:: 15-Nov-1999 06:06 (Monday) ::

Well we are getting close – the CSC/OGR beta is over and the builders/porters have started to make new clients and proxypers – watch for further announcements

:: 13-Nov-1999 17:43 (Saturday) ::

Moo.

I’m back, after an eleven-month hiatus. I’m doing the Image Thing and
you’ll be seeing the product of my efforts in short order, I do believe.

I’m looking for good writers. If you can write, please send a short copy
of something you’ve written to vetere@distributed.net . I’m going to begin
(in a week or so) rewriting the dnet web site and help documentation, in
an effort to make the place a lot more user friendly.

:: 10-Nov-1999 21:05 (Wednesday) ::

Ok i for got to tell everyone one thing. I updated
http://www/distributed.net/beta/ with this information, but here it is
for you:

– You need to disable fallback to the distributed.net keyservers. Inthe
configuration set 2) Buffer and Buffer Update –> 6)
Keyserver<->client connectivity option –> 5) Keyserver is a personal
proxy on a protected LAN? ==> no [<--Make that a yes]

– You could also just edit the .ini and add to the [parameters] section
“nofallback=1”

Sorry for the confusion
Moose!

:: 10-Nov-1999 19:43 (Wednesday) ::

Ok for those of you who haven’t noticed. The following clients have
been added to the list of beta clients

– Solaris 2.x (UltraSparc, mt)
– Solaris 2.x (Sparc, non-ultra, mt)
– Solaris 2.x (Sparc, non-ultra, non-mt)
– Novell Netware

Please visit http://www.distributed.net/beta/ for down loads and full details on the beta.

Happy Beta–
Moose!

:: 09-Nov-1999 16:01 (Tuesday) ::

Hope everyone is having fun, because I know I am! We have announced
our beta test of the OGR/CSC contests. I announced it Monday in
#distributed on efnet to see if we could find any major bugs right
away. Now with the coverage of the beta at http://www.slashdot.org/
we have decided to go ahead and announce it on a larger scale.

So for those of you who don’t know here is the info on the beta:

Beta page is located at: http://www.distributed.net/beta/ Please read
the whole page before jumping in on the beta. If you are going to
tell someone else about the beta please refer to this page and not
directly to the location of the beta clients.

Beta FAQ is at http://www.distributed.net/beta/betafaq.html Please
read this before asking more questions.

You are running the beta client and you followed all the directions on
the beta page and you are having problems, fill out a bug report at
http://www.distributed.net/bugs/

If you are looking for someone to talk to come visit us at
#distributed on efnet. If someone in the know is around we will try
to help you out, but please report all bugs to bugzilla first.

As far as clients available, we have clients for FreeBSD (elf), Linux
(glibc2), Win32, Win16, and DOS. Yes I know you want more clients and
we are working on it and they will be posted to the beta page as soon
as we get them. Please also note that the clients timeout 1 week from
the date they are updated on the web page. You will need to keep on
top of updating clients, so please check back often.

Thanks and Happy Beta!
moose

:: 08-Nov-1999 20:07 (Monday) ::

WHERE ARE THE T-SHIRTS?
Yeah, it’s been years. This is unacceptable. They’re one of my
priorities. I’m going to get these shirts, mugs, posters, and hats
designed, on the web, and out the door.

WHY IS THIS TAKING SO LONG?
We’re a bunch of computer geeks. We don’t know how to make
t-shirts and sell them.

WHAT HAVE WE DONE?
We have been working with a company called NerdGear. The problem
is that they’re slow and incompetent. Their shirts are ugly and
they aren’t what we wanted, nor did we approve them before they
started selling them. Additionally, after one wash, they show
severe fading. They suck.

I’ve called twice and tried to fire them with no luck; the guy
is never in. Hopefully I’ll give them the boot in the next day or
two.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?
We need to find a competent company that is capable of helping us
design this merchandise. We then need this company to produce and
sell the merchandise. We will be able to give an idea as to how
much demand there will be.

I think we expect to have a variety of t-shirt designs, with each
offered in black and white. The DCTI logo is a high color image
that requires image transferring technology to look right. We have
the cow-head logo in resolution-independent (photoshop and raster)
format, which apparently makes production much easier.

If you work for a company that can do this, or know of one, please
email me (dbaker@distributed.net) any and all information.

WHAT WILL WE BE DOING?
First off, expect a new survey of interest. The results of this
survey will be posted live. You’ll be able to vote on what items
you will be interested in buying, and how many.

I plan to have a “dWear” page on the web site in the next day or two
that will offer all appropriate information and links. I am doing
my best to get the ball rolling.

Hopefully, I’ll get significant response to my “How can you help?”
offer above. Accordingly, I’ll weed through the selections and
find a good company so that all our users can show their cow pride.

:: 08-Nov-1999 15:28 (Monday) ::

I made lots of distributed.net progress over the weekend. Although many of
my accomplishments won’t affect users directly, they offer significant
improvements to the distributed.net network as a whole.

I upgraded the keymaster from FreeBSD 3.2-STABLE to 3.3-STABLE. In the past,
I’ve had a history of letting it go with an old OS for months on end; it
never goes down, so there’s little reason to upgrade. However, if you don’t
“stay on” an upgrade path, it gets much harder as releases progress.

I finally implemented Topanga. Topanga (aka TWOpanga) will serve as
(www2|ns2|ftp2|http2).distributed.net. I already have several of these
services in production. Having another DCTI machine that can serve as
a completely backup for nodezero (which is the master for web/dns/etc) will
not only increase general operating redundancy, but allow us to finally
upgrade the machine. At this point, I’ve been given the budget approval to
buy the new machine, but I was waiting for topanga to be in place to do so. In
the next coming weeks, I’ll be ordering and building the new nodezero. I plan
to see it in production before 2000.