1999-12-20     Monday

We had wet snow during the night alternating with clear spells. During the clear spells the half melted snow just froze up. The result was beautiful, four centimeter of bright white ice. At -4°C that was rather solid too. I used two buckets of hot water to get my front window cleared. The rest of the day was cool and dry with one or two sunny periods but mist coming up in the evening. So tomorrow there will be ice again.

The documentation got finished and passed on to Theo. He will add some explanations to it and pass it on to the Americans. I am building the documentation in HTML exclusively this time. If anyone wants it in MS Word format they will have to do the conversion themselves.

I got a mail from Austria concerning an invoice. Last Thursday they had a crash, decimal data error, in the invoice print program. They only provided us the invoice number. I checked the files on their system but there was nothing wrong, so I requested more information. Today I got a program dump to play with. They use a local program to do the printing and somehow they are using a date field without first filling it. The result is of course that they get blanks (space, hex'40') where there should be a date. While scanning their source, which was no fun at all over the slow connection (scrolling a page took about 40 seconds) I noticed that they had removed some code and rearranged the rest enough to get a totally different program. I found the problem but, because it is local code they will have to solve it themselves.

And then I had a meeting with Jan concerning the adaptations Dimitri is doing. Dimitri is almost finished with the common part and with the changes to the OMSI-1 module. Now the adaptations for the other modules must be made by the programmers from these modules.

I think I found one of the problems with frames. Though it may not be frame related. When I use Opera and I have a page maximized the links from the top frame seem not to work. They actually work but open in another window, the first time this is a new window, the next time that same window is used. I have specified a target ("blank") on the links and they all open in the same target "blank" except the calendar which opens in the main frame. The problem is that the target doesn't automatically jumps to the top so, when you are working maximized it seems as if the link is death.
Netscape reacts different maybe better, maybe worse. I think that Netscape looks for a frame with the given name and, when it doesn't find it uses the active window. this way it looks as if things work normal. MSIE handles things the same way that Opera does but uses full windows iso documents in the main window.
I must check that out without using the frames.

Yesterday we had a disruption of our phone line, just while I was uploading the changes of course. The modem was out but also the regular phones. As I was already a quarter to twelve (23h45) I did not wait for the line but went to bed. The result was of course that the Monday post was only available on the mirror. With luck I get things straightened out today.

1999-12-21    Tuesday

Contrary to expectations there was no ice on my car. I guess this is what they call micro-climate. The thermometer, which is in the most exposed part of the garden, was at -0C, with fresh ice on the ground. My car which stands about 20m further was totally ice free. The mist clearly had not decided yet where to freeze. The day turned out very gray, with clouds hovering about 50m above the ground.

There was a problem in Belgium with invoices that were not transferred to the financial system (OFI) trough the general ledger. They were passed to OFI for the Accounts Receivable side. This is a technically impossible situation under normal conditions, there had been a crash (a program looping in the daily housekeeping had been killed). A few days ago the situation was mentioned but I assumed that they had killed the whole series of programs than so I advised to re-run the transfer. However this did not solve the problem. Surprise.
After some brain storming, well a one man blizzard really, I think I found the problem and the possible solution. Normally orders are archived after all processing is done, in this case, thanks to continuing the normal sequence of programs after killing some, the archiving was done before the orders were posted. And posting afterwards did not pick up the 'missing' orders. Recovering is not simple because the temporal invoices (-OM3 members) get deleted by the posting interface even if the orders aren't found. So they have to reconstruct the temporal orders, based on the difference between the General ledger and the actual Invoices (line by line comparison). Then they must make a copy of the posting interface (ivc025r) and adapt it so that it will search the order-archives (QH). They'll be having fun.
I did put down some documentation so I'll know what to do when I actually have to make an adaptation. I set the stage but am keeping the curtains down.

And another problem was mentioned by Loek . He is one of the functional people from the logistics module and he uses the OMSI-3 programs only as input for his module. What he comes up with is something strange. He makes an order and gets a specific messages about an item that cannot be delivered from a specific warehouse, he claims this messages should not come. He then changes the warehouse to one from which the item can be delivered so he doesn't get the message anymore. When he changes back to the original warehouse he doesn't get the message again. He is right that either the message should come each time or never.
When I tried the same it worked but that doesn't mean a thing because there are so many possible variation that I may just miss the mark. After an initial inspection of the code I think he is not describing the situation as it happens. I sense a great black hole here.

One for our black holes specialist :

What is the difference between a great black hole
and a small one ?

As I expected the target problems had nothing to do with the use of frames. And it works in Netscape as well. I just wonder why it looked different yesterday. Posting went good enough. I only produced one error. I (finally) placed a link at the bottom of the daynote page, pointing to the Daynote gang. BUT, capital offense, the link is wrong. O dear, o dear. It linked to //www;daynotes.com/daynotes.htm
I am waiting my trial. Maybe if I plead guilty but unaccountable (isn't that a daynotes requirement?) I can get away with it.
Oh no, Bob frowns. Send shivers down my spine.

A real problem with frames is that scrolling in a frame only works when that frame has focus. No problem when you open the window because the last frame that is filled will have focus. As coder you can select it, I fill the actual daynote (main frame) as last so that scrolling, for example with a wheel mouse, scrolls the text. The problem occurs if the user opens the page and then goes off to some other place or program. How does he return? Most likely by clicking somewhere inside the browser window. The frame he happens to click on becomes the active one, if it is the top scrolling doesn't work. Another method to get the browser back is by selecting it from the task manager or task bar or docking bar (or whatever it is called in your favourit OS). In this case it seems to be random, well I have tried it in Win98 and Win95 and it seems random, while OS/2 seems to be random but with a slight preference for the top frame. The back and forward buttons in Opera and Netscape keep the focus where it was (most of the time).

Well Brian, go ahead and check day ccclxv. And don't forget I live in code.

1999-12-22     Wednesday

A little bit of ice is nice. At -5°C with a bit of mist you get a nice sheet of ice but, because there is so little mist, the roads remain clear. Just like yesterday it was not bright and clear, there was some thin and high cloud obscuring the sun and later, at night the moon. Yesterday night she was visible so I went out for a walk.

No news from Belgium so they must be amusing themselves with yesterdays problem :-).

And Loek didn't call so his problem gets shifted to the back burner. To let it simmer for a few weeks (if possible).

With 'no news from Belgium' I meant no news about that problem. There is however another problem to be solved. On the screen where they start the invoice run there is the possibility to enter, among other criteria, the invoice address. When that is filled only invoices to that address should be made. And that is what happens, only invoices for that address are created in the invoice files. But ....
The address is not passed on to the actual printing program so more invoices (and credit notes) are printed. These are sent out to the clients and then must be countered of course. The problem was mentioned earlier but it was classified as a 'change request' and thus with lower priority than actual bugs. Now there is panic, they start screaming and .... well I just picked up the problem and solved it. That was an easy bit of coding with more time spent testing. There is still some work left because I only pass the address (and other selection criteria) to the first step of the printing process. The local printing programs, local because they must provide the local invoice layout, still pick up anything with status 'to be printed' and this there may still be to much coming out. If they follow the normal processing however that should be no problem.

More time was lost with a problem I TeleSales. There a change in the requirements is being pushed. The problem is that the original specifications were changed for some reason but nobody remembers why. There is a test added, replacing an older test (still present but commented out). We (Ronny and me) are asking why we must change the rule again and we want to know the real business rules behind the whole scheme.
Nobody however seems able to answer. Fun? You bet.

And Dimiti needed some help as well.

And I should be working on the new developments. They are budgeted at 30 days and must be finished by the 15th of January. Who is counting days here?

I did start to work on my next years daynotes. You see, maybe, just maybe the world keeps on turning and I would rather be prepared for it. We wouldn't want to be surprised now would we?

1999-12-23     Thursday

The moon was only visible as a back light behind the clouds and part way to Venlo it started to rain. Quiet hard even. At around 4°C there was no ice and no risk of freezing rain like they had in the south of the country. The rain stopped but it only got clear after the sun went down. Once home the clouds were back in a closed formation.

First with the Germans asking (sic) for answers and then the Belgians throwing problems our way I haven't got time to work on the Hierarchical classification programs. I should have had them finished by now but I have only started the third phase, that is coding the selection program. And after that it still has to be incorporated into the existing programs replacing the current code file handling. I got the skeleton for the selection program ready but it will need some serious work to finish.

Of course I got interruptions today. Especially with both Pieter and Theo around. They have been trying to reproduce the problem from Belgium on our own test database. Without success but with a lot of questions. Most in the style : "If we do this and then that en then so, everything here goes OK but could it be that, in Belgium it could go wrong? ". Lots of investigating and explaining and often, by the time I found an answer the weren't interested in it any more because they were already following another train of ... well events an thoughts.

Apart from some snippets of documentation that I quickly cast in files (html) I think the whole exercise is wasted effort. The Belgians had some rather serious problems with a few logistics jobs running in the daily processing and they canceled and resumed the jobs. Only later they noticed strange, unexplainable errors; which we had to solve. Only after wasting time on them did we notice that they resumed jobs after the crash causing some events to happen in the wrong order . I assume something like that happened not just once. Now they are honest enough, even willing to admit errors. Hut if you make an error out of ignorance you are unlikely to report it until some one asks you explicitly if you did it 'just this way'. < !-- Yes of course, how else? -->.
Asking the right question if often worth more than giving the right answer.

Luckily tomorrow is a day off for most so I won't be interrupted often. Of course I become sit in for system administrator (from hell?) for the day so interruptions may come from that side. Well the next week should be less hectic anyway, so maybe I get some programming done and finished.

I didn't have much time for daynotes (just Tom, Dan, Jim and Dan up ). I didn't even check my own, normally I take a look to see if everything arrived and to make sure the links all work.

1999-12-24     Friday

The temperature keeps rising, 5°C in the morning to 10°C in the evening. The sky remains cloud covered with a few showers to add to the fun. Add a lot of wind, picking up speeds of over 25m/s, doesn't help in making it a nice Christmas Eve.

I just love it when everybody is off work. Cuts about 10 minutes from my commute time and I arrive fully relaxed.

An other advantage of working on a day like this is that you don't get phone calls from customers that have done something stupid and want to blame you for it. And that is no criticism to the Belgians in particular, all customers do that in some measure . Also the mail side was rather low key. Someone in Norway was working but the rest of the world seems to have a day off. And the Norwegian was not presenting a problem, just commenting on a joke I had included inside the code of a program. I am (locally) fameous for adding jokes (of the one-line silly Monty Python type) or short stories as comment inside the program/page code.

I was system administrator for the day but nobody came over with regular tasks. The only thing I did was re-enable one user profile (trying to log on 3 times with the wrong password disables a profile) .

The selection program for the Hierarchical Classification got finished. Well without testing that is so I will spend next Monday on adaptations, correction and testing. It probably needs some large scale extension as well cause I only build in a single mode of operation. But it runs .

And I got time to get current on all the daynotes.

Seeing Steve's work area, and remembering that of some others, I wonder if I am special. I mean, most of the desks are short, with the keyboard just a few centimeters from the front and with the screen also rather close by.
I couldn't work that way. I prefer the screen at about 60cm distance, and quite low, and I need about 25 cm space in front of my keyboard. Whenever possible I put the screen directly on the desk, at almost an arms length distance, and tilted rather deeply forward, getting the glass surface perpendicular to the desk and the top of the screen just below eye level. While working there is almost always a stack of paper (backsides) in front of the keyboard and a pencil at hand, ready to scribble invoice numbers or order codes or other test data down (I know I should remember them long enough but I do have computer type memory, 30 nanoseconds between refreshes :-( )
My current desk consist of an old café table (yes that is a Pub or Saloon table for you anglo's) of 1 by 0.5 m, bearing my screens (a 17inch Mag clone and the LG 500LC 15 inch TFT wonder box) with in front of it a small single person school desk (with a 60 by 50 cm hinged and sloping top, with a hole for an old style ink pot) housing a keyboard and mouse (and an open magazine and about 2 cm of printouts and backsides <8 -- and a stack of diskettes, a pack of playing cards a nail clipper, a pipe lighter and a few handfuls of paper clips and pencils -->). I admit that it conforms to the typical daynoters amount of clutter but the keyboard is set well back and the screen is at a comfortable distance.

I know, a verbal "picture" is not enough but I still haven't got a digital camera, so for the moment you'll have to make do with it. And wait a few more months till I get a picture.

Have a nice, enjoyable Christmas all.

1999-12-25     Saturday

Christmas

We don't get Christmas weather. A holly night yes but not in the least bit a silent night. Not with winds of almost 30m/s and spells of torrential rain. With clouds and winds as we had we were given a great sound and light show. Thunder and lightning. And at just over 10°C we can also forget about a white Christmas.
But, you could have guessed it, I like this kind of weather.

This is Christmas so all the shops are closed, which means I don't go out in the morning. Not that I need anything. Well, I do need a new bulb for my halogen desk lamp but that is not urgent. It will have to wait till the second weekend of January, cause next Saturday the shops will be closed as well.

The house just beside ours is empty. There was a reseller and customiser of steel gates. The owner had started it and had become quite successful. He helped his sons put up their own businesses so by the time he wanted to retire, none of them were going to take over. Some seven or eight years ago he sold it to someone who made a restaurant from it. Considering the location this was doomed to fail and three years ago he went bankrupt. Since then it is empty. The city council bought it last summer with the intention of putting service flats on it in a couple of years.
The metal gate doesn't lock anymore and last night it was really swinging and banging against its frame. It was a second hand gate to begin with and the years of neglect have left their mark on it. I went over there to secure it against the wind and I spent most of the morning on it.

The drawers on one side of the attic are finished. Well the have been finished a few weeks but I postponed filling them. After searching about three hours for a driver CD for the Sparkle (S3) video card in Oswald I decided it was time to fill them up with some of the junk covering all the more or less flat surfaces. On top of that I need some desks pace to put Mita, the old 486 notebook. I got to prepare it for my brother because his ancient Toshiba (286) is starting to break down.
If all goes according to plan the attic will look clean and organized in a few weeks time.

In between I worked out the day and weeknotes structure for the next millennium, well next year any how. I also finished the Year calendar for 2000, of course the links still don't work. That is a job for tomorrow.

As I said earlier, I don't need anything. I mean I have got everything I need and then some. I have a job with a reasonable pay, well underpaid to be sure but that is another story. I have got a house to live in. I got food, each day and enough, too much often. I have clothes to wear, more than enough of them. So what can I complain about.
Nothing really. I have so much that I can afford to think about people who don't have the same luxuries. People who don't have food each day. I may not be a good Christian in the sense that I don't go to service and that I don't really believe in the bible. But I do click where my heart is:

.

1999-12-26     Sunday

Less wind today but not the least bit less rain. The temperature remains parked at 10°C all day.

I love to run in the rain but I didn't. Normally my father goes to hospital for his kidney dialysis on Saturday. That being Christmas this week his schedule was shifted and he goes today. This means I have to pick him up later in the morning while Suzan brings him there. If I had run I'd have come back while she was (most likely) smoking. After running I need air, no smoke. So I stay in bed, preventive.

After dinner we watch the BBC Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. I always enjoy them. Typically some rather specialised scientific subject is presented to an audience of kids. That means that rather complicated theories are explained in a fun and simple way. It is not the type of lecture you follow to learn something new but rather to get a different angle. This years topic is time.
The sorry thing is that it always runs from Christmas until new year and at noon. I cannot watch from Venlo so I will miss the other sessions.

I did mention yesterday that I would make all the links on the 2000 calendar functional. I decided not to do that. I prepared the first few days but will leave the rest, that way I can change my layout without having to redo all the prepared days.

:-)