Conference misery::feline

 
I'd like to make the readership of FELINE aware of a very useful
feature of NOTES - namely keywords.  At a very basic level, keywords
make it easy to find things quickly in the notesfile - more quickly
than using the SEARCH command or the DIRECTORY command.  Deb and I
try very hard to keep keywords up to date and current and there are 
a wealth of them in this file.  To see all the keywords in the file,
issue the following command:

SHOW KEYWORDS

This will give you a very long list of all the keywords in the file.
You can then find notes associated with a particular keyword.  For
example, if you wanted to see all the notes associated with the LITTER
keyword, you could issue the command:

SHOW KEY/FU LITTER

This will return a list of notes that have the keyword LITTER associated
with them.  You can then access the individual notes to see what's been
written on the subject.

You can also use the wildcard character, *, if you don't know how to
spell something or if you want to see multiple listings.  For example,

SHOW KEY/FU LITTER*

will return all entries for both LITTER and LITTERBOX_PROBLEMS.

This gives you a basic idea of what can be done with keywords.  The
documentation on NOTES or the HELP KEYWORD command in NOTES can also
provide you with more information.

There's a wealth of information in this notesfile.  It's been around for
4-1/2 years and has 3200 notes in it.  Just about every common problem
relating to cats has been discussed in it.  Knowing how to find it will
make it much more useful to you and keywords are a real good way to easily
access the information.

Pam
    

From time to time, someone will ask "where did SOMEOTHERCONFERENCE go"?
Please point anyone that asks that question to this note. 

The conference EASYNOTES_CONFERENCES exists for conferences announcements.
When a conference moves, archives, changes it's name or is deleted an
annoncement is made in this conference. Press KP7 to select this conference
for you notebook. Every couple of weeks a file called EASYNOTES.LIS is generated
to contain current information about every announced conference on the net.
A VMS user can copy this file to their default directory by issing the
following DCL command:

   $ COPY ANCHOR""::NET$LIBRARY:EASYNOTES.LIS []

The file is a bit long to eyeball, so if you are looking for something specific
we suggest that you use the SEARCH command or your favorite editor. Anyhow, the
number in the far right hand column is the note in EASYNOTES_CONFERENCES
that corresponds to the conference listed on that line.

Jo Cordes-Brown, Mary Tamir & Deb Skaltsis
FELINE co-moderators
 

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    This message has been prepared in advance for people asking questions
    about accessing conferences.  I maintain and publish EASYNOTES.LIS as
    a spare time activity. Keeping track of conferences is not part of my
    official job at Digital.

    There are several common problems accessing conferences which I will
    discuss.  The first thing you should do toward resolving your problem
    is determine what the problem is.  After Notes tells you it has been
    unable to open a conference or has had any problem, you should type the
    SHOW ERROR command.  This will usually give you a more detailed error
    message. 

    The list below contains some common error messages and the actions you
    can take for them.  The remedies suggested are designed for new users
    of the network -- most problems are either temporary or can be dealt
    with by asking your system manager to fix the problem.  More
    complicated information and explanations for some of the actions
    follows the list.  Also, be sure to check your spelling carefully.

    A warning:  This message is quite long.  You may just want to look at
    the list below and skip the rest.  If you do look at the rest, it would
    be best to print this message (and perhaps keep it for the future)
    rather than reading it on a terminal.  I am trying to write to help
    beginning users or users with problems, so your comments on the
    usefulness of this message would be appreciated. 


				-- Alfred Thompson

Error Message(s)			Action
----------------			------

Insufficient resources at remote node
    					Try again later.

Link disconnected by third party
					Try again immediately.  If the
					problem persists, try again later.

Login information invalid at remote node
Network partner exited
Network partner aborted logical link
					Try again a few times.  If the
					problem persists, send MAIL.

Path to network partner lost		
					Try again immediately.  If the
					problem persists, try again later.

Remote node is unknown
					Report the problem to your system
					manager and tell them to make sure
					the node in question is defined
					properly in the DECnet database.
					If you are adventurous, see "Finding
					an Unknown or Unreachable Node",
					below.

Remote node is unreachable
					Try again.  If the problem persists
					for several days, see the message
					"Remote node is unknown".  If the
					node is defined properly, post a
					note about the problem in
					ANCHOR::EASYNET.

Remote node no longer accepting connects
					Try again later.

                Sending MAIL and Where to Get More Information

    You can find more information about the error messages in the VAX/VMS
    System Messages and Recovery Procedures Reference Manual, and you can
    always ask questions in the ANCHOR::EASYNET conference.  Another thing
    to do is send mail directly to the moderator or the person who put the
    conference announcement in EASYNET_CONFERENCES.  Read the note
    carefully; sometimes the person entering the announcement is not
    connected with the conference but is just answering somebody's question
    or moving notes around in EASYNET_CONFERENCES.  You can use the Notes
    command SEND to send mail.  You can usually also send mail to the
    SYSTEM account on the node you are trying to reach, such as
    ALIEN::SYSTEM for the ALIEN::CARNIVAL conference. 
    
    
                             How to Ask for Help

    If you do ask questions in ANCHOR::EASYNET or of the moderator, please
    include as much information as you can.  Give the full name of the
    conference you are trying to access.  If you have entered it in your
    notebook, type SHOW ENTRY "name" where "name" is the name of the
    conference.  The information that appears after "File:" is the name you
    wish to give to other people when you ask about the conference.  Check
    the spelling carefully.  Also use the SHOW ERROR command immediately
    after you get an error opening the conference and copy the message
    Notes gives you.  This information is important to people trying to
    help you with your problem. 

            How to Find the Location or Moderator of a Conference
                                            
    Each conference listed in EASYNET_CONFERENCES has a note all its own.
    When information about the conference changes, the new information
    should be added as a reply to the note instead of starting a new note.
    To find the current location and moderator of a conference, you should
    go to this note and read it and all of its replies (usually there are
    only a few). 

    How do you know which note in EASYNET_CONFERENCES is the proper note?
    You can get a list of all the announced conferences by opening
    by reading ANCHOR""::NET$LIBRARY:EASYNOTES.LIS (a text file). When you 
    find a conference in the list, there will be a number on the right-hand side
    of the line describing the conference and giving its location.  That
    number is the note number (in TURRIS::EASYNET_CONFERENCES) for information 
    about the conference.  That note should tell you the full name of the 
    conference. If none of the replies say otherwise, the person who entered 
    the announcment should be the moderator. 

                    Finding an Unknown or Unreachable Node

    One of the most common errors is "Remote node is not currently
    reachable".  Another is "Remote node is unknown".  One thing that can
    cause either of these messages is that your node's database may be out
    of date.  You can check this very easily.  Suppose the conference you
    wish to get to is ALIEN::CARNIVAL.  This means it is on node ALIEN.
    You would type these two commands:  MCR NCP SHOW NODE ALIEN and MCR NCP
    TELL ANCHOR SHOW NODE ALIEN.  You will get output like this: 

$ MCR NCP SHOW NODE ALIEN
 
 
Node Volatile Summary as of 19-AUG-1986 09:56:01
 
    Node           State      Active  Delay   Circuit     Next node
                              Links
 
 2.226 (ALIEN)                                UNA-0         2.3 (LANRTR)
$ MCR NCP TELL ANCHOR SHOW NODE ALIEN
 
 
Node Volatile Summary as of 19-AUG-1986 09:56:44
 
    Node           State      Active  Delay   Circuit     Next node
                              Links
 
19.351 (ALIEN)                                UNA-0        24.224 (PKO24D)

    The first command tells your node to tell you the information it has on
    ALIEN.  The second command tells your node to find out what information
    the node ANCHOR has on ALIEN.  ANCHOR is a special node; it should
    always have the most current information available.  What you need to
    do now is compare the two node addresses, which are the numbers under
    the "Node" heading.  In the above example, they are 2.226 and 19.351.
    As you can see, they are different.  If this happened to you, it would
    mean node ALIEN had moved at some time in the past, and the person who
    maintains your node's database has not updated the data yet. 

    If the two address are different, as in this example, or if your node
    doesn't know where the desired node is (but ANCHOR does), you can still
    access the conference you wish to get to.  To do this, you will have to
    use a number instead of a name.  Suppose the address is m.n -- To get
    the number you must use, multiply m by 1024 and add n to it.  In the
    example above, multiply 2 by 1024 and add 226 to it.  You can do this
    by hand, with a calculator, or with DCL: 

$ WRITE SYS$OUTPUT 19*1024+351
19807

    When you have the number, use it instead of the node name.  In the
    example, you would use 19807::CARNIVAL. 

    If ANCHOR does not show a different address than what your node shows,
    an out-of-date database is not your problem. 

              <<< VAXWRK::$1$DUS6:[NOTES$LIBRARY]FELINE.NOTE;1 >>>
                    -< Meower Power is Valuing Differences >-
================================================================================
Note xxxx.x             TECHNICAL QUESTIONS ANSWERED HERE                 x of n
WR2FOR::CORDESBRO_JO "set home/cat_max=infinity"     34 lines  10-MAY-1991 22:16
                      -< Using next unseen to read notes >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Using the "next unseen" command to read notes would mean that any note
    in this conference would be seen during a session of reading Feline,
    regardless of whether that note was a new topic, or a reply to an
    existing topic.  When you read notes using "next unseen", you will see
    every entry into this file, in order of the time it was entered.
    
    Next unseen is the comma key (,) or paste key on your keypad on most
    keyboards.  If you haven't read notes using this method in the past,
    you may want to issue a set seen command first.  This will mark all the
    notes prior to the date that you choose as "seen", and will not pull
    them up when you use the next unseen command.  Since this file was
    created in 1984 or thereabouts, this might be a desireable thing to do.
    
    For example, if you wanted to start reading notes using next unseen,
    and wanted to mark any notes entered prior to January 1, 1991 as seen,
    you would type the following command:
    
    notes> set seen/before=01-jan-1991
    
    Then, when you used the next unseen key to read notes, the first note
    you would come to would be the first one entered on January 1st, 1991. 
    From there you could continue to use next unseen until all new notes
    had been read.  Eventually you would get to a point were you were
    reading only the notes entered that day, since you would have seen
    everything else.
    
    Jo

$!	$COMP*RESS	:== @compress
$!
$!and extract the following command file into COMPRESS.COM, and you can say 
$!
$!	$COMPRESS NOTES$NOTEBOOK.NOTE
$!
$!and it will probably get smaller.  (I've seen notebooks several thousands
$!of blocks long shrink to fewer than 100 blocks.)  Please note that default
$!protection on your notebook will keep you from purging the old one. 
$!
$ if P1 .eqs. "" then inquire P1 "file to compress"
$ name = f$parse(P1,,,"NAME")
$ analyze/rms/fdl 'P1
$ edit/fdl/nointer/anal='name.fdl 'name.fdl
$ convert/fdl='name.fdl 'p1 'p1
$ delete 'name.fdl;*
$!Compresses, optimizes, and reorganizes ISAM files
$exit

    There are several ways to locate pertinent VAXnotes conferences.  You
    can access the EASYNOTES notes conference, do a DIR/TITLE= to search
    for topics.  Sometimes this takes several tries because of potential
    title variations.  In general this takes alot of time because of the
    way NOTES does the title searching and because of the need to do
    multiple searches.
    
    You can copy and print a copy of EASYNOTES.LIS.  There are batch
    streams available to do this regularly so that you always have an
    up-to-date copy.  Searching through the list can also be time consuming
    and printing kills trees.
    
    Or....you can locate your favorite notes file using one of two
    available VTX infobases which have indexed copies of the current
    EASYNOTES.LIS.  The two are keyworded EASYNOTES and VTX_INDEX.  The
    command sequence goes something like this:
    
    	VTX EASYNOTES (at DCL) or <FIND>EASYNOTES (from within VTX)
    
    	<FIND>string-of-your-search
    
    The whole process of finding a conference takes approximately ten
    seconds, including the access to the infobase.  Add five more seconds
    per additional search.  It took me ten seconds to find FELINE by
    typing...
    
    	VTX EASYNOTES
    	<FIND>CAT*
    
    
    Jim

    >You can copy and print a copy of EASYNOTES.LIS.  There are batch
    >streams available to do this regularly so that you always have an
    >up-to-date copy.  Searching through the list can also be time consuming
    >and printing kills trees.
    
    
    Searching through the list need not be time consuming. Every couple of
    weeks I copy ESAYNOTES.LIS to my main directory, and I define a
    symbol in my LOGIN.COM as follows:
    
    $ FIND :== "SEARCH SYS$LOGIN:EASYNOTES.LIS"
    
    
    Then when I need to find a notes file, all I have to do is enter a
    "FIND string_I_am_looking_for" at the DCL prompt. In fact, I can
    enter SPAWN FIND  string_I_am_looking_for" at the NOTES prompt.
    I find this to ba a lot faster than VTX.
    
    Deb

    Another alternative is to add TURRIS::EASYNET_CONFERENCES to your 
    notebook and look through the replies to topic 2.0.  The conferences 
    are broken down by subject matter in that topic.
    
    Jan