As long as the list is this quiet, let me ask a question concerning blobs
(binary large objects). As many of you have seen, the van Gogh mode of QCTerm
has the capacity to use image and sound files, producing a quality of output
nicer than you might originally imagine.

These sound and image files (blobs) have to be downloaded, at least
initially, from a server. QCTerm connects to an HP3000 using telnet. Up to
this point in time, the blobs have been downloaded from exactly the same IP
address using the HP3000's FTP server, and opened up as a second, parallel,
channel, thus requiring that the blobs be loaded on the same machine as the
program that you're running.

Several people have asked in the past if the blobs could be loaded onto
another server and I've said no -- and that was pretty much the end of the
conversation. No one seemed particularly animated about the issue, simply
curious.

However, I'm about the change my mind. FTP has inherent security problems
(merely because you can upload files as easily as you can download them),
thus you have set up an anonymous FTP server on your HP3000 and constantly
maintain the proper permissions for each one of the blob files that you have
loaded.

FTP is not the only game in town, however. There are about six file transfer
protocols that are common on the internet and HTTP (as used in web page
servers) is one of them. There are several advantages to HTTP. One of them is
that file transfer is inherently one-way, thus there are no permissions to
fiddle with -- and that makes life enormously easier for the mildly
internet-literate.

A second advantage is the one that Richard Gambrell mentioned to me: in an
academic environment, every professor is already reasonably well maintaining
his own web pages somewhere and the process of loading QCTerm's blobs would
be no different than what he or she's doing now, and thus people such as
these would not have to be talking to IT to make their material work, which
is a distinct advantage to the IT department.

In the new version of QCTerm, the blobs directory will be capable of being
put on any server anywhere in the world. In our (AICS's) specific instance,
there are also distinct advantages to this architecture to us also. We have a
T1 line connected to our ISP's Linux Apache web server but only a 56K
frame-relay connected to our HP3000's. 56K is more than enough capacity for
quite a number of terminal conversations, but it soon becomes choked when
blobs are being served from the HP3000s, while the full T1 is hardly ever
overloaded.

I am reasonably now 100% convinced that we will switch over in the next few
days to primarily using HTTP has the file server mechanism, using this syntax
in the host (HP3000)-resident code as an example:

     /resourceserver {http://aics-research.com/qcterm_blobs}
     /resources {alfredo.wav apollo13.mid hplogo.bmp ... }

The question I would genuinely appreciate any feedback on is this: Is there
any reason to also maintain FTP in addition to HTTP? Its syntax could be
easily accomodated in this manner:

     /resourceserver {ftp://aics-research.com/FTPGUEST/PUB/qcterm_blobs}

From the initial URL, we could easily decide which protocol to use.

While allowing both options, FTP and HTTP, would maintain more flexibility, I
can also say with absolute certainty that it will also generate more
confusion -- and that means more support calls, and support is expensive,
especially on a free product. Simplicity and a lack of options has a quality
all of its own, and one that should never be dismissed.

Thus the question again, can you think of any scenario where you would much
greatly prefer (or absolutely require) FTP over HTTP?

Wirt Atmar