Return-Path: Received: by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.7.4/NSCS-1.0S) id XAA21736; Thu, 12 Mar 1998 23:49:04 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 23:49:04 -0500 (EST) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <199803130449.XAA21736@massis.lcs.mit.edu> To: ptownson Subject: TELECOM Digest V18 #37 TELECOM Digest Thu, 12 Mar 98 23:49:00 EST Volume 18 : Issue 37 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Well, it Happened Again (TELECOM Digest Editor) Book Review: "Web Video Complete", Martin Nemzow (Rob Slade) House Passes Measure to Punish Cellular Eavesdropping (J.Norton) Re: 3000.00 Phone Bill HELP!!! (Gail M. Hall) A Plague of Phone Books (James Bellaire) Book Review: "World Wide Web Journal: XML: Principles, Tools (Rob Slade) "Soft" Dial Tone in USWEST Land (Michael F. March) TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * telecom-request@telecom-digest.org * The Digest is edited, published and compilation-copyrighted by Patrick Townson of Skokie, Illinois USA. You can reach us by postal mail, fax or phone at: Post Office Box 4621 Skokie, IL USA 60076 Phone: 847-727-5427 Fax: 773-539-4630 ** Article submission address: editor@telecom-digest.org ** Our archives are available for your review/research. The URL is: http://telecom-digest.org They can also be accessed using anonymous ftp: ftp hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/telecom-archives/archives (or use our mirror site: ftp ftp.epix.net/pub/telecom-archives) A third method is the Telecom Email Information Service: Send a note to archives@telecom-digest.org to receive a help file for using this method or write me and ask for a copy of the help file for the Telecom Archives. ************************************************************************* * TELECOM Digest is partially funded by a grant from the * * International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland * * under the aegis of its Telecom Information Exchange Services (TIES) * * project. Views expressed herein should not be construed as represent-* * ing views of the ITU. * ************************************************************************* In addition, a gift from Mike Sandman, Chicago's Telecom Expert has enabled me to replace some obsolete computer equipment and enter the 21st century sort of on schedule. His mail order telephone parts/supplies service based in the Chicago area has been widely recognized by Digest readers as a reliable and very inexpensive source of telecom-related equipment. Please request a free catalog today at http://www.sandman.com --------------------------------------------------------------- Finally, the Digest is funded by gifts from generous readers such as yourself who provide funding in amounts deemed appropriate. Your help is important and appreciated. A suggested donation of twenty dollars per year per reader is considered appropriate. See our address above. Please make at least a single donation to cover the cost of processing your name to the mailing list. All opinions expressed herein are deemed to be those of the author. Any organizations listed are for identification purposes only and messages should not be considered any official expression by the organization. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 23:13:51 EST From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: Well, it Happened Again ... But this time I knew what to do ... sort of. And it was not a total crash with the loss of Windows, but just a series of very flaky things happening all at once or a few hours apart, such as the complete loss of a terminal program for dialing out to the net, a loss of several items on the desktop which were recovered by making new shortcuts for them, etc. My one favorite terminal program is still sickly; for whatever reason when re-installing the modem (after Windows lost track of it) Windows insisted it had to be in Com 4; rather than where it had been earlier. Well okay, so I go to the terminal program I like (because I can send faxes with it easily) called 'QL2FAX' (remember that one from the Sprint Free Modem days?) and it refuses to accept Com 4 as a valid place for the modem, at least in DOS. When I run it from the Windows DOS prompt however, it sort of accepts Com 4 at least to where it starts to dial out, and then the screen goes blank, although you can hear the modem noise in the background. Nothing recovers the screen except a complete reboot. If I start out in DOS to investigate this problem, QL2FAX begins right away telling me that 'cannot access port 4, it is busy.' And although in the setup I find Com 4 as the place where it is, it I try to *put it in 4 myself later on*, it once again claims it is invalid. Okay, so I can use another terminal program easily enough, but then 'Quick Launch' -- the little icons on the left side of the task bar at the bottom all managed to get lost. They got recovered only when I completely reloaded Internet Explorer 4.0, which then got Netscape very annoyed at no longer being the 'default browser'. Then Internet Explorer said 'if I do not get to be default, you will be in BIG TROUBLE. A reload of America Online at that point (because it knew nothing about where to find the modem any longer) took care of that because it wiped out IE-4 entirely and put its very own version of IE-3 there instead. Reloading 4.0 cured that after a few small 'minor' adjustments (ha-ha, nothing is minor around here it seems). Monday morning beginning about 3:00 AM the worst winter storm in more than a decade it is claimed hit the Chicago area among other places. All winter long here, we have been praising and worshipping the great god 'El Nino' for the warmth and mild conditions. True, the California People had yet another mudslide and other nasty things happen to them as a result of El Nino, but we were getting along just fine, thank you. Mother Nature kicked in last Monday morning to show she is still boss, and we wound up with six to ten inches of snow, winds of 40 miles per hour during it, power and telephone lines down all over the area, and lots more grief. Power in Skokie was out from 5:57 AM Monday morning until a bit past 1:00 AM Tuesday morning, or about 19 hours total. Some parts of Chicago remained out of power for more than two days. In total, Edison said 275,000 households and businesses were affected. When the telephone lines got reconnected there were constant 'no circuit' conditions for another day and a half or so. Remembering what IE-4 said about being in BIG TROUBLE if I ever dared again to erase or move its icons around or delete any of its shortcuts and links, etc, I was fortunate to get a Ditto 'Max' tape backup unit which will hold many gigs of stuff. I installed it without incident and did a full backup last night which took about four hours. I also managed to obtain from the same source a CD ROM of Windows OSR-2, and another diskette used to boot the computer. I am beginning to think this is a bad joke of some kind; I feel like I am playing the role of the straight man in a long running comedy. At this point I guess things are once again runnng as well as they ever will. The only good thing that has happened this week was that I managed to find a freeware copy of a little piano keyboard which plays on the keys of the computer. With a little bit of effort I got it installed and had a friend of mine who plays quite well sit down and record a few things for me. Anyway, that is where I have been *this week*; let's start over once again. If you have a sound card -- preferably a Sound Blaster or better -- and you would like a copy of a transcription he did of Leon Boellman's 'Tocatta From the Gothic Suite' complete with lots of bells, whistles and other sound effects I will send out 'gothic.mid' to you. Maybe I will put it on a web page or something. FYI, Boellman was a nineteenth century organist/composer in France. PAT ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 08:01:37 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "Web Video Complete", Martin Nemzow Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKWBVDCM.RVW 971211 "Web Video Complete", Martin Nemzow, 1998, U$54.95, 0-07-046404-9 %A Martin Nemzow %C 300 Water Street, Whitby, Ontario L1N 9B6 %D 1998 %G 0-07-046404-9 %I McGraw-Hill Ryerson/Osborne %O U$54.95 905-430-5000 800-565-5758 louisea@McGrawHill.ca %P 607 p. + CD-ROM %T "Web Video Complete" Although the Web is hot, a more accurate title might be "Net Video Complete," or even "Computer Video Complete." Not limited to production of video for Web pages, this book really emphasizes video conferencing and other computer uses of video technology. After a brief introduction in chapter one, chapter two looks at hardware. I am part of the "Grandparent market" that Nemzow frequently cites, and was very interested in the recommendations for different types of cameras, video capture cards, sound cards, and so forth. This book is not quite as helpful as, say, Cheryl Kirk's overview of "The Internet Phone Connection" (cf. BKINPHCN.RVW), but it does cover a very large field, and does require that a greater variety of technologies and peripherals be dealt with. There was not as much critical evaluation of specific hardware as I would have wanted to see, and I'm sure that business users would be just as interested in this level of detail. Chapter three looks at software. However, it seems to deal less with actual video software than with network protocols, network configuration, operating system drivers, and network resources. There is a rather mixed bag of topics as we stroll from dynamic IP address allocation to Four11 to firewalls to CU-SeeMe. Again, chapter four, looking at compatibility, deals only briefly with actual video conferencing systems, and at much greater length with modem standards, ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), video standards, and audio and video storage formats. Video construction techniques, in chapter five, is even more of a mixed bag. The text touches on planning, story technique, Web page design, scripting, lighting, analogue to digital conversion, video production software, special effects, graphics, soundtracks, compression, file transfers, and even a little HTML (HyperText Markup Language). This seems at odds with some of the earlier emphasis on personal and business video conferencing, and more closely related to the preparation of video clips for the Web, but, at the same time, some of the production is far beyond what Web pages would require. Chapter six, on Web video plumbing, looks at bandwidth and other networking issues, but does so primarily from the perspective of the server, ignoring the consumer, and the fact that regardless of how much backbone bandwidth you may have, a browse is only as fast as its slowest routing link. Back to video conferencing, in chapter seven, with thorny issues such as pornography, legal jeopardy, and how much noise your laser printer makes. Chapter eight goes back to Web video online, discussing etiquette, pornography, HTML, Web cams, streaming multimedia, backups, video conferencing security, Internet telephony security, Web site security, legal problems, troubleshooting, and health care. Chapter nine describes the contents of the CD-ROM. There is a great deal of information is this book, and much of it is valuable. There are, however, two major problems. The first is that the book can't seem to decide who the target audience is: the professional videographer, the TCP/IP enthusiast, the business video conference organizer, or the home hobbyist. The second is that the organization is rudimentary at best, and finding specific information is difficult. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997 BKWBVDCM.RVW 971211 ------------------------------ From: jnorton@vol.com Subject: House Passes Measure to Punish Cellular Eavesdropping Date: 12 Mar 1998 21:39:29 GMT Organization: All USENET -- http://www.Supernews.com House passes measure to punish eavesdropping on cellular phone calls By Rob Wells Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House decisively passed a measure Thursday to make it illegal for people to use scanners to intentionally eavesdrop on cellular phone calls. By a 414-1 vote, the House approved a bill that would prohibit people from modifying scanners to "intentionally intercept or divulge the content of radio communications." The bill, which would clarify and expand current prohibitions, would also eliminate the current $2,000 cap on penalties for violations. The bill arose after a Florida couple used a scanner to listen and tape-record a 1996 cellular telephone conversation that Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, was having with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas. "Little did I know that my words and my expressions were being recorded and end up as part of public relations campaign to try to destroy the speaker," Boehner, No. 4 in the GOP leadership, said during House debate. The tape made its way from Florida to the House ethics committee and was published by {The New York Times}. "I speak from personal experience about the outrage and sense of powerlessness one feels when they learn that their expectation of privacy has been destroyed," Boehner said. In addition to restrictions on individuals trying to eavesdrop, the bill would also extend current restrictions on scanner manufacturers to prohibit new machines that would intercept new conversations on the new generation of digital cellular telephones. And it would extend the Federal Communications Commission's ability to investigate and enforce violations. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Bill Tauzin, R-La., said it would expand the right to privacy in the digital age. "We in government ought to do everything we can to protect that expectation of privacy. That is what this bill is about," he said. The Senate has not yet passed a similar bill. ------ The "Wireless Privacy Enhancement Act of 1998" is H.R. 2369. ------------------------------ From: gmhall@apk.net (Gail M. Hall) Subject: Re: 3000.00 Phone Bill HELP!!! Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 09:39:33 GMT Organization: APK Net, Ltd. I have a suggestion for those national ISPs like ATT.NET and a general complaint about figuring out local vs. long distance numbers. When the national ISP has its list of phone numbers for new user signup, instead of making people go through tons of phone numbers, program the configuration software for calling the ISP to ask the users where they live or to enter their telephone number. Then the program should pop up the few phone numbers that are **local** to that number or the **least costly** for that number. This would really help people who don't really know which numbers are local and which numbers are long distance. I too hope that lady gets something off her $3,000 phone bill! Most of those business places have caller ID, don't they?. They could have programmed in a way to warn her that she could have been using a closer number. I'm sorry, but I think AT&T goofed by not programming that setup better. Now for my complaint: I live in an area now which used to be all 216. Not all of 216 is local. Some exchanges are long distance, and some are local. A naive person might *think* that because the area code is 216 it must be local. That's the first complication. Now 216 has been split up, and we also have 330 and 440. Some 330 numbers and 440 numbers are local to some of the 216 exchanges, and some are long distance. We don't have an easy way to find out which is which. We have to dial 1 before any other area code whether or not they are local or long distance. The phone books used to have charts in them where you could look up which numbers (exchanges) were local and which were long distance but not any more! Also, there used to be a way to find out what the area codes for various towns in Ohio are by looking at a listing in the phone book, but now there is only a very, very vague map. If you're not really sure what big city the town you are wondering about is near, you are up a creek. How are we supposed to even know what area codes are for various towns or if they are local or long distance? To add insult to injury, they charge for calling information. We don't even know which information to call if we don't know what area code the place is in. I think they should go back to free information service! Gail M. Hall gmhall@apk.net ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 12:25:25 -0500 From: James Bellaire Subject: A Plague of Phone Books Spring in Indiana - time for the publishers to 'kill a few trees'. In the past two weeks I have received three different phone books, from different publishers - none of them from my LEC (it came last August). Fortunately I like phone books or I would be annoyed at the overkill. Of the three books, Ameritech (LEC for South Bend) seems to be the most complete, with dialing instructions and the usual perpetually out of date NPA map. They even have telephone company contact info for CLEC US Xchange. A nice touch. America's Directory's "Best Book" and McLeodUSA's "Info Indiana" are the runners up. Info Indiana does have good maps, which can be removed from the book (Ameritech's are bound in). The alternate phone books (non-LEC) seem to be heavy on listings, light on other information (dialing plans, international codes, etc). James E. Bellaire (JEB6) bellaire@tk.com Telecom Indiana Webpage http://tk.com/telecom/ ------------------------------ From: Rob Slade Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 12:01:00 -0800 Subject: Book Review: "World Wide Web Journal: XML: Principles, Tools Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca BKW3JI24.RVW 971210 "World Wide Web Journal: XML: Principles, Tools, and Techniques", Dan Connolly, 1997, 1-56592-349-9, U$29.95/C$42.95 %E Dan Connolly %C 103 Morris Street, Suite A, Sebastopol, CA 95472 %D 1997 %G 1-56592-349-9 %I O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. %O U$29.95/C$42.95 707-829-0515 fax: 707-829-0104 nuts@ora.com %P 266 p. %S World Wide Web Journal %T "World Wide Web Journal: XML: Principles, Tools, and Techniques" HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is often, and incorrectly, said to be a subset of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language). HTML, in fact, is the best known *application* written in SGML, even for those who don't know what SGML, or an SGML application, are. SGML is rather difficult to work with: not necessarily conceptually complex, and certainly no harder to use than a tool of similar flexibility, but definitely time consuming. HTML, on the other hand, even in its most esoteric and Internet-Explorer-specific extensions, is pretty simple. What HTML is not, is flexible. It is a standard set of commands for the display of information over the net, lately being used and misused for other tasks as well. (With greater numbers of people using Web browsers as mail agents and news readers, HTML is starting to be used for formatted mail. We dinosaurs who still keep separate clients for separate applications get a bit irked at this practice. I understand that one regular Usenet poster puts all his postings inside HTML comment tags, so that them young whipper-snappers can't read 'em. But I digress.) Hence XML, the eXtensible Markup Language. XML *is* a subset of SGML, and steers a middle course between the limitations of HTML, and the demands of SGML. XML allows for the creation of new extensions to HTML, within the confines of standard Web documents. This edition of the World Wide Web Journal deals primarily with XML, although there are also reports on MathML, and the Document Object Model (DOM). This edition has a greater than average number of technical papers, all dealing with some aspect of XML. As well as general overviews, these essays touch on CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), the pitfalls of embedded markup, chemical information, medical documents, Perl, the new Lark language, parsers, browsers, and the future. As always, the World Wide Web Journal is at the cutting edge. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997 BKW3JI24.RVW 971210 ------------------------------ From: Michael F. March Subject: "Soft" Dial Tone in USWEST Land Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 10:08:42 -0700 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Help. I just moved into an apartment in downtown Phoenix that is pre-wired with four pair. Before I moved in, I ordered two phone lines and RDSL. When I moved in, pair number two had "soft" dial tone on it and the rest of the lines were dead. When my first phone line came up three days ago, it came up on pair number one. So I had one fully functional line and one line with "soft" dial tone. My Home Office rep says that the second line or he RDSL service will take a few weeks to install because they have to do on premise wiring. When I ask him about the "soft" dial tone line, he says that he can not find it in his computer and there is NOTHING that I can do to help him. My question is, what can I do to the "soft" dial tone line so I can help USWEST recognize that it a) does exist and b) is in my apartment? Thanks. Michael F. March ------- KB7EXY (yep...a tech) ------ mmarch@mindspring.net MindSpring Enterprises, Inc. ------------------------------- Phoenix Office http://business.mindspring.com -------------------------- (602)707-6000x105 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wish you had had given a definition for your expression 'soft' dial tone. That phrase means different things to different people. One common definition is that it is dial tone which is extremely limited in what it can reach; i.e. the telco business office, fire/police, maybe a couple other things. Perhaps you could explain exactly how *you* are using the phrase. What does it do or not do, etc? PAT] ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V18 #37 *****************************