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<TITLE>The Answer Guy 31: AnswerGUY? Who is Heather?</TITLE>
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<H4>"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
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<H1 align="center"><A NAME="answer">
<img src="../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif" alt="" border="0" align="middle">
<a href="./lg_toc31.html">The Answer Guy</a>
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</A></H1> <BR>
<H4 align="center">By James T. Dennis,
<a href="mailto:answerguy@ssc.com">answerguy@ssc.com</a><BR>
Starshine Technical Services,
<A HREF="http://www.starshine.org/">http://www.starshine.org/</A> </H4>
<p><hr><p>
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)" width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">AnswerGUY? Who is Heather?</H3>
<p><strong>From Thomas L. Gossard on Fri, 03 Jul 1998
</strong></p>
<p><strong>
Answerguy,
<br><br>
Forgive me if I'm about to insult you. All the replies I've read
seem to be answered by Heather. Is Heather not a girls name? If
so, why is this column called the answerGUY, not person or girl?
<br><br>
Tom Gossard
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)" width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">
Heather is my wife. She usually doesn't answer any
of the questions (though sometimes she helps --- she's
been using Unix longer than I have --- and she's a professional
sysadmin).
<br><br>
However, Heather does convert my mail into HTML and she
does all the links and graphics (I just answer the e-mail,
do the web research and find URL's to point my correspondents
at for more information).
<br><br>
As for why this is called the "Answer Guy" --- I just volunteered
to help out with the occasional stray technical question that
I knew would find it's way to SSC when they took over the
editorial duties of the Linux Gazette from John Fisk (its
creator). Marjorie Richardson and her crew decided to post
my answers and picked the name. I'd wanted to start doing the
HTML (at least to wrap the URL's in anchor tags) since I noticed
that these were going up --- but I never had the time.
<br><br>
Finally Heather stepped in, pulled down a couple of mail to
HTML filters (like MHOnArc, hypermail, and babymail) and
played with them --- tweaking one of them until it suited
her tastes in HTML and my style of e-mail (text). She
still hand massages the messages for a bit, too.
<br><br>
The other advantage to this way of doing it is that I don't
see the whole column going up as one big page --- it's broken
into lots of separate pages, like HTML is meant to be. This
is hopefully going to help quite a bit in my future since I
was starting to hit my own column every time I did a Yahoo
search --- usually those were false hits because I'm usually
trying to find "something for Linux" (and I'd find sets of
keywords in one LG article -- that were in no way related
to one another in the article).
<br><br>
So, hopefully the new format will be more "search engine
friendly" (for everyone).
</blockquote>
<P> <hr width="40%"> <P>
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)" width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">Heather replied too.</H3>
<p><strong>From Tom Grossard on Mon, 6 Jul 1998
in the </strong>
<a href="news:comp.unix.questions">comp.unix.questions</a>
<strong>newsgroup
<br><br>
Heather,
<br><br>
Thank you for the reply. I hope I wasn't rude in my question, just nosey.
<br><br>
Thank you
<br>Tom
<br><br>
Thomas L. Gossard
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" alt=":D" width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">
No problem, really. Glad we could clarify.
<br><br>
Oh yeah, I'd like to add for our lynx-using readers, or those reading
the text Whole Damn Thing, I plan to improve the textmode result. But
not this time, I just started a new job (still sysadmin'ing) and
didn't have time.
<br><br>
For web visitors, the interesting parts:
<br><em>I ate the fortune cookie first, then read what Jim Dennis copied me on:</em>
<br><font color="navy"><em>
However, Heather does convert my mail into HTML and she
does all the links and graphics (I just answer the e-mail,
do the web research and find URL's to point my correspondents
at for more information).
</em></font><br><br>
The confusion probably arises from the one message (Love the New Look!!!,
<A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue30/tag_newlook.html"
>http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue30/tag_newlook.html</A>)
where I answered someone who loves the new format... since I am responsible
for formatting... and linked my name there so respondents on that question
could reply to me instead.
<br><br>
Jim answers all the Linux questions; in the original mail to the querent,
he has his Answer Guy .sig, but the dressed up column doesn't need that also,
so it is trimmed for clarity. Most querent's .sigs are trimmed to enhance
their privacy. So seeing most messages .sig-less might be affecting you.
<br><br>
"just answer and research" is plenty, but he loves to do it, and every new
discovery could add to his book, so he plays it down. I don't think the
column would be nearly as good if our roles were reversed :)
<br><br>
<font color="navy"><em>
Finally Heather stepped in, pulled down a couple of mail to
HTML filters (like MHOnArc, hypermail, and babymail) and
played with them --- tweaking one of them until it suited
her tastes in HTML and my style of e-mail (text). She
still hand massages the messages for a bit, too.
</em></font><br><br>
I merged some perl fragments, and added some of my own, to a script I use
to preprocess the month's load of Answers. However, I also
<strong>read</strong> his messages, and try to maintain the original
"look and feel" of Jim's reply.
<br><br>
Sometimes this means a list type or a blockquote where my script doesn't
know any better. Each month I improve it but I will probably never trust
it to do the whole job ... cleaning .sigs for privacy, clearing up levels
of indirection when Jim draws in a message from mailing lists, and posting a
thread as one file are specific examples.
<br><br>
There is also a little bit extra that I add. Most of the URL's I add
after-the-fact are things that aren't really special overall (such as
hotlinking vendor names) so someone reading the plaintext Whole Damn Thing
version isn't really missing anything; they are simply seeing the reply
pretty much as Jim sent it. (It's not exactly as Jim sent it -- it's the
posted column run through lynx.) If I actually say anything that Jim didn't,
it is <em>emphasized</em> and in brackets [] , as I have been taught editors'
comments should be. I haven't seen Jim use brackets, except in example code.
</blockquote>
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<H5 align="center"><a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/ssc.copying.html"
>Copyright ©</a> 1998, James T. Dennis <BR>
Published in <I>Linux Gazette</I> Issue 31 August 1998</H5>
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