Dear List:
I eventually downloaded V1.61 rather than the one that only claimed
to be. I was at first upset to realise that I could not trick it into
using the arrow keys as a virtual mouse, even by loading a mouse before
the install...
However I did discover that the TAB function worked properly for the
first time and I was able to set up the program without a mouse. Running
it was a bit of a challenge and I had to learn a few more hotkeys like
F3.
While I miss my virtual mouse with its "analog" action I have to admit
that tabbing is often faster. This is not always true however on web
pages with lots of little bits. The only thing I have so far found
impossible without a mouse is the selection of mailboxes. As I write
this email I will discover if the wordwrap falls over at about the
length of a page....;-)
So far so good....
There seems to be an improvement in the appalling slowness of arachne
to load/move emails. The one redeeming feature I can see in Insight is
that it assigns clear names to emails and I was recently pleased to be
able to download mail with a Micro$oft machine running Pegasus and then
simply dump them in my mail directory from a floppy. Amazing!
My Eudora mailler used to work well until you tried to import mail when
it got very confused. I miss its speed though.
With reference to the speed comparison thread, I have been a bit amazed
at the confused argument. The clarification my Michael was good. One
factor slowing my browsing down is the inability to position the
pointer (particuarly without mouse) at the same time as screen drawing
is in process. I guess this is unavoidable in DOS.
The argument about speed has been very confused by different measures
and units:
1/ bandwidth in HZ (3K for phone line)
2/ bit rate implied by clock frequency
3/ baud rate in Kb/sec
4/ byte rate in KB
Further confusion is caused by modem compression and file compression!
I remain unconvinced that a 100KB web page can be downloaded through a
phone line in 22 seconds unless the server is perfect and the page is all
HTML and so on that compresses like mad.
Hello :-( wordwrap just failed. I got twice as far as with the
previous version of Arachne. What am I doing wrong? Am I hitting a hot
key or something? I think it might be corrections or backspaces that
upset it......
Wrap has just started working again. I should type for ever and see what
page width the program is trying to take.
Anyway, I will get out of your faces now.
Kali
http://www.nimnet.asn.au/~kali
