MSNTV, WebTV, Interactive Television, Set Top Appliance, LBB, Little Black Box, Inexpensive Internet Access, Computer Phobia, Virus Free WWW, Easy To Use 'Net, Table Art, Audioscope Art, Basic HTML, Why Computers Hate Us, Internet For: The Disabled, Elderly, Poor "Just when u think yer life is hard, along comes MSNTV to remind u: it could b WORSE! :)" ~~Rogi
WebTV Only: Copy & Paste Any Amount Of
Text In This Box To Enlarge It For The Vision Impaired. *THIS BOX WILL EXPAND*
If u wanna "steal" someone else's pics w/out actually stealing band width, here's what I do: go see http://rriverstone.blogspot.com/ for example. That photo's from a friend who doesn't mind I swiped it.
BUT I ALWAYS link back, when possible, to my source:
go see: http://rogiandthegerman.blogspot.com for example
You can also link WHOLE WEBSITES this way! Make sure they're relatively small, tho, or ppl will think yer blog IS that website!
Look at http://dailyrogi.blogspot.com/ for example.
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As I already said, I embed with a clickable link, back to my source. I don't just use a graphic (without permission) without giving credit and access to information about its source. Therefore, I am not stealing bandwidth; I'm promoting the web sites from which I'm embedding.
This is necessary for two reasons:
First, my MSNTV has no hard drive and I can not up- or download anything from it. I can transload, from one online source to another. Period.
I build web pages at: AngelFire, GeoCities, WTV-Zone and 250Free. Three of those hosts block sound and image files from being useful on any but their own web pages. So, even though I have accounts there, stored images/sound files won't function anywhere else. In addition, GeoCities has blocked FTP, so I can't even transload to them any more.
Secondly, I am extremely (by US standards) low income. That's why I'm using an MSNTV unit, rather than a computer. So I can't afford to webster pages at any hosts which are not free.
WTV-Zone is my only option. But my account there is under a different user name, and I don't use files from there under rriverstone (MSNTV people can't have anonymity, nick switching) to maintain the security of that WTV-Zone account.
In all incidences where I use embed tags, I do it to promote the site I'm embedding.
Once a post with an embed is archived, it will rarely be called up again, so won't permanently use bandwidth from the source.
Also, in the case of embedding whole web pages, that's a temporary thing. I place the web sites in my blog for a month, then I remove the post.
If I could do things differently, I would.
I like to display interesting content to my readers. I like to promote web pages which are interesting and useful.
I do not clutter up my blogs with cartoons, "cutesy" graphics, soundfiles (I have one, but the viewer must click on it) or other extraneous junk.
I know I can make my blogs visually interesting with text effects and tables. Both of these tricks make my blog visually interesting without slow loading.
Until I get a well paid writing job, and can pay for web site hosting, this is the best I can do.
And I ALWAYS credit my sources.
The one exception is the cat with the rifle on my http://rriverstone.blogspot.com/ blog,and that was a gift from my friend, Norma. It's not associated with a web site; it's stored in her image files, at one of her web hosting sites.
*********************
It's cool. I just wanted to make it clear that I try to be as responsible as possible with the limitations of this appliance.
Many MSNTV users are not. It's not their faults. Nobody told them different.
MSNTV offered tutorials to users on how to build HTML signatures for email and posting in groups.
They actually TOLD people how to direct link images. Now, we CAN use our own, transloaded images. And we now have our own web page hosting, PageBuilder. But it has awkward limitations (somewhere on my http://rriverstone.blogspot.com/ blog, you will find, "county fair foods;" that's a PageBuilder page. It uses templates. It's a pain! It was designed for use by people with no familiarity with HTML webstering. It loads slow.
People also direct link sound files. PageBuilder has no application for transloading sound files to it. Images, yes.
So, we MSNTV users have been stealing bandwidth from day one!
It was only OTHER USERS who began informing the rest that bandwidth theft was a serious issue, and must be avoided. They wrote tutorials and tools to assist MSNTV users in NOT stealing bandwidth!
We have a BAD reputation in the online community. I'm sensitive to that. I was concerned that someone reading this thread would see my post as just another example of what a flaky bunch of bumpkins MSNTV users really are! LOL
Note: In code examples I add a period after each left arrow
bracket so the code can be viewed in all email programs. If you copy and paste, be sure to remove the periods or it won't work.
Using a combination of JavaScript and CSS you can have the background color of a table cell or whole row (or even the whole table) change color when a visitor places their cursor over it.
Why would you want to do that? You can have a row or column highlight when the cursor is on it to make it easier to read data across the table - or just for fun!
Here's the code you'd place in the HEAD section of your page:
That's the CSS part, below is a sample table that shows you how to add the JavaScript that makes the background color change. I've coded the change into the first row. If you copy and paste both sets of code into a page you'll see how the background color of the first row changes color on mouseover, but not the second row.
Where it says "foof" - that would return the background col- or to the normal table style if you are using CSS to set the style of the table. If so, then change the word "foof" to whatever class name you've given to it. If your table is set up using HTML only, then you can either just leave it alone or backspace out the word foof, but leave all the quote and double quote marks in place.
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SURFIN' WITH BOOJ - UXN Spam Combat
Tired of spam? Who isn't! This site will teach you how to trace spam and who to complain to.
The left hand column breaks down an email header into its various components, and the right hand column explains what they mean and some tools are provided to trace the spam.
Note that not all spam can be traced this easily, but you can bust some amateurs if you have the time and patience.
http://combat.uxn.com/tracing.html
I ran 5 newsgroups: my "kitchen table" group, antiwar, skepticism, Unitarian Universalism/agnosticism, philosophy.
After the crap I just went through on the "Church" of the larger fellowship UUA email list (see Daily Rogi), I decided to unsubscribe from all UUA.org email lists. This is difficult to do, and each list must be unsubscribed, individually.
Since my CLF experiences, and my recent experiences with the AUUF locally (see Hood Life), and my PAST experiences with other UUA congregations have been so PROFOUNDLY dehumanizing, I made a radical decision.
I decided to delete my MSNTV username, Unitarian_Universalist@webtv.net. That way, I won't have to bother with unsubscribing. Besides, nobody was posting to that newsgroup, anyway.
When I went into the "change users" portion of my account, I looked at my other user names. I thought about the newsgroups I've been operating.
I thought how few people actually post in ANY of them. I thought how much I've been harrassed, trolled, flamed, stalked, email bombed and otherwise not only not acknowledged for my hard work, but how much I've been persecuted for it.
I deleted ALL my user names, except rriverstone.
Apparantly, the issues which I find most important in life matter little, if anything, to other MSNTV subscribers.
I hung in there for months, years. I was hoping some lost souls might wander in and form communications.
When I look at alt.discuss, I see gossip, pornography, flaming, remedial humor and Jesus are the most "popular" groups.
I had hoped to provide some alternative space. But it's not wanted; it's not welcomed. It's resented.
So, all my user names dealing with intelligent discussion are deleted.
No more.
This is a very sad day.
*******************
Dear Angela,
Thank you for your support. I'm too exhausted to talk about it any more right now. Also, I can't stand IM.
But, when I'm able/ready, I'll give you a holler by email.
Guess, if u wanna keep in touch w/me, it'll have to b at the rriverstone ng.
I've decided to dump all my extra time and energy there, and into my blogs.
I've also quit all yahoogroups, to cut down spam. And my published email address is now at yahoo. But you can always email me here.
I'm just burned out on ingratitude and hostility from cowardly, anonymous idiots.
It was developed as WebTV: an inexpensive, efficient and user-friendly appliance for people to access the internet, send/receive email, etc. without the expense and hassles of owning a computer. No software to buy. No virus to detect. No hacker attacks. No thick manuels. No secondary hardware to buy. It would be upgraded on a regular basis. All memory would be stored in the network. Simple, cheap, excessible, efficient, user friendly
The problems started when WebTV was sold to MSN. MSN uses we subscribers as "guinea pigs" to test the hardware. MSN doesn't give a damn about us, and we know it. We problem solve and provide support to each other. We seldom even ASK for support from MSN. Why bother? Their Customer Support Reps (CSRs) are poorly trained and unfamiliar with the appliance. They make suggestions for remedial fixes which don't even apply to the problems customers present.
Our sole purpose in life is for demographics. They sell our cookied info.
Recently, new MSNTV commercials have appeared in select areas. There is talk, even from what little corporate propoganda to which we are privy, of a new device, currently in product testing.
If this new devise is cost prohibitive and also renders my current appliance obsolete, I will no longer have internet access. This goes for thousands of my fellow subscribers.
One can, on occasion, currently purchase several MSNTV box models on Ebay for $1-50 us.
Why did MSN buy WebTV, then, if they have no interest in the subscriber base?
Can you say "X Box?" They've cannibalized the LBB hardware for their little gaming toy.
WebTV was never designed to replace computers; it was designed because there's a lot of extraneous stuff about computers that is expensive and unnecessary to internet access.
As with many revolutionary ideas, this one has been derided, mocked and sneered at since its inception. Had it caught on, computer manufacturers and SOFT WARE DEVELOPERS (such as MSN, for instance????) would necessarily find themselves scrambling, just to remain in business.
That's why we old timers on WebTV don't CALL it MSNTV, except for clarification. We resent the neglect, abuse and stupidity we've endured at the hands of MSN. We feel no loyalty to them. And we wish WebTV had never been sold! :evil: :evil:
MSNTV offers assistance to webmasters on how to build MSNTV friendly sites. I'll post about that in case anybody's interested.
We webbies r kinda scared of interacting with puter users. We got a very hostile reception when we got to usenet! For one thing, we can post HTML signatures. THAT wasn't appreciated! We can send sigs in email, too...many ISPs don't see them, or they jam up the works.
I'm still getting accustomed to posting w/out my sig in some email groups. I don't EVEN go to usenet; we LBB ppl can't post with fake names! Spam bots and psychopaths torment us!!
We have our own usenet, behind the MSNTV firewall: alt.discuss. YOU puters can't see it! :-P
We're just now starting to blog. But I gotta say, the incompatibility issues are troublesome. IF a blog site offered: full FTP and a TRANSLOADER (transloader moves images, sound files, etc from one online site to another...as opposed to up- and downloading, which we can't do) IF somebody offered those, Webbies would FLOCK to bloggers! We could make photo albums, do geneology, have group blogs, show off our MSNTV only web arts, etc.
Blogging would b PERFECT for webbies!
Another problem with alt.discuss. is that they purge posts after 30 days. With blogs, we could KEEP our conversations and links!
Here's my MSNTV blog, what there is of it so far.... http://msntv.blogspot.com/
If you get an email about microsoft security, don't open it! It's a virus. Transparent graphics on the email could read your email address and send even more!
If you want to know if it's a real email from MSN or the virus, click on your "clean up" function. Read how large of a percentage of space the email takes. It should be .10 or less, generally 1.0 to be generous. If it's about 6-7%, it's a virus.
Just delete it, unopened. And delete all of them from your "discarded" mail, too. No sense letting it take up space in your email folders.
DON'T PANIC! We've been thru WORSE!
What's really scary about these is: they're using MSN stationary and some MSN links, to make them look legit.
I TRIED bouncing for headers and forwarding them to abuse@ the hosts from which they came. They were rejected because they were too large!
So, the outfits who are unwittingly SENDING these virus emails won't RECEIVE them. They'll never know they're aiding and abetting this!
It took approxemately 10 minutes per email to bounce/forward them to myself and then to send them on to various abuse@ addresses.
I gave up after the 3rd one. I have a few more this morning.
I only got a total of about 10 of these, compared to other MSNTV users' 20 or 30, but the day is young.
But, each one of these virus spams is taking up 7-10% of my mail box!
I've almost completely stopped using my @webtv.net address for anything. I'm using yahoo mail. The spam filters work.
I'd use hotmail or msn or whatever, but, after 2 years of trying, I can NOT get anybody to straighten out my passport and password so I can get IN to my hotmail account! They WON't FIX IT!
Times like these, I'm particularly angry about being treated like a brain-damaged child by people I'm PAYING to provide me with internet service!
Note how tiny the keyboard is. The keyboard is wireless. I never sit at a desk. I lay on the sofa, with a breakfast-in-bed tray on my lap, with the keyboard on it.
Lots of people use their coffee tables. Many sit in recliner chairs. We have a reputation of being internet "couch potatoes."
It also has a remote control "wand." With it, one can type on a virtual, on-screen "keyboard," but it's a real PAIN!
The appliance is that black box, to your left of the television.
That model is a "plus" unit. It can record from your VCR. You can watch tv in a small picture inside the larger picture of the internet. It can remind you when your favorite programs are coming on, and even change channels. You can make video captures with a vid. camera with it and .wav file sound recordings to send in email.
Mine is a "classic" model. It's about 1/2 the size of the one pictured there. It allows internet access only.
You plug either into the: phone, electric outlet and television.
You can take it on vacations easily; it will hunt a local access number, once you tell it you've "moved."
It costs about 2-5 bags of groceries per month, for all you international types. Or 1/17th of my monthly rent.
I can do almost anything online a computer can do. I cannot up- nor download software. The software programs are stored on the network.
This means, my account is very secure: it can't be hacked and I can't catch viruses. I did catch the "SoBig" worm, though.
But that does mean I'm at the whim of the network for software upgrades, which are too often "buggy" for awhile.
You can be online 10 minutes after you get it out of the box. It has an onscreen tutorial.
You use any television as the monitor.
I love this stupid thing!
______________________________________________
Clf-l mailing list
The astronomy alt.discuss group is concerned that a huge headline about "UFOs" appears on our MSNTV home page. When one clicks the link, one is directed to a "Things To Try" page which says,
Yellow journalism is a much-loved tradition in this country; how DARE you question it? :)
What's more scary is the crap in the "try new things" section of the home page, or whatever they call it. They suggest a web site on astrology, not astronomy, for instance. 'course, most people, and a substantial population of journalists, don't know the difference between the two.
If we're all worrying about: PlanetX, Armagedon, psychics, astrology, UFOs, etc, we won't NOTICE reality!
Bush wants $87 billion more for his superbowl in Iraq. That's on top of $150± billion already spent. The World Trade Center cost a measly billion.
But we're worrying about nonexistant planets and lil grey guys. It's the big WHITE guys who should SCARE us! LOL
Someone said, "evolution is stupid." Of course, Raoul, 4ize and I tend to jump like ducks on June bugs at such statements.
Raoul said that, if that poster could answer some basic Chemistry questions, the conversation on how reproduction/replication developed could continue. The questions involved chemical bonds & their strength and composition. They also involved the composition and configuration of DNA.
So, I hit the search engines and posted websites that had the answers.
Then, I wrote this:
I want to publicly state, for the record that I never studied chemistry.
The heirarchy of public "education" requires one to complete at least Calculus before one can take a Chemistry class.
I am slightly dyslexic and EXTREMELY math-phobic. I barely passed basic Algebra, and that wasn't until College.
The only Chemistry I ever picked up came from PBS science shows and the like. "Accidental" Chemistry.
So, until Raoul posted these questions, I never knew what Chemical Bonds, et al, even WERE!
But, with my webtv and a search engine, I LEARNED the basics in less than 20 minutes!
This is the value of this little "toy" we have on top of our television sets.
Sure, we can use this appliance to gossip, spread rumors, harrass people, masturbate and play games. One doesn't need an internet-ready appliance to do those; small people have done it for eons. The appliance just makes it possible to do this sort of petty damage on a global scale.
But this appliance can take one to the Smithsonian Institute, NASA, The Library of Alexandria, the Louvre, Julia Childs' kitchen, the foot paths of Chiapas.
It can take us back in time to the Tower of Babel, the Twin Towers, the Roman Coleseum, Stonehenge, the building of The Great Wall Of China, the Suez Canal, the Mayan pyramids, the Big Bang.
It can take us into great minds like Einstein, Schweitzer, Ghandi, Dr. King, Van Gogh, Beethoven, da Vinci.
This appliance is a transporter. We start out on our sofas in our nondescript homes and travel the depth and breadth of the Universe.
And it's not a one-way conversation, like regular TV, radio, publishing. We can publish blogs, ezines, web pages, Table- and Audioscope art.
We can be part of the global conversation.
Or, we can use this appliance to gossip, spread rumors, harrass people, masturbate and play games.
I am involved in a social institution which often posts .pdfs from its web site.
I have discovered a wonderful trick.
Once I stumble on one of their .pdfs, I type enough key words into Google that it calls up.
Google has a .pdf to .html converter. It looks terrible, generally.
So, I ccp their results and email it to myself, without an email signature.
I was able to read an entire history of this organization's 10-year involvement with Romania by this method!
Totally legible. A whopper email: 3%, but well worth it!
I'm constantly in touch with this organization, so a fast fix is very useful.
*************
Group: alt.discuss.clubs.public.webtv.misc.wow
Date: Thu, Sep 4, 2003, 11:31pm (MDT-1)
From: (Rogi�Riverstone)
Look at the last link listed on this page, unless Google moves thing 'round before you see this post!
uck. I'm expecting an echeck to clear at PayPal today. I NEED it to clear today, so I can transfer it to my bank acc't. before the weekend.
Fighting the LBB is not amusing, under the circumstances.
And, of course, I feel obliged to reload my PayPal account history page fifty seven times a visit, not knowing if the LBB is playing games with cookies, cache, etc.
They picked the WRONG day to play games!
Every time I turn the LBB on, I break out into a sweat!
BTW: sent myself 4 emails w/some scripting code in them today; they all
took TWENTY FIVE MINUTES to come into my own email box!
Cute....
Guess I'd better get my tin cup & go out panhandling....
**************
Someone suggested I go to the Public Library to use a computer.
Fortunately, my PayPal acc't. credited me with the payment and I was able to transfer it into my bank account!
I deal with an unscrupulous property mgmt. company whose primary goal in life is to squeeze as much blood out of their tenants as possible.
I was desperate to pay my rent before I could incur a late fee.
I have mailed a check to the company, accompanied by a letter requesting they not deposit the check before Tuesday, unless I call them to let them know the funds have transferred early.
I included a copy of my PayPal email, announcing that the transfer has been made.
I made the mistake, the last time I moved, of taking a Direct Deposit Advance of a month's income. I needed it for deposits, etc.
I've had to take advances every month since to pay rent. The fees cost me $500� per year.
My new employer advanced me $500., so I'd no longer have to make Advances.
The money cleared at 10am today. That will save me almost $40 for just this month.
The less I have to subsidize my slum lord AND my predatory lender bank, the happier I'll be!
Thank you for your suggestions. I'd thought of that, myself.
This morning, I went to check my acc't. history and things went funny.
First, it didn't recognize my username and password (entered correctly; I checked) and sent me to a form field to enter them again.
I entered again and was taken to a page I'd never seen before: just my account balance.
Usually, there's an options menu, directly below the balance and I go to "acc't. history" to see transaction activities.
The menu was gone.
I had to go to the bottom of the page.
There was a link labeled "home," or some such (I'll have to look it up; I've forgotten). It was such a generic name, I didn't know if it would take me to MY home at the bank, or to the bank's home page, from which I'd have to search around to get my acc't. history.
FORTUNATELY, it took me to my acc't. home page. I was able to access my acct. history from there. The page was the one to which I'm usually directed after logging in.
Such changes in the appearance of one's bank acc't. are, needless to say, slightly alarming: things aren't where they were yesterday; I didn't know why, and I was a bit flustered, trying to access the info I needed. Makes it easy for the customers to make unnecessary mistakes in the confusion.
But then, this bank has never made "user friendly" banking a priority, especially for us LBB folk.
So far, the site is accessible to me, as little as I use it, anyway. My priority is usually to check acc't. history to verify that my transactions are recorded and my balance reflects them.
The clumsiness with the log on was quite alarming. A real cliff-hanger: will I have access to my account or not? as I wait for their secure site machinary to kick in.
I'm too old for this.
******************************************
ps
Group: alt.discuss.clubs.public.webtv.misc.wow
Date: Mon, Sep 8, 2003, 5:20am (MDT-1)
I forgot: after they finally accepted my username and password, I was directed, not directly to my account, but to an extra page (similar to those PayPal has been using recently). It was a tutorial-type page, instructing me in a security function re: username/password and telling me what I would need to click to make changes in those. I clicked "continue" and was taken to that new "front" page of my acc't w/out the usual menu.
Someone posted that, when they hit their "back" button, it skips the most recent page prior and goes back further. It's been a problem for WAY too long!
Angela has invented a tool by which MSNTV users can actually ~gasp~ easily search for charters of alt.discuss groups!
Angelaruth49's Charter Search
She had asked why MSNTV couldn't simply add a link to a group's charter on the sidebar of each group. The answer was that there is no one in Develoment who could be spared.
It's what, a ten minute job for a corporate super geek; five minutes for us lowly subscribers (if we could hack into the system)!
My reply:
Isn't it sad that, because posters can't find charters, they often offend ngs out of simple ignorance?
Isn't it sad that a simple chore, such as adding a "charter" link to the sidebar, which would take mere minutes goes undone?
And isn't it wonderful that it is we, the USERS of the appliance, who PAY for the "priviledge," invent the fixes, tools, works-around and magic that makes this LBB more functional and user-friendly?
Isn't it sad we're not only not paid for it, but are almost always ignored by the company we're paying?
I only got ONE of 20 daily ezines today! Thot it was cuz it's Sunday, but now that you mention it, I haven't been getting several of them for some time now.
And my friends on AOL and I have been having extreme trouble for a year now: we are not getting each other's emails! I can't reply to one friend; I have to start a "fresh" email to reply to him. He HAS to reply to me; I can't receive "fresh" emails from him!
The other day, it took 20 minutes for me to receive 4 emails I sent myself!
I do all my work from an MSNTV...webtv. I am a webster, so I design web sites. I do a form of MSNTV art, called Table Art. I designed all my articles for net4tv.com Voice.
When we discovered we could place HTML code in our email signatures, we began teaching ourselves, and each other, HTML and other web design languages.
We have invented two art forms, specific to MSNTV only. It SHOULD be on exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art! SERIOUSLY! It is a fabulous use of our medium, unique in history. Computers can't produce our art forms, nor even see them! We "hacked" the underpinnings of MSNTV, exploited some idiosyncrasies, and created something brand new in digital art.
We have had a "brain drain" in recent years.
Our best artists, hackers and tweakers are almost all on computers now. Many have discontinued their MSNTV subscriptions. But almost all still maintain friendly, supportive relationships with MSNTV subscribers. I still chat, email, etc. with former subscribers regularly. They still provide "help" and other websites online.
I do miss having the "old gang" behind the MSNTV firewall. They're not in the HTML newsgroups for MSNTV only any more, so I don't see them every day. I see them on Sundays, in a chat room.
We are a tight community. We have formed lifetime friendships, even marriages, as a result of MSNTV. We're loyal to each other.
It's unique: we come from all walks of life, yet we support each other and help each other.
Everything I've learned about: internet networking, web site design, online resources, tools, etc I have learned from my fellows on MSNTV units.
the best
pretty good
ok
pretty bad 
the worst help?
