BS: ICQ and Mudcat Radio

Subject: ICQ and Mudcat Radio
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 24 Feb 00 - 10:35 AM

Firstly, I wish to apologise to those who tried to use my FolkChat Acitve list last night. It was chaotic alhtough after a while, I did find some of the effects of the time lag quite ammusing.

This is the first time that this room has experinced problems and I think the poblem was caused by ICQ crashing on my computer as after the Radio Show, I rebooted my PC and restarted the list and a few of us were able to chat without any problems. ICQ should be able to handle it but the circumstances when the crash occured were unusual as I had 3 chat rooms open not to mention other messages, flicking backwards and forwards to check if a name had appered on the server list...

As I think that the chrash was caused by so much going on, in the future I will not be sending out any invites to join in or answering any help questions during the show. Until Max is able to offer a Mudcat chat facility (can't come quickly enough!) this room will be avilable during the radio show and I will leave it to others to decide if they want to join in and if so how to get in.

I keep the Active List open as much as possible every day of the week. Talking in EST which seems to be the Mudcat time, I start the server shortly after my free internet time starts at 1pm and shut down when I go to bed which in normaly around 1am. There will be short intervals during that period when the service is not available. This is because I have a 3hr time limit on any one conection to the internet. On the day of the Mudcat Radio, I re start my internet connection around 11:30 am in the hope of keeping the room open for the whole show and to cater for some chat after as well as catering for those who might want to come in a little early.

I will happily assist anybody who has problems with FolkChat at any time other than the Mudcat Radio period but I am not prepared to risk a similar crash during the show. Also, one of the benifits of the Active List is that people can let themselves in and out of the room as and when they please and, selfishly, I don't want to be missing the show because somebody does not know how to get in. If in doubt about using it, try it on another day to learn and find out if there are any problems.

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: ICQ and Mudcat Radio
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 24 Feb 00 - 11:01 AM

Oops - can't get my head round EST or even my own time (GMT0 by the looks of it! I reset for MCR at 6:30pm (11:30 PM GMT).

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: ICQ and Mudcat Radio
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 24 Feb 00 - 01:14 PM

Once again I'm gonna suggest you check put Pow Wow... It's a much more stable platform, it's not quites as resource hungry... ICQ is more designed to message or to have small chats... The active list server thing is way in the beta stages and buggy at best...

Just tryin' to help

{~`

Subject: RE: BS: ICQ and Mudcat Radio
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 24 Feb 00 - 02:11 PM

Perhaps Pow Wow would provide a more stable platform but:

An officail Mudcat room is planned for the future.

It would require people downloading and installing another load of software.

Many of the problems I have had with ICQ have been connected with people trying to learn how to use new software and that process would presumable have to be repeated.

I agree that ICQ is more geared to individual chats and the Active List is new but apart from this once, it has sovled many of the problems and I believe that this crash (ICQ itself - not the AL server) was caused by a stiuation that could easily be avoided with a little forethought.

I take it you mean set up a POW WOW community. Can you explain the following?

"Note: This option is available only if your provider has enabled Communities." - does that mean it needs somebody with an ISP who provides a special service?

"1. Do Not Use Your Normal Electronic Address If ...

... you expect to log into this application simultaneously from multiple locations. You should create a unique User which will be used only to host a Community. If you start a Community using your normal electronic address and then log in from a different computer, the registration server will update the IP address which is associated with the electronic address. In effect, your Community will no longer exist and people will not be able to join it.

Example:

Fred's electronic address is [e-mail] and he hosts a Community with the same address. Since both Fred and his Community are running on the same machine, both will have the same IP address. When a person wants to contact Fred or join his Community, the message is sent to the registration server which translates the isp8468 portion of Fred's address to the numerical IP address equivalent (such as 123.45.67.890) and then forwards the message to the correct machine.

This doesn't cause any confusion because incoming messages include header information which Fred's program uses to route the messages either to Fred as a person or to Fred's Community.

With his Community up and running, Fred goes to a friend's house to admire her new computer setup. While there, he downloads and installs this application and logs in using his normal electronic address -- [e-mail]. The registration server notices that Fred has moved to a new physical location and updates his IP address.

Anyone wanting to contact Fred still can do so because their messages are routed to the correct machine.

However, requests to join Fred's Community also are routed to the new location. This application receives these messages and checks to see what Communities it is running at the current location. Since Fred's Community is not running at the current location, This application reports that the Community is not active and Fred starts getting messages asking why his Community isn't in operation."

How is this going to affect me or anybody else trying to host it who has their IP addresses allocated dynamically (essenitally a different location each time) or does that mean one has to use their email address service and hve another set of mail to check?

If you can set it up, go for it but I won't be attempting this one.

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: ICQ and Mudcat Radio
From: Clinton Hammond2
Date: 24 Feb 00 - 02:24 PM

Well... Ya got me on the roaming thing... Mostly becasue I think that roaming and trying to host a community would be a right royal pain, no matter what program yer using...

You should submit that to PowWow.. I'd be kinda curious to see what their responce would be...

I'm only suggesting PowWow because, It's a stableer platform, and it's better addapted to the mass chat thing that goes on here from time to time...

But it's not like I really KNOW anything! LOL!!!

{~`

Subject: RE: BS: ICQ and Mudcat Radio
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 24 Feb 00 - 02:44 PM

The biggest problem to me is not knowing Max's planned time scale. I am sure that better solutions do exist and if anyone else wants to set something up, I am prepared to try it but we could end up testing several options, settle on something only to find that the Mudcat room is available...

Of course there is also the chat server I wrote as an experimant... could modify it... the biggest problem was I wrote it in such a way that only IE users can get in - a Netscape browser will report that it is not an applet. It is at http://members.tripod.co.uk/jonbanjo/MyChat.htm . I have just started the server up.

Jon

Subject: RE: BS: ICQ and Mudcat Radio
From: alison
Date: 24 Feb 00 - 07:29 PM

Basically what Jon is trying to say....... is that if you want to use the FolkChat room during Mudcat Radio...... make sure you register yourself with it in advance (easy to do)...because once it is up and running during a show it is difficult for him to register people.

so once again,

Open the Active List ("A/L" button at the top beside "all" and "user" on ICQ)
do a search for FolkChat
add it to you active list
follow the instructions to register....

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: ICQ and Mudcat Radio
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Feb 00 - 09:50 PM

Powwow USED to be the way to chat(3 years ago?)...but once ICQ got rolling Powwow quit trying to be an universal platform and retreated into a a little 'closed community' like AOL. They have a stable system, but it is MUCH too hard to fit what we do into their structured community.. ICQ/HearMe is best until Mudcat gets a system...

Subject: RE: BS: ICQ and Mudcat Radio
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 25 Feb 00 - 12:27 PM

The only other alternative I have considered was to use one of the Hearme rooms instead of ICQ for the Radio as it is pretty stable, nearly everybody on FolkChat already has hearme insalled and it has the advantage of not being dependent on any one persons computer running. It does raise certain questions though:

Would people be content to just used the fairly basic text chat facility and resist the temptation to talk? I have the ability to limit talk time to 1 second to make it useless but can not disable it completely

A person does occasionally get booted from hearme for no apparent reason but there again, unlike the normal ICQ, to the best of my knowedge, no individual has got booted from Folk Chat but as with last week, if I crash, I boot everbody with me. Which is the lesser of the 2 evils?

There were some doubts about the compatibility between Hearme and Real audio and I know that Alison had several problems related to this. Does anybody know what the situation is? If having the 2 running does cause a crash, it is unworkable - worst scenario being MCR going down.

Hearme doesn't currently support Macs (but is planning on doing so) whereas ICQ does. Are there any Mac users joining the current ICQ chat or thinking of doing so?

I have said this before but I will repeat myself. I am just trying to provide short term solutions to enable a consistant method of communication both with the MCR and the song circles. The long term plan is in Max's capable hands.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Jon