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Last updates:
Spam, spam, spam, the flu, system upgrades that have been flooding my
mailbox with queries (I'm a volunteer user-support person at CCN) and
spam -- the main reasons there have been few changes recently. (Did I
forget to mention spam?)
- December 23, 1999 -- There have been a few changes this past three
months that I was too busy to add to this file (then I would forget the
changes I made the next time I logged in and had a half-ton of email to
deal with again). Wander around. You may spot a change or two I didn't
get listed here. My "Games" page now
has colour screen-shots of Sherlock. The F-PROT download links on my
"Antivirus" page have been updated
again to version 3.05c. For last-minute shopping for the season, my
Home Page links to a page with a couple of gift
ideas. Links to some Anti-Spam Christmas Carols are on my
Antispam page for the rest of the holiday
season. My "Handicapped" page
has had a link or two added.
- September 15, 1999 -- A product liability case I thought might be
interesting has been added to the bottom of my
"Crime" page. ("Yes, I do
have a strange sense of humour. Why do you ask?")
- September 7, 1999 -- Seedlings Braille Books for Children has moved.
I now have their new URL in
Hilgraeve has upgraded HyperTerminal Personal Edition again. Version 5 is
now out. Also, Hilgraeve's web site has been re-organised recently so it
may take a while for me to find the new page addresses and update any
broken links. Wander over to my
"Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities" page to have a look.
A "What Is It?" puzzle has been added to my
"Games" page. I wonder how long it will
take for someone to guess it correctly. I have added to my
Antispam page links to the
Deja.com copies of a couple of rants^H^H^H^H^Heditorial postings of mine
to the news.admin.net-abuse.email newsgroup.
- August 24, 1999 -- More anti-relay links for Japanese sysadmins have
been added to my boilerplate
used to report Japanese servers that have been abused by spammers to
relay their garbage.
I have added a "Games" page to my site.
If you like logic puzzles, have a look.
- August 20, 1999 -- Good news for CCN users. The link to Roswell
Computer Books on my
"Books and Stamps" page
will now work for lynx users. The web site has moved to a new server
and no longer redirects immediately to a secure (https) page.
- August 16, 1999 -- F-PROT links on
my antivirus page have been updated again to
version 3.05b.
- July 14, 1999 -- On the anti-spam news-front, the makers of Real
Audio are now in the RBL for their
persistant refusal to stop spamming.
- July 3, 1999 -- See the
Sports section of my "Radio, TV,
and Entertainment Page for the broadcast dates and times for the
USQRA National Championship game
to be broadcast on ESPN. My regret is that I don't have cable TV and
can't watch the game myself.
- June 28, 1999 -- I updated the link a while ago but got
sidetracked before noting here that F-Prot version 3.05 is now out and
accessible for download by links on my antivirus
page. I have added some more information and links on displaying,
forwarding, and interpreting full headers in email to my
anti-spam page -- including
instructions on getting full headers for WebTV users. Pets have health
problems as well as people. My
"Health" page
now has some links to veterinary medical sites for pet owners.
- April 28, 1999 -- Have you ever played a computer game and then
found that your computer system clock is fast by a few hours? Some
games mess with the timer interrupt for better animation. A little
utility of mine called FIXCLOCK.COM will read your CMOS clock and reset
your system clock back to the right time again. You can get it from my
"Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities" page.
- April 18, 1999 -- It's been a while, hasn't it? Since February
I have made a few minor changes which I was too busy to get entered
here and have now forgotten. A major addition today is a section added
to my "Health" page with links
to information on Endometriosis. Other additions to the page include
links to Mary's "Fight Your HMO" Site - A guide to dealing with insurance
companies, "Suggestions for your gynecologist", "Tampax community for
women/teachers", and information on the potentially fatal
"Toxic Shock Syndrome" associated with the use of tampons.
("Why, yes. I am a man. Why do you ask?")
- February 13, 1999 -- Aaaaarrrggghhh! I found out that some files
of mine had the wrong permission set and were not accessable. (The old
system on CCN automatically set files moved to a user's public_html
directory to world-readable. It appears that it is necessary to set
the permissions manually with a lynx command since the system upgrade.
Two of the files that I could remember the names of now have an explicit
notice below them but if any file on my site that you tried to access in
the past from a link on my site gave you a "403 Access Denied"
or similar error, try again now. As Maxwell Smart was wont to say,
"Sorry about that, Chief!"
- February 8, 1999 -- Those who would like to get the cp1252 character
set to display in a DOS box are no longer left out. I now have a
cp1252 replacement for the VGAOEM.FON file
on my "Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities" page.
- February 7, 1999 -- HyperTerminal users now can also get a full
cp1252 font from my
"Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities" page.
- January 1, 1999 to February 6, 1999 -- there are several recent
changes that I hadn't gotten around to noting here as I would always get
interrupted before updating this file and I have now forgotten which date
I made each change. I'll just lump them together under this entry.
I couldn't resist making fun of a net-kook and have
documented it. I have improved the VGA font
I had available for text-mode users and
the new version implements the complete
ISO cp1252 character set, including the new "Euro" character.
My "Handicapped" page has had
some links to screen-readers added (with some sites offering downloadable
trial versions. My
"Antispam" page has links to a text
file describing how to view full headers with pine and an example of
a set of forged headers. It also has a 4DOS
alias for translating some spammers' integer URLs into dotted-quad form.
My "HTML Sampler" page now points
to three character-entity tables:
- December 27, 1998 -- an updated link for Robert J. Sawyers web site
and a link to the Huntington's Disease Society of America (in relation
to one of Robert J. Sawyer's books) has been added to my
"Books and Stamps" page.
(The Huntington's Disease Society's URL is also on my
"Health" page.)
A Courier ISO font for HyperTerminal users and a Windows font editor is
now available from my
"Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities"
page. The font editor is the first one I have found that can handle
bitmap fonts as well as TrueType fonts.
- December 17, 1998 -- a link to another HTML Tutorial site and another
HTML character entity reference page added to my slowly-expanding
"HTML Sampler" page. A couple of new
entries have been added to my "brag"
page as well.
- December 7, 1998 -- The Criminal Code of Canada can now be accessed
in pieces from my
"Crime" page instead of having to
be accessed as one hugh 1.6-megabyte file. Links to the English Kidney
Foundation of Canada and its French counterpart, La Fondation canadienne
du rein, have been added to my
"Health" page.
- October 23, 1998 -- test any byte or set of bits in a byte in a batch
file. A utility of mine, PEEK.COM is available for download from my
"Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities"
page.
- October 21, 1998 -- users with a shell account that have to read
news with lynx or pine and don't have tin
available can now decode those rot-13 postings by changing their
VGA font on the fly. Visit my
"Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities"
page and see Tip Number Nineteen.
- October 16, 1998 -- F-Prot version 3.03 has just been released
(October 15, 1998). Those wishing the latest version might want to visit
my antivirus page.
- October 1, 1998 -- links to information on how to recognise and avoid
getting sold counterfeit Intel Pentium II processors or counterfeit
copies of Windows 98 have been added to my
"Crime" page.
- September 29, 1998 -- forget the fictional X-Files. Get the
real thing. Follow the new link on my
"Crime" page to the
genuine FBI reports on such things as "Animal/Cattle Mutilation", "Project
Blue Book", "Roswell", and "Unidentified Flying Objects". It appears that
the score is ADA 1, Greyhound 0 -- read about the Over the Road
Victory from the link on
my home page or drop in on my
"Handicapped" page and read
about it from there.
- September 26, 1998 -- Tip number twenty-two, a link to on-line
help files for MS-DOS commands in Helsinki, Finland, has been added to
my "Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities"
page.
- September 24, 1998 -- (long overdue) I have finally found the time
to check out Unicorn Quest, a typing tutor game that can be used by a
disabled child with only one hand as well as by children with both hands.
Links to the family-oriented page, "Esmerel on the Web",
Esmerel's List of Disability Resources, and Unicorn Quest are now featured
on my "Handicapped" page and,
since it is a resource for educating children, on my
"Parents' Page" as well.
- September 23, 1998 -- I have found the new addresses for Cathy's
Newstand and the Speech Friendly Ribbon Award and have updated the links
on
Some other new links have been added to my
"brag" page or moved out of the
"Unable to connect" section back into the main list as
the sites are accessible again.
- August 30, 1998 -- Hilgraeve's HyperTerminal Personal Edition has
been upgraded to version 4. A link to the new version has been added to
my "Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities"
page but the link to version 3 will remain until it no longer works.
The alert for disabled Americans about Medicare input has gone past the
deadline so has been deleted.
- August 19, 1998 -- I have added to
my antivirus page a link to another new page
with information about the new CIH virus that can
damage some motherboards. My Home page has
another alert for disabled Americans -- your
input on the future of Medicare is urgently needed and the deadline
for submissions in writing (email is acceptable) is August 24,
1998.
- August 18, 1998 (and earlier) -- some links in
my "Brag" page and
my antivirus page have been updated,
added, or deleted as appropriate. You might want to visit
my antivirus page
to learn more about a new virus that can damage some motherboards.
For a couple of days I am repeating the protest I had up for December 3,
1997 to support visually-impaired and other
"graphically challenged" Internet surfers. See
my home page for details.
- July 30, 1998 -- Kathy's Independent Living & Disability
Resources Page so I have updated the links in my
"Handicapped" page and also in my
"Other Home Pages" section. You
may wish to update your bookmarks.
- July 28, 1998 -- Has your computer suddenly started playing music?
You may suspect a virus but the cause is likely something else (but still
serious). Find out more about this and what you should do about it on
my antivirus page.
- July 26, 1998 -- a block of the un-annotated HTML source code
has been snipped from my "HTML Sampler" page. It was OK when
the block of code was small. Now it would be too large if included. A
pile of links to various HTML-related resources have been added to the
"HTML Sampler" including links to
some HTML validators.
- July 22, 1998 -- (it's been quite a long while without updates,
hasn't it?) -- in my
"Eat, Drink, and be Merry" page,
a link to Yahoo's information on "brewing beer" replaces the
link to Clive's brewing page since he has taken it down. Some temporary
links and information on the new destructive CIH computer virus has been
added to
my antivirus page until such time as I can
learn more about it and organise things better. This is the first virus
that I know about that can render a computer totally unusable when its
payload triggers. Affected computer motherboards have to be replaced or
sent back to the factory for reprogramming the Flash BIOS.
- June 22, 1998 -- a link to Clytie Siddall's story has been added to
my "Health" page. Those
interested in Fibromyalgia or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome may want to pay a
visit. (Apologies to Clytie for not getting it here sooner.) Did you
enjoy the online adventure game called "Drool!"? If so, you
can now pretend to be a cat instead of a dog. Drop by my
"Kids' Page"
and play another game called "Hairball".
- June 19, 1998 -- the new F-PROT version 3.01 is now out and
accessable from my antivirus page.
- May 9, 1998 (it's been a while, hasn't it?) -- the new F-PROT version
3.00 is now out and accessable from
my antivirus page.
My "Who is Norman De Forest?" page
now has couple of links you can follow to view a picture of me or a
picture of me and a friend. (Did I just hear someone say
"<AOL>Me Too!</AOL>"?)
- April 6, 1998 -- some changes to
my antivirus page. Updated and added
references to Linux viruses, an update in the download address for
the latest F-MACROW (they have changed from version 1.08 to 1.08a), and a
link to DataFellows' mailing list subscription form added. (Tag-nesting
errors on the form have been fixed and the form now works with lynx so
lynx-users who had trouble with it in the past may wish to try again.)
I am also working on minor cosmetic changes to my pages to improve
their accessability.
- March 21, 1998 -- an update link for F-MACROW.EXE so you can get the
version that will work with the latest MACRO.DEF files has been added to
my antivirus page.
- March 19, 1998 -- the URL for Safetynet on
my antivirus page has been updated. Some legal references have been
added to my "Antispam" page.
- March 13, 1998 -- the link to the Garbo software repository download
on my antivirus page updated to F-PROT version
2.28b. You might want to upgrade if your version is starting to complain
of old age. Simtel still has older version, 2.28 (at the moment I write
this) but they could update their version any day now.
- March 10, 1998 -- for the amusement of visitors without
frames-capable browsers, added to my home page are links to the separate
frames of my second protest page.
- March 9, 1998 -- A link was added to my home page to allow downloading
a set of images for creating your own protest
page similar to my
December 3, 1997 protest page.
- March 04 -- added to my antivirus page:
"Symantec equals spammer".
- February 23, 1998 -- eight new deafness-related links added to my
"Handicapped" page.
- February 22, 1998 -- the Sports section of my "Radio, Television,
Sports, and other
Entertainment" page now has a link to a trapshooting site including
a page on trapshooting for disabled persons.
- February 20, 1998 -- the International Blind Sports Association (IBSA)
represents blind sports all over the world. You can now visit them from
the Sports section of my "Radio, Television,
Sports, and other
Entertainment" page. A new newsgroup, alt.support.incontinence, has
been added to my still-growing page of support
newsgroups. The miscellaneous links section of my
"Antispam" page
has been sorted by URL to eliminate duplicate URLs in the list.
- February 14, 1998 -- there's a new address for SBABR antivirus so you
might want to bookmark it on my antivirus page.
- January 25, 1998 -- 16 new newsgroups added to my ever-growing page
of support newsgroups.
- January 20, 1998 -- Mike Pegg's "Disability Information for
Students" site has a new address. You might want to go to my
"Handicapped" page and update
your bookmarks. A whole pile of unsorted spam-related bookmarks have been
tacked on to the end of my
"Antispam" page since I want to keep
them handy for use and others might just as well get to use them if they
are going to use up disk space anyway. As I can find the time, I will
try to get them sorted for you.
- January 6, 1998 -- a new protest page,
this time deploring sites that require frames-capable browsers, is
replacing my home page for a day. There is
no reason why a site that uses frames couldn't be designed to also be
accessable with browsers that can't show frames. Requiring a
frames-capable browser makes a site inaccessable to many who are visually
impaired. They often have to use text-only browsers and screen reading
software that speaks the text through a voice synthesizer. Those with
lynx browsers will see no change in my site (older versions of lynx) or
just a couple of additional links to frames at the top of the page (new
versions of lynx). Those with frames-capable browsers will see a big
difference. Instead of my regular page, they will see two frames -- a
narrow one on the left of the screen and a
wider one on the right of the screen.
- December 20, 1997 -- a temporary page with a couple of ideas for
your holiday shopping will be on my site until after Christmas. (I also
caught up with updating this file.)
- December 4, 1997 -- my home page was restored to normal and the
protest page will be available for a while at a
new location.
- December 3, 1997 -- for this one day, my home page was altered to
protest poorly-designed web sites that are inaccessable to the visually
impaired (or others using text-only browsers).
- November 29, 1997 -- the Skin Diseases Newsgroups Archive (with other
resources on skin diseases also) is now reachable from a link on my
"Health" page. Links to that
site are also next to the relevant newsgroups on my
support newsgroups page.
- November 24, 1997 -- alt.support.skin-diseases.hidradenitis and
alt.support.skin-diseases.vitiligo added to my growing list of
support newsgroups. A link to the
The QuackWatch Home Page where you can learn about fraudulent or
well-meant-but-ineffective medical treatments is now available
on my "Health" page and
also on my "Crime" page.
- November 20, 1997 -- I have added a description of a Windows bug to
my "Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities"
page and have provided a set of three programmes that can be downloaded to
safely demonstrate the bug -- see Tip number twenty-one.
- November 19, 1997 -- I have now included Ordered, Un-ordered, and
Definition Lists in my HTML Sampler.
- November 18, 1997 -- you might want to visit
my antivirus page for the latest version
of F-PROT, version 2.28. I have now added an
Antispam Page to my site.
- November 17, 1997 -- you can now check out the exciting sport of
wheelchair racing from the Sports section of my "Radio, Television,
Sports, and other Entertainment" page.
- November 14, 1997 -- now you can drop in to my
"Kids' Page" and play
"Drool!" -- you are a puppy and the most important
thing to do in the whole world is fetch that stick!
Some links updated on my antivirus page
in between bouts of fighting "spam". A changed link
updated on my"Parents' Page".
- November 11, 1997 -- Kids Together, Inc. (Formerly Kids R Kids, Inc.)
is now another resource on my
"Handicapped" page
and my "Parents' Page".
- November 5, 1997 -- Alchemy Mindworks, the producers of several
shareware graphics utilities, added as Tip number twenty to my
"Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities"
page. I managed to squeeze it in somehow and stay under quota.
- October 16, 1997 -- the note about the name of my handicapped page
and a six-month old job offer have been deleted from that page. Sorry,
I needed to delete something to get rid of over-quota problems.
- October 13, 1997 -- Quilters Hope Chest added to my editorial page on
"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly".
Date, time, and calendar added to the references on my
"Books and Stamps" page.
A link to "Browsing With KeyBored" (a site with a lot of SCI
links) added to my
"Handicapped" page.
- October 9, 1997 -- a number of links had to be fixed due to Bradley
Olson's site and Helen Challan's sites moving. If you had one of these
sites bookmarked, you might want to update your bookmarks.
- October 3, 1997 -- an Italian antivirus site (in English), the SBABR
Homepage, is a new resource on my antivirus page.
- September 29, 1997 -- alt.support.scleroderma added to my growing
list of support newsgroups.
- September 13, 1997 -- links to the Criminal Code of Canada added to
my Crime page.
- September 5, 1997 -- a virus warning for Toshiba laptop owners
has been added to my antivirus page.
Thai antivirus site link removed from my antivirus page as it has
been inaccessable for some time. If it becomes accessable again,
I'll put it back.
- August 28, 1997 -- some antivirus links updated between bouts of
spam-fighting. My "super echo" command, EKKO, which you can
find on my
"Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities"
page, has had its files converted to *.zip format as I have found
(actually, I have been informed of) a freeware zip utility so I don't have
to use self-extracting LHA archives anymore.
- August 14, 1997 -- my Crime page
now has a link to the American Department of Justice ADA Home Page.
(Well it is a crime the way the disabled have been treated.)
That link and my link to the Canadian Department of Justice announcement
of disability rights changes in Canada are also now duplicated on my
"Handicapped" page.
- August 8, 1997 -- two new groups, alt.support.alzheimers and
alt.support.personality.schizoid, added to my ever-growing list of
support newsgroups. A link to Mike Pegg's
homepage with resources for students of disability-related fields has
been added to my
"Handicapped" page.
- August 7, 1997 -- the new group, alt.personals.hiv-positive and a
link to Liszt, a searchable database of mailing lists, added to
my list of support newsgroups.
- August 2, 1997 -- the new group, alt.poverty added to my list of
support newsgroups. Maybe this will help
kickstart it into usefulness.
- July 30, 1997 -- links to a Chilian antivirus website and a Chilian
antivirus newsgroup added to my antivirus
page for the convenience of Spanish visitors to my site. A Deja News
link is available for those whose systems don't carry the chile.comp.virus
newsgroup. A listserv mailing list for disabled teachers is now described
in my page for support newsgroups, disability chat groups, and
disability-related mailing lists.
- July 28, 1997 -- two more sites added to my
"Brag" page.
The Halifax Police Department has moved their site again and is in the
process of changing its name to The Halifax Regional Police Department so
updates had to be made to my
"Crime" page to reflect the
changes.
- July 25, 1997 -- a link to the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition added to
my newly renamed "Money Talks" page.
You can now follow a link on my
"Who is Norman De Forest anyway?" page to visit an alternate
universe and surf the web sdrawkcaB!
- July 24, 1997 -- alt.support.dyslexia added to my list of
support newsgroups.
- July 21, 1997 -- a link to a massive collection of mailing lists for
the blind (on the Camera Obscura site) added to my newly-named page,
"IRC, Mailing Lists, and Newsgroups
for Those Needing Support."
- July 18, 1997 -- Paralympics and Special Olympics links added to the
Sports section of my "Radio, Television,
Sports, and other Entertainment" page.
- July 16, 1997 -- a couple more sources for FAQ files added to my
"Computer Hints, Tips, and Utilities"
page. The Sûreté du Québec, an announcement from the Canadian Department
of Justice, some law-enforcement and crime-related newsgroups, and a site
with information and courses on "Forensic Profiling" have been
added to my "Crime" page.
- July 11, 1997 -- the old link to ASCII cows was broken on my
"Previous pictures" page so I have
replaced it with a bunch of links to ASCII cows. Some new newsgroups
have been added to my support newsgroups
page.
- July 8, 1997 -- some more links corrected on
my antivirus page and a couple of links
corrected or added on my "Brag" page.
Vantage Mini Vans, a supplier of adapted vans for the disabled added to my
"Handicapped" page.
- June 30, 1997 -- my antivirus page
has had some of the links on it updated and a link to a new Windows 95
imaginary virus list has been added to the humour section of that page.
- June 28, 1997 -- A link to Bibles for the Blind and Visually
Handicapped International has been added to my
"Handicapped" page and my
"Books and Stamps" page.
Webmaster: Norman De Forest, <
af380@chebucto.ns.ca>