1997 Site History
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November 29, 1997 - After investing a great deal
of time experimenting with FrontPage, declare it definitely not
appropriate to work with on this site. Our situation is similar
to the "Charlie Tuna" television commercial. We want
great tasting tuna, rather than great looking tuna. We have to
be able to get the content out.
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November 23, 1997 - Caught up on E-mails, but
behind on dance typing and posting. Experimenting begins with
Microsoft FrontPage. It can make a site look wonderful and do
some things very well and easily. There are some challenges:
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Loaded the program from the CD-ROM and discovered
that although it advertised the latest version of Internet
Explorer (remember that IE 4 has been around for about 90
days-Microsoft did the readme files with a September date)
it merely reloaded my IE 3.02 back on. That was after telling
me to uninstall the working and configured original registered
copy. Please note that Internet Explorer 3.02 is not capable
of viewing all the enhancements this program makes in your
site, if I am to believe the instructions.
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Downloaded Internet Explorer to get the full
view of the site and after a couple of hours downloading,
found out via Microsoft's warning file it would interfere
with some of the leading utilites on the market today - Norton's
Utilities, Norton Navigator, MICROSOFT MONEY ON-LINE BANKING,
all but the very latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader, CleanSweep,
MICROSOFT INTERNET INFORMATION SERVER 4.0, ProComm Plus 95
Web Browser, Stacker, Telcom FAX, DEC Clientworks, PICS Support,
MICROSOFT NETMEETING, Access Aptiva, etc. Remember that it
also requires 12-16 MB memory, plus virtual memory, and 40-70
MB hard drive space.
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Discovered that it disabled my AltaVista Personal
Search running on my hard drives when it loads its server.
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Wasted time on reinstallation of FindFast/FastFind
the problematic Microsoft hard drive serve tool, when it decided
it wasn't going to find anything fast anyway.
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Lengthy code eats hard drive space and increases
upload time. A basic page printed out as 2 pages from our
HoTMetaL efforts, but that same file became 12 printed pages
longer after importing to FrontPage due to additional code
for the uniform site look and new style links.
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FrontPage 97 fights, erases, and ignores a
home page, if you end it in html. This is frustrating since
we started with htm and migrated by request to html. FrontPage
will take html endings anywhere else in the site. Hate to
make everyone change links to get to the site again.
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Eats drive space and upload time by doubling
the number of files on the site due to a required standards
page for each file.
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Wastes a lot of time while doing corrections
or adding pages. It takes about 3-15 minutes to do each individual
file save. This may be the acceptable norm for additions in
a site manager, but it is not appropriate when making hundreds
of small text changes in pages. Don't ask about my machine-I'm
running a 166 Mhz with 64 MB in memory.
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The Save All feature does not work. This is
supposed to allow you to open many pages, make the corrections,
and then save all open pages at one time. Only after closing
1-200 pages and catching a look at one did we realize only
the top page was being saved - the same as using the Save
or Save As control.
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There appear to be Java Script problems or
conflicts. Some page headings in Internet Explorer 3.02 were
displayed in multiples as the rest of the page either disappeared
or replicated. Netscape 4.0+ displayed many totally blank
pages. This appears to be due to pages that we're importing,
many in PRE code (plain text inside an html body tag), which
are having a conflict with the floating margin and links on
the left side of the page. By boxing the pages' text into
a table, (set width to 100%) we are able to stabilize the
situation, but it requires opening each page individually
to perform this task.
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The Table of Contents feature sounds great,
but it requires dragging all the files into the graphic site
organization display, which gets to be a pain at 4,000 plus
files. It also requires a screent the size of a football field.
The links on that screen change the way they display in the
column. NO. It will not just index and display your site pages
because you have them linked so nicely.
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The above graphics layout of the site is also
required in order to get the appropriate automatic page links
to display on the top and left sides of each page. Just being
properly linked will not do it.
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Once a page has been modified by FrontPage,
many site tools such as HoTMetaL Pro can not open the files.
You will have to take them to Notepad, or due to the bloat
Wordpad.
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Even with the server extensions, installed,
the site search capabilites do not always work. In fact, the
search page provided by Microsoft will not even save in some
circumstances. The server times out before the save is made.
You may get around this by bringing it to screen and then
copying it through the clip board to be saved into an html
file outside the server area of the drive. Then import it
into the site. It still may not have a built index or be able
to read it correctly.
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November 18, 1997 - Triple digit E-mails received
today - the first E-mail for weeks! The good news is - We are
caught up to October 15. Of course 1997.
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November 17, 1997 - Cyrix replacement chip arrives
and the motherboard recognizes it. The case is back on the computer
again! But, still loading and proofing software and data files.
It is a good time to update older versions of the software.
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November 12, 1997 - Most software reinstalled
on drives. Relocated and relinked about 3,000 site files. Tried
to flatten out the Internet site to accomodate the MetaLab Infoseek
search engine. We were moving hundreds of E-mail addresses from
Netscape to Outlook when the computer went down last month. It
will take a little while to straighten out our E-mail. We are
behind in our work. I now have four full mail totes sitting on
the floor waiting for attention, a little over 3,000 new songs
to play (including Dobie Gray's 1973 release of There's a Honky
Tonk Angel (Who'll Take Me Back In)) and index, and I suppose
hundreds of E-mails waiting for this computer and human to get
fully functional.
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November 11, 1997 - Discover that Cyrix has a
batch of chips that aren't running to specifications. Try to arrange
exchange.
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November 8, 1997 - Replacement motherboard works,
but fails to recognize new Cyrix PR166+ chip. Set manually instead.
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November 7, 1997 - Federal Express brings us new
Western Digital hard drive and it works!
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November 5, 1997 - Our Western Digital hard drive
fails. Best Buy store management makes decision that they will
not honor the printed warranty for an exchange so we ship it back
to manufacturer. We arrange for cross ship and pay for FedEx overnight
delivery.
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November 4, 1997 - Our replacement AT style generic
motherboard has defective clock chip and must be replaced.
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October 25, 1997 - The motherboard can't handle
a new IDE controller card. Gave up on motherboard.
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October 20, 1997 - Lost Packard Bell IDE controller
section of motherboard.
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October 10, 1997 - The Seagate replacement drive
arrived. It was a factory repair and was still defective. We are
sending it back again.
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October 4, 1997 - We pulled the national schedule
of workshops and competitions off due to low interest and heavy
ballroom formats. Our mail this summer was primarily ballroom
promotions.
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October 2, 1997 - The guru says, "MetaLab
is now running on an Ultra Enterprise Server with 4 133Mhz CPUs,
1 Gig of RAM, and an external hard disk."
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September 28, 1997 - Dropped Electric Possum site,
believing it is near dead. Dropped Johnston County Schools, related
educational information, and county promotional information since
we are currently working in Wake County. Dropped John D. Johnson's
draft of his book on Alternative Education, which was related
to Johnston County. Dropped site censorship tools due to lack
of interest from readers. Dropped Reba fan site since she has
her site up and running.
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September 23, 1997 - Spent 90 minutes listening
to Best Buy store staff tell me they weren't going to honor a
written drive warranty, which states it could be returned to place
of purchase. Of course the sale model in the newspaper ad was
out of stock. Went to their competition to buy a new hard drive.
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September 22, 1997 - Began linking dance site
mirrors without graphics and sound. We are hoping to reduce the
time spent on E-mail questions and answers. Lost another Seagate
hard drive today, with .5G unrecoverable. There went a lot of
dance text and almost all our graphics.
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September 18, 1997 - Determined that the Site
search tool index was accurate to August 27th or so. Perhaps it
will be updated monthly or semiannually. This is up to the UNC
LAN Administrator. Added a second link to it from the Library
page.
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August 24, 1997 - Dropped our mirror of Slickerbilly's
AOL site. The AOL site has been working solid and we can achieve
the same coverage by linking. We also realized that we did not
have a proper software and hardware relationship to match real
time changes.
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August 16, 1997 - Matched and expanded Jon Leech's
internet information on Ballroom, Swing, Shag, Lindy Hop, Salsa,
and Latin dance for the Triangle Region. He moved to California
and we were concerned that his dance customers might lose their
source of information. It is an additional community service.
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August 11, 1997 - Sandra accepts job offer and
we begin to broaden and redefine the site to include Garner High
School.
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July 3, 1997 - We beat our goal (September 1,
1997) of renaming, sorting, and relinking all files. During the
past week, we made over 15,000 small changes on the site, primarily
changing 880 files (8,627,714 bytes). Everything but the Home
Page is in new subdirectories and all files were changed to the
.html ending. For country western non-techie folks, you can find
the main index at: http://www.ibiblio.org/schools/rls/dances/01/dialpha.html
WebMasters and techies, your files are called:
The dances written for our classes and therefore are in uniform
terminology are in files: 8001.html - 8134.html
The dances that we've been able to get on the internet (in various
writing styles) are in files: 7000.html - 7392.html
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June 25, 1997 - UNC started running Infoseek's
Server, Ver. 1.1b7, giving us site search capability. We have
no idea of how often it is updated. Link added from our Home Page.
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June 19, 1997 - Discovered added value of using
.html for pages, particularly our index page. Plan to change over.
Since the number of files going on the site are well over 2,000,
we are moving toward more directories.
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June 13-15, 1997 - Tried to move our address books
and mailing lists from Pegasus to Netscape Communicator. Could
not find a method to export the entire records from Pegasus or
even then get them into Netscape. Finally trashed all mailing
lists. Took each address book and pasted it into its own mailing
list and sent them to BellSouth with changes in the ID block.
All but one arrived back in our Netscape folder for fairly easy
assimilation, but not quick, into our new address book. Expecting
to write a lot of apologies since one of our largest escaped into
the Internet in replicated form.
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June 10, 1997 - Began switching to Netscape Communicator
4 for our basic browser and E-mail package.
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June 2, 1997 - Pulled our sound files off the
site's leading pages, because the virus warnings that precede
transmission of the sound files were scaring some people away
from the site. We left one that was created by Slickerbilly and
related to their experimental band section on our site.
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June 1, 1997 - Replaced all 783 files on site.
Hope we used correct file versions, with working links.
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May 23, 1997 - Was notified that our site had
broken links due to missing files. We knew MetaLab had a hacker
invade, but only now began seeing the damage. Several dozen files
(at least) were missing or corrupted.
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May 7, 1997 - Removed first link to a site that
was filling with explicit sexual and racial trash talk. NOTE:
It was the fans writing in the guest book section, not the site
sponsors, who were being trashy.
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March 23, 1997 - Posted first Shockwave animation
on the site, but on a noncritical links page.
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March 22, 1997 - Discovered Microsoft Internet
Explorer Ver. 3.0 does not always work as well as Netscape on
client side image maps. Reworked the A-Z map and inserted it into
the 26 dance index files.
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March 11, 1997 - Posted new dances on the site
and went over the 500 mark. That's a lot of dancin'.
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February 12, 1997 - Posted jg2's travel commitments
for the year as the basis for the 1997 workshop and contest section.
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February 4, 1997 - As a community service and
to permit experimentation with reverse colors (sure it's very
common, but we're conservative) we added a fan site, promoting
a local country western band. Photos were requested, but not supplied.
Scanning the CD cover failed to produce any images worthwhile.
Running 25 days behind in E-mail and file transfers.
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