This evening (Friday) Chat Room reminder

[johnfowles]

The Friday chats are still occurring and recently somebody from Florida came in and was able to meet somebody else (Erkie/sundreme) in her state)said Erkie has been badgering me to resume this advert.
I have been procrastinating over revising my chat room access pages but basically it is all there
Although not essential it is generally agreed that the best thing is to get mIRC.
Because then a simple link will automatically get you into the chat room. Full details on my page at:-
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/chat/
9.00PM EST EVERY FRIDAY
John Fowles

[ December 23, 2005, 10:02: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[Cathy]

Originally posted by johnfowles:
The Friday chats are still occurring and recently somebody from Florida came in and was able to meet somebody else (Erkie/sundreme) in her state)said Erkie has been badgering me to resume this advert.
I have been procrastinating over revising my chat room access pages but basically it is all there
Although not essential it is generally agreed that the best thing is to get mIRC.
Because then a simple link will automatically get you into the chat room. Full details on my page at:-
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/chat/
9.00PM EST EVERY FRIDAY
John Fowles

John, if you remind me on Friday, I'll show up. I always forget!

[johnfowles]

Well All Right.
It's a Friday again already so 9PM EST is chat time
Sorry about last week we had an extra family gathering that I had omitted to remember when I posted my piece and was not able to get to my PC until rather late.
I'll try harder in a little while. and will now go and remind Cathy
John Fowles
Some people join the party And others say good-night

[Cathy]

John, do you have the non mIrc link? I don't think I have mIrc on this PC.

[johnfowles]

Originally posted by Cathy:
John, do you have the non mIrc link? I don't think I have mIrc on this PC.

I have now reminded Cathy and told her:-
Talk to you later I hope
I have not been showing the non mirc link as the whole page needs revising but go to:-
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/chat
whereupon the chat Java applet should open and then you sign in
better still redownload mIRC from
http://www.mirc.com/get.html
It is still a small programme file:-
mirc616.exe (1302528 bytes fits on a floppy). This cabinet is a self-extracting executable
Once installed there is a simple link on my page that automatically opens mIRC configures it for our GL chat channel and away you go

[johnfowles]

Well sort of All Right
Last Friday I initially got onto the chat room OK and had a brief chat but poor Susan on another PC (without mIRC) on a diferent phone line and diffrent ISP could only get into chat using the Java applet method and then found she was there on her own.
I came out but despite rebooting I could not get back in using either method on my own PC so I had to abandon the attempt.I have just managed to get in using both mIRC and the applet and talked to myself sucessfully so I have no idea what was wrong with my setup last Friday.
I'll try again this evening at 9PM EST at:-
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/liGHTFOOT/chat/
John Fowles
I have sent a private message to Yves and invited him in too but as it wil be 3 am in France when we start I doubt that he'll come in. Still if as he says he is used to chatting on Paltalk Live (voice) chat perhaps he is a nightbird??
If "Reminder" wishes to attend then as an obviously genuine Lightfoot fan he would of course be welcome to come and see my typos and punctuation omissions in real time!!!

[Sundreme]

Thanks John, I wasnt able to be on last week or weeks before that because my old computer finally died. I got a new one shortly before New Year's and after years of having dial up, I finally got High Speed Internet yesterday. Ill be in tonight. Havent downloaded IRC yet, but I probably will do that later. See ya'll tonight

[Iron]

I tryed,hey,I'm computorally challenged..
I will seek help.(Hon,can You come here for a minute.)

[Sundreme]

Just moving this up to the top. See John's post at the start of the thread for all pertinant info regarding time and accessability to the chat.
Erkie

[johnfowles]

Originally posted by Sundreme:
Just moving this up to the top. See John's post at the start of the thread for all pertinant info regarding time and accessability to the chat.
Erkie

OK Ok thanx Erkie for putting up an advert it for me it gave me the chance to do some long delayed revising of my chat page the same link is used:-
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/chat/
but now instead of trying to show everything on the one page and losing the vital links in the process, I have limited the opening page to an introduction followed by a choice of three colo(u)red buttons
1.red for those (gratifyingly increasing in number) who have bit the bullet and installed mIRC
2.maroony-brown for those who are not yet convinced
and
3.blue to open a separate page which should load up the same russian-site sourced Java applet as before that I uploaded to my own web site.
If you chat in a page in your browser with the legend "John's Gordon Lightfoot Chat Room applet page" at the top of the display area and also in your topmost title bar then you will know that you are using the browser+applet method
Those using mIRC will see a small mIRC logo

followed by the "word" "mIRC"
in the upper left corner of their screen
and have enhanced features in particular the ability to (after right clicking on a room member's name) of slapping them with a large trout (always good for a giggle).
I do have more work to do on it but it's a start
This evening at 9pm EST
John Fowles

[ January 13, 2006, 19:31: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[johnfowles]

Well All Right
Since last week I have been busy honing the colo(u)red buttons and now they are much larger and complex. However I used some HTML code that works superbly using Internet Exploder 6 and as Bru found AOL but I suspect Netscrape might not like very much therefore I made graphical versions (jpgs) of the buttons and made them into "conventional" hyperlinks for anybody browser-challenged.
When the applet opens you will see that I have changed the contents of the "nick" box from "guest" to "My_name" as too many applet users were omitting to note that unless they changed "guests" to their own desired nickname they faced barrage of abuse from those already in the room!!!
the three buttons are self explanatory and appear on the page like this:-

Since I made that screenshot the actual page now has the three clickable jpg buttons under the above and I added a screenshot of the applet acceptance box.
Hoping for a large attendance this evening (we were 13 strong at one point last Fryday fittingly the 13th!)
and I suppose I missed "someone" out

at 9 PM EST at:-
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/chat/
John Fowles

Got in right up to my neck
Battered but wise to the truth and the lies
That no layman would ever accept

[johnfowles]

OK OK 'tis a Friday again so let's see if we can beat last week's total of 16 or was it 17 attendees??
9PM EST at
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/LIGHTFOOT/chat/ or see below:-
I am well pleased with the reception of my revised chat room entry page where the use of colo(u)red buttons simplifies the process of getting in. To summarise for anyone who has not yet ventured to look at it,I devised three HTML and CSS coded buttons them made screenshots of them then used those graphical buttons to add conventional clickable graphic hyperlinks.
As icing on the cake for this week's reminder I will spoon feed you by displaying the clickable links here:-
They are
1. A red button for those perspicacious and bold enough to have already installed the small Internet Relay Chat client program(me) mIRC

2.A blue button to load a Java applet for entry using your browser
WARNINGS:
A.as the page opens the code calls for the applet to be loaded
a gre(a)y colo(u)red box should pop-up

AND
B.before you then connect to the chat room make sure that you change the default nickname
"My_name" to a nick of your choice


3.Click the green button for those curious about what all the fuss about mIRC is all about


John Fowles
Over at the very quiet Newsgroup this past week the main revelation was the adding of June16th's Austin Texas concert see:-
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.m...240e697679cec3

[Iron]

No work tommorow,Gloria was home to help me...I think I'm hooked up.I'll give it a go at 9pm ....

[johnfowles]

OK OK Earlier when I tried to make the blue button a clickable link to open the page containing the Java applet opening code there was a problem getting the applet to load so I just displayed the bare button picture.All seems now to be well so I'll try again
click this blue button to enter via the applet/browser method:-

My "applet" page should load with a large grey rectangle the top of which looks like this

Note the desirability of changing your nickname here
and ignore everything else at the top (no pass-word required)
then scroll down and click this link


I do hope we see iron Brian later
John Fowles

[The Rez]

Gonna have to miss tonite, Johnny . . .

Gonne be up at McCabes in Santa Monica hearing some good buddies play. Peter Case is haveing an Album Release Thing tonigt, w/Johnny Doe, Dave Alvin, Victoria Williams (Peter's Ex), T-Bone Burnette & wife Sam (formerly Leslie Phillips of CCM tunes) and, last but least (just kidding Gary) Gary Heffern (my recently ex-brother-in-law)

Hey, who knows, might even run into the ex-wife and daughter tonite. Surprise, Surprise.

The Rez

[Iron]

Sometime after 8PM,dozed off for a bit.A bit after 12:30am that is.Sorry,I'll try for the 11:00 venue today..

[johnfowles]

Originally posted by johnfowles:
OK OK Earlier when I tried to make the blue button a clickable link to open the page containing the Java applet opening code there was a problem getting the applet to load so I just displayed the bare button picture.All seems now to be well so I'll try again

Further to the above

OK OK those who were alert on Friday and read my riday evening chat oom reminder might well have wondered why I had sucessfully shown blue and green buttons that when pressed opened up the desired web page but not so the rd one.The reason is quite simple tye requisit URL is
irc://irc.dilexnet.net:6667/gordonlightfootchat
which is the URL that automatically opens mIRC in the correct chat room and as such it is a prfectly valid internet address (albeit with the http:// omitted in fsavo() r of irc://
you can check tha is so (but only of course if you have mIRC already installed) by copying it and pasting it into your address box.
Unfortuneatly this UBB Bulletin Board is unable to swallow any address that does not start with http://.
In fact when I tried to use the correct address as shown in the above URL starting irc:// UBB insisted on inserting http:// in front which completely knackers it.So I relunctantly abandoned the idea.
But then I though of a workaround:-
use a free UL redirection service my current favo(u)rite is at:-
http://www,notlong.com
For example the easy to remember short i.e. not long
link to the discussion forum is:-
http://www.corfid.notlong.com
which opens the three forum index page at:-
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php
so I went there first but they got snooty telling me
"Please enter a valid long URL (e.g., http://host.domain.com/path)"
I then tried my previously favo(u)red site
http://www.shorturl.com
who last time I looked were no longer free
I tried for http://www.mirc.shorturl.com but found that I had already used that
so opted for mirc2.shorturl.com but no:-
"Your URL must start with http:// , https:// , ftp:// or ftps://"
more googling led to
http://snipurl.com/
who said it was invalid
I know other people use:-
http://tinyurl.com a
which accepted the irc:// URL but the resulting link worked initially then gave up
The very first such service I used
http://makeashorterlink.com/index.php
was equally blunt and got tecnhnical with me:-
"Invalid URL:
Our URL parser didn't like the look of that URL"
Next I tried:-
http://shorterlink.com/
Your new shorter link for http://irc://irc.dilexnet.net:6667/gordonlightfootchat is:
http://shorterlink.com/?BD68PF
which rapidly goes to:-
You are being redirected to http://irc://irc.dilexnet.net:6667/g...ghtfootchat...
so that was useless
monkey.org bluntly "url must start with http."
I refused to give up
then almost in despair I tried http://lnk.in/
and then tada tada:-
http://lnk.in/37sd
works
so here is a hyperlinking red button:-

OK now I can display all three as functioning buttons I wiil post them on my good f(r)iend Bill Hall's parallel topic about another chat session he has stared for this very evening at 9pm see his topic at:-
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/ultimatebb...c;f=1;t=003615

[johnfowles]

The most amazing feature this past week of both the Newsgroup and the corfid forum has been the complete absence on both boards of any comment,exclamations of delight etc regarding the fact that last Saturday Wayne's 2006 tour details page at:-
http://www.lightfoot.ca/2006.htm
suddenly had an extra 17 dates added for July through September.
Harold (Christie) recently said on the Newsgroup "Got it from a reliable source that Gord and company want to do about 45 shows this year"
Wayne currently shows some 39 shows lined up which adding in the anticipated 4 at Massey some time in November means the shed-yule is pretty well full now.
One of the new dates pleased us immensely the August 16 concert at the State Theater in New Brunswick NJ only a short drive down the Parkway for us.I have lost count of the number of times as we neared this venue, which is on the way to my cardiologist, that Susan would say I wish Gord would play there. Possibly nobody wanted to jinx any particular concert after the crushing blow sufferred the week before by the Texas contingent when the anounced Austin date was presumably cancelled (could be due to the prospect of playing an outdoors venue in the heat of a Texan June and being near to the longest day to boot was not so appealing and caused second thoughts?)
Otherwise the Newsgroup posters continued to bring up a smattering of interesting topics such as
IMPEACHAPALOOZA needs your help
and
fw[ ***Hot stuff - check this out !!! fw[

I relayed to the Newsgroupers that here on corfid Ed Mullen got a mention by Bill Hall at:-
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/ultimatebb...=003643#000000
which reminded me to add a note there about the fact that Bill on a whim started a second chat session on Saturday evenings which is being well attended
the original Friday session is tonight at 9PM EST
the links are:-
Red button for those with mIRC already installed


click this blue button to enter via the applet/browser method:-


John Fowles

[ February 10, 2006, 13:45: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[Iron]

Turned down work for tommorow,just for this.

[charlene]

oh my.......get yer rest before tuning in Brian...

[Iron]

Got lot's of rest last night,got an empty 1 gallon water jug,and a 6 pack of barley pop..
I think Um ready...

[Iron]

What a cool bunch of Guy's and Gal's,it don't get no better...

[johnfowles]

Still absolutely no comment on the extra concerts here or on the Newsgroup for that matter
I see now that now Wayne has three only (not as I for one would have expected) at least four Massey Hall concerts lined up for November 16/17/18 i.e. Thursday, Friday and Saturday
Meanwhile again the weekend looms with chat sessions this evening and tomorrow both at 9pm EST:-
the links are
1.(if you already have mIRC installed):-
http://lnk.in/37sd
2.If not this link brings up a page that should load a Java applet:-
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/LIGHTFO...plet_entry.htm
John Fowles
I have no idea why the host company for my own web page is now saying that the blue buttons above canot be linked for free accounts (I pays good money for that service and never had that problem before I'll upload them to ripway where the ither pix are

[johnfowles]

OK or not OK??? After months of procrastinating and untold glitches I have succeeded
in building my long planned new desktop using all new components yay.I also entered
the 21st century by installing Windows XP Media Centre Edition, which I have discovered
is a variety of XP Professional and includes SP2 (Service Pack 2) and moreover buying from http://www.tigerdirect.com
is inexplicably cheaper to buy than the XP Professional upgrade, despite the ability to install McE from scatch on to freshly formatted hard drive using thebootable CD
I have now successfully set up mIRC ready for his evening's chat
and thought I had better try the Java applet link (BLUE BUTTON).I then found that it simply would not load.
Some googling later I realised that this is a victim of the legal spat between Microsoft and the Java language developer Sun Microsystems. The settlement means that Microsoft are obliged to stop including their JVM (Java Virtual Machine) from all copies of XP currently being sold. On the Microsoft site they say that this now excudes copies of Windows XP that incorporate SP1 and SP2.
I suspect therefore that some of those chatters who have been getting in using the applet method either do not have XP
or if they do have not installed SP1 or SP2 or are using a MAC.
I have attempted to install a JVM from a tiny (238 KB) free file downloaded from the Sun site
but so far it seems vastly harder than installing mIRC.The obvious solution is therefore to ignore the Applet method and again recommend biting the bullet and installing mIRC.
This evening and tomorrow evening therefore I will be quizzing those who have yet to do that to check if they got in using the applet and if so do they have XP??
Mac addicts can meanwhile continue laughing their socks off!!
9pm EST Ladies and Jellyspoons
Links or buttons as before
John Fowles
For some unknown reason last Friday at least three chatters found themselves castaway in a foom where none of the ten or so of us inthe proper room were.I cannot explain this and can only repeat ad Nauseum
"GET mIRC""

[ February 17, 2006, 15:50: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[Sydney Steve]

Another fascinated devotee of John's
chat room instructions bites the dust