Thursday, December 1, 1994 6:54:14 PM
          GenWeb Item
  From:           Mike PattonĄ GenWeb mail,MAP=GenWeb@BBN.COM,Internet
  Subject:        Re: Another genweb database up
  To:             GenWeb
   Date: Wed, 30 Nov 1994 11:49:06 -0600
   To: genweb@ucsd.edu
   From: Chris Garrigues 

   As I've started to think about indexing, more and more I think this should
   be done through wais rather than http.

These aren't exclusive...  Providing the service via HTTP will give more
users access, and you can do that whatever the indexing technology, in
this case a CGI script that runs the WAIS query locally.  The advantage
you might have with WAIS is providing another client/server way to access
it.  It's also possible to use the WAIS interface protocol as a way to
access HTML pages ...

On the other hand, I don't think the WAIS engine is quite the right thing
for this data.  The data is highly structured and the structure is very
important.  WAIS is very good at free text, but doesn't have provisions
for handling the highly structured info that a genealogy contains.  WAIS
might be good if you want to index any long text comments.

   Also, does anybody know of a geography server that we could attempt to link
   locations into?

The one I like best is the U.S.
Gazeteer which has interfaces to detailed data and a map generator.
Since it's a query page, you can use it for general pointers...  It _is_
US specific, so would not be good for non-US locations.  Then again, I
hear that the locations database it uses is getting expanded to contain
overseas sites...and the Q&A message claims it will.

	-MAP

P.S.  Cartography is another one of my hobbies, I have several other
references in my personal collection of pointers:
	http://www.dsi.net/people/map/personal.html#Cartography


          Monday, December 5, 1994 11:21:04 PM
          GenWeb Item
  From:           Bill Harten,wsharten@comnet.com,Internet
  Subject:        Re: Building the Web
  To:             GenWeb
Anders Andersson:
>Already the name "GenWeb" seems to imply a connection to *the*
>World-Wide Web as we know it, but do we really want to stress
>that connection in such a formal statement?  I don't think we
>should limit ourselves to any particular standard or technology,
>although for the moment the WWW is more than enough to handle.
>I'd suggest replacing that reference with a more general one,
>such as "distributed computerized genealogy databases" (period).

I agree.  While the internet is poised to dominate the genealogical  
landscape, it's not there yet.  It's too hard, and too expensive for most 
users, though both of these will change down the road.  Still, in the 
future, users of alternative network strategies will need access to our 
databases.  For example, if there was an email server bridged into our web 
databases, users with free email access via bbs systems on fidonet could use 
the resources for free, with reduced services, of course.  Some may prefer 
to publish data using their plain old telephone service.  Imagine a URL that 
looks like  with some syntactical 
provision to distinguish the phone number from a DNS name.  Why? Because our 
phone numbers are already stable, global, indexed, ubiquitous, cheap, and 
well understood.

I'm not too worried about the name.  No matter what it's called or where it 
lives, it is going to look like some kind of web.  I'm only hoping that we 
plan on multiple access strategies, because I think it will be unavoidable.

Regards,

Bill Harten



          Tuesday, December 6, 1994 3:22:59 AM
          GenWeb Item
  From:           Marc Siegel,msiegel@svpal.org,Internet
  Subject:        SV-PAL looking for tech
  To:             GenWeb
Silicon Valley Public Access Link (SV-PAL) is currently searching 
for a person to serve as a Support Specialist.  The ideal candidate 
will possess a diversity of skills described below:

Ability to provide knowledgeable technical system support to ensure
proper operation.  This includes Unix skills, terminal server and
modem skills, and some network smarts as well.  Prior hands-on
experience in these areas is required.  Senior technical advisors will
be available as consultants; the person hired is expected to utilize 
this resource wisely.

Ability and inclination to maintain online data in various formats,
including gopher, web and menushell.  The Support Specialist must
ensure that information on SV-PAL is first rate.  Good people skills
will be required when providing support to outside organizations.

Good verbal and written communication skills are important.

The person hired must work well without supervision; he or she
must self-motivated, responsible and accountable.

An ability to help supervise volunteer office workers would be helpful.

Finally, a personal committment to the values and goals of SV-PAL,
including:
 - Affordable communications for the people of our community
 - Outreach and training Q particularly to those who are not being
    served today
 - Local on-line content provided by local organizations
 - Access to outside information providers

SV-PAL is currently accepting resumes for the job described above.
The salary range offered is $30-35,000 per year, plus health
benefits. Although this may seem low, the position also offers
tremendous visibility and an opportunity to work with the leaders of
our community.

Relocation expenses will not be covered for applicants from outside 
the area.  An ability to attend off-hours meetings is required.

To be considered for this job, please do not respond via Email.  Send
a copy of your resume with references to:
Support Specialist Committee
SV-PAL
1777 Hamilton Ave.
Suite 208A
San Jose, CA  95125

You may FAX the resume to: Support Specialist Committee at 415.968.9505.

We will begin interviewing immediately, so do not delay in applying.

The Silicon Valley Public Access Link (SV-PAL) is a non-profit
community network working to make the world's information
resources accessible to people living in the Silicon Valley,
regardless of financial status and educational level.  A grassroots
collection of volunteers, we focus on connecting people who would
ordinarily keep away from, or not have access to computer networks.
SV-PAL provides training and full access to the Internet.  Also, we
bring local information online and work with partners to provide
Public Access terminals.



          Thursday, December 8, 1994 3:16:19 PM
          GenWeb Item
  From:           Mike PattonĄ genealogy webber,MAP=GenWeb@BBN.COM,Internet
  Subject:        Re: Building the Web
  To:             GenWeb
   Date: Tue, 6 Dec 1994 00:22:08 -0700
   To: GenWeb@ucsd.edu

   For example, if there was an email server bridged into our web
   databases ...

There already is an E-Mail responder for access to Web documents.
This would be perfectly fine for accessing GenWeb stuff.

   Imagine a URL that looks like 

The IETF URL group _does_ imagine such URLs.  Nobody implements or
uses them, yet.  It might be an interesting independent exploration,
but not key to the GenWeb itself...

	-MAP



          Tuesday, December 20, 1994 12:16:51 PM
          GenWeb Item
  From:           steele@metronet.com,Internet
  Subject:        O-O Frameworks
  To:             GenWeb

Some of the issues we are struggling with on these lists are at the top
of current research topics as evident by the following call for workshop
topics at OOPSLA 95 Workshop Opportunity.
__________________________________________________
From: rmarcus@grace.rt.cs.boeing.com (Bob Marcus)

                  OOPSLA 95 WORKSHOPS OPPORTUNITY

 I have been asked to be the Workshop chairman for OOPSLA 1995. I am
interested in any proposals for workshops in any area of object-oriented
technology. One of my personal goals is to set up a group of workshops
in the area of complex adaptive systems engineering. 

........(more details deleted).........

 The unifying vision is that large scale systems of the future will consist
of frameworks based on local agents executing scripts and communicating by
reliable. secure messaging. These agents will interface to legacy systems,
Web servers, application packages, object-oriented services etc. These
agents will be incrementally modifiable without a major impact on the
operation of the global system. The challenging problems will be how to
model, deploy, coordinate and manage the multitude of agents and resources.
(Note that end-users can be considered an example of agents).


Just some food for thought,
	Jeri



          Wednesday, December 21, 1994 6:43:35 AM
          GenWeb Item
  From:           Malcolm
Austen,malcolm.austen@computing-services.oxford.ac.uk,Internet
  Subject:        Really just a test ...
  To:             GenWeb
I have only just started messing with html in the last week or two, I 
hope in 1995 to start combining it with genealogy - I hope to play with 
scanning one or two of the PRO (London, ENG) information leaflets and 
putting them on the web first, putting actual family information may come 
later ...

Anyway, the real reason for this posting is that I have been subscribed
for a week and received absolutely nothing from GENWEB. If this comes back
to me ok then I shall just assume that Christmas parties are more
interesting than WWW. 

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year,
				Malcolm.
+
| Malcolm Austen,                              Tel: +44(0) 1865 273216
| Oxford University Computing Services,        Fax: +44(0) 1865 273275
| 13 Banbury Road,               Email -  malcolm.austen@oucs.ox.ac.uk
| Oxford, OX2 6NN, England        WWW - http://sable.ox.ac.uk/~malcolm
+



          Tuesday, December 27, 1994 11:06:52 AM
          GenWeb Item
  From:           William Bosanko,william.bosanko@arch2.nara.gov,Internet
  Subject:        Gen Web
  To:             GenWeb
Hello, I am new to this and would appreciate any ideas anyone might be
willing to share.  


          Tuesday, December 27, 1994 1:25:18 PM
          GenWeb Item
  From:           Chris Garrigues,cwg@deepeddy.com,Internet
  Subject:        Re:
  To:             GenWeb
At  3:36 PM 12/27/94 -0500, William Bosanko wrote:
>** High Priority **
>
>FAQ gen web

The GENWEB list is not an automatic system, it's a list with real people,
most of whom appear to be away for the hollidays.  (I just got caught up on
my mail myself).

I deleted your first message, and don't recall exactly what your question
was, but as some level of reply, let me tell you the state of "genweb".

At present, Genweb is a concept and a lot of experiments.  The concept is
that it would be really neat to make genealogy information available via
the WWW; the experiments are various people's somewhat disjoint attempts to
do this.

I've got my own experiment hanging off my home page, and hope to have an
opportunity to write some indexing code to go with it.

Most of the genweb sites out there follow one of two models:  either the
author passed a gedcom file through a script that generated a bunch of HTML
pages or a CGI script runs which generates HTML on the fly.  Most of the
latter use LifeLines as a backend, and it looks like that's the approach
that will probably catch on.

The areas that interest people the most at present are how to provide
useful indexing and searching interfaces to multiple databases and how to
link databases together.

Because the list is fairly new, and not much has been proposed as a
standard there is no FAQ yet, but looking at various people's pages should
give you an idea of what's going on in this arena.

At any rate, welcome to genweb.


Chris


--
Chris Garrigues                                         cwg@DeepEddy.Com
  609 Deep Eddy Avenue                                   +1 512 499 0483
  Austin, TX  78703-4513    USA
My pgp key is on my home page:  http://www.DeepEddy.Com/~cwg/




          Tuesday, December 27, 1994 9:37:05 PM
          GenWeb Item
  From:           Scott McGee,smcgee@microware.com,Internet
  Subject:        Re:
  To:             GenWeb
Chris or anyone else who can help,
I have been following the discussion here for some time and am interested
in trying to implement a genweb type experiment off of my own home page. I
understand HTML somewhat, but lack the knowledge to envoke an external 
program (so that I can fire up lifelines to generate the html for the needed
indi). Can someone PLEASE tell me where I can find out more about this type
of stuff?

Scott



          Wednesday, December 28, 1994 8:15:02 AM
          GenWeb Item
  From:           Mike PattonĄ genealogy mail,MAP=Genealogy@BBN.COM,Internet
  Subject:        Re: Re:
  To:             GenWeb
   From: Scott McGee 
   Date: Tue, 27 Dec 94 23:32:43 CST

   I [want to do] experiment off of my own home page. I understand
   HTML ... but [not how] to envoke [sic] an external program.

This is not done in HTML, but in the configuration of the server.
There is an interface standard called CGI (Common Gateway Interface),
and most servers can have certain URLs (including whole trees) run a
CGI program rather than reference already made files.

You'll have to consult your server administrator to find out how
they've set up the server.  If they allow individual users to provide
CGI programs, you'll need them to tell you what names to actually use.
There are several conventions that have evolved (special directories,
extensions, etc.) and are still evolving, depending on when they set
up the server they may have picked up any of these conventions.  If
they haven't set it up so individuals can have local CGI programs,
you'll probably need to get them to install yours in some central
directory (or change the config so users _can_ supply CGI programs.).

	-MAP

Some pointers that may be useful:
CGI spec:
	http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/overview.html
NCSA HTTPD config (this is the one I use, if your server uses a
different HTTPD, consult that documentation):
  Overview:
	http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/docs/Overview.html
  special CGI URL prefixes (i.e. directories of CGI programs):
	http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/docs/setup/srm/ScriptAlias.html
  CGI anywhere (i.e. individual files as CGI):
	http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/docs/tutorials/cgi.html
It's also the case that the "system-wide" special CGI URL declaration
can be used to give individual users CGI directories... but it has to
be done by the system admin for each and every user that wants this.