Hello all,

Sorry to be the first one impatient enough to ask, but: does anybody know what's up with Tomcat76? Hasn't been seen for a while now... Is he just on an extended vacation (and glad enough to be far away from any computer), or do we have to worry?

There's been a patchday recently and his homepage with the list of patches has to be updated, a newer opuc4.cab is available, at least one update (KB953839) should be incorporated into hfslip 1.x and 2.0 (ActiveX killbits are usually hardcoded), and .Net 3.5 SP1 has been released and would reqire an update of his great silent .Net maker tool. Lots of intimidating work to do And TC76 is _the_ expert pushing hfslip development forward

Kind regards,
Tomalak

I'm still here, checking the board almost daily. Just very busy...

Ah, good to hear from you, thanks for the fast reply! Glad you're still alive and following the things going on here (though not much is happening lately, holiday season).
I guess everyone is relieved now, so not a problem at all. I'm sure you'll return one day when your workload decreases a little bit...

Kind regards,
Tomalak

Yeahh, i had also checked TC's profile some times to see if there had been any activity and was also beginning to get worried, since i thought that he haden't visited MSFN in 2 month's time, and that he had lost motivation for his ennormous workload...

I'm really amazed that he as one person maintains 2 branches of HFSLIP, 4 update lists, plugins and netmakers etc. besides work

Thank's for letting us know that you're allright TC

Take your time, and we're all very gratefull of all the things you do to make lives easier for the rest of us

And not to forget TP and FDV also of course, you are all trully appreciated


Anyway, sorry for rambling alittle here, but i was just wanting to say thank you to you all...

TP and I went back in time and JUST got back about an hour ago.

In 1999 Microsoft was working on something called "Windows 2000" and it was fantastic. Everyone loved it.

But we wanted to propel open source forward and get people trying Linux, so what we did was go back to October 1, 2001 and delivered a copy of Windows XP to Microsoft, 24 days before they released it! LOL that got us an audience with Bill Gates, and we gave him a BOATLOAD of BAD ideas for a successor to XP:

- security is good, so the OS should ask for permission to do EVERYTHING
- upgrades are good, so the new OS should force people to buy new versions of most programs, especially Adobe products
- the new OS should make people upgrade all their hardware, because the latest and greatest is the best
- the new OS should have as many different editions as possible, because consumers LOVE that
- DRM should be the main concern, the movie studios will salivate over that
- boot time should be much longer, it gives users a chance to organize their thoughts
- CSS is a fad, so making IE compatible with it is a waste of time

We also suggested a new version of Office to go with this new OS which should totally reorganize the interface so that users have to relearn everything, because everyone LOVES tabs and hates menu bars.

Gotta go, we need to see if Microsoft took any of our suggestions...

@FDV:

LOL - you’re freakin´ hilarious, mate

Allthough seriously, then i couldn't agree more about your points

Btw, i'm also thinking seriously about switching to Slackware(the most appealing distro of them all to me, personally) and be done with MS for good, but honestly, then each time i set myself up to make the switch, then i'm always missing good old Win2k immidiately and falls back to it again pretty fast, since i'm just so used to how everything works on that platform and am a total newbie on the *nix platform

CU, Martin.

we are actually missing a lot of HFSLIP pioneers lately ... TP, TC, FDV, Oleg, Tain ... + some those who used to be active like Yzowl, Tux, Squeeto to name a few ... there are still a lot more who could be just out there but are preoccupied ...
on the contrary, it is nice to know that we still have the regulars around (i.e., the guy, SM, etc.)
is this a roll call?
but yes indeed, it's nice to know that TC is still here ...

I'm still around, too

But I'm away on business since late June. I check in from time to time but cannot be online much these days. The business stuff should be over in a few weeks but then I am moving to Maryland so there will be some more down time there. But I shall return. And I shall TRIUMPH. It will be a glorious day!

hopefully soon the arrival of all of you .. many of us hope anxious ..... greetings willy

above was TC's last post ... hopefully, our authors & mainstays will be back soon god speed!

Hello Tomcat76,

If you're still out there, lurking in the dark, reading here only from time to time, could you please send us again a short sign of life? Problems and changes are summing up now. While we can deal with most of them by putting files into HFSVCPACK_SW1 instead of HF and using other little workarounds, I'm afraid this is not the ideal solution most of us want
So we really need a knowledgeable person, who is able to hardcode things (e.g. ActiveX killbits), to provide packages for HFTOOLS (e.g. time zone updates) and to maintain a one-stop-only list of patches. And guess what, this person is you - the great hfslip guru

We're desperately waiting for your return, picking up hfslip development (of bot 1.x and 2.x branch) again...

Thanks and regards,
Tomalak

I'm trying to reach him, but the last time I heard from him was 29Aug.

TC is doing OK. I got in touch with him last week. He's a bit on the busy side, to put it mildly.

MSFN is a community, so to help the community developers should post regularly. I hate those developers who keep playing dead.

Yea tell me about it. I hate it too when real life gets in the way of helping others for free. Thanks for the support Acheron.

Wow. I understand your frustration, but you should reconsider how demanding you should be of those who provide things for free.

Just curious: have you donated any money to HFSLIP? I have donated a fair amount, but I still won't give TC any grief about having to pay attention to his real life concerns. Real life trumps online life any day.

TP: Can you please have TC contact me? Or let me know how you managed to reach him? Thanks!

I do provide test results, send in bug reports and even some fixes. Besides that I also release all projects on MSFN with code and documentation.
HFSLIP is open source. I would be able to work on it, but the code is not documented.
I would even donate some money to support this project, but unfortunately HFSLIP does not support business use.

please tomcat back soon

ouch ... but seriously, i'm confident TC will be back ...

EDIT: i tried logging into my messenger and just tried to send an offline message to TC ... guess what, he replied ... asked his permission to share this with our community ...
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
hey TC! this is kiki ... hope all things are going well for you ... a lot of people from our MSFN community, HFSLIP in particular miss your presence ... cheers!
hfslip_tc76 says:
Hi Kiki. Nice to hear from you. I'm still around, but don't have any spare time. You're lucky to catch me on YM...
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
ha! ha! that's nice to hear from you ... i shall post this just to let our HFSLIP friends out there know that you are still here
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
hopefully, when you have time, you could look into HFSLIP once again ... lots of changes have happened with the post SP3 updates ...
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
TC TC!
hfslip_tc76 says:
Many updates aren't slipstreamed properly?
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
yeah something like that ...
hfslip_tc76 says:
I think I saw someone posting a list of needed changes, but that was a while ago. I can't promise anything, though.
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
it's alright ... we'll wait ... the last update though we had was i believe June 08 ...
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
i think there's a lot out there waiting for 2.0 as well ...
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
take your time ... our OS still works fine
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
yeah tomalak started that topic
hfslip_tc76 says:
I think I'll be "downleveling" the IE7, IE8 and WMP11-specific code from HFSLIP 2.0 into an intermediate version (HFSLIP 1.8). Otherwise there's still too much work to be done on HFSLIP 2.0.
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
no rush here sir ... maybe just some needed updates for HFSLIP version - 1.7.8
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
in any case, this is the link to what tomalak initiated: http://www.msfn.org/board/Important-hfslip-178-t124566.html
hfslip_tc76 says:
Not many changes need to be done, apparantly (at least for HFSLIP 1.x).
hfslip_tc76 says:
I hope to get a newer version out soon, but I won't put a date on it.
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
accommodation of slipstreaming post SP3 updates mostly .... looking forward to that TC ... i'm sure everyone will be glad about this
-kiki- ext 84010 says:

hfslip_tc76 says:
OK. Thanks.
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
your welcome and thanks in advance! lastly, asking your permission to post this in HFSLIP ...
hfslip_tc76 says:
Sure, go ahead
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
thanks! lokking forward to your update ... don't let me bother you any further ... glad to hear from you TC! have a good one!
hfslip_tc76 says:
You too
hfslip_tc76 says:
Bye
-kiki- ext 84010 says:
bye!
hope this alleviates some tensions a bit .. thanks!

@ kiki
Strange thing, all lines are black!?

Instructions: read by clicking and dragging over the black lines with your mouse.

@Fox Mulder

THX for the instruction