A SELECTION
December 7 - 13, 1998
This is the CURRENT MAIL PAGE
Go to PREVIOUS MAIL WEEKS: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
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.
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.
The long mail exchange on Micrsoft ended in Mail 18, with my summary.
Since 4 wheel drive vehicles and Linux are both on my mind, we begin with those.
How to defeat Windows AutoScan
News on the Byte Story. Web site a mess.
Reports of problems with the Dodge Durango
A format problem I do not understand.
Where I hid my keyboard references.
The definitive Chaos Manor Word on Keyboards
From Ross McMicken[mcmicken@ix.netcom.com]
Jerry:
Thanks for the words over the years. I have been reading your books and columns since I was in high school in the early 70’s. Good stuff. I have recently been rereading the books you worte with Larry Niven. Amazing how well they stand up. My recommendation of the week is Unintended Consequences by John Ross, an interesting treatment of a possible response to unchecked government.
The demise of your Bronco must have been painful. It’s very easy to get attached to vehicles that serve you well. I spent 5 years living in Gabon, Egypt, and Thailand, and have driven or ridden in many of the vehicles you may be considering as replacements. In Gabon, I had a Mitsubishi Pajero, what the Western Hemisphere calls a Montero. Very good body and frame, but the diesel version I drove was woefully underpowered. The same applied to the Isuzu Trooper. To this day I am not enamored of the Trooper due to it’s ability to get stuck at the drop of a hat. A friend who had one in Gabon was stuck 12 times in one day on the beach. Amazingly, the best choice in Gabon was the Suzuki variants. Light and reliable. Never got stuck unless you did something stupid. Somewhat prone to roll over, though.
In Egypt, I had a Toyota 4Runner. Great vehicle, but not very roomy. Stable on the highway at speeds approaching 90 mph, good in the desert. We liked it so much that we bought one for my wife when we returned to the US. The US versions, at least the 95 model we have, seem to be underpowered. Get the V8 option if available. We pulled a trailer from Bakersfield to Houston this summer, and had real problems going more than 40 mph up the mountains in Arizona. Probably would have been OK without the trailer. While in Egypt, I had many opportunities to drive a Toyota Land Cruiser. Wonderful car if you have the money. Very comfortable on the highway, great visibility, lots of power, huge gas tank. Able to leap tall buildings (well, almost). I never heard of one getting completely stuck. I knew several people who drove across large pieces of the Western Desert in Land Cruisers with no problems at all, despite temperatures above 110 and running the air conditioner all the time. The Land Cruiser is the car I would buy if I could afford it. Bear in mind that all of these events occurred between 1990 and 1995, so things may have changed somewhat.
Linux. Your pieces on Linux motivated me to get off my rear and install it. Easy to install, at least once I got past the new hard drive from hell, but that’s not Linux’s fault. Everything works, fast connections to the net, all in all much better than Windows. All I need is time to learn enough to use it all of the time.
One of these days I will subscribe. Keep up the good work. Yours is one of the few sites I try to visit everyday.
Regards,
Ross McMicken
Well, today would be soon enough to subscribe. Enough subscriptions and I can get that Land Cruiser. Thanks for the data points, and thanks for encouraging me on Linux, which I intend to get back to as soon as this column is done, my wife's new computer is set up, and I have done another chapter on my novel. Things FLOW here so. And the holidays are upon us.
==
In reference to OSR2’s insistence on running SCANDISK after an abnormal shutdown: You can override this by inserting the following line in [Options] section of the MSDOS.SYS file in the root directory.
AutoScan = 1
Then reboot, and boom!, Bob’s your uncle. (Actually Bob IS my uncle. I’m called after him. But I digress.)
Windows will then prompt you before running SCANDISK in the future.
MSDOS.SYS is, of course, a text file. But that’s another story.
Cheers,
Bob Scott
mail112038 @ pop.net
[Mail connection removed at user's request for fear of spam. I don't myself live in terror of such, and I don't quite understand those who do. I get a fair amount of the junk, but Outlook takes care of most of it, and for the rest it's easy to delete.]
I should have known that! Thanks!
in View 25 you wrote:
"Young people don’t think they need it but they do: the best advice I can give you is to keep an event log. That is, a searchable file that lists all the major things you have done, and their dates. Without that, you may be lost."
There’s yet another thing I heard about first in BYTE: Remember the article on the lifestreams project? They say that they have a replacement for the desktop metaphor. David Gelernter, one of the fathers of that project, is a well known man in computer science, and he believes that lifestreams are a much better way to organize your stuff then files and folders. Everything is laid out on a single browsable timeline, and it’s the system’s job to get you what you want.
Personally, I have done not much more than read about it (shame on me) but
I’m determined to give it a try one day. There’s more about it on
Greetings from germany,
Enno.
Enno Rehling [enno@uni-paderborn.de]
I had forgotten about that, but yes, precisely. IN fact I sort of do that with my paper log books into which I tape cards, letters, calendars, notes, receipts, and the like. And I wish I had kept these things up more. The Franklin Ascend programs encouraged a day book format and I used it; I should do so again. Of course I am keeping a day book here on line, now…
Bradley Richards [bradley@acm.org]
Jerry,
No surprise: as a long-term BYTE subscriber and reader of your column, I was surprised by what happened to BYTE last Spring. However, life goes on, and the folks at CMP sent out a letter saying that BYTE would relaunch in a few months, at which time subscriptions would continue.
Since a few months have passed, I sent an e-mail to customer service at CMP, and received a prompt reply. I thought I would sent along the relevant portions of the reply, for the benefit of all the other BYTE subscribers who must be getting curious:
>Publication has been suspended in order to work on the magazine. We
should
>have more definite news about a relaunch date by December 31, 1998.
>PLEASE DIAL OUR CUSTOMER SERVICE CENTER DIRECTLY AT 800 232-2983 for an update in a few weeks regarding BYTE.
While I was pleased to receive a prompt reply, it is rather amazing that they do not yet even have a planned date for the re-launch, which means that the re-launch is unlikely to happen before next Spring. All in all, remarkably incompetent planning...
Cheers,
Bradley
p.s. Closer to home: I don’t know what your plans are for your web-site, but with your following, you have the potential to put together a respected, independent site for editorial comment and product review. Assuming, of course that you want to do this. But, not to put to fine a point on it, your present site is a mess...
Interesting. They have told me NOTHING about a restart, and if they expect me to write for it, they have not bothered to tell me. As to mess, I suppose so.
==
Love the web site. Now I can get a Jerry fix more than once a month
:-)
You asked for comments on the Opera browser. I've been using it as my main browser both at
home and at work for several months. It is MUCH faster than either IE or Netscape (I have
all three installed). I often go to Microsoft's web site for work-related reasons, and I
use IE exclusively for that - the pages do not work in Netscape. My main beef about IE (in
addition to the screwy 'security' design) is that when it crashes (and it will) it is the
Windows shell and screws up all of Windows. I like the 'web desktop' but don't like actual
live links to the web on it, just the one-click interface. If Netscape or Opera crashes it
doesn't trash Windows. Opera seems to be the most stable of the three, and if it does die
it offers some choices upon restarting to attempt to prevent a reoccurrence. Mostly, it's
FAST!
Glad you're physically OK. Isn't Death Valley a great place (as long as you're
upright)!
Regards,
David Glauser [dg@xpsystems.com]
Thanks for the kind words and the report on Opera. Death Valley is a lovely place which is why I was there…
==
Before I start, I was wondering if you could tell me the current fan mood on the SF vs. SciFi designations? After more than thirty years, I still don't know what to call that section of the book store. :)
I work in downtown Manhattan, across the street from the World Trade Center. I just finished my decades-old copy of "Janissaries" and was interested in reading more, but my copy of "Clan and Crown" is home, buried in boxes with all of the other books I haven't gotten on shelves yet since the Fall migration to a bigger apartment. Imagine my surprise when I walked into Borders on Church Street and found that there were exactly two of your books on the shelf! And I don't mean many copies of two different books, I mean two copies of "Prince of Sparta". The late (and wonderful) Roger Zelazny's "Coils" was better represented than all of your work!
I don't know if there's something that can be done about this. They sure won't listen to one walk-in customer. Maybe your publisher can lean on them... I realize that shelf space is at a premium, and this is some high-cost real estate, but WOW. Kids have to be able to get a grounding in the classic works SOMEPLACE.
Bill
billcav@pobox.com
There is very little an author can do about this situation. You can do more by asking the manager. Half a dozen requests by customers to a book store will do far more toward getting an author's books ordered and back on the shelves than anything the author can do. Thanks!
===
Jerry,
You went trough Death Valley to test the GPS. It apparently worked fine. But maybe you would do well to ‘test’ a mobile phone next time you pass that way. It might save you some hours walking if it survives the field test.
That Armada was probably running Windows. Can we now say that Win95 is truly crash-proof ?
I wish you a full recovery.
Svenson
Jan Swijsen, from Belgium
Mail :
qjsw@oce.nl
Thanks. Well, I wasn't really expecting to test anything that strenuously.
==
You might find this website informative:
http://www.tecinfo.com/~rsguy2/Durango.htm
Of course, any car can be a lemon, but it’s still important to know if your car dealer is going to take care of you properly before the little problems make you crazy.
randall.chung@rss.rockwell.com
I expect the dealership is all right -- they have a very large service department -- but the uniform stories about the inadequate air conditioning are quite disturbing. In Southern California, adequate air conditioning is essential even in the city, and in Death Valley and the Mojave even more so. I am having second and third thoughts here, and thank you. Meanwhile the papers are full of advertisements for low costs on Toyota Forerunners. And the Blazer begins to look better all the time…
==
Dear Dr J.
Both my monitors are 15 inch
and video is set for 640x480 as befits the humble of the earth.
We are lowly but numerous.
Your master page for View - View.html shows on the start number line
The right hand edge ending at 15 just at the right edge of the number five.
This is exactly the same view as on VIEW 26
BUT 25 the right hand edge is at 14 and a new line starts.
This settting permits the peasants to read all your words of wisdom
View 22 has a similar setting with the addition of an attractive border.
View 17 has no border but all text is visible
Checking further back VIEWS 1 and 2 all text could be seen but too wide on 4 and 5
Then 7 to 16 were all perfect.
As an apreciative afficiando I hope you do not find my negligible complaints annoying.
My experience in business that the problems you dont know about can be the most harmful.
I promise to pay the first day I log in and you
have an electronic payment system working.
K.E. Von Macken
Jerry Pournelle wrote:
I see no problems in 26
-----Original Message-----
From: Kev Macken [mailto:mackenK@usa.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 1998 11:42 AM
To: jerryp@jerrypournelle.com
Subject: Page Setup
Just to advise your right colums are too long in view 26
View 25 was perfect.
I thought you had the problem licked but now in View 26 it comes back.
Please check out View 25. You can do this!. You really can !
It must be a subtle difference.
Not seeing the last two letters on a line is annoying.
I am sure you will triumph.
regards
K.E. Von Macken
Reich Universitat Konigsberg
I must have got my head bashed in better than I thought, because I do not understand any of this. The pages look the same to me, with no horizontal scrolling. If someone can tell me what's wrong I will fix it.
OK, I got it. The Gold Balls line is too long. I think I have shortened it.
Calvin Dodge [caldodge@ix.netcom.com]
I’m sure I’m not the first person to tell you this, but you gave Ortek keyboards a User’s Choice Award in the April, 1998 issue of Byte (http://www.byte.com/art/9804/sec13/art1.htm ).
Ortek’s URL is (duh) http://www.ortek.com
Sincerely,
Calvin Dodge
--
MICROSOFT’S PLAN FOR YOUR COMPUTER:
"OSS (Open Source ™ software) poses a direct, short-term revenue and platform threat to Microsoft, particularly in server space."
"OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market."
From a Microsoft memo - read the entire document at
http://www.scripting.com/misc/halloweenMemo.html (original) or http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/halloween.html (with commentary)Thanks. That ought to do it.
Jerry,
Say, where is the e-mail blimp?
Also, for the thumbprints, is it possible to place the descriptions to the right of the images?
John
Fiji Islands
18S 178E
The blimp is back. I don't know how to put the descriptions on the same line as the thumbnail without inserting a table into a table, and that drives things nuts. I can think on it.
==
Clark E. Myers [ClarkEMyers@email.msn.com]
We were a beta test site for Keytronics. I liked their programmable keyboards with touchpad that could be configured as assorted button arrays. (with Word for Dos we could use a one button macro to print an envelope from a letter on a Laser Jet 1 a lot easier than Tools - Envelopes today) I don't customize these days, I find that customizing and teaching in an office environment does not pay. The closer to stock for a Kelly Temp to use the better. I wish IBM sold the Selectric keyboard for computer input, that's what I really learned to type on (after Royal manuals and such).
January 1998
Good news: I have been sent a new "OmniKey" keyboard. It is called the Avant Stellar and is sold by Creative Vision Technologies. It was designed by Inter-Fatron, the same people responsible for the Northgate OmniKey. Same heavy-duty construction, same clicky feel, same everything, with function keys across the top as well as on the side. Switchable position for Ctrl. "Windows" keys. This will definitely be one of my products of the year.
Alas, it doesn't have the Backspace key where it belongs. The [ ] keys are there, and
Backspace is up on the numbers row where two-finger typists always put it, but no new
keyboards have Backspace in the right plac e. Other than that, it's about perfect. If you
bang keys a lot, you will love this. Recommended.
April 1998 last onions and orchids
A few months ago, I wrote about the Avant Stellar keyboard from Creative Vision Technologies ( http://www.cvtinc.com/ ). It's a great keyboard, and I still recommend it.
But the User's Choice Award for keyboards goes hands down to Ortek Technologies (their U.S. branch is called KBtek America) for their MCK-142 Pro. The MCK-142 has the heft and feel and keyclick of the old Northgate OmniKey. It has function keys across the top and on the side as well. Above the keyboard are 24 keys you can program to do almost anything, including address and signature, and opening programs with parameters; essentially, any text string you like at the touch of a button. The MCK-142 feels good and is as solid as a rock. It doesn't have the "Windows" key, but then that's nothing more than control-escape anyway.
My Northgate OmniKey keyboards are old, and several have broken down. Now I don't worry about that so much. If you li ked the Northgate OmniKey, you will like the Ortek MCK-142.
View 6
Well, it's time for the labors of Hercules. My plan is to make a big server out of Fireball; put him where Larry Niven usually works, including with Larry's Microsoft Humped Ergonomic Keyboard which he likes, and let Larry work there. I'll also keep assets like the TEAC 6 drive CDROM, the Ricoh Media-Master CD-R/W, an internal IDE ZIP, and a good tape backup drive at that station. It's in a convenient location that I don't use much, and surely it's fast enough to be a server and Niven's workstation at the same time.
View 8
Meanwhile. Front Page is doing strange things. It keeps saying it cannot open a page that it certainly did open a few minutes ago. Not sure why. The remedy is to close Front Page and restart it again, and now that I have the Chaosmanor site password encoded into one of the keys on this Otrek keyboard (wonderful) it's no big deal; but why is it doing this? It could be that I've had to log off and back on to Earthlink a couple of times? Front Page seems to have some dynamic relationship with the actual web site although what I am not sure, since mostly I keep a copy of everything here on Princess and "publish"; so why would it be unable to open a page? More things to worry about, and enough. I have some Mamelukes plotting to do as well as a trip to Fry's.
View 10
I've got a Microsoft Hump keyboard and a Logitech wheel mouse, which is Niven's favorite combination.
View 13
I've got plenty of people advising me to buy a Newton keyboard for my Palm Pilot (soon to be a Palm III assuming the upgrade comes) but all my attempts to FIND a Newton keyboard have failed. I found one page that was supposedly a bunch of sources, but all the links were either broken or to that company itself and its phone lines were a voicemail that shunted me off to wait forever. If there were a way to order on line I didn't find it.
view 15
Niven likes the Microsoft 'humpback' keyboard, and I keep one at the beach for when
he's there. I also keep one of the last of the Pournelle Configuration Northgate OmniKey
keyboards for when I need to do a lot of typing.
view 16
I like
two brands of keyboards. One, ORTEK, is programmable and for web stuff it's great since I have hardware macros for passwords, www.jerrypournelle.com, and stuff like that. The other comes from Avant. Both are made on the same frames and with the same positive key feel that Northgate used to have. You can find the Avant at:
<
http://cvtinc.com/avant.htm>and their quote from me is accurate.
I'm thinking of Linette for the name of this new box. We'll see after coffee.
For those who read my keyboard review in the April BYTE, but find that the link is broken from the BYTE site, try
www.monu-cad.com/keyboard.htm <http://www.monu-cad.com/keyboard.htm>
which should get you to the proper place. I'll do a keyboard review again Real Soon Now.
Clark E. Myers
e-mail at:
ClarkEMyers@msn.com
I wouldn't Spam filter you!
