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On Wed, 29 Mar 1995, Barney Lerten wrote:

>  Folks,
>  I will try to keep this succinct. We, like everyone in this business, are
> considering our options going online. We are NOT planning to put our paper on
> the Web, at least not for now. We have more specific goals, such as putting
> searchable library and classified ad material on a local BBS that has Internet
> access and uses the First Class interface.
Two suggestions here.  One, put Linux on your PC and add WAIS server 
software.  WAIS can then "front-end" your server with an HTTP interface.
WAIS has about 300 databases (sources).  The Linux CD is about $80, the
WAIS software is about $2.00 (download time).  The WAIS interface is a 
few hundred dollars/month.  Most web browsers can give direct WAIS access 
as well.

>  The problem, of course: getting material out of our new yet proprietary
> SII/Roadrunner system into a PC-usable database. As a 26,000-circulation
> newspaper, spending $20,000 on such a move right now is a big bite to swallow,
> but we are considering it quite seriously.
With the WAIS system you put each document into it's own "mail" file.  
WAIS can then build an index for that content.  New content can be added 
as often as desired.

>  At least one vendor has made it quite clear that they are too busy to bother
> trying to sell us their product, which goes for that amount and would do what
> we want. There are a couple of other options, but both have big gaps.
User contributed software such as WAIS is a great comprimize between 
buying "off the shelf" for $20,000 and trying to "Roll your own".  WAIS 
Inc.  A company founded by the developers of WAIS, does provide enhanced 
servers with features like fielded data indexing (relational databases 
based on HTML tags), HTML front-ends, e-mail front-ends, and GUI interfaces. 
Client interfaces for X11-Windows, Microsoft Windows(3.1,95,NT), and text 
terminals are also available.  Linux on a Penium 90 with 4 1-gig SCSI 
drives should cost about $4000 and support about 100 users at a time.
You can get started with 1 CD and a 540 Meg hard drive.

>  Without bothering you all with further details, there is this question: Based
> on what I said, do you know of any vendors, national or regional, who might be
> interested in pitching to a paper in a market of our size?
>  Eric Meyer has said we could do this with a junior college student and a
> couple days programming. I am hoping the truth lies between handing a stack of
> manuals to a college whiz kid and shelling out $20,000 for an incomplete
> solution.
Given your budget, and logistical requirements, you will find that the 
College student who has a good background in user contributed software 
(GPL, GNU, WAIS, CMU...) can get you running for very little money.

>   Names/contacts QUITE welcome; opinions/brickbats/gentle flames accepted in
> the spirit they are intended;-) Seriously, I/we are not naive about this. I
> see the Adobe/Netscape linkup, for example, as a big step in the right
The big question is not whether or not to go HTML/SGML (netscape), but 
rather how much "Glitz" do you need in the first pass.  You can put
vanilla "Text" wrappers around the unfiltered content with a simple 
UNIX/LINUX utility (AWK or PERL).  If you have tagged content (database 
fields, headlines, subjects, paragraph markers, ANPA headers...) you can 
build a rich text presentation and a nice WAIS based search engine.

I'll let you in on a little secret.  Before NetScape came out with 
NetScape, they GAVE AWAY their http server and the Mosaic browser.  You 
can get that server for free today.  You may not even have to compile it.


> direction. But no one wants to wait forever, and someone who can put something
> solid on a screen, demo or otherwise, and can shake a hand and say "it'll be
> done in xxxx days/weeks/months for xxxx dollars" -- well, I have a feeling
> there's a lot more papers than us in the hunt for that person.

I KNOW you are right.  18 months ago, I reccomended this to the entire 
list (4000 publications at the time) and 1200 of them were on-line within 
3 months.  The NetScape/Acrobat play is an attempt to get some vigorish 
from the publications who are now using the GPL product - and sending 
NetScape their enhancements (this is one of the terms of the General 
Public License).

>   Thanks a lot.
>   
	You're welcome
	Rex Ballard


From rballard@cnj.digex.net Wed Apr  5 22:07:38 1995
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