--- get_book.sh	2004/01/15 12:39:37	1.5
+++ get_book.sh	2004/01/17 16:25:38	1.6
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
 # proxy settings (same as in firebird)
-export http_proxy=http://proxy:8080
+( ping proxy 2>&1 ) >/dev/null && export http_proxy=http://proxy:8080
 # user agent (same as in firebird)
 ua="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031225 Firebird/0.7"