The F I D O N E W S Volume 19, Number 10 11 Mar 2002 +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | |The newsletter of the | | Fido, Fidonet and dog-with-diskette are | | | FidoNet community. | | US Registered Trademarks of Tom Jennings| | | | | San Francisco, California, USA | | | ____________| | | | | / __ | Crash netmail articles to: | | | / / \ | Editor @ 2:2/2 (+46-31-944907) | | | WOOF! ( /|oo \ | Routed netmail articles to: | | \_______\(_| /_) | Bjorn Felten @ 2:203/0 | | _ @/_ \ _ | Email attach to: | | | | \ \\ | bfelten@telia.com | | | (*) | \ ))| | | |__U__| / \// | Editor: Bj”rn Felten | | ______ _//|| _\ / | | | / Fido \ (_/(_|(____/ | Newspapers should have no friends. | | (________) (jm) | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ Copyright 2002 by Fidonews Editor for Fidonews Globally. Table of Contents 1. INSIDE ................................................... 1 The Fidonews at a Glance ................................. 1 2. EDITORIAL ................................................ 2 Work, work work, and for what...? ........................ 2 3. GENERAL ARTICLES ......................................... 4 Catcalls from the Cheap Seats ............................ 4 4. REBUTTALS TO PREVIOUS ARTICLES ........................... 11 Wild Olympiade on the Wild West .......................... 11 5. FIDONET WEB PAGE REVIEWS ................................. 12 Synchronet, Argus Help Page .............................. 12 6. FIDONET'S INTERNATIONAL KITCHEN .......................... 14 Japanese Thanksgiving .................................... 14 7. CLEAN HUMOR & JOKES ...................................... 16 BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #8 ............................ 16 Henry Ford ............................................... 17 8. TODD COCHRANE'S FIDONET SOFTWARE LISTING ................. 19 Fidonet Software List .................................... 19 9. FIDONET BY INTERNET ...................................... 23 Fidonet-related sites .................................... 23 10. SPECIAL INTEREST ........................................ 28 Nodelist Stats ........................................... 28 11. FIDONEWS INFORMATION .................................... 30 How to Submit an Article ................................. 30 Credits, Legal Infomation, Availability .................. 31 FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 1 11 Mar 2002 ================================================================= INSIDE ================================================================= The Fidonews at a Glance "Work, work, work...", a little Catcaller comment and then some about that infernal synthetic laughter added to US TV shows, in the "Editorial" this week. "Catcalls..." are reaching new, all time highs this week. Bashings as well as education, what more can be expected from an article in this distinguished production? "Wild Olympiade on the Wild West" seems to be something of a rebuttal to my latest editorial, so I publish those Russian sour grapes in the "Rebuttal..." section. Frank Vest has visited "Synchronet, Argus Help Page", site, that seems very nice. This editors only objection is, that it doesn't look too good if the most important word in the very first headline, is misspelt. Carol takes on a (somewhat late -- or maybe early) "Japanese Thanksgiving" in this week's "Fidonet's International Kitchen". The eighth episode of "BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL" (published with the expressed permission from the author) in the "Clean Jokes..." plus a story about "Henry Ford", one of a handful of contributions from Ol'wdb, for me to keep handy for future use. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 2 11 Mar 2002 ================================================================= EDITORIAL ================================================================= Work, work work, and for what...? So now I'm back after finishing yet another 72 hour project, that I really should have finished two weeks ago. How come I always have to do things in the last minute? And why do I still continue this full time work, when really I have done all that kind of work, that could be expected from me? My wife and I have produced two wonderful children, 28 and 22 now. They are far better human beings than both my wife and me, so what more can be expected from us? I'd say we've fulfilled our obligations to society as well as to humanity. The reason for me continuing to work like this, is of course that I would go bananas if I woke up one morning and didn't know what to do that day. Oh yes, I have my wonderful dog that needs at least an hour of walking every day, but after that? - = * = - My last editorial really got our catcaller to grab his keyboard. The result was an impressive 22kb article. Not only does the size impress this editor, but also much of the knowledge unveiled in it. Like for instance the knowledge of the battle of Ltzen in 1632. Hey Luke, it's easy to remember the year if you know when Mohammed died. But I think we can claim a more recent victory in the battle of Riga in 1700 when Karl XII beat the Russians. Some years later he was defeated by the Russian winter -- a century before Napoleon and 2.5 before Hitler; funny how both Nappie and Adolf missed that lesson in school. But it's obvious, after all, that our beloved catcaller is not the average American, whose general knowledge of Sweden seem to be, that it's the capital of Copenhagen and is famous for it's chocolate and cuckoo-clocks. Nah... He's definitely a Canadian, I'd say. - = * = - In the Fidonews echo, I had the audacity to question the synthetic laughter added to all the US "comedy shows", and, implicitly, the intelligence of the audience, that needs such horrible manipulation in order to understand when something is funny. All in the now well known mantra of GWB: "Either you're against us or your with us", I immediately was stamped out as one of The Bad Guys. But seriously! Have you ever been sitting in the next room when one of those shows are running? You cannot hear what the are saying, just the added laughter. It's the same ten second soundtrack over and over again, only varied in pitch, volume and decay. If that's not annoying, I don't think I know the meaning of the word. I only hope some Swedish TV channel some time can order at least Spin City (with MJF) or Friends without that laughter; then I'd be able to really enjoy two of FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 3 11 Mar 2002 the few intelligently scripted comedy shows from the USA... TTFN! ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 4 11 Mar 2002 ================================================================= GENERAL ARTICLES ================================================================= Catcalls from the Cheap Seats By Luke Kolin Bjorn's put together a really fantastic editorial this week, folks. It's given a lot of grist to this author's mill, and it's allowed me to wax on about three topics near and dear to my heart - Policy4, international hockey and the relative decline of the Canadian dollar. Perhaps I can put something together this week that might make the old Snooze beat the 100K barrier for the last time in its existence? Well, maybe not. But western landfills are groaning under the weight of 18 million disposable diapers every day or so, so let me offer my poop-filled piece of paper as the first contribution. If Bjorn says that the gold medal game was won by Sweden in 1994, not 1992, I'll believe him. Pretty much every Canadian schoolchild is indoctrinated in the fact that the last Canadian gold medal was won in 1952 by an amateur club called the Revelstoke Doughnut Munchers, who got really drunk one evening at the local pub and decided to get a real medal, not the plastic trophies that the suburban club leagues give out. This was back in the good old days when two dozen Canadians could take over a hockey tournament with the same ease that two dozen 19th Century Brits could get drunk and take over a small African kingdom. I was tempted to plead ignorance by stating that my educational background was in seventeenth century European history, but I came to the realisation last night that I could not recall if the last time the Swedes beat anyone in a fair fight (the Battle of Lutzen) was in 1632, 1638 or 1642, and I was too lazy to retreat downstairs to the library to find out. So much for my historical pretensions. I am deafened (again) by the silence coming from those individuals suggesting the biggest change to Policy4 since the amendments made in 1995, 1998 and 2000. Apparently, my proposals have fallen upon deaf ears, or the backers of the status quo really have no intellectual legs to stand on. Instead, Bjorn is attempting to come to their rescue. I'll pretend to ignore the characterisation of my magnum opii as 'dreadful noise' and get to the heart of Bjorn's argument. Essentially, his claimed justification behind this non-amendment is that we need to eliminate a 'psychological barrier' to change, and that until we amend the document the 95% of FidoNet sysops who have known nothing else will all of a sudden realise they have had nothing to lose but their chains, so to speak. According to such reasoning, what we should have done is proposed an amendment that said nothing more than the following: "The Policy formerly known as 4.07 shall henceforth be referred to as Policy 4.08." Which would do exactly the same thing as what's currently under consideration - absolutely nothing. There are psychological barriers, my Editor, but they are not that FidoNet doesn't believe that the FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 5 11 Mar 2002 Policy can be amended. No one's ever seriously questioned that before. What I question, however, is if the brain trust of FidoNet has the mental agility to see that the top-down feudalistic style of FidoNet is utterly incapable of handling the demands placed upon it today. I'm not sure if people can conceive of a FidoNet where an IP-only node can't talk to a FrontDoor 2.02 system that still talks at 9600 baud during ZMH only. Considering the howls of protest from the "I can walk and chew gum at the same time but don't ask me to run" crowd at the chaos that would happen if (gasp!) nodes were allowed to have multiple node numbers in non-geographic networks, the thought of FidoNet adopting operating practices from 1997 or 1998 is far too much to ask. I also doubt the notion once this change has been made, there will be a great rush to make further changes. More likely to this observer would be the idea in sysops' minds: "We just made a change, why do we need another one?" Let me point out to our Olympic editor-being, that Bob Beamon broke Jesse Owens' record a mere three decades after it was set. It took another quarter century before someone broke his record. Despite all of their claims to the contrary, our Policy long-jumpers strike me as an athlete at the start of the long jump runway, furiously jumping up and down in the same spot - all the time claiming, "I'm really building up momentum now!" Folks, to achieve progress you have to engage in forward motion sooner or later. I've never known anyone to break a psychological barrier (or any barrier, for that matter) by doing nothing. FidoNet won't, either. Bjorn's discussion of the relative decline of the swedish krona brings me to another topic that is near and dear to my heart - and I even promise to tie it all back to FidoNet at the end of it all. As I'm sure many readers are aware, Canadians and Americans are as a people pretty much indistinguishable. We speak the same language, share similar customs. Our nations look pretty similar - big, relatively empty compared to Europe and with lots of places to see and live. We both have a dollar, share the same phone numbers and most of the same holidays (even if Canadian Thanksgiving is in October instead of November.) Shortly after I was born, a Canadian dollar was worth more than an American dollar. This in and of itself was not a huge aberration - the dollars had stayed pretty close to each other for a good period of time. As late as 1991, the Canadian dollar was worth 92 cents US, and US border cities were filled with Canadians seeking cheaper prices, not to mention an escape from the miserable 15-18% sales taxes that the Canadian federal and provincial governments enjoy extracting from their hard-working populace. Today, these border cities are deserted on the US side, but booming on the Canadian side. Is it because Americans are poor and Canadians are rich? Quite the contrary. You see, most Canadians can no longer afford to go to the US side because the Canadian dollar is no longer worth 92 cents US - it's worth 33% less. Americans are flooding across the border because the entire country just threw a "one-third off the regular price" sale. Which is really wonderful if you're an American, or (like me) a Canadian who gets paid a US salary, in US dollars and no longer pays Canadian income tax. If you're one of the poor Canadian FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 6 11 Mar 2002 working stiffs who have gotten a third poorer, you may not appreciate it so much. Canada's Prime Minister happened to be the Finance Minister the last time the dollars were at par. When a previous government allowed the dollar to slip below 70 cents, he raised an outcry. When the dollar under his watch slipped to 65 cents, he claimed it was a glorious event for Canadian exporters. I'm sure that daily wages of $3/day are a great event for Vietnamese and Indonesian exporters, but most Vietnamese and Indonesians don't see things the same way. As an expatriate, it is interesting to compare attitudes in Canada when I make one of my annual or semi-annual trips back home. I've noted for a while now that Canadian attitudes towards the United States are shaped in large part by their recollections of fifteen to twenty years ago, and therefore there is very little sense of urgency about the relative decline I've seen in Canada compared to the US (or places in Europe like the Netherlands) in the past ten years or so. When I was little, American governments were broke. The inner cities were decaying and crime was running rampant. I have what I call the 'freeway test' to determine the relative wealth of a nation, state or city - the quality of the pavement on the roads. If a government is short of money, they will typically defer repaving efforts in favour of cheap and quick 'patch jobs', which take less out of each annual budget. When my parents and I would drive from Toronto to Buffalo, we would be on a smooth ribbon of asphalt on the Canadian side. The minute we crossed over the bridge to the US and went on Interstate 190, we'd be on an undulating river of potholes, patches and bumps. No sane individual would try and drive at the 88km/h (!) speed limit - the suspension would give out. Today when I drive in from Buffalo to Toronto, I-190 is smooth and flat. It's well lit. After a heavy snowfall (which Western New York gets frequently), the morning afterwards the road is clean, bare and often dry. And all for a measly 50 cent toll. Across the border in Canada, by contrast, the freeway is littered with potholes, patches and half-baked repaving jobs that last 5 years instead of the 25 that good poured concrete will give you. Lights? You've got to be kidding. The toll highways are better, but this costs - I can take the NY Thruway across the entire state from Erie, Pennsylvania to New York City (9 hours' drive or so) for US $11. The same price will get me half-way around Toronto on the toll ring road, assuming the metering equipment is accurate. Finally, the effective speed limits in the US have been raised to a sensible 75 to 85 miles per hour. When I lived in Toronto, my car was vandalised on three separate occasions. Here in Atlanta, it has yet to happen. If I lived in some walled, gated community I could understand it - but the irony is that the homes in the Toronto neighborhood where I used to live were more expensive and I could never afford to buy them. I think the last important comparison to make is health care. My parents, sister and brother in law are all Canadian doctors, and I had the opportunity several years ago to discus relative health care between our two nations. Many Canadians consider their system of FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 7 11 Mar 2002 universal health care to be one of the distinguishing characteristics of their country, and my sister pointed out to me that 40 million Americans I were uninsured and that I had a 'gold plated' health plan. While I cannot initially refute the first point, I had several observations to make. First, my health plan is the same as the CEO of my company. It is, however, also the same as the phone clerks that make $9/hour. If I were to work as a check-out clerk at the local supermarket, I would get a similar health care package as well as a company-funded retirement savings plan. A country that can give 'gold plated' health care to its poorest paid workers can't be all bad, no? Employers do this because they have to - not by government regulation, but by virtue of the fact that no smart individual would work for a company that didn't provide health benefits as part of its base compensation. Despite our 'recession', unemployment is still lower than it was at the height of the 1980s boom - and much of the gains have been at the lower end of the salary scale. By contrast, despite my 'universal health care' in Canada, being covered didn't actually mean that I could get health care since I still needed to find a doctor that was taking new patients. Try as I might, every doctor that was suggested to me by friend or family was not taking new patients, and therefore would not see or treat me. It was not until I, in somewhat of a fit of desperation, asked if the doctor knew Dr. So-and-So, my sister. At which point, they were somehow able to fit me in. Universal, you say? Getting back to the uninsured issue, many of these uninsured here in the United States could buy cut-price health insurance for around $75/month. The problem with this 'insurance' is that you can't see a doctor and you have to wait around for most procedures, if they're covered at all. In some ways, it's not much different than Canadian health insurance. Of course, the rich and powerful don't have to face these issues. When a member of the Irving family (the Rockefellers of New Brunswick) gets sick, he hops on the family jet for a quick jaunt to the Mayo clinic in Minnesota or Sloan Ketterring in New York. Maybe Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. If an average Canadian gets sick in New Brunswick, they get to travel as well - since there are now no colorectal surgeons left in the entire province. If your child is born with a heart defect, you may not be pleased to note that the last pediatric invasive cardiologist has left. So instead of immediate treatment, you get to drive 8 to 12 hours to Halifax or Quebec City - after waiting 10 to 12 weeks to see the doctor. Getting back to hockey, there is an excellent hockey player (perhaps Bjorn can tell us if he played in the Olympics) by the name of Saku Koivu. At the tender age of 26 or so, he was diagnosed with abdominal cancer and required immediate treatment, which was started within 48 hours. At last report, the cancer was in remission and he was slowly getting back to being able to play hockey again. Lucky to be in Canada, you say? Maybe. I cannot speak from personal experience about the oncology departments in Montreal, but I am sure they are quite good. FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 8 11 Mar 2002 I contend, however, that what saved this young man's life was the fact that he is a Finn. Not through any genetic predisposition that this group of people posses to battling cancer, but by virtue of the fact that a Canadian cannot get cancer treatment within 2 days of diagnosis, no matter how much he is willing to pay - to pay extra for faster service is illegal, and there would be an outcry if a millionaire athlete got preference over other Canadians. But since he is Finnish, his life is not finished and he can pay to jump the queue. So, thanks to our vaunted system of 'universal' (if you can find a doctor and he doesn't move away) health care, Canadians are now second class citizens in their own country. Bravo! [A note - between when this piece was written and its submission, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that a six-month old Canadian citizen was denied life-saving care because his parents are neither citizens nor landed immigrants, but visitors. Let's raise a hearty cheer to the Czech community in Montreal who raised the $10,000 necessary to provide him care, and let's all think nasty evil thoughts to the pathetic Quebec bureaucrats who would let a little baby die. How many little Canadian babies will die in the future that we don't hear about?] Of course, Canadians don't realise it yet. They still believe that US health care will bankrupt average people, you can't get treated, etc. etc. etc. There hasn't been an outcry yet, and everyone is convinced that if we throw another billion or so in the pot, the problems will go away. They've thrown an additional $25 billion into the pot since I left Canada, and it's only gotten worse. They seem to be stuck in their view of the world 15 years ago. Now, what does my little interlude have to do with FidoNet? As I mentioned earlier, the reason why there isn't an outcry about this relative decline in the standard of living and health care is that many Canadians still believe that the US is the way it was in the mid-1980s. (With the dollar the way it is, they cannot afford to go there to find out.) Much of FidoNet's decline over the same period can be attributed to similar outdated thinking about this network relative to the Internet. In the mid-1990s, the Internet was perceived as newsgroups, spam and pornography. It was perceived as chaos, rudeness, crime. Many folks in FidoNet still see it in that vein. Admittedly, investors have spent billions laying miles of fiber-optic cable so that teenagers all over North America can see naked pictures of Tiffany two days after Playboy comes out. However, as I've pointed out in previous articles, the Internet has hundreds of communities as polite, orderly and vibrant as FidoNet ever was. It attracts thousands of average people every day, dealing with average, more or less legal pursuits. FidoNet is just like Canada is - they don't see the dramatic changes that have taken place around them, and they feel that a little incremental change will be what's necessary to fix things, or get us started down that path. People like myself who leave and criticise the system are considered 'selfish', 'troublemakers' or 'interfering with FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 9 11 Mar 2002 the people working hard for a solution'. Does this sound familiar to anyone? It does to me. What I'm 'mocking', Bjorn, is the lack of true effort behind these so-called 'changes'. I'm mocking the fact that no one has seen fit or able to refute my desires for sysop-level participation in the Policy amendment process. As a scandinavian, you may be familiar with a fellow by the name of Hans Christian Andersen. This fellow wrote a charming little fairy tale about a King who was promised fantastic new clothes that were absolutely wonderful and beautiful, easily the finest in the land. He could not see them, nor could anyone else, but everyone agreed with the tailors that they were fine, fine clothes. And it came to pass that the King was in a procession through the streets, stark naked - and no one, but a child, had the nerve to say what they all knew. This policy amendment has no clothes. It does nothing, and all the puffery about sysop-level consultation and psychological barriers is as self-delusional as the beautiful fabric embedded with sparkling gemstones. Look how they twinkle so! It's ironic that Bjorn refers to the 'f*cking European Union'. The f*cking EU is an elitist group of governments that gets together, makes decisions in private and attempts to claim that they've done sufficient public consultation to move forward. Not surprisingly, the public in more and more EU countries isn't buying that particular brand of snake oil. Yet Bjorn believes that it's too much of a change to let sysops get a direct say in how their network is run by amending Policy or formally enshrining the principle of electing *Cs. The European Union has been using those very same arguments to limit or prevent voter involvement in the selection or ratification of the European Commission. The Council of Ministers is an unelected legislative body. But to extend rights to the voters at large? That would be too much of a change! Maybe later, but it's too much too soon right now. Bjorn, maybe you now know how a lot of sysops feel about P4. They feel the same way that you feel about the European Union. And defenders of the f*cking EU use the exact same language as you. They refuse to defend themselves in public forums. (hello, Bob Short!) How are you different from them? Allow me to close off this week's rant with a sensible, sober reflection on what Gary Gilmore had to say. Yes, the BBS as we've known it from the early 1980s is terminal, if not dead, in many areas. However, part of the appeal of FidoNet as I look back over its almost two decades of existence was its ability to adapt, at least in the early years. The network was able to change and bring in new technologies and new possibilities. I think a lot of FidoNet's decline has been caused because too many people weren't able to let go of certain founding principles behind the network, or certain principles that evolved into the network. It's not much different than Canadian health-care: that originally was devised as catastrophic coverage so that no sick child would be without emergency care at 1am because its parents couldn't afford to pay the doctor. It's turned into a constitutional right to free sex change operations, and sick children are again without emergency care at 1am because in many parts of rural Canada, there is no doctor to pay. FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 10 11 Mar 2002 I don't view FidoNet as a BBS network - partly because I stopped running a BBS in 1990. I look at it as a means of distributing content. If we didn't have BBSs anymore and every user became a private node, but the content was still there, great! If we stopped using the POTS and were all IP nodes, no big deal. It's called evolution, and it's probably the biggest tribute to the hard-working folks of the late 1980s and early 1990s who built FidoNet, that their creation was able to evolve and survive, instead of turning into the static museum of BBSing that it is today. The first recorded use of the term CRP that I recall from FidoNet was in Toronto in 1990 and 1991; we used the term 'Cost Recovery Plan' to describe a transparent mechanism for recovering the costs incurred in obtaining EchoMail and SDS files. We put together an open document, which described how the system SHOULD work; it called for open reports on traffic, costs and public display of the books. If we had too much money in the kitty, everyone got a free month added to their service. I don't know if when we came up with the term back then, if we were the first. But I do feel proud to see that the term at least remains in use. We did something right back then. In a sense, Bjorn is right - we do have some psychological hurdles to overcome today, but not the ones he thinks. Our chains (to use the Marxist term) are not our perceived inability to amend policy, they are our unwillingness to abandon the 'sacred principles' of FidoNet in favour of reacting to modern technology. There's no requirement that all FidoNet systems need to talk to each other. The Internet is living proof that a network can survive and thrive with firewalls closing off more and more systems every day. There's no requirement that we remain backwardly compatible to the level of Fido 11w. There's no requirement that nodes be listed in the same geographic area as defined by the local phone system. There's no need for FidoNet to be a *BBS* system. Like Gary, I don't believe that an amendment to Policy will magically make the network grow and thrive. It may do absolutely nothing, and this is the most likely possibility. But it does open up FidoNet to radically different visions of its future - and these different visions of the future may not be compatible in the long term. But that sort of creative ferment will stand everyone in good stead over that same long term. What's amazing to me is the constant fear of change and deregulation - "it'll cause chaos" has been repeated so many times over the years. Instead, we get this non-change. And we have people running off at the mouth as to how wonderful it will be. All it does, is take away momentum and desire for the real changes that the ol' dawg needs to survive. ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 11 11 Mar 2002 ================================================================= REBUTTALS TO PREVIOUS ARTICLES ================================================================= Wild Olympiade on the Wild West (Russian view) Maxim Zhukov 2:5025/555 I think, major part of US citizens know, that russian command took part on this WO`2002 to. But I'm sure, that no one of them didn't understand how it was sick for us. During this Games we understood that we have the main reason of our disqualifications - the column in our passports - the Russian citizenship. That's why all Judge kept strange silence and did injustice. Our president V.V. Putin was unpleasantly surprised by passive position of International Olympic Committee. I think, US citizens should estimate our nerves and endurance. Russia proved many times, that we can win. But Russia proved that we can adequately lose - this isn't for USA. All american shouts about their greatness and invincibility were denied many times. But on this WO America crossed last side - America has taken advantage and beginnings to award those who has not deserved it. It was very cruel - took from medals after delivery. This fact just underlined your bad jury. To my mind, the main problem - was that jury did all this injustice things and even didn't understand it. You can observe all Olympic Games, and I'm sure that such bad Games were not yet. My words should not kindle dispute between the Russian and American people. This is just my addition to "The Winter Olympics 2002" by (sorry I don't know by whom) Maxim Zhukov 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 12 11 Mar 2002 ================================================================= FIDONET WEB PAGE REVIEWS ================================================================= Synchronet, Argus Help Page By Frank Vest 1:124/6308.1 What!? Setting Up Synchronet and Argus What!? Welcome to Net229! Where!? http://net229.darktech.org/fidosetup/ Where!? http://net229.darktech.org/ That's right! Two pages for the price of one. Since they are both free, that's a darn good deal in my not so humble opinion. :-) Some preface before I start. Hang tight. :) I've played with several BBS packages since I started my first BBS. The original was Spitfire. I've looked at others since and am now running Mystic. I'll say that all of these software packages are very good. In recent months, I've been working on setting up Synchronet. I like the package and think it will do what I desire. As stated above, I'm no stranger to the "learning curve" that all Sysops, and everyone else for that matter, go through with new software. As most will tell you, any help is appreciated. So, I started on the setup and my learning curve went somewhat straight up. :) I had heard of the help page mentioned above, but that was before I became interested in Synchronet, so I promptly forgot about it. Normal?? :) Anyway, In this time of need, I remembered and the opportunity presented itself for me to ask the Webmaster for the address. So, let's get started. When you first hit the page at http://net229.darktech.org/fidosetup/ you might think you've found the web page for Fidonet's Net-229. After a second glance, you'll realize that you are both right and wrong. This is part of the Net-229 site, but not the main page. Like I said, at first glance, you might think you're at the wrong place. Look on down the page and you'll start to see links to "Setting Up Synchronet With FidoNet EchoMail for Net 229". Yes, the setup examples are "geared" for Net-229, but they will work on other Nets as well. Just change the addresses. I'll not get into all the details of the page here. There's just too much and this is a "review", not a "tutorial". :) On the positive side: FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 13 11 Mar 2002 The color choice and contrast is good. Not too bright and not too dark. A color selection that is pleasing to the eye, yet not distracting. I like the "table" that holds the links. The shadow is a nice effect. Now I've just got to go look at the HTML code to see how he did that. :-) The credits to the Author of Synchronet and links to the Synchronet home page are a nice touch. When you get started with the links, you'll notice the "Argus" setup help. Argus is a nice mailer that handles BinkP as well as dial-up access. Although not required as "the" mailer for Synchronet, it is a nice complement. As you get on into the help pages, you will find "screen shots" of a "typical" setup. This is a wonderful idea IMHO. Having instructions on "how-to" is good, but to be able to see what the "real thing" looks like is a big help. The fact that on this one set of pages, you can learn and see how to set up a complete Fidonet BBS with mailer, BBS and mail tosser is excellent. Detractions: Really, only one.... and this is of a personal and political nature. I wish the "alternate Nodelist" for Fidonet, Zone 1, didn't exist. :( There you have it. One VERY nice site for Fidonet. Oops... uh.. Oh yeah... There were two sites listed... Hmmm... With the size of this review, I'll just say this: After you've finished learning how to set up Synchronet and Argus to get yourself a BBS going, check out the Net-229 main page. There's a lot of good information there. True, it is "geared" for Net-229, but I believe that the Webmaster would be the first to tell you that it is for the benefit of Fidonet and not just for Net-229... Although I know Net-229 would be happy to have you, this site can be of help to you no matter what Net you decide to join. Whatever you choose to do, the main thing is to get into Fidonet! Y'all have a great day, Frank ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 14 11 Mar 2002 ================================================================= FIDONET'S INTERNATIONAL KITCHEN ================================================================= Japanese Thanksgiving 2 c Stuffing-baked 1 ea Cornish hen 1 lg Japanese sweet yam 2 c Rice- medium calrose 1/4 c Saki 1/4 c Smashed japanese grapes-red 3 sm Carrots- sliced pretty 2 md Japanese cucumbers 3 sl Bitter melon 4 ea Green onions- whole 1 c Red beans- sweet Ok, whaddaya do when you get in port at 6pm day the day before Thanksgiving? You start by defrosting the only 'bird' ya got! That was a cornish hen. Split 3 ways, it's not alot of meat but we have the other stuff to makeup for that. Make up stuffing (I used bagged pepperidge farm) and stuff the hen as much as reasonably possible. The rest goes in a baking dish to the side. Make a batch of rice in the ricemaker and in the steamer above, add the red beans (pre-cooked) and the bitter melon slices. Slice the sweet yam and add to it the saki and mashed grapes. Add sufficient water to cover and taste test for sweetness once the yams are done. Add molasses or light karo syrup to taste. Baste the hen with the sauces from the yam pot (add more to yam pot as needed). Steam or blanche the carrots lightly then add the fresh cucumber. A dab of sugared ginger atop makes it perfect! No dressing neededbut if you insist, make it a sweet-vinigary one. 5 mins before the hen is done, lace the green onions into a chain and ring them around the bird. When all is done, put the hen on a platter with the yams to the side and use an ice-cream scoop to ball up stuffing on the other side. Place green onion ring around it all and the carrots/cucumbers towards the feet. In this case, a lazy-susan dish is perfect if large! I added rice and sweet beans to the head portion of mine (extra at the stove) and put a slice of bitter melon on each plate. Dessert? We were too stuffed! But we had on the ready, fresh tangerines and vanilla ice-cream. Line the dish with the tangerine slices then add a scoop of ice-cream. Drizzle with chocolate syrup. From the kitchen of: xxcarol FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 15 11 Mar 2002 22 November 2001 Sasebo Japan ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 16 11 Mar 2002 ================================================================= CLEAN HUMOR & JOKES ================================================================= BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL #8 I'm at my desk as usual, and a user calls. "Hello Computer Room, Simon here, How can I help" I answer "I can't get into my account!" A user mumbles at me. "What was your username please?" I say They give me their username. No worries. I look in their account. "No worries, it was just a badly made login file. I've fixed it, you should be able to login." "Thanks!" "No worries. Have a nice day!" WHAT IS THIS? you're asking yourself. Has the BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL turned over a new leaf? Sold out?! GONE INSANE?!!! Nope. The BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL is being logfiled. And if that's happen- ing, I'm being bugged as well. So I'm being nice till I can find the bugs. It shouldn't be long - bear with me. Ah. One in the phone handpeice. Basic. But then the boss is a sneaky sort, so there's probably a couple more. Ah! And another in the base of the phone and one inside my keyboard. Time for a mad coffee-spilling frenzy. This is a big job, so I bring the whole jug over and wait for a witness. The System Manager comes in. "Where's that report of mine?" he asks in a surly manner - he's obviously pissed that I haven't implicated myself yet. Antagonist Identified. As the Principal of "BASTARD OPERATOR SCHOOL" (me) will tell you, "There's no problem so large it can't be solved by killing the user off, deleting their files, closing their account and reporting their REAL earnings to the IRS" I pull his printout from under the coffee jug where I put it, and the coffee splashes all over the phone and keyboard, which for some reason were stacked on top of each other. "Woopsy!" I say, mock horror on my face. The System Manager's face tells me I was right in my guess. "Don't think you'll get away with this!" he snarls and stomps off. I click on the ethernet monitor and watch the traffic coming out of his PC. Ah! A memo, authorising the termination of my contract, going to the laser in the director's office. I make a few alterations to the file FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 17 11 Mar 2002 in the spool directory and let it go to it's destination. I run my dinky little program that deposits -522 to the PC and our mainframe shits itself. Later, while booting, I'll remove that nasty logfile business. Next, I wander into the comms room and plug my earphone into the spare RS232 port in the Directors office. It's amazing how simple it is to bug an office once it's got data lines going to it! Director: "Are you sure about this?" SysMgr: "OF COURSE!" Director: "You don't want to reconsider?" SysMgr: "NEVER!" Director: "Very well, I'll fax it to staffing now.." SysMgr "EXCELLENT!" Two seconds later the System Manager strolls in smiling. "Well, I'll really miss you Simon.." he says, full of himself. "Oh?" I say, all sweetness and charm "Where are you going?" "No Simon" he says, with glee "You're going" "A PROMOTION!" I say "You've finally written that letter to the head of staffing telling him he's a bum-sucking arse bandit and that you quit?" "No..." "Are you sure? It's much better than the one about me being fired.." "Y.." His eyes widen slightly It's like clubbing a seal to death with a foam cushion. He runs to stop the fax. Only, having just resigned, clicky cklikcy< his card key no longer works... Ametuers... The Phone rings. It's the same guy as before "I can get into my account now, but I've run out of disk" "Hang on, I'll see what I can do" clicccky<... rm -r * ----------------------------------------------------------------- Henry Ford Sent in by Warren Bonner Henry Ford dies and goes to heaven. At the gates, an angel tells Ford, "Well, you've been such a good guy and your inventions are FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 18 11 Mar 2002 great, and the assembly line for the automobile has changed the world for the good of mankind. As a reward, you can hangout with anyone you want to in Heaven." Ford thinks about it and says, "I want to hang out with God." So an Angel at the Gates takes Henry to the Throne Room and introduces him to God. Ford then asks God, "Hey, aren't you the inventor of Woman?" God says, "Ah, yes." "Well," says Ford, "you have some major design flaws in your invention: 1. there's too much front end protrusion 2. it chatters at high speeds 3. maintenance is very costly 4. it constantly needs repainting and refinishing 5. it is out of commission 5 or 6 of every 28 days 6. the rear end wobbles too much, and 7. the intake is placed too close to the exhaust." "Hmmm..." replies God, "hold on." God goes to the Celestial Supercomputer, types in a few keystrokes, and waits for the result. The computers printer prints out a slip of paper and God reads it. "It may be that my invention is flawed," God replies to Henry Ford, "but according to statistics, more men are riding my invention than yours." ----------------------------------------------------------------- FIDONEWS 19-10 Page 19 11 Mar 2002 ================================================================= TODD COCHRANE'S FIDONET SOFTWARE