Subject: npds Digest V2 #13

From: Listar <nospam_listar_at_ml.free_dot_fr>
Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 03:15:07 +0100 (CET)

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npds Digest	Thu, 08 Mar 2001	Volume: 02  Issue: 013

In This Issue:
		[NPDS] Re: NPDS Live Chat
		[NPDS] Re: NPDS Live Chat
		[NPDS] Re: NPDS Live Chat

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Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 20:33:22 -0600
From: John Solon <nospam_jjsolon_at_facstaff.wisc_dot_edu>
Subject: [NPDS] Re: NPDS Live Chat

Hi Paul,

>Harri Hohteri suggested that we had a live chat on NPDS. I was
>wondering what you thought about it. The idea is to enable chatting
>with vistors AND the owner, instead of using the instant
>message/screen shot way.

I'm still hoping, forlornly by now, that Matt's original idea of being able
to post to Dates will be implemented/released. I feel the lack of this
every single day. Live Chat would be 'slick' but I'd rather see the
resources, i.e. your time ;-) , invested in Date-posting and strengthening
Note-posting, which, on my machine at least has a tendency to post empty
notes (i.e. 'forget' the ontent being posted).  Just my $0.02...

Cheers 'n' later... John

"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is
constantly making exciting discoveries."  A.A. Milne.

http://144.92.203.30
M-F, 9 a.m - 5p.m. (often earlier, sometimes later)

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Subject: [NPDS] Re: NPDS Live Chat
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 22:07:04 -0700
From: Grant [Thick Black Spine] Hutchinson <nospam_grant_at_splorp_dot_com>

In a previous message, John Solon typed:

>I'm still hoping, forlornly by now, that Matt's original idea of being able
>to post to Dates will be implemented/released. I feel the lack of this
>every single day. Live Chat would be 'slick' but I'd rather see the
>resources, i.e. your time ;-) , invested in Date-posting and strengthening
>Note-posting, which, on my machine at least has a tendency to post empty
>notes (i.e. 'forget' the ontent being posted).  Just my $0.02...

I would have to agree with John. Features such as the ones he 
mentioned... in fact, any enhancements to remote data manipulation, and 
perhaps more flexible page counting/filtering would be more useful 
additions.

However, a two way live chat mechanism would be useful in many 
situations. Maybe it might work better as a standalone package rather 
than as another feature running on top of NPDS.

And Paul Guyot mentioned:

>With all these features, I'm scared that we explode the counter. Maybe we
>could think about limiting the counter to hits to the home page? Or to
>sessions? (I prefer sessions as apparently many visitors to my Newton
>server have a bookmark of some pages).

If you're interested specifically in pure traffic numbers, session 
counting is much more useful. Page hits is valuable, only if you are 
concerned with what people are looking at and how much they viewed while 
visiting. Many people still equate page views and hits directly to visits 
or sessions. It really comes down to how you want to measure your traffic 
and throughput. A user-selectable set of options to configure the counter 
would be useful to me.

And now that my DSL connection is almost completely installed, I'll be 
able to get my spare 2100 running with NPDS full time. Woo hoo!

Grant

......................................................................

Grant Hutchinson                       Interface Considerations & Toys

Live video served fresh since 1996.    http://www.splorp.com/
Now fortified with daily ramblings.    http://www.splorp.com/blog/
Newton. It's the Palm with a brain.    http://www.splorp.com/newton/

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Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 06:23:01 +0100
From: Paul Guyot <nospam_pguyot_at_kallisys_dot_net>
Subject: [NPDS] Re: NPDS Live Chat

>I would have to agree with John. Features such as the ones he
>mentioned... in fact, any enhancements to remote data manipulation, and
>perhaps more flexible page counting/filtering would be more useful
>additions.

OK folks, you were heard. I'll work on Dates first (and 
authentification, which is linked).
My priority is the core of NPDS.

>However, a two way live chat mechanism would be useful in many
>situations. Maybe it might work better as a standalone package rather
>than as another feature running on top of NPDS.

Anyway, it would be handled by a module.

>If you're interested specifically in pure traffic numbers, session
>counting is much more useful. Page hits is valuable, only if you are
>concerned with what people are looking at and how much they viewed while
>visiting. Many people still equate page views and hits directly to visits
>or sessions. It really comes down to how you want to measure your traffic
>and throughput. A user-selectable set of options to configure the counter
>would be useful to me.

What I meant is that page hits will be any hit, not just pages. We'll 
have much bigger values than the one we were used to.

Paul
-- 
http://www.kallisys.com/
Newton WebServer: http://newt.dyndns.org:8080
                       Does ATA Support 0.1a2 work with your ATA card(s)?
                                      http://www.kallisys.com/newton/ata/

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Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2001 09:48:50 -0600
Subject: [NPDS] Re: NPDS Live Chat
From: Matt Vaughn <nospam_mwvaugh_at_life.uiuc_dot_edu>

I think this is a great idea and would be simple to implement.

A simple NPDS module has an array of postings with the following slots

Username (chosen by the user at first sign-on), Chat text, Time, and IP
address (for logging)

You have a page user can visit that shows the chat in action. The page has a
meta tag in the header that forces a reload once every 30 seconds. It will
also reload instantly if the user submits anything. Keep reloading the page
and voila, semi-live chat.

WELCOME TO NPDS CHAT

[3/7/01 10:30] paulguyot: Hey, I think I have grown to love the GPL!
[3/7/01 10:32] mattvaughn: Paul, say it isn't so!
[3/7/01 10:34] paulguyot: Well, I have this new affection for makefiles...
[3/7/01 10:36] victor: Linux rocks.
[3/7/01 10:37] mattvaughn: heh
[3/7/01 10:37] victor: bah
[3/7/01 10:38] paulguyot: bbl
[3/7/01 10:40] mattvaughn: bye paul
-----------------------------------
POST TO NPDS CHAT
Username: [      ]
Text: [               ] <Submit> <Clear>
-----------------------------------

Upon submission, the posting is processed and added to the array, sorted by
submission time, and the new page HTML is returned to the user. This is
bare-bones simple and side-steps the need for Java or streaming or anything
like that. You could store the username in a single-session cookie so that
the user would only have to enter it once.

You could easily write a GUI front end for the module so that the Newton
owner could participate in the chat without using the intermediate HTTP
interface.

Matt

[Paul's note: Matt: the address you have which is subscribed to the 
mailing list is [email-masked], not [email-masked] 
- you can register both and have one receiving the digest for example 
- BTW, I wonder why you lost your moderator flag, you would have 
receive the message from Listar, anyway, I set it again]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 17:23:39 +0100
From: Paul Guyot <nospam_pguyot_at_kallisys_dot_net>
Subject: [NPDS] Re: NPDS Live Chat

>Username (chosen by the user at first sign-on), Chat text, Time, and IP
>address (for logging)

Well, the problem is randomly working proxies such as mine, so we 
should forget the IP idea (which isn't required anyway, I know how to 
do it, even without a cookie - I've done that in the past for a 
customer who never paid me)

>You have a page user can visit that shows the chat in action. The page has a
>meta tag in the header that forces a reload once every 30 seconds. It will
>also reload instantly if the user submits anything. Keep reloading the page
>and voila, semi-live chat.

This is one of the solutions, indeed. It should be enough as the 
owner of the Newton enters text with a pen (well, normally, be he 
could log from the desktop and type with a keyboard).

However, we should narrow the moments when the Newton beeps and when 
the counter is increased.

>[3/7/01 10:30] paulguyot: Hey, I think I have grown to love the GPL!

That's surely someone else using my name.

>[3/7/01 10:32] mattvaughn: Paul, say it isn't so!
>[3/7/01 10:34] paulguyot: Well, I have this new affection for makefiles...

Especially these sucking recursive and dirty make files of GnuMake. Beurk.

>Upon submission, the posting is processed and added to the array, sorted by
>submission time, and the new page HTML is returned to the user.

The best then is to use frames.
(we could use HTML 4.0.1 frameset to still be 4.0.1 compliant)

>This is
>bare-bones simple and side-steps the need for Java or streaming or anything
>like that. You could store the username in a single-session cookie so that
>the user would only have to enter it once.

I thought of a cookie, but for Instant messages and posts. We could 
even share this cookie among NPDS servers if the browser accepts to 
share cookies.

>You could easily write a GUI front end for the module so that the Newton
>owner could participate in the chat without using the intermediate HTTP
>interface.

Of course. The user could also say if he is here or away. This would 
be a great feature to add, but other webmasters prefer that I work 
first on the Dates module, and so will I.

Paul
-- 
http://www.kallisys.com/
Newton WebServer: http://newt.dyndns.org:8080
                       Does ATA Support 0.1a2 work with your ATA card(s)?
                                      http://www.kallisys.com/newton/ata/

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End of npds Digest V2 #13
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