SlipKnot News and Announcements
Updated Nov. 23, 1996
Announcements:
Table of Contents:
On June 23, 1995 Ziff-Davis/PC Magazine announced the winners of its annual Shareware Competition.
Over 1,300 entries were submitted, "judged for innovativeness, quality and value",
and subsequently divided into 16 functional categories.
- SlipKnot was awarded Best Shareware Communications Program of 1995.
- This year, the judges were deeply divided between between two finalists for the top honors,
and took the unusual step of naming a runner-up. Consequently, SlipKnot was announced as Runner-up
for Best Overall Shareware Program of 1995.
- For all the award winners, see PC
Magazine/Ziff-Davis Shareware Awards (SlipKnot is in the Communications section).
This page is a remarkable starting place for Web exploration, and was developed for SlipKnot users by Felix Kramer
who has been traveling the Web for some time. It has over 1,400 links to places useful and curious, delightful
and strange.
This page provides links to add-on tools, viewers, and useful programs for SlipKnot users. We have links to
alternate graphics viewers, sound players, animation viewers, etc. which can be installed into SlipKnot Web's
Configure/Viewers menu. In addition, we will post links about useful HTML authoring information, and HTML authoring
tools for those who want to create their own pages.
The SlipKnot FAQ file
This file details many of the problems and solutions of the SlipKnot installation process.
If you are using a version later than 1.0, you should have a version of this file already on your
hard disk (called SNTFAQ1.TXT in your \SLIPKNOT directory). However, this FAQ is periodically updated.
The latest FAQ can be retrieved from here: ftp://interport.net/pub/pbrooks/slipknot/sntfaq1.txt
or from here: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/pb/pbrooks/slipknot/sntfaq1.txt
Feel free to repost this text FAQ file on local newgroups.
To find out the version of SlipKnot that you are using, click on the Help/About menu item. If it is earlier than
the currently available version, please read the directions below on upgrading.
Directions for upgrading:
- Click on one of the two links below to retrieve the upgrade file.
- Be sure to place the upgrade file in the SlipKnot "UPGRADE" or "DOWNLOAD" subdirectory.
- When finished retrieving the file, exit SlipKnot completely.
- In the SlipKnot Windows group of icons, you will find one that launches the
SlipKnot Upgrade (it's the "NEW" icon). Pressing that one will execute the automatic upgrade process.
- If successful, you will be able to run the new version of SlipKnot.
Getting the Upgrade:
Once you've upgraded (remember, upgrading is free) you can read about more about the new
features in 1.50 in our SlipKnot Tips (which comes up automatically when you enter SlipKnot Web).
These Tips can now be printed out (we recommend you do so).
SlipKnot Web
- Forms!! SlipKnot will now process Web pages with fill-in
forms. You can now use the popular Internet search engines like Yahoo, Lycos,
AltaVista. In fact, we have a SlipKnot Search Page
for just this purpose. (Note: to process some of these forms, you will need the latest
version of lynx running on your UNIX system -- as of Feb. 1996, this
would be version 2-4-2 or 2.4-FM or later).
- Folders on floppies: you can now associate an existent
directory and drive with a new SlipKnot folder, allowing folders to
refer to floppy drives. Now you can save your documents on floppies and
transport them to other machines which run SlipKnot.
SlipKnot Terminal
- Macro buttons on the main Terminal screen, in addition to the
Function Key Macros
- Flow-control now can be set more precisely
(Setup/Communications screen)
- Kermit speed drastically improved.
General
SlipKnot 1.40 is now compatible with Freenets and
BBS's. This feature DOES require the cooperation of the Freenet
or BBS sysop. For information about activating this feature, please
have your sysop write to: pbrooks@micromind.com or send us the
name and address of your sysop.
SlipKnot Web
Note: Some of the features below require that your UNIX system
have lynx version 2-4-2 or lynx version 2.4-FM. To check the version of
lynx that your UNIX system has, execute:
lynx -version
- "mailto:" HTML tag -- you can now mail a message directly
from SlipKnot Web (and/or from a menu item in SlipKnot Terminal).
- "authentication": this is a requirement for those Web sites
which demand a login id and password to access their pages. (requires
lynx 2-4-2)
- automatic page redirection: This is convenient for those
sites that have moved their pages, or those Web servers that
automatically fix up slightly incorrect addresses by sending back a
notice that the document has moved (requires lynx 2-4-2)
- Web author's choice of background colors. And given some
of the choices that Web authors make, this feature can be turned off in
Configure/Preferences.
- text centering (the <center> HTML tag)
- some more minor additions:
- support for <Base Href=> HTML tag
- ability to close all windows (menu item)
- Choose to delete History Folder files on entering and/or
leaving SlipKnot Web (now allows both or neither as well).
- the usual number of bug fixes, including the occasional "subscript out of range"
SlipKnot Terminal
- "local printing" feature (for instance, the UNIX Pine mailer
can now tell SlipKnot to print a mail message on your printer).
- Print screen and Print incoming text menu items
- You can now tell SlipKnot where to find your own copy of the lynx
program, if it is not the default version (New Setup/Host setting).
- Outgoing mail capability (setup procedure for this feature is in
Setup/Host).
- Narrowed bottom border so that those users with 640 x 480 screen
resolution can see a whole VT100 screen without scrolling
- You can now interrupt a login script and stay online (just press a
key during the script).
- Many bugs fixes for the Terminal behavior
SlipKnot Web
- "Get all Links" .
This is the most powerful new feature we've
yet installed. Here's how it works: If you've displayed a page with
many links to other documents, you can ask SlipKnot to go and get all or
some of these documents...automatically. Whenever you display a
page, there will be a new menu item in the page window: "Get All Links",
which will show you what other documents you can get from this parent
page, and allow you to select which ones you wish to queue up for
retrieval. Try it!
- Retrieve to History, but don't display. When you are reading
a page, you often don't want to be interrupted, even by a new page that
you have previously requested. This new option allows you to request a
document to be retrieved but not automatically displayed. The document
will go straight into your History Folder, ready to be displayed
whenever you bring up that Folder.
- Save as Text file: allows you to save the current document
as a pure text file (without the HTML coding).
- Low memory guard: with many pages displayed, SlipKnot may use
a lot of Windows resources. Version 1.13 now guards against most cases
of running out of Windows memory.
SlipKnot Terminal
- Scrollback buffer! (100 lines) with Independent color
choices for main terminal area and scrollback buffer
- Resizable Terminal window (also maximizable)
- AutoZmodem detection which means that you can start a Zmodem
download file transfer by just typing the command to your UNIX system
(e.g. "sz -b filename") and SlipKnot Terminal will automatically notice
that your UNIX system is attempting to send a file. You can even use
"wildcards" to specify a lot of files to download at once (e.g. "sz -b
foo*" will download all files beginning with "foo").
- Set the File Download Default directory: for use with
AutoZmodem download (previous feature).
SlipKnot Web
- Text-first display: The text of a document will be displayed as soon as it arrives,
and when all of the pictures are retrieved, the document will be reformatted and redisplayed (this
is now a user option in Configure/Preferences).
- Resizable Windows
- Selectable number of windows: You can now choose how many visible windows to allow (between
2 and 10, instead of a fixed 5 -- in Configure/Preferences).
- Printing graphics: Pictures inside documents will now print along with the text, with 2 settings: "coarse" and "fine".
- Inline JPEG images are now supported.
- SlipKnot Web's Toolbar had a facelift with a number of new buttons:
- Forward and Back: to step you through the History Folder.
- Retrieve Graphics On/Off
- Stop: to stop the retrieval of a document (the pictures that have already come in will be displayed).
- Toolbar can be eliminated to maximize usable screen space.
- "Get Unretrieved Pictures" menu item if you stopped short of getting all of the pictures
or had the option "Retrieve Graphics" turned off.
- Picture caching: If a document uses a picture that has already been retrieved for a previous
document, it will simply be reused from the History Folder.
- Use the Right mouse button to click on an underlined hypertext link in a document and
SlipKnot will bypass the "Retrieve from Internet" confirmation box (by popular demand).
- Windows menu item: showing the open windows and allowing Ctrl-Function keys to switch between them.
- Cascade visible Windows menu item.
- Bugs fixed: (in particular: "Subscript out of range").
SlipKnot Terminal:
- Independent Upload and Download File Transfer Protocols: (in the Setup/Host screen). You can now choose to
download with, for instance, Zmodem and upload with Kermit.
You can read more about the new features inside SlipKnot
Help (topic: New SlipKnot Features). There is a quick list below:
- Will now run under OS/2-Win.
- Document "analysis", "graphics conversion" and "plotting" speeds have been increased 30% - 100%.
- You can now select multiple documents in the Folder-document list to Copy, Move or Delete.
- If you have many documents inside a Folder, you can now search for one of them by a word in the Title, URL or comments.
- Duplicate entries will no longer be generated if you redisplay a document from the History folder.
- Function Key Macro capability in SlipKnot Terminal (by popular demand).
- A quick set of "SlipKnot Tips" will come up each time SlipKnot Web is entered to help you
make use of non-obvious features (this feature can be disabled).
- The delay time between BUSY retries (when the phone number is busy) can be set (for European users).
- The usual number of small bugs squashed.
- Your Folders are now kept in alphabetical order -- particularly useful for those of you
who have created many of them.
- If you have lost access to your Folders, there is now a "Find Lost Folders" button
in the Folders list.
- On a few systems, SlipKnot spawned excess lynx processes (fixed).
- Occasional "Subscript out of range" error fixed.
- Occasional "Regenerate Width Tables" error fixed.
- When using the Web browser for anonymous FTP retrievals (using the ftp:// type
URL), files starting with "." were not retrievable. Now fixed.
- Some document addressing errors prevented certain pictures from
being retrieved. Mostly fixed.
- A number of smaller bugs fixed.
- By the way, this version now accepts customization for site licensing, and volume discounts are now available.
New SlipKnot Terminal features:
- Zmodem and Kermit support
- BUSY redial, as well as multiple telephone numbers per host (numbers will be called in sequence
until a successful login).
- 57600 baud supported (be careful, Windows may not be able to keep up with the traffic).
- Terminal Copy and Paste
- Terminal screen capture, and capture of incoming text to file
- Direct serial connections are now supported (for those without modems)
- Changing Terminal colors
- Support for fill-in forms via lynx (see the documentation after upgrading).
- Telnet support
- Gopher support (for registered users)
- installation of personal Home Pages on startup -- replacing our SlipKnot
Local Home Page (for registered users)
- ability to retrieve WEB documents (like the lynx bookmarks page) directly from
your service provider's UNIX system.
- ability to run SlipKnot Web directly from Windows File Manager as a
document viewer (offline)
- <ISINDEX> support (necessary for gopher) wherein a document can request a search string from the user, and use it to
perform a search (this is the predecessor to forms)
- View HTML source: if you install a TXT viewer (like WRITE or NOTEPAD) in Configure/Viewers,
you can now take a look at the HTML source of any incoming document.
- Background job queue raised to 30 items, and other job queue options.
- SlipKnot will now retire the oldest of the 5 visible windows to the History folder to make way for
the incoming 6th document -- this makes queueing up 30 requests possible.
- The background job queue can be paused, allowing you to retrieve local documents, temporarily go back to
SlipKnot Terminal, and then later resuming the queued up requests.
You may want to print this document for later reading. Also, do send us
mail (to slpstaff@micromind.com) about these problems even though
they are known. Be sure to indicate the version of SlipKnot that you
are using
- SlipKnot will not work when Windows is in "Standard Mode". Most users automatically run Microsoft
Windows in Enhanced (386) Mode. Apparently, some Windows programs require Standard (286) Mode to run.
Starting SlipKnot in Windows Standard Mode may cause problems. Workaround: To detect
whether Windows is in Standard Mode, switch to Window's Program Manager, press the
"Help/About Program Manager" menu item, and the explanation will indicate whether you are in
Standard Mode or Enhanced 386 Mode. To bring up Microsoft Windows in Enhanced Mode,
type
WIN/3
at your DOS prompt.
- Document doesn't seem to come in. If in retrieving a document or file, the usual message: "Retrieving from Internet: 0 bytes" stays up
for a while, you should know:
- SlipKnot will try twice to retrieve the file. Each time it will wait for the full length of
the timeout period before giving up -- which is controlled by the Timeout in Seconds option in the Terminal Host setup.
- Possible causes:
- Heavy Internet traffic.
- The remote host (the machine on which the document is kept) is very busy or even refusing connections.
- Your local service provider has logged you off and SlipKnot has not detected this. Try stopping the document retrieval
and switching temporarily back to SlipKnot Terminal to see if your local host is still alive.
- A SlipKnot bug.
- On rare occasions, bringing up the Setup/Communications screen in SlipKnot
Terminal will cause an "Out of Stack Space" error message. Please read Section 8.1 of the FAQ
file mentioned above for a workaround.
With SlipKnot version 1.50 you will probably want your UNIX system to have lynx version 2-4-2 ]
or 2.4-FM. These later versions of lynx are especially important to SlipKnot when it is
processing forms. If you
do not know which version of lynx your UNIX system is running, then
there are two ways to find out:
- At the UNIX prompt, execute the command: lynx -version
- After upgrading to version 1.50 and executing the Setup/Initialize Host menu item
in SlipKnot Terminal, look at the Setup/Host screen and you will Version
number box reporting the lynx version number (but only if you have chosen "lynx"
rather than "www" as your World Wide Web program on this screen).
If this reports an older version and you wish to use a newer version of
lynx, you have two choices:
- Try to find a later version of lynx that might already be available
on your UNIX system (ask your sysop or ask around). If you do find one,
then you can instruct SlipKnot to use it by specifying its exact
location in the Name/Location box in the Setup/Host screen. For
instance, if the newer version of lynx is located at:
"/usr/local/bin/experimental/lynx" then simply place this full address
(without the quotes) into the Name/Location box and then execute the
Setup/Initialize Host menu item.
- If you want to upgrade your UNIX system's version of lynx, you will
need to find a copy, either in executable or source code form. lynx
executables are available for a small number of UNIX systems, and the
full source code is available (in case there's no executable for your
UNIX system) at the Lynx Home
Page. Warning: to regenerate the program from the source code, you
will need to know how to use the "make" facility on UNIX -- i.e. you
should have experience with compiling large programs before attempting
this.
These links carry the complete, installable program. You can retrieve the full
program file if you wish to pass SlipKnot on to friends, or place it
on a different FTP or BBS download site. This is not meant for people
who are already running SlipKnot and wish to upgrade because upgrading is easier and
faster than a full re-installation. Click here to go to the upgrading
instructions instead.
Full SlipKnot 1.50 file:
Site/Directory/Filename
http://www.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/win3/inet/slnot150.zip
ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/win3/inet/slnot150.zip
http://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/win3/internet/slnot150.zip
ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/ibmpc/simtel/win3/internet/slnot150.zip
ftp://ftp.uoknor.edu/mirrors/SimTel/win3/internet/slnot150.zip
ftp.netcom.com/pub/pbrooks/slipknot/slnot150.zip
interport.net/pub/pbrooks/slipknot/slnot150.zip
In Japan:
ftp://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/simtel/win3/internet/slnot150.zip
ftp://ftp.riken.go.jp/pub/SimTel/win3/internet/slnot150.zip
In Germany:
ftp://ftp.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/mirrors/simtel.coast.net/SimTel/win3/internet/slnot150.zip
This page looks best with SlipKnot ;-)
Are you tired of all of the Web pages promoting Netscape?
Strike a blow for non-conformity, and tell them you're a SlipKnot
user. They may be shocked, indignant, incredulous (at best).
For instance, put the following signature on your pages:
This site welcomes SlipKnot
users.
If you are about to register SlipKnot, please send the registration form
and payment to our new address or FAX number (below) or (if paying by
credit card), you may email it to: <slpstaff@micromind.com>
MicroMind, Inc.
450 14 St.
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215
FAX: (718) 965-1961