• Announcements

    From Black Panther@21:1/186 to All on Sun Jun 7 13:57:04 2020
    Hi All,

    I just wanted to let everyone know I haven't been very active the last week
    or so on the computer. I have been scanning and reading new messages, but haven't had a lot of time to post.

    Over the last weeks, I have been in the process of obtaining a promotion at work, and I was finally chosen for the position. Starting tomorrow, Monday,
    I will be one of the two salaried managers at our location.

    For the next month or so, my hours won't be changing much. I'll still be Monday - Friday, 0700ish to 1700ish. After that, I may be working a
    compressed shift, which would be 0600 - 1830 Wednesday - Friday, but not
    100% sure at this point.

    I hope within the next week to get back into some of the projects I've been working on, and maybe get some of them finished. :) The one project has been
    in the works for months, and is getting close to being opened for testing.

    Other projects I've been working on include writing scripts for obtaining
    news articles pertaining to different sports. I do have a few of these
    already running, and can be seen in Sportnet, TqWnet, and soon in Fidonet
    Earth echo, and hopefully in fsxNet.

    Another thing I wanted to let every know about, as I think it's exciting, is Michael Batts (stizzed) from The Rock BBS, has taken over development of both the Mys Tic Announce File and Mystic MultiTool packages that I had been working on. I'm not sure at this point if he plans on releasing updates or
    not, but it's exciting for me to see someone continuing with these projects. Thank you Michael. :)

    If anyone is interested in taking a look at the projects I have worked on in the past few years, they can be found at https://github.com/DRPanther As you will see, I haven't done anything with them in quite awhile. Those were
    written in Pascal, and I've been working on teaching myself C, which I think will give me more room to expand and have more resources available.

    Let's see, what else is happening... Another project that I'd like to do, as
    I can find time, is change the www.castlerockbbs.com website. I'm thinking about setting up a system here to host my own website, due to some limitations I've been having with GoDaddy and their hosting. When I get to that point, I may be asking some dumb questions, and would expect some dumb answers. As that is not my area of expertise, and I know it is for some of you, there may be some issues I run into. For example, would a dedicated system running Apache
    be sufficient, or is there another system that gives more flexibility?

    My son just separated from the US Air Force, and will be moving back to New Mexico the first part of July. We're excited about having him closer to home again. :)

    Ok, this was intended to be a short update as to why I haven't been very active, and it turned into an autobiography. ;) Sorry about that.

    If you are still reading, the winning lottery numbers are: 4,&*$#NO CARRIER


    ---

    Black Panther(RCS)
    Castle Rock BBS

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com (21:1/186)
  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to Black Panther on Sun Jun 7 17:25:00 2020
    Black Panther wrote to All <=-

    I just wanted to let everyone know I haven't been very active the
    last week or so on the computer. I have been scanning and reading
    new messages, but haven't had a lot of time to post.

    Over the last weeks, I have been in the process of obtaining a
    promotion at work, and I was finally chosen for the position.
    Starting tomorrow, Monday, I will be one of the two salaried
    managers at our location.

    <SNIP>

    Congrats!

    Sounds like you've got some other interesting projects going too!

    It's good to keep busy, and thanks for the work with SportNet.



    ... She kept saying I didn't listen to her, or something like that.
    === MultiMail/Linux v0.52
    --- SBBSecho 3.11-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From Black Panther@21:1/186 to Gamgee on Mon Jun 8 01:08:12 2020
    On 07 Jun 2020, Gamgee said the following...

    Sounds like you've got some other interesting projects going too!

    It's good to keep busy, and thanks for the work with SportNet.

    They have been interesting, and fun to work on. :) SportNet has taken some of my time as well, as trying to get the scripts to work they way I want them to has been a bit of a challenge.

    I'm slowing getting some other set up as well, but it seems finding good sources of info has been tough...


    ---

    Black Panther(RCS)
    Castle Rock BBS

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com (21:1/186)
  • From Adept@21:2/108 to Black Panther on Mon Jun 8 07:39:01 2020
    thinking about setting up a system here to host my own website, due to some limitations I've been having with GoDaddy and their hosting. When I

    Oh wow I feel sorry for you.

    *ahem*. Sorry.

    Perhaps GoDaddy has improved in recent years, as I haven't paid much
    attention, but I remember them being overcharged for what they delivered, and full of nickle-and-diming charges, upsells, etc., that made the entire experience unpleasant.

    for some of you, there may be some issues I run into. For example, would
    a dedicated system running Apache be sufficient, or is there another system that gives more flexibility?

    It depends.

    That's the standard answer for anything computer related, but in this case,
    it depends on what exactly you're trying to do. Apache would certainly work fine.

    Or you could go with some host that takes care of that sort of thing, but
    gives you less power. E.g., Dreamhost, where I have a VPS where I couldn't
    tell you if it was Apache, Nginx, or something else.

    For me, after reading about places to run a BBS, went with vultr.com,
    installed nginx, and set it up to serve a static web page for my BBS.

    But I've also done a variety of things using NodeJS that required lots of
    other things.

    So, when you do get around to it, tell us what you're hoping to accomplish,
    and I'm sure that I or others will be able to mislead--err, give you options for how to do something.

    (And your autobiography was interesting. Kinda rambled, but I found it more interesting than rambly things oftentimes are.)

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)
  • From Black Panther@21:1/186 to Adept on Mon Jun 8 02:05:16 2020
    On 08 Jun 2020, Adept said the following...

    Perhaps GoDaddy has improved in recent years, as I haven't paid much attention, but I remember them being overcharged for what they
    delivered, and full of nickle-and-diming charges, upsells, etc., that
    made the entire experience unpleasant.

    They really haven't been to bad. One of the things that I had wanted to do,
    but was having issues with their templates, was have files for download. However, a filename such as fsxinfo.zip would end up as fsxinfo473249871208908720248904863074.zip once the user downloaded it.

    That's the standard answer for anything computer related, but in this case, it depends on what exactly you're trying to do. Apache would certainly work fine.

    I was kinda expecting that answer after I posted that. :)

    So, when you do get around to it, tell us what you're hoping to accomplish, and I'm sure that I or others will be able to mislead--err, give you options for how to do something.

    LOL. I'm just looking to put up a static website, where I can also have files available for download. Perhaps not my entire file section, but at least some of the infopacks, nodelists, etc. I'd also like to be able to possibly post stats to the website. I just figured if I hosted something locally, it would make it easier for all of this.

    (And your autobiography was interesting. Kinda rambled, but I found it more interesting than rambly things oftentimes are.)

    Thanks... I think... ;)


    ---

    Black Panther(RCS)
    Castle Rock BBS

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com (21:1/186)
  • From apam@21:1/126 to Black Panther on Mon Jun 8 18:16:06 2020
    LOL. I'm just looking to put up a static website, where I can also
    have files available for download. Perhaps not my entire file
    section, but at least some of the infopacks, nodelists, etc. I'd
    also like to be able to possibly post stats to the website. I just
    figured if I hosted something locally, it would make it easier for
    all of this.

    I use apache and find it works well. Some others would suggest NGINX
    perhaps, but just about anything would work for this use case.

    I guess it depends what you're most familiar with (for me it's apache)
    and are most confident in administering.

    Andrew

    --- MagickaBBS v0.15alpha (Linux/x86_64)
    * Origin: HappyLand - telnet://magickabbs.com:2023/ (21:1/126)
  • From Adept@21:2/108 to Black Panther on Mon Jun 8 10:33:54 2020
    possibly post stats to the website. I just figured if I hosted something locally, it would make it easier for all of this.

    You're going to host it on your local machine? That might be a bit more interesting. I thought most ISPs blocked servers on port 80, but I could be wrong on that. I was generally just happy when they left port 23 through.

    (And your autobiography was interesting. Kinda rambled, but I found i
    Thanks... I think... ;)

    Yeah, okay, I suppose that was a bit of a backhanded compliment. :) Sorry.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)
  • From Avon@21:1/101 to Black Panther on Tue Jun 9 01:02:52 2020
    On 07 Jun 2020 at 09:57a, Black Panther pondered and said...

    Over the last weeks, I have been in the process of obtaining a promotion at work, and I was finally chosen for the position. Starting tomorrow, Monday, I will be one of the two salaried managers at our location.

    Congrats! Great news Dan :)

    been working on, and maybe get some of them finished. :) The one project has been in the works for months, and is getting close to being opened
    for testing.

    Curious to know what that is...

    exciting, is Michael Batts (stizzed) from The Rock BBS, has taken over development of both the Mys Tic Announce File and Mystic MultiTool packages that I had been working on. I'm not sure at this point if he plans on releasing updates or not, but it's exciting for me to see
    someone continuing with these projects. Thank you Michael. :)

    Cool

    My son just separated from the US Air Force, and will be moving back to New Mexico the first part of July. We're excited about having him closer to home again. :)

    You guys will be very happy to have him home so close to you.


    If you are still reading, the winning lottery numbers are: 4,&*$#NO CARRIER

    Darn!

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/05/28 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
  • From Warpslide@21:3/110 to Adept on Mon Jun 8 14:42:52 2020
    On 08 Jun 2020, Adept said the following...

    Perhaps GoDaddy has improved in recent years, as I haven't paid much attention, but I remember them being overcharged for what they
    delivered, and full of nickle-and-diming charges, upsells, etc., that
    made the entire experience unpleasant.

    They haven't improved much. In my current job I discovered that my
    predecessor was paying C$900 every two years for a wildcard SSL certificate from GoDaddy. $900!!!

    I quickly cancelled that & replaced most of them with Lets Encrypt
    certificates where possible and bought two other certs from cheapsslsecurity.com where it wasn't possible to run the certbot clients
    (like on the phone system).

    We're not an ecommerce store or anything, we just need something that doesn't cause browsers or other clients to balk when employees connect to our resources.

    Jay

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Windows/32)
    * Origin: Northern Realms BBS | bbs.nrbbs.net | Binbrook, ON (21:3/110)
  • From Gamgee@21:2/138 to Black Panther on Mon Jun 8 14:54:00 2020
    Black Panther wrote to Gamgee <=-

    Sounds like you've got some other interesting projects going too!
    It's good to keep busy, and thanks for the work with SportNet.

    They have been interesting, and fun to work on. :) SportNet has
    taken some of my time as well, as trying to get the scripts to
    work they way I want them to has been a bit of a challenge.

    Yes, I know the feeling. ;-)

    I'm slowing getting some other set up as well, but it seems
    finding good sources of info has been tough...

    Same here... I've got a good RSS processor but it seems that (RSS)
    is becoming less popular and hard to find a good feed. Website
    scraping is even harder. We're making some progress, at least.



    ... Press any key to continue or any other key to quit
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    --- SBBSecho 3.11-Linux
    * Origin: Palantir * palantirbbs.ddns.net * Pensacola, FL * (21:2/138)
  • From Adept@21:2/108 to Warpslide on Mon Jun 8 23:59:22 2020
    They haven't improved much. In my current job I discovered that my predecessor was paying C$900 every two years for a wildcard SSL certificate from GoDaddy. $900!!!

    Ugh. They should feel _shame_ for that. I'd feel guilty for taking advantage
    of someone by upselling something at 40x(ish) the retail value.

    I quickly cancelled that & replaced most of them with Lets Encrypt certificates where possible and bought two other certs from cheapsslsecurity.com where it wasn't possible to run the certbot clients

    Thanks for that info, by the way. I had been kind of wondering about it. All
    my sites are personal or tiny, at this point, and not keeping non-public
    data, thus it seems fine to be non-encrypted.

    But now HTTPS is the standard, as you implied, so it seems useful to know about.

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)
  • From Black Panther@21:1/186 to Avon on Mon Jun 8 22:27:06 2020
    On 08 Jun 2020, Avon said the following...

    Monday, I will be one of the two salaried managers at our location.

    Congrats! Great news Dan :)

    Thanks. Day 1 is in the books. Didn't do much of anything. I didn't realize
    how much I missed being in management... ;)

    been working on, and maybe get some of them finished. :) The one proj has been in the works for months, and is getting close to being opene for testing.

    Curious to know what that is...

    If I would get off my butt, er, in this case, get on my butt and start
    coding, it might get finished. :)

    My son just separated from the US Air Force, and will be moving back New Mexico the first part of July. We're excited about having him clo to home again. :)

    You guys will be very happy to have him home so close to you.

    Yes we will. At one point, our three kids were all over the world at the same time. One was in Japan, one was in South Korea, and one was in Afghanistan.
    You want your kids to grow up and leave the house, but they didn't have to go that far away... :)

    If you are still reading, the winning lottery numbers are: 4,&*$#NO CARRIER

    Darn!

    You didn't miss anything. They were the numbers from last weeks lottery...


    ---

    Black Panther(RCS)
    Castle Rock BBS

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com (21:1/186)
  • From Black Panther@21:1/186 to Adept on Mon Jun 8 22:30:56 2020
    On 08 Jun 2020, Adept said the following...

    possibly post stats to the website. I just figured if I hosted someth locally, it would make it easier for all of this.

    You're going to host it on your local machine? That might be a bit more interesting. I thought most ISPs blocked servers on port 80, but I could be wrong on that. I was generally just happy when they left port 23 through.

    I was thinking about it, but didn't even think about the port probably being blocked... Well, back to the 'ol drawing board... :)


    ---

    Black Panther(RCS)
    Castle Rock BBS

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com (21:1/186)
  • From Black Panther@21:1/186 to Gamgee on Mon Jun 8 22:35:20 2020
    On 08 Jun 2020, Gamgee said the following...

    Same here... I've got a good RSS processor but it seems that (RSS)
    is becoming less popular and hard to find a good feed. Website
    scraping is even harder. We're making some progress, at least.

    I was actually too lazy to actually set up the mail server in Synchronet, so
    I grab the .xml file and grab the links, then scrape them. :)

    It is a pain in the butt at times, but it's also kinda fun. :)


    ---

    Black Panther(RCS)
    Castle Rock BBS

    --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A45 2020/02/18 (Linux/64)
    * Origin: Castle Rock BBS - bbs.castlerockbbs.com (21:1/186)
  • From Spectre@21:3/101 to Black Panther on Tue Jun 9 14:27:00 2020
    That's the standard answer for anything computer related, but in this case, it depends on what exactly you're trying to do. Apache would certainly work fine.

    I was kinda expecting that answer after I posted that. :)

    You might find someone else here with space to host it for you, so long as ìyou can point a name in the right direction or a ~user address will do.

    Spec


    *** THE READER V4.50 [freeware]
    --- SuperBBS v1.17-3 (Eval)
    * Origin: Scrawled in haste at The Lower Planes (21:3/101)
  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to apam on Tue Jun 9 11:41:00 2020
    apam wrote to Black Panther <=-

    I use apache and find it works well. Some others would suggest NGINX perhaps, but just about anything would work for this use case.

    I guess it depends what you're most familiar with (for me it's apache)
    and are most confident in administering.

    I've used Apache for years, am loving NGINX now - I use it for a reverse
    proxy and it's much simpler to me than setting up Apache.


    ... Are they real, the things I experienced?
    --- MultiMail/XT v0.52
    * Origin: realitycheckBBS.org -- information is power. (21:4/122)
  • From alterego@21:2/116 to poindexter FORTRAN on Wed Jun 10 14:45:17 2020
    Re: Re: Announcements
    By: poindexter FORTRAN to apam on Tue Jun 09 2020 07:41 am

    I guess it depends what you're most familiar with (for me it's
    apache) and are most confident in administering.
    I've used Apache for years, am loving NGINX now - I use it for a reverse proxy and it's much simpler to me than setting up Apache.

    Yeah I used to use apache (it was one of the first), but I've since moved over to using NGINX.

    Since I use a lot of docker, nginx makes a little more sense in containers because it is lighter on memory requirements...

    ...δεσ∩

    ... He who laughs, lasts.
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    * Origin: I'm playing with ANSI+videotex - wanna play too? (21:2/116)