>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> WELCOME TO <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ___ ___ __ __ _____ ___ / __| ___ / _ \ ____ \ \ / / _ _ | __ | ___ ___ / __| | (__ | _ \ | _ | |_ / \ V / | \| | | __| \ \/\/ / \__ \ \___| | / |_| |_| / / |_| | .` | |_____| \ /\ / |___/ |_|_\ /___| |_|\_| \/ \/ --- * ISSUE 3 * --- --- * C R A Z Y N E W S ! ! * --- Welcome to the third edition of CrazyNews: you've seen the web site, you've spodded on the talker - now read the newsletter! --- * Contents * --- * Introduction * The News! * Admin Admissions! * The Little Debate * CrazyHumour * Residents Homepages Competition * CrazyStats * CrazyLands Tutorial * Telnet Client Review * Submit Stuff * Mailing Information --- * Introduction * --- It doesn't seem a month since the last issue, but we're here, we're back and this time it's personal! I'll make the introduction short this month and let you read the rest of the newsletter. First and foremost though I'd like to ask you for feedback - what do you think of the newsletter and how can we make it better? Do you want to help with part of it? Honesty and bluntness will be appreciated as we want to make this a useful service and not another email that gets filtered and trashed upon receipt! One of the big changes soon will be that there will be a bi-monthly service from CrazyNews. In the middle of each month there will be a bulletin posting, which will contain some of the simple announcements and any latest important news. The main reason for this is to keep the interest in CrazyNews going, as it seems that we go from month to month and can't remember what's happened in the previous one (old age on my part I hear you say?!). The tutorial this month is the same as last - it's on Newsgroups. The number of postings to the new Newsgroups (or lack of them!) would suggest either people don't know they exist or think they're too complicated, so we've included the tutorial again - they're a great feature on CrazyLands and it's well worth the effort of learning the few commands you need to access them. Remember, the classifieds towards the bottom of this mail are FREE - that means you get free advertisement to nearly a thousand net users! So if you're selling something or are looking for an item to buy just post your requirements to crazynews@crazylands.org and we'll do the rest. That's me signing out for now - seeya on CrazyLands soon! ~Raist (Editor) --- * The News! * --- * Marriage of the Month * Gladys married short time lover Ratcliffe recently. They would both like to thank everyone who was there for the ceremony, but for future weddings (of others) could the rice be removed from the tins first! The honeymoon was to have taken place in Essex over the weekend of April 18/19, but Gladys was unable to make it due to her guardian Pumbaa being stuck in Hong Kong of all places. Ratcliffe was pining all weekend! * Spod-Meet * A Crazylands spodmeet was held in Colchester, Essex on 18/19 April. Spods in attendance were Gordo, Magenta, Merlin, Nevyn, Raist, Ratcliffe, Sonnyk and Swiff (did I miss anyone there?). Fun, frolicks, spodding and tuna bake were much in evidence, but no photos are available for the prosecution! Big thanks from all of the crew goto Swiff and Merlin for the use of their house (yes there is a house amongst that pile of cables, computers and network cards !), electricity and PHONE LINE! * Marriage Announcement * This is to formally announce the irl (!) wedding of JOSIE (aka Monique) and MAHISWARADAS (aka Salamandir) on the 21st of June, 1998 at The Rose Garden in Woodland Park Seattle, Washington - U.S.A. All spods who read this message, who can get there, are invited. RSVP to Salamandir at slmndr@aa.net In The Holy Name of Tina Chopp Rev. Dr. Guido S. DeLuxe, DD, LDD, OGG, OHS, ST, MSU High Priest -- The Church of Tina Chopp cotc@aa.net -- http://www.aa.net/cotc/ * CrazyLands T-Shirts: *THE* Official Spodding Gear! * Help support CrazyLands and show your true colors by getting your hands on one of the new, limited first-edition CrazyLands T-Shirts which are still available at a great price! They look great and will help to keep CrazyLands running. For more details look at the web page (http://www.crazylands.org) or email: Canada: nexus@crazylands.org Price, 20 Canadian Dollars USA: mulder@crazylands.org Price, 16 American Dollars UK (and elsewhere): swiff@crazylands.org Price, 10 UK Pounds * Globe Trotting CrazyLands Residents! * Magenta spent a couple of weeks over in the UK during this month and was treated to the wonderful delights of British weather, sights, company and food - all of which I'm sure she'll remember for a long time! Magenta was also witness to a CrazyLands spodmeet where she got to meet all those people IRL whom she abuses so much on the talker ! (j/k) Simba and Skid are also on their travels in Europe early this Summer visiting different spods (and *real* people!). Their itinerary includes: Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Austria, Poland, Germany and back to Britain before their return home to Canada and US. Ostrich is also out and about at the moment, she started her tour of Europe many weeks ago and will eventually end up in the UK where she'll be spending a couple of months (if she can put up with us). Take a look at her web page (try the link from the CrazyLands Webpage) to see her latest piccies and find out where she's got to in Europe! Finally, Grim has returned from his visit to Florida to see Typogoddess (his fiancee), and reportedly had a great time (again). This is hardly news though, because (for those who don't know Grim), these visits across the pond for him are both frequent and lengthy ;> Last Autumn various spods visited each other around the world, so this time we'll keep you posted of any developments - send us a postcard here at CrazyNews (crazynews@crazylands.org)! If any of you are visiting anywhere this year, let us know and we'll set up our own 'CrazyWorld - Places to visit Guide'! * Quick News * Ratcliffe has just got a shiny new car, how long before he prangs (dents or crashes) this one? (a trait of spods me thinks ~Ed) Simba got a new teaching job - ask her about it as I'm sure she'd *love* to tell you about it! (We can't stop her telling us !) * Gladys and her Amazing Adventures * Insider information has it that the world-renowned Gladys will shortly be unveiling something new and special. Watch this space... * RC5 - Team EW is Moving On Up - Still * Grim - an EW talker spod for many years - has arranged a team to work on the cracking of the RC5 codes which is organised by Distributed Net. If team EW wins the prize by cracking the code, Grim is going to use the prize money to start an EW server on the Internet which will offer a home for some of the EW related services (like the EW programmer mailing list). Information about the programmers mailing list, Team EW and the RC5 effort can be found at: http://csc.liv.ac.uk/~u5ral/rc.html ...or email Grim at: grim@ewtoo.org Get involved - it's great fun getting as many machines to take part ... but be aware ... it's very addictive ! --- * Admin Admissions! * --- Hi all (me, again)! Not a lot of development has taken place on the program this month - we've mainly been trying to concentrate on bug fixes. Some more help files have been written (thanks to Verin for helping with some edits), and by the time you read this there should be some help files online for generic_social. Try: help gs_tutor ...on CrazyLands. In other news, there's some pretty ambitious plans on the cards to convert all the help files to a web based format so that its easier for you guys to find something. At the moment, this is in the planning stage, but we're always interested in listening to ideas. Remember, you can always use the suggest or bug commands on the talker, or email direct to: bugs@crazylands.org ...or... suggest@crazylands.org ...to get longer bug reports or suggestions straight to us. Thats about all for now. Oh, there are still a few CrazyLands tshirts left, so for those that haven't got one, mail us and buy one! Hope to see you all on line, ~Swiff --- * The Little Debate * --- The Debate: Are there too many Ewtoo talkers on the net? This is your opportunity to air YOUR views on different topics. As Swiff mentioned last month in his tutorial (and this month!) you should post your comments on the debate to the relevant newsgroup on CrazyLands. This months debate newsgroup is called: CN.Issue3 If you would like to suggest a topic for discussion please send submissions to: crazynews@crazylands.org --- * CrazyHumour * --- (We *still* need some good jokes, help! - Ed) ... This chicken and egg are laying in bed next to each other... The chicken is smoking a cigarette and looking pretty smug, smiling a little half smile... The egg on the other hand is not looking so happy, as he mumbles to no-one in particular "Well I guess we answered THAT question". ... All of these were taken from an email I received last week, some though I think were written by someone who isn't a net junkie. You know you're a net Junkie when ... 1. You turn off your modem and get this awful empty feeling, like you just pulled the plug on a loved one. 2. Your hard drive crashes. You haven't logged in for two hours. You start to twitch. You pick up the phone and manually dial your ISP's access number. You try to hum to communicate with the modem...and you succeed. 3. You refer to going to the bathroom as downloading. 4. Your phone bill comes to your doorstep in a box. 5. You don't know what sex three of your closest friends are, because they have neutral nicknames and you never bothered to ask. 6. You tell the cab driver you live at "http://1000.edison.garden/house/brick.html." 7. You start introducing yourself as "JohnDoe at CSi dot com." You know you're an net Junkie when ... [ Comments in brackets! ] 1. You wake up at 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom and stop to check your e-mail on the way back to bed. [ Woah 3 a.m. and you've already *gone* to bed?! ] 2. You can't call your mother...she doesn't have a modem. [ Call yourself a spod - you haven't converted your family ? ] 3. You start using smileys in your snail mail. : ) [ eeek! snailmail .. is that like paper and pen and stuff ? ] ... Thanks to Megabyte this issue for the jokes. Think you can do better? - send your best jokes into the address at the bottom of the issue! --- * Residents Homepages Competition * --- Last month we launched a new competition for all the residents of CrazyLands - Homepage of the Month. We went to get the decision from this months judges, but found out they have all been asleep this month, so we thought we'd give you another month to do some spring cleaning and spruce up your pages! So, just to remind you that the criteria for judging will be on content, originality, features, use of html and presentation. (Bribes will be accepted!) The winner will get a special link from the main CrazyLands web page, to their page for the month (as well as keeping their web ring entry of course) and in due course we'll design a little kewl award to post on your page. Only residents web pages which are included on the CrazyLands web ring will be judged in the competition and the judges decision is final. Check out http://www.crazylands.org for all residents homepages. If your site doesn't appear on the web ring email Nexus (nexus@crazylands.org), who will arrange for your link to be added. --- * CrazyStats * --- For the number geeks among you here is CrazyStats! Every month we'll give you a list of stats that will guarantee to kill off the most lively of conversations. Thanks to some new code, we'll be getting more detailed stats soon - we hope! This months CrazyStats effort: Longest up time ever: 22 days and 7 hours+ Current Residents: 981 (up 2% on last month) Total Online time of Top 20 spods: 1.73m minutes (yes, million) or 1203 days and 12 hours+ --- * CrazyLands Tutorial * --- This months tutorial is the same as last month - on the new newsgroups system. Newsgroups have been added so that people make responses to the CrazyNews Little Debate. Each Little Debate will have its own newsgroup where people can post opinions or responses. If you have never used Usenet (on the internet) before, a newsgroup is simply a topic where a list of articles appear which are supposed to relate to that topic. The way newsgroups have been implemented means that you can carry on posting news exactly how you used to, and it will all go to the Misc (the main) newsgroup. That way, you don't even have to use the new system or look at other groups at all if you don't want to. All of the news sub commands (news post, news read) and so on, will work on your default newsgroup. Unless you change it, this default groups will be misc. You can change your default group on a permanent basis, (for example, if you always end up posting to a group about your main interest); or on a temporary basis, should you want to post and read several articles from a group without specifying the group to be used each time. To operate on a specific newsgroup, or to change your settings related to groups, you can either use the new newsgroup command, or use the sub command group in the news command. For example, the command: news group check misc ...is the same as... newsgroup check misc To list the newsgroups available, type: newsgroup list This should list all the groups for you, with the number of articles on the left, and the description on the right. The description of the group may be truncated so it fits in the space. If this happens, a ... will appear at the end of the description to show that there is more. You can find out detailed information about a group by typing: newsgroup show_info The name of the group appears in the title banner and the description will appear at the top of the information, followed by some general details. These details are more for administration purposes, but may be of interest. Here is an example output from this command: Crazy 07:40:PM> newsgroup show_info misc -------------------------------- misc --------------------------------- The default newsgroup for all miscellaneous articles. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Created: 01.44:36 AM - Sat, 02 April Last posted to: 01.44:36 AM - Sat, 03 April Postings: 11 Max postings: 100 Expire after: 90 days ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The newsgroup command should allow you to post, read, followup and perform all the same actions as the news command does, but will expect you to supply a group name with each command. For example: newsgroup post misc My articles subject ...should start a news posting to the group misc with the subject 'My articles subject'. You DO NOT need to type the full newsgroup name every time. You can type just the first part of the name, and it will try to match to a group if it can - in the same way commands do. For example: newsgroup check deba ...should match to the newsgroup with the name 'debate' - providing there isn't another group called 'debate1' for example. In that case, the system wouldn't know which group you were referring to and would not match. To change the group that is used by the news command, you have to change your default group. As mentioned, this can be done permanently or temporarily. To change it permanently, type: newsgroup set_default ...and temporarily: newsgroup set_temp The temporary group will be reset back to your permanent default group when you log off - of course you can just change it back by hand. As a nice addition, when you get informed about new news, you will be told to which group it has been added. Remember, the rules apply to articles posted to any group, just the same as they did for the old news system. Finally, it may not be possible for you to post to some groups. This is so there can be groups for announcements from the admin or su's for example. The show_info command will tell you if it is not possible to post to a particular group. Hopefully, you should now be able to use newsgroups. There should be help files for each command on the talker, and this tutorial will be available by typing: help newsgroup_tutor In summary, here's the syntax for each new command: newsgroup check newsgroup set_default newsgroup set_temporary newsgroup post newsgroup read newsgroup reply newsgroup remove Have fun using newsgroups! --- * Telnet Client Review * --- This months review is on GMud. It's hard to review a windoze client when you are a recent Linux convert but here goes ... ;) GMud is a shareware GUI MUD client available via the internet which runs on a number of operating systems including windoze95, NT and Windows 3.1+. The latest version can be downloaded from ftp://papa.indstate.edu/winsock-l/mud/ It helps you connect to a mud or talker in an easier manner than the basic telnet program that comes with the windoze operating system. It lets you set up worlds which can be saved to allow easier access to regularly used sites. Other Options include setting colors and fonts and assigning sounds to different events e.g. when a named friend walks into the room you might have assigned a favorite .wav file to it. GMud allows you to connect to multiple sites using the 'worlds' feature that appears in a number of telnet clients , each site is given its own window which can be manipulated like any other window enabling you to see all windows at the same time or full-screen windows one-at-a-time. GMud also enables you log every session, saving everything that is output to your screen to a text file. From a technical point of view I'm told that GMud doesn't work particularly well with the telnet protocol, hence some of the problems people may have experienced when we recently upgraded to a new version of CrazyLands. This is mainly because CrazyLands has implemented some more advanced telnet protocol features which other talkers don't bother with. Because of the problems in this client, it can mean that you won't be taking advantage of these features. CrazyLands has managed to 'hack' around most of these problems with clients such as this one now, so it won't cause you a problem, but you may be loosing out somewhat with this client. This client scores... Usability : ****- Compliancy : *---- Cost : ***-- (shareware) Features : ****- Overall : ***-- More info: Written by Daniel L. Kelly: entropy@infobahn.icubed.com Reviewed by Raist. Any volunteers for a review of a mac-specific telnet/mud client ? --- * Classifieds, Correspondence Section, Personals * --- * FREE SPACE FOR ALL TO USE! * Your advert here! FREE! This section is where ressies can submit info for other ressies to get in touch with them, to start (or end) a love connection, or to buy or sell goods or information! Please note that all adverts are free, and any one advert will only be run for a maximum of 3 issues of CrazyNews. The editors reserve the right to remove an advert or decline to display it at anytime or edit submitted adverts for display purposes. All adverts must not be longer than FIVE lines of text, 70 characters a line. * Adverts This Month * Wanted: One pair of ruby red slippers, size 8. Needed for frequent travel between Toronto and Boston via Wizard of Oz style. Send mail to Simba if you have a pair available. --- * Submit Stuff * --- If you want to submit anything, use the following email addresses to send your stuff. Please remember that all the usual rules about content apply, and the editors reserve the right to change any submitted articles. Please make sure you say so if you do not wish your name and/or email address to be published!! crazynews@crazylands.org All submissions, jokes or debate topics, etc. crazy@crazylands.org Any email to admin, complaints, etc. --- * Mailing Information * --- This email has been sent to you because you're a resident on CrazyLands, the talker which runs at: crazylands.org 6969 See our web page at http://www.crazylands.org for more information. If you do not wish to receive this email, please log onto the talker and type: crazynews off Your email address is never published to users or external sources. It is a rule of the talker that you must set a valid email address however, so that you may be contacted if there is a problem or with important talker information. Your email is not a stored mailing list and this news posting is not sent to a fixed mailing list. --- * The End (of issue 3)! * ---