SAMPLE JOB DOOR NEWS FILE USING DOCS: THE ELECTRONIC JOB FAIR - Version 1.1 Documentation. By Charles H. Crawford. 1: Introduction. Finding employment in an increasingly skills and knowledge base driven economy is no easy task. In fact, the likelihood of having to repeat the task many more times than people in the past is both real and difficult. Job seekers must therefore have more than skills and knowledge to market, they must also be informed about interview skills, job trends, legal rights and responsibilities, career options, and much more. If all of this is not enough, now add the appearance of a disability and some form of assistance to advantage the job seeker becomes very helpful if not necessary. Enter the electronic job fair! Almost four years ago the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind initiated an electronic bulletin board to assist people without vision to access information and stimulate their use of computers. The service has been very successful, but providing extensive job opportunity listings has been a challenge of enormous proportions. Having a jobs database in one area, text file listings in another, job related files in another and so on kept the information scattered and less useful. Now that becomes history with this new software package that can be run on any BBS, or in stand-alone dial up environments. 2: System requirements. To operate the electronic job fair, you only need to have an IBM compatible personal computer with a starting 640 K of memory and a modem. We suggest that a 386 or 486 processor running at a decent megahertz speed be used and that a high speed modem is preferable because of file transfers that will occur. The software is network compatible and you can feel free to run as many copies at one time as you can manage. The real important consideration with running this software is memory constraints. With DOS memory managers there should be no reason not to be able to free at least 110 K of memory to make available to the application. At the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind we have it running on two computers. Each of them have DOS and network software running without destroying the ability of the software to access sufficient memory. 3: What files are in this package. Heres a listing of the files that come with the electronic job fair and what they do: * Clipjbbs.exe is the main executable program that commands all other files in the system. * Dwry222.zip contains many files that control the communications ports of the computers that run the job fair. These ports are addressed either as doors on a bulletin board or can be accessed directly by the job fair as a stand alone program using the doorway host software contained in the package. You should read the documentation contained within the zip file for these programs, but some discussion of them will be done in this documentation so you can get up and running quickly. * DSZ?.zip is a zip file of the ZMODEM file transfer protocol from Omen Technologies. It is called by the electronic job fair for file uploads and downloads from your system. Like Doorway.exe mentioned above, this is shareware and should be registered for the small cost charged. The use of the question mark in the file name is due to evolving versions of the software and the numbers in the file name will change over time. * Uns.dbf is the users (callers) database that keeps track of who has called etc. * Post.dbf is the database of job listings kept at the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind and can be downloaded from the Commission computers to keep your data current. * Fedclass.dbf is a database of categories of jobs which is accessed by the electronic jobs fair to give folks a chance to pick a category to search. * FN.dbf is the database of file names that is accessed to display what files are available for reading or downloading from the job fair. * Se.exe is the system operator program to add, edit or delete files or caller listings. * CJ.bat is a sample batch file that you can edit to match your system if you want to run the job fair as a stand alone application. 4: Getting started. A. Unzip or copy if you have already unzipped all the files into a directory on a hard disk called whatever you want. B. type "Clipjbbs" and press enter when in the subdirectory you just created. This brings up the program and you can add your first and last name to the users database. Feel free to look around at the menu options although there is nothing in the databases yet. C. After leaving "Clipjbbs.exe" now type "Se" and press enter. You will be in the system operator program will where you should edit the user records to give yourself a security level of at least 50, but we recommend 100. D. Read the documentation for doorway, DSZ and DWHost products. While you can run the electronic job fair like any other DOS program, to get it to run over a modem; you need to use Doorway.exe or a similar program. DSZ is the ZMODEM file transfer called by the program and it can be registered from Omen Technologies in Oregon where they will send you a diskette with your own registered copy. The cost of all of this is not expensive. E. Now use a text editor to edit "CJ.bat". Change the drive and subdirectory references to match the drive and subdirectory you installed the software on. F. Copy cj.bat to the root directory of your active logical drive. That usually is C:\. G. Go to your root directory and type "CJ" and press enter. This should run the stand-alone version if only for ten minutes until the registered Doorway.exe is there. H. You can add an standard text file to the subdirectory in which the program is to run. Call it "News.txt" and the program will show it before running the jobs main menu. This is good for news or hot job leads. 5: Populating your jobs database. The "Post.dbf" database is the primary job opportunities file. It contains a number of fields where particular information goes and when the program is running, these fields are displayed to the callers. Keeping the listings within the database current is critical to the viability of the program to its users. There are three ways to maintain your Post.dbf file. First, you can download the "Don.zip" file from the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind electronic bulletin board at area code (617)-451-5327 which is often busy. You can also download the databases zip file from the stand-alone job program at area code (617)-727-5898 during non-business hours. Either way, the "Don.zip" file contains both the "Post.dbf" and the "Fedclass.dbf" files. These files contain the job listings and the job classifications which can be used to filter listing displays according to interest. Once you have the "Don.zip" file then simply use PKunzip.exe to unzip the new databases into your subdirectory where you will probably overwrite the existing databases. Secondly, you can add a job within the program if you have sufficient security to do so. This is a process of answering a series of questions which allows the fields of a blank record within the database to be filled out. Thirdly, you can upload (with sufficient security) a file called "NewJobs.zip" with a database called "NewJobs.dbf" in it which the program will import into the master "Post.dbf" database. The program will also allow you to upload a copy of "NewJobs.dbf" without the use of the.zip compression program, but that is unlikely to be all that productive since upload time is lengthened when not using compressed files. Once the program receives a NewJobs file, then it will take the appropriate action to append the "Post.dbf" database. The above methods keep the data current and the callers coming back! 6: Resumes and other files. The program has been developed to allow callers to access more information than just the listings within the database. Text files of job listings, resumes of people looking for a particular kind of job, files of information of use to the job seeker and software applications that can be run on a personal computer are all of importance to folks looking for work. Hence, the program will accept uploads of files from callers with sufficient security and share those files with any other callers. Currently, there are six categories of files supported by the program. These include resumes, text files of job listings, text files with information of relevance to job seeking, legal information files, software applications and an area for files the system operator thinks folks would like. The amount of these files is completely a function of how many of them you want to allow to be shared and how much disk space there is to support them. Take a look at the main menu of the job fair and you will notice that options #6 and #8 allow for uploading of information and #9 allows callers to view or download files after viewing a menu of what is available. 7: The System Operator Editor. As the System Operator, you have a responsibility to ensure that the user and files databases and corresponding information is maintained. Using the "SE.exe" program makes that task easy! Just type "Se" when in the subdirectory and up comes the program. The first thing that you will see is a question asking for a password to be used if you want to run the SE.exe program when calling in. This gives you or anyone else who knows the password the opportunity to edit databases remotely. You would be surprised how annoying it gets if you are at home and the databases need editing, but you need to go into the office to do it. Now that is not a problem with remote editing. To run the remote editing functions, simply press "S" at the main menu and type in the exact password you have assigned. Sorry if you forget the password or type it in wrong, because there is no way to maintain security if you were to not have it the way the program sets it up. This security is even greater that used to limit who can upload files. 8: Doorway and doorway host mode. Since society has not yet reached the level of technology where our computers are already linked to information distribution services automatically, we must rely upon telephone connections through telecommunications software. This creates the need for host computers to have the ability to watch, activate and send/receive information over a phone line. This is done through the computer communications ports which are usually port 1 or 2 on a standard personal computer. The Disk Operating System (DOS) does not manage communications port activities particularly well and so telecommunications software at the user end and a program like Doorway.exe at the host end must talk to each other to allow the information to pass back and forth. Doorway.exe was written by Marshall Dudley to allow a bulletin board to remove itself from memory and run a regular DOS application for a remote caller. Some folks use Doorway.exe to access DOS applications from their homes to the officer to access specific DOS programs remotely. Here is where Doorway works best for the job fair. Using "DWHOST" you can set up your computer to monitor the communications port and when a call is detected, run doorway.exe and the job fair over the phone. Simply look at the documentation associated with the doorway host program and you should be up and running quickly. Again, "CJ.bat" has been included for your convenience and we suggest you use a text editor to modify the information in the file to match your computers communications port being used and subdirectory and path accessed. The host door program (DWHOST.exe" does need to be configured and folks who rely upon speech programs to access screen information may want to run the host program once and then use a text editor to edit the configuration file. 9: DSZ. DSZ or ZModem file transfer protocol is the industry standard for high speed file transfers. Hence, the job fair has been written to support ZMODEM transfers. All the necessary software coding to run DSZ in either send or receive mode has been done in the code. Even the potential problems that could occur with the so called "16550 high speed first in first out" communications port have been addressed in the job fair software. All you need to do is to install a copy of "DSZ.exe" in the subdirectory where the job fair has been placed to run the transfers. You should register this software since it is the product of much work at Omen technologies and the author (like Marshall Dudley of Doorways) deserves to receive payment for his work. Please note that if you are going to run your modem off of communications port 2, then you should place in your "Autoexec.bat" file the line "Set DSZPORT=2" in order to ensure that the DSZ program properly addresses the port. 10: Security levels. Uploading files to the job fair is an important function of the program. This allows for many sources of information to be used rather than having to make the system operator always responsible for file additions. Of course, allowing anyone to upload files would be foolish and so a security level is required. The System Operator can assign a security level of 50 or above which opens uploading privileges to callers. This security assignment is done through the system editor program either locally or by remote. Thus use the users editing menu option to browse the users database and make any security assignments you desire. Please note that the job fair will ask folks who try to upload if they would like to have sufficient security to make uploads and if the answer is yes, then the system places a 49 in the security field. If you see a 49 in the security field then you should consider allowing the caller making the request to have enough security. Uploading a resume is not security restricted since the premise of that upload is to advertise oneself for potential employers to view online. 11: Problems and considerations. * The program may sometimes appear slow in running. This usually is a function of a database be accessed by more than one user. It should speed up when either other folks are not accessing the same database or the caller switches to other program options which do not require the use of a particular database. * There are no graphical user interfaces or other screen enhancement features to the program since it was written particularly to meet the needs of folks using synthetic speech to access information. While there are access packages to make graphics work, they are not as quick or reliable as the text based programming done for this program. * It is recommended that at least a 9,600 bps modem be used with this program. Using slower modems would increase file transfer time to probably unacceptable levels for most callers. 12: Help! If you are stuck on installing or running this software, then call me (Charlie Crawford) at area (617)-727-5550 extension 4503 during eastern standard time business hours and i'll be glad to commiserate or help you in any way I can. 13: Whose responsible for this mess anyway? In short, nobody! This is public domain software that you did not need to pay for and so if anything goes wrong; All that can be guaranteed is that the software will take up space on your hard disk. 14: Closing remarks. Well, I pretty much said everything I wanted to say, but everyone has these nice closing remarks. If you are interested in other software of use to folks with little or no vision then call the MCB BBS for a view of what may be helpful! Everything from a talking checkbook to Supreme Court decisions. July 16, 1994 - Charlie Crawford.