Some quick answers. But for the first and most important – thanks for the considered reply. https://wordpress.com/post/shipwrecksoftware.wordpress.com/204 I was embarrassed to learn that after making the new app, I hadn’t actually posted anything about it on my Shipwreck Software blog. (The shipwrecksoftware.wordpress.com blog is for apps, and the sunriseprogrammer.blogspot.com is for non-app technical stuff). I’ve fixed that this morning, and now I’ve got a description of the Simple Gopher Client up. You should probably know now that I’m a Microsoft employee, although my apps are all hobby apps and aren’t related to my work. I work in the Windows division, splitting my time as a program manager for the Network Developer Experience team (that’s the team that is responsible for the WinRT network APIs like the socket APIs) and the VPN team. Side link to the app: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ao43IaqAVr-xhGq_WGSmF9vHwZke?e=5s5mqP With a little luck, this side-link version of the app should work without you having to create a Microsoft Account. For phoning home: Simple Gopher Client doesn’t phone home. My other apps only phone home when a user does something that only works by phoning home: for example, when someone gives me direct feedback, that goes to one of my servers. When that happens, my server naturally gets an IP address. I don’t log it, but since my server is hosted by someone else, I can’t make many guarantees about what the hoster does. Simple Gopher Client does not have any ads. I only put ads into my high-usage programs (and even there, I didn’t put them into my calculator program or dictionary program because those are targeted at kids). Microsoft accounts are an interesting problem. Personally, I find the convenience of having a Microsoft account to easily outweigh any other issue. I like having my stuff on OneDrive so that I never have to deal with the hassle of backups and remote access; I like having the store for apps because then there’s a certain uniformity to the install/uninstall experience. Apps from the store also have a bunch of restrictions that make them less likely to contain viruses and other nasties. Your own preferences, of course, are your own. If it helps, I just went through the mandatory yearly privacy training. Yes, Simple Gopher Client is available for all of the myriad of Mobile experiences as long by “mobile” you include only Windows phones 😊. I’m still using my Acer Jade phone – only about $100 from Amazon, and it comes with a nifty dock, keyboard and mouse that turns it into a full-screen experience. Getting back to the technical stuff: OneNote doesn’t understand Gopher, but it does understand URLS. When it sees a URL, it will launch the appropriate program – so that a gopher:// link will launch a program that understands Gopher. The problem is that the port number is “known” to always be a number from 0..64K, and OneNote is trying to ensure that the URL is “reasonable” in some way. Peter Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Bradley D. Thornton Hi Peter, Nice to discover that client... On 8/22/2019 6:00 AM, Peter Smith wrote: > I have a Windows Gopher client, too: > https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/simple-gopher-client/9p5j5ggq2fg2?activetab=pivot:overviewtab > >From what I've seen and read it looks rather interesting, except that the only repo I can see it at is the Microsoft Store, which for me personally, is a full on nogo. I looked but couldn't find a choco for it (chocolatey), which is how I would prefer to install/manage it and really check it out. Is there one, or perhaps a git, gopher, or other repo resource to obtain it from? I do have some additional questions and concerns however, after reading your blanket privacy policy at the application's official website. 1.) Your Gopher client actually phones home, transmitting the user's IP address to you. 2.) Does the client include Microsoft Advertising network ads or other advertising network ads? I tried to follow your link to https://choice.microsoft.com/AdvertisementChoice/ but was bounced in lynx - I stopped counting the number of rejected cookies Microsoft was trying to get me to accept at 25 and then just chose *neVer*, at which point I was unable to view those public policies or information. 3.) Nowhere could I locate the license for your gopher client. Can you provide me a copy? 4.) I couldn't find any literature related to your Gopher client at its official website: https://shipwrecksoftware.wordpress.com/ 5.) Downloading the application from your link in the Microsoft Store apparently requires using or creating a Microsoft Live account. Even on the VM I spun up to test the sandboxed app I wasn't about to create even a dummy Microsoft account to do so, for a couple of reasons: a.) First, if I'm not mistaken, doing so would destroy the local account and convert the logged on user's account to a Microsoft account. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but even when I am forced to build a business network with Microsoft boxes as client workstations, I never do so without incorporating local user accounts or user accounts based on an accounts database tied to anything other than a UNIX machine operating as a SAMBA server DC. b.) After many years as a member of this community, with many of the most active members extremely protective over their privacy, some to the point of enforcing that which approaches anonymity, I am quite aware that part of the impetus motivating the adoption, development, and usage of the Gopher protocol boils down to respect for the user's privacy, but moreover, after so many years of working with these good folks, those most protective of their identities and privacy have come to be, at least to me, colleagues of a sort and not anonymous to me - meaning that I know them to be who they represent themselves to be in a way that is familial to me, from my personal perspective. The general consensus around the world is that many of the standard practices of Microsoft flies in the face of that respect, so much so, that perhaps a big part of the reason that many German municipalities and governmental institutions there, for example, have legislated mandates precluding the use of anything but FOSS in schools and the enterprise. c.) I'm not suggesting anything is amiss with respect to the above where your (good looking, from the screenshots) Gopher client is concerned, but considering that I spent a good amount of time trying to learn more about it (and you, you're in Redmond?), coming up short in many respects, along with the fact that so far I can only find it available from the Microsoft store, makes it a bit of a hard sell when the audience members I seek to inform are so quite commonly concerned with the concepts of *libre*, and the vehement protection of their privacy. 5.) According to the page at the Microsoft Store for your Gopher client, there is also a mobile version available - is it available in the Google Play Store or F-Droid? Or is that mobile version only for Windows phones? > > Directory entry says what? Current Gopher type fie... > <https://sunriseprogrammer.blogspot.com/2019/03/directory-entry-says-what-current.html> > > Gopher: Carriage Returns, Line Feeds and Tabs (oh ... > <https://sunriseprogrammer.blogspot.com/2019/03/gopher-carriage-returns-line-feeds-and.html> > > Dots, more dots, most dots > <https://sunriseprogrammer.blogspot.com/2019/03/dots-more-dots-most-dots.html> > > All my character sets > <https://sunriseprogrammer.blogspot.com/2019/03/all-my-character-sets.html> > > Any port in a storm! > <https://sunriseprogrammer.blogspot.com/2019/03/any-port-in-storm.html> > I really enjoyed reading each of those blogspot posts, and your detailed forensic analysis of the gopher space - especially with regards to selectors, CRLF, and UTF8 :) One thing that stood out that I don't understand though - Does OneNote really have support for Gopher in some way (other than, as you mention, not supporting it on high ports under TLS)? What about other MS Office related products? That implication was kind of a shocker to me, as IIRC, Internet Exploder dropped gopher support on the Windows platform somewhere around version 3.01b, yet I think the port of Exploder for Solaris had Gopher support for some time after that until all UNIX support was EOL'd. > > Lastly, I’ve also created a “gopher of things” programming system using > the BC BASIC language that’s built into my calculator program > > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTjm-jCI9dI I'm not really sure what that is, and have to watch my bandwidth up here on the mountain for the next couple of days until next months billing cycle begins lol, but I'm definitely interested in looking further into this :) Some of us here wear our identities on our sleeves, like an open book, for example, one prominent member of the community is a fellow alumnus of mine, while others choose to zealously protect their privacy, perhaps their identities, and such is perfectly acceptable too, although most of that latter group do ensure that their software is easily and openly audited by virtue of the git or other repos they make it available from. I'm sure that you can appreciate such concerns, especially given recent delivery chain exploits with VestaCP Webmin, RubyGems, and even upstream libraries that many of those projects depend upon. I want to include coverage of as many servers, clients, and tools available for the public where gopherspace is concerned in the series of articles I'm working on, but doing so requires that I, in serving to promote the virtues of such software, ensure that any level of privacy afforded the participants and readers, or lack thereof, is fully disclosed by me. I've been on this list for a long time, and I've even been flamed (more than once lol) for my utter disdain for, and refusal to promote, the navigation of gopherspace via HTTP proxies. But we all have our little pet peeves, and that's just my personal opinion about ways in keeping Gopher pure and unadulterated :) Finally, and in closing, can you tell me a little bit more about yourself? Offlist would be fine, and I respect your choice if you're not comfortable with revealing any additional information about yourself. Kindest regards, -- Bradley D. Thornton Manager Network Services http://NorthTech.US TEL: +1.310.421.8268 |