Last Updated
Sunday, 04 March, 2001
at
10:22 PM -0600
|
Last Updated |
The weekly Diary of a PC Geek |
Monday, February 26, 2001
Lookee Here! I'm Back! Hey, so's Landon... Many years ago, I had an uncle (unrepentant tinkerers run in the family) who was frustrated with the squirrels getting the feed meant for the birds in his yard. Rather than get a shotgun (he being in a relatively civilized and upscale neighborhood where discharging a firearm was likely problematic - despite his claim that his house was there first, and the blasted neighbor who'd built there later was at fault for lining up his bedroom window just past the birdfeeder as seen from his porch...), he came up with a rather ingenious use of an old garage door opener. It would lower a lid onto the food when the squirrels got close... I'm wondering if the principle could be adapted for small children. Some sort of X-10 controller, perhaps embedded magnets in the house frame, and steel underpants for the children - OK, metal vests, then. The kid starts getting into trouble, and the magnets are engaged to hoist the little hiney out of harm's way... Something to consider, if you're pondering parenthood. If you're already there, it's probably too late. Couple of bungee cords and a very loud air-horn work just about as well.
After much speculation on my part (and not a little cursing at the innocent, in this case), I called in to the fine folks at my local ISP this evening. Years ago, my very first job down here in the Twin Cities was working for Software Etc., as a part-time associate. I got promoted out of that store into an assistant manager job, then from that store into a store manager job, then from that store to a higher-volume store as an assistant manager, training to open a new store. That higher volume store is the one I started out at (Edina, for those interested; the others were Minnetonka and Eden Prairie). The gentleman whom I displaced at Edina was a fellow who later took the assistant manager spot.
Then he got smart, and got smarter than me, and went to work for a small, but growing, local ISP. That company grew, and grew up, and he became their chief operations officer. And tonight he answered my phone call, spent fifteen minutes troubleshooting with me, and got me back on-line. Turns out the recent precipitation has hosed up phone connections around town - my local phone company, being one of the cheapest outfits you're likely to find, tends to use leaky boxes, so the moisture has bolluxed up the connectivity. I'd connect at speeds of 44K and higher (once at 48,880), but never ever get past 450 bytes exchanged.
One thing I've learned that I'd better document somewhere - if you're using a windows system (I know, I know, RSN, RSN) and you get a message "the modem is no longer responding" you have one choice - shutdown/restart... Unless you bring up the task manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del on the 9X systems) and look for RNAAPP. It's a dial-up network (DUN) connection run amok. Kill it, and your modem should respond again.
See, I am too useful... More later this week once I've had opportunity to chew over the developments of recent days on Mr. Thompson's and Mr. Ricketson's sites. I'm 150% behind Bob T on this one. I trust Microsoft to screw me, blind, and not even care that they've done it. And I'm working for a Microsoft Solutions developer! Linux, however, just ain't quite there yet. I've got children, educational software, and other things that they, frankly, enjoy. I'm liable to be greeted with great howling wails if I tell them "Sorry, Tarzan's shot, we're running Linux now" and I'm just not going the Dual-boot route. One CPU, one OS. That's my rule. And Windows NT/98 is the end of the line with Microsnot, as far as I'm concerned.
Support your local ISP, you'll likely pay a little more, but you'll get a hell of a lot more. Trust me on this one.
Other than that, today was rather fun. My Watchguard firewalls showed up at work today. Suggestions from an evil friend of mine some months ago led me to call the company and say "hey, I'm testing, can I borrow..." And I got a "sure, sign here". What a racket.
Just a few more evil notes for you.
Last year, I was walking around outside without a coat. During the last four days of February last year, we had high temps of (if I remember correctly) 52, 49, 57, and 61 degrees, respectively. And on March 3, which was a Friday last year, I hopped on my brand-new bike, and peddled like a dying man DOWN a hill to a restaurant to share a birthday lunch with my lovely wife.
Ain't gonna happen this year, let me tell you. After yesterday's snowstorm, which topped Saturday's ice storm, we're sitting at 24 inches of snow-cover right now. And we're about to enter our snowiest month. Last time we had this much snow cover this late in the season was in 1967. Now, I'm not going to blurt out any secrets here, but I find it rather coincidental that we're having that much snow and my wife's birthday is coming up at the end of this week. Further deponent sayeth not. And, likely as not, tomorrow, when I return home for a Mardi Gras dinner, I'll be faced with the Lorena Bobbit Home Vasectomy kit. Yikes.
And before I forget; between the cold and the snow cover, and the expected snow cover, we're going to start battening down the hatches. One interesting little reminder for you - if you think you might be facing a flood and you're in danger, it's probably too late to get insurance. Most normal homeowner policies in this part of the country do not cover flooding as part of normal coverage. And, in most cases, you've got to have the policy in force for between 30 and 60 days before it will pay. Since our floods will likely be late March through May, get cracking, or get a storage locker on higher ground.
That's enough for me this evening. More thought to be applied later this week, on a more regular basis than the last couple of days... G'nite.
Tuesday,
February 27, 2001
FAT TUESDAY...
Ah yes. If you're fortunate enough to have a copy, watch Ladyhawke tonight. Or this weekend. One of the greatest Catholic lines ever. "Wot? Oh God! Is it Lent again already!"
As a child, I grew up in one of the more conservative Catholic areas of the country. Vatican II was a rather recent development, even after ten years (yes, the Catholic Church had operated with pretty much the same rules for fourteen hundred years or thereabouts, and it had only been ten since V2, but come on - Minnesota was only given statehood in the 1850s. As they say about Italians - "we've had the Church on our backs for far to long to have it on our minds"), so for many years as children we would dread Fridays. Not because of what they represented, but because as kids, we had about three options for dinner come Friday night - Breakfast foods (scrambled eggs, maybe), peanut butter, or cheese.
Meatless Fridays were no fun, and I think it was the fact that we couldn't have it that focused attention on it all the more. But we survived. Of course, all those old feelings of dread come up, especially today, "Shrove Tuesday". I hate giving stuff up. But I'm told it makes me a better person. So we'll see.
On the other hand, I think I've found perhaps the truest form of torture existing in the world today. A Furby. Eldest daughter had one as a birthday present some months back and enjoyed it - until it bounced on it's pointy little head and stopped interacting with the wide world at large. Stumbling through the mall the other day investigating various things we needed (and getting junior monkey some exercise), we found a real Furby for something like $8 or $9. So we got it. And once we inserted the batteries, this thing didn't shut up. It's almost like having a baby. However, after careful reading of the manual, we've learned that ignoring it, combined with forced closing of the eyes, eventually knocks the thing out. One takes what one can get.
Other than that, today was the day I fired up my test firewalls, and said, quite plaintively, "what the hell have I done?" I've got to get with our network gurus back east tomorrow and get them to carve out a couple of IP addresses for me so I can lock down some of these devices for testing - the goal is to put the firewall up on the network to block off another portion of our network. Should be interesting to try. If they're unwilling, we've got a completely separate T1 for testing. Kinda nice to have what you need in order to test stuff...
Well, this has gone on long enough. My goal was to be in bed about a half-hour ago. Yes, I know - Wild Mardi Gras night in the Dominik household. But hey, I'm tired, the boss is back tomorrow, and we've got A) the Eldest's school conference (not a bad word yet), and B) I gotta get some laundry done tomorrow night. After that, we've got Thursday, which is Cookie Day (the Girl Scout Cookies arrive, and the 140+ boxes now need to be delivered, then there's C) Friday, and D) Her birthday. I'd best get shopping, eh?
Wednesday, February
28, 2001
Ash Wednesday
Well, today was one of those that kept whipsawing back and forth between bad and good.
I woke up this morning at 4:00 and had to spend some time in the smallest room in the apartment. After that, I went back to bed and was almost asleep by 5:15 - when the damned alarm went off.
Back to the bathroom, got dressed and back to the bathroom. Then, I went outside and tried to start the car. Today would be the day (he said, respectfully) that we hope that we're done with the double-digit below zero crap here (he said, again respectfully, just in case them that order the weather are reading).
Took about ten minutes to get the car started, and then putzed my way into work. Got there an hour late and started working on the bloody firewall project again.
I thought it was pretty funny, though, when I sent the help desk an e-mail asking for a couple of dedicated IP addresses I could use for testing. They fired back (within five minutes) that they were the experts in the whole thing, and I could ask them my questions, and they'd probably know the answers off the tops of their heads.
So I asked my questions - and the e-mail was opened a minute after I sent it. And then, absolute silence from the other end. All day. Curious, don't you think?
And then we got home in time to go to Rhiannon's parent-teacher conference. All good news except for her spelling (we haven't been drilling her as much), her homework (she sometimes dithers during class and homework sessions), and she chatters her head off in Art class.
So, we've got some issues.
Though at least I don't live near a fault line (I think)...
Now, on to more momentous developments. Robert Bruce Thompson, whom I respect highly, has decided to go the subscriber-supported route for his web sites. Now, I know most of you that read me (except for mom and dad) work with computers. I know how hard I've got to work to keep up with what little I can in the computer world. Mr. Thompson isn't a know-it-all, but he's damned close when it comes to computers.
To go the subscriber-supported route is a bit chancy. You run the risk of alienating significant numbers of readers who do stop by to find out things, but expect to get it for free. And that, my friends, is what killed the dot-coms, and will re-invent the internet in the coming years.
Knowledge that's given freely is, occasionally, valuable. Knowledge that's given away, however, is rarely valued. Mr. Thompson is asking for an amount that, quite frankly, is disgustingly small. I visit that site daily, and the message boards whenever I have a problem (which is regularly). Asking 6.5 cents (US) a day is pretty cheap, given the fact that you get a heck of a lot of brains there.
So if you get a chance, follow the directions and sign up. And don't be surprised if more of the smart fellers go that same route. Me? Nah. Charging you to read my blatherings would be like... well, the only one I can come up with is "pay toilets" which isn't quite right. But you get the idea.
I'm off to rescue the laundry (I hope it's dry) and go to bed. I need the sleep, tomorrow's cookie day. 140+ boxes. Yikes.
Thursday, March 1, 2001
Tonight's going to be short shrift.
I cannot for the life of me imagine why on earth I thought delivering 140 boxes of cookies to 41 different addresses was going to be a piece of cake. I have no idea what was going through my head. I'm thinking wind, at best.
Yes, the cookies are here. One Hundred And Forty boxes, or quite nearly twelve cases. Good grief.
Other than that, I got the firewall connected, and somewhat working today. That was fun.
And I did an awful lot of thinking. That's the way it goes when you're waiting for computers to reboot, and reboot, and reboot.
It seems to me (he said, getting ready to bite the hand that fed him) that the whole web advertising industry as it presently exists is dying a pretty ugly death. It's painfully obvious that the second-round internet investors (the people who got into the later "dot com" mess) were looking to pull off the same miracles that the first round of people did. And while lightening might well strike twice in the same place, it's pretty unlikely that it will strike twice in the same place from two different storms at the same time.
Advertising on the web has a couple of major problems. First of all, no one trusts web advertisers. No, it's not that we don't trust the products they advertise, it's their damned advertising. From Amazon hitting returning customers with higher prices than new customers to the advertising methods and practices they use, people do not trust web advertising.
Upon JHR's recommendation, I downloaded and installed AdSubtract personal edition on one of my computers. I was rather shocked to find that in a day, during my normal surfing, it blocked well over 1000 ads. 1834, to be exact. And along with that I'd selected to block cookies from certain sites - it blocked well over seventy.
Out of curiosity, I went through my cookie folder - and removed over nine hundred cookies (out of about eleven hundred) from sites that I either don't use regularly, or did not want on my hard drive. And that, combined with the way web advertisers target people, has me very irritated.
You see, with television or newspaper advertising, I get the same ads as my neighbors. I see the same commercials, the same newspaper ads, and we're all getting the same information. With the web, it's different. Sites can tell where I came from, where I leave to, what I do, and I'm not at all sure I like that.
And that's the bottom line issue with the current crop of web advertisers. There's a huge gap between the information predators, who actively hunt out the information they feel they MUST have in order to survive, and those that are merely there to inform.
It seems to me that responsible companies could come up with a reasonable set of guidelines for web-site behavior. Since I have every confidence in their ability to blow me off, here's a suggested "code of conduct" for 21st century webvertisers...
It's not much, but it's a start. And please - if it can't be displayed in a single screen in a normal sized font, it's too damned long. Simplify. Besides, if it's too long, you're blithering too much.
Sorta like this tonight.
One last note - though I know our winter hasn't been as cold as some or as brutal as others, today marks the one hundred and fourteenth straight day since we've seen a temperature of forty degrees or higher. November 6th, if I recall correctly, was the last "warm" day we had. We've had snow on the ground now for one hundred straight days. Last "winter"? Thirty nine straight days below forty. Fifty four days of snow on the ground. And just to really tweak you, one year ago tomorrow (roughly) we celebrated my wife's birthday by hopping on our new bikes, riding, in shirtsleeves, down the hill we live on to TGI Fridays, ate lunch, and then I shoved the bike back up the hill - where I found, much to my great delight, that the rear wheel was bent, and THAT'S why I got winded riding DOWN the big freaking hill. Good grief.
Though I really shouldn't complain. I could have a day like Mr. Lemming's - blowing NICs left and right - sounds like a normal day for me, but gee, I thought I had a corner on that little market. Nice to know the disease is communicable.
And finally, proof that Mr. Murphy lives here... Last night, I was getting kicked off the net regularly - like every five to seven minutes. So I decided I'd download a fairly big file, figuring that either it would disconnect and I'd miss the download or I'd get the whole thing and it would disconnect shortly thereafter.
And you got it. I completely forgot about it last night, and this morning, and when we got at home tonight after running errands, She Who Must Be Obeyed starts hollering at me - "you were connected for twenty-two straight hours!" Thanks, Murph. Got me into trouble yet again, you schmuck.
Oh well, at least we didn't have earthquakes here. G'nite.
Yippie Skippie it's...Friday!, March 2, 2001
No, I won't skip tonight. Though I'm sorely tempted. Why is it that six hours of "work" can drag for what seems like a week, but six hours of laundry can rip past in what seems like five minutes? I don't get it either.
And we've got two oddball issues to handle today - Firewall testing is going pretty well... I even did a screen shot today to scare people - a screen run up to 1600x1200 resolution, and something like 40 process windows open (had it set up to use Lucinda Console for the font, 5 point, which, the setup was kind enough to tell me made each character five pixels by three pixels). They were all just pinging a gateway (Ping -n 100 192.168.1.1 in a looping batch file, basically). It wasn't eating up a whole lot of bandwidth, and now I see why - it was coming back with a "destination host unreachable". That'll teach me to show off...
Anyway, two issues that pissed me off today. The very first was from a fellow in Michigan, an elected state representative, who believes that Eminem, that rather unintelligent individual, should be assessed an additional tax, as his songs and such fall under "hate speech". While I find the fellow's topics and subject matter objectionable (neither one of my children will be allowed to listen to that crap in my home), taxing certain types of objectionable speech is not on the slippery slope towards censorship - it IS censorship, pure and simple.
I might not agree with this dork's choices, but assessing him an additional tax is wrong. That's censorship. Pure and simple.
However, by the very same token, he should be held responsible should there be a direct causal relationship between his "crap-rap" and any sort of crime. He should be sued, not taxed, and he should be held responsible in a court of law.
Here in America, we have the legal premise "innocent until proven guilty". While this is often perverted to "innocent as long as the lawyer can find a loophole", there is still the presumption of innocence. And this fool, like so many others, deserves the protection of the first ammendment.
As has been said by far better than I, "freedom of speech isn't the ability to say what you want. It's the ability to stand up and defend someone else espousing a position you find objectionable, because if you don't, no one else will either."
So that was point number one.
Point two, for fun and profit, should be fun. With Wednesday's discussion of subscriber-supported sites, and yesterday's slamming of webvertisers, I guess you're all here wondering what else I'll go after...
The bottom line is that I'm not going to run anyone up today. I'm going to point out some clearly obvious (to me, at least) things to watch for. No, I'm not pretending to be an industry analyst. I'm just trying to point out what's obvious, by now, to just about everyone... Burning through someone else's cash while you bust your butt and collect less in revenue than you are spending to collect it isn't a business model, it's a disaster.
So let's look at some of the more obvious things that I expect to see happen in the coming years.
First of all, manufacturers sites have GOT to improve. If you produce a product and have a web site, why don't you have your product manuals, product registration, and other information right there on your web site. Lord knows you've got it in enough documents on your network, copying it over to an HTML form isn't all that difficult. Heck, if need be, I'll personally deliver unto you a monkey who works cheap (only $2500 a week) and he'll cut and past the text for you!
And once they improve, the smart money would be to standardize a little. It worked for Macintosh, for Windows, and for thousands of other areas/companies. Let's put a "products" link on the front page. Let's put a "returning customer" link where, if the customer chooses, they can connect to your site in one of three ways - 1) A "persistent" connection (via a cookie or something else) which would allow them "one-click" access to your site, 2) A "regular" login with information stored in a database on your server, modifiable by the users at their request, and 3) a "transient" login which would record only information for that session (basically not a returning customer welcome, but it's up to the user to select what you know, NOT up to the advertiser).
Some further standardizations? How about a "contact us" link on the front page going to a simple list of phone number, fax number, generic e-mail (if need, specific is better), and ADDRESS. Even better would be a map of the region around your office so people can get close and go from there.
Beyond that, let's lay down a few other ground rules.
1) if I go to your site and you pop up another window when I get there, you're gone. Pure and simple gone. Why? Because I've seen these damned things - one site I was on a few weeks back had a window that sat, in the background, barfing up other windows twice as fast as I could kill them - for every one I killed, two were spawned. Finally, I went in and killed IE.
2) Take a step back. Realize that each visitor to your web site might well be visiting there for the very first time. And if they are, then you should respect that, and them, by not sending down tons of crap. I've found the most efficient way for me to surf the web when at home is to open up multiple windows - sometimes up to twenty. Then I go back to the first window and see what's there. Yes, I saturate a 44K connection to my ISP, but that's what I'm paying for is the bandwidth, number one, and number two, if the servers and sites were more responsive, this would be a much happier camper.
3) Kill Flash. As a technology it offers some promise. If used in the right environments, Flash can be a wonderful tool for conveying information. As a welcome to your web site, it says nothing more than "I've got too much money, and fewer brains than shoelaces - some web designer talked me into making you download a five-meg file as a greeting." Think of it this way - you meet someone for the first time, and instead of shaking hands, they hand you a 75-pound dead weight. You have to hold that weight while they stand there, staring at you, for two minutes. If it slips or falls, they walk away. If you do manage to hold it, well, then, congratulations, hello, hi, how are ya?
Where is all of this going? Look at your standard magazines. Most are half-and-half, maybe a little less. A completely unscientific survey of magazines in my home showed that one was 63% advertising (PC Magazine), while another (people) was in the 52% range. Content draws people to the magazines, but advertising pays the bills. And the authors of that content get paid pretty poorly.
So what's going to come of it? Simple. People like Dr. Pournelle and Robert Bruce Thompson, and others, will adopt the subscription model of doing a web site. While there's some "pay forward" involved (Dr. Pournelle's work in Byte was what led me to seek him out on the internet; his site linked to Mr. Thompson's, and from there I found Tom Syroid and the rest of the merry band of lunatics known as the Daynoters), this cannot last forever. If domains were free, Website space was free, and all of the rest of life was candy and donuts, we wouldn't have to work for a living.
Bottom line is that we get what we pay for. People who subscribe to Mr. Thompson's site will get his best efforts - he can't afford to give them out for free; the man does have to eat (granted, if he had to cook for himself we'd all have many more entertaining stories about "Bob Recipes" and I suspect he'd be a much grouchier man given the lack of variety in his diet), and he's too smart to give it away free.
Knowledge is worth what you paid for it. Occasionally, you get something for free. Back in the "dark ages" of the internet, there were no "one-touch" buttons for getting on the net; there was a whole hell of a lot of trial and error. You had to know something to get on the net. Once that "barrier to entry" was broken down by AOHell and others, the content became less valuable.
Most of the time, you and I learn "the hard way". Sure, you can seek guidance from books, other people, and occasionally you can noodle it out on your own. But to "learn" a thing is to do a thing. And to truly "learn" a thing is to do it, tweak a few things, break it, fix it, bust it up some more, then unbust it, re-break it going at a ninety degree angle, re-fix it, bust it into little tiny pieces, and then strap the whole mess together with duct tape. Then you truly know a thing. If you can do it only because you've held your mouth just so, then you don't truly know a thing.
That, or you're using Microsoft products.
But once in a great while you'll find a "Teacher". Not a hack putting in their time for tenure and retirement benefits, nor someone who is hoping to keep food on the table until they've found something better, but someone who cannot help themselves - they HAVE TO teach. They can't help it. You soak it up through your skin, whether or not you want to.
And on very rare occasions, you find people like Tom Syroid and Bob Thompson and Jerry Pournelle and Chris Ward-Johnson and Brian Bilbrey and Bo Leuf and Dave Fahrquar and Jon Hassell and al[l the others (guaranteed I missed a million or so who will now be pissed off, but please, accept my apologies, I was running out of "ands" in the budget) who are passionate about what they do and capable of teaching you how to do it and you find yourself looking at something you've never even considered trying, because they made it sound easy, fun, and better than what you're staring at right now.
And when you do, and when it works, do me a favor - thank them. They've earned it, and let's be honest - people like Bob Thompson aren't going to come along every day and say "hey bud, wanna use my brain? It's less than seven cents a day." If you don't jump on an offer like that, please set down the sharp objects you might have, and call for some help - you shouldn't be out alone, or up this late, with an IQ like that. In fact, I'd strongly encourage you to not stand still while outside - it's likely you'll take root. Or get mowed.
That should be enough for today. Don't know if there will be much tomorrow. We're hoping to sleep in, then get up late, head to St. Cloud, and celebrate a couple of birthdays. We'll be back late, probably.
So enjoy... G'nite.
Saturday,
March 3, 2001
Happy Birthday, Ann!
Yup, still alive. Just too damned tired to post. More tomorrow. And yes, look at the time, up top. I've really got to automate this better. FrontPage is slick for concentration on content, rather than fiddling with all the little frou-frou HTML bits, but still. I should be a real man and get back to the original Internet Composition. You know, they say that you haven't really surfed the web until you've done so in the original Klingon... ;-)
One other piece of advice? Never, ever, ever take a two hour (or hell, a half-hour) car trip with a Furby in the back seat. Damn thing rode home in the trunk, and I swear I heard it chattering away back there.
Sunday, March 4, 2001
Gee. I don't know why
I'm so tired.... ha!
Let's see... Got to bed about 3:30 am, woke up around 8:30 am with small, semi-intelligent creatures making repeated entrances to bedroom to report weather, television status, discovery of candy (oops, should have hauled the trash out this morning), and many other wonderful developments - when you're a child. As an adult, you just don't care. You, or at least I, need my beauty sleep.
Since that was unlikely to happen, I finally rolled out, showered, got
dressed, and with beautiful weather (not nearly as warm as yesterday's
forty-degree temps, but still wonderful compared to below-zero), we headed off
to "Skateville". Back, in the late seventies and early eighties,
there was a huge explosion of roller-skating rinks in this area. As a kid
(and older, into my early twenties), we would go to "The Skatin'
Place" in St. Cloud to zip around the rink. 
I'm not exactly sure of the French translation of the phrase, but the American version is "the more things change, the more they stay the same". It was very surreal to sit there, listen to the damned Village People doing "YMCA" and watching all the lunatics skate in a circle - right down to the direction they skated in. Good grief.
I guess I'll confess a wee bit of the reason we were so late in getting home last night - we started chatting about a potential business a friend of ours has identified, and I might get involved in. Yes, computers, you funny person you. But we'll see how it goes.
To the right, there, is what it looked like at the end of the day - admittedly, from a speeding car, but the colors are still pretty.
Other than that, I've got to go to bed and get some sort of stability in my daily routine. Then again, me and stability are probably not going to appear in the same sentence all that often without the word "not" involved. Enjoy it while you can.
Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 John
P. Dominik. All rights reserved.
Opinions expressed herein are my own, and my fault.
For further information, check out my
other home page.