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Week of 5/24/99 Sunday, May 30, 1999 09:08 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 |
[Monday] [Tuesday] [Wednesday] [Thursday] [Friday] [Saturday] [Sunday] Monday, May 24, 1999 Today the Current Topics page debuts. The Current Topics home page will link to pages on various subjects. I'll put those pages up and add material to them as it arrives. I may write an intro for a given page and then throw it open for contributions by readers. The pages will remain as resources organized by topic for convenient reference. I'll date each entry on the Current Topics home page, so you'll be able to tell which ones have been updated recently. If a topic grows too large, I'll break it out into separate sub-topic pages. I'll use these pages, among other things, to learn more about things I'm writing about. For example, back in January, we had a great on-going discussion about CD-R and CD-RW drives, IDE versus SCSI interfaces, incompatibility of various media types, etc.. That material would be more accessible if I organized it in one place. For now at least, I plan to restrict these pages to discussion of computer-oriented topics rather than politics and so on. I hope all of you will choose to participate both by reading and by contributing to the pages on topics you know something about. I'll maintain a permanent name for each page, so they will be bookmarkable. All this means that this page will not be as long as it was previously, because much of the technical discussion will be organized on the topic pages. I'll still update this page daily, and it will serve as a collection bin for the stuff that doesn't belong on the topic pages. So please jump in. Send me mail about the topics I've posted. Thanks. * * * * * Hmm. I can see how accidents happen. While I was setting up the new Current Topics page and a sub-page for it, I noticed that the background color was set to FFFFFF rather than FFFFCC. Also, the "brown" text was set to 804040, rather than 993300. So I went in to fix them. I'd copied the Current Topics page from my Daynotes home page, and the superfloppies subpage from the new Current Topics page. I was surprised to find that the content for the Keywords meta-tag was set to Pournelle's tags. Apparently, some time in the dim past, I'd created a page for Pournelle and then used that page as a template for one of my own pages, forgetting to change the tags.
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Tuesday |
Tuesday, May 25, 1999 Quite a few interesting and useful responses to my query about Super Floppy drives. See Current Topics. If you have something to say about the subject, please send me your remarks. * * * * * Interesting article in the paper. It listed the top ten "wired" countries in the world. As expected, the U.S. came in far and away first. What really surprised me was positions two through ten. Sweden was second. The rest of Scandanavia also did well, with Norway, Finland, and Denmark all in the top six. Canada, which I would have guessed to be second, came in tenth. The UK did not appear on the list. Although the criteria used for the ranking were not explicit, it appears that it is a consolidated figure arrived at by considering the percentage of the population with Internet access; the number of hosts that reside in each country; the ubiquity and speed of the network infrastructure, etc. Pareto's Principle (the old 80/20 Rule) applies here in spades. The top five or ten percent of the countries (in population and number) have about 99% of the Internet infrastructure and about 99% of the IT spending. Outside of South Africa, for example, there are only a few thousand people with Internet access on the entire African continent. It appears that a lot of second-world countries are rapidly devolving into third-world countries, and many third-world countries are dropping off the map altogether. I don't think of the Internet as the be-all and end-all that some people seem to think it is, but there's little doubt that a strong Internet infrastructure is important to busines and will become more so.
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Wednesday |
Wednesday, May 26, 1999 Lots of new stuff up over in Current Topics. I added a section on CD-R and CD-R/W drives, with material abstracted from the discussion posted here in January. Please feel free to add to that discussion as well. * * * * * No Internet connectivity this morning. I've dialed in repeatedly. Each time, DUN Monitor shows I'm getting 148 bytes in 9 frames and then nothing. I just called BellSouth.net tech support. The automated problem reporting system said there was nothing wrong in Winston-Salem, so I punched the option to speak to a live person. She said they had been aware of the problem for about half an hour, had not yet gotten it up on the automated reporting system, and were working on it. It's surprising to me just how dependent I've become on ready access to the Internet. When something like this happens, I can't receive or send email. I can't visit the web pages that I visit each day, read the news, or research things I'm working on. While Barbara still worked at the library, we had her county-provided dialup account as a backup. With that gone and BellSouth down, we're both dead in the water. I seriously considered signing up for a second account for backup, but it doesn't seem worth $20/month for something that will go unused for months on end. If AT&T WorldNet still has the five free hours per month deal, I'd consider signing up for that, except their nearest POP is a long-distance call. Not that I'd mind paying long-distance charges when BellSouth is down, but AT&T WorldNet has a minimum monthly usage requirement for the free account that would cost me nearly as much as a regular second account. I think I'll just hold out until cable modems and/or ADSL make it here. * * * * * The Costa Rican woman who ran down the little boy at the school bus stop last week has been charged with Misdemeanor Death by Vehicle. The District Attorney has announced that, if convicted, she will be sentenced to between 1 and 45 days of community service, sentence suspended. That seems to me to be equitable. She did break the law, but she had no intent to harm anyone and did not recklessly disregard anyone's safety. * * * * * I've gotten several messages that refer me to the Click of Death page on the Gibson Research site, including one last night from Jim Griebel. When I received that message, I had nothing running except Outlook. I read the message in the preview pane, and clicked on the live link. Talk about the Click of Death! I expected IE5 to come up as usual and display the page. Instead, my cursor went to an hourglass and nothing happened. After 15 seconds or so, I decided things were locked. I fired up Task Manager. The Applications tab showed only Outlook, and displayed its status as Running, even though it appeared to be locked. The Processes tab looked normal except for nine incidences of Rundll32. Although IE5 wasn't showing up in the Applications tab, IEXPLORE.EXE was displayed in Processes. I finally highlighted IEXPLORE.EXE and killed the process. Things came back to life instantly. What was really strange was that I ended up with nine IE windows scattered all over my screen, displaying various web sites that I had visited in the past. No rhyme or reason as to which. Several were sites from my Frequent folder of URLs that I visit daily, but others were sites that I hadn't visited for several days and that were not bookmarked anywhere within IE. * * * * * Okay, it's 10:15 a.m. and my Internet connection works again. Withdrawal symptoms are gradually dissipating as I get my daily fix of web updates and mail. Tiime to publish this...
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Thursday |
Thursday, May 27, 1999 Quite a bit of new stuff over in Current Topics. I must say that I'm getting an education from my readers... Meanwhile, some interesting general mail. * * * * * This from Dave Farquhar [farquhar@lcms.org]:
No, that's never happened to me, nor have I ever heard of it happening. I've shutdown NT improperly scores of times over the years on various machines, either from necessity or a power failure, and I've never seen it lose data like that. As far as filesystems, I generally use NTFS exclusively on my own machines. If I were building a production server, I'd create a small (~10 to 50 MB) FAT partition as the System Partition (the one that contains Ntdetect.com, Boot.ini, etc.). That way, I can use Norton or a similar DOS-based utility to fix problems on that partition. I'd put the Boot Partition (the one that contains \WINNT) on an NTFS volume, though. FAT partitions support only share-level permissions, and that's not good enough to protect the system files. The real problem with recovering data from an NTFS partition is that utilities to do so require that the volume in question be locked for exclusive use. That can't be done on the partition where NT resides, so it's difficult to perform any salvage activities. I always suggest that people install NT twice on any important system. Install the real copy as usual, but install a second bare-bones copy of NT on another partition (and ideally on another physical drive). That way, if you have problems with the working copy, you can always boot into the emergency copy and use repair utilities to access the NTFS volume that the working copy resides on. * * * * * This from Edmund Hack [echack@crl.com]:
Thanks for the kind words. I'd say you've picked three very good motherboard vendors to look at. Intel is rock-solid, has a superb web site, and makes some very nice integrated boards. As you might expect, they're not the best choice if you're interesting in overclocking. EPoX makes first-rate boards with exceptional stability, supports them well both on their web site and via email, and does provide overclocking options. Although I've never built a system around an ASUS board, they're very well thought of by many, and I have many readers who use them. I could probably send them email and get some eval boards, but I'm pretty satisfied with Intel and EPoX. As far as SCSI, I hope to be getting some Adaptec SCSI adapters in the not too distant future. It's not that I don't have any experience with SCSI. I have a lot, probably too much. But that experience dates back years to when I worked often with various servers. I concluded back then that SCSI was fine for servers, but simply too complex for standard PCs. Having once made that decision, I've been too ready to stick with it. I know that SCSI has changed a lot with the passing of the years, and it's past time that I jumped back into it. My main objection to SCSI at this point is cost. There's nothing inherently expensive about building a SCSI device. I just checked prices on Zip Drives, for example, and found that the SCSI version was only a few dollars more than the IDE version. Granted, that is a low performance SCSI interface, but even so it makes the price differential between otherwise identical hard drives with IDE and SCSI interfaces all the more glaring. * * * * * This from Chuck Underhill [cyberclu@sover.net]:
Well, there are really at least two separate aspects of learning photography. The first is learning how to see, which is not as trivial as it sounds. What appears on the focusing screen and subsequently on film is a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional reality. Learning that transition takes most people a lot of work. Many never learn. I think there is no simple way to do it. One simply must spend a lot of time looking through a camera lens. For that, a manual or an automatic camera serves equally well. The second aspect is learning to use the peculiarities of the photographic process. Aperture controls depth of field and shutter speed controls the extent to which motion is frozen. For such things, a manual camera is necessary. I think the first point is key. Many wonderful photographs have been taken with automatic cameras. Years ago, photography magazines invariably noted the aperture and shutter speed in the caption for each photograph they published. Nowadays, it usually says "exposure not recorded." My advice to you at this point would be to not be too concerned with your equipment. Look at lots of photographs by great photographers. Choose a photographer whose work you particularly admire, and then try to imitate him. Eventually, you'll succeed, and that will serve as a departure point for you to develop your own style. I also wouldn't worry too much about classes and so on. Photography can't be taught, other than in a simple technical sense. It must be learned. The secret is to take a lot of photographs and to be ruthless about discarding those that don't meet your standards. In the beginning, that will probably be most or all of those you take.
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Friday |
Friday, May 28, 1999 There's some new stuff over in Current Topics. * * * * * Here's an interesting item I picked up from a press release someone sent me: Drive Service Company released a list of the ten best and worst disk drives, based on the ones that they see most and least often. The best three are IBM, Fujitsu, and Seagate since 1998. The worst three are the Western Digital AC2XXX and AC3XXX series (except the 31000); any model of the Quantum Bigfoot series; and the Conner CFS850A and CFS1275A. I have no idea how (or if) these data were normalized, or whether the results are statistically valid, but it's an interesting data point nonetheless. * * * * * A German copy of Windows NT TCP/IP Network Administration showed up in yesterday's mail. What surprised me was that I was actually able to follow the text pretty well, although college German was more than 20 years ago. No doubt I was aided by knowing what I'd written originally. Everything somehow seems more authoritative in German than in English. * * * * * This from Paul Robichaux [paul@robichaux.net], a man of few words, referring to an article in Salon about television advertising and demographics:
Yep. I don't worry much about television commercials any more. I don't see many. The only show I watch every week is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and we have a commercial-zapping VCR. Barbara watches Winston Cup racing, golf, the Weather Channel, and a handful of network shows. We sometimes watch a movie on AMC or something on PBS. Other than that, the TV is usually off. Even when it's on, I'm usually reading. * * * * * This from Chuck Waggoner [waggoner@gis.net]:
Actually, I think Tom and Jerry run Windows NT Workstation on their main machines, although Pournelle has an NT Server box or two in the back closet. I run both Server and Workstation, but the reason has more to do with staying legal than anything. Microsoft has at various times sent me half a dozen different copies of Windows NT Server 4.0, but only two or three copies of Windows NT Workstation 4.0. Accordingly, I load Server on machines that I might otherwise use Workstation on. Actually, these are all NFR eval copies, so Microsoft probably doesn't care (or even expects) that they'll be run on more than one computer. But I still like to stay legal. As far as functionality, I think you'll find little difference between NTS and NTW for your purposes. The main differences are that NTS has various "servers" (e.g. DCHP Server, WINS Server, etc.) that NTW does not, and that NTS is required for a domain controller. For your purposes, a workgroup is as good as a domain, so you don't really need a domain controller. I'd go with the Workstation version in your situation.
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Saturday |
Saturday, May 29, 1999 Some interesting new stuff over in Current Topics. Apparently, the wobbly CD problem is not as rare as I'd thought. * * * * * Sign up for cable modem service. Go to jail. Or at least that's what almost happened to one woman. Read all about her travails here. Maybe I will wait for ADSL after all. It certainly seems safer... * * * * * Okay, here's another bizarre one. Why do these things only happen to me? I downloaded the IE5 supplementary tools from the Microsoft web site. One of them is Toggle Images.exe, a utility that you can install on your links bar. Clicking it turns images on or off. It accomplishes the same thing as going into Internet Options and marking or clearing the check box, but it's a lot more convenient. I installed this a couple of weeks ago, and something weird has been happening. When I click Toggle Images.exe, every once in a while the Outlook mail-check dialog pops up in the middle of the web page. I run my mail through the WinGate proxy server, so everything is in the background. When I send a message, it spools out to disk very quickly and then gets sent in the background. I have Outlook configured to POP new mail every five or ten minutes, which it also does in the background. The first time this happened, I assumed that there was some weird interaction going on. Perhaps running Toggle Images.exe while Outlook was actually POPping mail caused the dialog to display, or whatever. But now it's started happening much more frequently. Just now, I toggled images, and the Outlook dialog popped up. I toggled again, and it popped up again. I did that four or five times, and the dialog popped up every time. I kept an eye on GateKeeper (the WinGate monitor utility), and there was nothing going on immediately before I toggled the images each time. So, I've found a new use for Toggle Images.exe. In addition to turning images on or off, you can also use it to force a mail check. Geez. * * * * * As a part of researching removable storage, I stumbled across the Castlewood ORB drive. I remember vaguely reading about it around the end of 1997 when they first announced the drive, and then again around the end of last year when they finally started to ship some units. This drive looks like a winner. It costs like a Zip drive--an internal IDE with one cartridge included retails for $200--and has features that compare to the Jazz drive--2.16 GB capacity, and hard drive speed. The best part is that 2.2 GB cartridges sell for only $30 each. The guy who founded Castlewood is the same one who founded SyQuest and then left SyQuest in 1996. He has some heavy hitters behind him, including Sanyo, Daewoo, and Aiwa. Apparently, this drive will be provided not only in a form suitable for computers, but also in consumer electronics gear designed to store MP3 files, movies, etc. One manufacturer is bringing out a VCR that stores more than two hours of satellite-quality video on a cartridge. I'm going to keep my eye on this one. * * * * * Tom Syroid Tom Syroid [tsyroid@home.com] CC'd me on this message he sent to Chuck Waggoner regarding my my response yesterday:
Interesting point, and one that not enough people are aware of. NT4 is indeed faster than Win9X if you have some minimum level of memory. Most people find that NT4 and Win9X are about even at 32 MB, and NT4 pulls well ahead at 64 MB or more. I dual-boot a couple of system between WinNT and Win9X, and I find the difference noticeable.
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Sunday |
Sunday, May 30, 1999 About three years ago we had our driveway repaved. We checked into both concrete and asphalt pricing, and found that concrete would be more than twice as costly. My first inclination was, as always, to pay more for the better solution. However, in talking to various people we learned that concrete is not really likely to last all that much longer than asphalt, assuming that both are properly maintained. My next thought was that concrete would require much less frequent routine maintenance than asphalt. Wrong again, according to the people who know. Either one requires routine sealing every couple or three years. So we went ahead and got the driveway blacktopped. They told us at the time that we should seal it after three years, and then every two years thereafter. Yesterday we decided it was about time we sealed the driveway. Barbara had picked up a couple of buckets of asphalt sealant at Lowes, along with a disposable roller. We worked from about 9:00 until about noon, and that counts a break while she went back to Lowes to get another bucket of sealant.. Not bad. About three hours work and maybe $50 in materials and it should be good for another couple of years. And that with the water-soluble stuff that was $16 per bucket rather than the ordinary $8 per bucket tar. Actually, we may put down a second coat this fall just to be sure. We'll probably use the cheaper sealant for that job. I tend to mistrust water-based products versus oil-based ones. I have to admit that it wasn't all that bad. I hate manual labor. I hate being outside. I hate sun. I hate getting dirty. But it wasn't all that bad. Of course, this morning I'm so stiff I can barely move... * * * * * Tom Syroid reports that, contrary to what I'd said earlier, Windows 2000 Professional (NT5 Workstation) does in fact support two CPUs. He installed W2KP on his new dual-CPU workstation, and both were recognized. So, either my informant at Microsoft was mistaken when he told me that W2KP will support only one CPU and W2KS only two CPUs, or Microsoft has changed their minds since then, or Microsoft just hasn't gotten around to cutting multiple CPU support in the betas. * * * * * Speaking of Tom Syroid, he sent me this URL about the release of the Open eBook Authoring Group's draft standard for electronic books, called The Open eBook 1.0 specification. * * * * * This from Shawn Wallbridge [swallbridge@home.com]:
Obviously, Shaw's concern is that people might use their cable modem service to run a full-time server, so I would guess that their restrictions are aimed purely at that issue. A lot of people don't realize how small a pipe many cable modem providers have to the Internet backbone. It's pretty common for a major cable system to have only one or a few T1 (1.544 Mbps) connections to the backbone. Having so much as a T3 (45 Mbps) is extraordinary. Just one or a few cable modem users can easily saturate a pipe that size. So cable modem providers can't afford to have one or a few users running what amounts to commercial web sites on their relatively small pipe. Given the situation as you describe it, it seems to me that your solution number one best fits your requirements. You won't have a DHCP Server running on your local network, but that seems a minor difference. One possibility would be to contact Shaw and request that you be assigned a static IP address. Many cable companies that routinely provide dynamic IP addresses will assign a static IP address upon request, either at no charge or for a few bucks a month additional. As far as WinGate, I don't know the answer to your question, so I forwarded your message to my contact at WinGate and asked him to comment. As far as Shaw finding out that you're running Windows NT Server, I don't think you have much to worry about. Even if they somehow find out that you have an NTS box connected to their cable modem, so what? It's none of their business which client OS you choose to run. They can't prove that it's a "server", whatever that means. The word "server" as they're using it is so ambiguous as to be meaningless. If you were instead using a Windows 9x box with file and print sharing enabled, is that a "server"? It is by any common definition. What about NT Workstation? For all intents and purposes, that's equivalent to NT Server for a small network. Many people build small networks around NTWS as a "server." For that matter, what about Linux? As far as SMP support in Windows 2000 Professional, Tom Syroid found by accident that W2KP does in fact support two processors. I don't know if Microsoft changed their minds, or if SMP support will disappear with the shipping version. * * * * * This from Bo Leuf [bo@leuf.com]:
I don't think there's much question that W2KS will be superior to NTS4 in many respects, nor that Microsoft perceives Linux as a serious threat in server space. Now, if they can only get the product out the door. As far as I know, Microsoft still says that W2K will ship sometime this fall. I don't believe it, though. I think sometime in late Q1/2000 to late Q2/2000 is more realistic. Unless, of course, they decide to ship something they call W2K with key core functionality missing. What we may see this fall is a preview release with a lot of stuff still not implemented. I think that'd be a dumb move, but who knows?
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