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Skriven 2011-11-06 01:46:04 av Janis Kracht (1:261/38)
Ärende: FidoNews Vol. 28 No. 45 Sustainability Part V
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                  Sustainability Part V. Pointing the Way


     Over the years we've seen musings in the echoes, and occasionally
     in the snooze regarding points, and the reasons the concept really
     took off in zone 2 and not in North America.  With all of the mail
     transfer options at our disposal today becoming a point offers even
     more advantages.

     Back in the day pointing took off where every call was a toll call,
     but in North America supporting points never really gained a lot of
     traction.  My first boss node encouraged me to do so because he
     noted I wanted to get things going with reliable scripting
     automation, and after he changed a couple of things around my
     scripting bombed out, so he suggested pointing.    There are
     advantages, even today, especially for that user who wants his
     mail, and consistently grabs files from certain file distribution
     echoes.

     Last time in this space I discussed luring that potential user with
     a one stop shopping approach.  Supporting that user as a point is
     even easier and more convenient for him, and for you.  If you
     already have facilities such as areafix and raid configured it's
     even easier.

     Back in the old days when everything moved via phone line one of
     the biggest hassles of supporting  a point was file echo
     management.  echomail processors offered better point support
     before file echo processors did.  Otherwise, you had to support
     points under the fakenet concept, and that was a bit of a pain to
     most of us.  Barry Geller's original tic didn't support 4d points,
     but soon other file echo processors commonly used did.  I did a bit
     of a workaround for sending such things as fidonews and nodediffs
     to points, but  at the time the tools I was aware of weren't
     sophisticated enough to totally automate this without a tic file
     processor with point support, so my co-sysop had to get involved in
     the process.  Sometimes this worked better than at others.

     So you've got a user which might be of interest, we'll call him Joe
     User.  Joe stops by, reads a couple of his favorite echoes, and
     might even use your email services instead of his webmail account.
     You've also noted that Joe likes grabbing the Nasa picture of the
     day.  What Joe needs is an easy to set up point package, at one
     time I would have suggested Harvey Parisien's professional point
     mated with Binkleyterm.  I've known of folks to set up ppoint with
     Irex or other mailers, but the integration of the two into one
     smooth running package might be a little much for somebody who'd
     like the one stop automatic convenience but isn't willing to tackle
     a lot of learning curve.  Hello software developers or just sharp
     folks who can make this easier for Joe User!

     There are a lot of ways to sell Joe User on the concept, especially
     if he reads a couple of newsgroups that you're willing to gate to
     an echo area for him.  IF he's finding that the new webmail
     services are resource hogs and the spam level is unbearable you've
     got another selling point, instant customer for point services.
     That is, if you can help him get things set up with a minimum of
     hassle.

     Back in the day the prospective point had two or three options.
     There was of course Harvey Parisien's ppoint which automated the
     configuration of BInkleyterm for him, the box point, winpoint
     eventually, there may have been others.  even setting up
     professional point with Irex or another internet mailer is
     workable, but there's still some learning curve for the newcomer to
     tackle.  What he needs is a package that does it all for him as
     easily as ppoint used to configure binkleyterm.


     FIDONEWS Vol 28 No 45              Page 4          November 7th 2011




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