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CHAOS MANOR MAIL
A SELECTION
Saturday, June 16, 2001
NOTE that I was in New York until Friday.
CLICK ON THE BLIMP TO SEND MAIL TO ME
THIS IS THE CURRENT MAIL PAGE. The current page will always have the name currentmail.html and may be bookmarked. For previous weeks, go to the MAIL HOME PAGE.
Fair warning: some of those previous weeks can take a minute plus to download. After Mail 10, though, they're tamed down a bit.
IF YOU SEND MAIL it may be published; if you want it private SAY SO AT THE TOP of the mail. I try to respect confidences, but there is only me, and this is Chaos Manor. If you want a mail address other than the one from which you sent the mail to appear, PUT THAT AT THE END OF THE LETTER as a signature.
PLEASE DO NOT USE DEEP INDENTATION INCLUDING LAYERS OF BLOCK QUOTES IN MAIL. TABS in mail will also do deep indentations. Use with care or not at all.
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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SKIP TO FRIDAY: I am at PC EXPO
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Tuesday,
SKIP TO FRIDAY. I was in New York at PC Expo all week
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You're almost there... Go to Friday
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Friday June 25, 1999
Finally, I bought GoBack after your review. The first day I installed it
it saved me. During installation of IE5, the machine froze and would not reboot. I simply reverted. it saved a
lot of anguish. One thing, though: I have found that on my Win 98 system I must disable GoBack before using Norton
Utilities Speed Disk. When I don't, optimizing never finishes. The drive just reads and writes for literally hours.
Thanks,
Stan
Stanley Sourelis [s.sourelis@worldnet.att.net]
They were at PC Expo with some revisions. I'll install it on my Win 9x systems. It alas doesn't work on NT, which
is where I needed it last week. Sigh.
You must also disable GoBack when updating the OS. And Norton sees GoBack as a virus… which in a sense it is, since
it takes over the boot sector. But it does work.
===
I've been following your scuffle with FP with interest.
Two remarks about Visual Page I don't understand. The one about the restriction on the size/length of the file
and the one about not being able to check spelling.
I use Visual Page 2.0 and have no trouble with page length. To proof this I loaded your current mail page and added
the Saturday/Sunday page (see attached zip file).
Also, I can spellcheck by pressing F7.
Good luck.
Koen Broersma
E-mail: K.W.Broersma@iName.com
Home: http://kwb.cjb.net
Visual Page has a Spellcheck but it's batch, not continuous. I have got used to Word telling me when I get a word
wrong and fixing it. But of course with Front Page 98 I couldn't compose in FP much anyway: I had to paste from
Word.
Visual Page doesn't understand Word very well, and font changes and like that aren't preserved. Of course all those
font changes imported from WORD cause Front Page to write a lot of html code that many don't like; perhaps I'm
better off without them.
If there is and UNDO function in Visual Page I can't find it and I need that BADLY.
All I can tell you is that I can't get that page into Visual Page. Sigh.
===
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Saturday 26 June 1999
Dear Jerry,
Happy to hear of your progress on BURNING CITY. Let us know the ISBN and whatever details as soon as you can;
I'll buy it even without a 10% or 30% or whatever the seller (Borders/Barnes&;Noble/Amazon/whatever) gives me.
I have just finished reading your Front Page saga, and it is one of the reasons I have a love/hate relationship
with Microsoft. Other than specific product issues, my biggest gripe with Microsoft is that once you install something,
you CANNOT REMOVE THE DAMN THING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE! As you said, much of Frontpage works great and when they get
it right things are wonderful. But if (God help you) they mess something up, you're in a world of hurt. (FOUR
MINUTES for four bleeping pages? Who is the idiot that let that through quality control?)
I had much of a similar problem with a version of DirectX; it was causing problems with some games but I couldn't
get rid of it or its droppings no matter what. (Hint: If you have irreconcilable problems with DirectX, try installing
a desktop theme. Weird, but in my case that solved all my problems. Go figure. Usually the advice is to get
rid of themes and cursors and pointers when you have problems.)
Philosophically, I hate for the government to be doing antitrust stuff, but whenever I get bitten by whatever evil
genius at Microsoft who puts crap like this out, I want the government to really whack Microsoft. I do like many
Microsoft products. I used Internet Explorer 4.0 in preference to Netscape because, ironically, it had better
Java support. I use Word 97. I use Excel 97. But I hate like the dickens to have to have Internet Explorer to
install MS software, and I hate them putting revisions into their applications that update the operating system
without telling me. And their HTML-based help systems for Visual Basic 6 and other products sucks dead bunnies.
I have a test Linux system at home and if for no other reason than because of this stupid operating system update/DLL
hell garbage I wish I could make it my main system. <sigh>
Oh well. If nothing else, the government antitrust action may have the effect of making Microsoft at least try
to be a kinder, gentler company.
William Harris [williamharri@earthlink.net]
Interesting points. BURNING CITY will be next spring in hardbound. Save up some money. I'd love to have a big hardbound
sale. There will be neat maps -- I am drawing them now.
I am still fighting the Front Page battle. My general conclusion is that if you don't use the Extensions, it's
a pretty good program. But…
===
A note from Barrie Slaymaker:
Well, I'm not sure if it really is for real...
Sean McCune wrote:
This is for real...but I thought it was kind of amusing...
I have some friends who are connected with Franciscan University of
Steubenville One of them sent me this... It seems net.geeks are going to
get their own patron saint. Maybe we can pray to him to eliminate spam...or
Y2K...or for increased bandwidth...
SAINT ISIDORE CANDIDATE FOR INTERNET PATRON
ROME, JUN 24 (ZENIT).- The "Sunday Times" has joined the proposal of the
Internet Observation Service that St. Isidore of Seville, the first
recorded author of a database, should be the Internet's patron. The British
publication states that a spokesman for the Pontifical Council for
Social Communications confirmed the reception of many petitions in favor
of this Spanish saint and Doctor of the Church, who was born in 560. St.
Isidore was a publisher of scientific topics and very influential in
Medieval culture. He was also the author of many books on human
learning, ranging from agriculture to medicine, from theology to
domestic science. St. Isidore succeeded his elder brother, St. Leander,
in the government of the diocese of Seville.
===
>Thus I cannot tell you how Novell intends to survive when microsoft decides
to incorporate >naming services and more security into, say, Windows 2003.
Jerry,
Two words : Installed Base.
You'll find Novell NetWare in a lot of networks around. The main problem with networks today is that DP people
aren't asked anymore when networking decisions are taken. One disadvantage of PCs at the desktop seems to be that
anybody using a PC claims himself to be able to decide what's good and what's bad in computing.
("I have 95/98 at home, easy to handle. NT looks the same - so NT server must be as easy to handle. And it
also says Microsoft on the box, so I can't go wrong...")
Novell has great products - they just do not know how to sell them. In fact, if you want a LARGE network (let's
talk about 50.000 users and up) while still being able to administer it easily from any workstation on the net,
Novell might be the only affordable alternative. Novell's NDS (directory services) took them years to perfect -
when NetWare 4 was introduced, it almost ruined the company. Nowadays, Novell seems to know how to make directory
services work. There is nothing like it to be found elsewhere - and Microsoft Active Directory (acronymed MAD by
some people) might LOOK like it on the sorface - but is in reality just the domain model in disguise. NetWare 5
is on the shelves for some months now - Win 2000 as a server with Active Directory is still vapourware.
Sure, there are a couple of things I complain about in NW 5, too - but for professional
networks, it's a broken drum. (It cannot be beaten - thanks go to Terry Pratchett... )
Best,
Jens Stark [Jens@Stark.net]
PS: You talk about educators slaughtering up math. Here, they do the same thing, just with German. Pupils in the
first couple of grades are not expected to know the correct spelling of anything. They are asked to write as they
think it might be written.
This might "take stess off the little ones", as one brain dead teacher was quoted, but it cannot lead
to anything but failure later in life.
Well, yes, I see little to disagree with. And I was in fact impressed with Novell at the show except for the silly
umbrella trick, and how could they know it would have that effect? Felt sorry for them, I did. But I went to their
press room and talked with their gurus for a while, and I think they are on the right track.
As to education, I could write all night about it. There have been three organizations with similar structure: the US Post Office before it was privatized; the Soviet system of agriculture; and Big Unionized Organized Education. All seem to have similar success. Of the three, the third seems more entrenched than ever.
==
And now a very good letter on Front Page:
With regard to the long letter you published 6/20:
"Now, tell us what does work."
I think a lot of the confusion exists because FrontPage can be used in two distinctly
different ways:
1. FrontPage 98 as a stand-alone client = good (maybe even "very good")
2. FrontPage 98 on the client-side with FrontPage Extensions running on the server = hideous
Running stand-alone, FrontPage 98 is a very good product. It does everything we want it to do-decent quality page
creation and editing; recalculating links when we add or change a page; date/time stamps; an ftp front-end that
manages changed files in multiple directories, and so on. Granted, it generates sloppy code, but who cares? It
does the job.
All of the problems we've had have been caused by our attempts to use FrontPage as a client for the FrontPage extensions
running on the server. The only reason we wanted the FrontPage extensions was to enable site-wide searching, which
FrontPage implements as a server-side function that requires the extensions. The comments you've made about FrontPage
and site size apply only if you have the extensions enabled. Used by itself, FrontPage can manage a site of any
practical size.
So, my recommendation for anyone who wants to create and manage a web site, whatever its size, with minimum effort
is to use FP98 in stand-alone mode. But under no circumstances have your web provider enable the FrontPage Extensions
for you. It's easier, quicker, and less painful just to shoot yourself in the head.
As far as FrontPage 2000, I think the jury is still out. It has some very nice enhancements compared to FP98, but
you also lose some things that I really liked about FP98, notably the All Files view. I have little doubt that
FP2000 will work properly if it is installed cleanly and used with a web site that does not have FP extensions
enabled.
Bob
Robert Bruce Thompson
thompson@ttgnet.com
http://www.ttgnet.com
I intend to give Front Page without extensions one more try. I also have Dreamweaver and Hot Metal, and I intend
to try both of those, too. Visual Page is OK for lightweight stuff but it's not going to handle what I do. Writing
raw html is a job for specialists, and that ain't me. Well, we will see.
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Sunday June 27, 1999
I'll spend the day fixing things, and with luck tonight we'll get this place back on schedule.
Dr. Pournelle,
I'd like to confirm your experience with Win98 Second Edition. I found the upgrade went flawlessly on my system
(homebuilt using an ASUS P2B motherboard, 350MHz PII, 128 MB SDRAM) and the improvement in stability obvious from
the initial bootup. My system is networked, is the Internet conector, and I use it for database development, web
design, etc. and i.e., lots of multi-tasking stuff going on all the time. It just doesn't GIF anymore. A great
bug fix, and I was happy to pay the $20.
I also have Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 as a dual boot on the machine. After 20 years of computer experience I can almost
make it print and find the modem. Almost. Microsoft has nothing to worry about in the desktop realm from Linux,
despite all the adolescent blather from its critics. (In fact, check the Usenet listing for Linux - everyone has
trouble making it do much more than boot as a desktop system.) The only way to to make Linux a viable desktop alternative
is to have a huge corporation filled with intelligent people who want to become rich take over its development.
Microsoft perhaps.
Donald W. McArthur
http://www.mcarthurweb.com
"Give a man a fire and he's warm
for a day, but set fire to him and
he's warm for the rest of his life."
I like your aphorism. Caldera is doing better with Linux, but the most important development will be Rebel which
is Corel's Linux box, with full Corel support, and will come preinstalled Linux; when Crel has Office Suite 2000
preinstalled on a decent Linux box all off the shelf, things may change. Having said that, I am still working with
Linux because there are very speedy advantages, but I don't know enough to make it my working system.
We have Moshe Bar writing for BYTE now, and we are very much following Linux at BYTE. And I'm torn between Windows
98 2e and Nt 4 for my newest box, and I am inclining toward 98; more in View.
Entire contents copyright 1999 by Jerry E. Pournelle. All rights reserved.
Comments and discussion welcome.
