Latest changes broke Tapsig

[Ray Tackett]

Tapsig, Bob Dubner's excellent program for geezers no longer works. No new messages can be found.

[Mike Overly]

I'm not surprised. This was a major, but very necessary upgrade (a number of security patches) that also required a revamp of our Sig-specific style templates. I hope we won't have to do this again anytime soon, and I certainly don't expect Bob to chase after every forum patch to keep that program up to date. (I believe he's going to be running a snow plow for a few months, anyway).

The world would have been fine if we could have kept the last iteration of CIS software (Grumble - Infinity).

[Robert Dubner]

Oh, crapadoodles. Gentlemen, I am in one of my periods where I am downloading messages only very occasionally, and I just now noticed. Ray, I suspect that you and I are the only ones using this damned program at all, but my guess is that whatever is causing the problem is probably pretty easy to fix. The forum software must've changed enough so that the navigation keywords I look for in the web pages are different. That's how I am doing this; my software downloads the HTML, looks for the URLs associated with the various buttons, and sends requests based on those URLs. But it's all ham-handed heuristics; there's no intelligence, and it is not adaptive. So, a tiny change to the web pages, and TapSIG just folds up its tent and goes home.

I'll take a look later today.

When this happens, send me an email. rdubner@dubner.com (Gasp! Yes! That's my actual e-mail address. I've been using it for twenty-four years. Breaking news: The spammers already have it.)

[Scott Dyer HPN/NY]

Oh, crapadoodles. Gentlemen, I am in one of my periods where I am downloading messages only very occasionally, and I just now noticed. Ray, I suspect that you and I are the only ones using this damned program at all, but my guess is that whatever is causing the problem is probably pretty easy to fix. The forum software must've changed enough so that the navigation keywords I look for in the web pages are different. That's how I am doing this; my software downloads the HTML, looks for the URLs associated with the various buttons, and sends requests based on those URLs. But it's all ham-handed heuristics; there's no intelligence, and it is not adaptive. So, a tiny change to the web pages, and TapSIG just folds up its tent and goes home.

I'll take a look later today.

When this happens, send me an email. rdubner@dubner.com (Gasp! Yes! That's my actual e-mail address. I've been using it for twenty-four years. Breaking news: The spammers already have it.)

My guess is that Andy Alson may still be using TapSig.......

[Andy Alson]

My guess is that Andy Alson may still be using TapSig.......

Actually, No. With the decrease in AVSIG traffic over the years, I finally switched over to the web view during one of the periods where Bob had a slight delay in getting TapSig to work again, and I never went back. With the new since last visit ability in the web view I've gotten comfortable with it and never went back to TapSig.

I did consider it the "end of an era".

[Ray Tackett]

Thanks, Bob. It's still the best way to access the forum. My main home machine is W7, 64 bit, but my traveler is 32 bit XP. I don't travel that much any more, but if it's just a compiler directive different, both would be nice.

Probably a good time to mention yet another of my toes in this century. I replaced my flip phone with an iPhone 6 (new, unopened box from HK) this past week. Feeling like a stranger to a different planet,, I made a ringtone out of the yip-yip Martians discovering how to "talk" to a rotary dial telephone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTc3PsW5ghQ

[Ray Tackett]

When this happens, send me an email. rdubner@dubner.com (Gasp! Yes! That's my actual e-mail address. I've been using it for twenty-four years. Breaking news: The spammers already have it.)

Thanks! I have your email address (just deleted the Compuserve one), but didn't want to bother a guy who's still working hard to earn a living. As Cap'n Randy sez ...

[Randy Sohn]

Thanks! I have your email address (just deleted the Compuserve one), but didn't want to bother a guy who's still working hard to earn a living. As Cap'n Randy sez ...

Who? Me? "I didn't do it, wasn't there, don't know who did, must be somebody else's fault!" <g>

best, Ferd J. Murgatroid