Synch(ronously)

Ok, so I lied...

2006-01-03T14:19:00.000-05:00

I haven't been posting regularly after all. Also, it seems that my reason for bringing new life to a mostly dead attempt at a hobby has fallen through... (Actually, fell-through, some time ago even, but I digress....) Ultimatly, I have decided to keep running SBBS just for the heck of it. However, the purchase of a new PC for my mother on Black Friday -- that's the after-Thanksgiving-Day sale for you uninitiatd, I have decided to return to the Windows version of the software. Hopefully I shall find a new raison d'etre. (Please pardon my poor French typography; I'm using Windoze at the moment, so I don't know how to type accents correctly... I may or may not fix this once I'm back on my mac.)

Why I use a Mac

2005-08-10T15:14:00.000-04:00

150435OTvs_w
Originally uploaded by huberjoshua.

Sure, I also own a Swiss Army knife, but its blades do not randomly eject at high speed or spontaneously induce anything with the word "death" in its name, as it is well-constructed; the is true of my Mac: it does its task, and it does it well. (I may not be able to run an alternate version of the OS and turn my computer into a PVR and home theater system, but then again, I don't want to.)

Addressing addresses

2005-08-09T16:57:00.000-04:00

Ok, I should now have a correct telnet address in the sidebar. In case it has not shown up yet... Click ME! That (<--) address should be pointing to the correct IP address so long as the BBS itself is up and running, as the BBS package updates the IP to which it is pointing every so often and whenever it is restarted.

All your feeds are belong to us!

2005-08-04T17:06:00.000-04:00

I have now added a section for the available site feeds to my sidebar. Actually, there is only one feed that need be available via Feedburner. This is due to the fact that the feed offered by Blogger is being repackaged via Feedburner into form useable by any RSS reader, past, present, or future.

It's alive! (And no longer brain dead)

2005-08-03T20:28:00.000-04:00

It seems that a simple extraneous "%d" was responsible for the inability to unpack QWK packets. Its presence was causing the inclusion of "30000" in the unzip command line. Now the BBS should be up and running consistently. (It's true nature is yet to be determined though....)

Hm... The brain is still empty

2005-07-30T16:59:00.000-04:00

It seems I have a problem; I cannot import network messages for DOVE-Net, the message network that comes pre-configured with every SBBS setup. I have made the necicary tweaks that are required for for Un*x systems, but I still am having great difficulty. Just in case someone who knows is reading, here are the errors:

The console output:

7/30 03:03:59 evnt QNET-FTP: Downloaded VERT.qwk successfully
7/30 03:03:59 evnt QNET-FTP: Done.
7/30 03:04:00 evnt Executing external: unzip -ojC /sbbs/data/VERT.qwk 30000 -d /sbbs/temp/event/
Archive: /sbbs/data/VERT.qwkcaution: filename not matched: 30000
7/30 03:04:00 evnt Node 1 !ERROR 2 in un_qwk.cpp line 76 executing "unzip -ojC /sbbs/data/VERT.qwk 30000 -d /sbbs/temp/event/" access=11
7/30 03:04:00 evnt /sbbs/data/VERT.qwk renamed to /sbbs/data/VERT.qwk.42eb2660.bad

The error log upon log-in as Sysop:

Error log:
Sat Jul 30 2005 03:00:06
Node 1: #0
source: un_qwk.cpp
line: 76 action: executing
object: unzip -ojC /sbbs/data/VERT.qwk 30000 -d /sbbs/temp/event/
access: 11 (0xB)
errno: 2 (No such file or directory)

Sat Jul 30 2005 03:04:00
Node 1: #0
source: un_qwk.cpp
line: 76
action: executing
object: unzip -ojC /sbbs/data/VERT.qwk 30000 -d /sbbs/temp/event/
access: 11 (0xB)
errno: 2 (No such file or directory)

It's alive!

2005-07-30T02:08:00.000-04:00

Ok, so we all know of a certain Dr. Frankenstein who found himself in quite a bit of trouble after that one, but...
It, SBBS that is, works, sort of... I was forced to install ncurses as I mentioned in a previous post. This let me compile a functional set of executables; however, the menus on all of them look screwy. (I think this may be due to Ubuntu's choice of default encoding, but I have yet to verify that assumption.) I am also having much difficulty with a few remaining details. I am, however, going to make the BBS accessible on a limited basis. Feel free to log-on and create an account. iQLand. (It may be up; it may be down, but for sure, it'll stick around!)

Curses!

2005-07-29T19:53:00.000-04:00

Ncurses actually. That seems to be wherein my problems lie. Apparently the curses/ncurses library that is included with Ubuntu is incompatible with SBBS, so I'm compiling ncurses-5.4 as we speak -- metaphorically of course. Hopefully, this will conclude my build-time difficulties.

Compiling a list of error

2005-07-24T18:38:00.000-04:00

Ok, SBBS is a multi-platform package. Compiled versions are available for Windows, but due to its nature, Linux handles source code distributions much more effectively. So, I used a program called CVS (Current Version System) to obtain a copy of the source from the Synchronet CVS repository. Things went well. I discovered that the standard Ubuntu is missing some compiler components. After installing them, I was able to successfully execute make and begin the process of building the executable. However, Ubuntu is missing the curses.h include files, so I cannot compile all the way through. (It does, however, have a curses.so, so I think this may only be a distro related issue.) I will be searching for a solution to this issue and get back to you.

P.S.

If anyone else out there has a solution to this issue, please let me know.

2005-07-22T15:42:00.000-04:00

I have always had interest in technology and it's potential benefits to humanity, even in my early childhood. As a side effect of this -- and the fact that my first computer was a Tandy 1000-XL, I developed a great interest in retro tech. This eventually led me to discover the wonders of the BBS. (I have even poked around on a few dial-up BBSs over the years.) Synchronet seemed to be the software of choice of most of the lively boards I discovered back in 1999. I disavowed in 2000 that -- against all odds -- development had been resumed by the author, Rob Swindell. I eventually decided to attempt the task of running my own BBS. (Note, this did not go over well with my family, as at the time we only had one telephone line and dial-up internet access.) My BBS, iQLand, came and went over the year, often being nothing more than a glorified offline mail reader for Dove-Net, an inter-BBS network that comes configured by default with every standard SBBS (Synchronet BBS) install. My most recent attempt at such involved the salvage of an old Pentium II 350 MHz box with limited RAM, an install of Slackware, and a compile and install via CVS. While this system served its propose quite well, I needed it to do some other things I could not quite accomplish with Slackware. (I suppose I just wasn't as in-touch with Bob as I needed to be to run Slack.) Anyway, on to what I really wanted to rant about....

I'm now working toward a functional install of SBBS on the same box but this time with Ubuntu; thus far, my work has gone well. Ubuntu installed on the first try! It even properly configured the box's sound card and monitor! I have been working on installing some of the extra components I want/need for what I intend to do with this system -- besides running SBBS that is, and I -- just last night -- won a spiffy new 400 MHz Pentium II on eBay for $0.01 USD plus a few bucks s'n'h.

I probably should let you in on the purpose of I intend for this new incarnation of my BBS, but I wont -- not just yet that is :-). I have a really good idea in mind, but I still have a few kinks to work out first.