Hi Paul

 PE> If you are using MSDOS, you chose the shithouse path.  Frontdoor,
 PE> Fmail and  Golded is the wise path.  If you use OS/2, then yeah, you 
 PE> have to go Bink + squish.  

And I suppose the setup procedure for FD and FM is easier? Anthony
doesn't seem to think much of it.
 
 RM> I still haven't worked out a fast way to get Bink to dial 
 RM> out. I can't use alt-Y anymore (now isn't that an easy 
 RM> command to remember!), as in my newest setup I'm not a 

 PE> Pardon?  What exactly do you want to do?  Pick up your daily mail?

Yes, but manually. Bink would do it by itself at 10.00pm if I told
it to, but I don't run it nonstop, so I want it to dial out only
when I run it at odd times. It's these "manual" dial facilities
that I hate.
 
 RM> point. Unless I have written some crash replies, in which 
 RM> case Bink sends them automatically, I gotta *type* "alt-M 
 RM> 61:6800/20.0{at}Worldnet". There is a nodelist sysop name 

 PE> Pardon?  What's wrong with golded???

er.. golded is a msg reader/writer... bink is the terminal program...
 
 RM> lookup feature, but it's so poorly described that I can't 
 RM> get it to work.

 PE> You're a disturbed man, Roy.  Anyhow, once you've got it 
 PE> set up, stop stuffing around with it.

I set it up, it behaves itself for a month, and then decides that
60k of msgs I received recently are actually marked for
transmission, and cheerfully tries to send them back. Crazy.

Let's compare this point setup with a BBSQWK setup.

Point:

Pros: less online time, because the sysop's system collects and
packs mail offline. Calling is totally automatic, and is fast. Can
be set up to run unattended, say at 2am while user naps.

Cons: Initial setting up is painful. The documentation sucks for
neophytes. User turns areas in the bbs on or off with cryptic
little msgs to Areafix or Squaem or Squalid or whatever, using his
*password* as a subject. If he forgets to mark the msg as Private,
his password is displayed for all to see (I've seen about a dozen
cases on various boards so far). User then has to set up subdirs,
and set up commands in the mail unpacker config file. All area
names have to be spelled correctly in Areafix and config files.

Personal cons: system goes stupid every now and then. Useless
cryptic error msgs. Crash and burn technique required for fixing:
make a change, call, check results, make a change, call, etc.

BBSQWK:

Pros: User sets up areas by interacting with bbs menus. No
config files to edit. Spelling of area names is not an issue; user
selects areas by number.

Cons: heavy on online time, because msg collecting and packing is
done online. Calling can be slowed down by bbs logos, bulletins,
and menus. Menu navigation can be automated, but user needs a bit
of skill in writing comms program command scripts. Unattended mode
is not really feasible.


Me, I'll stick to 110 seconds of fun for now..

cheers
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12

--- Maximus/2 2.01wb