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Journal
Week of 14
February 2000
Friday, 05 July 2002 08:22
A (mostly) daily
journal of the trials, tribulations, and random observations of Robert
Bruce Thompson, a writer of computer books. |
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Monday,
14 February 2000
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I'm now officially famous, having been (partially) quoted in The
Times. Chris Ward-Johnson from Chateau
Keyboard asked me last week to say something quotable about W2K.
Here's what Chris submitted:
Robert Bruce Thompson, President of network
consulting company Triad Technology Group, Inc. (http://www.ttgnet.com)
and author of many computer networking and PC hardware books for
O'Reilly & Associates, is scathing in his criticism of Windows 2000.
"Windows 2000 Professional is mostly hype.
It’s essentially NT4 Workstation with Device Manager, Plug-'N-Play,
DVD, USB, and DirectX, all of which could and should have been
incorporated in NT4. We see no compelling reason to upgrade existing
business desktops, and regard W2KP as a poor choice for home systems.
W2KP is slower and no more stable than NT4 in our testing, lacks
adequate drivers for most video and many sound cards, and has some
compatibility problems with legacy hardware. We recommend installing
W2KP only on new business desktops, or as an upgrade for very recent
notebooks, for which it offers some real advantages."
And here's what was actually printed:
Robert Bruce Thompson, the president of network
consulting company Triad Technology Group and the author of many
computer networking and PC hardware books, doubts that Windows 2000
Professional (W2KP) offers any real advantages to business users.
"We see no compelling reason to upgrade
existing business desktops, and regard W2KP as a poor choice for home
systems," he says.
"W2KP is slower and no more stable than
NT4 in our testing, lacks adequate drivers for most video and many sound
cards, and has some compatibility problems with legacy hardware."
Using the middle part of the quote and cutting both ends rather changed
the flavor of what I said.
Oh, well. It's back to work for me. Input devices this time.
* * * * *
-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas Gatermann [mailto:tgatermann@access2k1.net]
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2000 2:02 PM
To: thompson@ttgnet.com
Subject: UPS power cords
Hello. I'm a friend of Dave Farquhar, and he
suggested that I write to you with a UPS power question, that he and I
could not come to a final conclusion on.
I've recently upgraded my second computer
and am wanting to buy a second UPS to use on it. But I have come upon a
problem dealing with the length of the cords on them. I have not found
one that has a power cord longer than six feet. This is just about three
feet short of what I need to be able to reach my wall outlet. My first
thought was to buy a heavy gauge extension cord to take of care of the
situation. But I have read in the instructions with my current UPS
(Which is an APC) that it is not wise to do that. My question is, is
this because most people typically buy a cord that is underrated and
can't handle the power load put on them? Dave and I can't see why if I
buy a heavy duty enough gauge cord that I couldn't do it. But neither of
us really have any experience with this.
I also was wondering how much is to much on
a single outlet. I have my main machine plugged in the above APC UPS
running a 19" monitor, a 266Mhz k6-2 with two hard drives, two
CD-ROMs in it, and a scanner. A friend suggested that I just plug the
second UPS into the empty socket on the outlet. But it would seem to me
that having two UPS' running off one outlet might be dangerous.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly
appreciated.
Sincerely,
Thomas Gatermann
tgatermann@access2k1.net
I suspect the reason that APC recommends not using an extension
cord is that doing so is a violation of fire codes in most places. You're
supposed to disconnect extension cords (including corded surge protectors)
from the receptacle when whatever is connected to them is turned off.
Technically, if you do something that violates the fire code and it causes
a fire, your homeowner's insurance may refuse to pay. In your position,
though, I wouldn't hesitate to use a short, heavy-duty extension cord,
although you do so at your own risk.
How much is too much on one receptacle depends on how many amps
that receptacle is rated for and how many other things are connected to
the same circuit. Very few receptacles are on a dedicated circuit.
Instead, the same circuit that powers that receptacle may also power the
receptacle in the kitchen where you have your coffee maker plugged in, the
overhead light in your foyer, and the receptacle in the den where your TV
is connected. Figuring out which receptacles (and other things like
ceiling lights) are connected to a given circuit requires some
experimentation. I've often gone around with a collection of small lamps,
table radios, and so on, throwing breakers to figure out what connects
where. Unless you do that, you'll never know until a breaker blows. Even
at that, there may be "hidden" stuff on a circuit that you'll
never think to look for.
Residential circuits are almost always 15- or 20-Amp. At 120VAC
nominal, that means a 15A circuit can support up to an 1,800W load, and a
20A circuit up to a 2,400W load. If your UPSs are typical 280VA to 650VA
units, chances are you'll be able to connect the second UPS without
problems. If there are a lot of other things on the circuit, the worst
that's going to happen is that the main breaker will blow. That just
happened here when Barbara plugged in her new 12A vacuum cleaner. That
doesn't leave a lot of slack on a 15A circuit, and my UPSs went berserk.
* * * * *
-----Original Message-----
From: TTG [mailto:ttgnet@operamail.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2000 2:35 PM
To: Robert Bruce Thompson
Subject: RE: An unsolvable instance of Freecell: a game from Windows'95
Yes. From the postscript:
The starting position here actually does not
occur as one of the positions generated by the Freecell program. The
position 11982 actually is proved to be unsolvable, by exhaustive
computer search. Follow the link above, and links reachable from there.
In addition, the newer versions of the program have positions numbered
-1 and -2, which are also unsolvable.
Thanks. I just took a look at that one, and it does indeed seem
insolvable at first glance. I'll take your work for it that computers say
the same, presumably after using a brute-force attempt.
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Tuesday,
15 February 2000
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Barbara is off to play golf with her father, leaving me with the kids.
Malcolm is teething right now, losing baby teeth and growing his big-boy
teeth, which makes him even more demonic than usual. When Barbara leaves,
he turns really demonic, running around, whining constantly, and stealing
anything he can get his fangs into. I chanced upon a partial solution
yesterday that seems to help. Putting him in his crate while Barbara is
gone is a non-starter. He whines, yips, and barks constantly, which makes
it hard to get any work done. But if I (a) toss in one of Barbara's old
leather slippers, and (b) play some Bach, that seems to calm him down a
lot. Interestingly, it seems to be Bach-specific. I tried Vivaldi's The
Four Seasons the other day, but it had no beneficial effect whatever. I
may try to fool him today with some Telemann.
Back to work on Input Devices.
* * * * *
-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Waggoner [waggoner at gis dot net]
Sent: Monday, February 14, 2000 12:26 PM
To: webmaster@ttgnet.com
Subject: UPS'es
The subject appears regularly in your pages,
but I'm baffled why computing continues to require them--at least for
workstations. It occurs to me, that if Quicken can figure out how to
make absolutely nothing volatile (after it was very much so in its early
days) in only a few years development, why can't workstation OS'es be
developed so that only the operation in progress is volatile? The
current situation doesn't seem good, or really necessary, to me, but is
a boon to the UPS industry.
Probably because there is too much going on. I just used Task
Manager to check processes. My system, which is relatively lightly loaded
at the moment, currently has more than 50 processes running. I assume that
Quicken is using a Transaction Processing model, but not everything a
computer does is amenable to that. There are certainly things, like a
journaling filesystem, that can be done to improve robustness, but in
general anything that improves robustness reduces performance. With
adequate UPSs available for $100 or so, I don't see that it's much of an
issue.
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Wednesday,
16 February 2000
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Here's what disturbs me about Windows 98. Last week, Barbara brought
home her new Ferrari® canister vacuum cleaner, which draws 12 amps. She
plugged it in, turned it on, and promptly blew the breaker on the circuit
that several of my computers use. After calming her down, I simply shut
down all non-essential PCs, along with lights and other stuff that I
didn't need to work. One of those PCs was the Windows 98 box I keep for
taking screen shots and so on. That box also has the scanner attached to
it. Yesterday afternoon, Barbara stopped in with a book from which she
wanted to photocopy a page. The Windows 98 box was still turned off, so I
powered it up. Windows 98 displayed a "new hardware found"
message and told me that it was installing drivers for a Dell 1025HX or
something like that. Now, nothing about this box has changed for months.
It's probably been rebooted at least 10 times in that period, and never
brought up that dialog until just now. I find that a cause for concern.
Software should be, if nothing else, consistent. Windows 98 is anything
but.
Evidence continues to pile up that it was not my imagination
when I reported some time ago that Windows 2000 Professional is noticeably
slower than Windows NT Workstation. In the latest news, CNet reports that
"Dell is leading the movement among PC makers to two processor
systems in part due to Windows 2000 Professional's need for more robust
hardware to achieve the same performance as Windows NT." Read the
entire article here.
Microsoft responds that Windows 2000 Professional is plenty fast, and that
it runs just as fast as NT4 Workstation on a "PII 200" with 64
MB of RAM. That's fine if you're using a Pentium II/200, although Intel
never produced such a processor as far as I know.
I do know that I'm in no hurry to install the shipping version of
Windows 2000 Professional, not least because it will run only fifty times
before it requires that you register it. I don't like that requirement
even one little bit. Perhaps Microsoft should GPL Windows 2000. As Open
Source it would at least have some prayer of competing with Linux. That
may sound ridiculous now, but Linux is beginning to flex its muscles as a
client operating system. In a couple of years, Windows may have a minority
market share in the workstation OS segment.
There's an interesting article
in The Register this morning about the results of some benchmark
testing of AD versus NDS that one Utah company did for Microsoft and
Novell. Both companies attempted to skew the results in their own favor,
of course, but any neutral observer has to be impressed with just how slow
and unreliable AD is. Microsoft is in big trouble. As Microsoft and others
have said repeatedly, Microsoft is betting the company on Windows 2000,
and it's beginning to look as though they've made a very bad bet.
* * * * *
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Ward-Johnson [mailto:chriswj@mostxlnt.co.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2000 10:55 AM
To: 'Robert Bruce Thompson'
Subject: UPSes
Chuck Waggoner misses the whole point of
UPSes as far as I'm concerned - downtime. We get at least one or two
power cuts a month here in rural France, and at least one or two
glitches per week which dim the lights and make the APC UPSes sing.
Without them, the machines would be re-booting each and every time. With
them I can carry on regardless and don't have to wait for my machine to
start up again. I take the regular precautions against losing
information and, with Word, this means I can only lose one minute's
worth of work at a time, but that's irrelevant - it's the irritation of
having to wait for the damned machines to reboot. And, being a child of
the noughties, I CANNOT WAIT. Well, not more than a couple of seconds
anyway.
Regards
Chris Ward-Johnson
Chateau Keyboard - Computing at the eating edge
http://www.chateaukeyboard.com
There is that...
* * * * *
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Bowman [mailto:DanBowman@worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 2:17 AM
To: 'Dave Farquhar'; tgatermann@access2k1.net
Cc: 'RBT'
Subject: Extension cords (long piece)
Hi Thomas,
I offered Dave some additional information
on the Great Extension Cord Question and he bit; I'm copying to Bob as a
cross check in case I get anything too far out of line. Background: Ten
years in the fire service (A.S.); ten years in plant management;
unlimited opinions on anything I think I might know something about
(factual information optional). Reference: 1996 National Electrical Code
(...and what else do I have on my bookshelf?)
One of APC's (and many other manufacturer's)
issues is the question of liability: the longer and more exposed a cord
is the more susceptible it is to damage from abrasion and weight/object
generated cuts. (Offhand, there are two surge suppressor manufacturers
that limit their cord lengths to three feet.) Another issue with cord
length can be overheating due to the overload of the wires. As the cord
length increases, the wire size has to increase (or the cord has to be
de-rated) to compensate for the resistance of the wire. My best example
of walking the edge: a modern hair dryer will pull every bit of fifteen
amps (the maximum available in many household circuits) through 15 gauge
wire (yeah, really; I just checked and both dryers here say 15 gauge--to
handle 1875 watts) on the dryer itself. The National Electrical Code
specs 14 gauge (bigger the number, the smaller the size) as the minimum
wire for a fifteen amp circuit. If you've ever felt the cord after
drying the hair of a wiggly kid (or dog), you'll recall it as warm. The
math: P=I*E; E=I*R => P=I^2*R. I=15A R=.0155 (3.1 ohms/1000ft of 14
ga / 1000 (to get /ft) * 5 (for cord length) gives you 3.5 VA(~watts)
dissipated through the cord (conservative, as the resistance of 15 gauge
will be higher). That's all well and good in the bathroom with a limited
run time and plenty of air flow; put this type of borderline numbers
under boxes and such and you can end up with a problem. That's why you
de-rate wire if you run multiple conductors in conduit and raceways:
heat generation.
Solution: Current limit the cord with a
circuit breaker to match the length and wire gauge. That limits the
current to something that will not generate significant heat through
your cord's insulation (minimize your fire hazard and slow the
deterioration of the cord insulation as a bonus). Require all extension
cords in commercial buildings have an integral breaker and your fire
safety is handled by paranoid manufacturers who de-rate their equipment.
This also prevents the use of two wire "Zip cord" extensions.
...and that's how it is handled locally.
Okay, what about home use? Be just as
paranoid and use commercial equipment. Don't buy a standard extension
cord; use an outlet extension cord or a surge suppressor extension with
that integral breaker. Both of these are available with ten foot cords
at the various office supply and computer stores (heck, W.W.Grainger
sells one with a fifteen foot cord). If you overload the cord, the
breaker on the cord will pop before your main breaker. Don't run the
cords under furniture or boxes; keep them where you can see them (handy
if you have pets that like to chew things; sometimes self-limiting in
this case but a very real hazard).
Money where my mouth is: I use an IsoBar
eight outlet block to the main desk area. The UPSs for Wolf and Athena
are plugged into it (...and I'm not commenting about surge suppressors
in line with UPSs at this point) as are other sundry pieces of equipment
and another block that holds six 'bricks' for various things. That same
wall outlet feeds one of the fifteen footers to the bench area. If I add
anything else in this room, I will be running a new drop to the bench
and another to the desk. I second Bob's comments about household wiring
having lots of surprises (my garage door opener is on the same circuit
as the TV in the living room); and please note, apartment wiring is
notoriously under-wired for outlets.
Think of these cords as distribution panels:
you can plug in several things to one; but let's not put too many in a
chain. Another nice touch if you have outlets behind furniture is to use
a outlet adapter that allows your plugs to exit parallel to the wall;
this really minimizes cord crimps and pressure tears as furniture is
pushed back against the wall (available at most hardware stores).
More than you wanted to know,
Dan Bowman mailto:danbowman@worldnet.att.net
Good points. One thing you don't mention is the vicious circle
effect of temperature on the ability of a wire to carry current:
- As current increases, temperature increases.
- As temperature increases, resistance increases.
- As resistance increases, voltage drops.
- As voltage drops, current increases.
- Goto step #1.
As far as your reference to connecting UPSs and suppressors, as
you know but some may not, some fires have been attributed to connecting a
surge suppressor in-line between a UPS and the equipment. As far as I
know, the problem occurs only with inexpensive UPSs whose output waveform
is square wave. But it's bad practice to use a surge suppressor between
the UPS and the equipment. As far as I know, there's no problem using a
surge suppressor between the UPS and the wall receptacle. In fact, I've
been doing it that way for years.
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Friday,
18 February 2000
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I got through the tech review pass on Tom Syroid's chapter for Outlook
in a Nutshell yesterday morning, and then turned to working on my own
chapter on Input Devices. I immediately ran into a problem. Keyboards, no
problem. Mice and trackballs, no problem. Game controllers, big
problem.
This sounds arrogant, but I'm used to knowing more than 99% of my
likely readers about 99% of the stuff I'm writing about. Naturally so,
because I have a great deal of experience with most of this stuff, and the
time to spend uncovering the details that I don't know about, whether by
research or by actually working with the stuff. For example, I wanted to
find out the truth about RDRAM and SDRAM and the relative performance of
the 440BX and 820 chipsets, so I called up Intel. They sent me two
motherboards. One, the CC820, uses SDRAM. The other, the VC820, is
identical except that it uses RDRAM. So I can experiment and find out for
myself. Most people have neither the time to do that nor the easy access
to components that I do. So I can usually speak authoritatively based on
actual experience.
But with game controllers, the situation is different. Oh, I have a
stack of game controllers sitting here, and I do intend to work with them.
But I'm not a gamer, and am not likely to become one, so whatever I
conclude is likely to be less generally useful than usual. I'm not sure
that there's really a good solution to the problem, but I have to write
something. I just hope I don't make a complete idiot of myself in print
with regard to game controllers. It's not so much that I mind appearing an
idiot as that errors in my coverage of game controllers may call into
question the validity of my conclusions on other matters. The easy thing
to do would be to wimp out and just not cover game controllers. But I've
never been one to take the easy way out. I guess I'll just depend more
heavily than usual on my tech reviewers.
* * * * *
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Bowman [mailto:dbowman@americanambulance.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 1:35 PM
To: 'Robert Bruce Thompson'; 'Dave Farquhar'; tgatermann@access2k1.net
Cc: 'Dan@home'
Subject: Follow-up: Extension cords (long piece)
Yep, and power dissipation through the
wiring goes up as the square of the current which leads to more trouble
very quickly.
Thanks for the detail on the surge
suppression/UPS issue; I hadn't nailed it down as I didn't have the
exact story. I'd heard not to use them together, but that didn't make
sense as most decent UPSs have surge suppression built in (and it's okay
to build layers on to layers as the IsoBar line does). What I missed was
that they were putting the surge units downstream from squarewave
outputs.
For the uninitiated, power (VAs or Watts,
and they are not the same) is an 'area under the curve' function; a
square wave has much more area under it's curve than a sine wave. The
RMS voltage of a wall outlet may be 120 volts, but its ability to
deliver current (and thus power) is limited by the curve of the sine
wave; a square wave can deliver much more power for a given voltage
since it has no 'curve' to it. This results in a recipe of destruction
for sensitive devices downstream, especially those with inductors in
them (such as surge suppressors). With proper engineering, you can limit
the 'area under the curve' electronically to power-limit a device; this
is how some motor controls and many lamp dimmers work.
Good point. In addition to the under-the-curve power issue you
mention, square wave AC is essentially bi-polar DC with a near-zero rise
time. That non-existent rise time means that components are rapidly and
repeatedly subjected to changes from -120V to +120V, a deltaV of 240V in
microseconds which occurs every few milliseconds.
* * * * *
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Bowman [danbowman@worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 2:15 PM
To: swallbridge@home.com
Cc: 'Gang'
Subject: UPS batteries
ref: Shawn's current at Tuesday, February
15, 2000, 11:08:38 PM
Shawn,
If you don't mind working with enough raw
power to make neat sparks and start a fire, you might take a look inside
that UPS. If it's an APC (or any of several others), the batteries are
user replaceable. When I ran the plant and MIS here, I'd get the number
from the battery itself and check with my local electronic parts house;
I'd find batteries that APC wanted US$65 for selling at US$20+/-.
Triplite units worked the same way, but were a little more of a hazard
to work on as their electronics was exposed (APC offers a battery
compartment that isolates you from the line voltages). If the potential
for high-amperage discharges to the case doesn't excite you, the same
guy that sells you the battery (or the kid behind the counter) can
likely replace it for you for a buck or two.
YMMV
Another good point, and one I'd never thought of. Of course, what
you pay APC for a replacement battery also includes return shipping for
the dead battery and proper disposal.
* * * * *
-----Original Message-----
From: J.H. Ricketson [mailto:culam@micron.net]
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2000 2:46 AM
To: thompson@ttgnet.com
Subject: Why I'll probably never buy W2K
Dear Bob,
In your 16 Feb Daynotes you said, among
other things,
"I do know that I'm in no hurry to
install the shipping version of Windows 2000 Professional, not least
because it will run only fifty times before it requires that you
register it. I don't like that requirement even one little bit. Perhaps
Microsoft should GPL Windows 2000. As Open Source it would at least have
some prayer of competing with Linux. That may sound ridiculous now, but
Linux is beginning to flex its muscles as a client operating system. In
a couple of years, Windows may have a minority market share in the
workstation OS segment."
That about sums up why I am less and less
inclined to buy W2K - or any other SW that, in effect, has a SW dongle.
I lost a dongle once - and with it US$80 (in 1974$) of SW and hours of
work. No more dongles. Not to mention the requirement to submit my
security & privacy to the tender mercies of Microsoft. No Way, Jose!
The only hope I can see is that some bright young cracker will soon
defeat the copy protection scheme, and that this latest effort will go
the historical path of all such schemes. I think that this scheme, if
not retracted, may break W2K - the OS that MS "bet the farm
on." I hope so.
Meanwhile, Linux looks better & better
to me, now that I can use VMWare to run the Windows apps that I need to
communicate to the Rest of the World. Never thought I'd see the day that
I would be a Linux fan!
Regards,
JHR
--
[J.H. Ricketson in San Pablo]
culam@micron.net
I predict that Windows 2000 will get off to a very slow start.
Millions of copies of Windows 2000 Professional will be installed on new
PCs, and Microsoft will attempt to make much of that. Very few
organizations will do large-scale upgrades of existing Windows NT 4
Workstation systems to Windows 2000 Professional, although a few will do
so. Again, Microsoft will attempt to make much of that. Most organizations
that run NT4 Server will buy a test copy of W2KS, just as NetWare 3.1X
shops all bought one copy of NetWare 4.0. As with NetWare 4.0, very few
organizations will deploy W2KS in production until at least a couple of
service packs have been released. Some will, and again Microsoft will
attempt to make much of that.
Microsoft should have released W2K 18 months ago. If they had, it
would have been widely deployed by now. Instead, they've given Linux 18
months to gain mind- and market-share in server space. The natural caution
of administrators about deploying a new server operating system means that
widespread deployment of W2K probably won't start for a year or so, during
which interval Linux will make additional advances. My guess is that 2001
will be a death struggle between W2K and Linux for server space.
Novell hates Microsoft, and has always wanted to do something to
damage them. If Novell is smart--alas, they have never shown any evidence
of that, at least in marketing--they will release a free (not Open Source)
version of NDS for Linux. In one stroke, that would give Linux a robust
directory service, which is really the last remaining thing it needs to
compete on an equal footing with W2K in server space. Novell can derive
revenue either by limiting the size of the NDS database in the free Linux
release (probably best) or by later releasing a non-free NDS for Linux 2.0
that is a must-have upgrade for commercial shops.
If I were Microsoft, I'd be running scared right now.
* * * * *
-----Original Message-----
From: J.H. Ricketson [mailto:culam@micron.net]
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2000 8:05 PM
To: thompson@ttgnet.com
Subject: Are We Real People? (rant)
Dear Bob,
I really did a burn on this.
According to Stanford Professor Norman Nie,
director of the SIQSS and co-investigator of the study along with
Professor Lutz Erbing of the Free University of Berlin, a key finding is
that "the more hours people use the Internet, the less time they
spend with real human beings."
It would seem that the professor is still
back in the 1850s - or at best, the 1950s. I submit that the people I
correspond with on the 'Net are real people. Very real. Not answer bots.
I love the freedom the 'Net gives me. It keeps me in touch with my
granddaughter in Seoul, people all over the world. People who have
become my good friends, and have been of invaluable help to me.
I am hearing-impaired to the extent that
normal face-to-face social interaction is a waste of time. The 'Net
allows me to interact on a level field with anyone in the whole world,
and gives me freedom that would otherwise be impossible.
We ARE real people. And I say - A plague on
the professor's house, and all who think they can generate another
The-sky-is-falling scenario such as global warming, tobacco threats,
etc.
Thanks for hearing my rant.
Regards,
JHR
--
[J.H. Ricketson in San Pablo]
culam@micron.net
Probably just an unfortunate choice of phrasing, although I agree
with you that the concept is contemptible. He probably thinks nothing of
jumping in his car and driving 15 or 20 miles across town to have dinner
with friends, or calling them on the phone to keep in touch. But those
technologies have been around a long time, so he probably regards them as
natural extensions of the village life he unknowingly advocates. Luddites
have always been with us, and they've always had a point, although never
the point they thought they had. Friends are where you find them, and the
Net simply allows you to choose from a larger universe. Sociologists are
idiots anyway. I don't let them upset me.
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Saturday,
19 February 2000
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Barbara is off this morning to a Carolina Border
Collie Rescue board meeting, where they will presumably decide weighty
issues before having pizza for lunch. I tried to convince her to take
Malcolm along--a Border Collie pup should be a big hit at a Border Collie
Rescue group meeting--but she says no dogs are allowed. Seems like a
strange rule, but perhaps it's just me.
With the W2K rollout, Microsoft is apparently belatedly admitting what
a POS* Windows 98 is. They're also saying
nasty things about NT4. Apparently, W2K runs for 90 days without crashing,
while Windows 98 crashes every two days, and Windows NT4 every five days,
or something like that. I don't know what planet they're on. My Windows NT
systems commonly run for 90 days or longer--sometimes much longer--between
reboots. I just checked the System Idle Process on kerby and found
that it's been up for 1736+ hours, or about 72 days. Kerby does a
lot of stuff, including managing our shared Internet connection and
publishing this web site.. Old thoth has been up for 5189+ hours,
or something over 216 days, although admittedly it's not doing much. My
main system, kiwi, has been up for 502+ hours, or about 21 days.
And as I recall, the only reason for that relatively short up-time is that
I restarted it three weeks ago to run W2KP. Otherwise, it runs for months
on end.
* POS = "problematic operating
system" (or something like that)
If you need memory, now's the time to grab some. Spot prices
have taken a nose-dive, with 64 Mbit SDRAMs as cheap as they've been in
many months. You should be able to pick up SDRAM for under $1/MB now.
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Sunday,
20 February 2000
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Well, FrontPage 2000 has screwed me AGAIN. As I called up this
page to edit it, I happened to notice that my copyright notice was missing
from the bottom. Instead, there was a FrontPage comment, "Comment:
This border appears in all pages in your Web. Replace this comment with
your own content." Well, hell, I had replaced it with my own
comment. A long time ago, in fact. Sometime in 1998.
The copyright notice is (was) in what FrontPage calls a Shared Border.
A Shared Border is an area of the page layout in which you can enter text
that will subsequently appear on every page in the web that has visibility
of that border enabled. There are four such Shared Borders, top, bottom,
left, and right. They're ideal for something like a copyright notice that
you want to appear on every single page in the web. I'd enabled the bottom
Shared Border and put my copyright notice in it. Now it's gone. Well, it's
back. But that means, of course, that every page in the web has now
changed. That has two implications.
First, every page in the web that has the Date/Timestamp Bot in it will
now show today's date and time. That's a useful Bot. I use it at the top
of this page, for example, to change the last modified date/time
automatically. But it's less useful than it should be. It should have an
option to change the date only when the page is manually edited, as
opposed to being changed by an automatic update like the one that changing
the bottom Shared Border causes. In fact, it does have such an
option. Under Date and Time Properties for the Bot, there are two option
buttons, Date this page was last edited and Date this page was
last automatically updated. Sound like just the thing, you might
think. The trouble is, it doesn't work. I have and have always had
the first option button marked for every occurrence of the Date/Tiime Bot.
FrontPage doesn't care. It happily updates all the date/timestamps on my
old pages every time it does an automatic updated. Weekly journal pages
from a year ago and more will have today's date on them.
The second problem with the automatic update is just a minor
aggravation. Because every single page in the web has changed, the next
time I publish FrontPage will have to upload every single page in the web.
This gets old fast. Oh, well. I suppose I'll take this opportunity to do a
global link check and some other stuff that'll change a lot of pages. If I
have to publish the whole web again, I might just as well get that out of
the way. I hate Microsoft.
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