IDEA: These forums..

Put it in a CHM file, it's the best way i think!
On MS site you can get the htmlhelp compiler..


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[Tom Hanlin]

A program that "harvests" from a web site in this manner is called a "robot". These programs can place a great deal of stress on the web server by demanding too much information too quickly. It is important to recognize this and design your program accordingly. Please refer to the following links for more information:
http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/faq.html
http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/proje.../norobots.html

It is also important for a well-behaved "robot" to respect the settings in the web site's robots.txt file. The settings at www.powerbasic.com have recently been changed to allow robots into the forums.

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff

[Gregery D Engle]

Borje,

I assume your going to be a nice programmer and share with all the other kids?



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-Greg

[Borje Hagsten]

I'm on to it, Semen. I've grabbed the files from your site, written
a parser that replaces html-line breaks with proper text file breaks,
strips and then removes all html code. It Appends each file to a text
file and so, the 625 files with a total size of +10MB you had,
are now down to a single 3.2 MB text file.

Now all I have to do is to create a search & find program for this
file and also add my syntax color code to a preview window. Most
of the code already exists in some form, so I'll try to find time
to finish it up later on tonight. Right now I must take care of
some boring business before I can wrap this baby up, but it looks
good, so I think it will be worth it..


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[Semen Matusovski]

Folks --
Ok, guys, let's begin.
Current copy of Source code section: ftp://ftp.comstar.ru/cli/matusovski/src.zip
(to unzip better to use something similar Winzip - long file names)
Reminder for IE users. The easiest way to copy in off-line, is
a) in IE Ctrl-C
b) start Wordpad, Ctrl-V
c) in Wordpad to select again, Ctrl-C
d) start Pb, Ctrl-V

or you can use an utility, which I posted some monthes ago (Struggle with forum software)

Hope, that somebody will support this initiative.


[This message has been edited by Semen Matusovski (edited June 20, 2000).]

[Gregery D Engle]

Originally posted by Jim Padgett:
Why doesn't just one person download them, zip them and put them up on PowerBasic's FTP site say once a month or so?

How about I use the full power of my cable modem and make monthly CDs with all the content of whats on this BBS and then I sell it for $20.00 a month (just joking lance!)

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-Greg

[Jim Padgett]

Why doesn't just one person download them, zip them and put them up on PowerBasic's FTP site say once a month or so?

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[Lance Edmonds]

as of this precise moment, we have no objection to this method (be warned that 30,000-odd messages is a lot of traffic to download!), but this decision is open for review at any time.

please note that the "harvesting" of personal information or email addresses is not permitted. nor is redistribution permitted. for more information on this, please review

if performance of the bbs is arbitarily affected by the over-use of this "blind" download technique, then we reserve the right to review our decision. as always, powerbasic, inc. reserves the right to change the rules, grant or restrict access, and limit content at anytime.

thanks folks, and please play fair!



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lance
powerbasic support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</a>

[Borje Hagsten]

He he, you're cool, Semen. This reminds me of my days in the
military service. I was a radio-operator and they thaught us
everything about how to set up communications, break into
telephone switches, etc.

Of course we used these knowledges to get ourselves completely
illegal, but free, telephone connections - wich was worth a lot
of money, because many of the guys had to call home through long
distance calls. Most of us even managed to get ourselves free
phone lines back home..

Anyway, the question is - even if we can do it, will PB approve
of this, or what? Don't want to upset anyone, do we?


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[Semen Matusovski]

For myself I solved a question with off-line by following way

[removed by administrator. please see message with respect to robots]

Isn't there a way to make a 'carbon copy' of all the information on this forum and view it offline on our PC's, as thats all that is required, or doesn't the UBB software allow this?

Regards,

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Kev G Peel
KGP Software
Bridgwater, UK.
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Gregery D Engle]

Originally posted by Borje Hagsten:

It doesn't really matter that the contents is a bit old or even
incorrect, because what we usually need is a pointer in the right
direction, a pointer that often can to be found here.

I agree with you 100% I have done many onsight projects and that don't have internet or I felt that it would be unethical to use internet for research. I have brought this subject up before and everyone likes the idea but going on paper is another story. I would love to be able to compile a little CD which all the research I need



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-Greg

[Borje Hagsten]

Okay, I understand. Too bad, because there are days when it takes
more than a minute for each page to load here. Our trans-atlantic
connections are really slow sometimes. I have a 56K modem, but
sometimes only seem to get 56 bps out of it, if you know what I
mean. An off-line database with the contents of these forums
would have many mm's of nails on such days..

It doesn't really matter that the contents is a bit old or even
incorrect, because what we usually need is a pointer in the right
direction, a pointer that often can to be found here.

Back to the drawing-board again. Time for new ideas to pop up..


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[Tom Hanlin]

Greg, we'll look into it.

E B, likewise.

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff

About files

Lance, is it possible to zip the RFC docs on ftp site?
This is mainly the reason that i don't read them.

Thanks,


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[Gregery D Engle]

Lance,

I wish you guys would allow people to view this website in offline mode. I've tried to put these fourms in offline mode but everytime it tries to sync it finds the ROBOTS.TXT file and stops. I 100% understand that you guys can't compile all the emails but I would love to be able to make an offline webpage for my use. Just some tid-bits for ya.



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-Greg

[Eric Pearson]

> if we were to tell you (...) we'd have to shoot you

Reminds me... My brother, who used to be in military intelligence, was in a seminar where that line was used by the seminar leader. Somebody in the back of the room answered "Ok... Then tell my wife."

-- Eric


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Perfect Sync: Perfect Sync Development Tools
Email: mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Lance Edmonds]

While it sounds like a good idea - we have discussed it ourselves - there are some problems associated with actually doing it. First there is editing - it would have to exclude any misinformation.

Next is the expectation of customers and BBS members. For example, although all the messages in the BBS become the property of PowerBASIC, publishing them may cause prople to object to their messages being included. As there are around 30,000 messages on the BBS, getting the appropriate "clearances" and/or "releases" is not a small task.

There are other issues too, such as the likelyhood of an expectation of some level of Tech Support for non-working code or code that only works on some versions of PowerBASIC, or... from a logistics point of view, the task is "difficult" to say the least.

As it stands, everyone has free access to this data, and it it 100% up to date - if a CD was available, it would be out of date next week.

Anyway, you get my drift... the concept sounds great on paper, implementation is likely to be hazardous!

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>

[Borje Hagsten]

BTW - to return to the original posting: Would it be possible to
collect all postings to these forums in a bunch of text files?
Together with a little "search and find" program, they would be
an exellent source of info for all PB users - escially for those
of us who has to pay per minute online and therefore, due to slow
connections, often can't make use of this "knowledge database" as
much as we would like to.

The offer still stands - I'd gladly spend a couple of hours on
writing the program for it, but I'll need these forums in text
file format to be able to do it.


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[Borje Hagsten]

> I'm not teasing you too much, am I? 8-)

Yeah, you are. Go ahead and shoot - I want to know what you're
up to..

(Silly discussion, I know. Better to focus on writing code and
building new samples for the existing compiler instead.)


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