alt.binaries.pictures FAQ - General Etiquette
Jim Howard
Last-modified: 03 March 1993
This is part 1 of the FAQ for the alt.binaries.pictures* hierarchy.
This part of the alt.binaries.pictures FAQ contains "general etiquette
suggestions", those handy little rules that'll help you avoid getting
flamed by dozens of other a.b.p* readers. It is *HIGHLY* recommended
that you read and understand this section fully before posting to any of
the a.b.p* groups.
For information on "general", or operating-system independent
information, questions you may have about the pictures newsgroups,
decoding and encoding techniques, or picture formats, consult part 2
of this posting.
For information on your particular system and on specific utilities,
consult part 3 of this posting.
Before posting to these groups for the first time, please check the FAQ
list (this posting - including parts 2 and 3), and also read the newsgroup
news.announce.newusers, which contains many answers to questions about
UseNet in general.
If you've read previous versions of this FAQ, you'll probably only want
to read anything that has changed since the last distribution. These
changes appear both in this document and in the accompanying "Changes to
the alt.binaries.pictures FAQ". Note that this is a "live" document, and
is always getting important information added or updated.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. USENET NEWSGROUPS AND THEIR USAGE
II. POSTING VOLUME
III. WHAT/WHEN TO POST
IV. POSTING CONTENT
V. Subject: LINE STANDARDS
VI. ANONYMOUS FTP
VII. "REPOST" REQUESTS
VIII. TEST POSTS
IX. DEALING WITH THOSE WHO DON'T/WON'T FOLLOW ETIQUETTE
I. USENET NEWSGROUPS AND THEIR USAGE
If you can't access UseNet (an international BBS-like system transmitted via
Internet), then you can't access these newsgroups either - don't bother
asking! You may still find the information in parts 2 and 3 valuable for
"general" pictures-viewing purposes, but you're out of luck as far as
getting any of the pictures that are posted in UseNet newsgroups.
Articles contained in the news groups in the alt.binaries.pictures*
hierarchy are available ONLY by subscribing to those groups through UseNet;
there are no FTP archive sites (with the exception of a.b.p.fractals - see
the "ftpsites" list on bongo), mailing list, or mail servers that allow
access to these articles. There is nothing unique or "magical" about the
pictures newsgroups - you subscribe to them as you would any other UseNet
newsgroup (like rec.humor, for example). If you want access to the pictures
hierarchy, your site must subscribe to it; talk to your news administrator!
Alternatively, you might be able to access these UseNet groups by connecting
to another site that *does* carry the UseNet pictures newsgroups, and do
your news reading there (then FTP the articles back to your site). This
may also be a problem, as you may not be able to telnet to another site
(because you don't have a true Internet connection), and you might also not
be able to access news at that site without the OK of the systems
administrator. You might check out either the UseNet
alt.internet.access.wanted or the alt.internet.services news groups to get
more info or make requests for remote access... (I've recently been
informed that the following sites provide Internet/UseNet access for a
small monthly fee, and also provide dial-up services for PCs: netcom.com,
digex.com, a2i.rahul.net).
Those of you without UseNet access (and therefore no way to access the
alt.internet* newsgroups) can get the necessary information via anonymous
FTP from pit-manager.mit.edu [18.72.1.58] as the file
"/pub/usenet/news.answers/internet-services.Z", on ftp.cs.ruu.nl
[131.211.80.17] as the file "/pub/NEWS.ANSWERS/internet-services", or from
ftp.uu.net [137.39.1.2, 137.39.1.9, or 192.48.96.2] in the file
"/usenet/news.answers/internet-services.Z". You can also get the
alt.internet.services FAQ via UUCP by retrieving the file
"uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/internet-services".
For an e-mail version of the alt.internet.services FAQ, send a message
to mail-...@pit-manager.mit.edu with the mail body
"send usenet/news.answers/internet-services" or e-mail to
mail-...@cs.ruu.nl with "send NEWS.ANSWERS/internet-services" in the
body of the message.
That said, on to the usage policies of the alt.binaries.pictures*
newsgroups:
Alt.binaries.pictures.erotica is for erotic pictures ONLY.
Erotic (adj): Of or arousing sexual feelings or desires; having to do
with sexual love; amatory.
ONLY the erotica newsgroups should be used for pictures of human nudity
or any form of pornography.
Alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.d is for the Discussion of pix in ABPE, etc.
Alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless is for "tasteless", "bizarre", or
"grotesque" pictures ONLY.
Alt.binaries.pictures.fractals is for fractal pictures ONLY.
Alt.binaries.pictures.misc is for the remaining types of pictures ONLY.
Alt.binaries.pictures.d is for the Discussion of pix in ABPT, ABPF, ABPM, etc.
Alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.graphics is for the posting of ORIGINAL
artwork created using computer programs ONLY. Moderated.
Alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.digitized is for the posting of scanned
ORIGINAL artwork ONLY. Moderated.
Alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.d is for the Discussion of pix in ABPF-AG or
ABPF-AD ONLY. Moderated.
Alt.binaries.pictures.utilities is for the posting of source or binary
executables of pictures-related software.
Any alt.binaries.pictures groups NOT mentioned above are either "splinter"
groups or are otherwise not officially sanctioned because their charter is
covered under one of the "official" pictures newsgroups. Any postings to
those newsgroups are likely to be rare, and probably will also not get very
good propagation to other sites...
Comp.sources.misc is a good place for image-viewing source code.
Comp.graphics is a good place for discussion of image formats.
Alt.graphics.pixutils is for discussion of image format translation.
Throughout the remainder of this document, any newsgroup in the
alt.binaries.pictures.* hierarchy WITHOUT the '.d' extension (including, but
not limited to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica, alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless,
and alt.binaries.pictures.misc) will be referred to as "the pictures
newsgroups", and those WITH the '.d' extension (including, but not limited to
alt.binaries.pictures.d and alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.d) will be referred
to as "the discussion newsgroups". These two types of newsgroups work
basically the same way as the comp.binaries.ibm.pc and c.b.i.p.d groups; one
is for posting new material, and one is for discussing posts and other issues.
BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF ABP* ETIQUETTE IS:
The pictures newsgroups are for pictures ONLY (if it's not a picture,
don't post it in any of these newsgroups)!!!! It has been pointed out
that some sites carry the pictures newsgroups without also carrying the
discussion newsgroups. This is very unfortunate, as there is often
valuable information contained in the discussion newsgroups that anyone
who frequents the pictures newsgroups would find of interest. If your
site doesn't carry the discussion newsgroups, complain to your news
administrator!
The basic idea is this: if it is a picture, post it to the appropriate
pictures newsgroup. If it is *ANYTHING ELSE* ANYTHING ANYTHING ANYTHING
ELSE (INCLUDING UTILITIES!!), post it to the associated discussion newsgroup
or to an appropriate utilities newsgroup (like a.b.p.utilities, for example)!
The truth is that I feel bad about posting *THIS FILE* to the pictures
newsgroups, because it is not a picture. However, the benefits of restricting
the requests for info far outweigh the detriment of breaking this rule.
PLEASE DO NOT POST ANYTHING TO THE PICTURES NEWSGROUPS THAT IS NOT A
PICTURE OF SOME SORT!!!!
II. POSTING VOLUME
The first thing is this: please restrict yourself to a maximum of 400
KB of images per day. If you've got a bunch of extremely small (50K
to 100 KB) pictures, then you can post several of them at once. If
you've got a few medium-sized pictures (150 to 200 KB), then you should
only post one or two of them per day. If you've got a few rather large
to huge (400K or more) pictures, you should only post one of them per
day. It's best to post the full image the same day, as some sites
expire things daily (sometimes in an even shorter period), so your
complete image would never be available there.
As you're no doubt thinking, this is inconvenient. Wouldn't it be nice
just to be able to post everything at once? Well, the problem is, if
you do this, you're essentially cutting your own throat (and others'
as well.)
The problem is that it takes a lot of time and effort (albeit automated,
but still), money, and disk space to transmit your pictures all over the
world. Unlike a lot of students at universities (for example), many
people at many sites have to pay directly out of their own pockets to
transmit news articles, in the form of phone bills for their modems.
Also, a lot of sites don't have infinitely large disks, and a
particularly heavy day of posting can actually fill up entire partitions.
You still might be thinking, "Well, that's their problem." - and you're
right. However, it becomes YOUR problem because a lot of sites still
propagate news articles in serial chains:
A <---> B <---> C <---> D <---> E
Now, say you're site A. You decide to post a few MB of pictures in one
day. Site B connects to your site, A, and grabs the articles. Site C
connects to site B and attempts to grab the articles. But site C is
rather limited. Its disks fill up a few times, perhaps the system
crashes. The sysadmin knows he will get an outrageous phone bill caused
by just ATTEMPTING to transmit all of your pictures.
So the sysadmin of site C "drops" the group (or groups) in which you posted
all of your pictures. So the people at sites D and E will now NEVER SEE
ANY OF THE PICTURES YOU POST. Conversely, because the chain is
bidirectional, if the people at sites D or E post some pictures, YOU
WILL NEVER SEE THEM. Congratulations, you've just slit not only your
own throat, but the throats of EVERYONE at sites A, B, C, D, and E as
well.
This is why everyone must post only limited amounts per day. As it is,
pictures newsgroups account for something like 50% of the entire net
traffic, and 75% of the alt.* traffic. We need to be self-policing, or
the pictures newsgroups will die out because of the phenomenon mentioned
above.
III. WHAT/WHEN TO POST
A common question that is asked is this one: what should I post to the
net? The basic answer is: anything you'd like to see here yourself!
If you got the file from some FTP site that was announced over the net,
don't bother posting it. 5-to-1 odds say that everyone and his dog
already have it, and we *really* need to be careful about wasting
bandwidth! If you're unsure of whether there's any interest in it,
just post a short message saying: "I have this file. Mail me if you
want a copy." If 500 people say they want one, post it... if only one
bozo from outer mongolia wants it, it's a sure bet that the picture has
already made the rounds! You might consider *e-mailing* it to the bozo
from outer mongolia instead!
The same goes if you see a request! If that same bozo posts a request
for T2.gif and you've got it and are thinking about posting it, *MAIL*
it to him/her instead! This will eliminate the problem of the same
picture getting posted to the net on a weekly basis (and pissing a lot
of people off in the process)!!!
Another practice that is generally frowned upon is converting or modifying
a file in some way and posting that. This includes file renaming. If
you're planning on posting something you got from somewhere, DON'T DINK
WITH IT by converting it from GIF to JPEG format, cropping it, remapping
colors, or naming it something "better". You're certainly welcome to do
any or all of these things to your own personal copy - just don't re-post
it with your changes! Keep the original for re-posting purposes...
IV. POSTING CONTENT
In the actual message you're posting (commonly in either part 0 or part
1), be sure to give at least a brief description of what's in it, like:
CRSH+BRN.GIF 800x600x256 (in 8 parts)
This is 15th in the series of this plane crash at the Beirut Air Show
taken at every single conceivable angle. This one was taken from a
photograph by a guy who happened to be standing directly under the
plane as it came down. Pulitzer Prize material. At least the camera
was saved.
Also, checksums are nice, for people with access to sum programs. It
helps people identify erroneous transmissions. Usually people include
things like
Checksums: (obtained with 4.2 BSD 'sum' or SysV 'sum -r')
between 'CUT HERE lines':
part 1: 76663 9082
part 2: 78973 1234
etc...
In the case where someone is going to be posting several pictures of
a series, they sometimes choose to post an "index" picture that contains
the entire series, each at a smaller scale. This is great, it gives
everyone a chance to see if they're interested in the series at all, but
this does NOT mean that the poster should not use descriptions in the
individual postings! And a description of "this is the third pictures
from the index I posted the other day" doesn't cut it, either. As for
the "index" posting itself, a simple description of the entire series is
probably in order, but it's not necessary to describe each picture of the
series. Also, make sure that the index pictures aren't so small as to
make them unrecognizable - otherwise you're just wasting bandwidth! The
best format for an index posting is nearly always going to be JPEG, since
it can handle 24 bits worth of color. Even if the pictures of the index
are all 8-bit GIFs (256 colors), it's very unlikely that they all use the
*same* 256 colors - posting the index in GIF loses *a lot* of color, since
all the individual picture colors need to be re-mapped in order to share
a common set of 256 colors.
If you have a GIF file, don't bother trying to run some compression
routine on it... it *won't* work. LZW compression (the kind used in
GIF files) is a very efficient compression scheme, and happens to be
the one used in many common compression routines (including the standard
UNIX `compress' utility!). If you try to compress a GIF file, it will
usually just end up getting bigger, and cause undue hardship to those
trying to download and decode the picture as well.
The most common standard for binary file transmission is the UUENCODE
standard. Apple's BinHex is also frequently used. Be aware, however,
that the further you stray from a standard, the fewer the people that
will be able to decode your posting, and the more it begins to become
high-volume garbage.
It is necessary to split large files because of a few reasons. First of
all, not all news software can handle huge files. Secondly, and more
important, if some sort of error in transmission occurs (yes, it *does*
happen from time to time) you only need to re-broadcast one small part,
rather than the whole multi-megabyte image.
If you do post a multi-part file, be sure to add lines before and
after the data that say 'CUT HERE' so that people trimming the headers
and trailers by hand know where to cut. A recent addition to the
etiquette also has you make the lines say 'BEGIN-----Cut Here' and
'END-----Cut Here' at the obvious locations, so that simple AWK and
PERL scripts can handle multi-part files. Another nice thing to do is
to put the part (02/06) numbers in each file. There are several
"super" uuencode programs that will do most of this for you (see part
3 for more details). It is important to make the "Cut Here" parts in
mixed-case or lower-case letters; some decoders detect data based on
the presence of characters which belong in the normal uuencoding
character set, and they will choke on lines which are all upper-case,
as these are valid uuencode characters. If you mix the cases, these
decoders will do fine... Remember (if you add "BEGIN" and "END"
keywords) to make "BEGIN" and "END" all caps so existing scripts won't
miss them, and so uudecoders won't choke on them.
V. Subject: LINE STANDARDS
Above all else, be sure to give subject lines that are informative.
The subject line should contain (at an absolute minimum):
The file name
Which part this is, and how many total parts
As an expanded suggestion for a standard, consider the following:
- - filename.type (part/total) {label} ^REPOST^ [sh] "extraTitle"
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
| | | | | | | | |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1) The '-' character sets this off as a picture posting (not a follow-up,
not a request, not a flame for a follow-up or a request, etc.).
OPTIONAL (but highly suggested).
2) The name of the file. You might consider limiting this to a maximum
of as few as 8 characters, since this is the limit of some archaic
operating systems. Other nearly equally archaic OS's limit you to 14
characters. Do what you will, but realize others' limitations...
REQUIRED.
3) The type of picture (GIF, JPEG, PostScript). The suggested standard
is to stick to all lower case, three characters maximum (gif, jpg, ps).
REQUIRED.
4, 5) Which part of how many this is. Enclosed in parentheses.
REQUIRED.
6) The type of picture ("male", "female", "both", "plane", "scenic", etc.).
Enclosed in curly brackets.
OPTIONAL (but very considerate).
7) Notifies everyone that this is a repost of a posting that went sour.
Enclosed in up-arrows (circumflex or caret characters).
OPTIONAL (but very considerate).
8) Flag that notifies people that this posting uses script wrappers (in case
they have to handle these special). Enclosed in square brackets.
OPTIONAL (but very considerate).
9) Additional descriptive text to give a better idea of what's in the picture.
Enclosed in double quotes.
OPTIONAL (but very considerate).
This suggested standard is intended to be strictly ordered (i.e. if there's
a ^REPOST^ notification, it appears after any label info and before any
script wrapper notification).
For example:
- CRSH+BRN.GIF (02/08) {plane} "Plane crash at an air show, 800x600x256"
Notice that it includes everything: the file name, what part of how
many this one is, a short description, and the resolution. If you
insist on leaving everything *else* out, at least say the name of
the file and which part of how many it is!
In the "erotica" newsgroups, it's also popular (and often demanded!)
to include the picture subject's gender (i.e. "{male}", "{female}",
"{both}", etc.). The gender should be considered as part of the
minimal set of information in the "erotica" newsgroups, as the addition
of this information to the subject line makes it possible for people to
avoid spending time downloading stuff they don't care about.
Certain newsreaders (NN, for example) sort the articles alphabetically
by title, so subject lines with part numbers get displayed and saved
in order. There is an obvious (and common) way to torpedo this
process: make subject lines which do not follow sequentially.
An example:
first article's subject: "plane crash GIF: CRSH+BRN (part 1 / 4)"
subsequent articles' subjects: "CRSH+BRN (part N / 4)"
These subject lines will not be displayed and sorted correctly by NN.
However, if you change the arrangement a little, like this:
first article's subject: "CRSH+BRN (part 1/4) plane crash GIF"
subsequent articles' subjects: "CRSH+BRN (part N/4)"
you will please NN-users the world over.
VI. ANONYMOUS FTP
A word about anonymous FTP and GIF files. When you log onto a remote
machine via anonymous FTP, please try to restrict yourself to no more
then ten minutes of transmission time, or about five to ten files. As
you can imagine, when people discover a new archive of GIF files,
they are all hot to download every one they can, and often they jam up
the site for *days*. You'll notice this effect the first time some
bozo announces the name of a new GIF archive. You won't be able to
get through without persistent efforts over several hours or even a
day or two. Then the system administrators of that site notice that
they have had about $5,000 worth of anonymous FTP over the last two
days, and revoke the anonymous FTP privilege. Now every one is
screwed.
Be considerate; grab only a few files and then let someone else have a
chance. This probably won't solve the problem in the long term (still
everyone and his dog will be ftp'ing into that machine), but at least
it will spread the wealth a bit.
As for anonymous FTP sites for erotica pictures, THEY DO NOT EXIST (except
of course for that long-standing favorite, 127.0.0.1 - the Internet
loop-back address... your own machine, of course!). Even if you find an
anonymous FTP site that *appears* to have erotica pictures, it is merely an
illusion. As the sage once said, "Revel in your illusions, don't share
them." The effects of sharing your illusion in this case *ALWAYS* results
in your illusion being rendered non-existent (in one way or another). For
this very same reason, it is considered very poor form to ask someone else
to share their illusions with you. If you were considering asking for a
list of anonymous FTP sites with erotica pictures -- don't.
VII. "REPOST" REQUESTS
Your absolutely last course of action should be to ask for a repost of
an article. There are so very many other ways that the download and
decode process could have failed, you should be very sure that none of
these steps went south BEFORE asking for a repost. After you have
exhausted all of the possibilities from your end, post to the discussion
newsgroup and request someone to send you their (working) copy. If
enough people post requests of this sort, eventually the original
poster will usually re-post it. If you're the only person with a
problem, someone is bound to send you the file, and you'll save the
net 'hundreds if not thousands of dollars.'
Also, just because you've already read an article doesn't mean it has
vanished off the face of the earth. It is a fairly simple matter to get
back to articles you've already read (unless your site administrator
has removed them or they've expired). There are essentially four methods
to accomplish this (examples assume you're using rn):
1. Assuming you know the article number(s) of the postings, just
enter the article number from within that newsgroup. Voila!
2. Since you probably DON'T know the article number, once you are
in the appropriate newsgroup, you can step backwards or forwards
through the articles by using "P" (previous) and "N" (next).
3. So you don't know the article number, and you don't want to step
backwards through 50+ articles - what now? As long as you
remember something from the subject line of the article, you can
use regular expressions to search backwards, using the command
"?pattern?r", where pattern is the part you remember. For
example, you read an article with the word "howdy" in the subject,
then decide later you want to get back to that article. Just get
into the right newsgroup, then enter "?howdy?r" and rn will search
back through all the articles you've read to find the last one
with "howdy" somewhere in the title. Not the right one? Enter
"?", and rn will retrieve the next-to-last article with "howdy"
in the title.
4. You can modify your .newsrc file so that articles are no longer
marked as being read (this file usually resides in your home
directory). This is especially valuable if you forgot the name
of a particular posting, but you know it was in the last ?x?
number articles. For example, if your .newsrc file reads:
alt.binaries.pictures.misc: 1-2380
...and you know that the article you're looking for was in the
last 30 or so postings, you could edit this line to read:
alt.binaries.pictures.misc: 1-2350
...so that your news reader would think that you hadn't yet seen
these articles (of course you'll have to re-sort through many
other articles you've already seen, but hopefully you'll at least
be able to find the "lost" article!). IMPORTANT NOTE!!: If you
edit your .newsrc file, make *absolutely sure* that you aren't
currently running a news reader session - this may munge the
.newsrc file, or cause other undefined or undesirable side-effects.
By using these techniques, you won't have to ask for someone to e-mail you a
copy or to re-post the article, since you already have it and know how to
get back to it!
VIII. TEST POSTS
If you're trying out a new method of posting, or if you are posting a
picture for the first time, or if it's been a while since you posted a
picture and you're not really sure you remember all the details on how to
do it right, by all means, PLEASE DO A TEST POSTING FIRST! Test postings
should *NEVER* be made in any of the pictures newsgroups or the pictures
discussion newsgroups - there are plenty of test newsgroups made for just
this purpose (local.test is your best choice, misc.test is also nice).
Wherever you do your test posting, make sure to add the line
Distribution: local
in the heading so your post doesn't go outside your site. Make sure that
you can download, re-construct, and view the picture you've posted. Then,
when you're satisfied that all is well, post it into the appropriate
pictures newsgroup!
IX. DEALING WITH THOSE WHO DON'T/WON'T FOLLOW ETIQUETTE
How should you react if you notice someone violating any of these items
of netiquette? It depends on what they've done, of course. In the case
of some posting that you find offensive, the best course of action is
just to ignore it. 95% of the time, these people are just trying to pull
someone's chain - and they are usually pretty successful (I can't tell
you how many megabytes of responses I've seen to just one sentence of
crap). Another 3% of the time, someone has left themselves logged in and
is having a "joke" played on them by a "friend". The other 2% of the time,
they actually believe what they are saying. In this case, do you really
think that they care that you find what they say offensive? Especially in
the last case, silence does more to thwart their behavior than anything
else. Refusing to even acknowledge someone usually damages them more than
you could possibly hope to do by responding to them in any way. Don't even
waste the time, effort, and money (after all, someone *is* paying for what
you say, somewhere) to follow up.
In the case of posting a discussion to a pictures newsgroup, probably the
*worst* thing you can possibly do is follow-up to the offending posting
and yourself violate the same rule! After all, what good are you doing
by complaining about someone violating a rule you ignore yourself? If you
really *must* follow-up to this type of posting, make sure and edit the
Newsgroups: line so that your post is re-directed to the discussion
newsgroup. Another technique you might try is just ignoring the post -
if enough people did this, it's entirely likely that there would soon be
no discussion at all in the pictures newsgroups, except for the occasional
newbie or someone not wise enough to read this FAQ - and they'd learn
eventually. I suggest the following course of action, in order of
preference:
1) Respond via e-mail. Gently suggest that they take discussion to
the discussion newsgroup. Answer the question/request if you can.
Suggest that they read this FAQ to get more information and to
better understand pictures newsgroup etiquette.
2) Follow-up only if you can answer the question/request, re-directing
your posting to the appropriate discussion newsgroup (edit the
Newsgroups: line). Suggest that they read this FAQ to get more
information and to better understand pictures newsgroup etiquette.
3) Ignore the posting. They'll most likely get the hint eventually.
4) Follow-up only if you can answer the question/request, re-directing
the follow-ups of your posting to the appropriate discussion
newsgroup (edit the Followup-to: line -- your posting will go to
the pictures newsgroup, but anyone following up to your posting
will go to the discussion newsgroup). Gently suggest that this
type of posting belongs in the discussion newsgroup, and that
that's where follow-ups have been re-directed. Maybe even throw
in a small uuencoded picture at the end of your posting, just to
make it "legal". Suggest that they read this FAQ to get more
information and to better understand pictures newsgroup etiquette.
The more people that respond in a positive way, the fewer the flame wars,
and the more pictures vs. discussion will end up in the pictures
newsgroups! That *is* what we're here for, after all!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HISTORY OF THIS FAQ:
This file originally began life as the FAQ for alt.sex.pictures, and
was first created and maintained by Dave Read (rea...@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu).
Minor changes and a few additions to clean it up a bit and make it a little
more relevant to the alt.binaries.pictures group were made by Steven M.
Quinn (ste...@umbc5.umbc.edu). A hierarchy of pictures groups (all under
alt.binaries.pictures) was put into place in the fall of 1991, and since
that time, Jim Howard (de...@cadence.com) has come forward to take over
the maintenance of the "new" FAQ.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acknowledgements (part 1):
* Thanx to both James Ralston Crawford (qral...@cislabs.pitt.edu) and
Silver (gay...@blaze.rutgers.edu) for input and suggestions on posting
volume.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's about it for the "general etiquette" information. General pictures
information is continued in part 2 of this FAQ. If you have any
suggestions for things to include in future versions, don't hesitate
to let me know...
--
Jim Howard *** jho...@best.com *** http://infolane.com/deej/index.html
Author, "The Internet Voyeur" (http://infolane.com/deej/voyeur.html)
(^:= Flames cheerfully ignored. =:^)
................................................................................
C:\WINDOWS C:\WINDOWS\GO C:\PC\CRAWL
Jim Howard
Last-modified: 05 March 1993
This is part 2 of the FAQ for the alt.binaries.pictures* hierarchy.
This part of the alt.binaries.pictures FAQ contains "general", or
operating-system independent information. It answers (hopefully) all
the questions you may have about the pictures newsgroups, decoding and
encoding techniques, and picture formats.
For information on issues of etiquette and posting policy and/or
suggestions, consult part 1 of this posting.
For information on your particular system and on specific utilities,
consult part 3 of this posting.
Before posting to these groups for the first time, please check the FAQ
list (this posting - including parts 2 and 3), and also read the newsgroup
news.announce.newusers, which contains many answers to questions about
UseNet in general.
If you've read previous versions of this FAQ, you'll probably only want
to read anything that has changed since the last distribution. These
changes appear both in this document and in the accompanying "Changes to
the alt.binaries.pictures FAQ". Note that this is a "live" document, and
is always getting important information added or updated.
***********************************************************************
This file is intended to be a general introduction to the pictures
newsgroups, answering some common questions concerning pictures posted
in those newsgroups, namely how to decode and view them. It is not, of
course, possible to cover everything, but I will try to to get as much
as I can into this file. If you feel something important has been
omitted and you know the subject well, please write me so I can
include the info for future releases. E-mail should be sent to
de...@cadence.com for these purposes.
Before you miss an important detail contained in this file, let me
"pre-repeat" that many of the programs mentioned in this document are
available for anonymous ftp at bongo.cc.utexas.edu (128.83.186.13), in
the gifstuff directory. Also: there are NO GIF files of any kind at
this site! Save your time and don't bother looking for them!
OK... on to the real reason you're reading this document...
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. ABOUT THIS FAQ
II. DOWNLOADING AND DECODING FILES
III. COMMON PICTURE TYPES
IV. ENCODING AND UPLOADING FILES
V. ALTERNATE SOURCES FOR PICTURES/HOW-TO'S OF FTP
VI. COMMON PROBLEMS
VII. COPYRIGHT
I. ABOUT THIS FAQ
This FAQ is posted every other Monday to the alt.binaries.pictures
newsgroups and to news.answers. It is also available by anonymous FTP,
from UUCP, or through e-mail by using the services available from a couple
of mail servers. For anonymous FTP access, you can look on either
pit-manager.mit.edu [18.72.1.58] in /pub/usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq
in files "part1.Z", "part2.Z", or "part3.Z", on ftp.cs.ruu.nl
[131.211.80.17] in /pub/NEWS.ANSWERS/pictures-faq for "part1", "part2", or
"part3", on ftp.uu.net [137.39.1.2, 137.39.1.9, or 192.48.96.2] in
/usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq as the files "part1.Z", "part2.Z", or
"part3.Z".
You can get the FAQ via UUCP by retrieving the appropriate part from
"uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part1",
"uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part2", or
"uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part3".
For e-mail access, send a message to mail-...@pit-manager.mit.edu
with the mail body "send usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part1" to get the
first part, "send usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part2" for the second,
and "send usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part3" for the third, or e-mail
to mail-...@cs.ruu.nl with "send NEWS.ANSWERS/pictures-faq/part1",
"send NEWS.ANSWERS/pictures-faq/part2", and/or
"send NEWS.ANSWERS/pictures-faq/part3" in the body of the message.
II. DOWNLOADING AND DECODING FILES
Basic checklist: Alternate checklist:
---------------- --------------------
News reader News reader (optional in some cases)
Text file editor "Super-decoder"
UUDECODEr
By far the most common method of posting files to the pictures
newsgroups is the UUENCODE standard. This program, shipped standard
with most implementations of UNIX, converts binary files into plain-text
ASCII files which can be handled by the mail system. You will need a
version of UUDECODE before anything else in order to view anything
downloaded from the net. If your system does not have a version of
UUDECODE available, you can get one via anonymous ftp from
bongo.cc.utexas.edu, in the gifstuff/uutools directory.
The format of a uuencoded file consists of an optional "table specification",
which consists of the word "table" alone on a line, followed by one or more
lines containing the characters that will be used in the remaining encoded
data. Following this, the standard requires the line containing only the text
"begin <permissions> <filename>" (where "<permissions>" is a three-character
numeric string, and "<filename>" notes the name of the decoded file - for
example "begin 640 myfile.gif"). This "begin" line is then followed by
several lines of approximately 61 characters, all beginning with a capital
"M", and containing any non-lower-case printing character (and very rarely
resembles anything but absolute gibberish). Optionally, one to two lines
may be blank or contain less than the normal number of characters if those
lines are immediately before the line containing the "end" notation (in this
case, these shorter lines will NOT begin with "M"). The "end" text alone on
a line marks the conclusion of the uuencoded data. Any information that does
not fit into the above classifications are termed as either "headers" or
"trailers", and are not intended to be included in the information to be
decoded. For example, the following represents a valid uuencoded file
(although it contains no useful information - don't bother decoding it!):
begin 666 bogus.file
MLEHHWHURHUH %$^4653%#$#&^%$$46^%#^%)LKDUHEWFHIUG^$^#DJIUTE&F
M&#H:FNP(ENER(*HNFUHDG(&#&B#HY@#(*@YNUF(&$HU$HF(YSAUHIRY(&YHU
#(*NUFE(YHD7H
end
Most decoders are smart enough to ignore anything before the "begin" line
and after the "end" line.
The first step is to save the file you want to view... in most versions
of the newsreader, this is done by pressing 's' followed immediately (no
spaces usually, although some versions don't care) by a file name.
You will usually be asked if you want to save it in mailbox format;
you should answer 'n'. When saving an article to a file in
mailbox format, the article is sometimes changed in a subtle
way, making it impossible to decode.
In the case of a single-part file, you can now uudecode the file,
which will create whatever output file is encoded. You can usually
tell if it's a single-part file by looking on the subject line;
standard netiquette is to make something like [03/06] part of the
subject line, which indicates you're on part 3 of a 6-part file. If no
numbers are there, you can usually assume it is a 1-part file. If
not, feel free to write the poster (directly... please don't waste
bandwidth by posting) and request that he/she put this info in the
subject line. Be nice about it! Another way to determine if a file
is a single-parter is if both the uuencode "begin" and "end" lines
(as outlined above in the description of the uuencode format) are
included in the file.
For multi-part files, life is a little more difficult. If all you
have is a standard UUDECODE program (as opposed to a "smart decoder"),
you will need to trim the headers and trailers out from the rest of the
information. You can either do this by saving each part in its own file
and editting them separately, then concatenate the editted files together
to make one big file (this might be your only choice if your editor can't
handle large files!), or you can save each part in order into one big
file and then edit all the headers and trailers out from that file.
Either way, you'll need to run the result through UUDECODE. You can use
your favorite text editor to strip out header and trailer information.
There are several "smart decoders" out there that will handle all of
the header/trailer stripping and decoding for you (some will even make
sure that the pieces are in order!) - see part 3 of this posting for
specifics.
Some articles are actually posted with easy decoding in mind, and contain
UNIX shell script headers/trailers that facilitate easier decoding. This
is often very helpful, as it saves you a lot of work, and can also provide
error checking not available in a "normal" uuencoded posting. These
postings nearly always contain instructions on their use, so I won't
attempt to explain all the details here. There's no set "standard" for
this type of posting anyway - except for MIME. MIME, the Multipurpose
Internet Mail Extensions, proposes a standard for the posting and mailing
of multi-media articles (postings may include pictures, sounds, movies,
or other media types - which may be combined in one article). Public-
domain packages using MIME are available (Metamail, for example). For
more information on MIME and Metamail, contact n...@bellcore.com.
Some news readers have an "extract" capability that greatly simplifies
life by automatically decoding articles - this means you don't have to
go to the hassle of saving to a file and then decoding. Newer versions
of rn, nn, and trn can handle this - check the "man" page or ask your
news administrator to find out if you can let your news reader do the
work for you!
If you're going to download the decoded picture file to a home machine,
or move it around a network, remember that most decoded file outputs are
going to be BINARY files, so set your transfer protocol accordingly.
If you are moving around just the uuencoded data, an ASCII transfer will
work just fine, however (you'll have to decode it eventually, of course).
Note that if you *don't* transfer the decoded file in BINARY mode,
everything will appear to work just fine - until you try to view the
picture. Then you'll get all sorts of undefined results...
III. COMMON PICTURE TYPES
Basic checklist: Alternate checklist:
---------------- --------------------
GIF viewer Multi-format viewer
Format conversion tool(s) Format conversion tool(s)
Image manipulation tool(s)
OK. Now you've got this great picture file from downloading it and
running it through UUDECODE. What is it, and what do you do with it?
The most common type of picture is the GIF format (which usually has
a .GIF or .gif file suffix). GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format,
and is a standard format for images that was developed by CompuServe to
be a device-independent method of storing pictures. It includes
Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression, which makes the files fairly small.
JPEG is another standardized image compression mechanism, which stands
for Joint Photographic Experts Group (the original name of the committee
that wrote the standard). It seems more and more common that JPEG-type
pictures (.JPG or .jpg file suffix, usually) are getting posted to the
net. Some claim that JPEG is destined to overtake GIF format in popularity,
because it is the most compact method to store 24-bit data, but mostly due
to the fact that it uses much less space to store the same picture (this is,
in fact, true - I have seen many examples of this phenomenon). This may be
an accurate assessment, but this will probably take a while to happen, as
most people HAVE GIF software/viewers, but lack JPEG equivalents.
Undoubtedly, however, this too shall change, but at this point, JPEG is
recognized as still being in its infancy. But, if you prefer to be on the
leading (bleeding?) edge, it is possible to get software both to view JPEG
pictures, and to convert JPEG to and from other formats, as detailed in
part 3.
The latest and greatest info about JPEG is included in the Tom Lane's
"JPEG image compression: Frequently Asked Questions" (archive name is
"jpeg-faq"), posted on a regular basis to the alt.binaries.pictures.d,
alt.graphics.pixutils, alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.d, alt.sex.pictures.d,
and news.answers newsgroups.
Of course, to view a picture of a particular type, you will need a viewer
that supports that type (again, for specifics on viewers for your
particular configuration, see part 3 of this posting).
There are other types of single-picture files posted to the net,
although they are not as common as GIF or JPEG files. Other than the
difference in the viewing software, the downloading/decoding and
encoding/uploading procedures are identical as for other types of pictures.
Platform-dependent picture types and conversion programs are discussed
in part 3 of this posting.
Occasionally people get into an argument about which standard is best.
I think the answer is: WHO CARES?!? The only thing I have to say
about this matter is that almost every machine under the sun already
has a program written for it to view GIF files, and if yours doesn't,
shareware or PD source code is available almost everywhere.
Commonly people post files to the net with a .GL extension. These
files are actually animated picture-shows that can be viewed on a small
number of system types.
Usually, GL files are huge, so people often compress them with one of
several popular compression/archiving packages. Perhaps the most
common is the PC family's PKZIP package. If a GL file is posted with
a .ZIP extension, you know it's been ZIP'ed. Similarly, if it has a
.Z extension, it's been compressed with the UNIX `compress' utility.
"Uncompression" tools of either type are available for various types of
systems - part 3 has the necessary details.
Files of a .DL extension are also sometimes posted. These are very
similar to GL files, except in format, so of course it takes different
software to view them (this software is also discussed in part 3).
Then there's FLI - yet another GL/DL type of file. FLI's are generally
considered poorer quality than either GL or DL, however.
The table below lists many of the common file types for pictures or
compression formats for different systems. This information may be useful
if you download a tool and then don't know how to decompress it into a
usable form, or as a "quick reference" of file types. Decompressors or
viewers of "unlike" system types exist on some systems - see the particular
system information for details on this aspect.
File extension File type
-------------- ----------
ARC ARChive (many OS's support) - compressed file(s)
ARJ Yet another archive format - compressed file(s)
BMP Windows and OS/2 BitMaP picture file
CPT Macintosh CompactPro compressed file.
DIB Windows and OS/2 BitMaP picture file
DL Animated picture file (system independent, for
those with viewers)
FLI Animated picture file (system independent, for
those with viewers)
GIF Graphics Interchange Format -
system independent picture file
GL Animated picture file (system independent, for
those with viewers)
IMG IMaGe - ? picture file
JPG (JPEG) Joint Photography experts Group - system
independent picture file
LZH Amiga LZH - compressed file(s) - LHarc output
MAC (MACP) Macintosh MacPaint - Macintosh picture file
HQX Macintosh BinHex - encoded file
IFF Amiga Interchangeable File Format - Amiga
file interchange (used for many types of binary
data). If it contains a picture file, then
the picture is either an ILBM (InterLeaved
BitMap), HAM (Hold-And-Modify), DHAM (DynaHAM),
or SHAM (Sliced HAM).
IM8 (RAST) Sun RASTer file - Sun picture file
PCX IBM PC Paintbrush - IBM picture file
PICT Macintosh QuickDraw PICTure - Macintosh picture
file
PS (PSID) Encapsulated PostScript/PostScript Image Data -
printer-ready text/picture file
RAW RAW RGB - 24-bit system independent picture file
SEA Macintosh Self-Extracting Archive
SHK Macintosh Shrinkit - compressed file(s)
SIT Macintosh StuffIt - compressed file(s)
TGA TrueVision TarGA file - ? picture file
TIFF Tagged Image Format File - 24-bit system
independent picture file
UUE UNIX UUEncoding - encoded file
XBM X windows Bit Map - UNIX/X windows picture file
Z UNIX LZW "compress" - compressed file(s)
ZIP MS-DOS ZIP - compressed file(s)
ZOO MS-DOS ZOO - compressed file(s)
IV. ENCODING AND UPLOADING FILES
Basic checklist: Alternate checklist:
---------------- --------------------
UUENCODEr "Auto-posting" tool(s)
Editor or file splitter
News posting software
First things first: before you do any sort of posting, be sure you've
read and understand the a.b.p* netiquette as outlined in part 1 of this
FAQ. This will save you from countless flamings!
OK. You need to UUENCODE the file. Find an encoder and encode it!
If the output file is particularly large (i.e. more than 60 KB), it
would be wise to split up the encoded file into smaller parts (<= 60 KB)
and then post those. You can split the file with a text editor if you
like, or check part 3 for more specifics on splitting utilities.
Now post the files... and remember to include the neat info mentioned
in part 1, like subject lines that mean something, descriptions,
checksums, "Cut Here" lines, etc...
There are some very nice "super posting" utilities out there that will
handle all the lower-level details for you. See part 3 for more info
on these utilities. If you don't use one, you'll obviously need to do
all the uuencoding, splitting, and the posting of each split part
yourself - which can become quite a tedious process! Another benefit of
the "super posters" is that they enforce some standardization on the way
posts look - making an auto-decoder's job much easier in the process!
V. ALTERNATE SOURCES FOR PICTURES/HOW-TO'S OF FTP
Basic checklist: Alternate checklist:
---------------- --------------------
Direct Internet access E-mail software
FTP software
"archie" access
The pictures newsgroups are certainly not the only source for pictures,
nor are GIF files the only types available (see section III). The most
likely place you are to find other pictures is in an archive that is
reachable via FTP. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and is a
program for transmitting files over the network. To use FTP, you will
need access to a computer with the FTP program, and a network connection.
Be aware that files on FTP sites will probably NOT be UUENCODED, so
remember to transfer in binary when getting non-text files.
For the greatest level of detail on FTP and finding sources in general, you
should refer to the posting "How to find sources (READ THIS BEFORE POSTING)",
which is periodically posted to comp.sources.wanted, alt.sources.wanted, and
news.answers OR you can execute either 'finger f...@piggy.ucsb.edu' or
'finger f...@ferkel.ucsb.edu' to get a quick tutorial. You can also get the
"finding sources" FAQ via anonymous FTP, available on either
pit-manager.mit.edu [18.72.1.58] in /pub/usenet/news.answers as the file
"finding-sources.Z", on ftp.cs.ruu.nl [131.211.80.17] in /pub/NEWS.ANSWERS
as "finding-sources", on ftp.uu.net [137.39.1.2, 137.39.1.9, or 192.48.96.2]
in /usenet/news.answers as file "finding-sources.Z". UUCP access is done by
retrieving the file "uunet!/archive/usenet/news.answers/finding-sources".
Lastly, you can get this FAQ by sending a message to either of
mail-...@pit-manager.mit.edu with the mail body
"send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources", or to mail-...@cs.ruu.nl with
"send NEWS.ANSWERS/finding-sources" in the body of the message.
One of the useful things detailed in the "finding sources" posting mentioned
above involves the use of the "archie" facility, which makes it very easy to
find a program if you know its name (or just part of its name if you specify
the "set search sub" option). You can do this either directly by logging
into an archie server or via e-mail. It may take a small amount of effort -
but it's a heck of a lot easier and faster than asking the entire
net.population!
Additionally, it is possible to get files from anonymous FTP sites via
e-mail. For details on this wonderful facility, send an e-mail containing
the text "help" to ftp...@decwrl.dec.com. For those of you on BITNET,
send an e-mail containing the text "help" to bit...@pucc.princeton.edu.
Now you too can get all sorts of great utilities from anonymous FTP sites
using an e-mail proxy!
Due to popular demand, an anonymous FTP site list of pictures-related
"stuff" has now been compiled and is available from bongo in
/gifstuff/ftpsites. This list is by no means guaranteed to be accurate
or comprehensive, but hopefully most of the information is valid. BTW,
this list is a condensed and supplemented version of the Jan. 20, 1990
revision of Jon Granrose's (od...@pilot.njin.net) "List of Hosts that
Accept Anonymous FTP Requests", which is posted regularly to comp.misc,
comp.sources.wanted, and alt.sources.wanted, and also available via
anonymous FTP from pilot.njin.net (128.6.7.38). Any additions or
corrections would be most welcome and appreciated!
Most ftp programs will allow you to enter something like
ftp wsmr-simtel20.army.mil
which will connect you with the mighty SIMTEL-20 archives at the White
Sands Missile Range. Occasionally, you will encounter an ftp program
that is old enough or slothful enough that it does not recognize
internet-style addresses like the one above. In that case, you'll
need to know the computer's numeric address; for SIMTEL-20
you would enter
ftp 192.88.110.20
Once you're connected, you'll have to tell the computer at the other
end that you want to log in, by entering USER (some machines save you
this step by *assuming* you want to log in. What else would you want
to do?) When you are prompted for an account name, enter
anonymous
When it asks you for a password, enter *your* internet address.
Often the machine to which you are trying to connect will be busy
(i.e. too many anonymous users), in which case the machine will inform
you of this and throw you off. Try again later.
Now you're in. What do you do? Well, you need to know where the
files are stored that you want. If you know this, just
cd directory-name
to the directory in question. Then you can do a DIR to find out
what is in it.
So you see a file called CRSH+BRN.GIF and you want it for yourself.
What do you do? Well, the first thing is to tell the computer on the
other end that you want it to transmit a binary file. On most FTP
servers, entering the magic word TENEX will do this. If the machine
doesn't recognize TENEX, try BINARY, or if all else fails, you can
enter
TYPE L 8
Be sure to do this for GIF files or you'll get garbage when you try
to view them!
The difference between TENEX and BINARY is in translation of data type
sizes - if your machine type has different data type sizes than the one
you're downloading from, use TENEX, otherwise use BINARY. If you're not
sure, try TENEX first (if the command isn't recognized, you're probably
OK). On some VAX platforms, the keyword "IMAGE" is also sometimes used
to denote binary files.
Now you're ready to grab the files you want. You have two options:
you can type
get filename
or
mget wildcard
where wildcard is any UNIX-style wildcard. MGET will get all files
that satisfy the specification.
When you're done grabbing files, type QUIT or BYE to log off the remote
machine and return to yours. Now you're ready to view the picture -
no decoding step necessary (neat, eh?)!
Most of the non-erotica pictures that appear in postings to the
alt.binaries.pictures* hierarchy are available from anonymous FTP sites
(again, see bongo's "ftpsites" list), but this is of course not guaranteed.
The other most common method for obtaining files is from an archival
file server. Most of these work in the following way: you send mail
to the server's address, with one-line commands in your message, like
help
directory \pictures\gif\family-oriented
send \pictures\gif\family-oriented\CRSH+BRN.GIF
and the requested info is sent back to you at some later time, when
the server has time to get around to it.
The first step when you discover a server system is to send a HELP
command so you can learn what the commands are for that server.
However, most servers operate with commands basically similar to those
listed above.
VI. COMMON PROBLEMS
Basic checklist:
----------------
At least one clue
Some small level of intelligence
Self-determination
Well, you've downloaded the file, tried to view it, and got garbage.
What went wrong?
The two most likely places for something to go wrong are both in the
transmission of the file. The first is this: when you downloaded the
file to your home computer, did you remember to tell the modem-
transfer software that you're sending a binary file?
The second-most likely is that you forgot to say TENEX before you
grabbed the file via FTP.
Either of these will result in mangled files that are unviewable by
anything known to man.
Also: did you remember to trim off the header and trailer information if
you are/were using a "simple" uudecoder? The symptom of forgetting to
do this is usually a message something like "short file" from your GIF
viewer. There could also be the problem where blank lines are left
between parts (or anywhere for that matter) within the 'begin' and 'end'
lines of the uuencoded file. Uudecode will get through them fine, but some
GIF viewers will choke on the results. The only blank line I've seen
get by is the one just before the 'end' statement. Beware of taking
too much or not enough off of the headers and trailers.
Another common problem is this one: IBM mainframes often use an
EBCDIC character set (yes, there's more than one EBCDIC set!) instead
of the ASCII set used by everyone else. This wouldn't be a problem except
that most ASCII-EBCDIC converters have a bug which mungs the translation
of several characters, including ^ { } and a few others. Even this
wouldn't be a problem except that the particular munging it does is to
map several of these characters onto the *same* wrong character. Ooops.
The way around this is not to use uuencode to transfer these files,
but to use xx-encode, which produces files which look almost exactly
like uu-encoded files, but they use a character set which is
IBM-proof. If you are using an IBM mainframe as your host computer
and you're having trouble decoding files, this is most likely your
problem. Solution: 1) find a kind soul who is willing to uudecode the
files, xxencode them and send them to you, 2) get the files via FTP,
which should be EBCDIC-proof, or 3) get a better computer that uses
everybody else's character set. :-)
Sometimes, you need to run the "bilf" utility on a file in order to
fix it. The "bilf" utility changes carriage-return/line-feed sets
into just carriage-return (or vice-versa). MSDOS uses CR/LF at the
end of lines to indicate end-of-record, UNIX and VAXen use only CR.
You might want to try running bilf before unzipping, compressing, etc.
if you are running into problems. bilf also comes in handy when you
are using Kermit to transmit to/from Unix and VMS.
Almost all of the problems described above can be checked by using
GIFTEST to check the GIF file's integrity on your host machine before
you download it. I have recently added the source code for GIFTEST to
the archive at bongo. I highly recommend that you get a copy of this,
even if you only occasionally have problems with your GIF files; it
runs in only a few seconds, and has the potential to save you hours of
download time!
The last and least likely problem is that some mailer somewhere
actually munged the file. It happens. Fortunately, it doesn't happen
all that often. When it does (and please check all of the other
problems *FIRST*), it's time to ask for a re-post, as detailed in part 1.
VII. COPYRIGHT
Bottom line: It's OK to copy something (electronically or otherwise) for
your own personal use. It's NOT OK to re-distribute that copy, whether or
not you make any money doing it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's about it for the "general" information. System-specific
information is continued in part 3 of this FAQ. If you have any
suggestions for things to include in future versions, don't hesitate
to let me know...
--
Jim Howard *** jho...@best.com *** http://infolane.com/deej/index.html
Author, "The Internet Voyeur" (http://infolane.com/deej/voyeur.html)
(^:= Flames cheerfully ignored. =:^)
................................................................................
"Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired." -- R. Geis