Highlights week februry 21 to 27 2004
On both message boards the big news was the discovery that Linus Entertainment in a shrewd move at garnering advance publicity for May's new Harmony album
had released three tracks for immediate download from Apple's pay per track itunes.
Other postings on the Newsgroup at:- http://www.newsgroup.shorturl.com
included the finding by Char of she said some added archive material on the great CBC audio/video archive site
although I have myself yet to find the one apparent extra audio file
Corfid at:- http://www.corfid.shorturl.com was relatively quiet
I added a 1975 picture of Gord with Dylan that I found to a topic comparing the two erstwhile friend's relative popularity http://www.corfid.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002016.html
Now the distressing story of last Friday's non-chat when at least 7 of us were unable to get in either via mIRC or the browser link
Newsgroup readers please note that Ed Mullen reported on his problem getting in under the incorrect thread title of "friday chat"
the current thread is "friday's chat"
so his posting got appended to an old thread about the Yahoo chat room
the browser link to what we call "Rik's chat room" is and has been for the last getting on for five years http://chat.cjb.net/gordonlightfootchat
but ever since last Friday this page "cannot be displayed" dammit!!
similarly the mIRC link I set up as originaly guided by the room's founder Rik Stevans and
as I described at:- http://www.mirc.shorturl.com
to access the chat room via cjb.net would not function
But as of today http://www.cjb.net
opens fine so it does not on the surface appear that cjb.net has ceased to be
Now I am not privy to all the arrangements that Rik made when he set this up in 1999
(at one point he was muttering about a change that meant he had to pay for it but he later denied this)
I will copy this to him in case he can shed light on the problem.
Nor do I even partly understand how the room operates i.e, where in cyberspace is it.
All I do know is that that after looking up mIRC help I found that they recommended trying alternative IRC servers
of which there are a great variety as detailed at:- http://www.mirc.com/servers.html
so as I was last week using an old issue (6.01) of the mIRC client program
(A new version 6.14 was released on Tuesday as it happens)
I experimented and at the point where you have to press the "connect to IRC server" button
I tried the drop-down menu and then I selected from the list then presented a couple and found that
on my mIRC
rik's chat room is set for
"irc.cjb.net" as per Rik's 1999 instructions
I was mightily surprised that when I selected almost at random
what was shown as"DALnet: Random server"
amazed to be presented with the identical channel listing I had set up for the cjb server link
with the first channel shown as #gordonlightfootchat
today it refuses to connect (see below) but lo and belold if I being biased by Ed Mullen's technical prowess
select instead what is listed as:
"DALnet: US,GA, Acool"
then press connect to IRC server
I gain entry to the chat room as usual
way cool!!!
Anyone who is not following me can see the various standard (cjb) dialog box screenshots at my mIRC descriptive page on my
site:- http://www.mirc.shorturl.com
the /georgia link per edit is to
acool.ga.us.dal.net
whereas the cjb link was to
irc.cjb.net
it follows then that the direct browser link must be
instead of http://chat.cjb.net/gordonlightfootchat
It could be http://acool.ga.us.dal.net/gordonlightfootchat
wrong that page cannot be displayed either
duh...
Ok lets try the DALnet:Random server link that worked last week
per edit this is to IRC server
irc.dal.net similar to cjb's format
now if I wait long enough this connects
so the browser link MUST be http://chat.dal.net/gordonlightfootchat
Wrong again
(thinks why is it that using impeccable logic such as I used there so often fails to produce the right answer?)
wel at least I tried and now by copy of this to Rik and Ed any otherr bright ideas
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Failing that I will get in using tyhe mIRC dALnet link this evening and see if anyone else shows up
I am reluctant to suggest at this point that we retry the Yahoo room not least because Susan amongst others had problems
getting in there too
But I will also be on AIM note AIM which is NOT the same as AOL Instant Messenger
see http://www.litlejim.shorturl.com for an explantion
My AOl name is okyoutellme for reasons I won't go into at this moment but you can guess!!!
tonight at 9PM EST
it might be possible to set up a room there
John Fowles


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My Gordon Lightfoot webring
starts at
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot

[This message has been edited by johnfowles (edited March 05, 2004).]

John, I guess I won't be talking to you in the chat room tonight, but just to let you know, Colorado Sue and I are talking about getting together this summer possibly in Steamboat Springs. Thanks for the nudge.
Brink