TELECOM Moderator <telecom@eecs.nwu.edu> (05/19/91)
I am very much in need of a 9600 baud modem -- on a loan basis, unless you want to give me one as a gift! -- for use in getting the Digest out each day. The volume here has become a bit of a problem at 2400 baud, and the US Robotics modem assigned to this task has started getting a little flakey. Other expenses in recent weeks have left my budget for new computer stuff at an all-time low level. If anyone has one to spare, pulled from service, etc, please let me know the terms under which you'd be willing to part with it, either on a loan basis or permanently. Next topic: Mail from here to mcimail.com has been a BIG hassle lately. It appears to be an isolated problem at this site, and is under investigation. It is not a question of it leaving here, getting to Reston, VA or somewhere in-between and bouncing ... it just can't get past mmdf here, with mmdf claiming 'no such host'. Not everytime, mind you, just once every third or fourth time. The admin sent me a note saying the name server was being switched from epsilon (one machine here) to delta (the machine I am on). Maybe that will help. I've sent some replacement issues out today, and thus far mmdf took them all without arguments and back-talk. MCI'ers missing issues over the past couple weeks should let me know which ones. I suspect this little problem is also the reason some other places have missed their issues ... I get back some (to me) very suspicious bounced mail claiming 'no such host' ... Round three: I have no bitnet gateway site at present. All subscribers to the Digest at bitnet sites were being serviced from an expansion list on nuacc.acns.nwu.edu. I was sending one copy to that site (literally, just another machine in the complex here) and it was exploding out to bitnet. That machine (nuacc) is basically out of service, and is being shut down permanently in about a month. We have a new site for use as a bitnet gateway, but I have to go through and edit the entire list to use that site instead. Bitnet has not received the Digest for a couple weeks, but having spent several hours on that today, it should be ready to go again. This issue will test it out. Point four: The mail continues to come in heavily. There is much which is repetitive; a lot which requires considerable editing; and some responses which are totally out of date. You'll be getting a large number of issues over the weekend, but I'll still be dumping out a couple hundred messages unused. Finally, we no longer have an ftp mail server available for use at the Telecom Archives by NON-BITNET sites. The administrators of 'bitftp' have chosen to make the service available only to bitnet-originating traffic. The next message today will discuss this in detail. Until / unless a new ftp mail server becomes available to us, non-internet folks will have no way to use the Telecom Archives. I am sorry to report this, but it is totally out of my control. Can anyone set up a mail server we can use? Thanks. Patrick Townson