2001 ,Svenson

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Week 01, 2001 ,Svenson

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The years starts drab, with a grey sky and intermittent rain. The last remnants of snow melt and are washed away. To make the Autumn impersonation complete the wind picks up.
Current (22:30) temp is 12.9C in, 6.8C out.

I got bitten by a millennium virus. No, not a computer malfunction but a user malfunction. And the user that's me.
I don't use special backup programs, I back up things by copying. I guess I copied in the wrong direction yesterday, overwriting my December directory with an older copy. Anyway, this morning I missed the complete month. I could get most of my work back from other copies so I actually lost just a few files that I can recreate.
Yes Tom your file is safe.

As usual on new years day I ate and drank too much.
So apart from recovering files and showing my uncle how I print pictures from the camera I didn't do much. We had fun with the camera. He used to take classic pictures and develop them himself in a small darkroom in his basement. So he was quite impressed with the digital camera. He doesn't have a computer and he is convinced that computers are too complicated for him. And I don't think I can persuade him to try it out.

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Feast : you start out with a stuffed turkey on the table and end up with ...
stuffed people around the table.

 

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Another warm and grey day with various spells of rain. With just enough of a watery sun in the morning to remind us she is still there. It is about 10 to 15 degrees too warm for what I call winter. And with the wind and rain things look more like autumn than anything else.
Current (23:20) temp is 13.5C in, 8.7C out.

First workday of the new year so everybody runs around giving best wishes and shaking hands. I almost suffer RSI from that.
After that I start on the rewriting of the price-calculation. If I get that worked out it should be possible to request the price for a single line or item just as easy as it is for a whole order. The trick is to separate out all the routines that use the order and rewrite those. This is going to take quite some time to get right. Which is why I start on it now, even before the validations changes have been worked out completely.
You know keeping two balls in the air is more fun than just one.

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There is no business like slow business.

 

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Way to hot for the season, 8C at 6:00 is not acceptable for winter. I think I am going to return it and ask my money back. Nice sunshine in between the clouds though.
Current (23:20) temp is 15.7C in, 5.1C out.

A rather hectic day in the office. I started off by checking the Progress data-server maintenance programs (the V8-to NX conversion). And I worked out how to do one of the new validations. In between we had a serious problem with the database synchronisation between the Progress schema and the AS/400 database. We applied all the known tricks but still sometimes some files just couldn't be accessed. The only reference we find in the Progress knowledge base is something about the year transition.
Maybe a delayed millennium bug. Not unlikely because the 31 of December was the 366^th day of the year while 2000 is actually a once in the 400 years exception on the once in the 100 years exception on the leap-year rule. I wouldn't be surprised that Progress closed the year after 365 days.
(The reported error is due to a mismatch in a checksum that uses the file-creation date.)

 

We ate the last of the cheese left over from new years day. With a glass of sweet white Jura wine.

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Sometimes you make more progress by standing still than by running.

 

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The temperature stays to high and the sun stays away. In stead we get a rainy grey day with a wind that is picking up.
Current (23:20) temp is 14.6C in, 6.7C out.

We did some deep digging on the Progress problem. And most likely we found it. Normally the database on the AS/400 is composed of physical files (tables) without key, and logical files (indexes) containing keys (one each). It is possible to include an key in a physical file but normally we don't do that.
Of course I did just that with the LOG_ The result seems to be that the file handled immediately following the keyed physical got mishandled. Another problem is that files ending with an underscore are a problem. In de p__index file that underscore gets stripped off so the file isn't recognised.
We spent about the whole day cursing and sweating on that.

Oh, I did sent a request for clarification to the people in Italy. They had a bunch of questions about the way we will handle their local adaptations. They didn't tell how they had implemented these local things in the old, OMSI-3, environment.

 

The reasoning behind this ( www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/15759.html ) article in The Register?
Lawyers, lawsuits etc are about the law. Law is a form of Codex. Codex comprises Code. Programming is all about code. So money thrown at lawsuits is a natural phenomenon in IT.
Logic < SG > (sad grin)

BTW, Aloha Dan, check the Thursday wallpaper (click on the owl) :-)

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How does anyone type in Java Script ?

 

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It is 1 degree cooler than yesterday. Wow. To compensate for that lost degree it rained. All day. Sometimes hard, sometimes light. And the wind that started picking up yesterday remained fairly strong.
Current (23:00) temp is 14.8C in, 7.2C out.

We worked out the solution we reasoned up yesterday for the Progress problem. And it actually worked.
After that I more or less finished the documentation for the Progress maintenance programs. I did find a bunch of orphaned programs among the lot as well as some that seem to be plain wrong (probably orphaned as well).

Then I got a mail from Norway.
Sounds like they get a problem each January. Last year it was with contract prolongation. This year the program for manipulating maintaining price lists crashed. Hard. I spent the afternoon on that but whenever I tried it worked flawlessly. And yet I have some core dumps as proof of the problem.

 

It really looks like I turned back the clock one year. Last year on the 21^th of January, I tested out a motherboard and a chip for a Linux box. Today I actually started assembling the box.

Is this www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/15809.html a business opportunity or yet another initiative bound for nose-landing?

Combine this www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/15813.html with the article I mentioned yesterday and you will notice a hard time coming for lawyers.

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To do lists can be classified as some sort of plant
they grow when you aren't looking

 

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To warm still but with a frigid wind blowing. And practically no rain. Almost no sun either with clouds racing by, chasing away the few short breaks.
Current (23:00) temp is 14.5C in, 1.6C out.

Shopping. Neither the English version of Windows (ME or 2000 whatever arrives first) nor the network kit have arrived yet so I only bring home some wine, cheese and fruit.

Rest day as usual so I don't do much.. Well I did pick up the new box I started on yesterday. I didn't get far though.
The intention is to make it into a firewall. It is based on an old AT chassis. A true steel case with the top that hinges up. It has a 200W power supply with the on/off switch on the right side like the original IBM PCs. I threw all the rest out. The drive chassis (true lacquered steel) come out easily. I added an old 2.1GB Quantum Fireball and a Maverick 12x CD drive and a brand new 3.5inch floppy drive (so now I have a 160MB Kalok hard disk, pre-IDE, and a good 5.25inch 1.2MB floppy drive on my collection of spares). I installed a Soyo motherboard with an AMD K6-200 and 64MB memory. Then I noticed I didn't have any AGP cards ready and only one PCI network card. I don't need AGP graphics (and I have a few PCI card spare) but the board only has 3 PCI slots which would/will be taken all when I get the second network card.
I'll try to install Linux tomorrow for a test. Then I need to learn how to make a firewall out of it.

I changed the layout and I removed the redirection on my site. I didn't get any comments about it so either nobody noticed it or the changes are appreciated.

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A pedestrian is a driver who found a parking lot.

 

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Cool, not cold, with a fair bit of wind throughout the day. After a beautiful coloured sunrise that sun thinks it has done its job and promptly she retreats behind the clouds. Getting a bit shy I think.
Current (23:20) temp is 2.5C out, 14.7C in.

Cool enough with a good refreshing wind for running. Well, at about 2C I think this is the ideal temperature. You cool down well enough and yet nothing (fingers, nose, ...) freezes off.

I completed all the connections on the firewall and everything got recognised, booting straight into DOS off a diskette. Well I did have some problems because the power supply had no 3.5inch floppy power lead, after ransacking my spares cabinets (notice the multiple) I found a four pronged power splitter with one small connector. So everything works, he.
Well not realy.
Old case
As you may notice on the picture (a bit dark but with full flash it was to light) just on the corner closest to the camera there is a heat sink fitted on a voltage regulator. Of course this is sticking out almost a full centimetre too high to fit in under the drive cage. So I have all the right bits and pieces working nicely with a good and almost silent power supply. And it just won't fit the box. While pushing, trying to get the thing fitted anyway I did break the CPU fan.
So, firewall project canned. (till next week maybe :-)

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How can you call it a Sunday when that sun don't shine?

 

Week 02, 2001 ,Svenson

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Cold again, well only just freezing. Mist coming up last evening and freezing this morning means I get to remove the result of a micro ice-age from my car. And some spots on the roads were affected too. After a nice sunrise clouds march in bringing the expected rain. The Maas which last Friday was on a normal level burst it banks over the weekend and looks about three times as wide now.
Current (22:50) temp is 3.4C out and 11.3C in.

I finally tracked the Norwegian problem down to corruption in the database. I expected that because I couldn't reproduce the problem on our own system nor on their test database. I did loos most part of the day (and of Friday) looking on the wrong side of the problem. Iwan had reported that he got this dump "when he tried to update a record". So I tried all possible updates that start from the screen he sent me a picture off. The actual problem was not what happened when he tried to update something on that screen but at the moment that screen got opened. So not when he tried to update a price list line but when he tried to update the price list itself.
And then the corruption was not in a file related to the price list at all but in the item master file. Some un-displayable character in an item description. This did not only crash the price list stuff but almost everything where the item got displayed.
Anyway that got solved.

 

Microsoft's XBox is launched . Of course in this day and age product launches have no relation to product availability. Shipments are expected to start in the autumn. The big question is not whether it will sell or take on the PS2. The real question is how many viruses and security exploits will there be by the time it ships.

A good take-up about Advertising at Bobs site ( bottom of Sunday ).
I think the problem is not that advertising doesn't work because it does work. A bit. Just like normal adds very few of them work directly. Yet being on the web and click able they are supposed to actually work and instantly generate a stream of income. Normal ads work more at bringing a brand name in focus and keep it there.
When Ford puts up an ad about their new Mondeo they don't expect people to run out and buy that car, they are more intent on people remembering that Ford makes cars and that it still exists. That is of course not necessary for people that know the sector but rather helpful for people that just enter a sector or that are looking for a new purchase. Ex I am into computers so I know all the big players but I need a good radio for my car and I don't know much about that. I am much more likely to buy a 'known' brand.
That is one of the reasons it is sort of inefficient to put loads of ads up for computers on computer sites. It is silly for IBM or Intel to advertise on Anand Tech for example. But it would be more appropriate to advertise in say Scientific American or on a newspaper .
Computer sites should look for their advertising income at non-computing advertisers.
So advertising will not dry up entirely. Still, as Bob say, subscription payments will be coming.

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"We must do all we can to support free elections in America and allow democracy to gain a foothold there,"
from the Onion

 

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Same temperature as yesterday but no frost. Probably thanks to the clouds. The rain certainly comes from the same batch of clouds.
Current (23:10) temp is 2.4C out and 12.3C in.

After solving yesterdays 'problem' in Norway I mentioned, as a friendly gesture, that he could always mail me if he had problems.
I regretted that today.
Got a different problem passed. They had copied a price list but the result was highly unsatisfactory. After some searching we found that they had used the wrong copy function.
You build a price list by adding items to it and than matching various prices to the items. An item can have different prices for different order quantities (anything up to 100 pieces costs x, while up to 1000 pieces of the same get a lower unit price).
If you copy from one price list to another all that information is copied.
The alternative copy function, of course the one they used, serves a different function. This will place all items from the item file (corresponding to a selected type) in the price list with a single price point. That is fine when you start a new price list. If you run this on an existing list and you specify replace = Yes you lose all the existing prices.
Not good. At all.

Well, well, well, Open Source NSA.
Thanks to The Register .

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Cell Phones, great for inmates

 

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Same temperature again and no frost. No clouds either but some high mist. It is a bit strange because close to the ground there is no mist at. Later the mist transforms itself in low clouds making a soft landing (all day drizzle).
Current (23:10) temp is 2.0C out and 13.4C in.

We had a nice somewhat mysterious lunar eclipse. Thanks to the strange mist nothing could be seen sharply but we could follow the dimming and overlapping of the moon as if played in some Bilitis sort of unfocused film.
No stars or other celestial bodies could be seen trough the mist. And while normal mist has a diffuse glowing aspect (thanks to the street lights reflecting and refracting by the mist) this mist was totally black once the moon was hidden. I tried some photographs but I think I need a slightly stronger flash for this type of distance.
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I got all the extra validations added to the Validations program. And they work. So now it is Ronnies turn to add the tests to TeleSales.
Related to that we worked out a method to open a browser with a defined web page from inside a TeleSales program. Well that may not sound great but Ronny thought it was not possible and looking in the manuals he didn't find anything that actually worked. This was asked by the French for their special warehouse selection methods. It could also be handy for our own functions.

Microsoft is 'innovating' again. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/15961.html . And by the next release it is integrated and inseparable from the Windows.

Yesterdays post did not arrive on the server. Not even after several tries.

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Women don't make fools of men
most of them are the DIY types.

 

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In the morning it's 2C, no mist and no rain. Lots of clouds though and they stay all day. Which mean we don't see the sun all day.
Current (22:50) temp is11.5C in and 1.7C out.

Ronny is busy checking out problem reports for TOS. Happy job. He has to find the problems and decide if they are bugs or specification problems (note that we don't have the specifications). But he is not allowed to alter the coding in any way. The problem is of course that TOS was build by some people from Progress and it has a lot of problems still in because the estimated time needed for completing the project, and specified in the contract, was too short. Of course. Because the contract stated delivery of a functional package all the bugs must be repaired free of charge. Of course if we change anything in the coding the people from Progress can claim we introduced the bugs. Everybody knows this would be a cheap excuse but everybody also knows that this will happen. So we can look but don't touch.
Because he is busy with that he cannot put the new validations in the TeleSales files so I do that. Not difficult per se but it's the first time for me. I do succeed (with a hint from Ronny) and promptly find some bugs in the validations.

 

CPRM is being converted in a moving target, hanging out in a misty twilight zone. theregister.co.uk/content/2/15979.html

Some weeks ago (on 2000/12/28 ) the Lexmark printer stopped working with the 'paper jam' indicator on. No mater what I did I couldn't clear the jam. There was no paper in the printer anyway. I intended to tackle the problem during the weekend but of course I didn't find the time for it. I still haven't found the time but sometimes you must make what you don't find so ...
I took the printer to the attic (since the firewall project got (temporally) cancelled there is about half a square meter of space on my side bench) and took it apart as far as I could without breaking things. I didn't find any obstacle in the paper path. I also didn't find anything that looked like a paper-jam sensor.
Disappointed for not finding the problem I reassembled the thing (and had to start over because I found a part laying around after the first assembly). Of course now the problem is gone so I can say that I solved the problem without actually finding it.
Sounds like the software I write. <G>

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Time is one of the few things you can lose even if you don't have it

 

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Ha, winter. Light frost (-2C) in the morning (with my car frozen over) leading in to a nice cloudless and dry day. Not to warm during the day and a light but chilly wind.
Current (23:05) temp is 9.7C in and -3.2C out.

Ronny was struggling with the TOS problem reports. Today didn't start off any better. Then Theo joined him and together they went over the list again.
The final result is that over half the problems get returned to Pieter because they are either too confusing or not a problem at all. Of the others a few were already solved or placed on a low priority to-do list. Many problems that Pieter reported are likely due to the setup of the 'Portal' site. This was intended to be the web server containing the style sheets and JavaScript files but also running some special security and redirection software. The whole Portal functionality is being reviewed because, after several months of promises and some deliveries and returns, the whole thing still doesn't work.

I spent half the day testing the validations. I didn't find anymore problems but that is no guarantee because for a special validation I got to check out an ordered situation against a contract but there are countless ways to make a contract. I did pass the buck to Jan.
And started on the error log cleanup procedure.

 

Jacob Nielsen has a point in his latest collumn. He does however drops an equally important point.
Minitel was proprietary all the way. GSM and the later generations are not proprietary.
WAP is an interesting experiment, failing on standard mobile phones. But that doesn't mean that the mobile network cannot be used by other devices.
If Minitel had not been proprietary it might well have prevented the web from evolving as it did. Maybe the web in use today would have (some of) its roots in Minitel.
The point he has is that mobile phones will not be the basis of a mobile Internet. My bet is that most people that use a Palm or PocketPC also have a mobile phone.

Hummm, 3.2Tbps. Just what I have been looking for. www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/16055.html

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A journalist arrives at a dairy farmer and request to have a few questions about Mad Cow Disease ( BSE).
"Of course" says the farmer, "what would you like to know?"
"Well," says she (clicking on her recorder), "What do you as dairy farmer think about BSE?"
"Ah, I milk my cows twice a day." answers the farmer.
"Oh, but I asked what you think about BSE." says the journalist.
The farmer : "Yes, and I have them 'served', ye know, once a year."
She is getting a bit nervous and says : "ok, that is all nice to know but What do you think about the Mad Cow Disease?!"
To which the farmer replies : " Well, let's put it differently. If your husband plays with your breasts twice a day but only 'serves' you once a year, you'd get mad. Wouldn't you?"

 

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Nicely cold, -5C. Everything is frosted over of course, even the sun feels like being frosted over. Doesn't push the day temperature up much that way even though there are no clouds. It could of course be the sharp wind and the snow-dust that is flying by at times that is keeping the temperature down.
Current (22:57) temp is 12.4C in and -3.1C out.

Shopping. Wine, fruit vegetables as usual. And some clothes. The wireless network stuff still hasn't arrived. Typical for Masset, if you order something uncommon and he doesn't have it in stock you can wait a long time for it, it is often better to cancel the order if it hasn't arrived in a week and get your stuff elsewhere. I am not in a hurry though. He doesn't have normal network card in the shop either.
So I only pick up a display card. An unknown (A-TEK ?) Riva TNT2 card with 32MB RAM. Should be sufficient for a 'spare' card :-)

Back home I make asparagus rolls. During the season I had bought some extra, cleaned and stored them in the deep freezer. This didn't affect their taste at all. No wonder I ate too much.

So I rested for the rest of the day.

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The rest of the time is obviously intended for resting.
The remainder of the time is to make sure you don't go away.

 

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Another cool day starting at -5C and climbing all the way up to 1C. With a sharp cold wind picking up. So while the sun is nice she is not spreading much warmth.
Current (22:24) temp is 11.2C in and -4.8C out.

Running in this temperature is ideal, no need for water cooling.

Short post. Really.

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If we have "no time to waste" greanpeace
Where will we find time for recycling?

 

Week 03, 2001 ,Svenson

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The nice weather continues. Nice that means cold, around -5C, and dry and sunny. Only just a little bit of frosting because the air has been freeze-dried already. Because it stays close to 0C throughout the day and there is no wind there isn't much moister getting in the air.
Current (23:20) temp is 8.3C in and

Theo called in sic.

Ronny keeps looking into the TOS problem reports. together we found a true bug (2 actually) in a JavaScript file.
The problem was that on a screen two dates can be entered. The report was "the from-date always reverts to 2000, regardless of what the user types in". And Pieter had put in an example where he typed "13/02/08" which the program converted to "13/02/2000".
After testing we noticed that when the user types in the full date, including the century the date was always correct. Even entering a year only went OK except for years 08 and 09. And for 012 and 013 and .... Well some dates went wrong.
Neither of us knows JavaScript so it took quite some time before we found the script with the date handling and then some more before we located the actual date validation routine. And then we lost more time actually finding the problem.
When converting alpha numeric data into strings (and reverse) JavaScript assumes that, if the number begins with a zero that it is an octal value. Of course 08 and 09 don't exist in octal. And 012 and 013 convert to 9 and 10 decimal.
While digging up the code we also noticed that the days per month are hard coded, with 28 for February. OK that is only a problem in four years time, when the program is most likely no longer in use (or not yet in use :-). But still it is a bug.

I didn't get much done on my own programs. Well not enough anyway.

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One shouldn't expect to succeed where one doesn't try.

 

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Could be the coldest day of the year. With -6C in the morning and -1C at noon. Perfectly beautiful weather all the way.
Current (23:10) temp is 7.5C in and -7.9C out.

At work we do some more of the same.
Even Theo is still off.
Jan is testing and gets a few details spotted which I iron out and some other problems for Ronny to sort out.
He also notices that validation 09 doesn't work anymore. A few days ago it still worked. Well, that is, a few weeks ago nobody had remarked about this problem. It is a validation to prevent clients from ordering too much, it probably is switched off everywhere. For testing Jan has switched on all the validations of course. While trying to find the problem I switch off a few validations, just to get the speed up a bit, and sometimes the bloody thing works as expected. I finally have to walk the code using the debugger and find out that the validation always works correctly. It writes a record in the error log when it has to. Only somewhat later that record gets removed. So I have to debug all the validations. I start with the most recently added ones.
And find that validation 29 uses the same error return code as validation 06. When validation 29 passes without error the error record with the associated error code is removed. Yep validation 29 removes the code from validation 06. It is no coding error, just a setup problem. And of course I did that setup myself (with nothing mentioned about error codes or text in the (non existent) specifications).
So I tell Jan what the problem is and how it can be solved but I don't know whether he will do it of if I should do it. That is anyone's guess. (So I will probably have to do it :( )

Of course all the searching time is taken from the logging-cleanup project which is slowly slipping.

 

Oeps, 7C on the attic is a bit cold for sitting at a computer. Even for me. Well, not personally (I am still up here in shorts and a short sleeved T-shirt, but with slipper in stead of barefoot like usual) but I am drinking a beer and for my taste it is too cold. Mind you I could oveclock my systems without supper dupper fans <g>

Now I am off to see in what way I can help Tom. I know wishes and prayers are not much bat that is all that gets over instantly. Money can follow soon afterward. But after that ...
I feel frustrated that I cannot give more help than that.
Heads up Tom, kids bones are flexible and mend fast. And he wil not forget how to run, maybe he will run a bit slower and look out (that is not running into things that often).

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The warm fuzzy feeling of love comes from giving it unconditionally.

 

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Great ! -10C in the morning. After a lovely sunrise and morning some high clouds sluggishly drift in around noon.
Current (23:10) temp is 9.5C in and -7.5C out.

I added yet another validation. I actually thought I had added that one some time ago but apparently I didn't. Or I lost it somewhere in between the actions.
I lost quite a lot of time before, after and in between that.

 

MS boasts W2K as stable. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/16139.html .
Let's see 2893 hours is about 120 days. Wow, impressive.

Step by step, the world is taken. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/16136.html

Now can we combine these to two articles and get a conclusion out of it?

&$160;

I registered with Paypal today. I have to get my credit card verified before I can use it for sending money. (They verify by deducting $1, on your balance sheet that gets reported with a special code which you have to return so they know the account is actually yours. And You get your dollar back :-). So I haven't actually used it yet, but it does look to be a simple and easy way to handle money on the Internet.
I'll tell more when I know more.
BTW, if you open an account via a referral link (like the one above) the referrer gets a $5 bonus. Or you can go straight to www.paypal.com.

Oh, yes, Landon is on the mend (as is Tom). Quick as kids heal it will take some time. It will be a difficult time for Tom and Leah. And Danielle. But then difficult times often strengthen the bonds between people. And they have a whole Daynote Gang standing behind them for support.

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If you don't reach out, you won't pull in.

 

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Less than ideal weather. It has been freezing some days now, with -2C this morning yet but now it is snowing. Locally that was just snow-dust so not really a problem because it doesn't melt and it doesn't stick. Just a few kilometres south of home it snowed real wet fluffy stuff and a bit north of here it rained. On frozen ground. I reached work without problems though. To enjoy a grey misty and drizzly day.
Current (23:20) temp is 10.1C in and 0.6C out.

Jan is back, testing the validations, and finding some more problems (only 2 of them were newly introduced). He was in Germany yesterday and the Germans have some proposals, must haves really (they call them 'problems'). Only thing is implementing the requests goes right against the original assumptions.
Basically the users want to be able to start orders from anywhere in the system. Our answer all along was that they should keep the order entry window open and switch to that (one click or an alt+tab away) for entering/reviewing an order. Of course they don't do that. They want to start order entry directly from the address window (at least 3 clicks away, and then they close the address window once they are entering the order).

 

I did get some daynote reading done. But I am still way behind on some.

Then the Register has this http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/16157.html .
Yeah, everybody surprised ?

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Life goes on, with or without us
It is up to us to follow.

 

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No frost, no ice and positive temperature. This time of year that means mist and drizzle and rain and clouds and all sort of nasty un-enjoyable stuff.
Current (23:20) temp is 11.7C in and 1.7C out.

I threw away the cleanup program for the order entry error logging and started from scratch. The problem with the thing I threw away was that I had started and stopped too much. Each interruption breaks of my train of thought and often, when I pick up again I look at the problem differently. That is not necessary bad but sometimes it does kill a project.
So I threw out all the code and started new. And finished the whole thing. I cannot test yet but I will on Monday. I only need to add a call in an existing program for that. And some data.
Theo had an unscheduled day of yesterday because his god mother was due for a hart operation that got rescheduled. He is back today but completely occupied with a Progress meeting about TOS.
He did get away long enough to put the building of a correction program on top of my to do list. About this time last year I was finishing off the Hierarchical Classification Code programs. (The actual filling of the HCC file, to be done by OPRS, is still not ready so a "temporal" program that I made for testing is still used for it). The HCC stuff is only present in V9. In V8 (on which the current version of TOS is based) the codes already existed but there was no hierarchical structure enforced, all the codes were available in almost any combination. They were basically not used except in some rare situations. the result was/is of course that the code file contained duplicate codes and a lot of codes were actually missing.
You probably guessed that the V8 codes must be corrected.
So I made a program for that. Equally untested because it has to run in an environment that I don't have authority to. So all I can do is put the program in the right place and say it is ready. No testing of course means no margin for error.

 

My VISA expense sheet came in today but (of course) nothing from Paypals was on it so I can still not validate my account. And of course I must wait till about halfway next month for the next sheet.

And then I made a mistake while preparing the sauce to go with the salmon and mushrooms. Too much flour for binding so I had to dilute and I overdid that too. I ended up with a weak sauce. The mushrooms and salmon were quite good.

---

We expect to get all products and services to be perfect and without error. We cry faul (and litigate (US)) if there are problems.
Why then do we actually expect problems with software.

 

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No frost, no ice and positive temperature. This time of year that means mist and drizzle and rain and clouds and all sort of nasty un-enjoyable stuff. Yep same as yesterday. In the afternoon though the clouds start to break up slowly.
Current (23:20) temp is 10.7C in and 0.2C out.

Shopping. As usual, wine, fruit, food and clothes. Extra chocolate for next week. The English version of windows still hasn't arrived. This was ordered halfway December so you would expect it to be here by now. Apparently Microsoft doesn't like to ship the English version of its packaged bugs.
At the same time I ordered a wireless network kit from Elsa. I knew this would take some time because Masset didn't have it in his assortment, I was probably the first client asking such a thing. He has lots of 3Com stuff but the 3Com wireless stuff is a bit pricey, about 3 times more so than the Elsa kit. Apparently he cannot get the Elsa stuff. He did put an inquiry up for D-Link kit which he can get and I pointed him to LinkSys who also makes wireless stuff. This is getting a long term project.
I did pick up a network card (D-Link 10BaseT) for adding to a firewall. And I also brought back a new CD drive.

Peter brought his PC (Cindy) home. The problem is that the CD drive makes suspicious clicking sounds and, when getting up to speed it sometimes spins down completely. I try it but apparently the drive doesn't do that always nor with every disk. Another problem he has is with sound. The board is based on the i810 chopset () with integrated video (no AGP slop present) and sound. The video works well enough but the integrated sound is death. I had installed a Soundblaster 128 (OEM version) but that had stopped working some time ago.
I replaced the CD drive and I reseated the sound card.
Problems solved.
Well sort off. A third problem he has is that sometimes the box just locks up halfway trough the boot sequence. Quite nasty because it only happens occasionally, that means when you stop and start to look into the problem it doesn't occur and just after you give up it happens again.
He is running BootMagic for dual booting (DR-DOS and Win98) and the lockup occurs halfway trough the Windows start-up, that is after the boot manager has done its work. He used to use DOS for running some Symphony spreadsheets and a few games. He can do this from Win98 just as well but he was used to DOS. He is going to replace his old Toshiba (286/10 1MB, 20MB disk, DOS only) notebook with the Fujitsu which runs Win98 so he is going to abandon naked DOS.
If the problem continues he will bring back the PC and I will scrub it all down and reinstall everything, without the bootmanager and DOS.

---

...

 

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Ha, frost, ice and negative temperatures (-4C). That means no mist or rain but nice clean starry skies, with a beautifully red rising moon sickle followed by the sun. Of course that nice weather doesn't last and in the afternoon clouds mach in and we get a load of fresh snow.
Current (23:00) temp is 14.1C in and -0.9C out.

Good running weather and I extend my course with an extra 2 Km. And hours later I regret that <g>

My fathers anniversary is tomorrow but I am in the office than so I make a cake today. One day compared to 66 years won't matter much. I leave out the baking powder hoping that the cake wouldn't rise into a high domed shape as usual because that interferes with the icing. I succeed more or less. It still rises more in the centre but not much. Of course without baking powder the cake is much denser than usual and a bit too heavy. So that is not the right solution.
The taste is good though.

Nope, I didn't actually post yesterday . I couldn't reach the electronic world. No Web, no Mail.

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Stress is what hardens steel.

 

Week 04, 2001 ,Svenson

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After laying down a nice even white coating of snow it starts to rain so by morning all the snow is gone. This was caused by drifting in of some warm air which also results in lots of fog which lasts the whole day. And some more rain at times.
Current (23:00) temp is 14.6C in and 4.5C out.

Trying day without accomplishing much. Well we did have a meeting (informal) with Theo and Jan (and Ronny) about the validations. The result is that, once the current redesign is finished, we will, ....
redesign the whole lot!
Only this time we are going to redesign not just the interfacing (between programs and between system and user) but also re architecture the internal workings. Start from a new foundation.

---

System requirements Windows &tm: :
Sufficiently recent hardware (to run the programs)
Empty brain case (to prevent logic from interfering with programs)
Stable income (to pay licences and upgrades).

 

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A wet rainy-drizzly day all out. And not at all with winter temperatures. By evening the wind is picking up seriously. A storm is brewing.
Current (23:00) temp is 13.6C in and 5.2C out.

I continued where I left off yesterday. That is low productivity. Sigh.

Koen is on holiday till Thursday. Nothing special if it weren't for the fact that he is responsible for the time sheets and for passing them on. You see I (and some 40 odd others souls) am working for OCE but I am employed at (and paid by) RealSoftware . This means that Real sends invoices to OCE. But first OCE send time sheets to Real. So with Koen not in I get to handle the time sheet transfer. Using MS SQL-7 and Access, neither of which I know anything about. I don't get complaints after sending them out so they are probably OK.
And I almost finished the error-log clearing programs.

 

The next step is the removal of the save and save-as options in most programs. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/16300.html

Hey you must admit we are nice. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/16274.html .
Oh what? Yes that is a loaded gun we are holding against your head. But we are so nice, we aren't going to shoot you.
You say? No, no, we are not going to pull that trigger. Yes our finger is on it, and straining, but we are not going to shoot.
Believe us, we are not.
Yeah, of course.

Not a bad proposal here http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2675548,00.html .
Any way he would be hard pressed to do it worse than the current crop of politicians. And he could handle the anti trust trial better <g>

---

System requirements Linux :
Reasonable hardware (to run the programs)
Large convoluted brain (to manage the programs)
Heaps of free time (to learn the arcana).

 

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Global warming strikes. Well, if not global it is at least local. We get 12C this morning at 6:00. Six in the morning should be close to the coldest moment of the day and this being mid January (northern hemisphere) it should be about 15 degrees less. Once the night's rain has been blown away it does remain dry and cloudy leading the day to a grand finale with the sun blazingly red, setting under a copula of ominous black clouds.
Later still we have a clear starry night)
Current (23:00) temp is 17.4C in and 1.5C out.

Some weeks ago Ronny had an accident while playing football (not the American parody but the indoor stuff). He twisted his knee and (probably) tore his meniscus. Last week he an MR-scan made and this morning he gets the results. Surgery or not depends on it.
And it is surgery. Next Monday so he won't come next week. And, probably, not the week after either.
So he comes in late. And yesterday someone changed a database file so that we have to re-synchronised the Progress server schema with that database. Normally he does that but now I must do it.
And of course it doesn't work. Well, I just get a strange error after deleting the old schema so now I cannot build a new schema. The error isn't really strange (I delete 'OCS' and then I want to recreate it but the program somehow thinks it is till connected to OCS and I get an error on that connection). So I wait till Ronny comes in (noon).
And of course when I want to show him what goes wrong the program somehow realised it should forget the old OCS and connects to the correct back-end (sh-ocs). After that things run normal (with Ronny looking on my fingers and assisting me around).

Wilfried must go to Germany tomorrow and he has a question that we must look into before he goes. The question is not entirely clear to us (we thought the problem was locally solved) so we prepare some counter questions.
As on clue Volker, from Germany, strolls into the office (he comes for a meeting with some SAP people). Theo pounces on him for a clarification. which we get so now I am typing my fingers off to get a solution ready (tested and shipped) by Friday.

 

My web experience yesterday was rather remarkable. I couldn't upload (FTP) nor browse (HTTP) but I had no problems with Mail. Well part of it is that I actually could browse. But only by shift-clicking on links.
That means I get a new page on each click. And with the quality of browsers that induces a "your system is low in resources ..." type of error rather soon, even if I immediately close the starting page. All three (MSIE, Netscrape and hOpera) the browsers suffer that. Netscape simply crashes, I can restart it. Opera crashes (with the old Win3.x style of popup) and every third or fourth crash it Locks up Windows. MSIE crashes and takes Windows down.
The Svenson Experience indeed !

I think it is Windows-reinstallation time again.

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Still to warm for the season (7C). The cloud cover is much more broken up so we get a few glimpses of sun (such as a nice even sunrise and a fantastic sunset with streaks of golden clouds) but also a few hard showers.
Current (23:00) temp is 14.0C in and 2.2C out.

More or less a typical day, just a bit more intense than usual. I don't get anything done on my normal schedule. I just spend the day stomping out fires left right and backward.
Like a CS problem in Denmark. After some digging I think I got a possible reason (mixing up programs from different releases). They should check it out for the next run, so it may come back tomorrow.
Then Wilbert is busy with some consultants from SAP so I get to solve a few of his problems. Like the synchronisation problem in Belgium. Probably due to having two programs with the same name. So I advise Robert to start over but making sure first only the right program is visible in the library list.
Or the copy member (source include file) problem that hit the Germans.

At the end of the day I find I didn't do anything from my mornings to-do list. I didn't even surf around the daynotes

---

Why is Windows easier than Linux ?
Going down hill usually is.

 

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Too warm with open almost sunny sunrise and sun set. Clouds, rain and wind in between. Current (23:30) temp is 12.0C in and 4.2C out.

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A bit cooler but not by much (not enough). The morning is rather miserable with mist and rain. And while the mist disappears soon enough the rain doesn't until halfway in the afternoon. A slow and steady rain with a few spells of fast mixed rain and hail inserted.
Current (23:00) temp is 14.1C in and 0.4C out.

Shopping. The regular stuff. And finally the English version of Windows ME arrived.
I ordered that early December (last year) but it seems to be the Microsoft policy to sell nothing but the localised version. So what I finally got was an OEM version, not boxed, just a 20 page quick start and a lose CD. But then that is more than what I need, the CD alone would have been enough. Or just the source code. Nah, they never give what you want. <g>

I went to the car wash this morning and after washing the engine wouldn't start anymore. The starter wouldn't even whirr. I had no problem earlier so the battery was OK, leaving the contact or the starter. I got a push start and went straight to the garage. Stopped there and tried to start again. No go. That was of course at 8:40 and the garage only opens at 9:00 (on Saturday).
When they finally opened, I showed the receptionist (who is actually the stock manager, not a real mechanic) the problem. On Saturday they have just a reduced crew (2) so it is about half an hour later when the mechanic could take a look.
And off course the problem had solved itself by than. Started as good as usual, that is instantly.
Sigh.

Suzan isn't home so I drove my father to hospital and got him back. And I made lunch. And rested (usual Saturday routine).

 

And no, I didn't post yesterday. I was chatting with my father trough the evening and I didn't think posting more important.
So what did I do yesterday?
Normal workday routine. Plus some struggle with the XML parser. The Microsoft parser apparently has problems with the "encoding="utf-8"" directive in the XML heading. The 'other side' uses the same parser (other sub version?) and has no problem. Then we tried the Progress parser but the 'other side' choked on that and returns a standard response. Typical MS talks to MS and not to anything else.

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There is a light at the end of the tunnel.
But there are some bends and turns too pass before you can see it.

 

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A dry and cold, well just freezing, morning leading to a nice sunrise. The gaps in the mostly decorative clouds are large but getting smaller towards the evening. Once it is full dark it starts to rain.
Current (22:45) temp is 15.3C in and 2.7C out.

Freezing at -2C and dry so ideal for running, which is what I do. The same extended traject as last week.

Most of the day is nice and sunny so I can begin the winter cleaning of the garden. I start with pruning the fire thorn bushes. And of course end that with punctured, scratched and torn hands.

I attempted to build a firewall box out of the old AT case and a new AT/ATX motherboard but things didn't fit together well (see Saturday and Sunday (week-1)).
Of course, this being a lair, I can just pick up another box and try to use that. So I clear the space on my side bench again (yes it got cluttered up again, immediately after removing the AT case) and put Yaku on it. Yaku currently (since removing one of his hard disks) runs OS/2. I've got a Mandrake 7.1 CD hanging around so I will try that.
Of course the first attempt fails because I am using the old Goldstar 14" screen and that isn't capable of handling the installation screens that Mandrake throws at it. And the second attempt ...
...will have to wait for another day.

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Drop the bird.

 

Week 04, 2001 ,Svenson

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Cool but not freezing, probably because has been raining most of the night. We do get a nice sunrise but after about five minutes the sun rises above the clouds and is lost for most of the day.
Current (23:10) temp is 14.5C in and -2.7C out.

I shot my foot.
Virtually of course. I build the HTTP maintenance program using the standard routines but I added some tricks of my own. On of these caused a problem when used with the standard subfile handling. Of course my trick worked flawlessly and I didn't expect a standard routine to misfire so I was looking in all the wrong places. Lost quite a bucket of time there. Just moving the resetting of a flag solved the problem.

Last Thursday I searched for a problem in Denmark. I saw two possible problems. One the mixing of various releases and a second problem was the presence of a copy of the program in a wrong library. It turned out to be the last one. That extra copy was an older, unmodified instance that got used because it was higher up in the library list (cf. path).
Nice of Jos to let me know the problem is solved, far too often people drop some problem on my desk but later forget to mention they solved it with or without help.

Ronny is off for an operation on his knee. He will be home for at least one week and probably two.
So of course Germany comes up with a serious problem in TeleSales, in the Progress side.
When they copy from a contract (first time they uses this special type of contract) they en up with materials (correct) but this material get a serial number (wrong, only machines and components can have a serial number). The logistics module doesn't understand that and goes tits-up gloriously.
I don't know enough Progress of course. I do find one possibility to emulate the problem but to do so I have to corrupt a contract. If the item in the contract has a serial number (would be silly in every case) then the copy routine (w-ohol3.w procedure ip_opencontracts) will simply copy that. I am not sure if that is actually the cause but it is a first line of attack.

 

Seems that big island over the pond is gripped with Super Bowl fever. Well, while I do like my cereals in a super bowl I don't make such an issue about it <g>
Hey kids, who won?

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How do you recognise a parking place.
Simple, any part of the road with lines around it and a car on is a parking place.

 

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Yesterday evening my car was frozen over and this morning it was all clear. That was my car. The rest of the world was shrouded in mist and in stead of dissipating as the day wore on it just rose a few hundred meters and parked there till evening. Now of course it falls down and things start to freeze up.
Current temp is 12.8C in and -1.9C out.

Ronny called in. With bad news.
He had the actual operation yesterday and all went well. Only they noticed that not only was his meniscus split (that is what they operated for, taking it out) but his 'cross ligaments' (literal translation, didn't fin it in the dictionary) were torn as well. Not a big problem, he can still walk or ride his bicycle. He will never play football again however and his recovery will take at least two weeks.

Jan (Geurts) came by and we discussed the action needed for the TeleSales problem in Germany. I did the adaptation in the Progress program. Quite a simple change but it is the first time I use the tools and the language unaided. And it all worked first time around.

Later I finished off some other problems. Like putting the date on the FTP selection screen.

 

I take a day off tomorrow. Mainly to have my car serviced but also to test-drive a new car. I also intend to go to Antwerp, to a book shop there. We all got a voucher for books (or CDs) from our company (new years present) but it has to be taken up before the end of February and it is only valid in that specific shop in Antwerp.
And of course I did place it somewhere special so as 'not to forget it'. And now I searched for over an hour before finding it.
Chaos reigns.

I try the Mandrake install again, with a (slightly) better screen (I do have two spares) and I do get a bit further. Things now hang on the hard drive detection phase.

---

Of course Darwin was right, how could he not be.
Survival of the fittest.
Dictionary :
fit1 —adj. (fitter, fittest) 1 a well suited. b qualified, competent, worthy. c in suitable condition, ready....
And how do we measure the qualification, competence, worthiness etc. ?
Yep, by counting the survival rate.
Circular definition.

 

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Dry but freezing (-2C) so the car is frosted over, in the morning. This turns into mist (freezing on cars and roads) which later transforms into low clouds. With a single outbreak of sunlight.
Current temp is -1.9C out and 12.1C in.

I have a day off mainly for servicing my car.
That car is now approaching its sixth year, with 290.000 km on the counter. About time to get a new one. Oh, I could keep it for another few years but I think it would start to clock up expenses. I would probably need a new clutch shortly, and new tyres probably brakes as well. And I am getting some, spurious, fault signals on the dashboard (like a warning that the cooling is low while it definitively is not). A dashboard that isn't illuminated anymore. So I see lots of small expenses coming. And it has been paid off two years ago, earning me some new money those last two years.
So I am looking for a new one. And I did some test driving today with a Fiat Multipla. A funny little car, but I liked it. Of course I can get a new Ulyse as well. Or a Barchetta. Or ...
Sigh.

I also travelled to Antwerp for cashing in on a book voucher (a told ye so yestaday). They didn't have much of what I was looking for. I got one book for my father ("De Planeten" (eng="The Planets") which he asked for. I also got the 2^nd edition of "Practical Unix & Internet Security". They didn't have the Oreilly "Firewalls" book nor the "Outlook in 2000 nutshells" <G>. Both of these were on the top of my list but they didn't have them. I think I will have to actually order them.
To get a bit closer to the full amount (5000BEF) I also picked up "Pegasus in Space" from Anne McCaffrey (my favourite author) and "Burning City" from Niven and Pournelle (the only Niven or Pournelle book in store, sigh.).

And this evening my father made a special Chinese rice dish with chicken and pork and sweet-sour sauce and sate sauce and .... lots of my favourite food. And we cracked a bottle of Sake.

Some anniversaries are like that. :-) Yep, after 39 summers I still feel 17.

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You don't reach perfection by not making mistakes but by recognising and correcting them.

 

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