| Friday, February
9, 2001
Column is on the wire. Cleaning up.
While I certainly cannot claim
comprehensive testing of Word vs. Staroffice, I can offer the observation
that with Staroffice 5.2 I haven't seen Staroffice choke on a Word
document yet. Your mileage may vary, of course. Staroffice 5.0 and 5.1
were different beasts in that department - they did have serious problems.
Indeed, Staroffice 5.2 allowed me to finally completely scrub Windows from
the machines here.
<disclaimer> All opinions expressed here are
based solely on the author's personal experience, and are in no way to be
considered the product of exhaustive testing. </disclaimer>
Tom G.
Now that is interesting. I downloaded and tried
Staroffice 5.0 and hated it. Now I'll have to see where I can find 5.2 and
give that a whack. Thanks.
Dr Pournelle,
I paid again. I have just re-upped my subscription
for another year. I enjoy the site and keep up the good work. Here is a
web site with a good satire (I hope) on ADHA.
http://www.cma.ca/cmaj/vol-163/issue-12/1557.htm
Mike Plaster
Thanks. The letters may be more informative than
the article... It's also an interesting format for a journal.
I know you're skeptical
regarding evolutionary theory wrt. speciation. Perhaps the following will
provide a bit of grist for the mill --
http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/ur-pse020601.html
Alan Bonebrake
Well, I am skeptical about the mechanisms
proposed by the standard theories of evolution, and very much so about the
adamantine political correctness as if the theory of evolution can't stand
competition. As to this particular mechanism I'd have to think about it. I
suspect Greg Cochran will find it interesting.
I also have problems with loading
a Windows 95 machine. I was one of the early purchasers of a system with
Windows 95 preinstalled. Upon first boot-up you were required to copy 34
diskettes with the Wind 95 system cabs. The first hard drive change on the
machine really caused me grief. One of the early diskettes had a write
fault and there was no way to load 95. I went out and bought a copy of the
win95 upgrade. On it is a copy of Explorer 3.0, it is stand alone and can
be loaded seperately. You had to check the Internet Options box in Custom
so this had to be very early indeed. You can update Explorer from there to
Explorer 5.0 which, as of my last attempt, still downloaded an
installation file that can be run from the machine. .
BTW to upgrade the hard drive I loaded an old copy
of Dos 6.0, reloaded Win 3.1 and upgraded. What a pain that is and I've
had to do it four times (twice for new drives, once for clean-up and once
for a system scrub after a virus infestation). Why does Microsoft do these
things? I not only waste a lot of time but had to pay $149.00 cdn for the
upgrade, (The full version at the time sold for $299.00 cdn and I just
couldn't bear to pay it) I'm also still waiting for a response to my
e-mail asking for a work around for the above complex installation.
Allan Mason
It may be possible to download an IE Upgrade and
then run it without being connected to the net but I can't figure out how.
Worse. IE 5.5 is unstable and uses all the resources of an older Win 95
machine and MUST GO. I am now looking to see what I can put in its
place, and HOW TO GET RID OF IT. On a 16 MB machine (and I don't recommend
anyone keep a 16 but there's a reason here) IE 5.5 simply takes over and
destroys everything else. It has to go. I'll then try installing 4 from
the 98 upgrade disk. We'll see.
Microsoft.net is not a wonderful idea if they
abandon all those places -- like schools -- that aren't going to be
connected to the Internet.
Dear Jerry,
I heartily agree with your review of Intel's 815EEA.
I bought 27 boxes in November based on that motherboard, for two
classrooms and some office machines. I had a local whitebox builder make
them up to my specification for my particular needs, but I didn't see
mention of two possibly relevant issues (I realize space constraints still
apply in the new BYTE format).
1) The 815EEA with the onboard 82559 10/100 Ethernet
adapter supports Intel's PXE (pre-boot execution environment) 2.0
specification. This is *VERY* supported by Microsoft, in concert with the
Remote Installation Service (RIS) in Windows 2000 Server. I used this in
my classrooms to get 22 workstations up and running with NO CD-ROM or boot
floppy necessary. They boot off the network (it's on the option list next
to CD-ROM), use tftp to get the basic install files going, then finish up
off a mini-Windows installer.
It's VERY fast, and as long as you have
ActiveDirectory (which I've grown to love) and DHCP up and running
properly, life is good. The biggest problems I've had have been in
integrating new drivers into the install images and at the same time
remembering to cycle the BINL service (it hooks to the single instance
storage service - it's a good thing). This comes in handy for the
technical classroom, since blowing away student installs of Server and
restoring to classroom specs would otherwise be quite time consuming.
2) The 815 chipset has an integrated i752 video
controller - basically the successor to the i740. If you use the onboard
video (my boards have the Digital Video Out connector for flatscreens, by
the bye) it defaults to using shared system memory. For the 13
workstations in my large classroom, I spent about $20 extra and got the
Kingston 4 MB card that fits in the AGP slot. Intel calls this the
Graphics Performance Accelerator, and claims it improves performance by
about 20%. I am loath to take the overall performance hit of sharing main
memory with the graphics subsystem (I hated that on Macs as well) so it
was an easy purchasing decision.
With Celeron 600's, 7200 rpm UDMA WDC drives and 128
MB of RAM, they are EXCELLENT general purpose office machines, perfect for
the office automation classes we teach.
Just wanted to bring those up; if you ever wanted to
raise some contentious issues, I think RIS would make for an excellent
adventure.
Best Regards, Brian
Brian Fulmer Computer Gym Training Center 711 N.
Court, Suite R Visalia, CA 93291 Phone: 559.733.2706 FAX: 559.733.2707
http://www.computergym.com/
Thanks for all the details. I've pretty well made
the D815EEAL my "standard" for new systems here.
Talking about building a
machine from ancient parts...
I had a 150 mhz mother board (with 64 meg RAM) and I
decided to load Linux on it, but then decided to try Windows ME, Windows
2000, and WIN NT 4.0. I added a new Western Digital drive (30 gig) and
used the special EZ disk to format each partition to 2 gig, FAT16 (for the
WIndows NT 4.0 portion) and stated by loading a fresh copy of WIn 98. Then
Win NT 4.0. Then Windows 2000.
It seems to me another Daynoter, Dave Farquhar, had
dual boot capability with WIn95 and Win98, but I tried just installing Win
ME in a different directory. No bueno. So, it is either ME or 98.
I then added Mandrake 7.2 Linux. It comes with a
pile of disks, but it seems one must use the Lnx4Win (Linux for Windows)
if one plans to add Linux to a machine already running Windows. Also,
Linux must be added last: any other Windows programs will wipe out the
boot loader.
Everything seems to work with 64 meg. I'm not that
impressed with Win ME. The drivers don't seem available, and the Windows
ME disk couldn't find a driver for my modem or video card. And the
installation seems to take forever! (Of course, this is still a slow
machine).
I did like the Star package that came with Linux.
Word processor, Spreadsheet, etc. all seem very similar to the other, more
common suites.
I would really like to compare this installation
with a newer processor and more RAM....
Dave Wootan
Jerry, I just saw Mr. Brian Britt's
reply to one of my earlier letters. The
source for that bit of information is a friend of mine named Tom Holsinger.
He was one of FEMA's volunteer civil defense trainees in the early to
mid-1980s. When I called him about it, he told me that he recalls it being
in the Wall Street Journal in ~1985, and it may have been cited in Alex
Cockburn's book "THE THREAT" as well. I asked him to drop a note
about it, since he has a copy of Cockburn's book. As for his testing
assertions regards the Minuteman, to quote an old General: "The only
true test is combat." Working in the military procurement field, and
extensive readings on past military procurements, leaves me completely
cynical regards testing claims made of major weapons systems that are not
1) backed up by combat performance, or 2) long operational service that
uses the weapon system in a role that closely approximates its intended
wartime environment. We have never fought a war with a Minuteman, and pray
to God, we never will.
We will never know if a full up Minuteman III will
work under combat conditions launching from standard silos by line crews
in a nuclear environment, with its motors and staging working, its
guidance functioning properly on an "over the north pole"
trajectory, with its bus deploying its RVs properly, and RV fusing
detonating its warheads at programmed altitudes.
Point in fact; even under the current testing
guidelines, we don't know if the Minuteman III is accurate. The following
three paragraphs are from a larger article I cut and pasted from the
Defense Dept's Early Bird clipping service:
"Defense Week February 5, 2001 Pg. 1 Air
Force Okayed ICBM Upgrade Despite Unproven Accuracy By John M. Donnelly
Just over a year ago, the Air Force okayed a $1.9 billion production plan
for a new nuclear missile guidance system, even though the system hadn't
been tested enough to prove that it met the accuracy requirement, Defense
Week has learned. The upgraded Minuteman III ICBMs may yet turn out to be
accurate, but there isn't enough data to prove it yet, the Pentagon's
former top tester says. The Air Force says the NS-50 guidance system is
accurate, but acknowledges that more tests will bring greater
"statistical confidence." Despite the uncertainty about a
"key performance parameter," Boeing, which makes the NS-50, has
begun building more than one-third of the 652 required guidance units. The
unresolved questions about the Minuteman III upgrade's accuracy have not
been previously reported. The NS-50 guidance sets are the latest example
of a military system being built whether it has passed muster or not. The
General Accounting Office, in a Jan. 17 report on Defense Department
management, reiterated its longstanding criticism of the Pentagon's
tendency to buy before it flies, or at least before it flies enough."
Trent J. Telenko
Well with luck and the grace of God we will never
know if the Minuteman system works. I was a small part of the design team
for the original Minuteman command and control system. We sure hoped it
would never get an operational test.
for your 16 meg win 95 machine,
the correct browser is Opera. Version 5 is now available free of charge.
It works.
It has full javascript support, uses Sun's java
runtime if you want that, does cascading style sheets etc etc etc. Now a
competant and mature.
www.opera.com
Boatright
Well the problem was that we needed IE 4 or
better for a program that we wanted to run; I agree Opera is a great
browser for systems with limited resources.
I believe I should be able to tie 2 or 3 computers
(and maybe, a DSL modem through a Linksys router) together into a
"workgroup" using ethernet 10/100 cards.
I have tried several times over the last 2-3 months
to accomplish this by entering network settings into Win 98 with no
success.
I use Chaos Manor as my "home page" and do
understand how busy you are, but I am now frustated enough to ask for your
help.
I used Windows for Workgroups in the 1993 - 1995
period to group 3 computers and share files and printers. My basic problem
with Windows 98 is that I do not understand the rationale behind
Microsoft's networking controls. I have checked several books on
networking at Fry's, but I saw none that covered the simple Workgroup
approach. I would like to configure an old computer as a Linux server (I
have Moshe Bar's article on the subject saved), but hesitate when I can't
even get the simple approach to work.
Bill Mackintosh
First of course you must have a NIC in each
machine, and those have to be connected to a hub (I am presuming you
aren't trying to use Thin net and coax cable, which has to daisychain).
You have to install the NIC as hardware. You must then go to Control
Panel/Networks Configuration tab and install Client for Microsoft
Networks. The NIC hardware should appear in there also. You want to have
Dial-up Adapter installed, and Internet Connection Sharing (that's add
device under that tab). You should install the TCP/IP protocol. It
should have installed NetBEUI automatically, and in fact that will work
for internal file sharing, but you need TCP/IP for sharing an internet
connection.
Once all that is done on each machine:
Windows 98 creates workgroups: just go to Control
Panel/Network, the Identification Tab. Give the machine a unique name like
"Regina" or "Galacticus" or R2D2, and give it a
Workgroup name. Now do that with each machine, giving each a unique
name but the same Workgroup name, such as Macnet or Flooblefleck. Give
each system its own unique name but the same Workgroup name. If you had a
real Domain you'd give the domain name. Now reset each machine. I tend to
shut them down entirely and turn them off when first doing this.
That should do it. I am writing this off the top
of my head, and I may have left something out, in which case I am sure a
reader will correct me...
Dear Dr. Pournelle:
Your struggles remind me of a Murphy's-type law we
discovered when I worked for a NASA contractor. I have shamelessly
appended my name to it --
Nofel's Law of Digital Upgrades [Hardware and
Software]: Any upgrade process will devolve down to the need to format a
floppy disk.
Corollary to Nofel's Law: If you don't have to
format a floppy, then you'll have to download a multi-megabyte something
from an FTP site during the heaviest traffic time during the day.
Keep up the good fight so I have fewer stupid things
to do.
-- Pete
I love it!
I read you letter on BYTE Column. What I want to
know out of all of this is where I can buy 2 of the TEAC 6-pack CD-ROM's?
I have been everywwhere I know to go, and stumbled across this useing
Copernic on a search. Please oh please tell me where on earth I can buy
these creatchers......
Thanks in Advance
Kelly Hadley BGMimber@ aol.com
I don't think they make them any longer. I have a
couple of them and I'm putting one permanently on line as a resource, but
in fact it's probably simpler to get BIG hard drives and copy cd's to a
hard drive...
IE5: you can get it here:
http://www.winmag.com/specialreports/ie5/part2/download.htm
Also note that there are versions of the CD files as
self extracting archives.
These are meatier then the above downloads, weighing
in at 99 megs for 5.0, and 111 meg for 5.5
enjoy the weekend
mz
Thanks. It's on AOL and Earthlink giveaways too.
And it's too darned big for W 95! I am trying to see if I can get IE 4 to
install...
BUT this is better:
Sir:
If you want to run an application that wants
iExplorer 4.0.1 or later installed you can make do by downloading these
programs:
http://download.microsoft.com/msdownload/ie401/patch/comcontrol/en/401comupd.exe
http://www.rocket-ebook.com/Readers/Troubleshoot/WINTDIST.exe
They will add the common controls that appeared with
iExplorer 4.0.1, without installing iExplorer itself.
Regards, Bob Wakefield
Thanks! That may take care of it for me. And
there is this:
I believe the problem you're running into is that
you cannot connect to www.microsoft.com\ie with the version of IE (3.x?)
that comes with Win95 in order to download the active setup program that
allows you to proceed with the installation of the later version of IE.
Once you have that program (I prefer IE 5.01 over 5.5) it's a simple
matter to use it to download the full version which can be burned to CD
for future installs. Getting that program is sometimes problematical.
I had a spare computer here running NTS4 and
IE401sp2 so I did a quick test to document the process.
1. Follow the links to download the ie501sp1 active
setup program to your hard drive (i.e. d:\vendors\ms\ie501sp1). The
ie5setup.exe is about 500K.
2. Run ie5setup.exe. Select "Install Minimal or
customize your browser".
3. Select "Full", click
"Advanced", select "Download only".
4. Select the download directory (i.e.
d:\vendors\ms\ie501sp1\Windows Update Setup Files).
5. Select "Windows 95 and 98".
"Windows NT" was already selected, naturally, and you cannot
select "Windows 2000".
6. Create the directory when prompted, select the
"Download Site" (North America). The download proceeds. Download
size = 40.5 MB.
7. When the download is complete, run the (second)
ie5setup.exe program in ..\Windows Update Setup Files to install the new
version.
In short, you need a second computer to complete the
installation of ie501sp1 on your Win95 computer (or my WinNTS computer) or
have the software already on CD. Ordinary users should not have to jump
through such hoops, but this has been status quo for Microsoft for as long
as I can remember.
_____ Mike Garvey
THANKS. And we will try 5.01 and see if it
crashes as often as 5.5 on our old W 95 system.
Hello, Jerry,
The Sunday NY Times has the start of a two-part
article on the Wen Ho Lee case, from A to z. Very interesting.
My conclusions, without having seen part 2:
- The Chinese did not receive help from a
master-spy, and there was no single Big Secret from which they learned how
to miniaturize their war-heads. They probably sifted through thousands of
articles, speeches, contacts, etc etc, and did their own thinking.
- The Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations
pushed contact between Chinese and American nuclear researchers. Given the
number of contacts, the Chinese had their thousands of articles, speeches
etc.
- Spy-catchers in the energy department probably
misled senior people and congress into thinking that a master-spy had
given away the Big Secret. The master-spy story fit into the way they had
worked during the cold war, and it seems to have been used by Notra
Trulock as a way to call attention to himself.
- Having mistakenly assumed that there was one
master-spy to catch, the catchers in the FBI had not enough logical reason
to pick Lee from the thousand or so suspects...it sounds like there were
about two bits of coincidence pointing something toward Lee, and at least
one bit pointing toward the other 999 suspects. And that normally, it
would take about 10 bits of coincidence to draw a logical conclusion that
Lee had spied. This sounds incompentent, although Lee's lawyer has
suggested it might be racist as well. That's hard to say.
- House Republicans, led by someone named Cox, used
the possibility of a spy case to bash Clinton when his administration was
at its weakest from the Lewinsky scandal and '96 fundraising. A remarkably
slimy thing.
- Clinton, and, especially, Reno, did not have the
ethical backbone to tell the congressional Republicans to get lost.
- The NY Times eagerly grabbed the chance to scoop
the world by playing up the possibility of a spy case. Their story built
pressure to indict Lee.
In all, it sounds like a case where typical American
good sense vanished.
I don't know much about nuclear weapons, weapons
research, and all that. Not my line.
I asked you about a year ago what you thought, and
you said you distrusted the government and its case. Any further comments?
Regards,
John Welch
I think typical American good sense is getting
rare. Good analysis.
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