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CHAOS MANOR MAIL
A SELECTION
Mail April 26 - May 1, 1999
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I try to answer mail, but mostly I can't get to all of it. I read it all, although not always the instant it comes in. I do have books to write too... I am reminded of H. P. Lovecraft who slowly starved to death while answering fan mail.
If you want to send mail that will be published, you don't have to use the formatting instructions you will find when you click here but it will make my life simpler, and your chances of being published better..
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Monday, April 26, 2999
Subject: Installing Windows 98 on systems with two HD's
Jerry,
My wife had the exact same problem [that you did] when she attempted to upgrade her system to Win98. She is a proud woman and refused to let me help her (I am a Sys Admin by trade) for over 2 days. Same symptoms you reported; the installation starts out ok, you get about 2 screens into it, then the hard disk access light locks on and you get a cryptic error message. After two days of searching the web, calling Gateway tech support (who were completely worthless by the way), and looking at the MS TechNet CD she gave in and let me look at it.
I suspected some sort of disk problem so I booted from my trusty DOS disk and ran FDISK. I looked at the partitions and noticed that the primary partition on each drive was marked as active. This made me think that Win98 was getting confused during the installation process as to which of the active partitions it was supposed to install itself on. I deleted and recreated the partitions on the second drive (after backing up her 10GB of data) and tried the install again. Again no luck and when I ran FDISK again the primary partition on the second drive was again set as active!
At this point I could see that Win98 was having problems with the 2 disk configuration of the system so I simply yanked the second HD out of the system and ran the install again (one thing I have learned in 12 years in the industry is that sometimes brute force is the best answer). With only one disk in the system it worked fine and when I put the second disk back in it recognized it without a hiccup. All told it took me about 3 hours of mousing around to get it working, my wife (who is a C programmer by the way) would never have made it. This is one of the reasons I choke whenever some fool talks about user friendly Win98 is.
Richard Bender
"I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve, I have a history of taking off my shirt!"
Thanks. Glad to see others have the problems too. I have to say that Win 98 Second Edition is a great improvement over the first edition. And I am in a rush, alas.
===
I just found a new search engine. It has some drawbacks (I can't find a way to search for a phrase, for example), but it's updated very frequently and has all your stuff on it. It's not as good as you having a search function on your site itself, but until that happens, it works well enough. Go to:
http://easyresults.com/text/index.html
and in the search box type d:jerrypournelle.com (which restricts the search to only your site) followed by whatever words you want to find on your site. The search implicitly ANDS the words you enter.
It works pretty well. For example, using the search string
d:jerrypournelle.com racing cow fireball
tells me that there are only two pages on your web site that mention both racing cow and fireball, while:
d:jerrypournelle.com monk cell
shows the 19 pages on your site that mention the monk's cell, and:
d:jerrypournelle.com monk cell cow
finds the five pages that mention one or another cow in monk's cell.
It works pretty well and seems an adequate substitute until you get your search engine running.
Bob
Robert Bruce Thompson
Cool! Thanks, that should help a good bit. We're still working on setting this up with its own search engine. My fault more than anyon else's but as usual I am dancing as fast as I can…
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Tuesday, April 27, 1999
You probably get a thousand recommendations like this... so here’s one more...
I read you problems replacing your copy of Warlords III. Try Buy.com. I have used them for videos and computer hardware so far. They provide easy tracking of your order, though they tell you that you can only start tracking packages 48 hours after you place your order. Twice now I have received packages BEFORE I could track them. That is fast. They also do the right thing for shipping... they base the shipping rate on the weight of the entire order and change $4.95 for the first pound and $0.75 for each additional pound. Even if the order is shipped from different warehouses. This is better than a couple of other places I have dealt with that charge the $4.95 for each item. That gets expensive for things like DVD movies. Oh, and they have a lot of DVDs for $14.99 (still more than they are worth as you must know, but that is another story).
Anyway, check them out. I have NEVER had a problem with them, and they have been faster than I thought possible twice now. And they had Warlords III for $13.95 when I checked (4/27). In your own words, "highly recommended."
Good Luck,
Scott Lewis
Actually it all worked out fine. I got both the replacement for my disk (which I didn't need; hours after I sent in the order, I found the original. Why not?) and the new scenarios for War Lord III. All came in the mail properly, and the credit card charges were right. The feedback is awful but then it is for my subscriptions too.
I have got some new store software at the Internet World show and as soon as this sinus infection lets me think again I'll try installing it. Should make it a LOT easier to subscribe.
==
It appears I was wrong about the Windows key:
Jerry,
In your article you wrote that you find the WinKey obsolete. Well, for me it is a very handy key. It is more than just Ctrl-Esc. Try a few combinations. (Win-E : Explorer; Win-D : Minimize all [and back];
Win-F : Find a file) You can’t do those with Ctrl-Esc. Also replaces Win-Tab/Space the Alt-Tab function sometimes. But than I must state I try to use the mouse as little as possible. I find it to interruptive.
I also use the Ctrl key a lot. Copy/Cut and Paste are sometimes only available by using the Ctrl-C/Ctrl-X and Ctrl-V combinations. These are always there as long as it is possible to select the text in question.
I agree with you about the Caps-Lock key. But there are some other annoying things about keyboard layouts. For instance the size of the Enter key or the location of the ‘\’ key. The last one moves all the time. OK, I know the DOS times are over, but as a programmer I use it regularly.
regards,
Arjan Snoek
Hi Jerry:
In some of your articles you say the windows key on keyboards is nothing but Ctrl-Esc. Well, that’s not completely accurate. The keyboard doesn’t send a Ctrl-Esc and you can test it by pressing the windows key and not releasing it. Nothing happens until you release it (Ctrl-Esc inmediately pops up the start menu). Sure, this doesn’t make the key any more useful and I had never used it... until I read about some undocumented functions you may have not heard about:
WK-R: Run Dialog
WK-E: Explorer Window
WK-F: Find Files Dialog
WK-Pause: System Properties Dialog
WK-D: See Desktop
WK-M: Minimize
(WK = Windows Key)
These functions really save some mouse clicks or keystrokes, so maybe you will find them useful.
Cheers,
Luis Alberto Rojas M.
So. It looks as if I were mistaken. Most of my keyboards are older (and solid) that don't have a Windows Key; certainly control-escape brings up the start menu. But the other combinations don't work. Thanks for telling me.
===
"Netscape is annoying me. If you tell it to look for pcexpo.com it says it can’t find it. Type in pcexpo and it fills in to pcexpo.com and then can’t find it.You must type in pcexpo, then by hand erase the .com, and then it finds it fine. This is very untestedly dumb. They must not have tried to use it themselves. I will have to get 4.51 and hope the AOL man won’t be in it."
Jerry
You have to uncheck "Enable Internet Keywords" under smart browsing and Netscape will have no problems finding the site. I unchecked this some time ago when I realized it was just slowing things down by going to Netscape to do a keyword search first before going directly to the .com site.
Dick Jansky
Thanks. I suppose I should have known that. It's odd how many things one ought to know but doesn't. I don't explore enough I fear.
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Wednesday April 28, 1999
I think we could amend the rant a bit. First, though, define neo conservatism. As I understand it, conservatives want things to remain the same as they were before, whereas liberals want to change things, everything, just for the sake of change. Also, this liberal ideal about me first, and how I feel, and damn everbody else, is what really precipitates these terrible events. We are teaching our children now that it is more important to feel good than to do good. Respect for another doesn’t even enter the picture. Achievement is no longer rewarded, it is becoming a punishable event: because Johnny doesn’t feel good about himself when Janey gets an "A" and he doesn’t. I would hazard a guess, but I bet some kids were teased in your school by their classmates. And how many of them became mass murderers because of the harassment? I was one of those "nerdy" kids in school, but I have yet to shoot someone because I didn’t belong to their group. I for one would like to go back to the idea that one works hard, reaps the reward, and has the right to keep it. Right now the only one that applies to is the government: they work hard at taxing us for their spending habits, they reap the reward, and we have no rights anymore to complain about it. Slowly, and assuredly every time there is a media event like this school shooting, our rights as Americans as designated by the Constitution are being legislated away. And we are blindly letting it happen, because we are told it is for our own good. As if we couldn’t determine for ourselves what is good for us. I don’t condone it in any way, but I can understand anti-government violence. It is only a matter of time before we have another Oklahoma event.
(Paragraph structure, yes I know, but it is a rant after all)
George A. Laiacona III
-----------------------------------
"Relax. This city has been here for a hundred years. How much damage can a few criminals do in only eight hours? Here, have another donut."
- Officer Axly
"Congratulations, you are now King’s Men! Get weapons and armor from the pile of bodies on your right. The fight is down the corridor to the left."
- Paul Maul, Battle of the Red Temple membership drive "That looks pretty fatal-I think you have to return to the character generation section."
- One character to another
Paragraph structure? We don't need no stinking paragraph structure.
Neo-conservatives: the people calling themselves that are mostly old left who had a conversion somewhere during the Cold War. Norman Porhoretz of Commentary is I think the one who coined that term. William Kristol, editor of Weekly Standard and son of Irving Kristol (who may be the sanest man in America) is another, although his views are hardly identical with those of his son. Their conversion is complete: now most neo-conservatives are for bombing Yugoslavia until the pips squeak, free trade uber alles, expanding NAFTA, and worrying little or not at all about the effects of economic dislocations on the social structure of the country. They may or may not be against abortion but are certainly against its use as a means of birth control. Many of their positions are indistinguishable from XIX Century Liberalism: unlike other conservatives they have no particular reverence for the past.
Paleo Conservatives read Chronicles, worry a lot about social dislocations, and think we probably put too much emphasis on economic matters. They tend to be isolationist in foreign policy. They revere the past, and some are indistinguishable from reactionaries who want to set the clock back without quite knowing how. (Many of us would prefer large parts of the past, but I for one don't know how to get there, and I certainly don't want to give up anti-biotics, good dentistry, and small computers.) They are adamantly against abortion although a few are Constitutionalist enough to realize that it's not a Federal matter; Congress has no power to command or forbid abortion nor does the US Supreme Court. For good or ill, that is left to the States.
Constitutionalists, and I suppose I am one of those, think the Philadelphia Constitution of 1789 was about the best instrument of governance ever devised in this imperfect world, and imperfect as it is, we aren't improving it by nationalizing education and social policy; indeed, most changes we have made to that Constitution have been for the worst. (And no, I don't want to re-establish slavery, so those tempted to twit me that way can save their fingers…)
My own views about the Littleton matter will be in this week's Intellectual Capital. I was a nerd among jocks, and having made nitroglycerine when I was in 7th grade I knew precisely what I could do about those who were making me wish I were dead. I also knew about butyl mercaptan and nitrogen tri-iodide. That I didn't do anything lethal is a commentary about a different era.
===
What that Windows key actually does
Intrigued by this topic, I dug deeper (thanks, Google:
http://www.google.com/ ). According to MicroSoft in their PC98 keyboard specification, it is indeed it’s own set of scan codes, and the left and right Windows keys are different scan codes. I see no way of simulating the keypresses with other keys: the scan codes were not normally used prior to the Windows Key. See below for links to the spec.Here are some excerpts (sorry about the embedded TABs):
> Windows® Logo Key Combination Functionality in Windows® 9X
> Windows + F1 Display the popup menu for the selected object.
> Windows + TAB Activate next Taskbar button.
> Windows + E Explore My Computer.
> Windows + F Find Document.
> Windows + CTRL + F Find Computer.
> Windows + M Minimize All.
> SHIFT + Windows + M Undo Minimize All.
> Windows + R Display Run dialog box.
> Windows + PAUSE (Break) Perform a system function.
..snip...
> Key Event Supported Windows® Support Application Support OEM System Utilities
> Windows Logo Key open the Start menu
>
> Windows logo key 9 shortcut functions Win + 1-0 reserved for OEM
> Combinations
>
> Application Logo Key context menu on selection context menu on selection context menu on selection
>
> CTRL, ALT, varies by application varies by utility
> SHIFT+Application
...snip...
> Special Keys Reserved for OEM Usage
> Ten (10) Windows® logo keys combinations have been reserved for OEM use.
> These keys can be used by OEMs to provide keyboard hotkey controls for
> Speaker Volume, Monitor/LCD Brightness or Contrast, Password, or other
> value added functions.
> Windows® Logo Key Combination Status
> Windows + 1 reserved for OEMs
> Windows + 2 reserved for OEMs
> Windows + 3 reserved for OEMs
> Windows + 4 reserved for OEMs
> Windows + 5 reserved for OEMs
> Windows + 6 reserved for OEMs
> Windows + 7 reserved for OEMs
> Windows + 8 reserved for OEMs
> Windows + 9 reserved for OEMs
> Windows + 0 reserved for OEMs
> Windows + all other key combinations reserved for operating system
PC98 Links:
http://microsoft.com/hwdev/desinit/scancode.htm
http://microsoft.com/hwdev/download/desinit/WHQLkeys.zip
- Barrie
Thanks. We're accumulating quite a lot about those keys. And yes, I now agree, it's worth having them on the keyboard. Alas, my keyboards don't have them, and programming the Ortek to emulate them looks impossible also. Ah well.
There are more of these below as well as
more in next week's mail.
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Thursday April 29, 1999
I was wandering around ZDNet looking at the latest gizmos they lust after there, and saw a reference to a keyboard with a cult following. Recalling your "thing" about keyboards, and your recent discussion of washing them in the shower, etc. I thought that you needed to see this URL:
http://www.zdnet.com/pccomp/stories/all/0,6605,397006,00.html
Seem to be expensive, but, hey, this may be what you need, and if you need it ENOUGH...
Burt Kaufman
Fair warning. Don't try to print that page. With all the included ads it becomes enormous. I'll get one of these and we will see. Thanks.
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Friday April 30, 1999
The mail has been a bit specialized or thin or both today. Or perhaps I am merely more dense than usual.
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Entire
contents copyright 1999 by Jerry E. Pournelle. All rights reserved.
Comments and discussion welcome.
