Brian Dugle [dugle@win.bright.net]

Dear Jerry,

On the subject of home schooling, do you have any pointers to a reasonable education outline? I have two grandchildren, one of whom may need more personal instruction than most due to a bout with encephalitis at the age of three weeks. The other may need it because she’s so scary-smart (talking in recognizable sentences before 18 months).

I remember seeing a reference to some states’ attempts at what should be taught (learned?) by age or grade somewhere on the web some time ago. Also, Gateway has a CD set called Learning 2000 or some such. Who among your community has experience with these?

As you and many of your contributors seem to be, I have been long horrified over the state of our education system. But I have never had the time and/or courage to do anything about it myself. I recently applauded a fellow officer who retired after 30 years and is now going into elementary teaching. I don’t think I could. I retired at 26 years and stumbled into the industrial construction business, about as far as you can get from "fighter pilot" or "teacher".

When our two daughters were growing up, I recall getting notes home on several occasions that did not make grammatical sense. In my three tours at the Pentagon I had a variety of experiences with GS-4 to -6 secretaries who could not accomplish much but answer the phone. Those who could do more were promoted out of that level so quickly we hardly saw them. One of the examples germane to the education discussion was an enlisted spouse who had listed on her application a degree in English and Teaching from a Mississippi university. I still had secretaries do some typing in those days (1983), and she typed up a paper from my hand-written draft with the word "their" in it. She ‘corrected’ it to "there" even though it was the possessive form of "they" as I had used it. I patiently explained there were three words all sounding like "there" (well, one is a contraction…), but she would faithfully type "their" regardless from then on.

From these two examples I guess you would say I have a very low opinion of teachers as a group. I hasten to add, however, this is not a very good generalization. Teachers as individuals are often dedicated, caring people and many are even effective at their jobs. It does seem that those who cannot do much else sometimes "settle" for a teaching degree and dilute the skills of the pool as a whole.

As my girls went through high school they sometimes asked for my help with papers. I would honestly try to show them better organization, word usage, minimized us of passive voice, etc. Their drafts would end up with a certain number of red-inked comments. At the time they were certain I’d done that to show some kind of superiority, rather than to teach them a bit of what I’d picked up over the years. I guess that shows another reason I am scared to go into teaching—a lack of empathy or something with my "students".

The funny thing is that now they are both out of college and they often (as in more than once) say that experience has left them with writing ability head-and-shoulders above their peers. One’s husband is a late student in history and she has helped his writing projects significantly. The other has been writing and contributing to papers as an intern and researcher in a Masters program.

Another reason for looking into home schooling is the sad state of social responsibility in public schools. I am admittedly prejudiced, but I believe our emphasis on "individual rights" at the expense of "rights of others" or "victim’s rights" is totally out of control. The statutory inability to instill discipline in public schools makes me shudder at the thought of my granddaughters going there.

In reviewing what I’ve written I came up with a question. Is there a reason it’s called "home schooling" rather than education? Schooling brings to mind the repetitive practicing one does with a horse when teaching it moves or tricks. Much of my own limited ability with the language comes from reading what I think were good authors and developing an ear for what sounds right. Like "myriad" as an adjective rather than a noun as so many like to use it these days. Do we simply need to have more rote learning and practice in the curriculum?

If you made it this far, thanks for your patience.

Danny Ayers [Danny.Ayers@highpeak.ac.uk]Hi,

Just a little suggestion - your site might look a bit nicer (and clearer) with a one pixel-line GIF image for the background - same colours etc. but would almost certainly be smaller and less patchy than the JPEG.

>Sent: Saturday, January 16, 1999 3:24 PM

>To: ‘jerryp@jerrypournelle.com’

>Subject: Simple question: 4 to 7 pin s-video adapter needed

>

>

>Dear Jerry:

>

>I would like to hook my PC DVD player to my television set, but the MPEG

>decompression card has a 7-pin s-video connector, whereas my TV and the

>extra long cables I acquired have 4-pin. Can you help me locate an

adapter?

>That’s all I need!

>Sidebar:

>I would have thought this is a pretty standard thing. However, I called

>Radio Shack, and they never heard of 4-pin. I called Rowe Photographic,

and >they never heard of 7-pin. I called a few PC parts suppliers with no luck

>either. It seems that the video industry has adopted 4 pin, but the

>computer is moving towards 7-pin. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because I

>live in Rochester and the supplies are limited. Also, my STB128 has a

4-pin >output, and my video capture board has a 4 pin input. So not all the

>computer folks are using 7 pin. Also, I haven’t been able to find anything

>on the net either. I got the 4 pin cables form markertek. Can you comment

>on the existence of these differing standards, and there place in the

>market?

>Thanks,

Eric Pobirs [nbrazil@ix.netcom.com]

My best guess without knowing the make of the DVD decoder card is that the port is a proprietary multi-out as seen on video game consoles. That means all of the signals for both audio and video are on the port and a cable that separates those into the suitable set of plugs is needed. The ATI All-In-Wonder Pro used in Racing Cow has a similar arrangement to bring out the S-Video, Composite, and Stereo leads without requiring a second panel to be mounted in the computer.

From your last Wednesday Mail:

Note that private and catholic schools don’t require "credentials" and have far fewer "credentialed" teachers; pay less than the public schools; and yet achieve better results.

As a generality that would seem to be true. Consider, however, the advantages those private entities and their teachers enjoy: They have the freedom to discipline students that disrupt. They can refuse any student that doesn’t meet their standards. The students that are there were enrolled by parents that care about their children’s education and have expectations of them, and, usually, can recognize whether those expectations are being met. The private schools would be inferior indeed if they could not produce a better produce under those circumstances.

Yes, there are real problems with public schools. But, with the exceptions that abound everywhere, the problems are not with the teachers but with what they are and are not allowed to do; with the curriculums they are compelled to use; and on and on. Poor textbooks in California. You bet. Guess you were elsewhere then, but when I was a child in California, somewhat later than you, we had a state publishing house that provided approved text books at reasonable cost. Then some publishers saw what a big fat market California would be and challenged that system in court claiming monopoly, restraint of trade, etc. No more state publishing. Now we have profit mongering publishers buying off districts with promises, false advertising, outright bribes, and so forth to provide our schools with bloated, ineffective materials that cost a lot of money. E.g., Mathland was a good supplementary aid for first and second grade classes. Publisher said cool, let’s expand it to all grades and sell it as a complete program. Did not scale well. Much money, time, and students learning wasted. But, hey, the free enterprise publisher made lots of bucks.

Actually, re teachers. There are some problems, principally with credentialing requirements - the final version of which were written by legislators in their compromising and deal making environment, not by teachers, or even educators. Need to stop here, I’m obviously getting on my stump and haranguing rather than presenting rational explanations.

For those who consider vouchers or other forms of privitization to be the answer. If we put all of the "good" students in various forms of private schools, and condem those who don’t behave, perform, or otherwise have the means to the remaining public schools then we are condeming the public schools to failure, and increasing the division between haves and have-nots that is already tearing at our national fabric. We have to improve the public schools, intelligently. It will not be accomplished by removing the better students and resources from them. Consider also: Vouchers to private schools will be very attractive to startup businesses. E.g., do you like what is happening to health care via todays HMOs and bottom line investor profits? Can you point to any reason why privatization of education would fare any better?

I’m glad you had a good education, probably wouldn’t read you if you hadn’t. I don’t think I did too badly myself in spite of my only do enough to get by attitude (California public schools, 1950s and early 1960s). My children even did pretty well, better than I did, in the 1970s and early 1980s, sometimes in spite of specific teachers, sometimes with the help of fantastic teachers - partly because they’re reasonably bright, but largely because they had parents who respected learning, and cared, saw that homework, etc. got done, established expectations, and provided support when it was needed. With the exception of special driven individuals, no school can succeed where support, caring, and expectations are absent.

Enough for now.

I’m okay,

You’re okay,

We don’t care about Y2K.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

COBOL stinks,

Assembler sucks,

But with them I make big bucks.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Y2K,

Has a Czar,

He and Gore will both go far.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Y2K,

Is a bomb,

Think I’ll go visit my mom.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Y2K,

Is a dud,

All those newsletters are FUD.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Survivalists

Are just boys,

Gotta have Y2K toys.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

PacBell fears

Y2K,

Embedded chips are here to stay.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Y2K

Y3K

Messiah’s gonna come some day.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Falwell prays,

Religious zoo,

Does Heaven have computers too?

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

"Just in time"

Catastrophe,

Businesses are in hip deep.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

Is so fun,

Just go ask at Edison.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Electric grid,

Won’t go down,

Y2K won’t black the town.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Congressmen,

Are in the dark,

In Y2K they’ll need an Ark.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Sewer pipes

Uncontrolled,

Y2K can sure get old.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Y2K

Is no jive,

How will you just stay alive?

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Programmers

Take to the hills,

The rest of us are stuck with pills.

With a knick knack paddy-wack

Give a dog a bone,

This programmer’s going home.

Ed Zborower [ezborow@hs.state.az.us]

Called CMP to confirm my Byte refund, promised mid-December for end of January transmittal, was on its way. Did so because I received a copy of "Business 2.0" magazine published by Imagine Media with a nice letter letting me know they were going to complete my subscription and how wonderful Byte was. A CMP staffer referred me to 1-800-234-0804 which turns out to be Business 2.0 offices. They allowed me to cancel my Business 2.0 subscription, obviously made for me by CMP, and opined I would be getting some money back from the $’s transferred to them by CMP. It’s certainly less than the almost one years subscription I was owed. You are lucky not to be working for CMP. Their cavalier manner with other peoples money, and particularly when they want ex-Byte readers to stick with them, is the real indicator of what their business practices are probably like. Thank goodness they don’t owe me much.

Hi Jerry,

I just finished reading this month’s column on your website. I have a couple of comments about the Pilot section:

alas neither model can use the other’s cradle at all. The Palm III can work in a Palm Pro cradle, although it sometimes take a bit of fiddling to get it to sit in straight. I had a second cradle for my Pro before upgrading, and kept it for use at home with the Palm III. I find it works fine for me.

Those buying a new Palm III will get Pocketmirror included free (which is, I suppose, well under fifty bucks!) on the bonus CD that ships with the Pilot. How do you find the synchronization times of Desktop-to-go as compared to those with Pilotmirror? At one time Pocketmirror was significantly faster when syncing.

Subject: Digital Cameras and Linux.

A few months back, there was a discussion on the site comparing a number of digital cameras. I've never owned a still camera before, and have never paid much attention to them - I guess I was put off by all that mucking about with film and getting it developed. However, I plan to go on extended vacation soon (my first one in 10 years; being unemployed doesn't count) and it occured to me that a camera would be a useful thing to have while I was travelling. A digital camera would be even better, since I could transfer the pictures to my laptop, and then perhaps even upload them to my website (I can just see it now: "Neighbor, could you spare a cup of bandwidth?"). Also, I wouldn't have to be concerned about "wasting" film.

Of course, one of my personal requirements was that I be able to view the pictures under Linux. I thought that this would be a showstopper, but in fact it turns out that it is trivial with almost all of the cameras out there. Most of the cameras use either SmartMedia or CompactFlash cards. I did a web search on this and discovered that you can get PCMCIA "adapter" cards which make these cards appear to the computer like a standard ATA IDE drive. And of course, the Mavica with it's internal floppy was also very simple option, although in my case this was less optimal, since the Sony Vaio doesn't have a built-in floppy (I have a seperate floppy drive, but it's less convenient to carry around.)

Then a friend of mine, Barney Pell, mentioned that he had a digital camera that he had bought in Japan a while back, and had never figured out how to get the pictures out of it. Barney's no dummy - he was, until recently, a senior scientist at NASA in charge of one of the software subsystems for the Deep Space One probe. However, apparently the software that came with it was configured in such a way that it would only work with the Japanese version of Windows. Go figure.

So I told him I'd take a look at the camera and see what I could do, on the understanding that if I got it to work I could borrow the camera for a while and evaluate it. The camera was a Fuji "Finepics" which it turns out is just the Japanese version of the MX-700. The only difference, as far as I can see, is that all of the labels are in Japanese. It uses the SmartMedia cards, and Barney had an 8 MB card (enough to hold about 150 pictures in the 640x480 resolution, although the 1024x768 resolution pictures seem to take more than 4 times as much space for some reason.)

Interfacing to the card was no more than about 10 minutes worth of work, although there were a few things that I had to puzzle out. The Linux PCMCIA card manager had no trouble recognizing the adapter, although I did notice that it only seemed to work correctly if you inserted the adapter card into the laptop before you inserted the SmartMedia card into the adapter. Otherwise, instead of recognizing it as a hard drive, it seems to think that it is some other kind of device.

The next question was: What filesystem? I figured that it would be some sort of MS-DOS format. Just as a test, I decided to see what would happen if I read out the raw bytes of the hard drive to the terminal using "more /dev/hdc". After about the second page of garbage, there was a long string of blanks with the letters "FAT12" right smack in the middle. Aha!

At this point, I went into superuser mode and typed "mount -t vfat /dev/hdc0 /mnt/sm". This told the system to mount the first partition of the "hdc" drive into a mount directory which I had created earlier. It worked, and I was then able to list the directory, which contained a bunch of JPEG files. Using ElectricEyes, a Linux-based image viewer which comes with Red Hat, I was able to look at the JPEGs. I've now emailed Barney a copy of his pictures, and today I went around taking snapshots at the RSA conference, where I was doing booth duty for my current employer.

I'm pretty happy with the image quality of the MX-700. I also like the fact that the battery is rechargeable. I snapped about 20 photos today, and so far the battery indicator still reads "full", although I suspect that it might be a highly non-linear scale. The LCD is quite viewable, although I haven't tried it in direct sunlight. Although the camera is small, I haven't found gripping it to be too clumsy, although there is a tendancy to smudge the LCD with my nose when looking through the viewfinder. Having the labels (and the manual) all in Japanese hasn't been too much of a handicap, since after a little bit of experimentation I was able to deduce what most of the controls meant. My only real complaint is that the camera is very slow when changing modes; Going from "take picture" mode to "review pictures" mode takes several seconds.

Just to show you an example, here's a picture of John Gilmore and his DES cracker. (Attached to this message)

Bronco's last ride

Mr. Pournelle,

What an amazing adventure. Thank you for the pictures, too. Scary and dangerous. I’m glad, however, that Bronc got to go out in a blaze of glory.

I loved the self portrait, too! I just have one question, though, in your description you said that the Bronco landed driver side down, passenger side up through which you escaped through the passenger side back window. The pictures, however, display the Bronco laying on it’s passenger side... am I seeing this wrong?

- Dev -

Many thanks.

Mike Juergens [mikejuer@netnitco.net]

Subject: Windows NT has trouble with really big networks

Today I went to access a folder on a computer on the Lockheed Martin computer network. I followed the correct path to the computer using the Network Neighborhood. However, I was not able to find the computer. I tried using the "Find Computer" command, however, since I did not know the exact name of the computer, the "Find Computer" command did not work. The "Find Computer" command does not accept wildcards. The computer I was looking for is on the same subnet as my computer. The rumor passed down to me from my IS rep is that NT cannot handle the size of network that LM uses. Supposedly it can handle networks of 25,000 computers, but not 250,000 computers.

Once I found out the exact name of the computer, I was able to use "Find Computer" to access the computer by double clicking on the found computer and make a shortcut to the folder I need. However, I was told that the only way to access those computers that fail show up is by using the "Find Computer" command. And I did verify that the desired computer was on the network path where I thought it was. It just doesn’t show up.

Subject: Browsing on large NT networks.

NT works just fine for very large networks; I have been involved in migrating the USMC’s 80,000-user/2600-server network from Banyan VINES to NT, the FDIC’s 17,000-user/580-server network from VINES to NT, several large (10K-plus) commercial networks from NetWare to NT. Nothing’s perfect, of course, but if you know what you’re doing, you can pull it off quite nicely.

There are issues of administration with large NT networks; namely, without a directory service, one can’t really get the granularity of administrative privileges desirable in a network of great size and organizational complexity (i.e., you can’t just make a user all-powerful in his own little area, but restrict his ability to wreak mischief on others; it’s much more tedious than that). Active Directory, part of Windows 2000, solves this problems, and many others.

Right now, you can set up an NT network and have browsing for computers work as advertised, if you know what you’re doing. It’s far more complex than it should be; the mechanism for browsing won’t work very well unless you have the WINS NetBIOS-to-IP mapping service set up properly. I suspect that Lockheed-Martin’s adminstrator for the particular LAN mentioned in Mr. Pearce’s letter has not set up his WINS and/or DHCP client configuration properly to make sure that a) WINS is set up appropriately, and b) that the client PCs know about it. These are common problems.

Is setting up name resolution and browsing on an NT 4.0-based network more complex than it should be? Absolutely. Can it be set up properly by someone with the requisite knowledge? Certainly. Are Microsoft aware of this, and is there a fix for this issue in the next version? Most assuredly; Active Directory combined with the DNS in Windows 2000 completely eliminates the need for WINS, and, consequently, the hassles required to set it up. Planning a directory schema also requires specialized knowledge, but once it’s operational, it makes administering networks, especially large ones, much simpler.

-------------------------

Null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane and empty of meaning for all time.

After sending the information to the FHA, he received the following reply (actual letter):

"Upon review of your letter adjoining your client's loan application, we note that the request is supported by an Abstract of Title. While we compliment the able manner in which you have prepared and presented the application, we must point out that you have only cleared title to the proposed collateral back to 1803. Before final approval can be accorded, it will be necessary to clear the title back to its origin."

Annoyed, the lawyer responded as follows (actual letter):

"Your letter regarding title in Case No. 189156 has been received. I note that you wish to have title extended further than the 194 years covered by the present application. I was unaware that any educated person in this country, particularly those working in the property area, would not know that Louisiana was purchased by the U. S. from France in 1803, the year of origin identified in our application. For the edification of uninformed FHA bureaucrats, the title to the land prior to U. S. ownership was obtained from France, which had acquired it by Right of Conquest from Spain. The land came into possession of Spain by Right of Discovery made in the year 1492 by a sea captain named Christopher Columbus, who had been granted the privilege of seeking a new route to India by the then reigning monarch, Isabella. The good queen, being a pious woman and careful about titles, almost as much as the FHA, took the precaution of securing the blessing of the Pope before she sold her jewels to fund Columbus' expedition. Now the Pope, as I'm sure you know, is the emissary of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And God, it is commonly accepted, created this world. Therefore, I believe it is safe to presume that He also made that part of the world called Louisiana. He, therefore, would be the owner of origin. I hope ... you find His original claim to be satisfactory.

Now, may we have our ... loan?"

Dear Jerry:

A system for updating applications

This is nothing like a system for software version control - just an attempt to keep a few handholds on he slippery slope of version creep - and I learned to do this because I am adventurous and accident prone. I keep one drive volume on my main PC reserved mainly for downloads and utilities. On that volume I keep subdirectories for application patches, such "WordPerfect Updates". When I have to reinstall an app from the original CD, the next thing I do is to check my "patches dump" for updates, and run them in chronological sequence if there are several. This goes for Windows itself, of course.

Of course, the applications that use live update procedures to patch software rarely leave an executable around for you to save for the next time disaster strike or a wound self-inflicts. With operating systems as prone to non-heuristic mutations as the Windows family, because they let applications modify the operating system, you might think that reinstalling and updating Windows and apps would have been systematized by now, but this is another sign that we’re still in the frontier days, isn’t it?

By the way, I’ve enjoyed the insights you and your readers have offered on Microsoft. I have mixed feelings about the company. I’m uneasy about some of the actions it is said to have taken, but I am also aware that I have benefitted and am now benefitting from many things it has done, and it certainly seems to be trying very hard all the time. If there’s room for improvement, then let it improve, I say.

This link recounts a user experiences whilst getting a refund for unwanted Windows software that came with a laptop. The user asserted his rights to return the Windows software unused for a refund, citing the language in the license that came with it.

Dear Jerry: I don’t believe Outlook 98 has been significantly upgraded

since its release on CD. There are, however, some small security patches available on the MS web site. You can download those and install them. As for Netscape: 4.5 is the latest version, and alas, it has to be downloaded. One suggestion: I have started storing my downloaded programs on Zip disks along with all of their updates in separate directories. I’ve recently had to set up a new laptop and desktop and found that having all these things on Zip disk saved me an enormous amount of time.

Best,

Suggestions

I’d like to make a suggestion that you are free to ridicule or dismiss outright:

You’re a busy man. You’re writing fiction, trying to keep a web page updated constantly, receiving tons of mail, keeping up with a hundred different expanding technologies, starting a new O’Reilly book, an active social life and to top it all off, you have a husky that needs a daily walk. I know how energetic they are…

Here’s what I would do. Take advantage of some volunteer time. Establish a new email address that volunteers can monitor. Allow same volunteers to post mail and work in your behalf when people have questions and comments. You’d still be the person posting the daily column and you would still be able to post mail sent to you.

A good first experiment for this, I think, would be alt.mail. Let a volunteer take care of that page. You’d still be free to comment whenever you wanted, but someone else would keep it updated.

I’m not sure of everything that would be required, but it would require other people (or a single person) to have posting access to the web server, and someone to get another mail account, presumably from Darnell at binmedia?

I do think, however, that you can spread some work out without losing your current excellent format. If the details can be worked out I’m more than willing to act as a beta volunteer; and I think other readers might be interested in this also.

Of course, as I said at the beginning, this is just a suggestion. I think it would take some weight off of your back, though.

From: monty@sprintmail.com

Fletcher Pratt's Battles that Changed History may be out of print, but it is apparently obtainable.

[==begin quoted message==]

Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 08:26:51 -0600

From: "William H. Dobbs" <L.adamsbk@internetmci.com>

Subject: Battles That Changed History

Reply-To: L.AdamsBK@internetmci.com

Dear Mr. Montgomery,

Thank you for your search request for Pratt's BATTLES THAT CHANGED HISTORY.

We have located the following copies for your consideration:

1. Hanover House, 1956. No dustjacket. Very good condition. $49.00

2. Hanover House, 1956, 1st ed. Very good in good jacket. $49.00

3. Hanover House, 1956, reprint ed. Good in jacket w/ moderate edgewear,

price- clipped. $37.00

4. Doubleday, 1956. Very good, light yellowing, very good jacket. $39.00

5. Hanover House, 1956, 1st. Very good in very good edgeworn jacket. $41.00

Please let us know if you'd like to order one of these copies. Thanks again

for your request. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Lee Hannah

Lodowick Adams, Bookseller

2021 8th St.

Tuscaloosa AL 35401 USA

Dr. Pournelle,

Regarding Steve Hastings' mentions of "dial around" services, as in this clip:

Knowing that I can use 10-10-345 to pay 10 cents per minute, any time of day, to call anywhere in the USA, has changed the way I view long-distance phone calls!

There is another cheap one: 10-10-220. Calls up to 20 minutes are 99 cents, and then 10 cents per minute. I haven’t used that one yet.

Rule of thumb: any phone service that promises you will "save 50%", instead of quoting a rate such as "10 cents per minute" is probably too expensive. Any service that promises that they will cut your fee in half if you talk over 10 minutes is probably too expensive.

I have been well served by 10-10-345; given my low volume of calls, I’ll probably stick with it. I’ll be interested to see if your readers have any other services they recommend.

--

Steve R. Hastings "Vita est"

According to the Washington Post this weekend, The FCC and Congress just last week began investigations of these "services," for two reasons:

1. Most, if not all, of these operations are owned by the long distance companies, but you won't find that fact mentioned anywhere in the advertisements. 10-10-345 is AT&;T; the number is owned and operated by them; they just don't advertise that fact. As for 10-10-220, 10-10-200 and 10-10-321: They are owned by MCI, through a wholly owned subsidiary (TeleSave?).

2. The "dial around" services have increasingly become the targets of complaints to the FCC from consumers. It seems the savings claims may be deceptive or don't exist. For example, 10-10-200, which is the one, I believe, that gives the first 20 minutes for 99 cents, takes advantage of two facts. A) The overwhelming number of residential long distance calls last three minutes or less, and B) MCI bills you 99 cents whether you connect for 1 second or 20 minutes. The example given in the Post was a woman whose long distance under the 99 cents for 20 minutes option rose to over $60 in one month, from $18.

Bear in mind, this is all from a quick read of one newspaper article. I haven't done my own research yet, so I'm really just passing on one reporter's views.

EPobirs@Nexusis.com

The big security bug and Windows Update

One of the items Microsoft offers to Windows Update users is the Critical Update Checker. This is a tiny app that checks for whether any really important patches or upgrades have become available and issues an onscreen alert. This came up today but usually, if you click the offered button, it takes you to Update screen and shows you what the new files are. Today it didn’t do that. It immediately downloaded a very small file and suggested I reboot my system.

Could you start a discussion of dealing with repetitive stress injuries (RSI) and carpal tunnel syndrome, which must affect a lot of your readers? I’ve been typing almost every day for 25 years (15 on computers) and RSI has been getting to me the last year. I’m only 43 and want to keep typing at least another 40 years, or at least until we get decent voice-activated writing. Maybe you or your readers have ideas on how to keep typing without pain.

sfavorit@ldaproducts.com

Outlook update

I haven’t found an update that this doesn’t work with yet.

If you do a right click on a link it gives you the option to do a save as. Then you can do the install. If you find a product this doesn’t work with, please let me know.

-----Original Message-----

I have had the same problem in the past and have started a hard drive share on my home network and designated a sub-directory as the update directory. Each time I have to download an update, I save it to that directory first under a folder with the name of the program (Excel, Outlook, etc. then perform the update (I also save copies of CD &; video card drivers there).

Hard drive space is cheap and this saves re-downloading.

Dr. Pournelle,

Quite some time ago you pondered getting a Newton keyboard for your Palm Pilot and after some discussion, decided against it because you could always type longer notes into your portable and then HotSync them to the Pilot.

About a week after reading that View, while thumbing through a Time Digital edition, I saw a blurb about a 75 percent scale keyboard for the Palm Pilot from GoType for $79.95. I ordered one and had to wait about a couple of weeks for it. I wanted to try it before I recommened it [ or panned it ] to you.

It's a QWERTY layout keyboard with keys that are about 75 percent the width of standard keys and about 50 percent their height. You can touch-type with it if you are very precise. I find I have to keep my nails well-trimmed to use it. For a fast touch-typist, it won't be very satisfying.

However, it is very good for writing extended notes when a PC is not available. I find it much quicker than Graffiti. The GoType keyboard needs no batteries and is not a big drain on the Pilot's batteries. It has a clamshell design with a protective top that doubles as a backrest when the Pilot is dropped onto the docking port. An extendable foot can be pulled out of the bottom of the keyboard to keep the Pilot and keyboard from tipping backward.

There are six function keys across the top that can duplicate the dedicated buttons on the Pilot and are also user configurable.

The drawbacks are that many of the "special" characters, like the slanted quotation marks, are not directly available. Also, the right Shift key is awkwardly placed to make room for dedicated cursor keys.

I wouldn't want to have to type a novel on it, but I certainly like it for taking extended notes when on the road. When I was an editor attending trade shows, I found it much easier to pack it around than my portable.

If you're still looking for Orchids for your column, I would certainly recommend it.