The Elite Hackers Toolkit/TheEliteHackersToolkitVolume1_1998.rar/HACKERS.BIN/appcraks/MORNING_.ZIP/MORNPAP.TXT

Text File | 1990-01-01 | 21KB | 468 lines

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Morning Paper Manual
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Morning Paper

Table of Contents

* What is Morning Paper?
* What's new in this version?
* How do I get started?
* Problems, And How To Fix Them
* Scheduling Automatic Summaries
* Advanced Options
* Reorganizing Your URLs
* Authentication: Sites Requiring a Name and Password
* Controlling the Length of the Summary
* Controlling the Format of the Summary
* Choosing Whether to Open A New Browser Window
* Following Links in a Separate Window
* Working with Proxy Servers
* Local Sites: Ignoring the Proxy Server
* Accessing Old Reports
* For Webmasters: What Morning Paper Means to You
* The robots.txt file: how to limit (or deny) access
* How to Contact Us
* Acknowledgements
Morning Paper is copyright 1997 by Boutell.Com, Inc. All Rights
Reserved. Evaluation copies of Morning Paper can be used for 30 days
before expiration. Click on the REGISTER button in the software for
more information about how to register the software for indefinite
use.

What is Morning Paper?

Morning Paper automatically visits your favorite web sites every so
often to find out what's new, and presents a summary of what's new on
each page as part of a "newspaper" which it displays in your web
browser. If you're like us, there are lots of web sites you like but
never remember to visit. Morning Paper will keep you up to date on
what's new and interesting, and provides convenient links for you to
visit the pages that have changed in order to get the juicy details!

What's new in this version?

Version 1.6 adds the following features:

* An option is provided to cut short at your preferred summary length.
By default, this option is turned on.
* Optional "fancy formatting" (turned on by default). This option
preserves some of the emphasis and page structure of the page being
summarized.
* Links to the actual pages now optionally open a new browser window.
This is also turned on by default.
* If no browser is running, Morning Paper now launches the default web
browser according to the setting in the registry. It is no longer
necessary to set this separately.
* Morning Paper installs properly on Windows NT, even if the
installation directory name contains spaces.
* A problem which caused difficulties generating more than one summary
in a single run has been fixed.
Version 1.5.1 corrects a problem which caused older problems to
occasionally display two or more web browser windows, or, in very rare
cases, a cascade of dialog boxes.

Version 1.5 added the following features:

* Pops right up if launched from its own program group rather than the
startup group -- no need to go to the system tray.
* Menus added, to allow keyboard-driven use of the program.
Version 1.4 added the following features:

* Analyzes 5 URLs at once! This has greatly improved the overall speed
of the program. Morning Paper no longer spends its time waiting for
one slow site at a time.
* "Temporary files" in the C:\ directory are no longer used.
* Additional tags are recognized when generating summaries.
* The main window now pops into the foreground properly.
* The newspaper is automatically opened at the end of the summary if
"Summarize Now" was used to start the summary.
Version 1.3 added the following features:

* The progress display can now be minimized, so the whole program can
be minimized during a summary.
* When installed by a first-time user, Morning Paper automatically
configures itself to run a summary at 7am daily. Most users were not
aware of the need to do this manually.
* Tries harder to communicate with an existing web browser before
launching a new one.
* Many bug fixes, especially for various types of sites that use
frames.
Version 1.2 added the following features:

* Automatically analyzes the largest frame's content! It is no longer
necessary to find frame URLs manually.
* http:// is assumed if a URL is typed in without a protocol.
Version 1.1 added the following features:

* Support for FTP URLs
* Support for sites that require "cookies"
* Greatly improved output format
* Access to old reports

How do I get started?

The first time you run Morning Paper, you'll need to use the Add URL
button to add several of your favorite web page URLs to the list that
the software will visit. This and all other operations can also be
performed through the Fileand URLsmenus, which are more convenient if
you prefer the keyboard.

Note: If you have already run the program at least once, and you chose
to install it in your Startup group, it will already be running. Click
on the Morning Paper icon in your Windows 95/NT system tray, in the
lower right corner of the screen, to bring up the main window. In
Windows NT 3.51, Morning Paper will display an ordinary "minimized"
icon at the bottom of the screen.

The URLs you add in Morning Paper need to be complete URLs. They
should look like this:

http://www.boutell.com/

You'll notice that the Add URL dialog box also has options to ignore a
proxy server, and to log into a site with a name and password for
sites for which this is appropriate. For most sites, you will not need
these options. Just type or paste in a URL and click OK.

Your First Summary

After you have added a few URLs, click on the Summarize Now button. A
dialog box will appear, showing Morning Paper's progress through your
list of URLs. The program may take a while to do this if some of your
sites are slow. This is why you have the option to schedule the
program to run by itself when you're not around. When you first
install it, Morning Paper is set to run at 7am each day; if you start
up your computer later, or choose not to install Morning Paper in your
startup group, then Morning Paper will run a summary when you start
the program. You can easily change these settings.

When Morning Paper has finished summarizing the web pages in your
list, your web browser will be launched if it is not already running,
and the "newspaper" page will be displayed. Here you can read a
summary of what's "new" on each page. Of course, since you have not
run the program before with these URLs, everything is new. Morning
Paper attempts to create a reasonably brief summary, and this feature
works much better after the first try, because the program knows it
can ignore material that is not new to you.

Problems, And How To Fix Them

Occasionally, problems may occur with various aspects of the program.
Be sure to take note of any errors that appear in an "Errors" section
beneath the summaries of what's new. Here's how to deal with various
common situations.
Morning Paper didn't run the web browser I like!

As of version 1.6, Morning Paper launches your preferred web browser
according to the settings in the registry of your computer. Both
Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer invite you to
install them as the default browser when they are first installed.

If a browser is already running, Morning Paper will always talk to it
instead of launching a new one, because this is much faster.

None of my URLs could be accessed!

If none of your URLs could be accessed, you probably are supposed to
use a proxy server when accessing the web. That's okay -- Morning
Paper supports proxy servers. You will need to click on the Settings
button and set your proxy server's host and port in that dialog box,
then click OK. If you are not sure what your proxy server settings
should be, check your proxy settings in your web browser. If you are
still not sure, ask your local system administrator for help with
these settings.

Of course, it is also possible that you were not connected to the net
when you asked Morning Paper to run the summary. If that's the case,
you need to make your connection to the Internet first before running
the summary.

A few of the sites could not be contacted.

This usually is because the site was down, or because it did not
respond in a reasonable amount of time (eight minutes). Check and make
sure your URL is correct. If it is, then most likely the program will
succeed on a later try, when the site is back up.

If the site is a local site inside your firewall that should not be
accessed through the proxy server, you can select that URL with the
mouse and use the Edit URL button, and then click on the Ignore Proxy
Server checkbox.

My favorite site "does not allow accesses from automatic programs!"

Some of the larger sites expressly forbid all visits by automatic
software like Morning Paper. If the site forbids such accesses in its
robots.txt file, then Morning Paper has no choice but to obey. For
legal and ethical reasons, we are not willing to go against the
clearly expressed wishes of web site administrators. If you feel a
site's policy is unreasonable or counterproductive, contact the site
and ask why they do not allow any access by "robot" programs like
Morning Paper. Encourage them to restrict only robots that behave
poorly, instead of blocking all robots completely. Smaller sites in
particular may benefit considerably by allowing Morning Paper to have
access, because it encourages people to remember to visit!

Scheduling Automatic Summaries

The summary is nice, but wouldn't it be nicer if you didn't have to
sit and stare at that progress meter? Sure, and you can avoid it very
easily by scheduling Morning Paper to run automatically.

Click on the Settings button to bring up the Settings dialog box.
Here, you can schedule summaries to run every so many hours, beginning
at a particular time of day, starting on a particular day of the week.
When you first run the program, the Run Every... selector will be set
to 24 Hours. Change this setting if you wish, and change the Beginning
at... selector to the time of day at which you would like the summary
to be generated. If you are generating a daily summary like this, it
does not matter what the Day of Week selector is set to. That selector
is useful, however, if you decide you want summaries only every two
days or once a week.

"Why can't I run summaries more often?"

Morning Paper will only work in the long run if it is a responsible
user of the web. That means that we don't want the program to
overwhelm web sites. The program defaults to a daily summary, and we
encourage you to use that setting, except when studying sites that you
know will not object to frequent automated visits.

Important note: if your computer is not turned on when it comes time
for the summary to run, then that summary will begin immediately the
next time you start up your computer. This feature means that if you
don't always leave your computer on overnight, you can still get a
summary first thing in the morning when you do boot up your machine;
you'll just have to wait a few minutes. When a scheduled summary is
being generated, Morning Paper will display a "Busy" icon in the
system tray. To see the program's progress, just click on the Busy
icon.

How To Read The Latest Summary

There's a very convenient way to pop up the latest summary in your web
browser if you are running Windows 95 or Windows NT 4. Just
right-click the mouse on the Morning Paper icon in the system tray to
pop the summary right up!

If you prefer, you can just pop up the Morning Paper main window by
left-clicking the icon in the system tray, or double-clicking the
minimized icon (in NT 3.51). Then, click on the View Last Summary
button to display the summary in your web browser.

Advanced Options

We've covered the basics, but there are also advanced options you can
use to summarize unusual web pages and control the way the summaries
are generated.

Reorganizing your URLs

Would you like to remove one of your URLs, or change the order in
which they appear in the report? Use the Delete button to remove the
currently selected URL. Use the Move button to move a URL to a
different position in the list. Please note: in version 1.1 and later,
documents that have new content always appear first in the output,
then documents that had problems requiring your attention, and finally
documents that have not been updated since the last summary. However,
the order within each of these groups will match the order in the
list.

Authentication: Sites Requiring a Name and Password

Do you use web sites that require a name and password to log in? No
problem! When you click on the Add URL button to add one of these
pages, or select an existing URL and click on the Edit URL button, you
will notice the Name and Password fields in the Add or Edit URL dialog
box. Just fill out these fields with the appropriate name and password
for that web page, and Morning Paper will be able to log in and get
the page just as you would. Please note: Morning Paper does not
attempt to encrypt your password in its preferences file. Names and
passwords for web sites aren't handled in a very secure way on the web
itself, either. This is an inherent problem in the web's protocol. So
please don't choose the same names and passwords you use for more
important things.

Controlling the Length of the Summary

You can control the length, in words, that Morning Paper shoots for in
a summary. The summary will not always be limited to this length,
because the program always chooses a summary that is complete at a
particular level of detail, rather than cutting the summary off in the
middle of a sentence. The program also chooses a somewhat too long
summary instead of a drastically shorter summary than you have
indicated a desire for.

Click on the Settings button in order to bring up the Settings dialog
box. In this dialog box, you can edit the Words: field to indicate the
length in words you would prefer.

If you want the summary to cut short at your preferred length, select
the Cut Short option by clicking on the Yes button next to it.

Controlling the Format of the Summary

Morning Paper 1.6 and later offer "fancy formatting," which means that
some of the emphasis and page structure of a summarized document is
preserved in the summary. If you prefer the earlier
single-flowing-paragraph style, click on the No button next to the
Fancy Formatting? heading.

Choosing Whether to Open A New Browser Window

Normally, Morning Paper will always ask your browser to open a new
window in which to display the summary page. But if you consider this
an annoyance, you can easily change it! Just use the Open New Web
Browser Window? section of the Settings dialog box. Click on the No
button to prevent the opening of a new window.

Using a Separate Window to Follow Links

Normally, Morning Paper 1.6 and later ask your browser to open a
separate window the first time you follow a link to one of the URLs in
your summary. To save clutter, This window is reused if you keep it
open. However, If you would prefer that the summary window also be
used to follow links, click on the No button in the Follow Links in
Separate Window? area of the settings panel.

Working with Proxy Servers

Many users need to use a "proxy server" to access URLs outside the
local company network. Morning Paper does support this. To set your
proxy server, click on the Settings button and set your proxy server's
host and port in that dialog box, then click OK. If you are not sure
what your proxy server settings should be, check your proxy settings
in your web browser. If you are still not sure, ask your local system
administrator for help with these settings.

Local Sites: Ignoring the Proxy Server

You may have a few "local" URLs, inside your local company network,
which should not use the firewall.

For these special cases, you can easily tell Morning Paper to ignore
the firewall. When you click on the Add URL button to add one of these
pages, or select an existing URL and click on the Edit URL button, you
will notice the Ignore Proxy Server checkbox. Check this box to let
Morning Paper know that this particular URL should not use the proxy
server.

Accessing Old Reports

Scroll to the bottom of the "table of contents" frame in the
newspaper. You will see a section labeled Recycled Paper, with up to
seven numbers beneath it. These are links to the text of previous
summaries. You can use these links to see summaries you may have
missed when running the software automatically.

For Webmasters: What Morning Paper Means to You

We know webmasters have concerns about programs like this, both
because of the bandwidth consumed (not much, in our case) and the
possible copyright issues. This section responds to those concerns. If
you have a concern which is not covered here, or you desire
clarification of any kind, do not hesitate to contact
mailto:[e-mail]
[e-mail].

"Won't Morning Paper's summaries keep people from visiting my actual
site (and seeing my advertisers)?"

In our experience, no. Smaller sites in particular almost always
benefit, because users discover there is something new and interesting
on the site. Morning Paper provides prominent links to the sites with
new material. Sites that are not updated often find this especially
helpful, because of the tendency of users to forget to visit if
updates are not frequent, or a site is not one of their top two or
three favorites. Webmasters of such sites may even want to encourage
their visitors to keep track of their site with Morning Paper. The
short summaries generated by Morning Paper can be thought of as a
teaser! Nonetheless, if you disagree, see the next item...

"How can I keep this program off my site?"

There is an open standard which you may already be using to keep
robots off your server. This is the robot exclusion standard, and
documentation on how to use it is included in this document (follow
this link). Morning Paper fully complies with this standard.

"Won't Morning Paper users add extra demand on my server?"

A little, yes, because the software does retrieve the pages it's been
asked to summarize on a regular basis. However, Morning Paper does not
retrieve images and other large files, only HTML documents which are
usually quite small. Also, if the program shows a user that new and
interesting material is on your site, they are likely to follow the
link and visit with their regular browser to get the details.
Presumably that kind of "extra load" is something you want to
encourage!

The robots.txtFile: How to Limit or Deny Access

To limit or refuse access to your web server by properly-written
"robots" such as Morning Paper, create a document called robots.txtin
the top directory of your server's web space.

Refusing Access to One Bad Robot

To refuse access by one poorly behaved robot, you could use the
following text in the robots.txtfile:

User-agent: poorlybehavedbot-1.0
Disallow: /

This disallows all access by the robot which identifies itself as
poorlybehavedbot-1.0in your web server's access logs. (This
information appears in the "user agent" field. If you do not have that
information your access logs, or in a separate user agent log, we
recommend that you complain to your web space provider. It is useful
information!)

The filename /is understood to mean that robots should not access any
of the files on the server.

Note: the current version of Morning Paper identifies itself with the
following user agent string:

Morning Paper 1.0 (robots.txt compliant!)

You can list as many robots as you need in this manner, writing a
User-agent:and a Disallow:line for each.

Refusing Access by all Robots

You can refuse access to all robots, rather than to individual robots,
by the special "user agent" string *. For example:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin

In this example, access to the /cgi-bin directory is refused to all
"robots" that adhere to the standard, including Morning Paper.

Further information about this standard is readily available on the
Internet.

How to Contact Us

Boutell.Com can be easily contacted through our
http://www.boutell.com/morning/
web site. If you wish to contact us regarding Morning Paper, please
send email to
mailto:[e-mail]
[e-mail]. Additional contact information is available on
our web site.

Acknowledgements

Software and documentation by Thomas Boutell. Thanks are due to Jenine
Abarbanel, Chris Adams, Eamon Daly, Stevi Deter, M.L. Grant, and Kevin
Schnitzius.
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http://www.boutell.com/
Boutell.Com, Inc.