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KEN ABOUT - INK, FAME AND LACK OF FORTUNE
by Ken
Ross: 
petlibrary@bigfoot.com
Web Site: http://members.tripod.com/~petlibrary
FRANKLY MY DEAR
The first thing I did after getting signed up with Virgin Net was to start sending email out, but after the first day things didn't seem to be working too well. A few test messages didn't return, which was puzzling. Then I discovered in a Mac magazine that the PC community was panicking over something called the 'Melissa Virus' which utilised most of the software as supplied by Virgin, so I presumed that they were running some sort of anti-virus program over their server and some of my e-mail got trampled on in the confusion.
To be honest my response to the Melissa virus was ' so what!' It only affects PCs that run Microbloat software ;-).
(gosh I bet Brian Grainger will say something here! )
Ed: Well, if you insist. My response to the Melissa virus was 'so what!' as well. Viruses written as macros for Microsoft software are easy to overcome. Just press the shift key when loading the file and the macros do not get loaded. Office 97 warns you about files that contain macros when you load them and lets you decide whether to load with or without macros. No doubt the virus writers will get more sophisticated ideas but I can cope with Melissa like viruses. The CIH, Chernobyl, virus was a very different matter.
I read somewhere that more viruses are created each day for PCs than exist in total for the Mac.
Ed: There is no fun trying to cause havoc among a couple of users when you can cause havoc among a couple of million! This is the first good reason I have heard for buying a Mac instead of a PC. For similar reasons I buy a 'sit up and beg' bicycle rather than a mountain bike. Who is going to steal my uncool bike?
As an example of how hyped it must've been Melissa made an appearance on "Sunset Beach", (my favourite TV programme - I'm sure it's based on Commodore history!).
THIS LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR ...
Back in issue 2 of the Ezine our very own BG asked of the world ..
"(Editor: I have been looking for an HTML viewer for a PC for ages. I know a browser can view files but that is overkill. I want a simple program that can be mailed with HTML files so that someone with an ancient PC can view the files without the need to install a browser. Please e-mail me with any suggestions.)"
In the Mac world there are three browsers that meet this description NCSA Mosaic , WannaBe and HTML Viewer
MOSIAC
This is a browser that is freeware and can be found at:
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/NCSAHome.html
It comes in various versions to suit various platforms. It'll deal with graphics etc. and the 1.03 version can compress down into a 440K SEA
WANNABE
WannaBe is a limited text-only web browser for PowerPC or 68k MacOS computers, written by David T. Pierson <dtp@pluto.njcc.com>. WannaBe is free, but not yet feature-complete or fully tested. The latest version and information regarding WannaBe can be found at the WannaBe home page:
http://pluto.njcc.com/dtp/wb2/wannabe.html
WannaBe is strictly a text-only web browser. The text of pages can be copied to the clipboard or saved to a local file. A find command allows searching for text strings within a page.
The aim in writing WannaBe was not to create a full-featured browser. Rather, a browser that allows reading favourite web pages without gobbling up several megabytes of RAM, (WannaBe requires 2M), and without wasting time waiting for tables to render. It is quite limited in that it doesn't support images, tables, forms, bookmarks, cookies and several other features. It does support the HTTP 1.1 "Host:" header, proxy servers, links to frames and images, multiple threads, and copying of text.
WannaBe goes by many names. WannaBe is also known as the Wanna-Be Web Browser, WB^2, and wb2.
The 68K version compresses down to a 385K SEA.
HTML VIEWER
HTML Viewer is a simple hypertext viewer, or "browser", meant to be used by people who do not have access to a full-featured browser like Mosaic or Netscape. It is also handy for authoring HTML documents, as it does not have the overhead that the more capable browsers have.
HTML Viewer also implements some simple extensions to HTML (which should be ignored by other browsers) that make it more suitable for distributing on-line documentation.
PICT Images If you have a graphic in PICT format and don't want to take the time (yet) to convert it to PNG, GIF, or JPEG format, then you can still view it in HTML Viewer. To do so you must rename the file with the ".pict" extension, as HTML Viewer determines the type of a graphic file using its extension.
You then use the standard method for including an inline image:
...<IMG SRC = "my_graphic.pict">...
Since other browsers do not support PICT files you should convert any of these images to PNG, GIF, or JPEG format before distributing your HTML document.
HTML Viewer reads GIF files, and also because it's just plain useful, there is no charge for non-commercial use. Uncompressed it uses up 440K on disk and runs in 512K.
Ed: This HTML Viewer sounds interesting if it is available for PC. I tried looking at the Tucows site, (www.tucows.com), for HTML Viewer for PC and for Mac and found no reference. What I did find, some months ago, was a piece of Shareware called Navroad. This suited my needs perfectly as it renders:
- HTML (HTML2 and most of HTML 3)
- GIFs and animated GIFs
- JPEGs
- PNG
- BMP
- Frames
- Tables
- Forms
- Client Side Image Maps
Navroad uncompressed takes up less than 1Mb so it can be used from a floppy if required. There is an enhanced product called LIKSE which also includes a search engine which would be useful if you bundled it with product documentation in HTML. Both products are incredibly quick and can run on a 286 if you want. The only drawback is that it is shareware and although the author is Australian he expects to be paid in $US. The cost is $30 plus $5 if done via credit card on the net. Both programs are slightly crippled in that unregistered versions will only export the first 50 lines of a file as plain text. The registered version would allow exporting any HTML file as plain text. Like Ken I prefer freeware, or at least someone that recognises ŁUK, but it does just what I want. I use it when previewing these journals before uploading to the web.
Anyone interested in Navroad can find it at www.faico.net/navroad.
READY FOR MY CLOSEUP MR DeMILLE!
On a Tuesday, when we were in Smiths in Kingston, we found ourselves being roped in by the BBC to film an item for 'The Money Programme' on the coming Sunday.
They wanted a punter to be looking at information about Smith's Internet service and I looked the part I suppose! In the walk through I contrived to get Macformat magazine in shot. I pointed out that my motivation for putting the Smith's thing back on the shelf was that it was purely for PC and I was a Mac man.
"And could you try to look a little less smug", (© Bill Ritchie 1998).
It may not have been much but I felt quite happy at my attempts to subvert the item's point of view even if it may have been obscure to most people!
(I would have used an Amiga magazine but the only one to hand wasn't really suitable for being noticed.) Anyway two weeks later, on the Sunday at 7.30 p.m., my moment of glory arrived and for 9.5secs the spotlight was on me after an item about the millennium bug. It was an item about Amazon books vs. W.H.Smith Online for buying things on the Internet. Now any visitors I have will be expected to sit through 20 run throughs of the item with full technical commentary!!
( ironic points )
A/ I'm not a PC owner.
B/ I don't have the cash to buy things.
C/ I was only in Smiths at that point for my own devious freebie means to an end.The only person to have seen it live was the chap from the dry cleaners and so ends my 15 minutes .....
THIS IS THE MOST FUN
I wanted to subscribe to comp.sys.cbm so according to the instructions it was a simple enough task. However, each time I try, the fact that I knew the name of the newsgroup didn't prove much use. Whatever news reader program I tried wanted to download every single news group name. There are between 25,000 (when my machine gave up/ timed out) and 65,000 (contacts estimate!) which on a 14.4 modem is a very long time, so the search for alternatives was on.
Deja com's website provides a forwarding of a digest of postings to your e-mail box so I signed up for that, after taking the time to unsubscribe to their automatic offerings and subscribe instead to comp.sys.cbm. To quote Gavin Haines here:
"Yes, I have arranged to have newsgroups delivered via Deja news, and the funny thing is that if there are no fresh contributions to the newsgroup then you just get the same contributions again."
(Of course you get the odd idiot who wastes everyone's time by posting rubbish from fake e-mail addresses). For various reasons my e-mail program is Eudora 3.1.1 lite (lite = freeware ) now, instead of 1.4.1, (which was the last full freeware version).
So lets look at a section of typical Dejacom digest ...
From: comp.sys.cbm@list.dejanews.com
To: petlibrary@bigfoot.com
Subject: Daily Summary: comp.sys.cbm 1/1
Mime-Version: 1.0
Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 13:26:23 +0100
Subject: Light Pens
Author: someguy@nospam.codenumber.aone.net.au http://www.deja.com/article/%3C7i8mqn%24500%241%40news.mel.aone.net.au%3EIn Eudora I double click on the URL and Deja com's advert laden page pops up in my text only browser, (WannaBe). I then save the page as text. If it takes my fancy to compose a reply off line I have to edit out around 32K of HTML advert commands, (although despite following all the instructions I've never been able to post anything to the group).
There is a mail list for Commodore machines run on:
listserv@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu
to subscribe to a mailing list send an e-mail to listserv with no subject and subscribe <list> <your name> in the body. (I found that any signature file would confuse things to listserv and mailserv machines).
Another Commodore orientated mail list is "CBM-Hackers". To get on it send an e-mail to:
cbm-hackers-request@dot.tcm.hut.fi
with subscribe your_name in the body of the message.
The website http://www.onelist.com has a few mailing lists devoted to Commodore devotees but I've a feeling that they're not that active.
As an alternative way of getting things I tried Telneting over to Cereal.mv.com but when trying to tag things for downloading in compressed form the screen would instantly scroll round to the off line menu again and prevent me from entering commands. I've largely given up on that idea.
(Anyone out there like to forward me downloads of comp.sys.cbm in compressed form?)
In a book I've seen an item about using Netscape 1.1 to read newsgroups direct with <news:// etc.> as a URL but as I've not been able to track down an early version of Netscape to experiment with.
SO WE MEET AGAIN
There are times when things just happen and a prime example of this is one day when I was using IE2.1 off-line it just suddenly stopped.
Nothing new had been added to my Mac - I checked.
Each time it started up it'd freeze the Mac solid, which would only respond to a restart.
I installed an earlier version, (2.03 ), which worked wonderfully, but it can't deal with frames which I encounter from time to time. I installed 3.01 along with the extensions in needs ( CFM68k etc. ) and everything was right again.
Apart from the frame handling the major difference between 3.01 and 2.03 is the fact that the earlier version seems to load HTML code first then fetch graphics, so you can stop download of them if you want to, but the newer version wants to load graphics as it downloads code calling them up - stopping the download results in partial pages.
I've tried re-installing 2.1 from disk but it still gets the same result :-<.
Due to download speed I use the browser most suitable for the job in case you're wondering about how many browsers are on my hard disk!
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU
The latest version of the Ezine C=Hacking is available from the archives:
in text format at http://www.ffd2.com/fridge/chacking/ in downloadable zip format at http://www.funet.fi/pub/cbm/magazines/c=hacking/ C=Hacking also has some programs in it that can be extracted using a UUdecoder. Another couple of interesting websites that I've put onto my links page are:
http://soho.ios.com/~coolhnd/bonkers/planet.htm
http://starbase.globalpc.net/~zig/index.htmlThe links page on my website is updated as often as possible so why not pass through, (there's no charge!), and tell me if you find any CBM sites that aren't there?
http://members.tripod.com/~petlibrary/linkpage.htmI GUESS WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE
Earlier this year my Mac's laser printer died and repairs quoted for it were out of my league - " if I could afford that I'd just buy a new printer!"
Gavin Haines, (it's that man again!), came to my rescue with an old inkjet printer that he had excess to requirements.
So entering to my right is the HP PaintWriter XL (which stands for Xtra Large by the way!) and then I encountered mail order rage.
I needed to get some more cartridges for it so, as it was an old model, I rang up a recommended place, BCDS Direct of Sherbourne, and checked that they had them in stock before going any further.
Tamzin checked and brightly informed me that they were in stock and I sent off my postal orders, (no I don't have a cheque book).
We'll call that day0.
Day3 I checked that it had arrived - yes it had and they'd be with me within 3 days Day7 no show - assured that they were on the way Day15 no show - they were having a few problems Day21 a supplier had let them down Day29 a chap called Tam assured me that they were on the way. He then spun me a tale involving TNT couriers, Southampton, Oldham and they'd be with me next day or day after Day34 called up to point out to Tam that they weren't here. Where else were they? Day38 Original deadline for needing all 4 colours had passed so I'd managed to work around having only 3. I called up to check and they'd call me back Day42 Tamzin admitted that they'd been trying to get stock in but they'd just had delivery
(hang on what happened to items referred to in day0?)Day50 By this time I was starting to query about things like getting my money back and how long would this be going on (like to pay for long distance calls chasing them up!) Day53 chap from their accounts phoned up assuring me that the items would be in within 4 days. Would I like to wait or get my money back.
Money back as I've got no confidence in them supplying anything
<" right it's in post tonight ">Day56 like where is it?- We'll get it out to you tonight. Day59 Yes it's me again. Where is it? Day60 Big Boss woman gets onto me and discloses fact that they'd not put my order in system and they'd lost amount I'd paid Day64 I get refund Yes I know my machine is old and probably hard to source items for but how come back on day0 the part numbers had been double checked to be in stock. 30 phone calls on 21 days out of 60 phoning them should've got them to admit to having to get them from supplier a lot earlier than they did.
I'm experimenting with refilling the cartridges now. Anybody with HP cartridges 51606 A,B,M,Y going spare ( full /partial/empty ) who wants to donate them to a good cause ......
OF ALL THE GIN JOINTS
After the fiasco of trying to get hold of cartridges from BCDS Direct I decided to try out refilling them instead. I had seen kits to do it in the Maplins catalogue.
The items from Maplins are created by JRink and a limited range of them can be found in Dixons (which is novel!) .
Only a list of quite up to date machines were mentioned on the refill box. As I'd cut a dead cartridge in half to see if it could be refilled I extrapolated that the refilling techniques described by JRink could be used for any of the HP cartridges. It was a good bet that HP hadn't changed that much.
It seems that HP cartridges use a sponge inside as an ink holder. The method of getting the ink into the sponge is to use the supplied blunt syringe, giving a reasonably clean way of doing the job. Various ways, depending on model, are described for getting access.
Another kit can be found in Jessop's, the photographic chain. This is an own brand kit which is aimed at a more limited range. They have a jig for holding the cartridge but as all HP cartridges tend to be a similar width it can be used with all of them. The method of getting the ink into the cartridge involves a device that's best described as a combo eye dropper/nozzle. I didn't try it as it was only really designed to fit one sort of HP cartridge but I wasn't impressed .
Results so far seem to be OK. It depends largely on the state your cartridge was in before the refilling process.
