| Monday,
November 17, 2008 For news about my current activities, see
yesterday's View.
For the beginning of the Mail failure
story, see also yesterday's View.
Mac experts tell me that Mac Mail does not fail, and thus I must have
done something wrong. I suppose that is true: what I didn't know to do was
go to Mail, Preferences, Account, and discover that me.com had been added as a server
to my list of servers. I did not add that myself. When I set the the iMac
the account was mac.com.
On that page I had checked, and have had checked since April, a box that
says Use Only this server. (Referring to mac.com I guess.) Unchecking that box produced instant results: my
mail was working again.
Of course a smarter user would know that once Mac OS updates the system
you must go to Mail Preferences Accounts and examine that; in that sense I
guess the accusation that I don't use my Mac enough is valid. So the moral
of the story is that if you use a Mac, you must give it a lot of attention.
Or be a lot smarter than me.
[ALL RIGHT: it turns out that checking or unchecking that box had nothing
to do with making the Mac Mail work, but by changing a setting in
preferences it forced the Mac to refresh its DNS, and that instantly fixed
the problem. I would think that an automatic refresh of such things might
with some profit be built into the update, but that's just my view.]
==============
The Great Global Warming Swindle.
<http://www.garagetv.be/video-
galerij/blancostemrecht/
The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle
_Documentary_Film.aspx>
--- Roland Dobbins
Despite the inflammatory title, this is a very well reasoned report, and I
recommend it to everyone here. It's a matter of some importance. It goes to
primary science sources. It will take a while to watch this, but I urge you
to do so.
=================
Network Reconstruction:
Vista doesn't play nice with networking, and I don't
understand its various settings. Symptoms will be that XP computers vanish
from the list that Vista can see; or a Vista machine can see Orlando,
the T42p ThinkPad, but attempting to connect to it gets a message that I am
not authorized. Other such problems surface from time to time, all with
Vista machines.
The Apple side of the network works pretty well. It went
screwy for a few days as Apple updates from .mac to .me, and I suspect we
are not through with the problems as Apple tries to synchronize everything
by use of the cloud, but the Mac side of the network, although a bit less
convenient than the Windows side, does work.
When the Windows side works, it works well. For one thing I
can map drives, so that Orlando is seen by Bette the communications Core 2
Quad 6600 as O:, and I can do things like xcopy C:\winword o:\winword
/e/s/d/y and it will automatically copy all and only updated documents form
Bette to Orlando. I can also use that with Norton Commander, which still
works with Vista; I can build batch files to synchronize different
directories on various machines. I know no way to do that with a Mac, but
the new .me cloud system is trying to make that happen. We will see.
I am fairly happy with the Windows kind of networking --
when it works. But every now and then, always following an Microsoft Windows
update, various Vista machines can't see each other, or can't see XP
machines, or can't see one of the Mac systems. This is usually remedied by
shutting down both machines, restarting them, and waiting a while; but it's
annoying.
As a result I am about to stand down from the Windows 2000
Server Active Directory system I am using now. Peter Glaskowsky says my
network is bizarrely complicated. I don't believe that: when I take the
trouble to tool up on using Active Directory it allows me to do all kinds of
things rather easily, including setting permissions levels for users.
All during XP it worked just fine. Now Microsoft has "updated" the
networking protocols for Vista, and the result is a lot of confusion -- and
it changes each time Microsoft "updates" Vista.
Example: for most of this year I could connect to Vista
machines from Imogene the iMac 20 and Khaos the MacBook Air simply by
logging on as me (just using username) with my system password. That worked
just fine, and once connected I could access any part of the target machine,
move files back and forth, and so forth. I have yet to find a convenient to
use command equivalent of XCOPY that will let me transfer all and only later
files in specific directories, but I can live with that limitation. Then
Microsoft Updated Vista: and now, in order to log on to a Vista system from
a Mac I have to do so by typing in username@domainname.jerrypournelle.com;
the previous system didn't require @ signs at all. This isn't onerous,
but it is annoying. And sometimes when Microsoft does updates I have to shut
down darned near every machine in the house to get the network going
properly again.
At PDC and WinHEC Microsoft was pushing Server 2008 and
Windows Home Server. As it happens I acquired an HP Windows Home Server box.
I have a machine that would accommodate Windows Server 2008. That same
machine would also accommodate Clark Communications network management under
Linux; according to Phil Tharp who runs Mac systems, Windows systems, and
Virtual Windows systems on Macs, this works just fine: the network runs
wonderfully. It will also serve as router and firewall. That last is not for
me plus: I like the D-Link Gaming Router, and it makes my system invisible
according to Gibson Research Shields Up. I don't really want to
replace a router with a Linux PC.
So my choices are:
1. obliterate the existing Active Directory system, put each
computer into a Workgroup, and allow the D-Link Gaming Router to take over
all the network management including URL assignments. This would take an
afternoon's work to get familiar with setting up the router, and another
afternoon reconfiguring each computer, and I admit a tiny bit of confusion
as to the order of events -- if I nuke the Active Directory Server how will
the individual machines be able to come up and log me in -- but I am sure
that an hour's study will make the procedure clear.
2. obliterate the existing Active Directory system, buy
Clark Communications Linux package, install that on the Dell, attach each of
the machines to that. This has the great merit that I'll have access to an
experienced user who has his system set up just as I want mine set up.
3. obliterate the existing Active Directory system, and get
Eric to come over and help me set up the Dell with Windows 2008 Server,
transfer the Domain to that, and with luck all will go well. Eric has
experience with this stuff, and I'll learn a lot from watching and I don't
mind asking him stupid questions and he doesn't mind answering them.
4. obliterate the existing Active Directory system, and
install the Windows Home Server box, with or without transfer of domain.
Roland tells me I'll regret this: it won't be easy or simple. He's very
likely right, and I'm daunted, but I will have a look at the manual for
Windows Home Server.
5. Do nothing and continue to muddle through: which isn't
really an option, because everything is dependent on a very old machine
that's due to fail, and which has vary small resource. I currently use a Box
of Drives for backup. Not an optimum solution, and this is necessarily a
temporary situation.
I've got a couple of days, and some studying to do.
Expert advice appreciated here, but please, don't bombard me with
speculations and feelings, or opinions about how good Apple is and how Awful
Microsoft is, or why you are prejudiced toward or against Linux, or ---
. I have plenty of such messages, more than I can read, and just
now I'm low on time. Please.
============
Mac Mail
Another setting to watch out for: the checkbox that
tells the mail program that, after you have downloaded your mail
successfully, the program can delete that mail from the main server.
I have had this setting change by itself to a
default where it does NOT delete the mail from the server. I found this
out only after my provider informed me that my server mailbox was full.
Tom Brosz
===========
As to politics, I watched 60 Minutes Obama interview last
night, and I learned:
1. Neither Obama nor CBS knows the difference between
President Elect and President Designate or Presumptive President Elect.
Obama does not become President Elect until the Electoral College meets and
casts ballots and those are opened and recorded in the Capitol.
2. Obama will close Guantanamo; and he will forbid use of
waterboarding by US agents. In an hour of interview that is all I got
on specifics. Barrack Obama is good, excellent, at giving reassuring
speeches without much in the way of content. I heard him on the finance
issues, on military policies, on a whole bunch of stuff, and I was unable to
determine what he is going to do. I also didn't get the impression that he
understands what will happen when the ravenous wolves -- Democratic
Committee Chairmen -- begin their pressure. (Ravenous wolves was Jimmy
Carter's description of Congressional Chairmen; note that these were
Democrats.) I don't think Obama will be able to resist them.
3. He has been reading Lincoln. I got the impression he was
reading an autobiography, but I am not aware that one exists, so I probably
got the wrong idea. Perhaps he is reading Lincoln's letters, possibly in
conjunction with a biography. I'd love to know whose biography.
4. I don't think he has been reading Amity Schlaes The
Forgotten Man, which in my judgment is essential for understanding the Great
Depression and what effects The New Deal had (and didn't have. Roosevelt was
not an ideologue. He thought himself a pragmatist. Most of what he did did
not work as planned; we are stuck with the remnants of many of his measures,
one of which, Fannie Mae which transmogrified from the rather successful FHA
into a monster that triggered the crisis.
5. Obama is good. It was a good and reassuring interview,
and Obama came off as a pragmatic and charismatic leader. I can just hear
him saying that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. What I don't
know is what he will actually do.
=====================
Regarding fixing Mac Mail:
[ALL RIGHT: it turns out that checking or unchecking that
box had nothing to do with making the Mac Mail work, but by changing a
setting in preferences it forced the Mac to refresh its DNS, and that
instantly fixed the problem. I would think that an automatic refresh of such
things might with some profit be built into the update, but that's just my
view.]
My thanks to Peter Glaskowsky who continued to tell me I was
all wrong in my theories.
It's clear the local network must die. The question is what
will replace it.
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