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Sun, 14 Nov 1999 17:26:18 +0000

Russ & Dunc

Sorry for not EMailing sooner. Things have been very busy.

I have written a small ECommerce system, qualified as a RedHat Certified Engineer, been offered the chance to write an article for Computing, founded two churches and been offered numerous jobs, as usual. Recently, there has been many changes at CafeNet. Also, I am technically homeless.

I upgraded the web server software so that I could run some new CGI scripts. Apache1.3 allows a pattern of URLs to be mapped to one CGI script. I have used this to write software to act as a replacement for cookies in an ECommerce system. It transparently rewrites web pages to propagate a session key. This part of the software was written in C and the basket was written in PERL.

After writing this software for Lion In The Sun, the woman in charge no longer wants it. Despite my advice, she wants an ECommerce system from NetBanx. These idiots are not unknown to be economic with the truth and experiment with customers web sites. They have no testing methodology. Fine, she knows what to expect.

I tried getting [domain redacted due to non payment] to host their web site with Indus. MentalBloc (who host with Indus) exclusively design the graphics for [domain redacted due to non payment]. Coincidentally, J from MentalBloc was my predecessor at Indus. Anyhow, I had shown Lion In The Sun the rainbow order form used by [domain redacted due to non payment], which she liked. So I wrote the basket to create rainbow HTML tables to the same specification. (Possibly one of the most bizarre design constraints I have ever had.)

So, Indus is the only company able to supply rainbow shopping baskets. I thought this would make it easy to sell to [domain redacted due to non payment] as they were interested in an ECommerce system. Apparently not, as against advice and expectations, they have begun a three month hosting contract elsewhere. The hosting does not include ECommerce.

The hydroponic business is rare because it is unable / unwilling to host a web site in the USA. They are also unwilling to host outside of the UK, which is relatively expensive. Since the new pricing of Indus web hosting (10 quid per month for CGI and ECommerce web site), they are paying more for less.

URL-Mount

As a test for the ECommerce system, I also wrote a program called URL-Mount. This prog allows subdirectories of other web sites to be mounted as subdirectories of local web sites. Unfortunately, there are a few bugs such as no support for method POST, remapping of URLs or remapping of cookies. The code to read the config file also needs changes.

URL-Mount uses much of the code of the ECommerce system and creates a command line for GNU's WGet prog -;@}=. You may want to investigate this software; it can access single URLs and whole web sites for both FTP and HTTP. It only reads the robots.txt file from a web site after the first URL is accessed. A good solution to an awkward problem.

John Diamond Web Site

Indus is now hosting the web site of John Diamond (http://www.john-diamond.com/), the famous broadcaster and columnist. He has recently come to prominance because he has throat cancer. Apparently, he is a friend of Geoff. There is nothing on the site yet; you may want to contribute. The URL may be published weekly at the end of his column in The Times Magazine.

RedHat Course, Certification And My Rent

Before completing the ECommerce system, I had been booked on RedHat course RH300 by a friend. He got the places for me and a friend for free, although the course usually costs 1600 quid, http://www.redhat.com/products/training.html . It was the first RedHat course outside of the USA and I may yet get to write an article about it in Computing. Chris Green is a journalist / editor who works at VNU, which produces Computing. He is also the communications committee member of KickStart (http://kickstart.amiga.tm/), the Surrey Amiga User Group. He edits to AmigaInsight, the magazine in which I have a column.

The course began on the day that my landlady took my key from me due to rent arrears. It was easier for all concerned for me to stay with my friend who was also on the course. She said pay by Fri 15 Oct 1999 (the day the course was supposed to finish) or move out. The rent was payed by Geoff on Wednesday, which she confirmed on Thursday. She also said to move out regardless and she wanted more money.

The Friday exam was cancelled due to crappy PC hardware not being to spec or the same mis-specification. When I returned on Fri 15 Oct 1999, I spoke to a new tenant, who had moved into my room. Had was incredibly embarrassed about the situation as he had been told that he could move into my room on Thu 14 Oct 1999. He did not know where my posessions were.

Geoff had given me more money, 100 quid, but then changed his mind. When I returned on Sunday, the landlady said I could have my posessions on Monday if I paided. This is illegal. I was quite honest about the situation: I said that I had been given 100 quid, but that I had been instructed not to pay. She had the cheek to complain that I had plenty to move! When I returned on Monday with transportion, only the landlady's son was present. He had been instructed to request "65 to 100 pounds" from me.

Yes, they were actually claiming that I owed an indeterminate amount of money. I have a witness. I said that he would have to discuss the matter with Geoff at CafeNet. Fortunately, I was able to recover most of my belongings, although some of it was damaged. They had been thrown out with the rubbish, which is illegal. Fortunately, it had not been raining.

I never finished the Rolling Rock beer from the room warming party. It was not among my recovered posessions, which is most annoying.

The Church Of Amiga And The Church Of Open Source

Also, I founded The Church Of Amiga. You may remember that I am a reverend with the Universal Life Church (http://www.ulc.org/). I also got two other reverends to join, but then my friend with the RedHat contacts complained that we had previously Discussed starting The Church Of Open Source, complete with an open source bible. So we started that as well.

ULC want to canonise me for my efforts, although I will decline. ULC titles, including canon, are all US$5. Sainthood used to cost US$1500 from ULC and now it is US$5. Become an officially recognised saint of an officially recognised church!

Relocation

The most important thing to happen at CafeNet is the disagreement between Geoff and the fat German that runs the cafe. The computer part of CafeNet will not be run by Geoff any more. This probably means you will have no Crimbo job at CafeNet and no free access to the InterNet. You might have jobs, as your replacements will continue working at CafeNet. Sorry, lads.

I have no idea who will run the computers, although I was offered the job. I declined.

The web server has been relocated to ActivMicro in Kingston. New IP addresses for your web sites will be from 195.188.152.161 to 195.188.152.174 . Unfortunately, we no longer have enough IP addresses to give your web site its own IP address. Sorry.

Additionally, we currently have no web servers running other than the Linux server at CafeNet. This has a copy of your web site, although currently, there is no DNS. CafeNet EMail at Web will remain at CafeNet, although you are unlikely to have complimentary accounts. Everything else will be moved to ActivMicro and *hopefully* another site elsewhere.

This has come at a crucial time. The hard disk in the SGI Indy has failed. Files are corrupted and it is unable to boot. Some of the corrupted files include my EMail from March, which complains about a corrupted disk...

The fabled disk upgrade has been purchased. So, work beginning Monday is install the current state on the new media at the new site. The old disk was also too small. Apparently, J's predecessor, Igor, also resorted to deleting system files. Am I wasting my time?

2600

One last thing: you missed an excellent 2600 meeting on Fri 5 Nov 1999. The next London 2600 meeting is on Fri 3 Dec 1999. Also there is a London 2600 Crimbo party on Sat 18 Dec 1999.

Hope to see you next month.

My temporary address: [address redacted] [address redacted] Surrey

My temporary mobile telephone number is: +44 7977791430

Reverend Dean Swift, PA, BEng, IOCCC, RHCE Xirium

Hey

All I can say is Bastard !

What a complete bastardish thing for your landlady to do. Here is what you should do

Subletting there is illegal Therefore, she is in the wrong Therefore, this provides an easy way to get back at here, and also ( possibly ) obtain your illegally harvested rent. I'll leave the rest up to you

I take it you didnt recieve my email a while ago given the HD failed. I cant remember what I wrote, but ne'er mind, i can recount it again at another time. I will try and get to the next 2600 meeting, so i can talk to you then. Seems a lot of stuff has gone on at the cafe .. sorry to hear about geoffs problems with the bloated sauerkraut eating, frankfurter munching, clinically obesce, german guy. Hope they all get resolved soon. There is no problem with web space. I never really used it. Besides, i do currently have a website at v1su.cjb.net, but unfortunately there isnt much there and i havent had much free time to update it.

You cant actually let the people you lodged with get away with damaging your belongings. You should now be devoting your time to thinking of a method of getting them back. Heres a thought. Write a worm style program, which can autonomously move about the net, and uses the net-2-phone styley connections to continually dial there home phones and mobiles until they get very pissed off with all these random phonecalls jamming there house, and have to purchase new numbers which can cost a significant amount of money.

Just a thought =)

I have had a lot of work to do, and i have also taken up rowing again, which, at imperial is turning into a bit of a full time sport. There are 5 training sessions each week to start off with. And they appear to be getting earlier and earlier. This weekend i had to get up at 6:15 am in order to row, which was er, not nice.

people in my hall are great. nice bunch of people, mostly alcoholics, my sort of people. Not that i've had much time to spend drinking [see above].

Well, learnt one new lang, haskell, not very nice, functional, glad its over with etc. see www.haskell.org for more details. Has no pointers, but has gtk+ bindings, which is confusing to say the least seeing most gtk functions return pointers. Oh well

Now is turing. A combination of the worst bits of Basic and Pascal, with a poor implementation of Object Orientation thrown in.

My Programming Tutor is cool, she has control over the entire syllabus, and doesnt include any C++, because "its not very good" =)

C starts after christmas, after prolog. There is half a tonne of maths, which can get a bit dull, and there is harware as well.

Anyway, I should see you around, as i'm coming down weekend after next, otherwise, at the 2600 meet. Bottom of trocadero yes ?

Cya & good luck finding accomodation

Russ

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Dean "Gandalf" Swift Mezzanine Suite 60 Urmond Road Canvey Island Essex SS8 9AF England UK Telephone: +44 1268 457360 Mobile: +44 7867 774360 EMail: dean@xirium.com