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This week:
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Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
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Sunday, June 27, 1999
Actually I paid the bills and said the heck with it last night, so I've got the system to build today.
The PC Cool box makes it easy enough to do. I am torn between doing NT 4 with all the installation problems, and
Windows 98 2e for this new box. Don McArthur reports on a site that has operations similar to mine and he likes
98. It's sure easier for me to understand. I'd try Windows 2000 but my experiences with it haven't led me to want
it in a vital production machine just yet. On the other hand, Princess, with NT, just works, and very well.
Assembly is going well. I still haven't decided what to put on this. Bob Thompson points out that I haven't
lived until I've done a full NT install without help, but whether that's practical advice or masochism I am not
sure. Roland Dobbins says that for the web stuff I do, where I don't worry much about security and have no users
other than me, W 98 2e is probably more than adequate. I can add to that "provided there is lots of memory"
but then that is very cheap to add.
I have made a new Full Monty CD: this is everything I ever wrote plus programs that can read it, all on one
CDROM. I do this every now and then and send a copy off to Niven's house so that if Chaos Manor burns down I am
still in business more or less.
And I'm minded that I ought to write an essay on Littleton after a month. There is an insane amount of blather
written about all this. Most ignores the fact that left to themselves, people really aren't saintly or even much
civilized. As Chesterton and St. Paul observed, whatever the other truths of the Christian religion, the one that's
pretty well demonstrable from personal introspection and observation is original sin. "That which I would
do, that I do not, and that which I would not do, that I do," is true of each and every one of us. Fortunately
for most of us that which we would not do that we do isn't willful murder or mass destruction; we manage to control
those impulses. But not all control them. And in a big massive school where no one knows your name, and few talk
to you, and none about serious matters, it doesn't take many alienated
people, encouraged to have high self-esteem
for not many accomplishments, to get the notion that they are in fact a lot better than the others, and no one
cares, and I'll show them....
Anyway there's a good bit to be written on that, and no one seems to be doing it; perhaps I'll try my hand on
the "real" remedy to Littleton and what the Federal Government can do for education; there is something
it can do to help get us out of the mess it has got us into. Now to complete assembly of the new machine.
ROLAND Dobbins came over and we spent the night installing Windows 2000 and
Office 2000 including Front Page 2000 without extensions on this site. That's
what we are running NOW, and it seems to work very well indeed.
However: Roland assures me that FP Extensions do work properly including with
an Apache host site, if installed properly, and when they don't work there's
some problem with the installation. The installations can be tricky, but when
they work they work well. That was the state of things when I went to bed at
5:30 AM. At 10, a civilized hour, Microsoft called and we went over problems I
had in the past, and they also assured me that done right, Front Page with
Extensions works very well indeed; but many web hosts don't quite know how to
make that happen.
We will be testing all this in future. I'll continue to work with a DEC Alpha
with NT without extensions as a rock solid fallback, and try to arrange for
another site with extensions to test the whole package with. I am using FP 2000
now and the editor is neat. I am having no problems. I need to get breakfast and
do some other stuff, and hike with Niven this afternoon, but it looks as if
things are going to be going well. More later. There is also a GREAT DEAL of
mail to post, and the new week's VIEW to fix up.
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