issue since FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG is the same computer system (though I do have reservations about the efficiency of redirecting an address to the same machine). A more appropriate configuration would be to list WWW.FIDONET.ORG in the DNS as a CNAME entry pointing to FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG and removing the redirections. A second, more critical, condition exists that is causing the interference with some people to access the Fidonet Web Site. When a web user enters http://www.fidonet.org into their web browser of choice, a query is sent to the Domain Name Service to retrieve the IP Address of WWW.FIDONET.ORG. In every case, the address returned is 216.220.174.11. This part of the DNS is working properly. The browser then sents a request to 216.220.174.11 to retrieve the home page for WWW.FIDONET.ORG. But the redirection in place sends a message back to the browser that says "The stuff you want is actually at FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG, go get it from there". The web server is dumb as to the fact that it's the same machine. So, the browser repeats this process and sends a query to the Domain Name Service to retrieve the IP Address of FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG -- and here's where things start breaking down. This gets very complex inside the operation of the Domain Name Service. I'll do my best to describe it in simple terms. If I fail, please feel free to send echomail (in FIDONEWS), netmail, or email and I'll be happy to try again. Another good source is the book "DNS And BIND" published by O'Reilly and Associates. FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 6 7 May 2001 So, what happens at this point, apparently, is one of two things. Some computers, like mine, who have already identified an address in the FIDONET.ORG domain, retain information in their cache as to where they received that DNS information from. The next time a query needs to be made for an address in that domain, they retrieve the information they have on the "authoritative server" from the cache and send the query direct rather than going up the chain and back down. For those computers, they get back the real IP Address of FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG (216.220.174.11) and promptly view what purports to be the Fidonet.Org website. But some other computers apparently are not so smart. They send out the query for FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG from scratch. The nature of the Domain Name Service is that queries always go from here, to the top, and back down. Hopefully, on the way up, a server will be found that knows the answer to the query. If not, they refer the query to the next higher server. When it gets to the top (the root servers) they refer the query to the "authoritative server". In this case, the "authoritative server" for FIDONET.ORG is DNS1.PAONLINE.COM. However, if any server along the way claims to know the answer to the query, it answers the query, and reports the answer as "non-authoritative". This is essentially what is happening. Incorrect information is being provided by a non-authoritative server (but only because that information should be correct, and it isn't). In the particular situation that affects FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG, there is an additional piece of information registered in the Domain Name Service that is causing these second type of queries to be given incorrect answers. I'm going to back up just a bit to catch up on some details. In order for the root servers to know where the authoritative servers actually are (that is, their IP Address), each Domain Name Server must be registered with the registering authority. There are several authorities these days, but for purposes of this article, we'll concentrate only on Network Solutions, Inc., as they affect this situation exclusively. To register one's Domain Name Server, you fill out a Host Registration, which includes the system name, your contact info, and the IP Address of the system, and that information is submitted to the Whois database at Network Solutions, Inc., along with the Domain Name Registration. Then the Host Registration information is also submitted to the Domain Name Service. These Host Registrations are then "hard-coded" into the root servers so that the IP Address of the authoritative server for any domain can be given to a query presented. Having covered that, our fundamental problem with FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG is that there exists a Host Registration record for that system with the old IP Address of 198.69.90.5 and the only person that can change this information is George Peace. It's an arguable circumstance that the Host Registration record should have never existed in the first place, as I don't know whether or not that system was ever a Domain Name Server for FIDONET.ORG; what's certain is that it is not a Domain Name Server at this time and, therefore, does not need to be there at all. FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 7 7 May 2001 The week before last I sent an email to George Peace asking him to look into this. I received no reply. Late last week I submitted a renegade request to delete the Host Registration record. An interesting feature of the Whois database system is that while only the authorized person(s) can actually implement a change to the data in the database, anybody can submit a request to make the change. What happens in this case is that a submission to delete the Host Registration record is flagged because the submitter is not authorized to make the change. Then, Network Solutions sends a notice to the authorized person(s), in this case George Peace, informing them that somebody attempted to make a change. The authorized person(s) then have an opportunity to approve the change, or prohibit the change. If they fails to respond, the request is automatically denied. In any event, until George Peace authorizes a change, or Network Solutions determines the entry is invalid -- which would take a formal complaint, I imagine -- many persons are going to have challenges viewing this site. There are numerous ways to workaround the situation, but all of them involve George Peace, ultimately, to implement a permanent fix. George seems to be unresponsive to these requests. All of the above has absolutely nothing to do with the parallel discussions concering the content of the site at WWW.FIDONET.ORG, which, although clean in presentation (IMHO), does contain some out of date information -- most notably broken links to non-existant echomail distribution hubs, as well as the pratically non-existant Zone 1 site. The links to Zone 2, Zone 3, and Zone 6 are functional, though no content exists at the Zone 3 site. Zone 4 and Zone 5 do not have a link configured. As to the update of the content at the site, much has been said and written about who is, or is not, responsible for that content. That discussion is really beyond the scope of this article as it matters not what that content is, or is not, until the world can reliably navigate to the site. I will also leave the suggestion to those most concerned that sometimes the telephone is the best way to conduct business such as this. I would imagine a polite telephone call during normal working hours to George at Pennsylvania Online with a polite request to look into the Host Registration issues with FIDONET.FIDONET.ORG and an explanation of how that is impacting access to the site by a significant number of persons would go a long way to resolving this issue. There are several fixes available, and most of them take merely seconds to implement. The ones that come immediately to mind, in order of preference are: 1. Remove the redirection from www.fidonet.org to fidonet.fidonet.org and let the system at 216.220.160.11 answer as www.fidonet.org, totally removing fidonet.fidonet.org from existence. 2. Edit the DNS to list www.fidonet.org as a CNAME to fidonet.fidonet.org (which should permit those clients having difficulty to get the correct IP address to fidonet.fidonet.org FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 8 7 May 2001 while attempting to resolve www.fidonet.org via the CNAME entry). 3. The ultimate, and correct, though of longest duration fix, is to remove the unnecessary Host Registration record for fidonet.fidonet.org from the Whois databases at networksolutions.com Personally I think all three should be accomplished. One thing is certain, though. Until these issues are resolved, any discussions or arguments about content are an exercise in futility. Lawrence Garvin 1:106/6018 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 9 7 May 2001 ================================================================= GENERAL ARTICLES ================================================================= The future of FIDONET? by Henk den Adel (2:280/6415) The subject of this article -or rather my point of view- indicates that there is something like a future for FIDONET, although the question mark burps up that ever present taste of doubt. If you are succeptible to the signs, you can not deny that decline in FIDONET is present. Many efforts have been done to stop this decline, many efforts were counter productive and have merely sped up the decline. Decline has a negative taste, although decline is absolutely inevitable. Each human being will decline, our natural resources will decline, our sun will decline, our galaxy will decline, even the universe itself will suffer the inevitable decline. Time scale is all that matters. But how much time do we have? The same question arises when man is confronted with serious illness. He/she will come to the conclusion that only a limited amount of time remains, so he/she makes a wise decision: "Make the best of it, as long as it lasts". FIDONET can be seen as a patient with only a limited amount of time. So lets make the best of it. How? Well, we do not have to reinvent the wheel, others have done that in advance. Early in the 19th century Watt figured out that a steam engine would be an nice gadget to lighten mans labour. In the late 1830ies the first steam locomotives laid the foundation of mass transport. Unfortunately steam engines were not quite so practical in the London Underground, electricity presented itself as the successor of steam power. Nowadays steam locomotives are hardly seen in western Europe. In the third world steam is still an intricate part of live. Although steam engines are no longer the common way of commuting in Western Europe, yet many people are still interested in steam engines. Each country has one or more 'steam clubs' in a sense that transcends the steam clubs in Turkish baths. Some people spend nearly every minute of their leasure time to restorate e.g. old steam locomotives, for no other purpose than to have fun. Nevertheless steam power will not return as an alternative for electricially driven mass transport. When steam clubs are assembling for a national meeting, their members travel by electrical trains, occasionally Diesel trains. Although these people love steam, they are sufficiently realistic about steam, they will not dream about a steam driven TGV, Porsche, Airbus 400, or Ariane 7. Yet another analogy. Some radio amateurs pratice the Morse code. The trick of this code is that it enables its user to make contact with another ham as far as right 'down under', with as little power as possible and a transmitter as simple as possible. Other hams use Slow Scan TV, voice communication as in single side band, AM or FM, written info by RTTY, FAX or AMTOR. Whatever means they use, they all depend on the ability of the ionosphere to reflect radio waves. But solar storms can prevent them from making contact. In the age of FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 10 7 May 2001 telecommunication satelites a rather disapointing situation. Never- theless hams love it. Yet they are realistic enough to realise that satcom is here to stay, Morse code will not replace the phone or FAX. So lets face it, the Internet drain will not disappear merely by the fact that FIDONET used to be a huge network. By no means FIDONET will regain its leading position in transferring information between people. Nevertheless we can enjoy being a FIDO node, since it is our hobby and hobbies should be fun. The essence of FIDONET, the Internet and Radio Amateurism is 'communication'. People need to communicate. It does not matter whether they make a chat in the elevator, use the phone, go to the pub, fire up their morse tranceiver, type a message in an echomail area, write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, contribute to a newsgroup in the Internet, all are just different shapes of the basic C: communication. Now i will return to the subject of these thoughts. - "Will there be a future for FIDONET?" Yes. - "Will FIDONET be restored in its glorious glitter of the late 1980ies and early 1990ies?" No. FIDO will be nothing more and nothing less than the the steam engine or the morse code, just another way to commute or communicate. It can be fun, it should be fun and it will be fun, as long as we FIDO nodes prevent FIDONET from sliding down into FITONET. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 11 7 May 2001 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= The first week as Editor Well... In my first week as Editor, I managed to get into a discussion with Michael Grant that ended in an article submission. I had a discussion with Lesley-Dee over a submission and ended up publishing her article after meeting the guidelines. Carl Austin Bennett sent in an article and it was published after getting a title from him. I made adjustments to the rules for the Fidonews Echo, as I discovered, thanks to Michiel van der Vlist, that they were a little un-clear in one portion. I'm not going to count how many times I went through the control files for the production of the Fidonews and made changes to them. :) All in all, not a bad week. :-)) All of the above has brought to light some thoughts to keep in mind when submitting articles. 1. Just because it's clear to you, doesn't mean it's clear to all. 2. In Fidonet message areas and article submissions, it can be hard to tell what emotions are being conveyed. Readers aren't there when we write an article or a message. This makes it a little hard, at times, to know what the feelings of the person writing the article or message are. I might be joking with someone and some other person might think I'm "busting someone's chops". 3. A title in an article can speak volumes. On that last note: I don't have a crystal ball and I'm not a mind reader. I won't try to guess what your submission is about. Besides, the title will appear in the index portion of the Fidonews and give readers an idea of what is in the Fidonews and what your article is about. Please title your submission. I have this feeling that some might wonder what and how I think in regards to the Fidonews. IOW, what will this Editor accept and such. I'll accept articles from anyone that wishes to submit them. If I have a question about the article, I'll ask the submitter and try to work out any problems. Most likely, we will work them out. While I feel that the Fidonews is the Newspaper of the Fidonet community, I also understand that there are boundaries and rules to be followed. The Fidonews isn't a "rag magazine". It isn't a "free for all" message posting and quoting forum. I'll question any submissions that I feel are not proper for the Fidonews... This doesn't mean that "I'm right and you're wrong". It simply means that we need to work out FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 12 7 May 2001 whatever I feel is a problem. Please, don't be afraid to tell me your side to a question I might ask about your submission. More times than not, I'm probably the one misunderstanding what you are submitting. :-) My idea of what the Fidonews Publication and the Fidonews Echo are for is really simple. The Publication is for printing of articles. Articles should be submitted to the Publication, not posted in the Echo. They should be thought provoking, humorous, informational, technical or any number of combinations. There may be more combinations, but these come to mind. The Echo is for the discussion of the aforementioned articles. Submissions to the Fidonews publication will, or should, be seen for the first time in the publication. If articles are taken from the Echo, then the discussion has probably already taken place and this ruins the whole purpose and process. IOW, it's backwards. What is not needed is hate and gossip. Of course, what constitutes hate and gossip is a matter of opinion, but I think that almost any subject or opinion, properly presented, can be of benefit. In this light, I intend to guide the Fidonews. I need you to help by submitting articles and, occasionally, guiding me. :-) Regards, Frank - Fidonews Editor ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 13 7 May 2001 ================================================================= QUESTION OF THE WEEK ================================================================= Copyright or Trademark? Some of the talk this week has been regarding the "Fidonet" name and the "dog with diskette". Q: Is the "dog with diskette" a tradmark or copyrighted? Q: Is the name "Fido" or "Fidonet" a trademark or copyrighted? ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 14 7 May 2001 ================================================================= ANSWERS OF THE WEEK ================================================================= Answer to: "Why not carry?" From Bob Seaborn Note: This was sent to me by Bob Seaborn with permission to print in the Fidonews Evening Frank, Regarding the recent issue of Fidonews, in which you stated: "In an article last week, Renato Zambon wrote about becoming the Z4C. My congratulations to him. Part of the article mentioned Echomail areas available in his Zone. I've heard that there are many Echomail areas in other Zones that are not carried in Zone 1. My questions: Why not? Why shouldn't the Backbones in Zone 1 carry some of these echos? There are those in Zone 1 that speak other languages. Why not give them a chance to get message echos in their language, or better yet, from their homeland? For that matter, why shouldn't all Zones carry echos from other Zones?" I would like to advise you that I have been offered numerous echos (50-100) from zone 2, some in English from the UK Backbone which I have a direct link with, and some from other parts of Z2, mostly non-English. However, I am reluctant to make them available within zone 1, primarily because the echo, shall we call it policies?, of z2 differ widely from those in z1. Primarily in the echolisting requirements. Not that I'm a stickler for requiring an echo to be elisted before transporting it. Far from it, more to avoid the problems like we saw some time ago when Ward Dossche asked the ZHubs in zone 1 to distribute his ZCC-PUBLIC echo, which he didn't bother elisting. Then after a short while Bob Moravsik proceeded to elist the same echo-tag, then demanded that we ZHubs cease transporting 'his' echo. It took some time, plus yelling and screaming before we could convince Moravsik that we were NOT transporting _his_ echo, but that of Ward Dossche, which used the same echo-tag. With all the 'rescuers' and 'saviours' out there, plus the few individuals that appear to delight in deliberately causing problems, I see no need to aid them by transporting un-elisted echos that just scream to be hijacked. Factor in that most likely there will be a fair number of non-English speaking moderators, and all we'll see is confusion and trouble. None of which I think Fido needs at this time. As a matter of interest, I am most willing to work with ANY FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 15 7 May 2001 non-zone1 moderators to get their echos elisted, and I have a Robot equipped to automagically update their echo every month, in such a way that there's no mention of the Robot anywhere, each moderator receives a direct acknowledgement of the submission direct from the Elist Robot. I have no plans to be involved in moderation, and I am not listed in the Elist entry for these echos. If this will help some moderators, fine, if they wish to make their own arrangements, excellent. Anyhow, I hope this serves as a partial answer to the question that you raised. .....Bob Fido: 1:140/12 email: bob@nwstar.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- Answer to "Why not carry?" From Renato Zambon Editor: In last weeks "Question of the Week" section, I asked why there weren't more echos from other Zones and in other languages available in the Zone 1 backbones. Renato Zambon replied to me with this explaination and permission to print it. Renato: Lack of interest, lack of other languages knowledge, lack of well organized information about these areas, a combination of these reasons I think. The last however is being worked with aid of the WWB (World Wide Backbone). Here is the part about regional and other languages echolists from the weekly information file backstat.ww (I did strip some space columns, and day in file dates, to adjust at 70 so you can place this message in Fidonews): -----8<----- 3. World Wide Backbone Regional Echolists Filename Size Date Description ------------ ----- ----- --------------------------------------------- WWB-BRA.480 1302 03/01 Brazilian Portuguese echos via 4:801/161 WWB-DUFR.229 7445 01/01 Belgian Dutch/French echos via 2:292/624 WWB-FIN.222 3618 04/01 Zone 2 Finnish echos via 2:221/0 WWB-FRA.230 318 10/99 Switzerland French echos via 2:301/1 WWB-GER.224 43549 01/01 Zone 2 Region 24 German echos Forward List WWB-GER.230 2343 10/99 Switzerland German echos via 2:301/1 WWB-IL.240 482 10/00 Israel R40 public echoes WWB-IRL.226 588 12/00 Regional echos from Ireland R26 via 2:263/950 WWB-ITA.233 8058 02/00 Zone 2 Region 33 Italian echos Forward List WWB-MD.240 1029 10/00 Moldova public echoes (Russian, Romanian) WWB-POL.248 5215 11/00 Polish EchoMail via 2:480/112 FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 16 7 May 2001 WWB-RUS.250 78463 02/99 Russian echos (Region 50 backbone echolist) WWB-SPA.234 10887 03/01 Spanish echos via 2:341/14@fidonet WWB-SWE.220 15038 04/01 Swedish echos via 2:20/11 Bones of Regional listings are generally in their native language. Sysops desiring further information, english translations, hub locations etc are advised to seek support in the WWB_TECH echoarea. Regional echolists are distributed in the WWB_FWDL file echo. Naming Conventions: Regional forward lists are prefixed "WWB-" followed by a three letter language designation eg: SWE for Swedish. The suffix format is . Thus WWB-SWE.220 is a Regional forward list on the WWB distribution containing Swedish echos from Zone 2 Region 20. Submissions must follow this convention. Regional forward lists are controlled by the REC or Distribution Hub of the list origin, and as such the REC/Hub is considered Moderator/ Owner of all echoareas on that list. WWB distribute for the echo owner, the owner of the echo retains all administrative control. Regional list Owners may include information within the Regional list file as to Hub locations, distribution and/or any special circumstan- ces/rules associated with any or all of the list echos. Connecting systems should read the list file of any Regional echoarea for further information. -----8<----- The listed files are, or must be, available for FREQ with these sysops/nodes: Joe Jared 1:103/301 Sven Dueker 2:2432/200 Barry Blackford 3:774/605 Renato Zambon 4:801/161 And also in the anonymous ftp glonet.co.nz. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 17 7 May 2001 ================================================================= INTERVIEWS ================================================================= Interview with George Roberts of Nexus BBS Software As Editor of the Fidonews, a publication of the Fidonet mail network, I'm trying to interview various Authors of BBS related programs and other software for the Fidonews. With your permission, I'd like an E-Mail address and Web page, if available, to publish in the Fidonews. Sure! http://www.nexusbbs.net/, sales@nexusbbs.net, and telnet://bbs.nexusbbs.net for my BBS. Questions: Q: Tell us a little about George Roberts. Just who are you? :) I am a 28 year old computer analyst for a Fortune 500 company. My wife Jessica and I are expecting our first child August 1, 2001. I have been singing in a semi-professional a cappella group for about 11 years now. Q: What got you first interested in BBS? I started calling BBSes when I got my first computer back in 1987. I was fascinated by the fact that I could use my computer to dial into someone elses computer and download files, play games, read/write messages and chat. Q: How long have you been programming? I've been programming for 14 years, ever since I got my first computer. I started with BASICA, Microsoft's Advanced Basic, on DOS 3.3 I believe it was. Since then I have learned to program in QuickBasic, Turbo Pascal, Visual Basic for Windows, C++, Delphi, Perl, and Javascript. Q: What prompted you to begin writing Nexus? Well, it started out just as a personal project to see if I could do it. I didn't have any grand plans in mind for it, but mainly just for my own use. A couple of friends of mine who were also sysops saw it and begged me for a copy for themselves. I gave in. :-) Of course, the inevitable feature requests, bug reports, comments, and suggestions followed. Before long they were telling me I should plan it as a public software package. I started the initial beta team back in, oh, 1996 I think. Development actually started on Nexus way back in 1992. Q: What do you see as the strong points of Nexus? Give us a quick review. FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 18 7 May 2001 Well, Nexus is a very configurable BBS software package. Most of the display strings and such are completely configurable, and before the "final" release, almost all of them will be. Nexus supports the standardized message formats of *.MSG, JAM, and Squish. It has a very flexible menuing system and what is right now only a rudimentary scripting system, but that will receive more work as time goes on. The security and priveledge system is VERY powerful. The file system is very innovative, allowing the sysop to choose how many description lines per file they would like to store. The software is still in public beta mode and has quite a bit of work left to be done on it. Currently it is only available as a DOS application, but plans are already being made to port to Win32, OS/2, and probably Linux as well. Q: Have you written any other BBS related software? If so, please tell us a little about it. I recently wrote a small utility that is being tested called NLLIST that will create a BBS List from a St. Louis-format nodelist file. I've also written many other small utilities, but most of them are several years old now and not really maintained. If I remember correctly, they were all freeware. Q: Where do you see BBS systems going in the future. I think that as broadband internet connections become more prevalant, sysops will move their boards to the net. We're already seeing a lot of this now in Zone 1. I think that BBS software will allow sysops to take advantage of the speed and worldwide nature of the Internet, but continue to provide the ability to create a community. Q: Anything else you want to add or tell the readers? Well, Nexus has been released in Public Beta for people to try. Please feel free to download the latest public beta from http://www.nexusbbs.net or my BBS at telnet://bbs.nexusbbs.net. I'm always open to ideas and suggestions, so if you try it out, let me know what you think! > Thanks for your time and help in this interview. You're welcome Frank! Anytime. George ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 18-19 Page 19 7 May 2001 ================================================================= FRANK'S COLUMN ================================================================= Networks By Frank Vest You're probably thinking this is about Fidonet, Internet or both. Nope. It's about my network. No, not a new Fido or Internet style network either. Just 'my' network. :) A few weeks ago, I decided to try to put together a couple of my computers (I have three in the house counting the BBS machine) in a network. I must say, it's been fun. :) Started out with two old network cards. One was an ISA plug & play and the other was a plain ISA. To make a long story short, I installed the cards and let Windows configure the stuff that it does for the network. Things went well and I got it going with NetBeui. I thought this was great... until I rebooted one of the machines and the network disappeared. :( From then on, I fought with the thing. I tried TCP/IP and everything from resetting up the network, including the dial-up part, to re-installing the cards. I searched the Internet and finally found the drivers, manuals and setup programs for the cards. Why is it so hard to find this stuff on the Internet?... Anyway, that's another story. :) I finally decided, after a visit from my RC and our attempt to get the network up, that the BIOS of my main box had a problem. I tried to upgrade the BIOS and Windows wouldn't load for nothing. I couldn't even do a re-install of Windows. I got the BIOS back to the old version and was flustered to no ends. Now, why didn't I think of this. Ask Fidonet Sysops! I