SillyDog701

[Pineapple Blue]

Dear Anthony and All Cousins Across the Pond

Can anyone help please. I have just one copy left of Netcaster that I have had since 1999 - 2000 on our Cisco Systems Netscape Professional Edition known as 4.05. I alway's believed the technology too early as we were then restricted by PC technology and connectivity in respect of modems and telcom copper.

I've been testing out Netcaster and got it working on one of our servers and configured the Netcaster browser to find our server and channels. The gang at the BBC has authorised us to use BBC feeds and streams for News, Sport and Childrens Newsround.

With some design and configuration in html authoring i have managed to be able to set up pages (only in test stage bear with me) to refresh, take advertisements and the feeds.

With Broadband now and more interactivity I seriously want to put one in the eye at BG's firm and get this up and running.

However, and this is possibly the big but.

1/. Do we know who originally wrote the programme of Netcaster.
2/. Who technically owns the intellectual property and distribution rights.
3/. I never hear back or know anyone at AOL who used to be at Netscape anymore and never get a reply to my e-mails.
4/. Just need to re0write parts of the Netcaster programme to recoginise later Browser versions of Netscape. I can test it successfully on our 7.02 Professional that I customised but I think we also need to make some configurations to allow for additional plugins to identify the feeds. It finds smart technology in Java on adverts rolling and changing. It's struggling with the RSS feed from the Beeb and looking for a plugin.
5/. If anyone else is interested in setting up channels on the service and would like to help. (A) We could set it up as a project in Moz.dev , but things have gone a little quiet there and concerned about the outcome of AOL and what bearing that would have. Or do you want me to set it up in a completely new Dev Edge Team Group from one of our Servers that we may be permiited to access via Anthony's community as I always refer Silly Dog and have links to the site from our Network for our users and members.

I very much look forward to anyones help, advice and guidance.

On a personal note Anthony have we got any arhive versions on your site that I and the gang here can down load. Many, Many Thanks!

Best Wishes to you all

Alastair

here is my direct e-mail for getting in contact with me also

editorial@riversidenetworks.co.uk

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050915 Firefox/1.0.7

[Antony]

1/. Do we know who originally wrote the programme of Netcaster.

I might still have some information on this, but not right off my head.

4/. Just need to re0write parts of the Netcaster programme to recoginise later Browser versions of Netscape. I can test it successfully on our 7.02 Professional that I customised but I think we also need to make some configurations to allow for additional plugins to identify the feeds. It finds smart technology in Java on adverts rolling and changing. It's struggling with the RSS feed from the Beeb and looking for a plugin.

Are you talking about creating a programmer similar to Netscape Netscater?

5/. If anyone else is interested in setting up channels on the service and would like to help. (A) We could set it up as a project in Moz.dev , but things have gone a little quiet there and concerned about the outcome of AOL and what bearing that would have. Or do you want me to set it up in a completely new Dev Edge Team Group from one of our Servers that we may be permiited to access via Anthony's community as I always refer Silly Dog and have links to the site from our Network for our users and members.

SillyDog701's Message Centre is always welcome for community to develop new projects.

On a personal note Anthony have we got any arhive versions on your site that I and the gang here can down load. Many, Many Thanks!

Please see Communicator section of Netscape Browser Archive. The latest version that has Netscape Netcaster should be version 4.08, and Netscape Communicator (Base Install) should have it.

Additional notes, there was a SillyDog701 (Netcaster) Channel that I made ages ago, it might still exist somewhere.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/417.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/417.8

[Pineapple Blue]

Hi Anthony

Many thanks as always, great site and community.

Regarding item 4 of my wish list. I'm hoping that we can keep with the original theme of the Netcaster framework. I'm hoping the Author can be contacted and distribution can be possible as an open source so we can make the service free for users as I see more and more pay subscriber services by the day especially for rich media content.

I hope I can modify with any other members of the community who are interested the original Netcaster, but with updates and re-configuration to encompass later technologies and browser rollouts. It should be possible to incorporate internet sharing via proxy within the home for members of the family to create their own channels and services. Hopefully in cross platform to take Mac, Linux and Win.


With the test so far and broadband connectivity there is definately a great deal of synergy here. We may even be able to tune in Television onto the service.

I would like to ideally track down the author so we can exchange Ideas and the best way forward as i was working with Wally May at the time on WebTV but the project was dropped after 2 years of hard work in 2000.

Many thanks for the info on the download. Done one today. Will also download 4.08.

Warmest Regards

Alastair

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20060127 Netscape/8.1

[Antony]

Hello Alastair,

I have some questions about this project. Do you want to duplicate the Netscape Netcaster into today's W3C standard? Do you also want to have use entire desktop space as it was?

To my understanding of Netscape Netcaster Channel or "Push" technology, it was nothing special except some scheduling background downloading and display on the wallpaper (lowest window layer).

The technology used to write Channel was simply Dynamic HTML (Netscape 4's version) + JavaScript + CSS. The problem with Channel... too few content providers, and too slow (too much to download), and people didn't like the way their desktop being occupied.

Netscape Netcaster was a great idea... the content were all downloaded to the background, so users did not need to download a new page when they wish to read a (say) news article. The problem... too slow, too much memory used.

Then, Microsoft followed with something similar called Active Desktop. Both technologies failed to gain popularity.

If I am not mistaken, current Mozilla technology (Firefox, Gecko), it is possible to write such features in a webpage... except making the content display in the desktop layer (lowest window actually), the reason for that would be simply due to security concern.

My seven point zero one cents, sorry to disappoint you.

Antony.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/417.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/417.9.2

[Pineapple Blue]

Hi Anthony

Many thanks for the input. I concur with everything you have said. I think I can fire the system up at boot or at start. So it is active immediately a PC is on. The feeds download automatically. I have tested them so we can control feed times from the server to the service users. e.g. bulletins every 15 mins, 30 mins or 2 mins if something big is happening in the news.

I agree with too fewer content providers also, when we were working on web tv years ago it was only the major stayers like Yahoo and the BBC etc. No this can be set up to be in both 1024 res or 780 res. Controls and Navigation can be embedded in the templates of the layouts.

Back then as you know yourself most of the problem was processing and download, in those day's we would rave over a 686 with 32 to 64mb ram.

Warmest Regards

Alastair

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 (CK-RN7.02Pro)