At 17:58:49 on Thu, 26 Apr 2007, Darin McGrew
<mc****@stanfordalumni.orgwrote in <f0**********@blue.rahul.net>:
>Is there any news on this project? Is there anything any of us can do to
help?
It is, I'm afraid, a matter of time and slog (and I have had quite a few
other calls on my out-of-work time). I've now got (I think, I hope!
I've itemised the lot, and all their internal links, and I don't think
anything's missing) all the necessary files from Glasgow University, who
have been extremely helpful above and beyond the call of duty. My
particular thanks are due to William H. Bell, who has put a lot of time
into extracting the files for me.
However, gla.ac.uk (who, of course, hold copyright jointly with Alan on
every single page) have asked for a fair number of edits to be made, to
remove links to their own web site; in addition to which, some of the
more obscure and inventive (obscure to me! I've spent fascinating hours
trying to figure out what he did and why, and when I finally get there
it's *blinding*) server-side includes which Alan used, sadly just do not
work as on the new hosting in the same way as they did on the old (it
must be some Apache setting which differs, but I don't know which or
where), so basically I have to replace those too. It's a one-off fix,
after all, even though it has to be applied to masses of pages. And
then, once all the rest is done, I still have to test out his cgi
scripts before we go officially live.
Although there are all these tweaks, most of which still have to be
made, Alan's pages will still be 100%, incontrovertibly, Alan's pages.
Apart from the removal of many gla.ac.uk links, all the other changes
will be invisible to the end-user, and the final functionality of the
pages will be identical to how they always were, although the methods
will differ.
So, *when*? I hope to get it all finished the weekend after this - i.e.
May Bank Holiday weekend, when I'll have three full days available to
me, and only one-half of one of them likely to be spent out and about,
drinking and carousing and singing out-of-tune and watching May Day
morris dancers, and only one of them (which, at my age, is fit only to
be ignored) my birthday. I'm sorry that it's all taking so long - but
my top priority is that, when Alan's pages are published again, they are
*right*. The last thing I want to do is to rush it.
And once they're live again, that'll be my birthday present to myself.
--
Molly Mockford
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety - Benjamin Franklin
(My Reply-To address *is* valid, though may not remain so for ever.)