Reprinted with permission, CFA Almanac, June 1996
As we discussed in our last column, the Fanciers mailing list is strictly for discussion about pedigreed cats and related subjects. For those interested in a mailing list that will allow discussion about every topic under the sun related to cats, you have your choice of two - either Cats-L or Feline-L.
Cats-L is a mailing list that has as it's purpose:
" ..... to share useful information and personal experiences with respect to cats. Feel free to talk about funny habits, bad habits, behavior problems, or health problems. Rescue posts will also be accepted. In addition, this is a good forum for sharing educational material for responsible cat(pet) ownership."
The mailing list includes approximately 140 subscribers. You can discuss Fluffy and Muffin's latest exploits and clever tricks without fear of reprisal from anyone about "wasting bandwidth on such tripe!" This bandwidth was created explicitly FOR such tripe! There's some useful inf. here, too, but the serious breeder will either find it first or find it repeated on one of the other lists. You can subscribe by sending email to listserv@netcom.com with SUBSCRIBE CATS-L (your name) in the body of the message.
Feline-L is a very active list, and the best way to get this mail is in the digest version, wherein all mail is accumulated until the file reaches a certain size and it is then sent out to those on the mailing list. The welcome message for Feline-L says:
"FELINE-L is a discussion list for and about cats; all kinds, types and varieties of cats. Postings ranging from care and feeding of your household tom or tabby to scientific research concerning any aspect of wild or domestic feline populations are welcome. If you wish to discuss training, human-feline psi experiences, cat "ghosts", seek a bit of comfort over the loss of a cherished cat, or find the best way to handle any aspect of cat ownership, you may reasonably expect to be welcome on FELINE-L.FELINE-L is a very high-volume list. It is also unique in the sense of "community" and "belonging" which exists among subscribers. If you are seeking a "just-the-facts" list, this may not be the place for you. If you are seeking an environment wherein participants regularly share one another's feline joys and sorrows, you have found a home.
Managers and Administrators of any institution maintaining a feline population, such as zoos, game parks or research installations may discuss mutual problems and points of interest here. Graphic discussion of research techniques may be inappropriate for this list and offensive to some subscribers. Use good taste in what you post.
Reasonable discussion of conservation and environmental issues, as they specifically relate to feline populations, are welcome here. The same holds true for almost any aspect of feline veterinary care and management.
In short, absolutely anything that may reasonably be seen to have a relationship to felines and/or to human-feline interactions may be posted here... with one or two exceptions."
Discussion of animal rights issues is frowned upon on this list. Subjects discussed during our short subscription included: feline observations, about famous cats, problem vet staff, claw covers, cat deterrents, tooth flossing, blood in urine, hypoallergenic cats, and several pleas for help with cat related problems such as spraying males/females and finding a home for a feral cat. We found that one of the annoying things about this list was the endless CATCHAT posts - where one cat "talks" to another cat . ["Totally ridiculous. Everyone knows cats can't manipulate the shift key ... right, Fluffy?" "Right, Muffin!"]
One of the more interesting features of Feline-L is the totally excellent ASCII art appearing in the signature blocks of the list members. At the end of each posting, many list members include a standard signature block they've created and saved in a file on local storage. Some of the more creative individuals use standard ASCII characters to create terrific visual effects. The usual graphical topic is a cat or is at least cat-related (e.g. a paw print). The creativity of some of the cyberspace daVincis must be seen to be believed (and appreciated).
Each digest version of Feline-L usually contains about 25-40 posts, and comes with a listing of subjects in each post. You can expect to receive 2-4 posts a day. Subscribe to Feline-L by sending an email post to listserv@psuvm.psu.edu with SUBSCRIBE FELINE-L (your name) in the body of your message. You will receive a notice that your subscription has been accepted and will have 48 hours to send back a confirmation that you wish to subscribe.
Another mailing list that is strictly cat related, but with a different focus is Cattery-L, which has almost 200 subscribers. The criteria for this list includes:
"This list was established to provide a forum for anyone interested in the management of a cattery. Suitable members might include people with questions about boarding cats, professional breeders, serious hobbyists, and/or commercial cat boarding operators."
Plans for the content of this list are that the ideas and discussions eventually lead to the publishing of a book on cattery management - as a non-profit activity, with proceeds to a pet- related charity decided upon by the list members.
You can subscribe to Cattery-L by sending an email post to listserv@netcom.com with SUBSCRIBE CATTERY-L One of the more challenging aspects of showing cats, is waiting to see if your confirmation arrives in time for you to have directions to the city and showhall, and praying that it's readable when it arrives. We've found a very useful site that can take some of that worry out of driving to shows in towns that you have never heard of. MapQuest allows you to type in the city you are leaving from and the city you are traveling to, and will produce a complete list of driving directions between the two points. The routes given in the directions tend to be on major highways, but do tell you if there are tolls to be paid. Unfortunately, cities in Canada are not yet included in their database. However, as an example - if you wanted to travel from Buffalo, New York to Chicago, Illinois for the Annual Meeting these are the directions that are generated:
In the last issue, we gave you the basic tags that must be included in all homepages. This month, let's take a look at formatting some of your text and adding links to other pages that contain valuable information.
If you want to add emphasis to your text, you can format it to be in bold, in italics, etc. The tags are merely added before and after the word or words that you want emphasized, and are: You may choose to divide your homepage into sections and sub-sections, and will want to use a title for each section. Headings can be used in a document, and are available in 6 font sizes, with <H1> being the largest and <H6> being the smallest:
You may choose to have a line drawn after your heading. If so, the tag <HR> will show up as a horizontal rule (line) as follows:
One of the most important aspects of a homepage on the World Wide Web, is the ability to "link' from your site to information on the site belonging to someone else. You will notice as you visit web sites that certain words or sets of words are underlined and in a different color font. These are the links that allow people who visit your web site to have accessibility to information that you consider valuable and of interest. This is not physically on your web site, but can be accessed from it and removes the need to duplicate information on the Web.
You can either link to other pages that you have set up on your own site, or you can link to outside sites. To set up a link to an outside site, you must first know the correct URL for the site you want to make available. A link is set up as follows:
<A HREF="site URL is here">text for the actual link is here</A>
For example:
Practising this should keep you busy for a while. :-) Next month we'll look at jazzing up your pages with some different font changes, or with photos and graphics.
LOGOUT:
Feline Fun at cYbErCaT's TeMpLe
AND DIRECTIONS ....
MapQuest TripQuest Route
_________________________________________________________________
Directions from Buffalo, NY
to Chicago, IL
Distance: 544.5 miles
Beginning at Buffalo, NY
Go South on State Rte 5 for 6.6 miles to State Rte 179
Go East on State Rte 179 for 1.5 miles to I-90
Go Southwest on I-90 for 65.7 miles (Portions toll) to
Pennsylvania
Go West on I-90 for 45.7 miles to Ohio
Go Southwest on I-90 for 58.0 miles to I-271
Go Southwest on I-271 for 13.5 miles to I-480
Go West on I-480 for 26.4 miles to I-80
Go West on I-80 for 156.3 miles (Portions toll) to Indiana
Go West on I-80 for 134.3 miles (Portions toll) to I-90
Go West on I-90 for 21.0 miles (Portions toll) to Illinois
Go North on I-90 for 15.5 miles (Portions toll)
To Chicago, IL
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CONSTRUCTION AREA
<STRONG>BOLD</STRONG> - an alternative is <B> </B>
<EM>ITALICS FOR EMPHASIS</EM> - an alternative is <I> </I>
This is your <H1> header
This is your <H2> header.
This is your <H3> header.
This is your <H4> header.
This is your <H5> header.
This is your <H6> header.
< A HREF="http://www.cfainc.org">The Cat Fanciers' Association</A>
<:A HREF="http://www.cfainc.org/shows/show-schedule.html>show schedule</A> .
Page maintained by Karen Lawrence, klawrenc@freenet.npiec.on.ca. Copyright(c) Karen Lawrence and Dan Petty. Created: 4/10/96 Updated: 6/3/98