I have a dream....
David Anthony Caldarelli
...Where I can have a sustained level of internet access, simply
because I am a full-time student of the best Engineering school
in the Country.
I would like to know why I do not have permissions to use "talk" on
engmail. I used to have it yesterday. I wonder if the same person who
took away the permissions, is the one who kept on killing the talk process
while I was talking to someone.
I used to use talk on novice, but now that I am on a work term, I have a
mail only shell. I have requested that novice's mail only shell be
extended to include talk, msg, and news access, but nothing has changed.
However, I am proud to say that it was my idea to add the ability to
forward mail from the mail-only shell, and that idea was implemented.
(It's quite possible that someone who runs novice had the same idea, but I
noticed that the feature showed up a couple months AFTER I suggested it)
I also have ece and raft accounts. There is no "talk" on raft, and the ece
"talk" looks like it is working from the sender end, but the receiver does
not receive a "talk request".
So, with 4 UW engineering accounts, I can't talk. I find this
unacceptable.
I don't care what the "official purposes" of our various computer systems
is. I think that that is a pathetic shield which the admins often hide
behind when people make requests like mine.
I am aware that if I paid novice $10, I would have a normal account, which
would probably let me "talk", but I pay quite a lot of money each term for
tuition, and I want full internet access at no further charge.
It would be nice if I could do most of these things from the same
system. Back in the good ol' days, I could use Netscape, trn (news),
pine, msg, talk, finger, telnet, and ftp all from novice. Now novice
has lost Netscape, but luckily I got an ece account which has it. Note
that using Netscape from Watstar still sucks because of the smaller, lower
resolution screens, and the slower speed (from my own observations). And
on work terms, novice is practically useless, since the only one of the
above 8 features that I can use is pine. Luckily ece also has news,
engmail has mail and finger and rlogin, and I think ftp.
I resisted before, but starting this term, I switched over from novice to
engmail for email purposes. This should make the admins happy, since it is
what they want. Of course, the main reason that I switched is that
mail-only shell. I question its necessity.
If I can also use all of the above features (except Netscape and
telnet) from engmail, I would be very happy. I could also survive if I
could figure out why "talk" from an ece machine doesn't seem to work,
and if that was fixed, and then I guess I'd change around my forwards
to point there, and make that my new Base of Operations. If that was
the case, note how useful your nice new engmail server is being.
So my main request is: please give back the permissions on "talk" on
engmail, and make sure conversations are not routinely disrupted.
Thank you
David Caldarelli
3B Workterm Comp Eng.
University of Waterloo
Erick Engelke
David Anthony Caldarelli <daca...@ece.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>I would like to know why I do not have permissions to use "talk" on
>engmail. I used to have it yesterday. I wonder if the same person who
>took away the permissions, is the one who kept on killing the talk process
>while I was talking to someone.
Hi David,
I was away sick, so I assure you it wasn't me. Talk was actually
disabled on Engmail ages ago but it inadvertantly got re-enabled during
an OS upgrade. I suspect someone returned it back to the previous state
yesterday. That only addresses the 'consistancy' of it being available
one day/gone the next, but it doesn't address the interruption while
you were using it. I'll Email you once I figure out what happenned.
>I used to use talk on novice, but now that I am on a work term, I have a
>mail only shell. I have requested that novice's mail only shell be
>extended to include talk, msg, and news access, but nothing has changed.
I agree that we must rethink what we can offer off-stream people in
light of some new developments. I'll elaborate.
David Roenspiece had to make some hard decisions last year because Novice
was severely overloaded. He had to lock out remote people sometimes just
so local users could get on and obviously onstream students must
be given priority if the number of users is somehow limited.
Clearly the situation was intolerable. Novice was failing at its primary
purpose: to provide a decent unix learning environment. He probably would
have been hesitant to add an interactive (character by character)
application for remote users which would also encourage them to be online.
We have taken quite a few steps to improve the conditions on Novice.
As I mentioned yesterday, the enormous load of news is being moved off
of Novice, so are graduate student accounts, and probably Email processing
some time in the future. (Have I hinted about Email often enough?)
Given these three significant changes, and some other minor ones,
I expect novice will improve significantly in the coming months.
>However, I am proud to say that it was my idea to add the ability to
>forward mail from the mail-only shell, and that idea was implemented.
>(It's quite possible that someone who runs novice had the same idea, but I
>noticed that the feature showed up a couple months AFTER I suggested it)
That's nice. I couldn't tell you if you are correct or not. But
it is a most reasonable feature.
>I also have ece and raft accounts. There is no "talk" on raft, and the ece
>"talk" looks like it is working from the sender end, but the receiver does
>not receive a "talk request".
>
>So, with 4 UW engineering accounts, I can't talk. I find this
>unacceptable.
>
>I don't care what the "official purposes" of our various computer systems
>is. I think that that is a pathetic shield which the admins often hide
>behind when people make requests like mine.
Engineering Computing doesn't run E&CE, so I don't know about them.
I suspect otalk there may work. Try man talk and man otalk, or
ask their sysadmins. That will probably solve the ece aspect.
Talk is available on Polaris (wtalk32), on Watstar (wtalk.exe),
on Novice (full logins).
It is presently not on the machines which say they can only be used
for Email or Web space, or on the mailshell.
>It would be nice if I could do most of these things from the same
>system. Back in the good ol' days, I could use Netscape, trn (news),
>pine, msg, talk, finger, telnet, and ftp all from novice. Now novice
>has lost Netscape
If you could travel back in time or in this newsgroup, you would see
where Netscape grew and grew in size and needs until it was
interfering with people trying to do things that could only be
done on novice.
As for the rest, I think the all work as long as you have an account.
You chose not to get a full account, so they don't work.
...
>So my main request is: please give back the permissions on "talk" on
>engmail, and make sure conversations are not routinely disrupted.
We'll look into the matter.
Erick
--
Erick Engelke Engineering Computing
University of Waterloo
Network Systems Manager er...@uwaterloo.ca
David Anthony Caldarelli
Erick,
Thanks for the reply. I want to begin by saying that I appreciate the
manner in which you address the many concerns that we see on this
newsgroup. Many other people who are in some way "in charge" of our
computing systems have not been nearly as nice; in particular to other
students in my class. I won't mention any names.
In article <88531846...@globe.uwaterloo.ca>,
Erick Engelke <er...@sail.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
>Hi David,
>
>I was away sick, so I assure you it wasn't me. Talk was actually
>disabled on Engmail ages ago but it inadvertantly got re-enabled during
>an OS upgrade. I suspect someone returned it back to the previous state
>yesterday. That only addresses the 'consistancy' of it being available
>one day/gone the next, but it doesn't address the interruption while
>you were using it. I'll Email you once I figure out what happenned.
Thanks
>I agree that we must rethink what we can offer off-stream people in
>light of some new developments. I'll elaborate.
>
>David Roenspiece had to make some hard decisions last year because Novice
>was severely overloaded. He had to lock out remote people sometimes just
>so local users could get on and obviously onstream students must
>be given priority if the number of users is somehow limited.
Fair enough. I personally don't remember novice being painfully slow
anytime that I've been on campus, but I'll take your word for it.
>Clearly the situation was intolerable. Novice was failing at its primary
>purpose: to provide a decent unix learning environment. He probably would
I have to point out that this is the "official purpose" shield which I
referred to. If it ever arised that the "offical purpose" is _the only
thing_ that stands in the way of a reasonable request, I think it should be
changed immediately. Obviously if novice was "severely overload", then
it's a problem for anyone, not just the "official purpose".
>We have taken quite a few steps to improve the conditions on Novice.
>As I mentioned yesterday, the enormous load of news is being moved off
>of Novice, so are graduate student accounts, and probably Email processing
>some time in the future. (Have I hinted about Email often enough?)
Yup. Where is news going to go? (I might have missed the article... this
was my first time looking at uw.watstar in awhile and there were way too
many articles to read.
>Given these three significant changes, and some other minor ones,
>I expect novice will improve significantly in the coming months.
Good. Hopefully that means the end of the mail-only shell.
>That's nice. I couldn't tell you if you are correct or not. But
>it is a most reasonable feature.
Yeah, I just remember suggesting that the mail only shell be removed, and a
very small disk quota be allowed for a .forward file. Unfortunately, you
guys didn't fall for the trick and simply remove the mail-only shell :)
That reminds me that the offical statement a few terms ago was that we
would have 0 disk quota on novice, but my files were never deleted on me
anyway, and now it seems that we officially get the same disk quota as
always, so we can still get our stuff via ftp. Thanks for that.
>>I also have ece and raft accounts. There is no "talk" on raft, and the ece
>>"talk" looks like it is working from the sender end, but the receiver does
>>not receive a "talk request".
>Engineering Computing doesn't run E&CE, so I don't know about them.
>I suspect otalk there may work. Try man talk and man otalk, or
>ask their sysadmins. That will probably solve the ece aspect.
Thanks, I'll ask them. I've already tried otalk and ytalk, and they don't
seem to exist.
>Talk is available on Polaris (wtalk32), on Watstar (wtalk.exe),
>on Novice (full logins).
This obviously doesn't help me (in Ottawa). I'm guessing you just stated
it for the casual reader.
>It is presently not on the machines which say they can only be used
>for Email or Web space, or on the mailshell.
>If you could travel back in time or in this newsgroup, you would see
>where Netscape grew and grew in size and needs until it was
>interfering with people trying to do things that could only be
>done on novice.
Sounds fair. I feel sorry for the younger students who won't get an ece
account until later. They'll have to suffer through Watstar Netscape until
then.
>As for the rest, I think the all work as long as you have an account.
>You chose not to get a full account, so they don't work.
Remember, I feel that, having paid well over 5 figures to the University so
far, I shouldn't be charged $10 every other term for _full-time_ internet
access. Take it from their budget. I doubt that <insert reputable
engineering school name here> makes it difficult for their students to join
the 90's and have internet access.
I choose to have the full account, I just choose not to pay for it :)
>
>>So my main request is: please give back the permissions on "talk" on
>>engmail, and make sure conversations are not routinely disrupted.
>
>We'll look into the matter.
>
I appreciate any efforts that you can make.
Since I have the expert (you) on the line, I was wondering why ^M was
showing up to the person I called instead of a newline, during the stint
where talk was available (on engmail). I know a tiny bit about stty and
I've heard a few things about "tset" and "reset", but I couldn't figure out
why the ^M and why the Backspace/Delete problem happened from engmail, but
not from novice talk.
(The Backspace/Delete problem is when sometimes Backspace works and Delete
gives ^H, and sometimes vice-versa)
Any ideas?
Thanks
David Caldarelli
David Anthony Caldarelli
>We have taken quite a few steps to improve the conditions on Novice.
>As I mentioned yesterday, the enormous load of news is being moved off
Ok,
I found that article, so ignore my previous question. So it's still
accesible from Novice, right? I guess you've effectively beefed up
Novice's capacity by adding this extra server to it?
Here's the real reason for this message:
I just remembered something else... I use vi as an alternate editor with
pine. I even implicitly-enable it. The mail-only shell doesn't let vi run
:(
So during the (hopefully) short remaining life of the mail-only shell, is
there an easy way to allow us pine/vi users to use vi?
thanks,
Dave
Erick Engelke
>manner in which you address the many concerns that we see on this
>newsgroup.
I'll quote that now because I might need it later.
>>Clearly the situation was intolerable. Novice was failing at its primary
>>purpose: to provide a decent unix learning environment. He probably would
>
>I have to point out that this is the "official purpose" shield which I
>referred to. If it ever arised that the "offical purpose" is _the only
>thing_ that stands in the way of a reasonable request, I think it should be
>changed immediately. Obviously if novice was "severely overload", then
>it's a problem for anyone, not just the "official purpose".
It is our job to plan ahead so we don't have severe overloads, not
to simply wait and react when it's too late.
>>We have taken quite a few steps to improve the conditions on Novice.
>>As I mentioned yesterday, the enormous load of news is being moved off
>>of Novice, so are graduate student accounts, and probably Email processing
>>some time in the future. (Have I hinted about Email often enough?)
>
>Yup. Where is news going to go? (I might have missed the article... this
>was my first time looking at uw.watstar in awhile and there were way too
>many articles to read.
It's already there, and looking at your message header, I see that you
already posted through it. The machine is news.eng.uwaterloo.ca
>>Given these three significant changes, and some other minor ones,
>>I expect novice will improve significantly in the coming months.
>
>Good. Hopefully that means the end of the mail-only shell.
The mail-only shell solves a different problem. It lets you (the user)
help us manage the machine more efficiently. I'll explain.
There are 3971 accounts on Novice. Thanks to the mail shell, 1729
of them will not do more than mail (or forward the mail to your new
address), thus leaving the machine more useful to the 2242 remaining
accounts, most of whom are on stream right now.
>>If you could travel back in time or in this newsgroup, you would see
>>where Netscape grew and grew in size and needs until it was
>>interfering with people trying to do things that could only be
>>done on novice.
>
>Sounds fair. I feel sorry for the younger students who won't get an ece
>account until later. They'll have to suffer through Watstar Netscape until
>then.
Actually they don't. Watstar is almost all gone in our labs. Also,
Waterloo Polaris is not limited by the Novell LanWorkPlace TCP which used
to cause Netscape problems.
>>As for the rest, I think the all work as long as you have an account.
>>You chose not to get a full account, so they don't work.
>
>I choose to have the full account, I just choose not to pay for it :)
Yep, you said it.
>Since I have the expert (you) on the line, I was wondering why ^M was
>showing up to the person I called instead of a newline, during the stint
>where talk was available (on engmail). I know a tiny bit about stty and
>I've heard a few things about "tset" and "reset", but I couldn't figure out
>why the ^M and why the Backspace/Delete problem happened from engmail, but
>not from novice talk.
One could say the problem has been solved, as talk is no longer available
on Engmail.
Erick Engelke
>
>I just remembered something else... I use vi as an alternate editor with
>pine. I even implicitly-enable it. The mail-only shell doesn't let vi run
>:(
>
>So during the (hopefully) short remaining life of the mail-only shell, is
>there an easy way to allow us pine/vi users to use vi?
Forward your Email to Engmail. Engmail's Pine let's you use vi.
Erick Engelke
>>As I mentioned yesterday, the enormous load of news is being moved off
>
>I found that article, so ignore my previous question. So it's still
>accesible from Novice, right? I guess you've effectively beefed up
>Novice's capacity by adding this extra server to it?
It took me a while to figure out what you meant.
News can still be read from every platform, but the back room server
which supplies news to all those platforms and machines is no longer
Novice. You don't have to log into anything different, the data
just comes from a different place.
Ed Chau
David Anthony Caldarelli (daca...@ece.uwaterloo.ca) wrote:
:
: Since I have the expert (you) on the line, I was wondering why ^M was
: showing up to the person I called instead of a newline, during the stint
: where talk was available (on engmail). I know a tiny bit about stty and
: I've heard a few things about "tset" and "reset", but I couldn't figure out
: why the ^M and why the Backspace/Delete problem happened from engmail, but
: not from novice talk.
I'll pick this one up ("ooh, ooh, I know!"), not that I'm pretending to be
any sort of expert. I just happened to have experienced this kind of
problem before.
The problem is that it also depends on the stty of the _other_ person. If
the person you're talking to has his/her terminal set up differently than
yours, then he/she will see ^M, ^H and other interesting characters on
his/her terminal.
One of the ways to fix this is of course to have the other person set up
his/her terminal the same way as yours. You can also try to figure out
what kind of keys the other terminal interprets as newline, backspace, etc.
One alternative to ^M that I remeber is ^J, the alternative to ^H is ^? or
the delete key as you may have already known.
HTH
Ed
Chris 'Danger' Sheppard
In article <88540205...@globe.uwaterloo.ca>,
Erick Engelke <er...@sail.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>News can still be read from every platform, but the back room server
>which supplies news to all those platforms and machines is no longer
>Novice. You don't have to log into anything different, the data
>just comes from a different place.
So is novice no longer doing ANY news serving? Has it gone back to its original
'learn to use UNIX' sort of role? Does this mean that the periodic novice shutdowns
will end? If so, then what machine is now serving news?
Chris
--
Windows 95 -- When your computer has too much power
http://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/Student/cesheppa