THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR
Second Week of August
An irregular journal of things computerish.
For the BYTE story, click here.
Previous Weeks of The View 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
If you want to PAY FOR THIS there are problems, but I keep the latest HERE. I'm trying. MY THANKS to all of you who sent money. I'm trying to make up the mailing list. There are enough that it's a chore, which is not something to complain about. Some of you went to a lot of trouble to send money from overseas. Thank you! There are also some new payment methods.
This is a day book. It's not all that well edited. The regular COMPUTING AT CHAOS MANOR column, 4,000 words, will appear monthly when i get orbanized.
I try to keep this up daily, but sometimes I can't. I'll keep trying.
It was a great beach party. Dr. Lilly doesn't look 83. Fiorella was delightful, as usual. And a great time was had by all. I find Francis Jeffery one of those people I haven't known long, more than 3 months or so, but it's as if I have known him forever. Good thing I don't live closer: I suspect we'd spend entirely too much time just talking and not getting our work done. So it goes.
New program came in, like a voice from the past: Time Machine Earth, from Sageware, 1282 Garner Avenue, Schenectady NY 12309 518-377-1052, no net address or price I can find, but I got a new copy in today's mail. This is a program that lets you run rime backwards in geological ages. See what the arrangements of the continents was millions of years ago. I used to have bumper stickers that said REUNITE Gonwondoland! Which an astonishing number of my friends took as some kind of political slogan. You can also run Time Machine Earth forward to see, for instance, what happens to the Great Rift Valley running down the Jordan River and on through Africa over the next millennia. I had this long ago, and ran across the manuals when cleaning out the back room; sent a note to the above address when I couldn't find a web site, and a copy arrived this morning. Great program if you like that kind of thing.
Monday, August 10, 1998
A
fternoon. I keep getting mail from people who ask why I put up with Windows/PC stuff. Get a Mac and forget it all. Given the level of stress involved with Windows 95 stuff I thoroughly understand.The latest problems have to do with the CD/R which I can't get to work nohow. I am about to give up. I can lock up the machine, get rid of the network, but I can't burn a CD.
That turns out to be driver problems: if you have and adaptec 2940U2W you MUST get new drivers off their web site to use with CD/R drives. What you need is the 7800 family windows drivers, as well as some new flash proms for the 2940 although that latter may not be necessary depending on when you got the controller. The Windows drivers are necessary. Without them you can lock up the machine pretty good.
I sure found out the value of Drive Image. Works, works fast, and was able to restore like lightning. Highly recommended.
This may be the last daily VIEW for a couple of weeks. I'm off to blitz a novel, and I won't have Front Page working on the portable. I will create a page I can ftp to (at least I hope I can). It should be fairly plain text, and we'll link to it, but don't expect much. No mail at all.
For reasons not clear to me I'm a bit under the weather. It's unseasonably hot, and I think it's mostly lack of exercise that's got me. I just don't get out much. The dog hates it too: last night he practically pulled me out of the house at sundown to take a turn around the block. Far cry from my usual 4 miles a day, and I think that's what's got me.
Winnie is stable and seems able to burn CD's although that isn't terribly reliable, but that may be the particular CDROM I was trying to copy.
I need to get a scanner working for Roberta. There are about 20 administrative details to take care of before I can vanish to finish, or at least do most of, Mamelukes, the next novel in the Janissaries series. I'll be back toward the end of the month. About then I'll post the column I have sent off to the overseas BYTE magazines. I'll also do another to send them.
DAVID EM has done a Siggraph report, and I've got that up now. I'll try to add a few remarks in the morning, but mostly this is it for the next two weeks. Just heard Salinen conduct Bruckner's 4th at the Bowl. Great thing to do. I do like living in Hollywood.
WE PASS NOW TO Friday 21 August. See VIEW.
