I've been asked about "the Archive" and take the liberty of reposting this
message for the benefit of all, since we haven't had it for 6 or 7 weeks.
I also give some kind advice at the end (smiley face if needed). I take
the further liberty of noting for "newbies" that saying "it's in the
archive" is not just a way of blowing you off, but a way of sending you to
a fuller discussion the first time around than you'll get on a reprise...
I also repeat my mantra: the archive is a treasure, both human and
technical.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 96 13:39:23 +1000
From: Steve Avery <stevea@sedal.usyd.edu.AU>
Reply-To: alt-photo-process@cse.unsw.edu.au
To: Multiple recipients of list <alt-photo-process@cse.unsw.edu.au>
Subject: The Archives...
Hi all,
This is a guide to getting information from the archives. I suggest that
those that don't already use this facility save this message off somewhere
where they'll find it when they need it.
Accessing the archives by email
This process is easy. The archives are available from the first month the
list was up and running (March 1994), up to the last full month (ie. not the
current month). Sometimes there is a bit of delay between the month finishing
and my putting the archive up for all to see.
1. Pick the month and year for the archive you're after. In this example,
we'll use April 1995.
2. Construct a four digit from the month and year by taking the last two
digits of the year, and appending two digits for the month. If the month is a
single digit, add a zero between the two. The result in this example would be
9504.
3. The name of the archive you now want is archive-YYMM, where YYMM is the
four digit number you created in step 2. In this example, the archive is
called archive-9504.
4. Send a request to the listproc to get the archive. This involves talking
to the listproc in much the same way as you did when you subscribed. So
address your email to listproc@cse.unsw.edu.au with the message
get alt-photo-process filename
where you substitute the filename you created in step 3 for filename. In this
example, the request would be
get alt-photo-process archive-9504
Note that things go better when you don't give the message a subject line
(ie. either leave it out or leave it blank). If this is not possible, but
something innoccuous in there, like "A" or something.
5. Wait until the listproc either rejects your request, or you receive all
the parts of the archive (the subject lines of the mail returned will have
"PART 02 of 09" or something similar in them). If the request is rejected,
and you can't make sense of the reasoning, drop me some private email,
preferrably with a copy of the error, and I'll try to help.
Please be aware that some of the recent archives contain as many as 16
parts. Each of these parts are 64k in size. This means you're getting a lot
of mail (not many articles, but lots of disk space). Make sure you can handle
this. Also, please limit requests to one at a time - I get the bounced
messages, and don't like having to weed out dozens of bounced messages which
give me several megabytes of mail.
Accessing archives using a web browser
This facility is provided courtesy of Gregory Walker. It allows you to
search the archives by topic, author, and date. It is an exceptional service,
and I thank Gregory for providing it.
1. Point your web browser at http://www.webcom.com/gwalker/altphoto
2. Select the period you wish to search.
3. Select the method by which you wish to search (topic, author, date, or
the default, thread).
4. Click on the article you're interested in, and it will be displayed.
It is possible to access some of the previous artciles in a thread from the
article you've selected (sometimes).
If anyone has any further problems, please feel free to drop me some
questions via email.
cheers
-steve
p.s. Despite her religious convictions, Judy doesn't know everything about
accessing the archives. If you need to know, ask me.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok,incase you were wondering, that's quite true, Judy doesn't know
*everything* -- just enough to suggest that it's worthwhile getting the
whole archive in small bites and reading, or at least scanning, it all,
rather than settling for one particular item or theme. For that the first
request would be
get alt-photo-process archive-9504
And don't mess up the hyphens. If you do, zilch.
Cheers,
Judy