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Daynotes
Journal
Week of 13 March
2000
Friday, 05 July 2002 08:06
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,
13 March 2000
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Cool air has returned to Winston-Salem. We've been having high
temperatures near 80F (27C) and lows around 55F (13C). Our electronic
thermometer says our low last night was 22F (-5.5C) and our high today is
expected to be only around 55F. The dogs sure like it, though. Speaking of
which, I get to dog-sit today. Barbara is off on errands--a hair cut this
morning, followed by lunch with an acquaintance, followed by a vet visit
to have Tess the rescue Border Collie's sutures checked.
Speaking of sutures, we had to trade in Malcolm's dish for a cone. He's
a very flexible puppy. Friday evening, we noticed him contorted into a
position that allowed him to chew on his sutures even while wearing the
dish. We tried everything. We sprayed the wound with three different kinds
of stuff guaranteed to taste horrible to dogs. He licked it all off,
smacked his lips, and begged for more. We tried everything we could think
of to keep him from getting to the wound. We tried rearranging the disk.
We tried reversing the dish. We even tried securing the dish around his
abdomen instead of his neck. We tried bandaging the wound, covering it
heavily with strips of old towels, hoping he wouldn't be able to chew
through them. Nothing worked.
I finally told Barbara we'd just have to hope for the best overnight
and see if the vet had a larger dish. She hauled Malcolm to the vet
Saturday morning and returned with a replacement for the dish. This one is
a cone. It looks like a small lampshade, with the narrow part secured to
his collar. It indeed prevents him from chewing the wound, but now he
charges around running into things. That's funny, until the thing he runs
into is the back of one's leg. That hurts. Barbara did find out at the
vet's that Malcolm now weighs about 40 pounds. At only 5.5 months old now,
he's likely to be a big male when he grows up. Probably Duncan's size, 65
or 70 pounds, give or take.
The sound card chapter is coming together, but it's not finished
yet. I put in full days Saturday and Sunday on it, and got quite a bit
done. I hope to finish it today and tomorrow. Once I get it done, we enter
the tech review phase. The chapters I finished late in the process are
ready to go to TR. I'll ship them off to my editor, Robert Denn, and he'll
coordinate the tech reviewers. As they're working on the later chapters,
I'll be doing re-write on the earlier chapters.
So this thing isn't done yet, not by a long shot, but it's getting
there. After a short break to do our taxes, I'll be jumping in full-time
to work on the book Pournelle and I are doing. Then there are two more
books waiting on the horizon. I certainly won't lack for things to do.
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Tuesday,
14 March 2000
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Well, I finally reached 100% completion of the first draft of PC
Hardware in a Nutshell. It only took about four times longer than I'd
originally planned. That doesn't mean I'm done, though. I still have the
fun of re-write, tech review, etc. etc. But this is, at least, a
significant milestone.
Malcolm has become a little thief. If he sees something he
wants, he takes it, unless it is tied down. Sometimes he takes it even
then. His latest target is pillows from the sofa and the bed. Not to chew,
but to make a nest with. Every time Barbara and I turn around, pillows are
missing. Malcolm has carried them off, tossed them in whatever corner he
happens to want to curl up in, and made a nest of them. What's amazing is
that he can carry them around and arrange them while wearing his new cone.
Yesterday morning I came through the den on my way to get a cup of tea,
and found that Malcolm had pillaged all four small sofa pillows and one
large sofa pillow. He'd carried them over to his favorite location, at the
back door to the deck, and arranged them in a neat pile. He was lying
asleep on that pile, on his back with his back legs splayed out and his
front paws folded over. I should have taken a picture of that one, but I
was trying desperately to get the chapter done. All the pillows are so
beat up now that I don't even bother to yell at him any more. Barbara will
get some new pillows once Malcolm outgrows his pillow thieving, if he ever
does.
Now it's time to go look at my to-do list, which is not a pretty
sight. A lot of what needs to be done relates to the book, directly or
indirectly. There's re-write, tech review, and so on, obviously, but there
are also a lot of administrative things to get done. Not least of those is
the book's web site. Every chapter points to pages that don't exist on a
web site that doesn't exist. I need to get that web site up, but to
complicate matters further, the domain name is registered to my agents,
StudioB, rather than to me. I need to get that domain transferred and
active on pair.
We're also doing a free newsletter. That implies that I need a way to
send it. BellSouth limits outgoing messages to 15 addressees, which isn't
gonna cut it. I don't want to use one of the third-party mailing list
services, but keeping it in-house implies that I need an SMTP server
running locally. That implies Linux and HP OpenMail. I have a Dell
Dimension XPS M200s Pentium/200 system sitting here not doing much of
anything that should be a suitable box. It has a Pentium/200, 64 MB of
RAM, a 6.4 GB hard disk, and a 100BaseT Ethernet card in it. Now the only
problem is that I don't know enough about Linux to get that box configured
and running. Fortunately, I can probably sweet-talk my UNIX-guru friend
John Mikol into getting it set up for me.
My dual-CPU main workstation, kiwi, is still sitting shut down
because it was overheating. I have stacks of motherboards, drives, and so
on that I need to look at, ideally before I do re-write on the relevant
chapters. Barbara and I are still working on another web site, completely
unrelated to computers, that we hope to turn into a side-line business.
There's this place to keep up with, and about 75 other needs-done-now
items on my to-do list. I need to start putting serious effort into the
book that Pournelle and I are working on, and I have two other books
besides that under contract with O'Reilly. It's fortunate that I don't
mind working seven days a week.
I keep thinking of Pournelle's lines--"There's only one of
me," "I'm dancing as fast as I can," and "It's a great
life if you don't weaken."
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Wednesday,
15 March 2000
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Two interesting articles in The Register this morning about Windows
2000, both related to the slow start of Windows 2000.
The first
reports that the total retail and OEM sales of all versions of W2K in the
first month since its release have been only about one million units.
That's disastrously low, particularly when you consider that this includes
"sell-in" (the process of stuffing the channel) and the strong
likelihood that (a) the vast bulk of these have been OEM sales, with
relatively few upgrade sales and even fewer full retail sales, and (b) the
vast bulk of these have been W2KP rather than the server version. I say
"strong likelihood" because Microsoft did not break out
individual numbers. You can bet that they would have been trumpeting those
individual numbers if the situation had been otherwise.
The second
reports that MCSEs and MCSE candidates are revolting against Microsoft's
attempt to force them to W2K by retiring the NT4 exams and certifications
prematurely. The problem, of course, is that most companies will not
migrate to W2K in 2000, or even in 2001. That's anathema to Microsoft,
which desperately needs W2K revenue. This transparent effort to drive
adoption of W2K from the tech side versus the marketing side isn't likely
to work, but it is going to make a lot of people very unhappy. Microsoft
shows no sign of budging, so the likelihood is that the supply of NT4
MCSEs will dry up by year-end. Their attempt to force adoption will
result in a lot of de-certified NT4 MCSEs. I suspect a lot of people will
be putting "Former NT4 MCSE" on their resumes, and a lot of
companies will be hiring those people for their non-credentials.
As I predicted long ago, initial W2K sales are slow, few are committing
to W2KS, and Microsoft spin doctors are doing their best to put a good
face on a bad situation. Just how truly bad sales are will become clearer
later this year. It's probably too soon to declare Windows 2000 a failed
product, but failure is beginning to look like a very real possibility.
The really important issue is W2KS sales, because Microsoft needs to
control the servers. Right now, it looks like that's not going to happen.
Linux may yet be the death of Microsoft.
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Thursday,
16 March 2000
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I spent most of yesterday roughing out the new web site for PC
Hardware in a Nutshell. The book points to the web site repeatedly,
and it would be embarrassing to have the book hit the bookstores and have
nobody home at the URLs printed in the book. Now I have the structure
roughed out, at least, although there's no content there yet. For now, the
web site resides on my hard disk.
My agent registered the domain name for me some time ago, but
registered it in their name rather than mine, not realizing that
transferring a domain name is a pain in the butt. I'm going to ask them to
transfer the domain name to joker.com in their own name and subsequently
transfer it to my name. It seems that there should be a way to do that in
one pass, but it's impossible. NSI wants their registry fee twice, three
times counting the original registration, and there's no way to get around
it. If the US government had to hand off the domain registry monopoly to a
private corporation, it should at least have made sure that that
corporation was a non-profit.
Barbara is off this morning to run errands, cut the grass for
her parents, and pick up a new driver for her golf bag and test it at the
driving range. I tried to convince her to take Malcolm along, saying that
he could retrieve the balls for her, allowing her to practice all day with
one bucket of balls. I failed to convince her, alas.
* * * * *
-----Original Message-----
From: McDonell @ The Park [mailto:mcdonell35@earthlink.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2000 8:53 PM
To: thompson@ttgnet.com
Subject: Digital Cameras
During the later part of last century, we
shared thoughts about that Sony Mavica design and the potential
advantages.
In January 2000, both my laser and inkjet
printers failed. Fatal problems. Firing squad disposal.
With a genuine need, I raced madly to the
nearby Target store where I knew they stocked the Model 73. I was sure
that it would come home with me but the price was a bit more than I had
expected for a discount store. So, I hesitated. Then bought an Olympus
model that took some of those smaller media cards. Off to Office Depot
where I shopped cheap and (I hoped) smart. I brought an HP 3200 and an
HP 812 Inkjet Printer. I saved the Camera for last and found it to be
good. Then came downloading. It used a DB9 serial cable for that purpose
but my cranky Gateway would not recognize it on the two factory
installed ports. I could edit on the TV, that was fun but why the devil
was the PC transfer such a big problem? I did not care because I have
grown used to Gateway problems and they are best solved by ignoring
them. Meanwhile, the printer output was too average and the scanner
images were more so.
Everything went back to the stores the next
day. That beats dealing with a mail order house for sure. I came home
with an HP 200 Digital Camera, an HP 5200 Flat Bed Scanner and an HP
P-1000 inkjet printer. The latter is the best one I have seen, let alone
owned. It is so quiet and fast that it makes me forget the conveniences
of laser printing. The color is good but I have not taken the time to
test that glossy paper. You see, an image must be very good quality to
merit a hard copy. We are not that good at photography. The big news is
that little smart media card in the camera. The card, about 1"
square, also fits into the P-1000. Sensational utility. No cable fuss.
Insert card, print index page. Press "Save", loads into PC.
Both the scanner and the printer load up
slowly but I have hopes of installing a couple of USB ports in that
cranky PC of mine. Both of those peripherals have USB outputs as well as
the needed parallel ports I need right now.
With these weapons, I have been committing
crimes and misdemeanors in the field of Web Site design. I am trying to
teach myself the use of On-Line editing services such as offered by
XOOM.COM and local html editors, starting with FrontPage 98. My
experiences are written up [here]
If you have time, please give it a glance.
It is a mixture of different ideas that make use of some feature or
another from FP 98. I found the latter to be lacking in several areas.
Sincerely, Best Regards to your mother and
the rest of your family.
Maurice F. McDonell
Thanks. I think you made a wise choice. I'm not familiar with HP
digital cameras, but I wouldn't even think of buying a scanner or printer
that wasn't made by HP. Your experience buying initially at the lower end
of the range is also instructive. My habit is always to buy the middle
model or higher. Inexpensive models make too many compromises, both in
terms of features and construction quality. When I went out to buy a
scanner last fall, HP offered the 3200, 4200, 5200, and 6200. They cost
about $100, $200, $300, and $400, respectively. I figured I'd use the
thing for at least five or six years, call it 2,000 days, so that really
came down to a choice of 5, 10, 15, or 20 cents a day. Figured that way,
the difference was minimal, so I bought the 6200 model.
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Friday,
17 March 2000
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I'm totally beat this morning, running on four hours of sleep. One of
the dogs threw up at 4:00 a.m., and I couldn't get back to sleep at all.
At least I got quite a bit of work done yesterday. My editor sent me back
two of my first-draft chapters and the preface with his comments embedded.
I got all three of those plus two more chapters he'd sent me earlier fixed
up and ready for tech review. I'm getting the "easy" chapters
(which is to say the ones I wrote late in the process) fixed up first.
Some of the early chapters require some significant updating and re-write,
so getting the early ones ready for TR first at least gives the tech
reviewers something to chew on while I fix the early ones.
I was reading an absolutely hilarious book last night. Trouble
was, it wasn't supposed to be funny. The book is The Runner, by
Christopher Reich. It's about a man pursuing an SS war criminal just after
WWII, and it's truly awful, despite some good reviews over on Amazon.
Here's just one example:
"He glanced at the .45-caliber Colt
Commander snuggled in its scarred leather holster. Nine bullets in the
cartridge and one in the snout. When expecting action, release the
safety and cock the hammer. That way you don't have to put your full
weight on the trigger to fire the first shot. It was all coming back
now."
This is why fiction authors who know nothing about the subjects they're
writing about need to hire my wife or someone like her to catch their
absurdities. Mr. Reich obviously knows nothing about guns, which feature
prominently in his book. Taking that quote sentence by sentence:
1. He means either "the 45-caliber Colt ..." or "the .45
Colt ..." A caliber is 1/100 of an inch, so a .45-caliber pistol
would have a bore that was almost invisible. A .45 pistol, on the other
hand, is pretty intimidating, having a bore nearly half an inch in
diameter. Also, he didn't mean a "Colt Commander", which hadn't
been produced yet when his story is set. He meant a Colt 1911A1 Government
Model (or, just possibly, an original 1911 left over from WWI ), which was
what the military generally issued during WWII, and in fact continued to
issue until they recently adopted a 9mm replacement. (Big mistake, but
that's another story.)
2. He means "Nine cartridges [or rounds] in the magazine and one
up the spout." Even that's wrong, however. The standard 1911A1 held 7
rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber (or "up the
spout"). But he sure does love the word snout. He misuses it
repeatedly throughout the book, rather than the correct
"muzzle". I can only speculate that he's confused because one
may use a muzzle on the snout of an animal.
3. Not possible. The 1911A1 and its variants do not allow the safety to
be moved to the Safe position unless the hammer is already cocked. John
Moses Browning, who designed the 1911, intended for it to be carried in
Condition One (round chambered, hammer back, and safety on, also called
"cocked and locked") or in Condition Zero (round chambered,
hammer back, and safety off, which sounds dangerous but is not because the
gun cannot be discharged until the separate grip safety is automatically
depressed when someone strongly grips the pistol). The US military did
variously recommend carrying the 1911A1 in other states, however,
including round-chambered/hammer-down and no-round-chambered/hammer-down.
4. Mr. Reich has obviously had some little exposure to a double-action
autopistol. The 1911A1, however, is single-action, so this entire sentence
is absurd. You can put as much weight as you want on the trigger of an
uncocked 1911A1, and it ain't gonna fire.
5. It can't come back if it was never there.
My main carry piece for more than 20 years has been a steel-frame Colt
Commander, so I'm pretty familiar with it. But it's not just firearms that
Mr. Reich has a problem with. The entire book is chock-full of historical
inaccuracies and anachronisms. It's pathetic.
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Saturday,
18 March 2000
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Barbara is off to a Border Collie field trial this morning, where
she'll probably be spending most of the day. She's working the Carolina
Border Collie Rescue table, and said she couldn't handle Duncan and/or
Malcolm, so I've got the kids for the day. I'm debating between spending
the day re-writing chapters, or doing some much-needed hardware
maintenance and upgrades, or working on the web site for the new book.
Perhaps some of all three.
Big to-do in the paper this morning about the Wake Forest
University student newspaper running a paid advertisement from a
revisionist group that claims the Nazis didn't murder as many Jews as is
usually stated. The Wake Forest paper is one of only three or four student
newspapers nationwide that agreed to run the ad. The editor of the student
paper says that it's a First Amendment issue, and I have some sympathy
with her.
Not that the First Amendment in any way guarantees these people the
right to publish their stuff in her paper, but I was pleased to see her
take a stand in favor of freedom rather than cave in to the Politically
Correct line. The whole idea of a free press is freedom of thought and
expression. If some of those thoughts offend someone, tough. Offending
someone is not the same thing as injuring him. Free exchange of ideas and
the ability to challenge preconceptions, no matter how dearly held, is
much more important than the risk that someone may be offended. Many
people are too easily offended anyway.
I'm not sure where the 6,000,000 figure came from to start with. I
suspect it's probably someone's guess, and has become graven in stone as
an absolute figure. I can't see where the exact number much matters,
anyway. Whether the Nazis murdered 6,000,000 Jews, or 600,000, or 60,000,
or even 6,000, it was still mass murder as a state policy. We don't
consider a serial killer with 10 victims any less evil than one with 100
victims. No more so would we suddenly decide the Nazis were nice guys if
it turned out that the 6,000,000 figure was a bit high.
Calling into question things that "everyone knows" is one of
the most important functions of a free press. As it happens, I think the
Nazis probably did murder 6,000,000 Jews, or something very close to that
number. But if someone cares to challenge that number, it's their right to
do so. Not that I'll pay any attention to what they have to say, because
that's my right.
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Sunday,
19 March 2000
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Whew. My workday yesterday was 14 hours, 0730 to 2130, with only a
couple of short breaks, including dinner. I managed to get three more
chapters polished and ready for tech review and sent them off to my
editor. I also got about 90% of a fourth chapter done, which I finished
this morning before doing this. The good news is that I now have 9 of 15
chapters submitted for tech review. The bad news is that those were the
easy nine. The last six are going to take more work.
Chapter 2, Working on PCs, is fine as far as content--that stuff
doesn't go out of date--but needs some severe compression, which is always
time-consuming. Chapter 3, Processors, and Chapter 4, Motherboards,
need updating, re-write, and reformatting to include some elements that we
devised later in the process. Chapter 5, Memory, is generally okay
as far as content (although I need to update the Rambus situation), but
needs much of the same as Chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 8, Hard Disk Drives,
needs substantial cutting, re-write, reformatting, and so on. It also
needs material added on SCSI. I'd decided to leave that out when I wrote
the first draft, but now I've changed my mind. Finally, Chapter 12, Communications,
is the problem child. That's the first chapter I wrote, and it reads like
a technical treatise. I don't know what to do about it, but I'll figure
something out.
My guess is that there's probably about three weeks worth of work
involved in getting those six chapters ready for tech review. I'm going to
bust butt to get it done in that time, because then it's tax time and I
desperately want the whole book off to tech review before I have to tackle
taxes.
So I'd better get to work.
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