telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (Patrick Townson) (02/13/89)
[TELECOM Digest] has relocated its base of operations from Boston University
to Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. Evanston is one of the northern
suburbs of Chicago. We are now operating from machine 'gamma' in the cluster
of machines known as 'eecs.nwu.edu'. All these machines share a common
user log, and our complete and correct address at this time is as follows --
telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (for submissions to Digest)
telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu (list changes, etc)
townson@eecs.nwu.edu (personal mail to me)
In addition, you can reach me personally at: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us. Anything
which must come by US Mail (hard copy printouts; telecom newsletters, etc.
should be addressed to TELECOM DIGEST c/o Townson, Box 1570, Chicago IL 60690.
Why did the Digest move? I didn't like the weather in Boston this time of
year. New England is too cold in the winter. (smile). Actually, I did not
like getting humongous (how about $325 per month) telephone bills from Illinois
Bell for connections to the Telenet PC Pursuit switch in downtown Chicago
for three hours per day on an average. And of course, effective February 1,
PC Pursuit charges $1 per hour for anything over thirty hours per month. The
circuitous connection through Telenet in Chicago, jumping off via the Boston
outdialers, connecting to the Boston University Campus Network, then
connecting to bu-cs did nothing to enhance speed.
My telephone connection is now direct to eecs.nwu.edu, at 2400 baud, on a
local Evanston dialup *which is a local, untimed phone call* to my home
several blocks away. Since this site is part of the Internet, virtually no
work was required to the mailing list, and there should be no noticable
difference in the delivery of the Digest to you each day. The advantages
should be obvious.
But the loss of jsol as an immediate, on-line and at-hand technical advisor
was one negative. The more complex aspects of how mail is handled -- and
how to get the Digest program to actually work on a different machine --
were, and still are mysteries to me. Enter Jacob Gore to the rescue.
Mr. Gore, postmaster at eecs.nwu.edu, has been especially helpful. In two
all night sessions this past week, we made mailing list changes and other
modifications as required. We began making the changes required earlier
last week, assisted by helpful comments and instructions from jsol.
In addition, chip@vector has been working for some time on completely
automating the gateway to comp.dcom.telecom, so that messages between
Usenet readers of that group and the Digest will flow with ease. A couple
of small changes you will see in the Digest which were made to accomodate
Skip's efforts are as follows --
Messages in the Digest will no longer include a 'to' line.
When the information is available, messages will include an 'organization'
line and a 'reply-to' line.
What about the Archives? The Telecom Digest Archives remain intact at Boston
University, and will continue to receive copies of each issue. The only
real change being made is that for the sake of my personal telephone bill,
the Digest is being published at a local (to me) site. The Archives are
still available as always --
Use ftp to connect with bu-cs.bu.edu. Enter user name 'anonymous'.
Enter some non-null password. Enter 'cd telecom-archives' to switch to
our directory. Enter 'ls' to view the selections, and use regular ftp
commands to obtain copies of whatever you want.
Naturally, everything will go off without a hitch. (smile). Nothing ever
goes wrong with mailing lists and the propogation of digests, news groups,
etc. You bet. If you *do not* receive digests each day hereafter from
Evanston, including the first issue, published a little after midnight on
Monday morning, then please let us know our mailing list needs a bit more
fine tuning. Our first issue from Evanston will be 59 on Monday morning.
Patrick Townson
TELECOM Digest Moderator