Monday - 3 April 2000
Atomized. I was over at Dr. Pournelle's site searching on a link for a keyboard that he was looking for. I knew it was somewhere on his site but not where. I knew it was there because I had sent it to him sometime ago.
So, I figured I would try out his whiz-bang search engine Atomz. Since I sent the link I figured I would try searching on my last name (since it is not common and should not return a bunch of hits). Well, was I wrong. Apparently, Atomz defaults to a "fuzzy" search if it can't find what it is looking for (as far as I can see anyway). So in excess of 380 hits came back. And fuzzy it was. For example, city, st., site, suite, SST, 1st., sweet, SETI, stay, set, sat, swat, and cite. I went through the first 100 hits and then gave up. This kind of search engine is great if you don't know exactly what you are looking for. But even if you do, you may as well as forget using it if this is any indication. YMMV. Not recommended unless you are really desperate.
Oh, by the way, by searching on the word "Aloha" I was able to find it. On the Recommended Hardware Page. And it didn't seem to do a fuzzy search. Don't ask me. Because I don't know. Sigh.
False Alarm. Saturday's mail brought a letter from the University of Hawai'i. I opened it with some trepidation but found only that they have not been able to finish deciding who made it into the Masters of Public Administration yet. They said they will be done in two weeks. Oh well, at least it got my heart going for awhile. Big Sigh.
Speaking of Alarms. A flight of vintage P-40 Warhawk aircraft were seen buzzing the battleship USS Missouri moored in Pearl Harbor yesterday. But not to worry. It was just the start of filming of the movie "Pearl Harbor." Included in the cast are Ben Affleck and Cuba Gooding Jr. Industrial Light and Magic is doing the special effects.
***** Noon Update *****
Whew! Lots going on in the Daynotes Realm. Brian Bilbrey is beginning his dream to be a published author by teaming with Tom Syroid (see Tom's post here). Congratulations and Good Luck, Brian. However, given the horror stories that the others tell about writing a book, please remember to make some time for you and your wife. Priorities. It's all about priorities.
Robert Bruce Thompson and Bo Leuf continued the cat fight as to which browser is alpha dog (to mix breeds if not phylum). Bob came out with what, at first glance, looked like a good point about how all browsers should be able to read pages created by FrontPage just as all word processors should be able to import and read Word formatted documents. The problem with this analogy is that it assumes MS developed and owned HTML just as it did with the Word format. Only. It didn't. Hence, the analogy does not hold up.
Still, to me the question is do you want Microsoft to dominate everything? I don't think so. Otherwise you wouldn't be looking at Linux would you? And how would you like it if Microsoft created their own version of Linux (April Fool's Day notwithstanding)? And what if that became the dominant distribution? Hmmm? I though not. Oh well, use what browser you want. But remember, if you lie down with dogs, don't blame me for getting mange. Or some such.
Times A'changin' I forgot that many of you poor folks had to change your clocks this past weekend. We Equatorians, and Arizonans, don't have to put up with such foolishness. Changing time to suit your needs, indeed. Such wickedness! See a history of this abomination here.
Seeing Double. According to a report by InfoWorld Columnist Brian Livingston ( here), if you have a dual processor system, and you do a clean install of Win2000, it will recognize only one CPU. The procedure to have it utilize both CPUs requires the changing of a driver. Read the article above to see how.
Help Desk Hell. There's an interesting tale of being on the help desk one night when all hell breaks loose due to a DoS attack. See it here at Byte. It answers the eternal question of why PCs hum.
Top / Home / Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday / Fri day
Tuesday - 4 April 2000
Neither Here Nor There. Today is one of those days in which Internet access is spotty at best. So, if you see this post, you know it made it through the minefields.
Having said that, there's not much going on over here. Yes, the judge said MS is a monopoly (well, duh). But I did not see what he is proposing as a remedy to the situation. In fact, it appears that that part will be dragged out over several months. Am I the only one that is tired of this? By the time anything is actually done, the market will have changed so much that it will be "fixing" something that has no relevant effect.
Intraweb. We are making major changes to our Intraweb site and I have until the end of today to do it. So I am out of here.
Mail Call.
From: "Roger G. Smith" [rgsmith@c-gate.net]
To: Dan Seto
Subject: convincing Robert
Date: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 08:44:55 -0500>"On the other hand, I've found trying to convince Robert Bruce Thompson is wrong about anything is like trying to get Salem to like dogs"
Dan,
Note also that Robert thinks nothing about keeping two or three Border Collies as house pets. These points are not unrelated... :-)
-R
To: Dan Seto
From: Phil Hough [phil4@compsoc.man.ac.uk]
Subject: Nerves
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2000 10:28:21 +0100 (GMT)"Saturday's mail brought a letter from the University of Hawai'i. I opened it with some trepidation but found only that they have not been able to finish deciding who made it into the Masters of Public Administration yet. They said they will be done in two weeks. Oh well, at least it got my heart going for awhile. Big Sigh."
I so hate it when they do that. Good luck for the next nerve jangling envelope opening in 2 weeks.
ATB.
Phil
____________________________________________________________________________ Phil Hough - 4th Year Computer Scientist Out of memory. E-mail: phil4@compsoc.man.ac.uk We wish to hold the whole sky, Phone: 07720 291723 But we never will. WWW: http://www2.cs.man.ac.uk/~houghp6 ____________________________________________________________________________----- Original Message -----
To: Phil Hough
From: Dan Seto
Subject: Re: Nerves
Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2000 06:34:39 -1000Phil,
Thanks. This has been, and continues to be a stressful period. I guess the worse part is not knowing one way or another so it is very difficult to plan what I need to do next.
Aloha - Dan
Top / Home / Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday / Friday
Hump Day Wednesday - 5 April 2000
I Robot. I was going through my site stats for 1 April and noticed a "bot" that scanned my site. Now, being scanned by bots is not something new here, but I don't think I've ever seen one that identified itself as "Microsoft URL Control 6.00.8169." I can imagine someone in Redmond going through gigabytes of logs searching for URLs that link to Microsoft sites (or to competitors for that matter). Perhaps the Judge was right after all.
Tip of the Day. Somewhere in my web surfing I read a tip about editing the c:\windows\HOSTS file in Windows. As you Windows mavens know, the hosts file is where you can create a kind of DNS file. In it, you list an IP address and then match it with its domain name. For example: 207.113.118.32 daynotes.com. So, when you use your browser and type in daynotes.com, Windows will check the hosts file first for the IP address. If it finds it there, it immediately uses that to go to that address instead of doing a DNS lookup. As an aside, remember that the file name must be "hosts" without any extension. There is a sample file in the windows directory called hosts.sam that you can modify and then save as hosts. OK, you say. Somewhat interesting but how does this help me otherwise? Well, suppose you deliberately put in an incorrect IP and domain combination. What! You say. Why would you want to do this? Because you are tired of going to infoworld.com and seeing a Ginza display of blinking adds. And by using the following address and domain pair (127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net), you can banish the adds from doubleclick off of your screen. Oh, the 127.0.0.1 address is, of course, your PCs localhost address. But then you knew that already. Thanks to whoever came up with that one.
You've been here before. The idea of personalizing your web experience is part of a slippery slope that can end in the loss of your privacy. Note the Aureate mess. And earlier the doubleclick double-cross. So I guess it's not a surprise that 26 companies announced today the creation of a consortium "to promote the responsible and beneficial use of technology for personalizing consumer and business relationships. The Personalization Consortium will provide a forum for discussion of personalization technology and will develop guidelines for its application to marketing practices that respect consumer privacy." Their web site is here.
SSM. That's short-shrift mode. The update to the intraweb site is done. But I still need to do a dog and pony show of it to the HUs (higher-ups). If all goes well, I will be done with it by Monday. If not, I'll be doing revisions.
***** Noon Update *****
Word of the Day. From the Concise Oxford English Dictionary: cc abbr. (also c.c.) 1. cubic centimetre(s). 2. carbon copy.
It's all about standards folks. If Webster's were to embrace and extend the meaning of the word to mean something else, would you then accept that definition? Perhaps. But then, if you tried to express yourself to someone that did not share your new definition you would not be communicating effectively. In fact, what you were saying, and how it was understood could be two very different things. Hence, standards. If we both agree on the definition of something, then we can communicate. If we don't, life becomes a Tower of Babel.
While I am all for innovation, innovation can lead to chaos. So goes it with Browser Wars, The Phantom Menace. HTML is in chaos because of Microsoft's embrace and extend policy. And its gotten to a point to which people actually think that the way MS does things is now the standard and that if you do it some other way you must be morally bereft, not to mention wrong. Well, ain't necessarily so grasshopper.</sermon>
Speaking of Browsers. As Brian Bilbrey noted, Navigator 6.0 Beta 1 is now on the wire ( here). Installation involves downloading a 200K stub file. You then run that file which goes out over the Internet to download the program itself. I went for the Navigator only install and ended up downloading four more files for a total of about six MB or so (YMWV). The first time you start-up Nav6 it asks for an ID Name and password for some kind of registration. I declined to give anything and canceled that screen. So far, doing so has not harmed anything and I seem to be able to use Nav6 without problems.
As far as the program itself, it looks pretty much like the alpha versions I've been using for the past six months. Yes, they've change the little animated thingy in the upper-right hand corner that sparkles when you're waiting for it to get to a site. But otherwise, it looks remarkably similar to Build 14. And it is still Betaware. So be advised that it can and will blow-up on you. So do not use on a production machine unless you are feeling very adventurous.
As an aside, it is interesting to note that the Mozilla.org site does not appear to have Build 15 available for download. I wonder if this notes a permanent change for the future and how that affects their relationship to the body corporate.
But back to the browser itself. To my eyes, it does render pages slightly faster than Nav4.72. But all I have to back that up is a quick side-by-side comparison. I went to two URLs (microsoft.com and byte.com). And hand timing found Nav6 beating Nav4.72: 19 seconds vs. 22 seconds and 4 seconds vs. 7 seconds in rendering those pages. Obviously, YMMV. And Back Channel email from Matt Beland finds that Nav6 has problems in rendering correctly some pages he's been looking at. And Frank McPherson throws fuel on the fire by saying he's not particularly fond of the UI. So your mileage will definetly vary.
So, should Microsoft be trembling in their pants about the monster from Mozilla? No. It is too little, too late (at least on the WinX platform).
Aloha!
Top / Home / Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday / Friday
Thursday - 6 April 2000
OS Wars, A New Beginning. Wow! First there was the Browser Wars. Now the OS Wars. Yikes! Interesting Back Channel discussion on Linux vs. MS. Now that Win2000 is out, many Daynoters are taking second and third looks at Linux. Is this related? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
But as Robert Bruce Thompson correctly points out, many writers of computer books are at least testing Linux. If for no other reason than there is a market for books on the subject. Now, a more interesting question is why is there such a need? And of course, the easy answer would be that using Linux is so different from WinX that it is almost impenetrable the first time you try to use it. Thus the need for well written How-To books on Linux.
On the other hand, from a users perspective. Is there any reason to move to Linux yet? Not at this point. It's not quite ready for prime time as a desk top operating system. As a network operating system (NOS)? Yes. Desktop no. But that could change sooner than some would think. For that to happen, two things still need to occur.
The installation process needs to be better automated. And the desktop apps (i.e. word processing, spreadsheets, presentation graphics, and databases) need to mature. When those two things occur, the only barrier to change will be inertia and fear.
However, Linux is by no means a shoe-in. Operating systems better than Linux have come and gone (e.g. OS/2). VHS beat Betamax. Ethernet beat token-ring. NT beat Netware. So it will not be an easy road for Linux. But it could happen. And to prepare for such, early adopters are working to hone their skills now. Just in case.
The Cars. No the vehicles. Not the group. It is interesting that the Motor Trend magazine sponsored International Car Show coming to town tomorrow (web site here) is located at the Waikiki Convention Center. Why is this interesting? Because there is limited parking there. In fact, organizers are prohibiting parking except for themselves and the handicapped. Everyone else must park a couple of blocks away and across the street and, wait for this...walk to the show. What was that about being unclear about the concept? Har har har har.
By the way, one summer during my college years, I worked for the parent company of Motor Trend, Petersen Publishing. I can still remember the address: 8490 W. Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. On the corner of Sunset and N. La Cienaga. At least, that was the corporate headquarters (its since been bought out by another company). My building was at 6420 Sunset. I was in manufacturing. In this case, type setting to be specific. Our office took the stories written by the staff at the 8490 building. Converted them to punched tape. And then ran the tape through this huge machine which then printed out page after page of type set copy. This was then sent back to the writers for their proofing and paste-up. I'm sure they do it differently now. But at the time, this was pretty high tech.
Particularly neat was to see the stories, and sometimes cars, three months prior to publication (so as to meet production deadlines). I can still remember seeing one of the new Pontiac Trans Ams being trucked in on the back of an 18-wheeler. Covered with a tarp so no one along the way could see what it was. Flaming red. With a huge decal on the hood.
Other magazines under the Petersen mast head included Hot Rod, Car Craft, Guns & Ammo, Skin Diver, Photographic, and a bunch of others. That was a fun summer...
***** Noon Update *****
Is it Just Me? I guess so. Everyone else seems to be saying that Nav6.0 sucks Mozilla Dust Bunnies though a straw. They say it's slow and doesn't render correctly. And yet. When I go to the site named as showing all these problems it looks just fine to me. In fact, I open four windows. One each with IE 5, Nav 4.72, Nav6.0, and Opera 3.62. And I can toggle between all four and see only minor differences (except for Opera, which didn't render some photos). As noted yesterday, I also did a very unscientific speed test and found Nav6 downloading faster than IE. Further reading of other sites indicates that this may have been based on factors other than the browser.
Oh well, maybe my perceptions are clouded by my using Nav6 (alpha builds) for the last six months and have seen it progress from not even having scroll bars working to where it is today in Beta 1. But I think the scorn that has been shown to this Open Source effort is a bit much. Remember this is a "from the ground up" rebuild of Navigator. It is NOT a continuation of Nav 4.X. Hence, there will be problems and differences. Further, one of their goals is to have a consistent look across platforms. This will tend to make the GUI conform to the lowest common denominator. Having said the above, I will repeat what I've said several times in the past six months. I don't think it matters whether or not Nav6 is any good because it is too little, too late. The War is Over.
Tip of the Day. For Windows 95/98/NT 4.01 SP1. If you want to remove the Documents and Favorites command from the Start menu do the following:
1. Do a backup of your registry. [If you don't know how. STOP!] 2. Run regedit. [If you don't know how. STOP!] 3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrenVersion\Policies [If you...well, you know the drill] 4. Right click on the right pane. 5. Click on New. 6. Click on DWORD. 7. Type in NoFavoritesMenu 8. Set the data value with a hex value of 1 9. Right click on the right pane again. 10. Click on New. 11. Click on DWORD. 12. Type in NoRecentDocsMenu 13. Set the data value with a hex value of 1 14. Exit regedit. 15. Reboot.
See the following MS Knowledge Base articles for more info: Q177332 and Q181342. Use at your own risk. YMMV.
Aloha!
Top / Home / Monday / Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday / Friday
Aloha Friday - 7 April 2000
It's Friday!
USS Hawai'i. The US Navy will announce tomorrow that the third Virginia class submarine to roll down the line will be named USS Hawai'i. It is described as a fast attack sub but it seems to be fitted with equipment more suited for black ops. For example, it has a shrouded propeller to reduce noise and increase performance. It has a mini-sub piggy-backed on to its hull for SEAL assault teams. And it has a special air-lock that will hold a nine-man team. Hmmm. Are they equipping all attack subs thus? If so, one wonders if the mission of the Navy has changed. See a cut-away image here (63K).
SSN. No. This one stands for Social Security Number. The US Social Security Administration will announce today a new web-based retirement calculator designed to give you an idea as to what benefits you may get when you retire. You can see it here.
Word Wide Wait. The morning paper tells of a possible breakthrough in optical technology which may help to speed up the Internet. The process, called electro-optical modulation, allows data rates 10 times what is currently possible while at the same time, using less power. The story is based on a Science article published this month. The abstract is below:
Low (Sub-1-Volt) Halfwave Voltage Polymeric Electro-optic Modulators Achieved by Controlling Chromophore Shape Yongqiang Shi, 1 Cheng Zhang, 2 Hua Zhang, 3 James H. Bechtel, 1 Larry R. Dalton, 24 Bruce H. Robinson, 4 William H. Steier 3 Electro-optic (EO) modulators encode electrical signals onto fiber optic transmissions. High drive voltages limit gain and noise levels. Typical polymeric and lithium niobate modulators operate with halfwave voltages of 5 volts. Sterically modified organic chromophores have been used to reduce the attenuation of electric field poling-induced electro-optic activity caused by strong intermolecular electrostatic interactions. Such modified chromophores, incorporated into polymer hosts, were used to fabricate EO modulators with halfwave voltages of 0.8 volts (at a telecommunications wavelength of 1318 nanometers) and to achieve a halfwave voltage-interaction length product of 2.2 volt-centimeters. Optical push-pull poling and driving were also used to reduce halfwave voltage. This study, together with recent demonstrations of exceptional bandwidths (more than 110 gigahertz) and ease of integration (with very large scale integration semiconductor circuitry and ultra-low-loss passive optical circuitry) demonstrates the potential of polymeric materials for next generation telecommunications, information processing, and radio frequency distribution.1 TACAN Corporation, 2330 Faraday Avenue, Carlsbad, CA 92008, USA. 2 Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute and Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. 3 Center for Photonic Technologies, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. 4 Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
Volume 288, Number 5463 Issue of 7 Apr 2000, pp. 119 - 122
Mail Call
From: Bo Leuf [bo@leuf.com]
Organization: Leuf fc3 Consultancy
To: Dan Seto
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 09:36:41 +0200Dan, you've just seen a glimpse of the future...[referring to yesterday's post about the car show - Ed.]
One of my glimpses some years back was when a Japanese businessman I was teaching English told me that he paid more per month for a parking space on the street outside his home than he paid in rent for the home.
Another glimpse was into what happens when world-wide car production exceeds demand by 30%, as it has for years now. Does this press down the price? Not exactly. Do the factories produce less cars the following year? No... What happens to the unsold cars? You don't really want to know.
--
"Bo Leuf" [bo@leuf.com]
Leuf fc3 Consultancy
http://www.leuf.com/----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Seto
To: bo leuf
Subject: Re: walk to Car Show
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 06:18:39 -1000I have heard of the parking problem in Japan. I understand that in some cases, you have to prove that you have parking before you can buy a car...
To: Dan Seto
From: Jan Swijsen [qjsw@oce.nl]
Reply-To: sjon@svenson.com
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2000 13:20:08 +0100>Linux ... Not at this point. It's not quite ready for prime time as a desk top operating system.
I sometimes think : Win9x? No, it is not ready for prime time as an operating system.
--
Svenson.Mail at work : qjsw@oce.nl, or call : (Oce HQ)-4727 Mail at home : sjon@svenson.com----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Seto
To: Sjon Svenson
Subject: Re: ready ?
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 06:21:51 -1000I couldn't agree with you more. Until that is, I try installing Linux. Or try installing a program on Linux and find I have to download and install specific libraries. Then make, then install, etc. etc. Maybe MacOS? <g>
***** Noon Update *****
From: Mark K. Smith [mksmith@aroundthelake.com]
To: Dan Seto
Subject: Subs
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 14:26:50 -0500I came across some where that the Navy had retired all the old subs set up for SEAL team work. I believe there was only 3(?).
Mark
----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Seto
To: Mark K. Smith
Subject: Re: Subs
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 09:42:13 -1000Mark, Thanks for the info. It was interesting to look at the cut-away of the sub and see the changes made so that it would make "near-land" operations easier. The only thing I didn't see was a flat bottom, so that it could rest on the sea floor without listing over.
Aloha - Dan
Date: Fri, 07 Apr 2000 22:37:34 +0100
From: Sjon Svenson [sjon@svenson.com]
Organization: Lair
To: Dan Seto
Subject: Re: ready ?That is only installing. You shouldn't judge an OS by the way it installs.
I remember everybody complaining about the problems with installing OS/2 (v2.0) as compared to the ease with which Win3.0 installed, way back in computing pre-history (1991/1992?). I tried to install Win on my 386 box (33mHz, 4MB + 200MB disk) and it didn't run, either hanging in the splash screen or quitting after the splash screen, regardless if I used MS DOS or DR DOS -any version-. OS/2 on the other hand installed correct, first time.
OS/2 Warp V4 didn't install as easy but I have never needed to reinstall it on any computer. Win95 installed much easier (although, I had the upgrade so reinstalling meant first DOS, then Win3x, then Win95) but I have had to reinstall it several times.
So for Winxx an easy install is important because you are bound to do it repeatedly. For Linux, you do it only once and that is it. Unless you do it as entertainment and then you aren't looking for easy stuff.
If you throw out an OS because of installation problems we should only be using Macs. Or Amiga's or Atari's or Acorns, or ... But not PC's.
And if you don't like down loading components you shouldn't select Win either. Whenever you mention a problem to a helpdesk they tell you to download new drivers or patches and try again. Because 'maybe it works then and if it doesn't we have a few gig of other files you can download till you give up' is a common helpdesk technique these days.
I call an OS ready for prime time is it runs reliably. If you only 'reboot' when you want. And if it handles errors and problems in an intelligent way (instead of with BSOD type stuff). " you program has performed an illegal operation. OK" doesn't cut it for me.
The o <#$?!#!^&$60;>>>
Oeps, I just fell of my soap box :-)
----- Original Message -----
From: Dan Seto
To: Sjon Svenson
Subject: Re: ready ?
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 11:17:41 -1000Hi Sjon,
I'll try to respond to your comments in the order that you raised them:
> That is only installing. You shouldn't judge an OS by the way it installs.
You are of course right. But the install is the first thing you do with an operating system (unless it comes pre-installed). And if you can't install it. You can't run it. So it is the thing you remember the most. But I guess the experiences you've had differ from mine. From Win3.1 on (Win286 is another story), I've had very few problems getting Windows up and running. On the other hand, Linux, or perhaps as I've said before, the applications that run on Linux, have been a disaster. For example: Problems installing X-Windows is a bad joke on everyone. So too drivers for sound cards. And video cards.
> For Linux, you do it only once [installing] and that is it. Unless you do it as entertainment and then you aren't looking for easy stuff.
My experience definitely differs from yours here. But that may be because of my problems with the install and my ignorance on how to fix them. Perhaps there are easier ways of getting Linux to work. But the last time I tried installing it I think I did the clean and re-install dance at least four or five times. This does not engender confidence in a product. But again, this may be more a reflection of my inexperience with Linux.
> If you throw out an OS because of installation problems we should only be using Macs. Or Amiga's or Atari's or Acorns, or ... But not PC's.
Actually, I'm not throwing out any OS. If that's the impression I've given I apologize. What I'm saying is that Linux is not ready for Aunt Minnie to use. Does that mean I'm not recommending it for the adventurous? Of course not. In fact, when 2.4 is generally available and there have been 10 or twenty patches for it, I will download and [try] to install it again. I just don't have the time to play with it now because I have work to do. And the work that I do runs on WinX. Not Linux (and in fact, since we have IBM DMA PCI token-ring NICs at work, I couldn't use Linux here even if it were the easiest OS to install).
I hope I'm not painting too negative a picture of Linux because, as I've said above, I plan to install it on one my PCs at home within the next couple of months. All that I'm saying is that, as a general use desktop operating system that your Aunt Minnie can install and use, Linux, and its applications, have a ways to go.
I really didn't want to get involved in the OS Wars (since I was already tired from the Browser Wars). But I agree with Bob Walder amd Matt Beland (I think!) that you should use what helps you to get your job done. Whatever that is. Thanks for your comments. I do not disagree with them.
© 2000 Daniel K. Seto. All rights reserved.