1999-12-13     Monday

The rain keeps coming down, and the wind keeps up as well. The thermometer got unstuck however, dropping to 5°C.
It rained more than 40 litters per square meter yesterday so rivers are rising, with some localized flooding already ( ). As the rain keeps falling more flooding is predicted.

This morning the NT server was down so I couldn't log onto the network. I did reach the internet however and the mail server was working as well. And the AS/400 was available also. Later I found out, by accident that the server was back on duty. Of course nobody informed us.

Now that Peter is on holiday, Theo handles all the calls from the opcos. the problem with this is that he is new on OMSI-3 and TeleSales he learns fast but still he comes along with a lot of questions and because his current lack of background I have a lot of explaining to do.
The good thing is that he keeps asking till he understands the issues. The bad thing is that I have to explain things that I hardly know myself. I was dropped into this project with the barest of explanations, mostly over my head at the time. I learn while I fix bugs but some parts are already sufficiently bug free. I don't know them and now I must explain them. One of the more difficult things, from my point of view is that I have to explain how a user should accomplish things, where defaults come from and where they are maintained. When I have to do something for testing I make direct program calls of I enter data directly into the database.
I am losing time. I is not wasted time, cause he (and I) learns.

I got the announcement that I will be the active system administrator for the AS/400 on the 24th and 31st. Not unexpected but it is official now.

A few days ago I reported to Tom that I didn't get any spam. Well I shouldn't have said that. On Saturday I received my very first spam message and this morning I got the second one. Two isn't much but I think I should look into filtering them out somehow.

My brother came by to test out the new light in the garage. This has a movement detector but also an light meter so by day it doesn't work. To test it and to adjust the time delay it must be dark. And we discussed some arrangements for the attic. More time down the drain.

Sorry. I misspelled Marcia but she is not going to kill me for it. A mistake never comes alone so I had the URL wrong as well, pointing to a Dutchgirl dot Com in stead of a Dutchgirl dot Net. Maybe I'll get killed for that.

Tom's black horse has nosed out of the stable. And it sure is no donkey. He is struggling with it for the moment but eventually he wil get it running. On Linux no less. Now Bob doesn't like it cause he may have more boxes laying around than any of us but Tom beats him in the performance department. I wonder what he wil come up with to regain his lead.

1999-12-14    Tuesday

Some days ago I lamented the lack of change in the weather. Oh dear. It was about 2°C when I got up at 5h45 with just the beginning of frost on the car and the remnants of mist, quickly settling down. By the time I got to Venlo the wind had picked up some speed and clouds were racing by. From then until I left, at about 18h00, we had rain in all imaginable forms, from drizzle to torrential downpour, some dry spells, some sunny spells and a bit of sleet. None of these conditions lasted longer than say ten minutes. Great. Especially if you can watch it from inside the office.

There were some times I'd rather have been outside today.

I have a nagging problem in the hierarchical code program. I want to clear the file before filling. In RPG III that was not a problem, you could call any system command. Now in RPG IV the same method just doesn't work. I have a program, in RPG IV, where the method does work but this is another type of command. Not good.

Then I had to explain the OFI interface, from sales to accounting, to Theo. Because Iwan, from Norway, had asked to explain the difference between v7.8 and v7.9. He sent his question both to me and to Theo so I explained it twice before I noticed that Theo wanted to know how to explain it to Iwan. Losing direction? You'renot alone.

And then I had to rescue Germany. They are releasing orders twice. This is only possible if they do that explicitly. Normally you release an order and if you check sometime later you notice the order status is changed and it cannot be released again. If however you release it a second time before you update the screen the action is started. On a normal AS/400 the first release job is finished before the second one is actually started. The German system is however so overloaded and badly managed that both release job become active at the same time. This causes the logistics module to produce strange results (they don't prevent duplicate records).
I found a solution but, because our system works normal without congestion it is quite hard to test. The only way it can go wrong, is if the second job becomes active when the first one is at a specific point. There is a window of opportunity of about 25 instructions where an overlap can cause problems. Try to hit that for testing!

I have been banging away at problems from 7h50 till just after 18h00 today. Without lunch pause so I only checked out Tom's daynote and threw in a few quick replies to mails.

I am cooked for the day.

1999-12-15     Wednesday

It was freezing (-2C) since yesterday evening and tonight there was some rain. One neighbour was busy scraping ice from his car for 10 minutes <g>. I use hot water so in just a minute I am ready <mg>. Once out of the street everything was clear. Only in the last 10 or 15 Km there was the beginning of snow. Most colleagues come from the east and snowing started there much earlier. They arrived about an hour later than usual <g>.

I packed and shipped the solution for Germany. Now they ware happy. They don't have to teach the users how to release orders. And they don't have to request a change in OLI which still accepts duplicate records.

The Hierarchical Code program got finished as well. Now I can start at the third stage. This should be the most difficult because there are still some undecided issues involved. It will be a typical "solve problems as you go, we will see later if it works" design (undesigned spaghetti functions).

And we got a new request from the Germans. They are using OMSI-3 and TeleSales concurrently. it was however decided originally that that would not happen. As long as they keep an order from start to finish in the same system there are no problems. Of course they mix things up royally, starting orders in OMSI-3, then updating and calculating them in TeleSales. Than 'correcting' them again in OMSI-3 and releasing via TeleSales. And now they claim that TeleSales doesn't work, demanding changes. If we add these changes TeleSales will become a hell of a lot slower. And not just for Germany but also for the other opco's. We are going to resist these changes. If they really want them they will have to do the adaptations themselves.

Finally I got a current.html page ready. It is not yet posted. With luck that will happen tomorrow.

1999-12-16     Thursday

At last we are getting some real frost. OK Tom, -4C is hardly worth mentioning for you but here we have to wait for it. I don't like temperatures between 0 and 10 C, I much prefer subzero.
The rain and snow has stopped and the clouds are replaced by sunshine. Untill noon. Then the clouds and the rain were back. Sigh

Ronny stays home (moves to new house)

One of the change request has been solved wrongly. The solution was accepted at the moment but now the problem wit it is noticed in Norway. They prolonged a whole list of contracts. There is no specific contract prolongation function that works on a list of contracts but it is possible to handle contracts trough the price list program. The solution had mangled this possibility so that the contracts didn't actually prolongate automatically (explicitly stated so in prs11787). Contracts can be cut short however (even up to a negative running time!!). The Norwegians used the program to prolongate a list of contracts (about 700). After activating the contract change they noticed the problem.
So now the want a correction program. To be delivered on Monday. Yes last Monday, not next ....

The Germans are trying to play up. They have had the TeleSales program for months and we didn't hear anything about it. Now they started to use it for their production orders and after a week they halt the whole project, reverting to the OMSI-3 programs because 'it doesn't work'. They send a list of 'errors' to us, well rather directly to the top management here in Venlo. This type of politics is however not going to work to their advantage. Only one item on their list causes a critical error and the solution for it was sent out to them yesterday. On top of that fast solution the error only occurred when they did something wrong. Apart from a few real errors most of the points are like that.
They are shooting wildly but mostly with blanks and the few real bullet are quite likely to backfire.

My current page is ready and posted. I use a frame instead of redirecting. The result is less of a delay and no intervening page, the back and forward buttons work as expected. Bookmaking should not be a problem either, you can bookmark the main-frame (no Tom that is not you little mainframe, just the name of the lower frame) which is the actual daynote from the context menu (right mouse key). Bookmaking the top-frame is also possible in this way but, as it only contains a few links it's rather pointless. Bookmaking the current page, which defines the frame is possible from the menu bar.
I tested it with Netscape (4.6), Opera (3.6) and MSIE (4.0) and they all seem to work. For browsers that don't support frames (or have it switched off) a calendar screen is shown with a link to the most recent daynote. If I don't get screaming mails I intend to go with this method for next year.

1999-12-17     Friday

The weather gods are a bit lazy around here; OK we had our frost, so now we are back to wet and windy stuff. And back up at 3°C. Not nice.

While Theo and Jan were composing an answer to the Germans, to be delivered by our top manager, I was on standby to lookup and explain items. That is not a nice job cause it is 100% interrupt driven and the answers are required in no time. Flat. Then there was a mail from America lamenting the (lack of) performance. We have had performance problems in Belgium and at the time we queried America and Germany. They had good response times, and after digging deeper in the matter the problem was a slow connection to their AS/400. Now the Americans are getting a response time of up to 6 minutes when releasing an order, it used to be 5 to 10 seconds. Later, consulting with Jan it appears that this long delay only occurs infrequent, most users are not affected.
To be able to find out what actually happens and to try to isolate possible bottle necks they requested documentation of the processes involved in releasing an order. Documen.. what? Ho do jo spell that?
So I start collecting information to write up the requested documentation. Maybe I will become a writer too.

In between all the interruptions I got to read up on the Daynote Gang. And I threw in a few mails as well. I haven't got much feedback on my attempt at a current page. Brian is not enthusiast about it because frames cause problems for some tools. So, he hates it and doesn't want anything to do with it and ... well concedes that it is my choice and that I can choke on it. Of course he uses far more polite words but he could well be right about it. So check out the current page and shoot me.

And I did a quick add of an alternative current. This puts the week page in the main-frame but positioned at the current date.

Hmm, I am getting more methods here for putting up daynotes that I need. I'll keep things up till I get enough votes to make a choice.

1999-12-18     Saturday

Getting warmer, 5°C and drier over here. But, while the sun was visible the weather cannot be called bright. There is just enough cloud, high up and a bit hazy to pull all the warmth out of the sun, the result is what we call a "water zonnetje" (= watery sun).

I did my customary Saturday shopping. And came home loaded down with some bottles of wine, an arm full of clothes (tshirts and socks), a pair of shoes, some cables, a mouse and a modem.

The modem finally arrived, I had only asked for an external V90 modem. What I got was a Diamond Supra Express with a few free trial internet CDs (AOL among them of course). The only outstanding feature I can see is the 'prepared for Shotgun technology' thing and because I only have one phone line that is no advantage for me. It should be a good modem so I'll se how it fares. That is when I recover enough desk space to get Aria up again. Aria runs Linux but the Diamond modem should be standard enough to get to talking terms with her.

The mouse I bought (not for you Salem, it isn't a real one) is a three button PS/2 beast. Most mice around here are either two button (with or without wheel) affairs with PS/2 or serial lead or cheap three button ones with a serial (9 pin) lead. I have been looking for a three button PS/2 mouse for the better part of a year now. Not that I need it urgently but in Linux that third button should be usable.

While picking up a small hand held dust bunny co.. sorry, vacuum cleaner I found a bunch of extension cords for computer. In one box there are two PS/2, one AT keyboard, 1 serial, 1 speaker and 1 VGA cable; all 1m80 long (6 feet?). The only question is the quality of the VGA cable, I had extension cables running to a switch box some years ago and the VGA cables introduced too much noise to get anything better than 640x480 trough. The ones I am currently using on my switch box are good enough for 1024x798 and probably more (but the box cannot handle more). I'll test them out on Yaku first and if they work I'll collect some more. I may need them on the attic.

And I got all my new years presents packed and wrapped. We don't celebrate Christmas with a tree and gifts. We do set up a small artificial tree and we have a special dinner. No songs, thank you. Our collective talent is not sufficient to make singing an endurable experience. On new years day we have a special dinner as well, again no big celebration and mostly no presents either. It is only the last few years that I started to give presents and even then it was just garbing the occasion to present the stuff. For example my father still uses the old (I think 1949?) desk lamp from his days at university. The reflector has been broken and cemented several times but recently the socket has become loose so the bulb must be fastened regularly. I bought a new halogen spot and just wrap it for the occasion.

Most of the afternoon was spent on resting. Extra explanation for Tom: that is what you last did some years ago, it is the act of doing ... nothing. Persistently for a few hours.

Reactions on my frame based current page proposal are pouring in. I mean I got another one, from Dan. The overwhelming majority is something like "you do it reasonably good but still, we don't like frames". I still like it so I keep at it for the time being. I haven't found out what the problem is with frames either.

Salem, one of Bo's cats is at it again. Adding paragraphs to his daynotes and adding hair to his keyboard. Maybe he should get one of these kids keyboards, with big colourful keys. They are typically kid (and kit) proof, fully sealed against spilled drinks and kooky crumbs and mildly shock proof.

1999-12-19     Sunday

It is 1°C and dry with just the barest of a breeze when I start running. Superb running conditions. By half past seven my car started to freeze up and by nine it hat thawed again. From about eleven onward we had alternating sun an snow. On the radio they predicted unsettled weather. Right.

We peeled the last of the beans. With a total of about 1.5Kg it is a reasonably good harvest. Not much compared to our yearly consumption but hey this is more of a hobby than anything.

The afternoon and evening is spent on cleaning up my disks. I have backup copies of everything scattered all over the place. After the cleanup I hope to have weeded out lots of older and no longer current copies. The aim is to make sure everything stored on Harper is copied to Miona and to a separate Jaz disk (and a few Zip disks as well).
After a few hours I have already scrubbed and removed almost 400Meg of duplicate texts and graphics. The joys of a pack-rat mentality.

The halogen desk spot I use on the attic just blew its bulb so next week I must hunt down a new one. Which is not obvious because all the shops are long closed by the time I come home. At the moment I am using a 17inch screen as desk light (put up a white background and turn brightness up) which is still a bit dim. Not good really but still better than a bunch of candles.

I prefer to view the daynotes on a day basis. Brian prefers the week layout. So I keep them booth updated. Maybe using the frame based current format the distinction blurs.
I am going to have the current link set up on the daynotes page.
And plug my ears against the complaints :-)