THE VIEW FROM CHAOS MANOR

View 159 June 25 - July 1, 2001

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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.  Some of you went to a lot of trouble to send money from overseas. Thank you! There are also some new payment methods. I am preparing a special (electronic) mailing to all those who paid: there will be a couple of these. I am also toying with the notion of a subscriber section of the page. LET ME KNOW your thoughts.
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In NYC for PCEXPO

Look for the reports on line. If you can't find them write to the BYTE editors. I have filed the stories...

Digital Focus/Mobile Focus party tonight. Interesting technology. It will be in the story I file.

Filed at 0200...

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Some big stories today at PCEXPO. I am filing reports. I have done one and will do another tonight. If you can't find my reports at www.byte.com send them email asking how to find them. 

I also have a short photoessay in addition to the story. That may not be up yet but it should be coming.

Tonight is JP Davis party/show. This afternoon Panasonic made some drama with DVD RAM announcements. Stay tuned.

It is hot and humid and exhausting here but the show is pretty good. I will try to get to mail tonight.

And it is late. My first day's report is up on the BYTE site. The photo essay part is not but that has to do with the connections I have here at the hotel and we'll see what we can do. But the text report is up and I have filed the second one.

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It's midnight. The day begins with a breakfast meeting. I have posted my story. I'll have another tomorrow night...

And Roland sends a warning of yet another security hole:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/592388.asp?0si=- 

Another exhausting day and it is not over. It is compounded by www.byte.com not being up about half the time I have tried to show people what my reports are like. Apparently they are rearranging the server systems. During a major show owned by CMP which owns BYTE but perhaps the left and right hands are not well acquainted. I am sure it will all take care of itself as time goes on.

More big stories on DVD read/write. And other stuff. New lawsuits against Microsoft. The fun never stops.

Another show tonight and another show report to write. I suspect my pictures will have to wait until next week.

More later. And I really will get some mail done sometime.

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Last day of PC EXPO.  We are off to hear David Gelertner's speech at 10:30 AM. I'll work the floor and try to get a lot of pictures for a photo report, but I doubt any of that will be up before next week.

They're changing servers and systems at www.byte.com and this has caused some glitches, but in general that has gone more smoothly than I would have supposed.

The theme remains: faster, easier, better, and considerably cheaper. That's not too bad a prospect. And see BYTE for my reports on the DVD RW wars which are important...

And I really will get some mail up, but it has been a pretty hectic week.

The day is done and the show is over. I am supposed to do a final writeup. I'll try. Tomorrow I think the Planetarium and then back to Los Angeles...

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I filed my story last night before going to bed, so it ought to be up at www.byte.com  sometime today. That makes four all told including "Getting there is half the fun." The other three are labeled day one and day two, and I presume the one I filed after midnight last night will be named day three or some such. It's not up as I write this but then it gets posted from California and I am in New York...

 The way this is laid out at www.byte.com doesn't make it obvious, but there's one link 

http://www.byte.com/shows/2001/pcexpo/

that lists all the coverage, mine and everyone else's, that's up.

One photoessay has been turned in, but I have not seen it posted. I will have at least one more, but not until next week. Watch for them at www.byte.com

I have missed a week on mail, but it's been hectic with the show and then filing stories. I'll probably do a big mail dump, possibly while on the airplane tomorrow. Sorry about that.

We're all still digesting the Microsoft at Court news. Now that Microsoft is aware that you cannot expect the government to leave you alone, what happens next is in part going to depend on Microsoft skills in buying the government. The opposition managed to lose in the Internet despite an enormous head start. Will they be better at playing the government game?

German professional military people used to say that Americans knew less and learned faster than any army Germany had ever fought throughout German history. One wonders if that is not somewhat true of Microsoft. Tenacious, and "innovative" in the sense of recognizing innovation when they see it and doing a pretty good job of reverse engineering and incorporating new stuff fast, the Microsoft managers may turn that ability to lobbying and government operations; indeed there are plenty of signs they already have.

Microsoft is like a fleet of small ships. Big ships turn slowly. Fleets of smaller ships can change directions faster although with some danger of collision as some turn and some don't.

When I get back to LA it is column time and most of this belongs in the column rather than in show reports.  

Your comments solicited and appreciated. I do look at my mail even if I haven't managed to get any posted this week.

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  Going Home

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Home safe. Twelve hours sleep does wonders. I'll see what I can do about mail this afternoon.

www.byte.com has a photo essay and one more PC EXPO report about the last day. They ought to be up Monday or so.

So of course ftp isn't working properly. Whether it is the ricochet connections or the firewall configuration or what, about half the time it sends some of a file and stops dead. Why is it I spend more time trying to make things work than I do thinking about what I want to do?  I HATE this. It didn't happen in New York with the older version of WS_FTP.  But when I get home it's maddening. And I don't know if it is here, or at pair.com or where. And of course I have a bunch of stuff to put up.

I hate computers when they do this. The right thing to do is forget it and try later. Bah. And apparently Pair.com has finished me off. The whole page is broken, but whether that is because I was interrupted in an ftp or what I do not know. Is it here? Is it there? Wherever it is, it drives me crazy because here I am worrying about the blasted  machines instead of what I am trying to do.

Well after about 20 minutes, that fixed itself, so it couldn't have been anything done here. But it sure wastes time. The InterWait strikes again.

Enough grousing. It's a glorious day and I'm home.

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